Thursday, February 19, 2004
Wrong with the world?
Grash went to her local last night to watch England vs. Portugal. Apparently her local is also that of Jimi Mistry of EAST IS EAST. G is of course too cool to go up to him and ask him for his autograph: "that's how we are, we A-listers. We don't ask each other for autographs." I told her that, since I'm only a B-lister, I want her autograph. She graciously agreed, but do I have an autograph yet? I do not. What is wrong with the world?
I can't decide if A Week of Eating Dangerously, in which Neil Steinberg documents his consumption of beef, McDonald's, veal, Haitian rum and aerosol cheese, is something wrong with the world or the opposite. Personally, I reject his premise that vegetarians try "to mask a sneering disregard for humanity with a concern for animals so extreme it would look exaggerated in a silent movie", while very much enjoying the way he expresses it.
I don't eat meat because I don't want to eat dead animals. Humanity, though deeply flawed, is a group of which I'm proud to be a member. He's right that organic food is a luxury, though I wonder if it really needs to be, and that utter indifference to the welfare of animals that are going to become food might not be a consistent response for anyone who has pets. In any case, it's a fun read.
Less fun but still interesting (and also from Reason) is Off Your Feed, Cathy Young's critique of Dr. Laura's latest book along and Young's theory of why the whole idea of submissive wives seems to be regaining popularity (definitely something wrong with the world, in my books). I really liked this sentence, on Schlessinger: "There's also her irksome propensity to present grossly simplistic caricatures of the sexes as eternal verities."
One thing that is not wrong with the world: the LSE medical centre's osteopath Tim, who just straightened a bunch of my vertebrae and loosened up the muscles in my middle back. We talked about Vancouver and surfing and curry and the rugby trip he took in the early 90s to Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa.
