Huh. I've just been asked to contribute to the Steppenwolf blog.

But he was also the little kid in Anchors Aweigh!

And in The Boy With Green Hair!

Soil, species, rivers. That’s the death in your food. Agriculture is carnivorous: what it eats is ecosystems, and it swallows them whole.

I haven't read the book, but when I read the blurb on the back, my immediate question was how the author deals with all the plants that animals eat.

Oh, and the founder of Whole Foods gives his opinion on health care. [link]

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.

I think I may be rethinking some of my shopping habits.

You know, I have that high deductible plan, and it sucks. I don't put money in an FSA because I don't make that much, and my health insurance used to be free, with just a copay. I have been plagued by hip pain since November and I don't want to go to the doctor because I am pretty sure he wil have to do 800 million tests that I can't pay for to tell if it is my kidney, ovary, intestine, etc. I am pretty sure it is my back/hip, but the pain moves. The last time I had this pain, they never found anything, but they never looked at my joints and I eventually got better. But that was after 800 million tests.

The thing is, I think the high deductible plan worked when everyone had it, and healthcare costs were lower. My mom never met her deductible of $200 when I was a kid, and always had to pay out of pocket, but the costs were much, much lower. I think the copay system led to some artificial raising of rates, but no one is going to lower them now!

I haven't read the book, but when I read the blurb on the back, my immediate question was how the author deals with all the plants that animals eat.

She seems to be cool with it. From the excerpts, it was hard to discern what her actual point was. She tries to say that agriculture harms the environment anyway, so it's not like it's the Morally Right thing to do, but she also brings in the Circle of Life, implying that vegetarians are against the natural order. Going against the grain, if you will.

She tries to say that agriculture harms the environment anyway, so it's not like it's the Morally Right thing to do, but she also brings in the Circle of Life, implying that vegetarians are against the natural order. Going against the grain, if you will.

Hmm. But the amount of meat that you can get from a cow is much less than the amount of grain the cow eats over its lifetime. So I'd still say that a vegetarian diet does less harm to the environment. (I have no idea why I'm arguing with a book I haven't read.)

My impression from the review was that she was saying that agriculture, particularly big agriculture monoculture, has wiped out far more species than meat eating ever could. It sounds like a book I must read, since that's an argument I've made for years.

Hawking on his health care [link]

Sounds like she should be arguing against big agriculture monoculture instead of arguing against vegetarianism. I doubt vegetarians have had enough of a market impact to be blamed for that.

My impression from the review was that she was saying that agriculture, particularly big agriculture monoculture, has wiped out far more species than meat eating ever could. It sounds like a book I must read, since that's an argument I've made for years.

But a huge amount of that big agriculture goes toward animal feed.