A Thinking Reed

  • Does exercise make you thinner?

    Maybe not. One interesting suggestion in the article is that we evolved in such a way that constant, low-impact activitiy throughout the day may be more suitable for us than the intense, relatively brief bursts of activity in a typical bout of “working out.”

  • I’ve been boycotting Whole Foods for years

    But mostly because of the prices and intolerable smugness. Link via JL Wall at Upturned Earth.

  • Friday Metal: Napalm Death, “Time Waits for No Slave”

    The grand-daddies of grindcore:

  • Ah, the ivory tower…

    One of the many puzzling things about this post from Brian Leiter on veganism is that it seems to take place in a world unrecognizable as our own. To wit: Let’s suppose, plausibly enough, that sentience (the ability to experience pleasure and pain) is a morally relevant characteristic. Since animals are sentient, it seems there…

  • What’s actually in the bill

    Open Congress has put together a rebuttal of the most common myths (or lies, depending on how charitable you’re feeling) about HR 3200–the House version of health care reform–with links to the relevant provisions of the bill.

  • What’s a health care exchange?

    This is a helpful article.

  • Maddening

    As someone who’s only half-way through the first season of Mad Men on DVD, it’s hard to avoid all those juicy articles on season 3 that are currently everywhere.

  • Creaturely Theology

    Anyone out there familiar with the anthology Creaturely Theology: God, Humans, and Other Animals edited by Celia Dean-Drummond and David Clough? I’m intrigued, but can’t seem to find much information about it online, and the cost is a bit prohibitive for buying sight unseen.

  • Still the King

    I agree with this review–the Elvis 1969 Memphis sessions really do represent the King at the height of his powers. The disc is one of my go-to Elvis albums (along with the Sun Sessions and ’56). While the version I have is a previous release, I imagine this new remastered version is well worth the…

  • The trouble with “humanitarian advocacy”

    Wow, this is a pretty damning post on the Save Darfur Coalition by Conor Foley, an international human rights worker and author of The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War: for the last five years the Save Darfur coalition has been pumping out a message about an ongoing genocide which is essentially untrue.…