The Heart and Mind

I previously discussed the Edge books: smart, brief discussions about a variety of topics. In particular, What Are You Optimistic About? is interesting in how it allows the thought leaders of today to explain why the future is actually getting better. In a time like ours, which I see as fairly pessimistic, this is a great read. The inspiration for today's link is how this book is a collection of brief essays: each entry is no more than a couple of pages long, and many are significantly shorter. It's a buffet for your brain: a little Jared Diamond, some Judith Rich Harris, a dash of Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Brian Greene, and many others...

The movie Paris, Je T'Aime is a group of vignettes, each with a very small cast, and each by a different director. Most are interesting and touching, and they all take place, of course, in Paris. There are 18 vignettes, each in a different arrondissment, and each with a distinct feel. There's Olivier Assayas, Alfonso Cuarón, the Coen brothers, Tom Tykwer, and Gus van Sant. There's Juliette Binoche (of course!), Nick Nolte, Natalie Portman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood and Steve Buscemi. It was really fun to watch the incredible cast and phenomenal group of directors have a go at conveying the feel of Paris.

How is Fast Food Nation like Collapse?

Collapse is a book about how societies destroy the environments that make their own survival possible. Fast Food Nation is about the travesties perpetrated by the fast food and meat industries. How in the world are the two alike?

In one section of Collapse, Jared Diamond describes two oil fields. One is everything that everyone loves to hate about the oil industry. The other is operated by Chevron and is what everyone wishes the oil industry could be like: respectful of the environment, minimizes ecological interference, etc. At least in part, it was in anticipation of public perception and legal regulations regarding environmental sustainability that Chevron operates this particular oil field in this way: they know that they're going to have to one day (probably sooner rather than later) and so they set up the oil field from the start to comply with laws that are likely to be passed at some point in the future.

I made the association to Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation for this reason: just as there are easily foreseeable regulations in the oil industry, so too is there public sentiment favoring more humane treatment of animals. So the indictment of the food industry is perhaps a wake-up call for that industry to voluntarily become more humane before regulations are enacted that force them to do so.