Thursday, November 26, 2009

Our Broken Food System Works Fine (but Blogging Is Tricky)

About the time you read this, I should be reaching Norwich, CT on the astonishingly convenient NY-to-Foxwoods Casino Greyhound shuttle bus.  A good cheap shuttle bus is as satisfying as teleportation, really.  Thanksgiving dinner should also be satisfying.

I worry, though, about those who will not be feeling joy this holiday — I don’t mean because they’re homeless or anything, I mean because they’re leftists and greens who’ve become so paranoid about “sustainability” and imaginary health threats from chemicals and additives that they see food as a new locus of oppression instead of something enjoyable.  The phrase “our broken food system” has become popular with the left, meant to evoke the phrase “our broken healthcare system” — but even more ridiculous in its assumption that there is a single, central mechanism behind the system in question, as if there were a Central Restaurant Ministry (and tied in to a sort of feeble, paranoid view of the world that almost makes it seem as if the left is becoming one big eating disorder).  Precisely because there isn’t a central food command system — because food production is decentralized and competitive — we enjoy today’s bounty.

Less bountiful, at least in December, will be my blog entries.  I’m going weekly just for a month, in order to free up time to work on a chapter-length version of that book idea that I’ve been contemplating for over a decade (and using as this blog’s slogan).  If I really find myself with spare time, I roll right on to the full-length book proposal — and comic book script for which, it occurs to me, I really ought to do a lot of background research on the nineteenth century.  More as the situation develops.

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