Darkness Laughable: The Comic Genius of Cormac McCarthy
As one of our greatest living writers has his work lifted into the ivory tower, let’s reflect on how it’s the light, not the darkness, that keeps us going back for more.
Melon Love: From Raphael to Tenacious D, a Brief History of Erotic Plants
As Walter Benjamin predicted would happen in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production,” the eroticization of plant life has become yet another ritualistic art victimized by a technology.
The Healthy Benefits of a Stressed Out Plant
The biological principle of xenohormesis suggests that organic farming advocates might very well be pampering their plants into nutritional laziness.
A Roadkill Revolution: Eating Animals to Liberate Them
A philosopher argues that if there are viable ways to reduce intentional harm to animals by eating them—and there are—then all vegetarians who subscribe to the “do-the-least-harm” principle should be obligated to make roadkill a part of their diet.
Running a Marathon Takes Guts, but They Better Behave
The power of dietary rituals on the streets of Boston.
Speaking of Climate Change: Is It Time to Agree on a Language of Defeat?
We should continue to fight for new building codes and oppose the construction of new oil pipelines—and more ambitious projects still—but only because they offer hope and aspiration in the midst of despair, not because they will actually help at this point.
Saturated Fads: Butter Is Back Only Because Our Biases Remain
Was a critically flawed meta-analysis claiming no link between saturated fat and heart disease so quickly lauded by foodies and food writers everywhere because they’re desperate to promote an “eating like grandma” agenda?
Why Don’t We Have a National Park to Protect Native Grasslands?
It might be the only way for our National Park Service to nurture the kind of ecological awareness required for a genuine environmental ethic.
Support Industrial Slaughterhouses
Local meat is a booming business, but the mobile slaughterhouse units used to process it are polluting our backyards with plasma-flecked wastewater, blood, and offal—dangerous byproducts that they're ill-equipped to handle properly.