A Thinking Reed

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

Economy

  • Real food

    Via Jeremy, a review Michael Pollan’s new book at Slate. Laura Shapiro defends Pollan from charges that he’s a mere “lifestyle guru” uninterested in political changes that could actually change the way we eat. That Pollan is interested in motivating political change should be clear to anyone who’s read his articles over the past year Read more

  • It’s a small world

    The Mother Jones article on the global impact of China’s environmental problems that I mentioned the other day can be found online here. It’s long but well worth a read. Read more

  • Catch-all blog update post

    Sorry about the dearth of posting: a confluence of extreme busyness, travel, and computer issues has put a cramp in my blogging style. Although one perk is that I’ve been forced to detach from the various teapot-sized tempests roilling the blogosphere, which is always a benefit of time away from the computer. We’re in Indiana Read more

  • World’s largest food service provider goes cage-free

    Sounds like good news to me. Read more

  • Evil empire?

    P.J. O’Rourke reviews a new book on Starbucks that offers some counterintuitive facts: Clark is frank about his bias: “Starbucks diminishes the world’s diversity every time it builds a new cafe, and I can’t help but feel troubled by this.” But when Clark looks at whether the towering Mount St. Helens that is Starbucks, with Read more

  • Of staph infections and disappearing honeybees

    What does it mean to say that our industrial food system is “unsustainable”? Michael Pollan suggests an answer: when you insist on treating animals like machines as a necessary requirement of your food system and they persist in behaving like organisms. Call it biological blowback. Read more

  • Alterna-nomics

    I finally got my hands on a copy of Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy and I’m tempted to call it my non-fiction book of 2007. It manages to be both troubling and hopeful as it paints a bleak picture of what our present obsession with “growth” is doing to us and to the planet, while holding Read more

  • D.C. = most walkable

    Lucky for me as I walk pretty much everywhere I go. I might take the Metro once or twice a week, but we’re lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where pretty much all the necessities (and several of the luxuries) of life are within a couple blocks’ distance. Of course, we pay for that Read more

  • McCarraher on capitalism, consumerism and the declining American empire

    Interesting interview with Villanova University prof Eugene McCarraher (via Eric) on consumerism, capitalism, and the decline of the “American empire.” McCarraher’s always a delight to read, even if you don’t agree with everything he says. He pulls no punches and isn’t shy about calling out trendy theological shibboleths. For more from McCarraher, see here, here, Read more

  • The Huckster and neo-populism

    As Mike Huckabee continues to gain on Mitt Romney in Iowa, he seems to be steadily moving from a second to first-tier (or at least 1 and a half tier) candidate. Whether this is a function of his performance in the debates or his Chuck Norris endorsement remains to be seen. Over the last couple Read more