by Simon Pole and staff
The Freedom Star-Monitor
November 26, 2001


Monsanto to take control of world's recipes.

Monsanto has been secretly buying up the world's recipes over the last 10 years, FSM has learned.

This development first came to light when Monsanto brought suit before the World Trade Organization (WTO) against an Illinois grandmother it accused of infringing on its copyright. The grandmother, Millicent Handy of Freedom, Illinois, is accused in the suit of using Monsanto's property without a licence. The property in question is a recipe for chocolate chip cookies called "Super Double Chocolate Mindfreeze". A recent WTO ruling reclassified cooking recipes as "intellectual property" protected by copyright.

We reached Ms. Handy in her jail cell in Freedom, Illinois.

"The recipe has been in my family for 250 years," Ms. Handy said, "In fact, George Washington himself enjoyed the Super Double Chocolate Mindfreeze as he crossed the Delaware."

The mother of 3 and grandmother of 5 first ran into trouble with Monsanto when she entered a batch of her cookies in the annual Freedom Fair and Well-Regulated Militia Gun Show. They won first prize.

There, a Monsanto special agent discovered the copyright infringement and quickly subdued Ms. Handy with pepper-spray. The Monsanto agent explained to a confused Ms. Handy that her grandson, a chronic ne'er do well and Wall Street banker, had sold the Super Double Chocolate recipe to them the previous year for a pat on the back and some ego-stroking.

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Controversy
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Monsanto Inc. of St. Louis, Missouri has stoked controversy throughout the world with its "Franken Foods" and "Terminator Technologies". These are naturally occurring plants like corn, potatoes or soybeans modified by adding the genes of other plants, or animals. The modifications are thought to confer resistance to pests or increased production on the plant.

Critics (which include most of the sane people on the planet) warn these "Terminator Technologies" will create a race of superweeds that can't be killed by pesticides, and pose unknown threats to human health. Monsanto has responded to criticism by rushing ahead with all the glee of a child jumping into a swimming pool on a hot day.

Monsanto's genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are considered "intellectual property" by international trade bodies. As such they are copyrighted. Farmers throughout the world have been sued, put out of business or just plain harassed when trace amounts are found in their fields by Monsanto special agents. The contamination can usually be traced to neighbouring fields or transports driving harvested GMOs to market.

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Recipes: A New Departure
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The expansion into recipes marks a new departure for Monsanto. Monsanto VP, the Cookie Monster, commented: "Me want cookies. All cookies." He then crumbled a Super Double Chocolate Mindfreeze into his mouth, pretending to eat it.

The WTO's ruling against Ms. Handy of Freedom, Illinois is precedent setting. It is now widely expected that all housewives will have to pay a licence fee for every recipe cooked in their kitchens. Since it is estimated that Monsanto owns 95% of the world's recipes, this stands to make Monsanto one of the world's richest multi-nationals.

"Franken Foods are so yesterday," Monsanto CEO I.M. Hitler commented to FSM. "The windfall is not in controlling the food supply. But controlling food preparation."

"I'm a genius," CEO I.M. Hitler added, before cackling maniacally.

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Enforcement
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When asked how such a scheme would be enforced, CEO I.M. Hitler referred us to his Director of Product Security--T. Thuggery. T. Thuggery met us in his spacious office decorated with stun-guns, cattle prods, and other "toys" picked up during his recent vacation in Genoa, Italy.

"The key is not individual recipes," Mr. Thuggery told us, "but *categories* of recipes. Take for example the Super Double Chocolate Mindfreeze recipe. What's to stop a criminal, or terrorist, from modifying the recipe by dropping the Super? Voila, the Double Chocolate Mindfreeze. A new recipe, right? Uh-uh. Not so fast. You will find Monsanto owns the rights to all Double Chocolate-type chocolate chip cookies. If you care to look, you will see we also own the regular chocolate chip cookie, the peanut butter cookie, the oatmeal cookie. You can dress it up all you want, but if it walks like a duck--you're fucked."

If Ms. Handy's treatment at the hands of a Monsanto special agent and subsequent jailing are any indication, we may well be fucked. Already, Director of Product Security, T. Thuggery, has set up a Young Monsanto Program. Children in the program are encouraged to tell Mr. Thuggery what their parents are cooking at home. Drug-sniffing dogs are being retrained to recognize a spinach souffle at 50 feet (Monsanto owns the copyright to all French cuisine. France is currently challenging Monsanto before the WTO. The French Prime Minister, Gas. Tromie, is threatening to blow up the world with nuclear weapons if it loses.)

Finally, in a related story, a Buddhist monk in Thailand has doused himself with chocolate sauce to protest Monsanto's copyrighting the Honey Rice Surprise. Repulsive to Western tastes, the rice surprise is a national treat cooked en masse for holiday celebrations. A Monsanto special agent quickly subdued the monk with pepper spray, as the chocolate sauce was copyrighted by Monsanto and was being used without a licence.