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Grist magazine ran a great six-part series about school lunches in January, based on spending a week in a Washington D.C. school. Unfortunately, they've got no navigation to move from one installment to the next, so here, instead, is a link to its appearance on the author's blog. (It occurs to me that there are two kinds of people: Those who hear the phrase "school lunches" and have no reaction; and those, like me, whose interest is immediately piqued.)
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These accusations made against Sen. Charlie Rangel are pretty serious, and the evidence pretty damning so far. I don't know why he hadn't already stepped down from his chairmanship.
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"Keep American Safe," run by Liz Cheney, is accusing Department of Justice attorneys of being sleeper agents for Al Qaeda, because some of them may have once worked for groups who advocated that Guantanamo detainees have any the legal rights that they're entitled to. She and Sen. Chuck Grassley want them purged from the DoJ. This is exactly—*exactly*—like McCarthyism.
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A pro-athiesm student group at University of Texas at San Antonio is giving out porn to anybody who turns in a Bible or Koran. They call it a "Smut for Smut" exchange. Re-re-reading Genesis, I think they might be onto something—it's filthy!
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Sen. Lindsay Graham points out that there's simply no debate about climate change among folks of my generation, and that "when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people." Yup. Gay rights and climate change are two key issues where Republicans are look like troglodytes to younger demographics.
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I’ve just purchased the R. Crumb illustrated Book of Genesis (apparently he tried to adapt it as accurately as possible.) Really looking forward to cracking that one open, when it gets to the top of my reading stack
That’s actually what I’m reading, James. It’s amazing what a difference that the per-verse illustrations make. I can follow characters much more easily when I can see them. He also illustrates the various gods, a reminder that early Judiasm was polythestic. But the most jarring thing is the huge plot holes that become extra-evident when you’ve got illustrations. Like when God creates Adam and Eve…and then he creates them again. That’s weird enough when read, but when read with illustrations, it gives the reader a “WTF?” moment. There’s a lot of that in here.
The school lunches story was distressing and not a bit surprising, but it does illustrate clearly how the drive for efficiency and low labor costs in school lunchrooms leads directly to crappy, barely-nutritive food. It also made me think about how so many “jobs” these days really aren’t helping the employees develop any real skills. The school cafeteria cook isn’t a cook–he or she is a defroster, at best, someone who dumps pre-cooked frozen food products into a vat and then pushes a button. All the skill has been stripped out of the job. Why are Americans so obsessed with efficiency and low labor costs to the exclusion of high quality and meaningful interaction with one’s work? Here, eat this cardboard, it was really easy and cheap to produce! Here, do this job exactly the way a mindless robot would do it! ah, now that’s the American way!