h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And sorry, Rev Nick - that was just too many posts to go through to find out the criterias for being a cultist - maybe you could give us a synopsis?

Apparently one just had to be a member of Greenpeace or other activist environmental organizations to be a cultist. I assume (not having talked to that researcher), that any environmental organization who "worships" the earth to such an extent they cause a hubbub in the news is a cult.

The last time I checked, raising a ruckus and creating a scene has worked wonders for most advocacy groups. Imagine what the civil rights movement in America might have been if Dr. Martin Luther King did not go on that march from Selma to Montgomery. Or Rosa Parks didn't get out of her seat on the bus.

Maybe I'm reading his posts all wrong, but the theme of "environmentalists as cult members" is a common slander heard in pro-logging, pro-mining and anti-global warming political circles here in Montana. It's another way of saying these folks are crazy and shouldn't be taken seriously.

And, taking a cue from their discussion, I'm all for anything that disrupts the Japanese whaling fleet. It's an outrage, claiming "scientific research" is the reason Japan must slaughter whales. The country should be stopped, immediately.

Hear, hear!

[hyp] with a sinus infection

Matina, an Irish Coffee for Hyp please!

Thanks, Ti. And thanks, Matina. Got a cinnamon bun to go with that?

*Matina brings Hypatia an irish coffee and dispatches Number Eleven to run the desk in the library*

[Bagpuss - should be filling in an application form]

[mags - should be writing up her course work]

*returns from following links, and space-surfing to find out more about an intelligent but opinionated researcher she encountered in one of the threads*

That ~is~ interesting about Turkey trying to effect an Islamic Reformation. But it will certainly rub the Wahabists the wrong way.

[LTP]




Neither intelligent or opinionated but a researcher
(^an exception to the rule)

I worked for Greenpeace one summer, but I was only hired to solicit donations from unsuspecting passers-by who just wanted to go to the public library. They didn't teach me the secret handshake, the morning prayer ritual, or the special recipe for Mother Earth's sacramental wine.

I think you can turn anything into a cult... I'm now reading 'In Defense of Food' by Michael Pollan, the sequel to the 'Omnivore's Dilemna.' Right now I'm in the bit that talks about nutritionism as an ideology, and how it's warped our consumption of real food into a consumption of nutritive substances. Nutritionism is to blame for every single 'craze' we've had since the 1970's... oat bran, potato skins, beta-carotene, Omega-3 fatty acids, flavonoids, anti-oxidants... all that is to quantify what makes a food 'good' as opposed to 'bad.' Meanwhile the Western diet is to blame for our rising rates of obesity, heart problems, diabetes, and cancer.

I'm enjoying it so far! And I'm relieved to see it backs up my disdain of margarine.

I tried reading a book by Pollan a few years back, didn't get into it. I may try again. I'm trying to avoid craze diets while losing weight. Since January 1st, as of this morning on the scale, I've lost 21 pounds. I like to think Pollan would approve of my methods: I eat less, exercise more, and try to cook whole meals instead of eating fast food garbage. The only nutritional element I'm keeping track of right now is calories, but that's just so that I can tell the difference between eating "less" and "more."

Florida has a massive power outage. Apparently some 4 million people are without power!

"In Defense of Food" (paired with "Omnivore's Dilemma") really changed the way I think about food and eating, Lentilla. Ironically, my mom got me a gift subscription to Cooking Light for Christmas. Everything in there is "Nutritionist X says to eat...", "Brand Y has Omega-3 Calcium-enriched flavanols...", or "Nutritionist Z says to cook...". Pollan really opened my eyes with the message to Americans, "just eat food, not processed industrial food products or anything that makes a health claim or is promoted by a nutritionist". Now I can't take this magazine seriously at all. I feel bad, because I think my mom wasted her money.

>>just eat food

I'm all for that!

Yep, I'm on a seafood diet, too - when I see food, I eat it And also, actually, it isn't quite true - we're much more on the "true food" in satisfying but moderate amounts in the household. The main vice is probably a little too much and such...

That news of rewriting Islamic interpretation in Turkey is really quite interesting. I might even cross my fingers for that project. The reasoning given makes so much sense.

As to whaling - yes, commercial whaling for supermarket foods should be banned. Being a Dane - and both Greenland and the Faroe Islands being part of Denmark and them having historical and traditional whaling - I am not sure whether a total ban is really right. The population of these two places and the traditional ways probably quite safely ensures no threat to the balance of the whale population.

Maybe I'm biased because I work with Native Americans, and there are tribes in Alaska that still do some whaling, but it seems to me that there is a big difference between commercial whaling and industrial/commercial whaling.