A Thinking Reed

  • Consumerism, simplicity, and sin

    If Andrew Bacevich is right that our consumptive habits are the cause, not only of resource depletion and environmental degradation, but of our far-flung military adventurism, then the unpleasant conclusion seems to be that we need to start consuming less. Here’s an article (via Book Forum) about, among other things, a professor in Western Pennsylvania…

  • Bacevich on Moyers

    Via Andrew Sullivan, here’s a great interview on Bill Moyers’ Journal with Andrew Bacevich on our foreign policy and what is, in his view, its underlying cause: our demand for an undending, fossil-fuel-dependent supply of consumer goods and our inability to practice self-restraint. Bacevich’s new book, The Limits of Power, looks like a worthy sequel…

  • Back

    Regular blogging (or as close as I come to regular blogging) to resume shortly.

  • Out of office

    The Wife and I are taking what I like to think of as a well-deserved vacation in the form of a week’s trip to Glacier National Park. Blogging will be nonexistent until at least the 17th. Enjoy what remains of the summer, folks.

  • Hypocrisy

    George Monbiot: Sure, we are hypocrites. Every one of us, almost by definition. Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions. Greens have high aspirations – they want to live more ethically – and they will always fall short. But the alternative to hypocrisy isn’t moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism.…

  • Was this trip really necessary?

    In a comment to the previous post, Jeremy said: And if [the new creation] is “a brand new order of a completely different kind” then why didn’t God create it that way in the first place. If I recall, Keith Ward said that the universe as it exists may be the only kind in which…

  • I Am Legend, human extinction, and theodicy

    We watched this the other night and I liked it quite a bit more than I expected. I think using CGI zombies was a mistake, but other than that it was a taut sci-fi/horror thriller with some interesting themes (the fate of humanity, providence, the nature of heroism, etc.). Will Smith nicely toned down his…

  • Dark Knight blogging – post-viewing edition

    I’m happy to say that The Dark Knight met or exceeded most of my expectations and didn’t fall into most of the traps I feared it would. I liked how its version of the character harked back to the noirish 70s Denny O’Neil version, though seen through a gritty, Frank Miller-ish lens. Some (slightly spoilerish)…

  • Kristof on Prop. 2

    The NY Times columnist, an admitted meat-lover, writes in favor of the California ballot measure to outlaw some of the most egregious practices of confinement farming: “My hunch is that in a century or two, our descendants will look back on our factory farms with uncomprehending revulsion.” Via Erik Marcus.

  • Fake out

    Via Marvin and Matt Yglesias, a study showing that vegan “sausages” were able to fool a surprisingly large number of people. I have to say, though I’m a vegetarian and not a vegan, I eat very few ersatz meat products. There’s a kind of paradigm shift that you make when you realize that a meal…