We humans seem to have a penchant for either/or thinking. Maybe this is because so many things seem delineated as opposites: night and day, young and old, hot and cold, black and white. But between the poles lie dawn and dusk, middle age, tepid temperatures, and many shades of gray. Still, in our media, in [...]
Holidays are important. They give us time to commemorate a meaningful event and help us ponder what that day signifies to us. This past week was St. Patrick’s Day. It is an important holiday for my family. My father grew up in the town of Ardoyne in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Ardoyne is infamous for the [...]
Q: I see a lot of healthy snacks being marketed for kids that list natural flavors but don’t identify them. Should I use these products? Beloved food writer Michael Pollan recommends steering clear of foods that advertise their green attributes on their label. According to his line of reasoning, why give a child a fruit [...]
Ahh, California. 82 degrees and sunny. I forgot how lovely it was to be warm in the winter! I am still away so there will be some more guest posts next week, hope you guys are enjoying them as much as I am. On to the Reads… So much water gets wasted in the shower [...]
In October 1994, I decided to stop eating meat. Back then, I was concerned with only one aspect of my choice: what it meant for animals. I made my decision while sitting in my college dorm lounge. The TV news was on and it showed some footage of pigs who had been shipped overseas for [...]
Way back when I was a bright eyed hopeful biologist, I got a common greenhorn biologist job, The Construction Monitor. This entailed me standing behind a bulldozer the size of a house all dressed up in my orange safety vest and hard hat with a snake stick and a bucket. At first I was so [...]
