Sylvia Shawcross
Some days the world will make you spitting mad. This naturally brings us to the little understood but seriously important Philaenus spumarius aka the meadow spittlebug or froghopper. Bugs, of course, being the only thing we can talk about really without screaming literally or metaphorically at each other or without being censored into oblivion by the internet gods.
Now those of us who have spent time in the now alternate reality where things like trees and grass and burdocks exist to the point where we can actually touch them rather than “experience” them in the virtual world know all about the spittlebug. In the virtual world most have not seen a spittlebug because spittlebugs are not pretty and rather boring and cannot be found in fabricated meadows where everything is light and ridiculous and hardly worth our time but mesmerizing just the same.
The Philaenus spumarius expel fluid excretions that mix with air to create spit-like froth on plants, much like the frothing and foaming that Macron must be doing as he fumes over his country’s mass protests. The spittlebug knows no such emotional turmoil and simply throws its bubbles up over its back to protect itself from predators and the like. Some might liken that to the authorities in many many many many countries of the world now experiencing social unrest and their use of foam hoses on fires and sometimes protestors. A useful but actually pointless comparison.
The froth also provides the growing nymphs insulation, particularly in countries where there is no oil or gas because of warmongering geopolitics. It is also useful moisture protection against withering up into a husk much like Soros and Biden and Kissinger and one or more Rothchilds. Some believe that this spittle might in fact be a useful anti-aging cream one day however the number of Philanus spumarius is threatened by the growing popularity of eating insects and such anti-aging cream manufacturing enterprises may be difficult to engineer. Unless you are able to apply for a government grant arguing that looking old is not “woke” and is an affront to the sensibilities of the meal moth eating minorities.
The maneuver of throwing bubbles over its back is not as painful and contortionistic as it may sound because it is a common misconception that spittlebugs are spitting. In truth the froth is in fact expelled from their arse rather than their tiny little bug mouths. This way the flinging of the spittle is a much easier proposition than we realized and is also cause for many to cringe at the thought of spittle on their ankles as they make their way through the fields, unless of course they are “into” frothy fantasies or something… well… never mind all that.
The important thing to understand here is the bubbles always seem to protect the backs of the bubble-makers—as we well know. It was in fact the spittlebug that inspired financial and governmental entities worldwide to use such shenanigans to cover “their” backs. The now alternate reality for them in their elite bubble world is to enrich themselves and destroy people’s lives in general. We cannot blame the spittlebug for this however.
One of the odd things about the spittlebug is that it eats part of the plant sap that is not usually relished by insects. It prefers the part of the sap that is much less nutritious much like the investors in the latest war. Because they have chosen to eat the lesser sap, they must provide huge amounts of it in order to survive, hence the huge amount of froth and mayhem and military equipment.
The spittlebug is prolific at producing bubbles, up to 80 bubbles a minute on a good day or when fuelled up on cocaine. The sad sad thing about spittlebugs who are well aware of their existence from egg to nymph to froghopper is that they have not yet grasped their ability to identify as a flying insect. Although they have been equipped with wings, they just hop like little politicians avoiding answering questions at press conferences. The similarities between the two have not yet been studied scientifically and are simply speculative by observation at this point.
The tides of change have not been easy for the spittlebugs who were never really popular to begin with. It is important to give the spittlebug room to pump bubbles out of its derrierre and not try and wash it off your strawberry plants. Even the spittlebug has a right to some happiness in this life. And it is, after all, here to remind us that it is all about the bubbles. Those that are made, blown, popped and/or lived in.
Those who wish to contribute to my new foundation called “Fly Spittlebug Fly” may do so. We hope to have the spittlebugs self-identify as the dragonflies they are at heart.
Here’s an earworm that is called Spittle. I don’t know what the guy is raving about but isn’t it a catchy tune! (I was going to go with one called Circus and Spittle but that one genuinely scared me.)
Favorite quote provided by niko on my last piece because it deserves the sunlight.
Why do we need to be pardoned? What are we to be pardoned for?
For not dying of hunger? For not accepting humbly the historic burden of disdain and abandonment? For having risen up in arms after we found all other paths closed? For not heeding the Chiapas penal code, one of the most absurd and repressive in history? For showing the rest of the country and the whole world that human dignity still exists even among the world’s poorest peoples? For having made careful preparations before we began our uprising? For bringing guns to battle instead of bows and arrows? For being Mexicans? For being mainly indigenous? For calling on the Mexican people to fight by whatever means possible for what belongs to them? For fighting for liberty, democracy and justice? For not following the example of previous guerrilla armies? For refusing to surrender? For refusing to sell ourselves out?
Who should we ask for pardon, and who can grant it?
Those who for many years glutted themselves at a table of plenty while we sat with death so often, we finally stopped fearing it? Those who filled our pockets and our souls with empty promises and words? Or should we ask pardon from the dead, our dead, who died “natural” deaths of “natural causes” like measles, whooping cough, break-bone fever, cholera, typhus, mononucleosis, tetanus, pneumonia, malaria and other lovely gastrointestinal and pulmonary diseases?
Our dead, so very dead, so democratically dead from sorrow because no one did anything, because the dead, our dead, went just like that, with no one keeping count with no one saying, “Enough!” which would at least have granted some meaning to their deaths, a meaning no one ever sought for them, the dead of all times, who are now dying once again, but now in order to live?
Should we ask pardon from those who deny us the right and capacity to govern ourselves? From those who don’t respect our customs and our culture and who ask us for identification papers and obedience to a law whose existence and moral basis we don’t accept? From those who oppress us, torture us, assassinate us, disappear us from the grave “crime” of wanting a piece of land, not too big and not too small, but just a simple piece of land on which we can grow something to fill our stomachs?
Who should ask for pardon, and who can grant it?
