A Thinking Reed

  • Small is beautiful?

    Matt Yglesias asks a fair question of Mark Bittman’s food manifesto, specifically his proposal that we shift subsidies away from big agribusiness and toward “small” farmers: It seems to me that what we want from our farms is farms that are as efficient as possible in their use of resources like land, labor, water, etc.…

  • Friday Metal: Decrepit Birth, “Polarity”

    Shredtastic!

  • Bittman’s agenda

    Speaking of food politics, Mark Bittman has retired his long-running “Minimalist” cooking column in the New York Times dining section and is moving over to the opinion pages, as well as writing for the Times Magazine. In addition to teaching people how to cook for themselves, Bittman has criticized the standard American diet and even…

  • What to eat

    Food writer and activist Marion Nestle has a good post parsing the just-released USDA 2010 food guidelines: Here are the take-home messages: Balancing Calories • Enjoy your food, but eat less. • Avoid oversized portions. Foods to Increase • Make half your plate fruits and vegetables. • Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk. Foods…

  • On the alleged tyranny of requiring people to buy health insurance

    I wish opponents of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”) would stop pretending that they think the individual mandate is some unique affront to freedom when it’s obvious they would oppose any scheme of universal coverage, no matter what mechanism it used. Does anyone think they’d be okay with a single-payer system where the government…

  • Interview with Paul Waldau on animal rights

    A while back I made note of Paul Waldau’s recent book Animal Rights: What Everyone Needs to Know. Readers might also be interested in this interview with Waldau from Illinois public radio. Waldau’s website is here.

  • Obligatory Egypt post

    I wish I had something interesting to say about the situation in Egypt besides “Go freedom and democracy!” But, like many opining on the events, what I know about Egyptian history, culture, and politics could fit on one side of a three-by-five-inch note card. Here’s a good Nicholas Kristof column, reporting from the scene. The…

  • Friday links

    – Many people have pointed to this omnibus post at Mother Jones that provides background, context, links, and ongoing updates on the situation in Egypt. – Marvin writes on understanding apostolic poverty. – At the blog Memoria Dei, a post discussing feminist theologian Mary Daly’s use of women’s experience as an analogue for the divine.…

  • Friday Metal: Textures, “Circular”

    My sources tell me these guys have a new album coming out this year. This one’s from the second-newest one, “Drawing Circles.”

  • The things you find by the side of the road

    In my neighborhood people frequently leave boxes of stuff they don’t want out on the sidewalk for any passerby to take, often including books. This morning I passed by such a box and snatched up what look like three pretty good finds: Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit by Elizabeth Johnson; The Mismeasure of Man by…