THOSE MADCAP MONKEYS at the Arizona Senate are at it again, bashing big government while drafting laws to send a sober citizenry rolling in the aisles. Striking a blow for Arizona's embattled agriculturists--who, it appears, aren't content to suck up all but free CAP water and massive subsidies for their surplus crops--the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment committee last week approved, by a vote of 7-1, a bill outlawing "willful and malicious information" about the state's crops.
Worry all you want about the quality of the food you put on your table, in other words, but don't you dare publicly accuse an Arizona grower of peddling wormy apples, having an intemperate fondness for Alar, Malathion, and other goodies from the cropduster's cornucopia, or giving bad weight.
Before this lamebrained bill becomes law, we suggest that you write your senator to suggest that the First Amendment still obtains, even in Arizona, and that House Bill 2257 be sent to the compost pile. And in your daily speech and thought, as a righteous exercise in civil disobedience, please feel free to borrow from, add to, and otherwise disperse the following list of defamatory terms for vicious vegetables, frowzy fruits and other products brought to you by the Grand Canyon State's welfare farmers. Now, get to slandering, everybody, and be sure to ask for them by name:
altered alfilaria
altricial alfalfa
amoral amaranth
assumptive asparagus
bibulous beans
brazen broccoli
cankerous cantaloupe
captious cabbage
carnal carrots
charnel chiltepines
churlish chipotles
concupiscent corn
crapulous cucumbers
eructative endive
fatuous favas
gallactorrheous garlic
gangrenous grapes
garish garbanzos
griseous grapefruit
hallucinotic jalapeños
harlotous jojoba
hidrotic jicama
hooligan hops
lentiginous lentils
licentious lettuce
liceridden limes
mealymouthed muskmelons
mewling millet
occlusive okra
oligarchical olives
onanistic onions
opprobrious oranges
orificial oregano
pecksniffian pecans
puerile pumpkins
pusillanimous peas
putrescent peppers
salacious sage
shambolic shallots
sororicidal sorghum
squamous squash
stridulous stringbeans
suppurating sunflowers
sympatholytic sugarbeets
tedious teparies
tomentose tomatoes
tumefacient tomatillos
virulent verbena
whiffling wheat
zoolatrous zucchini
--Gregory McNamee
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