The Hollow Men

:::this is the way the world ends:::

Day: February 3, 2007

We Are What We Eat: Conversation Continued

February 3, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I would say the most continuous discussion on this site has involved food, health, vegetarianism, fasting, etc. Kind of intriguing, so I thought I would add this to that conversation. In the January 22, 2007 issue of The New Yorker, there is an article by Steven Shapin about the history of vegetarianism. Here are a few interesting if not startling items:

“A recent report by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization reckons that at least eighteen percent of the global-warming effect comes from livestock, more than is caused by all the world’s transportation systems. It has been estimated that forty percent of global grain output is used to feed animals rather than people, and that half of this grain would be sufficient to eliminate world hunger if–and it’s not a small if–the political will could be found to insure equitable distribution.”

That’s just a bit of the article, so I don’t want to say this characterizes the whole piece, which also stresses some of the importance of eating locally, including local, free range meats. So it’s not necessarily a polemic on the virtues of vegetarianism, but I have to say the sentences quoted above stood out significantly, to me. I thought they were worth sharing, as we continue thinking about vegetarianism and our individual and collective global footprint.

Here’s to good eating–

–Shotts

Poetry Post: Carl Phillips

February 3, 2007 / / 3 Comments

Here’s a poem by Carl Phillips, one that I’ve especially admired, from his book The Rest of Love.

-Shotts

Custom

There is a difference it used to make,
seeing three swans in this versus four in that
quadrant of sky. I am not imagining. It was very large, as its
effects were. Declarations of war, the timing fixed upon for a sea-departure; or,
about love, a sudden decision not to, to pretend instead to a kind
of choice. It was dramatic, as it should be. Without drama,
what is ritual? I look for omens everywhere, because they are everywhere
to be found. They come to me like strays, like the damaged,
something that could know better, and should, therefore–but does not:
a form of faith, you’ve said. I call it sacrifice–an instinct for it, or a habit at first, that
becomes required, the way art can become, eventually, all we have
of what was true. You shouldn’t look at me like that. Like one of those saints
on whom the birds once settled freely.

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