"Eggs"

 The Ides of March seem a fitting time for this preamble.

 

I am mystified by many of Mr. Trump’s decisions, especially on the subject of tariffs and cryptocurrencies, and I find it disconcerting when I hear him speak disparagingly of some allies as he does. As for Ukraine, Russia and Europe, there may be more than meets the eye. The balance of power among nations constantly shifts. For the forty-five years following the end of the War, the United States and the Soviet Union represented two distinct powers and views of the future. Preservation of democracy and containment of Russia were our policies. Since the end of the Cold War (now 35 years in the past), the U.S. has been the world’s sole super power.

 

While rising national debt is our largest domestic problem, the rise of Communist Chinarepresents our biggest foreign policy threat, with their activities in the Pacific, along with their inroads in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. A world desirous for peace needs a more united, stronger, and productive Europe. The 27 EU member states plus the UK have a population of almost 520 million people and produce a GDP of $17.5 trillion. In contrast, the U.S., with 340 million people, generated $27.8 trillion. In 2023, the EU and UK spent $395 billion on defense, while the U.S. spent $916 billion. The Second World War has been over for 80 years. Europe must spend more on defense. And they must up their productivity.

 

It is not that the U.S. should abandon their European allies; it is that partnership terms shouldbe realistic about the world we live in. The number of nuclear powers has proliferated, and with Iran on the cusp of joining that group, democracies are going to have to band together. Europe needs to address problems inherent to their comfortable and popular welfare states. She needs to play a bigger role in defense of democracy and, perhaps, help sever the alliance between China and Russia. To the extent Mr. Trump’s actions are having that effect – intended or otherwise – that is a positive. In the future, the U.S. must focus more on the Pacific region, as China represents an insidious threat to all freedom loving people.

 

Mr. Trump and his administration need to address this growing concern. His predecessor did not. I only wish I knew what is behind his thinking when it comes to tariffs and cryptocurrencies and why he treats allies as he sometimes does.

 

But on this March 15, I will focus on a more personal, but equally controversial, matter, eggs.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Eggs”

March 15, 2025

 

“…if I’m about to buy an egg, I just buy on price.”

                                                                                                                Ken Anderson, Professor, Department of Poultry Science

                                                                                                                NC State University

                                                                                                                Inverse, online publication Bustle Digital Group

                                                                                                                August 28, 2021

 

Eggs are on our minds. A few days ago Caroline and I watched Claudette Colbert and Fred McMurray in The Egg and I. But it is the price of eggs, due to H5 bird flu, which prompted this essay. A dozen eggs that cost $4.95 a year ago now cost $8.42. According to the Global Center for Health Security, in the fourth quarter of 2024 more than 20 million hens were killed. Since the symptom was first noted in 2022, approximately 148 million chickens have been destroyed. To put that number in perspective, there are a little over 300 million egg-laying chickens in the U.S.  

 

This talk about eggs reminded me of a favorite essay, E.B. White’s “Riposte,” written in response to J.B. Priestly’s op-ed in the December 17, 1971 The New York Times, “The Meaning of Brown Eggs.” Priestly noted that the English prefer brown eggs because they are “closer to nature.” Americans, he argued, prefer white eggs “because their very whiteness suggests hygiene and purity.” But he went beyond eggs to criticize American civilization as being “curiously abstract…You dine off the advertiser’s ‘sizzling’ and not meat of the steak. Sex is discovered in manuals and not in bed.” Priestly’s satirical comments demanded a response, and that eloquent chicken farmer Mr. White did. He wrote that New Englanders prefer brown eggs, as they are plentiful in those parts. But the rest of the country ate white eggs, as they are more common. He added: “I ascribe the whole business to a busy little female – the White Leghorn hen. She is nervous, she is flighty, she is the greatest egg-machine on two legs, and it just happens that she lays a white egg.” Fifty-fours later, the White Leghorn is still the most productive hen in the United States.

 

My parents raised Rhode Island Reds, so we always had brown eggs. As a youngster, I recall taking an egg from a hen’s nest, poking a hole in one end and sucking out the raw yolk. Ugh! My wife’s mother, in New York City where they lived (and did not raise chickens), ate white eggs, but served her husband brown eggs. Why? My wife does not know, but she has fun speculating. Today we buy brown eggs. Why? No good reason, except it is what we have always done. 

 

A year ago, Fabian Carstairs wrote an article for London’s Spectator Live, “Which Came First? The Egg Obviously.” Referencing the Priestly essay, Carstairs noted that “…there’s really no relationship between shell colour and the egg.” He pointed out that eggs from the Chilean Araucana are “a beautiful blue” and that the Chinese Cochin “dapples her eggs with delicate yellow spots.” As for the question of which came first, Mr. Carstairs closes: “In evolutionary biology, chickens are the result of interbreeding between various jungle fowl. A mutation during one of those romances resulted in a fertilized egg whose DNA was distinct from its non-chicken parents. Upon hatching, the first chicken was born.”

 

Now, how to end this scrambled essay? The late radio host Bernard Meltzer once said: “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg, even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” Knowing those words apply, I will stop before there is more egg on my face.