I also got the Murupara (no.89) issue of New Zealand Geographic. Cos it's often interesting and yet also costs $15.00.
I decided to have a (reading about) art day simply because it is a long time since I have done and the art shelves looked good. Very quickly I spotted a book on an artist whose work I have liked for squillions of my minutes on this earth: Gretchen Albrecht. So I shall have something more to think about than the aesthetic pleasure I experience when looking at her paintings once I've read the book. It's called Illuminations.
Then I found a book called Thrift to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s - 1950s. (The link is to a review from The Listener 2005 archives.) It is by Rosemary McLeod, a person who has written many nasty pieces of journalism in her time in my opinion. I have less knowledge of her more recent journalism because years ago I decided not to read her columns any more. Apparently this book has nothing to do with her loathing of the welfare system and I'm looking forward to reading it.
All this will be after I've finished The Omnivore's Dilemma. OD just gets better as I read further. I'm persuaded more powerfully than before of the merits of valuing local food over organic food. The phrase "drenched in fossil fuel" is one which will likely stay with me a while. Michael Pollan has a blog which I've found interesting.
While on the topic, the arguments about carbon zero and food miles which I observe bandied about in relation to NZ exporting food to the UK are ridiculous in my view. It doesn't matter to me if NZ food growing techniques use less fossil fuel than UK practices with the same product, sensible food chains don't involve importing food you can grow locally. End of story to me, even if the economic ramifications for NZ are unpleasant.
5 comments:
1. Thrift to Fantasy lives on my bookshelf;-)
2. I find the local food thing far less fraught than hunting out overpriced organics. Have you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle yet? She's singing from the same hymn book! I think you can apply the food miles argument to the whole bio-fuels discussion too. Why are we looking for alternatives to maintain our current car-based lifestyles instead of fundamentally changing them?
Hey im reading The Omnivore's Dilemma at the moment and just mentioned it in my blog! I got the Thrift to Fantasy book form the library last year. I love the craft pieces in it, the writing became a bit repetitive after a while I thought. She could have written less and said more. What do you think?
I have been "tagged" by a fellow blogger and now I must pass the tag on - so, TAG. Please share seven things about you with us, some random, some odd. And then pass it on.
Not yet read Animal-veg-miracle yet Sharon. The library has it on order. I agree about the car comparison. Local food ends up being so much better for supporting community-knitted-ness too. I must introduce Ray from the 'Snarler Parlour' (great pork!)sometime.
Haven't read Thrift to Fantasy yet Pherenike. No doubt I'll be online with my views soon enough though! I've decided I don't do tagging or memes (are they the same or just similar?) but thank you anyway. I've written a pile of things about me in my recent growing an activist posts though.
An article from a few years ago in Harpers magazine, The Oil We Eat, was also about the connection between fossil fuels, food and the war in Iraq:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915
One of the things that struck me about this article was the fact that most of the US state of Iowa is six feet (almost 2 meters) lower than before WWII. This is from all the topsoil erosion that comes about when you grow corn with oil. Within a century, at present rates, Iowa won't have any more topsoil.
Thrift to Fantasy. Got it out of the library. Loved the piccies. Couldn't be bothered with the writing;-)
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