M. (hristine

Oh hell yes.

I used gang rape because of this story which was reported on NPR a couple weeks ago.

The specific choice of group behavior had no connotation other than it's been on my mind since the story aired. To put it in the context of my (consistent) argument; In gang rape, SEX is not the problem.

I listened to that story this week. Sinead was brave, so many years ago.

 

 

As a confirmed atheist with a major hatred of organized religion (not the ideas behind it but the way people act upon it when in a group of like-minded followers) I've pretty much given up trying to talk to people who are religious because they will never accept fact, only hearsay, when it comes to religious beliefs.

 

 

I would again point out that group psychology follows certain behaviors, regardless whether the group is gang raping a 15 year old girl or going to church on Sunday. Psych 101.

Not sure what you're confused about. You equated going to church with rape, I took offense. Your post seemed to imply that church goers are all victims (for lack of a better word) of groupthink. I would contend that all of us are subject to that. By comparing church goers with rapists, I assumed that you were putting atheists on a higher plane of thought.

 

Uh no. I did not equate going to church with rape. My point was that behavior of a group is bound by certain laws. That as a member of ANY identified group, one is prone to conform with the norms of that group, regardless how an outside observer might judge such behavior. Working to objectively investigate and dismantle certain GROUPS might be a good thing.

My problem with people saying they have 'hatred' of organized religion is that RELIGION is not the problem. To hate with a broad stroke is prejudicial ignorance. It is from that very mind set which so much human strife arises. I think I have pretty clear about that throughout this debate. Had you read any of my other posts, or even thought about the post you took offense at, you might have understood that.

While your point on group dynamics may be valid, to equate going to church (or any place of worship) with rape is grossly offensive. I guess atheists are too enlightened to be subject to the rules of group psychology.

Huh?

(not the ideas behind it but the way people act upon it when in a group of like-minded followers)

I would again point out that group psychology follows certain behaviors, regardless whether the group is gang raping a 15 year old girl or going to church on Sunday. Psych 101.

I have a couple options in my house.

First, I use an audio distribution amp from Radio Shack for parties, or when I want music in all the rooms of my house. I am wired to amplified speakers. For one room sound I plug my iPod into the individual speakers.

As to the speakers, I have several different kinds. I have the Sony $99 amplified, Bose $99 amplified, Logitec with bass box for about $129. My favs by far are the two pair of Bose Lifestyle powered speakers I bought several years ago. They are no longer made by Bose. I look for them periodically on Craigslist. The sound is stellar.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else uses. My dad worked at RCA while I was growing up, and we always had the latest audio/video gadgetry in our house. It fostered a lifetime of interest in me.

Wireless tech is an area I have yet to delve into.

The glass has been crushed!

Huh.

Can't say I have ever seen a novel elicit such ambivalence.

Sending much love to you and your families, Chris.

Mazel tov!

Well?

I have been having an ongoing conversation with some people whose opinions I trust, about whether I should read this book/see the film. The jury is still out. I'm afraid of being 'haunted for weeks' and having 'nightmares' from the most 'bleak, grim novel ever written'.

Anyone see this yet? Am I too much of a wimp to deal with it?

Does anyone know when the next video will be posted?

Today.

My musical taste doesn't have a genre. Top played on iTunes in no order:

Kate Bush

Patsy Kline

Cathy Jordan ~ Dervish

Antje Duvekot

Astrud Giberto

Gillian Welch

Chrissie Hynde

Iris Dement

Patti Smith

Neko Case

Lhasa de Sela

Rickie Lee Jones

Karen Carpenter

Emmy Lou Harris

Peggy Lee

Aimee Mann

Sorry Poonie. You had to know it would come to that.

That's a goddam lie!

It's just a couple of green whiskers is all.

Garbage Land wasn't too shabby either.

Oh yes, excellent book.

Seems last winter was the season for learning where it comes from and where it all ends up.

starting?

I can quote and link with the best of 'em!

Exactly.

There are world wide implications as well.

One last quote from Pollan to pique your curiousity, o gentle readers:

This perverse state of affairs is not, as you might think, the inevitable result of the free market. Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?

From an article in the NYT.

I'm starting to remind myself of Good Old Neon.

Yeah, this was an eye opening book:

From the Farm Policy blog :

"After additional analysis, the opinion piece stated that, “The most zealous of the spend-more crowd, however, are the food intellectuals who salivated, as it were, at a steep rise in the cost of groceries earlier this year, including such basics as milk and eggs. Some people might worry about the effect on recession-hit families of a 17% increase in the price of milk, but not Alice Waters, the food-activist owner of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse restaurant, who shudders at the thought of sampling so much as a strawberry that hasn’t been nourished by organic compost and picked that morning at a nearby farm — and thinks everyone else in America should shudder too. ‘Make a sacrifice on the cellphone or the third pair of Nike shoes,’ Waters airily informed the New York Times in April.

“Echoing Waters was her fellow Berkeley food guru, Michael Pollan, professor of science journalism (a hot field for social critics, obviously) at UC Berkeley. Pollan (no relation to Robert Pollin) is the author of the best-selling ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’ and coiner of the mantra ‘Eat food, not too much, mostly plants’ that is on the lips of every foodie from Bainbridge Island to Martha’s Vineyard. Pollan too rejoiced at the idea of skyrocketing prices for groceries, hoping they might ‘level the playing field for sustainable food that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels.’”

The piece added that, “Pollan also hoped that rising prices might constitute another weapon in his ongoing war against his agribusiness villain of choice: corn. Corn is a plant, of course, and thus should theoretically rank high on Pollan’s list of permissible edibles. But it is also the basis of such dubious items as snack chips, Coca-Cola (high-fructose corn syrup, godfather of obesity) and suspiciously plentiful beef (corn-fed).

“Pollan is a ‘locavore,’ one of those people who believe that in order to be truly ethical, you should eat only foods grown or killed within your line of sight (for me, that would be my neighbor’s cat). He once described a meal he made consisting of a wild boar shot by him in the hills near his Bay Area home and laboriously turned into pate, plus bread leavened by yeast spores foraged from his backyard.

“Lately, Pollan has set his sights on Häagen-Dazs ice cream, not because it contains corn syrup (it doesn’t) but because it’s a commercially made product, and if there’s one thing Pollan hates, it’s commerce. His latest pronunciamento: ‘Don’t buy any food you’ve ever seen advertised.’”

Corn farmers, heavily subsidized by the government, really don't want folks lobbying for farm policy reform.

One can also volunteer to work at some CSAs, so not only are you a consumer but also become intimate with how food arrives on your plate. It's an odd part of our culture to be so removed from all of that.

Ignorance makes us vulnerable.

I know a girl with a sailor's grin...

Spare production by Don Was. Pieta's luminous voice and acoustic guitar are the main instruments. Clear blue green spring of Bo Ramsey on electric slide and Don Was on bass.

I get thirsty for, and drink, a Dr. Pepper a couple times a year.

I don't want anyone to feel guilt. The change in food production has been insidious but not irreversible.

I know I'm a zealot, but I just want folks like the op to feel empowered rather than bereft, even if it's baby steps.

And for everyone to read Omnivore's Dilemma.

When I was a young mother in the 70s, my husband, daughter and I lived on a multi generational organic farm. We raised our vegetables, chicken (eggs), beef and goats. We fished and wild foraged. Bought raw milk from our neighbor and made our own butter. My life was irrevocably altered from the experience.

I have never lost that intimate relationship with where my food comes from.

In the years since I read Michael Pollan's book Omnivore's Dilemma, the section on William Salatin and Polyface Farm has lingered in my memory. I was grateful for this film so that I could see the beauty of Salatin's vision. I thank the Goddess for men like him.

And for young men and women like Dan and Brooke in my city, urban farmers in whose souls an uncommon fire burns.

Seek to spend some of your grocery money on food that is produced from small farms, close to your home. It is the most brazen, willful, and powerful a political act you can do.

Monsanto can kindly go fuck themselves.