Tuesday Coffee Muses

Reading my email this morning the first thing up was the Grist Digest. Scrolling down the page I saw that Tom Philpott has a new article published. It was pretty good reading, go check it out...

Buyer Be Wary
On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food By Tom Philpott

10 May 2007

I find myself in total agreement with him on this one and I take it a step further and roll the pharmaceutical industry in with the industrial food industry. I do not think we have had enough time nor done enough research to really think we "know" what we are doing in the nutritional and the drug areas of our lives. What we are doing to our bodies with the rampant use of antibiotics and hormones in our food supply is probably what is causing a majority of our health problems. Then you have the medical experts telling you to cut fat and eat refined carbs for your heart...like they really "know" what they are talking about. Oh, and while we are at it take these pills the big pharma researchers say will increase their profits...Anyway, go check out Tom's article, he's a neighbor I haven't yet met when we visit the NC mountains in Valle Crucis.

Source: On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food | By Tom Philpott | Grist | Victual Reality | 10 May 2007

Hey, will the last Bush appointee to leave the In-Justice Department (this will probably be you, Alberto) please turn out the lights. We won't be needing them anymore since nobody will be believing anything that comes out of there for quite a while...

Time to run...later

The colors of summer...

As I wander the backroads around my neck of the woods, the rainbow of spring wildflowers has already given way to the reflected sunshine of the summer blooms. As you may have noticed in the photos of the last week, the yellow of the sun has been transplanted to every unmowed field in this part of Texas. We ave yet to see the first of the actual sunflowers of the later summer but everywhere you look you see the yellow of Black-eyed Susan, Tickseed, and Plains Coreopsis make up the majority of the blooms. There is nothing quite like rounding a curve and coming upon a large field of yellow blooms covering the ground for acres and acres...

Even the small section of field out behind our house that I let go native each summer is looking mostly yellow now. Earlier this year it was mostly reds and purples and blues. It's almost funny the way the earliest flowers bloom in colors from the ends of the spectrum while the colors of summer cluster in the middle.

It's good to see the weather dropping a cooler pattern into the Blue Ridge Mountains (at least for a few days). Watching a weather pattern develop in the upper mountains that was starting to mimic the southern coast was getting a bit scary. And while I know the folks living up there were probably enjoying the milder weather this spring, I don't think they will enjoy the summers that come with it. I remember our first rip into Valle Crucis. That summer as we arrived so did a heat spell. Watching the way the mid 80's wilted those folks left a knowing smile on this Texas native's face, thinking of the weather we had just left behind. The over 100 degree day's at home lasted for weeks that summer.