A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Animals

  • They’ve got personality

    Jon Katz writes the series Rural Life for Slate.com; he’s a writer who started his own farm with his wife and now writes about it. One of his recurring themes is the intelligence and personality of farm animals and how human interaction can affect them. Today’s entry is about a sassy hen named Henrietta and Read more

  • Eat less meat, save the planet

    The Christian Science Monitor reports on yet another report linking the raising of livestock on an industrial scale to climate change: As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines. Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse Read more

  • Nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving

    Today’s Daily Office reading from 1 Timothy (4:1-16) gave me pause, verses 1-5 in particular: Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. 3 They Read more

  • Eat food

    That’s the takeaway point from this NY Times Magazine article by Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma). Pollan details how an unholy trifecta of scientific experts, sloppy journalism and the food industry have distorted the American diet by pushing the idea of “nutritionism” – the notion that nutrients, rather than actual foods, are the Read more

  • The perils of the “virtuous minority”

    Marvin continues his series on vegetarianism wth a post on the eschatological expectation that predation and violence are aspects of creation which will ultimately be done away with. Vegetarianism, then, can be seen as a “living into the kingdom,” a kind of anticipation of what is to come: In the present age one cannot dismiss Read more

  • Veggie tales

    Marvin has started a series on vegetarianism – first two installments are here and here. Kim at Crossroads discusses a New Yorker review of Tristram Stuart’s The Bloodless Revolution. (I blogged on the Nation review here.) Read more

  • My beef with “My Beef with Vegetarianism”

    It’s no secret that vegetarians and animal rights proponents usually don’t get much respect. I recently saw a “60 Minutes” segment featuring Andy Rooney, that embodiment of crusty old conventional wisdom, where he began by saying “Like most people, I think vegetarians are crazy.” And in fairness that stereotype may even be somewhat justified. Even Read more