bcohen
Posts by this author
March 18, 2009
This post was written by guest contributor Jody Roberts.
Follow this link for his most recent contribution to The World's Fair.
The philosopher Marjorie Grene passed away on Monday, 16 March, at the age of 98. Grene's life is difficult to sum up in a few words, and I don't want to do that anyhow…
March 16, 2009
Landfills are leading consumption indicators. Their use is declining in the recession. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the Loudon County landfill (that's in Northern Virginia) has seen a decrease of 30% in the past year; nearby Prince William's County has seen a 20% decrease…
March 13, 2009
The Morning News's Fifth Annual Tournament of Books, real March madness, is a true highlight of the near-Spring calendar. I'm told there is some other tournament this month, also capitalizing on the month "March" in its title. We'll have to look into that.
This TMN tourney has thus far seen…
March 6, 2009
Pt. I | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4
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Part 4 with Christopher Henke, discussing his book Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-blogger series can be found here.
WF: What do you make of the intersection of STS and agricultural studies?
CH: STS folks…
March 5, 2009
Pt. I | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4
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Part 3 with Christopher Henke, discussing his book Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-blogger series can be found here.
WF: It's not just that you use Cooperative Extension as a case study of science, agriculture…
March 4, 2009
Wherein the author, Dave Frye, finds in his doctoral research that "it remains fairly safe to say that the modern science of cereal studies began no earlier than with the 1764 publication of Linnaeus's De Cerialibus." This, despite some early finds about "the famously lactose-intolerant…
March 4, 2009
Pt. I | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4
---
Part 2 with Christopher Henke, discussing his book Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-blogger series can be found here.
WF: Now I can get back to the interpretive framework and your own concepts when understanding…
March 3, 2009
The World's Fair is pleased to offer the following discussion about Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California (MIT Press, 2008), with its author Christopher Henke. Henke is an assistant professor of sociology at Colgate University, an STS scholar, and a…
March 2, 2009
I am an ardent critic of the unexamined claim that technology equals progress, straightforwardly, inevitably, universally. (Here are some samples: one, two, three.) So I am pleased to report new findings unearthing examples that don't fall prey to such critique:
1. Binder clips
2. Luggage with…
February 26, 2009
"The [Environmental Justice (EJ)] movement," writes Gwen Ottinger, "was galvanized in the early 1980s by the observation that toxic chemicals and other environmental hazards are concentrated in communities of color. EJ activists, many of them veterans of the civil rights movement, began to argue…
February 23, 2009
The industrialization of agriculture, egg version.
An egg factory in China. Click on image for link to original site, credited to AP Photo/Andy Wong as posted at the Globe by Alan Taylor.
The Boston Globe has an elegant photo series called The Big Picture at its website. I don't know why this isn…
February 13, 2009
I had the chance to see a talk by William Cronon last week here at U.Va. He's a professor at the University of Wisconsin and a recognized world leader in environmental history and environmental studies. His work, while helping define the field of environmental history as it became one in recent…
January 26, 2009
In The Landscape of History, John Lewis Gaddis writes about the difference between reductionist research methods and ecological ones. Gaddis is a well-known and influential Cold War historian at Yale. This accessible and undergrad-suitable book is a brief foray into historiography and the practice…
January 23, 2009
This is a follow-up to a post a few weeks back about the One Laptop Per Child program. I had offered that post by way of summary to a class exercise about technology in cultural context. In part, it was an exercise about discussing the place of technology in global development efforts; at the same…
January 9, 2009
Example #2,724: Ronald Bailey, "The Food Miles Mistake," in Reason Magazine. As readers of this site know, we've weighed in numerous times of the Food Miles issue. Among the great many cases of public environmental debate that require a move beyond superficial parlor talk, the agriculture-energy…
January 8, 2009
The genre of "environmental documentary" or "environmental film" is large enough now that it can suitably hold sub-sets. Here is a start to a filmography of agro-environmental documentaries and films. Since it is by no means exhaustive, I welcome all additions. I should say too that although many…
January 7, 2009
New research shows links between marshmallow melting and pediatric nutrition.
Perhaps.
Yes, in homage to the Gladwellian oeuvre and generic New Yorker-ese please find "I Dream in Malcolm Gladwell" at The Morning News. We do encourage you to check it out.
January 6, 2009
They are cultural, philosophical, and political.
Not even John Lennon can overcome the flaws, given their deep cultural basis.
Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, introduced the idea for the $100 laptop in 2005. The laptop would be geared towards children in…
January 6, 2009
Two outstanding and influential thinkers and writers, Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, contributed an op-ed to the Times yesterday. More or less, here's the gist:
[W]e...need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses…
January 6, 2009
This poem was sent along by W.J. Galusky, occasional guest contributor to the site. One nice thing is that it's worth reading, as below, but also worth listening to someone reading it, as at this site.
The poem is by Sarah Lindsay. It is from her book, Primate Behavior (1997).
Cheese Penguin
The…
December 29, 2008
For the new year, in the winter's gray, here are three pictures of summer color past.
Happy new year.
December 22, 2008
Each year The World's Fair bestows its top honor at the end of December, or early January. This honor has come to be renowned not just in the blogosphere (see this write-up from Time), not just on the internet (see this write-up by Susan Sontag), not just embedded within the broad swath we call…
December 17, 2008
Although I'm starting to suspect the Talk of the Town will not be noting our stunning performance, and Publisher's Weekly made not give us a starred review, I will still admit that Dave and I gave the best performance --the best performance? -- the best performance of our lives at the Cornelia St.…
December 16, 2008
Alright, Nicky's telling me some people had trouble accessing the Washington Post graphic I linked to in yesterday's MTR post. So here it is, reprinted below in full. This shows how a mountain--called "overburden" if you want to mow it down; called nature if you have any sense of decency--goes…
December 15, 2008
I can't believe Dave didn't cross post this. Someone once gave him a hard time for linking to and across the SCQ and here, but, come on, Dave, this should've made the journey. From The Filter, here is a rundown of Science on the Simpsons, which, true, could be next year's TV on the Radio if given…
December 15, 2008
My question is about the moral equivalence of the scientist.
I'm currently reading Steven Shapin's The Scientific Life which is, briefly put, a kind of biography of the modern scientist. (Here's the subtitle: "A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation.") Shapin is a professor of history at…
December 15, 2008
The Bush Administration put Mountain Top Removal (MTR) on its list of "midnight rules" - a parting shot at the end of this administration in favor of an environmentally destructive industry, a final gut punch undermining of ecosystems in Appalachia. The Times wrote about this a few weeks ago and…
December 4, 2008
It is no grand observation to see that food studies, food politics, food culture (and even food landscapes, it would appear) feed a growing body of literature in the academy and at your local big box bookstore. (Who will be the first to call me out on that pun?) Here are some of them, the ones…
December 1, 2008
Here's something tasty. Or odd. You decide.
Fruit Balloons, by C. Warner
From the Telegraph (as found through Arts and Letters Daily), comes a unique series by London-based photographer Carl Warner. It says there he "makes foodscapes: landscapes made of food." The images below are borrowed…
November 26, 2008
Now, having returned from the Jack Handey bit, go laugh at Steve Martin circa 1977. One of my long-held favorites, reprinted below in full.
Sex Crazed Love GoddessesBy Steve MartinFrom Cruel Shoes (1977)
Little Billy Jackson had to go to the store for his mother to pick up some postage stamps.…