When selecting bananas is it best to pick them with green on the ridges or full yellow are you tempted to take a hand of bananas that features Star Wars or Incredibles stickers or one that modestly sports the traditional blue Chiquita label and when you display them do you hang them on a hook or put them in a bowl with apples and oranges and when do you change the display when they first develop age spots or when the freckles merge and become a uniform brown skin tone do you let them detach from their stems and fall from the hook or do you rescue them before they start to dangle by a thread and how do you consume the sweetest ones when they are so ripe and squishy? do you slice them on icecream or start thinking about making banana bread so as not to waste the banana at its best even if not the nicest texture: Cogito ergo sum bake if you dare therefore the banana.

When you think of Orwell's Animal Farm , you get stuck on the idea of some being more equal than others.  But world peace, galactic harmony, the celebration of diversity and the active practice of inclusion are all achieved in science fiction by casting minorities in the role of animals and aliens.  Star Trek comes to mind in this regard, where even hippies were disposed of, Federation style, as sensitive dissenting aliens, not forgetting Spock with his pointy ears!  And then there were Wookiees, still man's best friend. Viewing animals as humans--anthropomorphizing--or treating different races as aliens, all of this is shape shifting.  This shape is my shade, there where I used to stand--that's Steely Dan.