MATCHING CONSISTENCY

I'm on my way today to PorkFest in New Hampshire, an engagement transacted by a speakers' bureau.  Rather than my getting the plane ticket, it was procured by a third party.  That's always rife with issues, and today was no exception.  I checked in and got my boarding pass at home.   

                  When I got to the Charlottesville airport, without even thinking, I entered the TSA Precheck line but when I got to the screener, it noted I didn't have precheck.  Oh bummer.  Decision time:  do I go through the non-precheck hassle for this whole out and back, 4 legs, or do I go to the American Airlines ticket counter and get it changed? 

                  How quickly positioning goes to your head.  I could proceed as it was, or go back and get it fixed. All was consistent and valid for me to go, but in stubbornness, I decided to get the precheck put on the ticket.  Since the ticket counter is only about 50 feet from the TSA screening at this small airport, I opted to go back and have the ticket counter fix the ticket for both outbound and inbound.  Easy peasy.  

                  Of course, the guy ahead of me at the ticket counter had a convoluted issue that took 10 minutes to fix.  Finally the agent waved me over and fixed the ticket.  With new precheck boarding pass in hand, I headed back to the TSA screener.   

                  Suddenly, the system kicked me out.  The TSA screening agent said my ID birthdate, in 1957, was put on this new precheck boarding pass as 1975.  So I could get on with my old ticket, which I'd left with the agent, or go back to the counter and get this new boarding pass fixed.

                  Back to the AA counter I went.  "Oh, I'm sorry, my fault.  I transposed the 57 and 75 when I redid your boarding pass."   She fixed it but then couldn't print a new boarding pass. The printer at the counter was acting up.  No problem.  Since the TSA computer is looking only at my ID and the AA electronic data, I could get on with the incorrect paper boarding pass but the TSA would think the ticket was okay.  

                  Back to the TSA screening stand I go.  Sure enough, a smile, a wave, and I was on my way through precheck.  With the old boarding pass in hand, I should be good to go.  

                  But this got me to thinking.  With this many protections in the system to guarantee consistency, what if we had this kind of interest in ecological consistency?

                  Like what if our menus matched consistently with the needs of earthworms?  Like what if our food matched consistently with the needs of our microbiome?  Like what if our investments financed organizations that build soil and create more potable water?

                  Isn't it fascinating that we have this level of consistency insurance in the airplane seat but can't even match breakfast with the needs of pigs, chickens, and earthworms?  What a crazy incoherent world we live in when our sense of balance importance is this skewed.

                  We create a dead zone the size of Rhode Island in the Gulf of Mexico (America) and call it agricultural prowess.  We drink Coca Cola and eat at McDonald's, creating a 40th ranking in national health statistics among the 40 wealthy countries of the world, and call it dietary progress.  Are we insane? How many things in our society could you say "you know, you're not matching ecological and biological needs with that decision?"

                  What would change if ecological consistency were as desirable as matching birthdate to plane ticket?