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Jeff Whitten: May the beet be with you
editor's notes

Thoughts occasioned by the runoff for Georgia’s two U.S. senate seats.

For starters, I’m tired of both major political parties, aka Democrats and Republicans. But I’m not tired of beets. I just had some yesterday.

That’s when it occurred to me.

I like beets for many and sundry reasons. They’re healthy to eat.

They got no feet, so they ain’t red meat.

They rhyme with sweet. And they’re really neat.

So, this; From now on out I’m going to vote for Beets Party candidates, not that there are any I’m aware of at the moment. But there will be. The Beets Force is too strong to ignore. Or should it be Beet Force? Singular or plural? I never know these things. I do know you can’t beat a beet. That’ll be our motto. We might say it in Latin, however: Non beat a beta. Sounds more educated.

Some quick thoughts on a platform.

First off, I believe nobody who thinks their side is always right should be able to join up. This will probably eliminate a lot of the self-important pompous prats right off, and that’s good. The biggest problem we have in my estimation is there are too many people who think they’re right all the time. Beetfeathers, we Beeteroonis say.

What’s more, the world’s too full of drama as it is to have some whackjob harpy hollering at you on Facebook for no good reason, so the fewer harpies the better. That’ll be plank No. 2. No harpies in the Beet Party. Scat, harpies, scat.

Third, it should be a requirement that we in the Beets Party, or Beet Party, really like beets. Not as a main course, or entree as some call it, but as a good source of vitamins and something that in a pickle will un-pickle your liver. Beets, you see, are like the Swiss army knife of root veggies.

Don’t just take my word for it. According to a story by Karin Lehnardt headlined “32 Interesting Beet Facts,” beets have 32 interesting facts about them, which is a lot of interesting facts about anything. You think there are 32 interesting facts about Republicans? Hah. Me neither.

Anyway, here you go: Beetroot juice helps clean the liver (See, I didn’t make that up), and also helps ease hangovers. That’s a good thing for a political candidate, who obviously must go around getting free bourbon from the well-heeled lobbyists who want fat government contracts once the Beet Party takes over.

Beets also were used as an aphrodisiac in ancient Roman times, Lehnardt writes, and modern agricultural science concurs. If you’ve ever been too close to a school of goats turned loose in a beet pile, you’ll agree after you stop running.

Albert Einstein hated beets. I bet you didn’t know that. I did. Einstein was a noodles man. He loved a good noodle. He just hated beets. That’s what M=MC2 means in genius.

Lehnardt somewhere also says you can boil beets and then massage your scalp with the leftover water – after it’s cooled off, of course – to treat dandruff. And, she notes ancient Greeks, who invented democracy, used beets to treat everything from headaches to constipation to toothaches and skin problems.

The ancient Greeks loved them some beets so much the Odyssey has 14,299 separate references to beets. Here’s a sample passage: “Thar goes the beety Ulysses, riding Apollo’s golden beet-craft into the beety Ionian sea made of malt beet vinegar, its purple sails of beet fiber root billowing beetily as the beet-crazed minotaur leapt into the beet cellar of the Gods and ate Ulysses’ beets with many teeth stained with honorable beets blood. Oh, beets!”

Finally, according to Lehnardt, beets can be made into a wine, which is what all good root vegetables aspire too become when they grow up. Something you can guzzle before you go mashing buttons at the ballot box.

You can read the rest of Ms. Lehnardt’s list at factretriever.combeet-facts. It was put together in 2018, so it’s fairly current and up to date. It’s also quite well done and might well work as a sort of preamble to the Beet Party Constitution, or platform, or Declaration of Beet Independence.

What else?

Stay tuned. Because there are 160 varieties of beet grown in Georgia, or one for every county with a beet variety left over. So, as Georgia Grown says “Whoot whoot, we love this root!”

And may the beet be with you

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