04 Aug 2006
Government adding fruits and vegetables to WIC moms' shopping lists

If you ever wondered what a shopping list designed by a political committee would look like, you need seek no more! And surprise! Veggies are good for kids!

Of course, so is canned tuna in oil ...and we have to reduce the amount of milk the little buggers get to insure they get their whole grains!

I don't know whether to be amused, amazed or pissed off at the never ending machinations of USDA lobbyists.

Of course, reporters and PR flacks are right up there with lobbyists: the WIC program is stated in the article to feed more than half the babies in the US, and reach 8 million people. According to the 2000 census there are some 19 million folks under the age of 5 in the population. Even assuming that all 8 million people referenced as being served by WIC are children (and some of them are assuredly women), that still doesn't add up to "half the babies in the US".

I think the correct question the reporter should have asked is "what age children does WIC serve?" Or, "who's a baby?" According to the program page:

The WIC target population are low-income, nutritionally at risk:
  • Pregnant women (through pregnancy and up to 6 weeks after birth or after pregnancy ends).
  • Breastfeeding women (up to infant’s 1st birthday)
  • Nonbreastfeeding postpartum women (up to 6 months after the birth of an infant or after pregnancy ends)
  • Infants (up to 1st birthday). WIC serves 45 percent of all infants born in the United States.
  • Children up to their 5th birthday.

So the program itself only claims to "serve" 45% of infants. I find that number amazing, because WIC is a Federal grant program, not an entitlement, and not all those eligible actually receive anything. I strongly suspect that the 45% may be the percentage of infants that are considered eligible. But anyway you cut the mustard, 45% is not more than half of anything, and 8 million is not more than half of 19 million.

Maybe they should add "Math for Dummies" to their shopping list at the Associated Press.

Fruits, vegetables and whole grains are being added to grocery lists for low-income mothers and children under a federal program that helps feed more than half the babies in the United States.

(link) [CNN]

21:02 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Beams reveal Archimedes' hidden writings

I keep hearing about how Christianity, specifically the monks of Western Europe in the Middle Ages, "saved" civilization ... although what they saved it from is rarely explicitly stated, the implication is that it was horrible pagan depredations and heathen burnings.

Then I read tales like this one, and I have to wonder whose civilization they were saving and from whom.

AP - Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

20:33 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

Taking Care of What We've Been Given

Great interview with Wendell Berry ... I like this guy a lot, though we have points of disagreement. But on the main points of the value and importance of the agrarian life and the integration of morality into the real world, he's pretty much spot on.

For the past four decades, writer Wendell Berry has crafted a body of work within the "green" American literary tradition that includes Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gary Snyder and Edward Abbey. His poems, essays and novels extol the virtues of agrarian life, lament the depredations of the industrial economy and celebrate the integration of ethics, responsibility and humility that come from devoting careful attention to the natural world.

(link) [Counterpunch]

via Mutualist Blog

20:17 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Red Light Center Exposed

You know, I've never really understood the whole "cybersex" thing - seems too much like a game of "type dirty to me, honey", and I tend to prefer the real McCoy rather than just words. But this takes the cake:

Next up, also by female request, is a spa where you can get massages, pedicures and mud baths. "It's in a very serene, comfortable, outdoorsy setting," says Ray. "With trees and little rabbits running around."

Could somebody explain to me the point of a virtual mudbath? Or a pedicure for your digital avatar? Do their toenails grow, or what?

And they laughed at my generation for dropping acid and talking to mailboxes ... This is the same thing: it's digital, virtual LSD, where you can take a trip and never leave the farm. Complete with fluffy bunnies...

This has to be filed under Humor because I can't bring myself to take anything this ridiculous seriously.

One of the first adult 3-D environments offers both more and less than it promises. We remain cautiously hopeful. Commentary by Regina Lynn.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

13:56 /Humor | 3 comments | permanent link

Virus program incurs church wrath

With a theology featuring an omniscient God, I could see where some folks might consider Christian liturgical materials as a spyware ...

Vicars are up in arms after an anti-virus firm branded software many of them use spyware.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

13:49 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Was human skin really used in book binding?

Apparently this wasn't as uncommon as I supposed, or as the original article from Yahoo! (now unavailable, apparently) made it out to be. So I stand corrected.

The use of human skin to bind books would disgust us today, but it was fairly widely practiced up until about 200 years ago, particularly with medical books.

(link) [The Register]

13:45 /Home | 1 comment | permanent link