A couple of weeks ago, Jon directed my attention toward a blog-post on Liberadio's (Vanderbilt University's left-wing radio show) website about how everybody's favorite eco-documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, had a couple of sizeable holes in its message. The hole about which I found myself feeling a little incredulous, despite my rather gung-ho and monastic views about eco-agriculture and gastronomic consumption, is the one about how animal agriculture is causing about 18% of our current global climate change problems. The study to which Freddie O'Connell (one of the Liberadio commentators) refers in this post is put out by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Ostensibly, I imagine the UNFAO is a pretty well-funded and relatively objective organization... but 18%? That's, like, a lot, right?
So, I emailed my mom. She's my go-to food guru. She's been a food writer, in some capacity or other, for most of my life and I know that she's probably even more passionate about eating well and eating responsibly than I am. Plus, well, she's like the angel on my right shoulder. Truly, it's difficult having such a damn virtuous mother (especially when one is as deviant and diabolical as I am), but the when I need a reliable source, she's about as immaculate as they come. Mom confirmed that, yes, she's been reading some similar studies that confirmed that all you meat-eaters out there are exacerbating global warming with your food choices as well as your Hummers. Yes. I really do think all meat-eaters drive Hummers. Demons. All of you. But anyway, Mom sent me this link. And indeed, it's another article supporting the notion that cowpies are taking over the world.
And then today, I was slogging through my daily rollcall of blogs and I stumbled upon this article on The Plank, the blog written by contributors to The New Republic. And just when I was resigning myself to the moral turpitude of meat-eaters everywhere, it seems there's hope! If you choose *organic*, grass-fed beef, emissions are significantly reduced! I mean, I'm not sure why anyone would want to eat non-organic meat in the first place... All those antibiotics are busy raising your own body's immunity to antibiotics and that's not real good. And all those growth hormones are busy giving you zits, making girls start puperty earlier, making boys start puberty later, reducing sperm counts, causing several assorted reproductive-organ cancers in humans, making your boobs hurt, making you fat... really, rBGHs are the work of the devil.
I know, people. I know you're gonna tell me that organic beef is too expensive. But wise up! Would you rather leave a liveable, intact planet for your inevitable offspring and enjoy a functioning body well into your golden years, or would you rather save a couple pennies now? Instant gratification ain't all it's cracked up to be, folks-- and I say that as something of a hedonist, albeit one who likes to thwart her own hedonism for the purposes of self-righteousness (and masochism?).
I do so miss being instantly gratified now and again... *sigh*
Showing posts with label An Inconvenient Truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label An Inconvenient Truth. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2007
Friday, January 5, 2007
I want to, I really do
My orginal thoughts about this blog came from an idea that Jon and I had. We went to go see a lot of weird movies in empty movies theatres--basically the stuff that only pretentious art-movie dorks were really interested in. And we'd fight about them. A lot. Knock-down, drag-out arguments that served neither of us. So, we figured, if we started a blog in which we had to reason out our opinions on these films without the face-to-face contentious interactions, well, we'd be much happier in our friendship. And so, I started this blog so that I could spew forth my fair share of the dialogue about the movies that I loved, hated, attempted to engage with, laughed at, cried through... whatever.
And then I got this corporate job.
Today, I left my house shortly before 8 A.M. I worked my ass off, skipping lunch, until 8 P.M. This is the third day of a 4-day week in which I've done that. I had a deadline today that I missed and so, I have to go in to work tomorrow-- a Saturday. I have a deadline every day next week, so, if I decide to not complete my current task-at-hand before Monday, my deadlines are going to pile up behind me in such a way that I may never come up for air again. I feel like the domino at the very front of the line... and everyone else's full body weight is just poised to land on my sad little caved-in ass.
And so, my dear readers (all 4 of you): I want very much to continue writing about movies... hell, even SEEING a movie now and again is proving challenging, given my schedule... but I'm just not sure I can put forth the engagement that the films deserve. I miss this writing, though. I miss the outlet. At some point when I was in grad school, writing poetry became distinctly un-fun. But the urge to write, the desire to put order to thoughts and language to order, didn't go away... and so, I wanted this to be the informal outlet that all that other poetic posturing could never have been. But now, there are just so few hours in the day... and so few days in the week. And I am One Tired Chica.
OK, OK, venting over.
Here are three movies that I wish I could talk more about:
The King
I think this went straight to video and that's a shame. It's got William Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal, the kid from Y Tu Mama, Tambien and it's a really smart little piece. I think this is a movie about how even the most fervent of religious conversions can never absolve people of their sins--at least not in this karmic go-round! And I didn't know that that was what was going on in this movie until the very last line was uttered. It's sexy and hopeless--not an uninteresting combination of descriptors, eh?
Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesue
This movie is too short to truly flesh out its subject matter. Which is really its only flaw. It's a little documentary about what's beautiful about the ugliest parts of being a Southerner. Though I'm one citified little twerp these days, the majority of my childhood was spent in the Tennessee backwoods... and, though I was born in Chicago and my parents are sure-as-hell Yankees, and I'll never be a REAL Southerner, the soul of my childhood is in this murky, grisly, delicate little documentary. When I was in Tucson for Christmas, somehow a conversation arose about how people identify with whatever they consider to be their hometowns-- and I mentioned how, whenever I leave the South, I always feel like I've gotta answer for being a white girl from Tennessee. And a friend of my brother's said, "Well, you weren't born there? Why do you think you should apologize for it?" And I said something about how it's bigger part of me than Chicago could ever be... and what I meant was, if I didn't feel like I had to answer for being a Southerner, if I didn't feel like that place had infiltrated my soul--bored its black, blistered, vine-y way into me--well, what would be left of me? What would I have to rasp against? And Jim White, our guide through this little squint-eyed, side-winding film, is a transplant himself. But he shows us the dirt and grime, the brimstone, and the gristle of the landscape that hits home in ways I can't quite put words to. And, noteably, it's shot in the winter--- the nastiest time of year for that part of the country-- 40 degrees, rainy, trees all barren and metallic-looking... and the mud... and yet every damn shot of the landscape is gorgeous. White says he could never see the beauty of the South until he left it and truly, this movie shows all the ugly at its prettiest.
An Inconvenient Truth
Oh, how I resisted this movie. I refused to see it in the theatre, due to the fact that I wasn't so keen on making a public spectacle of myself. And I would have. I did, in fact, make a private spectacle of myself. But, oh, man, this is another required-viewing sort of film-- to accompany Who Killed the Electric Car and Sorry, Haters and Paradise Now. No conscientious American should miss it and that's no exaggeration. However, it's going to be in the low 70s here in DC tomorrow. Tomorrow is January 6th. God knows I love warm weather--I've mourned for the Tucson desert ever since I left it 2 1/2 years ago. But a day in the 70s? In Washington, DC? In January? It's not right... and, because of this movie, the daily weather reports fill me with a new sort of anxiety. Today, after my hellish day of work, the only positive thing I can say about my job is that, hopefully, soon, I may be able to afford to trade it my peice-of-shit, sub-par emissions-standards-bearing, American-made Ford for a Japanese hybrid. It's really the very very least I can do.
And then I got this corporate job.
Today, I left my house shortly before 8 A.M. I worked my ass off, skipping lunch, until 8 P.M. This is the third day of a 4-day week in which I've done that. I had a deadline today that I missed and so, I have to go in to work tomorrow-- a Saturday. I have a deadline every day next week, so, if I decide to not complete my current task-at-hand before Monday, my deadlines are going to pile up behind me in such a way that I may never come up for air again. I feel like the domino at the very front of the line... and everyone else's full body weight is just poised to land on my sad little caved-in ass.
And so, my dear readers (all 4 of you): I want very much to continue writing about movies... hell, even SEEING a movie now and again is proving challenging, given my schedule... but I'm just not sure I can put forth the engagement that the films deserve. I miss this writing, though. I miss the outlet. At some point when I was in grad school, writing poetry became distinctly un-fun. But the urge to write, the desire to put order to thoughts and language to order, didn't go away... and so, I wanted this to be the informal outlet that all that other poetic posturing could never have been. But now, there are just so few hours in the day... and so few days in the week. And I am One Tired Chica.
OK, OK, venting over.
Here are three movies that I wish I could talk more about:
The King
I think this went straight to video and that's a shame. It's got William Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal, the kid from Y Tu Mama, Tambien and it's a really smart little piece. I think this is a movie about how even the most fervent of religious conversions can never absolve people of their sins--at least not in this karmic go-round! And I didn't know that that was what was going on in this movie until the very last line was uttered. It's sexy and hopeless--not an uninteresting combination of descriptors, eh?
Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesue
This movie is too short to truly flesh out its subject matter. Which is really its only flaw. It's a little documentary about what's beautiful about the ugliest parts of being a Southerner. Though I'm one citified little twerp these days, the majority of my childhood was spent in the Tennessee backwoods... and, though I was born in Chicago and my parents are sure-as-hell Yankees, and I'll never be a REAL Southerner, the soul of my childhood is in this murky, grisly, delicate little documentary. When I was in Tucson for Christmas, somehow a conversation arose about how people identify with whatever they consider to be their hometowns-- and I mentioned how, whenever I leave the South, I always feel like I've gotta answer for being a white girl from Tennessee. And a friend of my brother's said, "Well, you weren't born there? Why do you think you should apologize for it?" And I said something about how it's bigger part of me than Chicago could ever be... and what I meant was, if I didn't feel like I had to answer for being a Southerner, if I didn't feel like that place had infiltrated my soul--bored its black, blistered, vine-y way into me--well, what would be left of me? What would I have to rasp against? And Jim White, our guide through this little squint-eyed, side-winding film, is a transplant himself. But he shows us the dirt and grime, the brimstone, and the gristle of the landscape that hits home in ways I can't quite put words to. And, noteably, it's shot in the winter--- the nastiest time of year for that part of the country-- 40 degrees, rainy, trees all barren and metallic-looking... and the mud... and yet every damn shot of the landscape is gorgeous. White says he could never see the beauty of the South until he left it and truly, this movie shows all the ugly at its prettiest.
An Inconvenient Truth
Oh, how I resisted this movie. I refused to see it in the theatre, due to the fact that I wasn't so keen on making a public spectacle of myself. And I would have. I did, in fact, make a private spectacle of myself. But, oh, man, this is another required-viewing sort of film-- to accompany Who Killed the Electric Car and Sorry, Haters and Paradise Now. No conscientious American should miss it and that's no exaggeration. However, it's going to be in the low 70s here in DC tomorrow. Tomorrow is January 6th. God knows I love warm weather--I've mourned for the Tucson desert ever since I left it 2 1/2 years ago. But a day in the 70s? In Washington, DC? In January? It's not right... and, because of this movie, the daily weather reports fill me with a new sort of anxiety. Today, after my hellish day of work, the only positive thing I can say about my job is that, hopefully, soon, I may be able to afford to trade it my peice-of-shit, sub-par emissions-standards-bearing, American-made Ford for a Japanese hybrid. It's really the very very least I can do.
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