You won’t believe it, but guess what—Slate has published an article wherein a writer for the magazine is a total contrarian buzz-kill. While most of us celebrate autumn with Halloween costume parties and obligatory airings of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Slate embraces the season by dusting off a three-year-old article with the following thesis: “Apple picking may be a satisfying ritual and pleasant day out with the kids, but it’s also a wasteful scam.”
In the story, Daniel Gross says of apple picking, “It’s the best use of child labor since Manchester’s early 19th-century textile mills,” and declares that it “sheds light on some unflattering truths about the American economy.”
We can only hope that the magazine spikes Gross’s upcoming piece about Christmas cookies, in which sprinkles are compared to “a rainbow of tiny thalidomide pellets,” and, while talking about linzertorte cookies, Gross invokes Stalin’s liquidation of the Soviet kulak class.
Hey, let’s t.p. his house. That will get him in the Halloween spirit.
I’m with JohnE O! What’s the Halloween equivalent of “Bah, Humbug!”?
I’m with you JohnE
I wish you’d explained how he “sheds light on some unflattering truths about the American economy.” The fellow does have a point – or did three years ago anyway, that due to INS crackdowns California farmers couldn’t find enough pickers to harvest crops. Somehow I thought I’d be reading something farcical based on your description of the article. Daniel Gross is, at least in this article, deep-end affected by something stuck somewhere no doubt uncomfortable. Especially if he thinks any commercial apple is natural by his wacky standards of no breeding. Still, I feel fairly sure this article didn’t sway anyone three years ago and it certainly won’t change anyone’s mind now.
I’ve been saying similar things to this for the past couple of years. Every fall I see more and more families flocking to the orchards for apple picking. It’s a big circus, a tourist trap. It’s crowded and unpleasant. It’s everything you thought you left behidn in the city. You come back with your pockets emptied and more apples than you need.
I’m all for taking your family to the country for an outing, but why apple picking? Why not hiking or horseback riding or biking or visting historic homes? I’d rather spend a day in the country doing a hundred other things and then head to a farm stand where I can buy only as many apples as I will eat.