Martha Payne had some sad-ass lunches at her school in Scotland — unsatisfying food that sometimes had more hair than vegetables. So the 9-year-old decided to start a blog with photos and vital statistics about her meals. Almost immediately, the blog got international attention, including from prominent school lunch busybody Jamie Oliver. Result? Martha’s dad just met with the local council, and they announced that kids could have unlimited salad, fruit, and bread. For each of her lunches, Martha rated taste, healthiness, and pieces of hair (usually zero but not always). But she only managed five ratings before the media attention started making the school self-conscious: Today was very different at lunchtime. Dad had already told me beforehand that some people from the Council were ... Continue reading →

21 May 2012: Opinion The Clean Water Act at 40: There’s Still Much Left to Do The Clean Water Act of 1972, one of the boldest environmental laws ever enacted, turns 40 this year, with an impressive record of cleaning up America's waterways. But from New York Harbor to Alaska’s Bristol Bay, key challenges remain. by paul greenbergWhen you turn 40, three questions inevitably arise: 1) Who am I? 2) What have I done? 3) What else can I do? Forty years ago, the U.S. Congress, in an uncharacteristically uncowardly move, overwhelmingly overrode President Nixon’s veto and passed the most powerful law for the protection of water in American (and perhaps world) history. Yes, this year the Clean Water Act officially enters its midlife crisis ... Continue reading →

Polls show that frustration with Washington has never been higher — and who could argue? Most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Most lawmakers openly concede that nothing will get done before the November elections. The leaders of both parties are already trading threats over the possibility of a national debt default next year.Barack Obama got elected by promising to change the tone in Washington, but clearly he’s failed, as George W. Bush did before him.That should be a clue that the partisan animosity consuming the political system doesn’t originate in the White House. Although the media will fixate on the presidential campaign, the winner won’t really matter, at least not from the standpoint of making Washington work again. The problem is ... Continue reading →

05|16|12 A few weeks ago, in “The Ethicist,” Ariel Kaminer asked readers of this paper’s Magazine to explain why it’s ethical to eat meat. The contest generated around 3,000 submissions, and as a judge I read about 30 of them. (Here are the responses from the winner and the finalists.) A fascinating discussion. But you need not have a philosophy about meat-eating to understand that we — Americans, that is — need to do less of it. In fact, only if meat were produced at no or little expense to the environment, public health or animal welfare (as, arguably, some of it is), would our decisions about whether to raise and kill animals for food come down to ethics. The purely pragmatic reasons to eat ... Continue reading →

By John Alston RICHMOND, Calif. (KGO) -- In Richmond on Tuesday night city leaders voted 5-2 to put a special tax proposal on sodas on the November ballot. They are trying to take a hard-line on soft drinks. They may become the first city in the nation to put a special tax on sodas and sugary drinks. The fight over a soda tax boiled down to two main arguments: health versus higher taxes. Leading the charge for the increase is Richmond City Councilman Jeff Ritterman, M.D. "This is the amount of sugar that your child or you eat when you drink one can of soda a day for a year," said Ritterman. "I'm a cardiologist. I spent 30 years taking care of this problem. This ... Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, in “The Ethicist,” Ariel Kaminer asked readers of this paper’s Magazine to explain why it’s ethical to eat meat. The contest generated around 3,000 submissions, and as a judge I read about 30 of them. (Here are the responses from the winner and the finalists.)A fascinating discussion. But you need not have a philosophy about meat-eating to understand that we — Americans, that is — need to do less of it. In fact, only if meat were produced at no or little expense to the environment, public health or animal welfare (as, arguably, some of it is), would our decisions about whether to raise and kill animals for food come down to ethics.The purely pragmatic reasons to eat less meat (and ... Continue reading →

On my mind these days are The Weight of the Nation, the four-part presentation by HBO and the Institutes of Medicine, in association with the CDC and the NIH; the rise of condition-specific foods which are actually just more junk but are selling hand over fist; and, perpetually, what our members and others I know have to say about their personal challenges day-to-day. The Weight of the Nation premiers next week and is already garnering a great deal of comment. The intensely good intention behind the creation of this HBO series makes it all the worse that in addition to being painfully shaming, it completely misses the mark. Obesity is a real problem: for those who are suffering from it, it can be a terrible ... Continue reading →

In Robert E. Gamer’s book “The Developing Nations” is a chapter called “Why Men Do Not Revolt.” In it Gamer notes that although the oppressed often do revolt, the object of their hostility is misplaced. They vent their fury on a political puppet, someone who masks colonial power, a despised racial or ethnic group or an apostate within their own political class. The useless battles serve as an effective mask for what Gamer calls the “patron-client” networks that are responsible for the continuity of colonial oppression. The squabbles among the oppressed, the political campaigns between candidates who each are servants of colonial power, Gamer writes, absolve the actual centers of power from addressing the conditions that cause the frustrations of the people. Inequities, political disenfranchisement ... Continue reading →

You can wince at the cruelty of adolescence, as many did, after reading the Washington Post account of how a teenage Mitt Romney led a gang of prep school buddies to attack another boy. “Senseless,” “vicious” and “stupid” were the words used by witnesses quoted by name in the piece.But to hold the 65-year-old presumptive Republican nominee for president accountable for what he may have done as a mean-spirited teenager is unfair. Because he acted like a bully then no more makes Romney a bully now than does that fact that young Barack Obama tried “maybe a little blow” make him a coke-head.Yearbook photo of Mitt Romney.More troubling is Romney’s continued inability to honestly face up to his own life story and those inconvenient truths ... Continue reading →