e-Quips

If you're open-minded about hearing people out on why eating dairy and beef may not be the best thing in the world for you, personally (no ranting about methane in this one), this piece from Christopher Platt over at HuffPo is a good place to start. P.S. I drank two glasses of milk yesterday with my dinner and felt horrible afterwards - and it was organic milk! Maybe now I know why (5th paragraph of Platt's report).

This one by Howard Zinn is a timely rant against nationalism. I take his points, and yet, there are a few things I have to disagree with him regarding. I don't think we need to put away our national symbols - I think we need to strive to make them mean what we all would like for them to mean. I think all world citizens would do well to stop treating our respective nations as a "Fatherland" or "Motherland," and start treating them as the Children. Certainly our country is a mere child on the international stage. Children need to be corrected and taught and raised up to be responsible. We, the people, are the parents of this nation. We have let that dynamic remain turned on its head for too long, probably because of an emphasis on "national defense" that is both patronizing and artificial (is it the sons and daughters of "the nation" or of a citizenry who defend us with their personal sacrifice and military service?). There is nothing wrong with nationalism, per se, in my opinion. It simply hasn't been viewed appropriately. As Zinn points out, when "nationalism" makes a country a bad global citizen, it is not a positive.

And finally, one more from HuffPo that presents me with a good opportunity to give y'all an early heads up. From Tim Ferris we get a summary of a new book by Drew Curtis entitled It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News. Catchy title, huh? Anyway, one can conclude that the news is much like a soap opera - let it lie for a couple of weeks and you will find you can pick up where you left off. So ... on Sunday I leave for a big family vacation ("big" modifies "family" in this case, and not "vacation") and am, as I am looking at it now, disinclined to take a laptop with me. I'll let you know if I change my mind, but you could buy Curtis' book (or read the Bible - see yesterday's post) or just spend your time reading the V&V Favorites until I return. I'll be here tomorrow, though, so come back!