A Lunch at Whole Foods Revisited.

Traveling as much I have lately, there are certain staples that I live by that help me sustain the remainder of any sanity I may have left. One of them is obvious: Espresso in all shapes and sizes. The second is also obvious: A day at the beach when and where possible. And the third is a visit to the local Whole Foods Market.

Now, call me crazy, but no matter what kind of day I’m having, nothing cheers me so than the sights and smells of a well-managed Whole Foods Market. For me, every visit there is astoundingly satisfying as their fresh salad bar is truly out of this world (not to mention their storewide unbelievably palatable samples). However, a couple weeks ago, my up-to-then 100 percent customer satisfaction rate came to a screeching halt by two unlikely fun-ruin-ers: Greenpeace advocates.

This event took place at the Whole Foods store in Irvine, California located in The District. Upon my entrance, I noticed two people standing outside the doors conducting some type of survey. But as I was leaving the market with a $7.24-worth recyclable box filled with goodies, I realized that they were actually fundraising for Greenpeace. However, before I could dart in the opposite direction and hide for cover in the nearby bushes, I was bombarded by a young man who loudly asked me:

“Don’t you care about saving the polar bears and the whales?!”

Totally caught off guard and still coming off the euphoria of having sampled 90 percent of the whole store, I stared at him blankly for a moment. He seizes the moment and shoves a piece of paper and a pen in my face and says:

“Then you should support Greenpeace.”

Kindly I looked at him and say “No thanks.” Then, I sauntered off into my sunshine solace and somehow felt somewhat guilty about all the fresh seafood contained in my $7.24-worth recyclable box. But, that guilt quickly subsided as I began savoring the organic produce and seafood contained in my little box.

But even as I tried to enjoy my peaceful lunchtime, I kept an ear out to all the people that the Greenpeace advocates aggressively confronted. There was – to my relief – one woman who had the same reaction as myself and walked away saying “no thanks.” Then, to my horror the same guy chased after her shouting “Oh yah, well what about the turtles ma’am! What about THEM?”
I sat there, lettuce half-way entering my mouth, shocked. Shocked and horrified in fact. Did he really just run about ¼ of a mile shouting about TURTLES? I mean … Turtles? C’mon. Get a grip.

However, despite this foolish and unbecoming behavior of the advocate, surprisingly, there were many people that actually signed and gave money – a lot of times in large sums – to the Greenpeace cause based solely on their opening question/accusation “Don’t you want to save the polar bears and the whales?” Moreover, these same people I began to notice, were wearing some sort of Obama paraphernalia and the Greenpeace advocates would always nod in approval toward the pro-Obama pieces of flair. Not surprised, I continued to eat but was progressively losing my appetite at each “Don’t-you-want-to-save-the-polar-bears” battle cry and “Vote Obama” button that went by.

At one point, I started thinking of all the pressing issues in the United States today and admittedly among all of them I have to rank the salvation of Polar Bears somewhere in the realm of … um … let’s say approximately 9,234 on my list of priorities. Yes, I would say saving the wildlife of the Arctic is an issue and I’m not a disgruntled blogger saying let’s murder all the polar bears and pour oil all over whales and landscape. I’m sure Greenpeace is a great organization doing a lot of great things. However, I think this little scene in front of Whole Foods is emblematic of the fact that so many people in this country are placing priority on things that are truly trivial in comparison to some of the other big picture topics out there and vote and live their lives in the same manner.

For example, many people as I saw with the Greenpeace advocates are voting for Barack Hussein Obama primarily on the matter of the environment. They see Barack Hussein Obama as the candidate that would most likely side with them in sustaining the environment and on that alone they stake their vote. However, they are forgetting things such as his stance on human life, the economy, his way of distorting facts and the past, and his desire to establish a socialist nation. Seemingly ignoring these glaring flaws of their chosen candidate, many voters are throwing large sums of money at such issues as Greenpeace and other similar “go green” granola causes. But ironically when faced with the question “Don’t you want to save the unborn babies of the nation?” guaranteed those same people would shrivel in their adamant stance on the importance of life and say “No thanks.”

The stark difference is truly appalling. This nation has come to uphold the values of the environment and arctic wildlife over the very existence of human life. In fact, it is clear in this election that the value of human life has taken a back seat to many issues – and not just Arctic wildlife.

As I got up to leave that day after finishing my lunch, I walked down the parking lot aisles to find my car (ok, maybe I walked down a few before I remembered where I parked) and I started noticing all the bumper stickers and signs in people’s cars. Thankfully, I saw a few “NOBAMA” signs, but for the most part they were all “Obama Biden 2008” stickers. The media polls are showing the same thing; many people are allegedly supporting the Obama/Biden ticket over the McCain/Palin ticket. But, what are these people backing Barack Hussein Obama on? An illusive hope of some sort that no one can quite pin-point? Fair distribution of wealth? Not repeating eight years of W?

Whatever are the reasons behind supporting Barack Hussein Obama, I ask those supporting him to truly think about specifically why it is they are supporting him. (In fact, we can even ask that to some of our known enemy Arab nations as they are supporting him as well.) Throw away the bandwagons, the trend, and the hype and look at the main issues surrounding this election. I think you’ll find there is far more at stake than polar bear-type jargon.