Reader's Digest

It's getting to be that time of year--you know, black friday, evening creeps up faster, stores desperately adding garlands with red bows above the thanksgiving display. And, yup, i'm starting to get a bit uppity about the things i receive without just deserve. Another way of thinking about this, and probably the more stylish way that a proper blog post, seo optimized, would have begun, is that this is a recommended reading list--- and some of it is even relevant to this blog! let's start there, then devolve.

World Changing: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.

A user's guide for the 21st century? Well, I plan to use that century, i better have this guide. and that's the best reason i can think of to beg loved ones for this book/recommend it. But I also have this additional reason, which follows.

This quote exemplifies one way in which political economics is emerging in the public mind. Local production is slowly taking hold (right beside the slow eating phenomenon that's sweeping the nation, but still). Take it or leave it, by your own system of logical justice--- but when you do, (hopefully) you'll take into consideration both the potential costs of production and transport, as well as a valuation of the convenience of access to foreign and out-of-season products. Maybe you'll also think of the human actors, the job created for those harvesting for foreign consumers willing to pay a higher price. Or, the local family farmers who can't compete with the allure of bananas in January at Safeway. That, kids, is political economics (so don't ask me again).

Oh yeah, here's that quote I've been referencing, from the new book by World Changing, called 'World Changing' (hmm):

In the middle of Denver, in the middle of December, you can walk into most any supermarket and buy a ripe mango. This has been true long enough that almost nobody stops to think of the remarkable distance that mango traveled or of the tree it fell from, which is probably enjoying a balmy tropical day on the other side of the planet. Proponents of eating local food balk at the ubiquitous midwinter mango. Why? Because they think about the baggage that mango flew in with.

McSweeney's.

Which one? Yes. But in paricular, the All-Comics-Super-Special-Especially Issue. Would you really want anyone to miss something especially super-special? What kind of human are you?

Beautiful People With Beautiful Feelings.

I don't think I should need to explain why I want this book. It's fairly self-evident. But then, if you need explanation, you just don't get it.