Here's a pic of me that I might drop somewhere on the website, along with friends and such. I am always drawn to blogs/websites with pics of the authors because it drives me crazy not to have a face with a personality. Plus, I think it's easier to get wrapped up in a web fantasy/web portrayal of oneself if there's not accountability on the part of the reader or the creator. Of course, accountability doesn't keep George Will from starving, so I guess the argument is a moot point.


I edited a book review of this book, Protecting America's Health: The FDA, The Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation, that I'm interested in reading. It annoys me that people have to be convinced of the vitalness of the FDA (as a concept of course; I'm sure these days the FDA is more interested in preserving corporation profits and not human lives). Of course, the libertarians would tell you that if we want a service such as the FDA, we should pay for it privately (as if the poor can afford it), not in taxes (as is such with all of their beliefs and why I've not changed my voter registration to Lib as of yet). It just makes more sense for a government agency in this case to monitor product safety because, if some poor people were eating some cheap mad cow beef they got at the Super Saver (no offense to them), the more affluent would be at risk somewhere down the line, whether it's walking by a poor person and ingesting their spores or whatever, just as the aristocrats caught the plague like the common folk. I mean, you if protect only yourself, what's the point if everyone else has it? You protect everyone to protect yourself. And it's cheaper down the line, even if we are a results-oriented, quarter-by-quarter society.


Okay, I've stepped down from the soapbox. What I am reading currently is Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela's autobiography, for a friend's online book club. No comment thus far from me, as I am only about 40 pages in. I would have never normally picked up this book, but that's the value of book groups 1000-fold (my adjective of the week). That, and the gathering, albeit virtual in this case.


We watched Winged Migration this weekend. I was a little disappointed in the narration, which seemd to supply facts without context: "such and such bird travels 12000 miles from Western Europe to Greenland." My scientific mind wants to know how many miles an hour the birds fly so I can figure out how many days, etc. The scenery was beautiful, and for our next vacation I want to stay at a small Eastern European fishing village or farm. Sounds very Sheltering Sky, doesn't it?