Sanity in the Debate Over Food and Agriculture

I was deeply affected by reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals recently. In it, I discovered that there is a myth of the pastoral farm that is in stark contrast with the reality of the modern food production system (see the Meatrix), and that much of what we call food is entirely synthetic. Profits from food manufacture go up with the amount of processing that the manufacturer provides, leading us to a tremendously processed food supply. Reading this was a good way to get inspired to pay attention to the source of our food and start to visit the local farmers' markets.

One thing nagged at me, and Pollan only paid passing reference to it in his book. That is the question of how can you scale this up to serve the whole country, or more to the point, the whole world? It is impossible to read the book and not fall in love with Polyface Farms, but the fact of the matter is that we do not have the land or the resources to feed everybody from farms like Polyface.

I was pleased to see a little piece in the Austin American Statesman on this today called "Microgreens for the Masses". In it, the author outlines some practical recommendations for change with a very sensible realpolitik tone. If you're interested in this kind of thing, click on over. Then write your senator...

Death of the Mosquito Killers - Attack of the Killer Mosquitos?

Does anyone else feel like the mosquitos have been especially vicious this year? It's probably due to the milder winter and stagnant pools in the creeks hereabout, but it's also a possible foretaste of things to come if bat populations take a dive.

My sister sent me this article from NaturalNews.com describing a massive bat die-off along the east coast due to something scientists are calling White-Nose Syndrome. Bats are found dead on the floors of their cave with a white fungus on their nose or pneumonia in their lungs. Leading the list of suspects are the pesticides used to control mosquitos in the wake of West Nile Virus hysteria. (How many people actually died from West Nile Virus? About 120/year nationwide in the last few years. See here.)

I'm not sure what the status of Austin's beloved colony of Mexican

 Free-Tailed Bats is, but I sincerely hope that they hold strong in the face of the epidemic. This is one more reason Divine Intervention may not be necessary for the Apocalypse. 

Head on over to Bat Conservation International if you're interested in finding out more about White-Nose Syndrome or taking action to help out.

Doctoral Candidacy

I'm surfacing for a quick gasp of fresh air before I dive back into the last week of the semester. If you have happened to notice how long it's been since I posted, it's not because I don't care. Between a final project, final exam, and oh, by the way, filing for doctoral candidacy, I've had a busy couple of weeks.
Last Friday, I met with my thesis committee for the first time and presented my research plan to them. It was an hour and a half and very tiring for me, but all in all, it went well. I had been looking forward to the prospect of this being my last semester with a class, but they gave me one more to take. What they didn't do, thankfully, was to pile on a whole lot more work for me to do, and afterward, debriefing with Dr. Hall, it sounded like things went well relative to the gamut of dissertation proposal meeting outcomes. Today I filed the formal paperwork, partly on line and partly with actual (gasp) paper sent through the mail. I thought we were past that by now, oh well.
Now, if I could just knock out this final exam and final project. It's unfortunate thing that my birthday falls in the 2nd week of May since I have had final exams on many of my college-aged birthdays. This year is no exception, and for my birthday present, I get a final exam and a final project due date. What could be finer?!
Saturday, we're planning some low-brain-power activity, probably recharging in nature: maybe a hike at McKinney Roughs, and then an afternoon with my parents in Elgin. Last Saturday was Hannah's birthday, so we're going to do as we almost always do and wrap two celebrations into one. Then on Sunday there's Mother's Day, then the following week is our anniversary (11 years!). May is a busy month...

Answers to the Ultimate Question

...because the weather was beautiful: clear, sunny, cool; I had spent way too long in the cave, I mean lab, breathing diesel fumes with Thumper; and finally, in a stroke of wonderful coincidence, I passed a line of 42 cars waiting for the stop sign at Shoal Creek and 45th.

Now, what was the question???

While we're talking about why we like to be outside so much, check out this pic of our happy family enjoying the great outdoors last weekend. Hannah commented on this on her blog...