Patriotism

Here's the punchline graph from a recent Wapo article. Needless to say my dinner that night was patriotic.

 

Oranges

After reading John McPhee's Oranges and The Control of Nature in quick succession, I've been left wondering how it's taken me so long to even hear of the guy. Here are two reflections on Oranges:

1. The writing in this book is good enough to make me want to make a special trip to Indian River County groves the next time I'm in Florida. Would a similar treatment of another boring commodity be just as fascinating? My hunch is yes. I read this a while back and found it entertaining. And Nature's Metropolis is the tale of an entire city, Chicago, told through its boring commodities, and will blow you away.
2. "Oranges" is from 1967. How much has changed? Clearly McPhee's wrote the book in part as a response to the explosion of the orange industry after the invention of concentrate. But he does mention there was no mechanized way to pick oranges. I'm sure that bottleneck is gone, but has the human element that the book points breaks open in describing orange pickers (the "Orangemen") gone with it?