The Next Goldwater
Image stolen from Shepard Fairey, text from some hippies that Tom Wolfe was hanging out with in the 60s.
Hors d’œuvre
Because every new WordPress upgrade breaks K2, my previous theme, I’m working on a new home-grown alternative. Until it’s ready for prime time, here are some random items of interest:
- Some people still believe the earth is flat. Oddly, this misconception isn’t as old as many think.
- NYT’s Solzhenitsyn obit is 8 pages long.
- McCain makes his first visit to the internet, which, according to corrupt Senator Ted Stevens, is a series of tubes.
- Iran’s scientists may be on the verge of developing nuclear ballistic missiles, but they suck at photoshop.
- And in case you missed Trinity Day, here’s some background information on the detonation of the first atomic bomb.
- Beginning 9 August, The Orwell Trust will publish George Orwell’s diaries online, 70 years to the day after he wrote each entry.
- Bowser’s minions stage a mutiny.
- Typefaces have a conference to discuss membership requirements. Much funnier than it sounds.
What I Learned Today: In Defense of Food II
If you find the quantity and variety of available nutritional advice frustrating, find relief in Michael Pollan’s simplified rules: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.
In the last 50 pages of In Defense of Food, he parses this guidance into an only slightly more complicated algorithm, the highlights of which are:
- Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number or that include high-fructose corn syrup. I’ve been unable to find any bread in the supermarket that meets these criteria; the Whole Grain White Bread Pollan excoriates in the book contains over forty ingredients.
- Avoid food products that make health claims. The AHA seal of approval decorates the packaging of Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Trix, yet no sane person would consider these to be healthy breakfast options.
- Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle. Meaning, stick to minimally-processed produce, meat, dairy and the like.
I’ve taken a few steps in this direction recently, and I may become even more drastic by going to farmers markets.
Rapture Ready!
Hanna Rosin has an excellent review of Daniel Radosh’s Rapture Ready! available on Slate.
What I Learned Today: In Defense of Food
I’m almost always reading at least one nonfiction book at any given moment, and in order to retain the intended learning value and perhaps share something interesting from the world of old media, I’m going to share some basic idea gleaned from my reading.
So today, from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: The lipid hypothesis — that saturated fats cause obesity and poor cardiovascular health — gained prominence in the 1970s and led to carbohydrate-heavy guidance from the government (cf. the old food pyramid) which in turn moved the national diet toward a larger ratio of processed carbohydrates (much of it as HFCS). Interestingly, Americans still eat more meat than they used to, meaning they took the government’s advice to mean eat even more carbohydrates. Ironically the avoidance of saturated fats led us to eat more partially hydrogenated plant oils (trans fats, which the NAS concluded have no safe level of consumption). So, the low-fat diet has made America obese. I haven’t gotten to the part where Mr Pollan tells us what we should eat (technically his goal is to change the way we think about the food selection process, not provide a list of acceptable foods), but his advice is on the cover: “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.”
I would say it’s time to hit the nearest Whole Foods, but there isn’t one within 100 miles and Mr Pollan doesn’t like them anyway.
Stuff White People Like
I know this has been going on for over 2 months, but I finally got around to Stuff White People Like. It’s brilliant, and it’s soon to be in book form.
Freakonomics Book Covers
Freakonomics around the world. What’s up with the Turkish edition’s cover?
Obituaries
Notable recent deaths: Anthony Minghella and Sir Arthur C. Clarke.
Required Reading: Atlas Shrugged
Editor’s Note: First posted this on tWF back in early 2005, this article predated my eventual reading of Ayn Rand’s complete novels and a few of her other writings. While I’m not a strict Objectivist, I still appreciate her ideas. And though the Kensico Cemetary statue in the photo below does not accompany Rand’s grave, I like it so much I think I’ll keep it anyway (if photographer Lee Sandstead doesn’t mind).
I first met John Galt on a bumper sticker last December. A little Volkswagen silently asked, “Who is John Galt?” and for some reason I felt like someone had asked this before. Like it was some eternal question that had been in my subconscious mind for many years, finally springing to the surface thanks to a cute little German car. In any case, a quick Google search revealed the literary source of this question — Ayn Rand’s 1100-page masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. Next time I was at Barnes & Noble, I picked up the paperback for $9.
(more…)Remainders: Last Weekend of October
And it’s finally cooled off, sort of. Yes, I enjoy this t-shirt weather and dread the impending frigidity as much as anyone who spent his formative years in Southern California and Florida (and who now prefers to winter in Hawaii) does, but I’d also prefer a gradual descent into coldness rather than the precipitous drop I’m bracing for. And by “bracing for” I mean “thinking I should have shopped for winter clothing already.”
There are other reasons to look forward to fall, namely:
- The Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, which opens next weekend with Itzhak Perlman (although I’m holding out for Tony Bennett in December). Now Hampton Roads is one step closer to … not being a cultural black hole?
- National Novel Writing Month, or, as seems incongruously short for an art tending to prolixity, NaNoWriMo! But while some will attempt to write a paltry 50,000 words in a month’s time, I’ll be reinvigorating my reading with my yearly re-read of Atlas Shrugged (565,223 words), an attempt to finish Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle (nearly 800,000 words) and a restart of In Search of Lost Time (1.5 million words). Also up for consideration are The Lord of the Rings (~470,000 words), Infinite Jest (479,198 words) and War and Peace (~560,000 words). Maybe I’ll save those for next year.
While looking up all those word counts I forgot what else I’m looking forward to. Hay rides? Pumpkin carving?
I did install Leopard this weekend. It’s at least a welcome respite from the old and cranky install of Tiger I was running. (OS X installs seem to degrade now that Macs have Intel inside. Oh how I miss the PowerPC!) The features are largely commensurate with the prerelease hype, and in any case Leopard beats anything Microsoft’s put out recently.
Let’s get this over with
I really need to get out more. Literally, as in “I have no social life and haven’t made any new friends recently.” Life’s a bitch when you find most people insufferable and yet aren’t satisfied with loneliness. My fear is that after spending so much time with my thoughts, I won’t have the humor and spontaneity that people generally desire in a friend. This question may have an obvious answer, but I have to ask anyway: what process allows people to become acquainted so easily in their youth? Am I too shy to strike up a conversation now? Too proud?
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