"My Empire of Dirt"

Today I finished one of my Christmas books, from Amanda's parents, "My Empire of Dirt" by Manny Howard. If you recall, it was this past summer when I blogged about seeing his book review on the Colbert Report. While, of course, some of you don't think it advisable to take book recommendations from the great Colbert, this one in particular interested me for a few reasons.

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1) Manny Howard tried to raise his own food in Brooklyn, New York. As a person involved in agriculture, I wanted to see what his experiences turned out like; his interview indicated that they were diverse, expensive and challenging.

2) Manny talked in his interview about how underpaid farmers truly are. While I'm sure there is a journalist's exaggeration stored up in there as well, he had a point that I wish more people understood. Farmers are subsidized so that the public doesn't have to pay as much for their food as they should have to, and people today just don't realize how much that is. People go on and on about subsidies and how they are protecting farmers, but the truth is that these same subsidies protect the people as much or more than they protect the farmers. And in this current market, food prices will go up; be prepared for it.

3) In his interview, he exhibited a unique sense of humor that I imagined would be equally entertaining in his book.

So let me tell you about my thoughts on this book after reading it...

Manny Howard is as easily distracted in his book as he is on camera. The very definition of ADD, this book is not good for someone who has trouble keeping track of weaving plot lines or conversational asides. If I could do one thing for this book, I would at least keep it strictly chronological in the real-life recounting of his activities on the farm. His division by topics is good but I like to see the whole-picture of timing as well and sometimes that falls by the wayside. His book is also laced with a bit of foul language, but frankly that doesn't bother me because in today's cultural context, it just goes to accurately show the extremity of emotional experiences he and his counterparts went through during his farming experiment.

Slight criticisms aside, I loved this book. It is fun to read a book and almost watch a man go through the same harsh learning experiences and realities that many inexperienced urbanites (myself included at one time) go through during an introduction to agrarian lifestyle. His opinion on locavorism is also refreshing and realistic. Not only that but he does a really good job of jumping right into the necessary mentality and struggling through his labor, approaching even the repulsive tasks of slaughter and manure management as requirements for a true agricultural experience. The fact that all of this happens in Brooklyn makes the story that much more hilarious and I enjoyed his inclusions of funny asides related to this as well. This book was a great and easy read.

Continuing stories

As Colbert's interview with the Medal of Honor awardee was just loaded online, I thought I would put it here on my blog. The soldier's interview is really impressive to me. He is right, we works with heroes every day. Unfortunately they weren't fond of embedding today on "Colbert Nation".

Speaking of the great Colbert, the episode I linked to is worth the watch, the whole way through. And did you realize he used to be the guy on the GM Goodwrench advertisements? I had no idea...

Christine O'Donnell

This woman has gathered a lot of attention in the candidates races, everything from Wolf Blitzer on CNN to Stephen Colbert on his report, mostly for this ad. For example (and entertainment), check out this SNL parody. And for the record, I can see where people found those accusations worth digging up.

However, it was what she said in the Youtube video that I saw today which shocked me the most. I absolutely agreed with her standing on allowing schools to teach whatever theory of the origins of life that they want, holding that a religious belief being represented in school is not the same as being forced down a kid's throat. Maybe a little more explanation of multiple theories would lead children to be better informed and equipped for the questions that they will encounter in the future. In my opinion this is not a violation of separation of church and state, but O'Donnell hadn't thought that far. She apparently didn't even know that there was an amendment about separation of church and state. Either that or she got too caught up in the debate. (Watch this video for the first half, you can ditch it after that).

Ron Paul...

... has a tendency to make himself sound like a moron sometimes, but I still appreciate his point of view. I have no intention of letting this place become a country that always is coming up with new ways to tell me about how I should live my life. Seriously, raw milk? If people want to buy that, then why can't we just make sure they are warned about what they will be taking in? If you want rules, then go back over the ocean where we came from before.

Fast Weekend

The weekend, which consisted of a MSU victory with Dantonio in the hospital, and a crushing Buckeye victory over the failed EMU Hurons, passed way too quickly for me to look back and now that I'm late for my first class and waiting for my Meat Lab Group meeting at 11 I'm realizing just how fast the weekend flew back. It was really great to see Katherine starting to settle into her classes at OSU and I wish her good luck and it was also great to catch up with Liz and Chris this weekend.

This leads me to a video which I highly encourage you to watch. We saw it yesterday morning as Stephen Colbert made Sunday Headline News. He apparently also really ticked off some people at Fox, but you can find that footage on his website. Watch the video, even through the questions and notice the skillful way in which he does something witty without script and also still makes his somber point.



I'm headed off for now to update my other blog and get cracking on my Stats homework. Since I missed class this morning, I'm aiming to get my stats homework for the week out of the way so that I can better focus on attacking multitudes of Biochem questions and trying to get a good grade in that class.

Tazing

Previously Colbert talked about a science experiment where meth-sheep were tazed. Crazy, right? But he continues this week with even more ridiculous tazing "news", including an 86 year old who is now filing a lawsuit against El Reno for being tazed? I can't even believe it. I guess they had some new technology that needed broken in?

Back in the "office"

So after the state fair is over, I'm finally back in the office today and already searching the internet for the weekly entertainment. Check this stuff out from Tosh.0. For those of you who don't watch this show, I wouldn't expect it all to be the most PG or PC stuff you've ever seen. That's kinda the point of comedy, at least it is for me. I like to see comedians that make fun of everyone, and if I can laugh at other people, I guess it's fair for them to laugh when it's my turn... Trust me, everyone gets their turn. If you don't believe me you should ask Amanda about me hitting my head on the shower rod this morning - getting into the shower, or me going out to water the flowers this morning and finding out that it rained on my shoes. Or if you want a really good laugh, you can catch up with me in 2 weeks and ask me how this bike race idea went. Speaking of bike races, thank you to all of my sponsors for their generous support - I am fully sponsored and ready to race.

Anyhow, these clips are to lighten up your day like they did for me.

In this next one, I truly struggle to find something comparable that we've ever done at home.

Here's a great shot showing exactly why you don't jump off the swings at the top. I imagine her head hurt like the day I tried to surfboard a slip and slide.

I think somewhere there's a basic rule that your stomach can only hold so much. Apparently this guy far exceeded it...

And....

And this is actually unbelievable to me. Props to the dude for learning something in the lessons he apparently took.

And then there's Colbert. Stephen Colbert never ceases to amuse me with his witty script, timely "news" and frankly, between him and BBC, I feel like I get all the news I need now. There's a lot of different stories going around about this flight attendant, and while I fail to see how he's such a hero for quitting his job, Colbert's better documented version of the story does help me see how frustrated the attendant was. Honestly, I don't blame the guy. People on planes are so ridiculously selfish and animalistic, self-serving and always in a hurry to get to their next gate just to wait 2 hours for the connection. I just don't get it...

PS. Comedy Central apparently doesn't write HTfML any better than I do, so hopefully the links work better than the embedding didn't.

Colbert's BP update

I just want to congratulate Colbert on another great show. I am so angry about this whole BP thing, and he captures both my sarcasm and anger about the issue. And if it's true that Bing supported environmental recovery by brand name mentioning, thanks to you as well.

Colbert strikes again

Most days I watch Colbert report and he's funny. Well, that's good, right, since it's his job? But then there are days when he is just fantastic. Today I watched the first week of May online, and the May 10th episode is one of his best in a while.

No offense intended to any of my European or specifically Greek friends who by chance might be reading this, but please appreciate the humor compiled into this episode. I enjoyed it a lot.