mom's birthday is tomorrow...we're going to Todai...seafood and sushi buffet on 32nd street :)i have been trying to expand my stomach in preparation. hahaha
i got her a book, Tao Te Ching, i hope she likes it.my sister is watching the movie "ant bully" on tv, and it occurred to me that most movies involving insects in computer animation are not very biologically accurate. silly...ants don't have girlfriends.
this is cool:
spent most of last friday night watching these videos hahaha
finished a book the other day (see below) Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
he goes through a lot in this book, both physically and mentally.
he travels to different farms, and follows the food as it goes from the
farm to his meal. really very interesting read. the whole process has
been very enlightening for me. i really recommend it to everyone! it was really very interesting.
a few things i took away from the book: 1. the corn industry is messed up. 2. industrial agriculture and the meat industry in general is messed up. 3. industrial organic isn't much better. 4. sustainable grass farms that incorporate diversity of organisms is the way to go! 5. giving up meat won't solve any problems. mostly because any system should be based on ecology and biology, so that means a sustainable food growing system should include animals along with the plants, the insects, and the environment. if everyone went veg or vegan, that would promote only growing plants, eventually promoting monocultures, which are really unsustainable in the long term! (and just because you are vegetarian or vegan, doesn't mean that the food you do eat has not affected or killed animals in the process of getting to your plate)
bottom line: try to eat locally, sustainably grown food as much as possible, and try to eat meat from animals that are grass-fed (not corn-fed, and not from feedlots!!!). these animals are meant to eat grass, not corn. so they are healthier, happier, especially if they are not living in crowded feedlots. also means you are eating better meat, less of the bad fats.
i know this sounds like a typical green book, but it really makes a lot of sense because he takes you through everything and is not preachy or trying to persuade you of anything. he doesn't list the things that i pointed out, but leads you to information that can help you draw conclusions for yourself. the facts and truths line up, and even if some things may be generalized, it is an insightful read.
of everything, the automated happy birthday email from mobileread.com and the happy birthday banner on the homepage of
facebook are the first to greet me. and for some reason has made me
smile.
i guess that is because it makes me think about how automated much of life is now and how strange that is in the context of life at a larger scale.
