premiumshlock’s Recent Comments

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  Yeah, definitely - I don't disagree that it's an awesome/no-brainer idea. Anyway, thanks for the response; cheers,

  Zack

  On NYC sends veggie carts to underserved areas -- and they're a hit posted 5 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

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  Granted, this is merely an anecdotal report (though written by someone who works for a magazine & Web site devoted to urban issues), but from Jori Lewis's experience she "never see[s] anyone else stop at the cart." And the person the Times quotes above - a graphic designer - is, after all, perhaps a member of the same 'creative class,' which generally has a shared set of values that often extend beyond economic terms. So, my point is that at least right now, it may not be, unfortunately, as unequivocal a success as the Times - and you - portray it to be.

  On NYC sends veggie carts to underserved areas -- and they're a hit posted 5 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

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  Not green either, but last month's cover story - while perhaps not offering terribly revelatory - "What Makes Us Happy" was fairly well written and very fascinating.

  I must confess that I haven't read either - until recently I wasn't a huge fan of The Atlantic (not opposed to it by any means, but just never clicked with it) - but didn't they last year have a cover story called "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" (conveniently spelled correctly on the article's actual page) and now the headline at the top of this issue reads "Is Google Actually Making Us Smarter?" Well, which is it, Atlantic? Kinda like Grist sometimes, in that respect... No hard feelings, of course.

  On Lots of great green stuff in the latest issue of The Atlantic posted 5 months, 1 week ago 1 Response

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  Right, I guess my point is just that despite our proclamations otherwise, we tend to focus on and villanize one thing, thinking that if we rid ourselves and our society of it, we'll all be better off, which is an extremely black-and-white way of looking at the issue, to say nothing of the fact that, again, the alternatives are not necessarily better at all (or that there are no benefits to any segment of the population of the thing being deplored).

  On UPDATE: Washington State University reinstates freshman reading of 'Omnivore's Dilemma' posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago 40 Responses

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  Yeah, much as I like Michael Pollan - he is a damn good writer - I'm starting to view him as the Bush administration of eco-foodies. He never explicitly lies about certain issues - indeed, he'll make sure to note when pressed that, no, there aren't really any significant health risks involved with HFCS, for example - but we leave riled up about the state of agriculture, where our food comes from and what's in it. And then we learn or realize that, oh wait, it's not actually that bad, or we initially just assume that the alternatives are therefore superior and later learn they of course aren't. Take HFCS vs. sugar. Two recent Slate pieces debunked both the eco and health claims of both, suggesting that really one's not better or worse than the other in terms of healthfulness and cultivating sugar cane/beets is actually very water-intensive, just as its processing is energy-intensive, and as I've mentioned this to other people, they note that this industry has helped destroy the Everglades. So, it just seems, well crap, that everything is bad.

  I agree with an earlier commenter - perhaps Grapes of Wrath might have been a better pick; safer, but just as if not more instructive. Or even Marion Nestle's wonderful What to Eat, which is even endorsed by Pollan and Eric Schlosser, though she's much less polemical and simplistic than they tend to be (or are at least, inadvertantly or not, perceived). She doesn't have much of an agenda except eat more fruits and vegetables.

  On UPDATE: Washington State University reinstates freshman reading of 'Omnivore's Dilemma' posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago 40 Responses