Last Sunday’s NYTimes magazine was dedicated to examining issues around the international rising cost of (cheap) food and it’s consequences: obesity at home, and malnutrition abroad. There are a series of interesting articles about the broad topic,  everything from a letter from Michael Pollan to “Mr.President-Elect” about food policy,an article about the complexities, politics and implications of  “Vietnamese catfish”,  and a piece by Mark Bittman, who ruminates on a question I have been thinking a lot about recently: “Why Take Food Seriously?”. My favorite article so far is the interactive piece called Inside the Fridge of a Foodie, where “five food leaders talk about the eating habits that fuel their professional pursuits.” There’s also a related piece, Food Fighters, that showcases seven young food justice advocates.

In all, the articles are extremely timely and approach the issue of food justice from some unique perspectives. Definitely worth checking out.

drive carefully, school’s in session

“Why do people live in New York? There is no relationship between them. Except for an inner electricity which results from the simple fact of their being crowded together. A magical sensation of contiguity and attraction for an articifial centrality. This is what makes it a self-attracting universe, which there is no reason to leave. There is no human reason to be here, except for the sheer ecstacy of being crowded together.”

-America by Jean Baudrillard

check it twice

A wise man once said that it’s never too early to start your Christmas list. AMEN.

“The Center for Land Use Interpretation is a research-based educational organization that produces public programs about the built landscape of the United States from its sites in Los Angeles, Utah and the Mojave desert, with an upstate New York location opening in 2006. The Center’s aim is to increase and diffuse information about how the nation’s lands are apportioned, utilized and perceived. Recent examples of their work include a two-day Tour of the Monuments of the Great American Void by bus and the exhibit Immersed Remains: Towns Submerged in America. This book takes readers on a tour through the strangely unfamiliar land that Americans live in, demonstrating that we can understand ourselves and the nation by examining the clues on display all around us, often clearly visible but ignored. Each chapter explores a different topic, from an in-depth look at Ohio (“the most all-American state”); through scale shifts in model landscapes, exemplified in the three largest hydraulic models in the world; and law-enforcement training environments that simulate public space. Readers can dive into the hidden and enchanting world of show caves, where America is on display underground; and come up into the Great Basin, a zone covering most of Nevada, and portions of Utah, California, Oregon, Idaho and Mexico, whose network of watersheds has no outlet to the ocean. Following lines and edges, through cities, suburbs, small towns and wide-open spaces, the Center guides us upstream, toward the heart of another America—the same, but different.”