Climate Culture
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Egger’s Head: School lunches
Robert Egger has a lot going on in his head. Just ask him. As a nonprofit entrepreneur, a serial searcher for ordinary people doing extraordinary things, a deeply deep thoughts kind of guy, Egger gives us something to ponder every week. In this installment, he scratches his noggin over the school lunch crisis, which has […]
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Ask Umbra’s Book Club: The three L’s — laziness, learning, and lawlessness
Dearest readers, I’ve so enjoyed reading all of your comments thus far about Dolly Freed’s Possum Living. The 9-to-5 grind, raising and slaughtering your own meat—stimulating threads. You know, I couldn’t help but notice how often Freed talks about the basis for her and her father’s lifestyle choice being that they are lazy. Tending a […]
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Imaginary, underwater subway lines are always the most convenient route
Transit Authority FiguresFor publicly transitive folks like myself, why does it seem that the fastest way between two points is an imaginary subway line? And a watery one, to boot! If I were an East Coaster, I’d definitely submerse myself in these non-existent, though wish-listily handy transit routes, even if their actual construction would be […]
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Making my neighborhood more walkable, sociable, sustainable, and safe
This weekend, I wrote a somewhat abstract post about how America’s built spaces prevent many Americans from connecting with the supportive social networks essential to health and happiness. Let’s zoom from the lofty down to the concrete. Let’s talk about my neighborhood. I live in the Bitter Lake area of Seattle. (In the early 20th […]
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Why even the childless should care about school lunch
PB&J as metaphor: a subsidized lunch served in an Illinois school. Photo: Mrs. Q Regular readers will have noticed a certain emphasis on school lunch in the Grist food section lately. Veteran journalist Ed Bruske has been doing superb on-the-ground reporting on the topic; I’ve been obsessing about the anonymous teacher blogger Mrs. Q, and […]
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Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Is eating animals eating you?
Dearest readers, Great thread yesterday on the varying viewpoints surrounding issues of independence, financial culpability, the 9-to-5 rat race, and being possessed by our possessions—all inspired by Dolly Freed’s Possum Living circa 1978. For today’s starting point, I thought we’d delve into the blood and guts—literally—as in raising, killing, cleaning, and eating your own meat […]
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Earth Day on Every Block
Co-authored with Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr, Hip Hop Caucus On April 22, 1970, the world recognized the first Earth Day. That same year, Hip Hop was born in the streets of New York City. For four decades, Earth Day and Hip Hop have been seen by many as rebellious; two voices speaking out against injustice, […]
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Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Does your job own you?
Dearest readers, How did you like our first book club selection, Dolly Freed’s Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With (Almost) No Money? I thoroughly enjoyed it—aside from some mild retching at the thought of removing a turtle’s gallbladder (a necessary step for a proper snapper soup)—and came away feeling amused, […]
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A movement far larger than the Tea Party
As an antidote to news of the oil spill on the Great Barrier Reef, here’s Paul Hawken giving last May’s commencement address at Portland University. From the entrepreneur, author, and ideas guy: There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode […]
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Pasta con sarde: the gateway drug for sardine obsession
Sardines at a market in Portugal. We’re wasting this magnificent resource on low-quality, mercury-laden farmed salmon? Not in Tom’s Kitchen! In Tom’s Kitchen, Grist’s food editor discusses some of the quick-and-easy things he gets up to in, well, his kitchen. Forgive him for the lame iPhone photography. —— A while ago, my colleague Jon Hiskes […]
