Food for thought, environment, and money.

A trip to the grocery store is costing more and more these days. There's a variety of reasons for why this is happening, but I've found myself changing my diet just a little bit to try to do my part for the earth and save a little dough.

I did a little research and found some neat resources. The first couple are from a blog and e-newsletter from NutritionalData.com. Although I try to go meatless a few times a week, I find it tough to stay away from dairy products.

• One of the biggest ways to lower the energy cost of your diet is to reduce the amount of animal products you consume. It takes about ten times as much energy to produce a calorie of animal protein as it does to produce a calorie of vegetable protein. This has led some eco-conscious eaters to adopt a completely vegetarian diet. But even one or two meatless days a week can also have a substantial effect—on both your health and the health of the planet.
• Five Ways to Make Your Diet Healthier (for the Planet) - recommends people to eat local, eat seasonal, eat fewer packaged and preprocessed foods, support small farms and choose organic products.
• Find some local farms and farm markets at LocalHarvest.

I also found quite a few other issues revolving around food, including rising global food prices, biofuels and genetic modification of food. This is the darker side of the food discussion.

• The Economist had a great article discussing biofuels, demand and supply, and rich-world subsidies. The article said that the rise in food prices is "...the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies." The article continues:
  

  "This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year...The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks." [emphasis added]

• Another article in the Times (UK) rattles off a bunch of food one can expect to see keep rising, including chicken, beef, wine, milk, bread and rice. The only food that shows hope, not surprisingly, are vegetables.

Genetic Modification (GM) of food is also a pretty hot topic. Folks in the United States are still a little unsure about what to think of GM foods, but Europeans are much more skeptical of them. Here are some facts I gathered from the "Genetically Modified Food" chapter of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What's Really Safe and What's Really Dangerous in the World:

• In the US, GM foods are not required to be labeled as such.
• Advocates cite the advantages of GM: its precision, the possibilities for increasing agricultural productivity, producing health-enhancing drugs, reducing the need for pesticides and herbicides
• Chapter said,
  

  "Critics cite the dangers of creating new organisms by inserting foreign genes from one species into a completely different one. They say that while these new transgenic species may be benign in the lab, introducing them into natural ecosystems is dangerous because we can't predict how these new genes and traits will interact with other organisms. They fear that unpredictable outcomes could be bad not only for the environment, but also for human health." [underline added]

• Article said that there's really no hard evidence to support the claim that GM foods produce major health risks, but a viewing of The Corporation might make you think twice when going to the grocery store. It also might make you lose hope in humanity.

At the end of the chapter, these resources were provided for more information about genetic engineering in foods:

• Food and Drug Administration
  CFSAN Outreach and Information Center
  Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
  http://www.blogger.com/www.cfsan.fda.gov/_lrd/biotechm.html
  200 C Street SW (HFS-555)
  Washington, DC 20204
  (888) SAFEFOOD or (888) 723-3366


• Biotech Info - A website cosponsored by several consumer and environmental
  organizations, including Consumers Union and the Science and Environmental Health Network.
• Industry Council for Biotechnology Information
  www.whybiotech.com/en/default.asp
• World Health Organization UN Food and Agriculture Organization
  
  "Safety Aspects of Genetically Modified Foods of Plant Origin," June 2000
  
  "Evaluation of Allergenicity of Genetically Modified Foods," January 2001
  
  "Safety Assessment of Foods Derived from Genetically Modified Microorganisms," September 2001
  www.who.int/fsf/GMfood
• Institute of Food Technologists
  www.ift.org/govtrelations/biotech
  

May 12 United States postage increase.

On May 12, 2008 the United States Postal Service will implement a rate increase. The new rates and impacts are outlined below. For more information please visit www.usps.com/prices.

FIRST-CLASS MAIL®

• One-ounce letter - $0.42
• One-ounce flat - $0.83
• One-ounce parcel - $1.17
• Each additional ounce - $0.17
• Postcard - $0.27

OTHER RATES

• Standard Mail® - 3-Digit Automation - $0.241
• Priority Mail® - Flat Rate Envelope (Retail) - $4.80
• Certified Mail(tm) - $2.70

Pricing highlights:

• No change in the First-Class Mail single-piece additional-ounce price.
• Lower additional-ounce price for presorted First-Class Mail letters.
• Lower pound price for Standard Mail saturation and high-density flats.
• Shape-based pricing for First-Class Mail International letters, flats, andparcels.
• First-Class Mail International price groups expand from five to ninegroups.

Free Technology Program - May 8, 2008

On May 8, 2008, Southfield Public Library will be holding a FREE technology program. This is the first of a new series called "Tech Trends: Gizmos Gadgets and Widgets". This program offers patrons a simple introduction to technology that can be utilized in everyday life. There are 4 sections: Computers, Communication, Internet and Entertainment. Each section will cover a specific topic. The evening's topics include Mac v. PC, cellular phones, news readers and podcasting. Handouts with instructions and additional resources will be provided and a Question and Answer session will follow the presentation. All ages are welcome and no prior computer experience is necessary.

Check out this and many other programs at Southfield Public Library's Home Page.

Writing

I've been on quite the Ray Bradbury kick lately. Today I picked up Dandelion Wine. Last night I read a short story of his. Each time I read his words, my mind thinks, "This man is a wordsmith like no other." He can weave such amazing stories, long and short, on topics that are mundane to fantastic. I must admit I covet his lush imagination and his ability to manifest stories as diverse as wildlife in a rain forest.

In honor of him, I thought I'd look up a couple of his quotations. What I found made me realize that I have not been true to myself. I have not been writing as much as I should (which by all accounts is every single day.) Here are some of the quotes that pulled me back to reality and made me reevaluate myself as a writer. In fact, some of these quotes evoked shame. It is terrible that I've neglected my craft so long.

"You fail only if you stop writing."

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."

"Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for."

"I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it."

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury. I will write what I love. I will write something to live for.

On Memory and Attention Spans

Nostalgia alert: I remember reading an article called the Incredible Shrinking Sound Bite in one of my undergraduate courses years ago. I reread it the other day and this made me think of Americans' shrinking attention span (and this was written in 1990!):

An analysis of all weekday evening network newscasts (over 280) from Labor Day to Election Day in 1968 and 1988 reveals that the average "sound bite" fell from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to only 9.8 seconds in 1988. Meanwhile the time the networks devoted to visuals of the candidates, accompanied by their words, increased by more than 300 percent.

I think in a way the internet both helps and hinders in a situation like this. Helps because people can cruise over to YouTube or iTunes and get newscasts, speeches, transcripts, etc. We can essentially pay as much or as little attention to candidates as we want. In the same breath, I think that the internet is also crushing our already feeble attention span. We are overloaded and I'm not sure how much information we're really retaining.

I wondered what impact these tiny spurts of attention will have on a more collective human memory. Because we pay attention to much more content in much shorter intervals, does that create huge gaps in our memories? Or does this information overload provide a workable outline in our thinking? How do we fill in an outline of very vague happenings or mere news headlines with actual substanance? Do the shorter but more diverse clips and sound bites paint a complete picture of reality? Is that picture accurate?

I found some interesting facts on short attention spans from a May 2000 USA Today Magazine article entitled "TELEVISION NEWS: INFORMATION OR INFOTAINMENT? by Michael Medved:

• Article calls the remote control the"most destructive invention of the 20th century." It went on to say a "CHANNELS magazine notes that the average adult male...changes stations every 19 minutes.
• In the 1950s, a typical camera shot lasted 35-50 seconds; in the 1990s, it was five seconds.
• Commercials are even more frenetic, often switching images after just one second.
• Americans watch TV 28 hours a week, which is more time than they spend on pursuing their careers or reading (for themselves or to their children).

Further, with these facts in mind, how is a person's memory effected when they are desensitized? When people are beat over the head with violent images or corrupt politicians or the critical state of the environment, do they try to FORGET these problems or understand them more?

For example, people are aware that terrorists are crazy, but are they trying to understand why these people are that way? People know that the earth's climate is changing, but do they know the direct impact of, say, rising sea levels on their part of the world, or others? People know that we can't rely just on energy from oil forever, but do they know that if we use ethanol than world food prices will increase, as has been the case?

Basically, what I'm asking is what the heck DO we remember? Is it more? Less? Or more info with less detail (more awareness, less understanding???) How does the shortness of our attention effect what we remember 10-20-30 years down the line? I think this would be an interesting study to do. I've made a note to myself. If you're looking for a thesis, though, feel free to go for it. I look forward to you doing all the painstaking research and me just reading about it later on.

One final thing, the two articles I cited here are 17 and 7 years old. I wonder how absurdly short our attention spans are now.

Midwest Earthquakes?

We here in Michigan generally are safe from all sorts of disasters that plague the rest of the nation. We don't get landslides, hurricanes, Britney Spears, forest fires, earthquakes...errrrr...wait - I guess we do get earthquakes. Well, tremors in any case.

Check out this Free Press article at 5.2 earthquake rocks Illinois.

The Dalai Lama will make his long-awaited return to U-M this weekend, delivering the annual Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability at Crisler Arena on Sunday afternoon. Free tickets for the 2 p.m. lecture vanished in less than three hours when they were handed out last month. If you're not among the lucky ticketholders, you can view live streaming video of the lecture:

The event is this Sunday, April 20. Event starts at 2pm. Here's the link for the live streaming:
http://www.adminder.com/c.cgi?AAUM&lama418

Japanese Pay Less for More Health Care

I was looking through the NPR application on my BlackBerry and read this article. It's short, interesting and puts into perspective the issues revolving around low cost health care. At first it seems great: the entire society is healthy and covered. However, hospitals are in deficit and doctor's are getting paid terrible wages.

You can READ MORE or you can LISTEN.

Recession and Wine

I thought http://www.mainstreet.com/ was a neat website. I particularly enjoyed the articles about getting through these tough economic times:

• How to Ride Out a Recessionary Economy
• Living Better on Less
• Keep Your Consumer Debt Under Control
• The Top Ten Wines Under $10

Doom and Gloom - just in time for Tax Day!

I was spring cleaning my electronic discussion lists today. What a mess. After I made some sense of my filters, digests and random listserv messages, I began enjoying a steady stream of info again.

And I found this Associated Press article about how the Internal Revenue Service had a very insecure stream of information going through its routers and data switches. Give some unauthorized people administrator's rights and then create some unauthorized accounts and you have yourself one compromised tax system.

There's a lot of good (and scary) information in this short article. Well worth the read. Taxes are the reason for the season.

Report Finds IRS Computer Security Flaws

Exactly how much housework does a husband create?

Finally, I have some research to back my claim, ha!

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Having a husband creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women, according to a University of Michigan study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families.

For men, the picture is very different: A wife saves men from about an hour of housework a week.

The findings are part of a detailed study of housework trends, based on 2005 time-diary data from the federally-funded Panel Study of Income Dynamics, conducted since 1968 at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).

Read MORE.

Economy explained in about 40 minutes

This April 3rd Fresh Air episode is an interview with Michael Greenberger. He does an excellent job explaining what is happening to the United States as it wades through this economic mess. Highly recommended.

read more | digg story

Detroit High Schools: Bottom of the Heap

Yesterday someone told me that they felt sorry for me. As a resident of Detroit back when I was 14 years old, I had two options: go to Detroit Public Schools or opt for the "school-of-choice" program, where I could go to a suburban school participating in the program. My family and I quickly chose the latter. Even though we didn't have solid evidence Detroit high schools were bad, we had a pretty strong gut feeling.

My friend and I went to the same high school and he thought that high school was so terrible, that he felt bad that I chose it over Detroit schools. Yesterday, I didn't have solid evidence to tell my friend that he underestimated how bad Detroit schools were, but I knew. Another pretty strong gut feeling helped me to the same conclusion.

Today I got my solid evidence. Detroit high schools were discussed at the Bloggers' Roundtable on NPR's News and Notes. I listened to the entire show (News and Notes 4/7/08), but the segment on the D's flailing school system was particular interesting.

The Detroit News had an ARTICLE about the study. You will find everyone in the article denying the facts, which is so sad, yet so very predictable.