First Lady and America’s personal trainer Michelle Obama was up to her usual tricks last week, going to a Washington Kastles game, celebrating the beginning of Malia’s angsty teen years, and probably hanging out in the vegetable garden. This vegetable garden has come up a lot during Michelle’s time as FLOTUS, because she likes to take children there and force them to listen to her crazy theories about how eating a carrot, from the Earth, will probably give a person less diabetes than eating chunks of fat, dipped in poison. The problem with these theories is that poison-dipped fat often comes with even more varieties of fat, for under a dollar, whereas carrots and things of the vegetable variety are slightly more expensive. But some Americans are listening to our FLOTUS’ message, and will do whatever it takes to be healthy. Even if it means they will be arrested.
Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan, really wanted to grow her own food, like Michelle Obama. So she got out her gardening gloves and turned her front yard into a vegetable patch. Unfortunately, Julie Bass’ neighbors hate her.
Because she had just torn up the front lawn to install a new sewer system, she had a perfect opportunity to start fresh. She planted cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs in raised wooden planters, and waited to reep her produce.
A neighbor didn’t like her choice of landscaping.
The neighbor called the city and complained that Bass’s yard disrupted the look of the neighborhood. The city agreed, and issued Bass a ticket.
Michelle Obama should have thought of this, before she commanded everyone to plant vegetables all over the place. Vegetable gardens are just so ugly – much worse than all the despair and sadness floating around Oak Park.
“That’s not what we want to see in a front yard,” said Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski.
Why? The city is pointing to a code that says a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material. The big question is what’s “suitable?”
We asked Bass whether she thinks she has suitable, live, plant material in her front yard.
“It’s definitely live. It’s definitely plant. It’s definitely material. We think it’s suitable,” she said.
So, we asked Rulkowski why it’s not suitable.“If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster’s dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what’s common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers,” he said.
Oh, except that is not what it says, at all. But oh well, because this is Michelle Obama’s fault. Someone will now have to pardon this vegetable lady, after she does hard time for this garden thing. [HuffPo/WJBK]
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It's against the law in Michigan to eat healthy food?
It's where Domino's started, so I'd say yes.
Given the proud history of the Motor State, suitable would be a few rusty Camaros on blocks.
Those are called vegetables.
Judging from the waistlines in that fair state, I'd say, "Yes." No, wait, I'd actually say, "YES, DAMMIT."
have you ever been to Michigan? If you order potatoes at a restaurant you get potato and butter soup. This is not an exaggeration.
Who builds a garden in their front lawn?
Marie Antoinette?
Hitler?
Chauncey Gardner?
Elmer Fudd?
Me.
Me too. Bitch has got to eat!
The guy across the street from me.
Hueronymous Bosch?
His garden is delightful!
The Obamas
Smart people.
Noted Waterloo native John Wayne Gacy?
Oh no, that was the basement.
Samwise Gamgee?
Iron Butterfly?
Adam and Eve?
When the food production and distribution system collapses, we will all be planting gardens.
Except idiots like Bass' neighbor, who will be stealing from our gardens, only to discover that we were not growing SlimJims.
Michelle Obama?
My parents.
Lady Sybil Ramkin-Vimes?
So she should plant an orchard?
What about marijuana?
Why not? My neighbors have apple trees already, so I was thinking about planting cherry trees in my yard to add a little variety.
"A neighbor didn’t like her choice of landscaping."
It's fucking Detroit. Proper choice would have been a rusted-out 1978 Pontiac Trans Am up on cinder blocks.
I would go more for the mint condition Trans Am in front of the rotting out shack on cider blocks.
Oak Park isn't all that far from Ann Arbor. They should embrace the hippy-ness of all this.
It's even closer to Dearborn. They should be thankful that it's not a Sharia Halal Victory Garden.
My falafel needs cucumbers from somewherez, bitches!
I think the neighbor and the city planner probably would have been ok with this if she had planted Glenn Beck official survival seeds. That probably would have been suitable.
Is what Kortney does with her veggies "Suitable"?
"fappable" is the word you're looking for there i think
I wish I could send my neighbor to jail for what she did to her yard. Every square inch is decorated like one of those T.J. O' Pooten Toots fern bars. She nails old license plates to the concrete walls, lays tchotchke cleverly around her yard and makes it look like the aftermath of a tornado.
I'd much prefer that my neighbor planted a sewer garden. Sounds so tasty!
Again: Albuquerque: The City of Rimjobs
Me too. I've got "renters", meaning redneck dirtbags who throw pizza boxes on the roof and shit. My only hope is that the methlab will explode and raze it to the ground.
We had renters for 4 years who had 4 Chevy Tahoe SUVs, 3 cars and a bunch of beater cars that they worked on in the streets. They parked everything on the street and made getting the car out of the driveway nearly impossible. They moved out yesterday. I'm going to miss them like a cold sore!
I still own the single-wide on 2/3rds of an acre I bought while working in the oil fields 20 years ago. My friends encourage me to rent it out, I tell them "Renters are disgusting enough when you're talking about a house or apartment; I can't imagine having to deal with the type of people that would rent a fucking 35 year old trailer." No way.
Our neighbours in LA would like to send us to jail, we have all kinds of oddness including a giant pair of glasses on our wooden gate that MrLimeyLizzie made for the optician's sign in the Old West town he designed for " Butch and Sundance-The Early Years".
Hey you bitch! No one downfists my Lizzie.
Thanks Sistah!
Oddness and obnoxious rednecks and wigger gangsta's coming and going, are miles apart, Lizzie. Big glasses would be most welcome..
"LA" meaning Los Angeles, right? Because that shit would go down quite smoothly in Louisiana.
Yes,Los Angeles, we are not quite pretentious enough for the locals, MrLimeyLizzie being too arty me being someone who doesn't give a fuck about that stuff.
No relation to noted optometrist T. J. Eckleburg?
http://poietes.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/the-great...
Very similar, except just the glasses with the eyes, no sign or board.
I have a neighbor with little concrete gnomes and fairies all over the front yard. During the campaign for city library funding (just maintaining the current millage, nothing new), their contribution to the debate was a lawn sign that read "use fee's, not taxes" in all its glorious illiteracy. Sadly, it was not intended as an ironical statement of support for library funding.
Chessie, the gnomes and fairies have to go!
A trend I've seen in East Texas is for these folks with all the junk out in their yard is to erect a sign saying "Earlene's Junque and Anteeks." Lot easier than cleaning that fucking mess up.
Courtyard houses, everybody! Blank wall, fortified door to the outside, windows, fruit trees, veggies, etc., on the inside!
She can only have "suitable" white trash wingnut shit on her lawn. Like crabgrass, weeds, an old truck or two and, if you're really well off, a washing machine.
Don't forget the old-school 12-foot satellite dish and the brand new, as-yet-unrepossessed Z-71 4×4 Chevy Silverado with 4" lift kit and 33" monster mudders!
What about tacky plastic figurines, like garden gnomes and flamingos, or a dozen statues of Mary for the Catholics?
Parents of a buddy of mine built a geodesic dome house back in the 80s. His super-traditional Mexican mother insisted that they put a statue of the Virgin Mary out in the front yard to protect the house. He told her that it really wouldn't go well with the modern aspect of the house, and that perhaps they could put the statue in the back yard, because the Virgin was probably powerful enough to protect the house from back there. An argument that he did not win.
Well, what would you rather have: a nice looking modern house, or the supernatural protection from a tacky plastic figure of a
mother goddessspirit of a long-dead woman with phenomenal godlike magical powers who is most definitely not a god because our religion is totally monotheistic?Nah, they were upscale—plaster, not plastic.
Why not a compromise–La Virgen de Guadalupe under her very own geodesic dome?
Modern becomes quaint, then old-fashioned, almost at once. Anyway, domed and vaulted houses were probably what the historical BVM lived in.
"Plant a tree, a shrub, or a bush." It's Michelle vs. Lady Bird!
A cherry tree, a rose bush and raspberries are all edible and fall into those categories.
Oak Park, MI is usually known for more genteel activity, like
kitchen table castration.
Everybody knows the blight of Detroit started with a garden.
Cannot let that insidious green menace spread.
Who builds a dictionary on their front lawn?
Personally I think a prolific, healthy vegetable garden is beautiful.
Thank you.
Clearly a commie.
The dictionary says "suitable" means "satisfying propriety," and some of those vegetables can have obscene shapes. Especially the cucumbers. Little children's minds could be permanently warped on seeing them.
Mine's bigger than that.
Would the neighbors object if she had a nice set of melons?
"…and waited to reep her produce."
So that's what the kids are calling it these days. I used to just call it "sticking a cucumber up there."
i usually go with "Reap" but OK.
Have all the world's copy editors been fired or are they just lazy?
yes and yes.
How about my blackface lawn jockey collection?
Suitable.
My gnomes are quite common.
Next year I bet she's growing the throwing kind of vegetables instead of the eating kind.
I bet if she'd just stuck a "Palin for President" sign in the middle of the cucumbers, the whole thing would have been transformed into "suitable".
Hey, last I looked we're at war. It's a Victory Garden. Her neighbors must be unpatriotic America-haters. Call in the G-Men.
That's the whole problem right there. Since all of our troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting for our freedoms, there's nobody left to do it here.
Sorry, we're only at war when it comes to more military spending. If it comes to using government indebtedness to stimulate demand, rebuild infrastructure and create jobs, we are not at war. Does that clear it up for you?
I need to change my name to Winston Smith.
Two words – Topsy Turvy upside down tomato planter ( I know thats more than two words)
Put your hands up for Detroit
(It's on youtube, so of course it's suitable for work, right?
~
Talk about vegetables.
If it isn't bluegrass heavily watered with a built-in sprinkler system and fertilized to grow like crazy and herbicided with Agent Orange (read the label on the Roundup jug sometime!) to kill the crabgrass slightly faster than the bluegrass, it's un-American. Lawns are as essential a component of patriotism as gas-guzzling, planet-destroying, road-hogging trucks with four leather-upholstered seats, and endless freeways to drive them on, to the job you don't have anymore.
Plus no anal incontinence.
For The Win, my friend, For The Win!
Hey Buddy! Anal Incontinence is what gives Great Americans (TM) the Freedom (TM, also) to spout the same shit, day after day!
That's not what we want to see in a front yard. We want the same old boring uniform expanse of grass that every other yard has. How dare this woman do something different and act as an individual! Conform, conform!
As I drove on base the other day, it occurred to me that a static display aircraft like they have at just about every Air Force Base in the world would be really cool to have out in the front yard. It would make giving directions to my house a lot easier, "Make a left on Jay Bird and drive on down until you see the F-4 Phantom II on the right." A steam locomotive would be cool, too.
Especially if you tinker with it on weekends, and fire up the afterburners every now and then while you're "tuning it up".
"How dare this woman do something different and act as an individual! Conform, conform! "
Fer liberty! and freedum! USA! USA!
A patch of something different in that uniform expanse of grass breaks up the hypnosis, and no one wants that, do they.
Kevin Rulkowski
Oak Park Stepford City Planner
You know what would be cool is if all of us shitty lawn-care people just leased our front yards to a company that used it to grow vegetables. Fuck me, though. We all gotta have green fuckin' lawns to stick it to our brown-grass neighbors.
Bass should learn to eat grass. Problem solved!
Snark off. I suggest pumpkins and other squashes, which flower quite beautifully. Snark on. She should put a statue of a giant penis on her front lawn and tell her neighbors to suck it. Free speech.
"She should put a statue of a giant penis on her front lawn and tell her neighbors to suck it."
Hmm. I wonder how many would?
You can get molds for your pumpkins, zucchini, etc. Why not lingam-yoni shaped squashes?
America: where you have the freedom to do what everyone else tells you to.
Well, that's a cynical way of looking at our Freedom. I prefer to think of it as my freedom to tell you what to do. USA! USA!
Palin's followers would have planted the more acceptable rusted fridge in the front yard. That, and the rusted corpse of a car. Enough iron there.
What is wrong with this woman? Doesn't she understand her God given American individual freedoms only extend to doing whatever her teaparty neighbors are doing? The nerve!
Upfists for all, our beloved Downfister is "in the house".
Damn… can't we get a virtual (Michael Vick-trained) Doberman to patrol the place?
When will these radicals stop taking the bread out of the mouth of Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto? We can’t print our own money why do we think we should be able to grow our own food?
CONFORM OR DIE! For Freedom!
How does Kortney feel about this? I'd love to grow her some vegetables!
More Kardashian sisters?
I sense an impending Carrot Juice Summit.
If she had called it an anti-Sharia garden it would have been fine.
Clever girl. Snark off: anyone who has ever put in a garden knows the hardest job is turning the soil. Having already paid (4 figures, prolly) for that to be done for sewer work (prolly by a "Ditch Witch or some other labor-saving device) she was smart to do what she did. I'm all for her, I hand-turned mine by spade initially and it almost killed me before I was through. Her complaining neighbors suck out loud. Fuggem!
I'm still in the process of turning mine. It's clay, which makes it a total fucking bitch. I might get it turned, amended, and planted before I die, but I'm not overly optimistic.
OT: OTOH, I put all my tomatoes in planters, and got unbelievable yields last year (over 100 per plant). This year, one fruit so far. The Gods Of Gardening, they are displeased with meh.
You have been cursed with the “Unger Thumb”. I didn't even put one in this summer.
Did you loosen the soil in the planters this spring, like as loose as when you assembled the planters in the first place? And did you turn in some time release fertilizer like was probably in the soil you bought to put in the planters the first time? Tomatoes also loves them some calcium, smash an egg shell into each hole before you put the seedlings in. They need it for water uptake. In a hot summer, they will really suffer in low calcium soil.
How about asphalting my front yard and turning it into a HoverRound track? Then I could have moving vegetables!!
That was cruel. And therefore deserving of an Upfist.
Charge'm a rent and make a profit!
Here in Denver/Boulder there is a lovely movement to foster home gardens. In D an ordinance was passed very recently that allows homeowners to have up to 6 chickens or ducks (female) and pygmy goat(s). I was surprised by the opposition (the smell! the property values!. . .) but it got passed. I'm too decrepit to dig up our lawn, but would love to offer it to a gardener: We'd provide land and pay water in exchange for a few of the veggies.
Sorry, too far for me to commute.
do these people have jobs or anything else to do?
Are you kidding? Of course not! The worst is when you live under the "protection" of a Home Owners Association. I called them the "Covenant Nazis."
Oak Park is in Michigan, so the answer to both your questions is "no."
To the neighbor who called authorities: choke on your curb appeal, bitch.
Libertarian property rights anger reflex clashing with nosy black first lady anger reflex! Does not compute!
Typical short-sighted low-level official with a teeny bit of power. I'm a botanist, so I hate lawns. They are an abomination and I encourage every pretty so-called weed I can to grow in my yard. (And I would encourage everyone to do likewise.) I know their names, both botanical and common, and they are so much more ornamental and useful than dumb old needs-mowing-all-the-time grass.
Recommended reading, especially for Oak Park's dooty-headed city planner: The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession, Smithsonian Books ISBN-13: 978-1560984061
Did I mention how pleased my neighbors must be with my lawncare philosophy?
I'm with you for the most part, if it's green it lives on. One exception is when these guys take over, then it's pulling time. Like some kind of Jurassic Park dandelion or something, just awful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_thistle
Yes, they can be a tad overwhelming. At least they are pretty on top. Goosefoot (Chenopodium) is just boring with a billion seeds and will even get dandelion to give up.
OhgeezusIhadTWOinmygardenthisyear!!!!ELEBENTY!
I swear that stuff makes me shit a fucking brick, because if you don't get rid of it the second you pull it up, it manages to reseed itself. And the thorns are tiny, urticarious, and prone to breaking off right under the skin. (No, I don't wear gloves in the garden, that's for sissies. [bleeds quietly])
Fuck the neighbours. Plant it all up with native plants and grasses and post a sign on it saying "Post-Apocalyptic Habitat Experiment." I let the dog-fennel and oleander go wild on the lower slopes so the neighbours can't see my food garden. And even if they could, it takes some serious athleticism to get into my garden, so they're not likely to try.
She was reminding everyone that they have to eat their vegetables. Who hasn't wanted to put Mom in jail for that one?
If I'm going to plant a vegetable in my front yard I want it to be Michele Bachmann.
You know what Morning Glories absolutely love to drape themselves across?
Minarets.
Just a thought.
Now, if she had grown some marijuana plants, would *that* have been suitable?
I think 60 years in the slammer will make Michelle see the error of her ways.
Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski: Just another inedible vegetable.
"Chunks of fat dipped in poison." That's Taco Bell in a nut (taco) shell.
Malia's teenage rebellion is going to be eating gummi bears by the mouthful chased down with pure, American HFCS. "You can't tell me what to do, Mom!!! I'll eat what I want! I'm sick of arugula!" And Michelle will cry and cry and ask the heavens, "How did I raise such a daughter?!? Gaia, why hast though forsaken me?"
Michigan still has city governments?
Rulkowski seems to have The City Beautiful philosophy mixed up with The City Boring and The City Conforming.
OK every ornamental cabbage and kale has to be pulled at this point. You cannot use vegetables in ornamental planters, you freaks!
I was all ready to get on that 10th Amendment bandwagon, then I read this and remembered how bad state and local governments were, and was all "fuck it".
Rulkowski seems to have disconnected his answering machine. hmmmm. Hey dude, the freakin' tree the city planted wrecked the Bass home sewer pipe in the first place. damn it, you have to plant where the sun shines!
Well, I guess that would not be *his* asshole.
Let's call it the Cucumber Revolution! Or is that too phallic?
Michelle Bachmann has taken the pledge to let us eat all of the potato chips and doughnuts that we want, when she is Supreme Leader. Only 19 more months until she takes Office. Start saving your coupons.
Great stuff, innit? Even the fecking deer won't eat it, and they'll eat anything that isn't nailed down and wrapped in sticky tape. I caught them eating the kibble I put out for the local ferals. But they won't look sideways at oleander.
Why not put the veggies in the back yard?
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