the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

BAD RESULTS TRUMP GOOD INTENTIONS 45
soils, the vine itself began to grow like a postapocalyptic Godzilla feeding
off of ambient radiation. The monster was moving fast, and today kudzu
claims at least 120,000 additional acres each year. In 1993, the same federal
government that once so boldly touted kudzu cultivation as a great
idea estimated that the vine was costing Americans about $50 million a
year.
That’s not to say kudzu is invincible. Certain fungi common to
beans can retard its growth, and animals as diverse as deer, goats, rabbits,
slugs, moth larvae, and some Japanese beetles find it delectable. Overgrazing
by ruminants can eliminate a stand of kudzu within two years,
even if it creates a methane problem in the pro cess. Some herbicides are
effective, but that sort of human intervention requires both vigilance and
per sistence, with treatment seldom effective unless it’s carried out consistently
every year for a decade. John Byrd, a professor of weed science at
Mississippi State University who tested various chemicals to control the
vine, suggested in a 2000 issue of Smithsonian magazine that the surest
way to control a patch of kudzu is to build a Wal-Mart on top of it.
Some have simply tried to make the best of the situation by fi nding
new and imaginative uses for kudzu, from baskets woven from the vines
to skin lotions to deep- fried kudzu leaves, but there’s an unmistakable
whiff of surrender to it all. The most intriguing possibility is modern
medical research that confirms the ancient Eastern practice of using kudzu
root to treat alcoholism, though to this point it has proven effective only
on a certain breed of hard-drinking hamster.
Touting the upside of kudzu, though, is a zero-sum game. Kudzu
additives and products would need to become as ubiquitous as sugar in this
culture to make a significant dent in this country’s approximately eleven
thousand square miles of the stuff. The editors at Time magazine understood
this when, in a special end-of- the-millennium issue, they listed the
introduction of kudzu to the United States among the “100 worst ideas of
the century.” The list also included asbestos, DDT, driftnet fi shing, Barney,
spray- on hair, Jerry Springer, and thong underwear for men.