God has been in the news a lot lately. According to endless war enthusiasts in Congress, the current administration, the various lobbyists, and the profitable weapons industry, God is cool with killing lots of people in his name. Schoolchildren, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens. If you have a major platform and beg to differ, you … Read more
The way the human body is constructed, pairs of body parts are obvious. If you start at the top, we have two of most everything down to our two feet. The relationship between the pairs is also well documented. If you break a leg, the other one does double duty but both legs will need … Read more
Turning the calendar back to the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates emerged as a leader in medical research and thought. Rather than turning to the gods as before, he is generally credited with using observation of the body as a basis for medical knowledge. He turned his attention to changes in diet, beneficial drugs, and strategies … Read more
If you asked me several years ago for my opinion on abortion, I would have said something equivocal like: “A safe abortion is the last option a pregnant woman should take.” I was mainly concerned for rape victims, sexually abused girls, or a life-threatening condition for either the fetus or the mother. Starting in the … Read more
The “murder hornet,” the world’s biggest species of wasp, has an MO that reminds me of a particular human species. The murder hornet feeds on other insects and kills off the worker bees until the workforce is severely depleted. Sounds like the MO of the U.S. health insurance industry. Here is a recent photo and … Read more
When I was a kid, each summer, in our neighborhood, the ‘”bug truck” would slowly spray clouds of DDT to “protect” us from mosquitoes. It used to be that whenever you hit the road one travel ritual was to clean the bugs off your windshield. There’s even a name for this concern: the windshield phenomenon. We … Read more
Since 1850, according to regeneration.org, “industrial agriculture has created a legacy of water pollution, animal abuse, degraded land, and unhealthy food. It has been responsible for over a third of all carbon dioxide emissions generated by humans. Fortunately, regenerative agriculture is gaining in public awareness and financial support. Here are five examples of what might be called … Read more
If you think the price we pay for groceries these day is high, the price Americans pay in health and wellbeing is even higher. Despite more attention than ever on how unhealthy our food supply is, Europe is miles ahead of us. For example: People with wheat allergies find the bread products in Europe safe … Read more
Not that long ago, “animal husbandry” was the name of a branch of agriculture concerned with the day-to-day care of animals raised for meat, fiber, milk, and other products. Husbandry has a long history, starting with the Neolithic Revolution when animals were first domesticated, from around 13,000 BC onwards. Now the very same branch is called … Read more
I’ve wanted to write about my website’s Food & Farming Domain for some time, but where to begin? It’s such a complicated and vast topic. Now, however, I’ve found a way in by identifying some of the current issues and in the next post highlighting possible answers. Industrialization began just 80 years ago, after World … Read more