We Are Made Of Corn

When a book shows up in my life multiple times, I know it’s time for me to read it. So it was with The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

It started with a friend’s recommendations through several conversations about a year ago or so. I chalked it up to my mental must-read list and did not think anymore of it. A few weeks ago, the title popped into my mind out of the blue. Then I started noticing people reading it in outdoor sitting cafe areas while passing by. As this happened more than once I thought, ok, I get it, it’s time to go find this one.

Fortunately, my local library had a copy…

I have to say it’s amazing and I highly recommend it to everyone.

I’m collecting several quotes as I go through it. I can’t help it, it’s too good and too incredible not to pass on.

Corn has literally taken over our agricultural industry, the farm business, and food production. If you think just because you eat little corn on the cob or corn tortillas you don’t consume an allarming amount of the stuff, think again. Our bodies are literally being constructed from corn building blocks. It’s in everything:

Corn is what feeds the steer that becomes the steak. Corn feeds the chicken and the pig, the turkey and the lamb, the catfish and the tilapia and, increasingly, even the salmon, a carnivore by nature that the fish farmers are reengineering to tolerate corn. The eggs are made of corn. The milk and cheese and yogurt, which once came from dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically come from Holsteins that spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn.

A little scary, to say the least.

more to come…

New Squidoo Lenses

It’s been a while since I’ve made squidoo lenses…

My most recent one is for Stray Tales, one of my self-published books. This one is a little different because of how I market it… with an invitation for people to go ahead and color the pages themselves.

I even tell people to send or email me a copy of the colored page and I would put it up. Unfortunately, few do. Oh well. I wish they would though, so I can see how they went about it.

I’ve got all 3 books with their respective lenses.
Still working on this Stray Tales one, with the whole coloring aspect still needing to be added.

Check them out there:

http://www.squidoo.com/a-cappella-book1
http://www.squidoo.com/a-cappella-book2
http://www.squidoo.com/stray-tales-book1

The Naked Ape

Reading The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris.

I’m just starting out on this book.

Desmond Morris takes on an interesting point of view in his introduction. He states that anthropologist have it all wrong in studying group still living in “technologically simple tribal groupd” as an example of human behavior. He proposes that these groups are in fact “stultified” -they have failed to advanced and have gone wrong somewhere along the way, while the majority of humanity has explored and grown beyond this state.

Though he does not discount that this information has been useful, he proposes that it is now time to look into the “typical behavior of the typical naked ape,” i.e. the mainstream specimen who represent the majority: successful members of the main cultures.

So far so good. I look forward to more.

Vampire series

I’ve been reading Stephanie Meyer’s vampire series for fun of late.

I say for fun though this is not something I would have normally picked up. I’m not too much on the whole horror genre, which was my impression of this series, and generally prefer non-finction reading anyway.

To make a long story short, a friend was cleaning up her book shelves and left me the first 2 of the series, Twilight and New Moon, which just stayed on my shelves for a little while.

Then I saw the Twilight movie.

Wow, nothing like I expected. I really did like it. So now off course I am reading the books too. Twilight and New Moon were read in a matter of 2 weeks. I now have to be patient and wait for the third, Eclipse -remember I only have the first 2, and all 13 copies at the local library are already checked out! I’m on the waiting list (sigh).

Oh well, it’ll be all the more sweet when I do get it.

New Star Trek Movie

I finally got around to seeing the new Star Trek movie this week.

Wow, what a ride! Loved every minute of it. In fact, I was sorry the movie was over by the end. I’m sure I’ll be renting the video once out so I can see it again.

Zachary Quinto is simply GREAT as the new Spock. He inhabits the role just right and is doing justice to the character. Leonard Nimoy leaves big shoes to fill. And what about this new turn of event, hmm? Yes, you know what I’m talking about, with Uhura. Nice.

Spock has always been my favorite character, and it’s good to see him again. Vulcans very much took a back seat after the original series, hardly showing up in any of the subsequent series. A shame, really, as they are an interresting and admirable race.

One thing I certainly hope, though, is that this new time line runs parallel to the original time line, and does not to cancel out 40+ years of history and characters. It would not be unheard of to have 2 alternate universes happening at the same time.

This would also open the possibility of having respective characters jump from one universe to the other in a future movie. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Plus, I do think TNG deserves to continue with movies. Afterall, those actors are no where near the end of their career, with more stories to be told. Like the cliffhanger type ending regarding Data (or his “brother”) in the last movie Nemesis, for example.

So, back to Spock. Check out my squidoo lens Spock-of-Vulcan. It’s a preliminary layout, with lots of videos and fun toys for the moment. I will research a little more of Spock’s history and continue adding to it as I go. Obviously, right now there is more to the original Spock than to the new Spock. All in good time…