How might one explain to aliens from the Pleiades
Or the future...or our own ancestors of Eire, Ur
Iroguois or Africa, Japan or Tenochtitlan: Cotton is not
Legally a food crop; therefore it may be sprayed with
Poisons unfit for food crops although cottonseed oil is
         commonly
Used in human food and cotton seed in feed for livestock
         raised
For human food? Law does not describe reality...though it
Could. Law does not describe reality because, like ritual
Of a degenerate religion in which ritual order itself has
Become more important than the messy reality the ritual
Sought to order...Of course, the poisons on the cotton may
Not be real either. I think of several members of my
Grandparents' and great grandparents' generations, who
         lived the greater
Portion of lives into eighties and nineties in and about
         Newark,
New Jersey right through its most noxious industrial
         period...
Though socially it got harder up later. How does one, then,
Explain a culture's contradictions  poisons commonly
         ignored,
That may or may not matter? Most people don't explain.
Most go along doing what they find in front of them
To do, noting culture's contradictions, if at all, as
         stubbed
Toes, bumps and crashes and uncomfortable weather along the way.
I can't do that. I can't not see. Craziness determines
         too much.
Some would call what I do...or don't...crazy, but I
Don't think so. Ineffectual all too often, sometimes
         paralyzed by
Seeing no sane course. But...Most people by middle age
         know a
Lot about a little; a few lies, a few bits of ritual
         nonsense,
Anyone can swallow: Only what the record certifies is
Admissible evidence; what happened is irrelevant. What
You are legally permitted to have, including your own
        body,
Is determined by official documentation as ranked by
         whoever has means
To command the most effective official document. Well,
         most
Peoples recognize Right of Conquest as real whether they
         like it
Or not. But when the emperor or the law conquers what
He, she or it has no competence to administer, there are
Not just feeling problems, but reality problems as well.
         It is
Not that my society is not nice...or even that it is not
Nicer to me...that paralyses me. For that matter,
The society I live in is sometimes quite nice to me and
Certainly many people I know are. But too often, those in
         positions
Of power make claims that are not true, make demands
That are not possible. Then I do not know what to do.
...I cannot help but to think of the tale of Exodus.
Pharaoh commanded his Israelite slaves to make bricks
         without straw.
God liberated the slaves. It was not hard labor nor
Worse living conditions Pharaoh.