Cracked on the Food Pyramid

Last night was the final debate, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to respond; I'll have more time and Keith Olbermann will have posted his reaction.  Instead, I'm posting the following video from Cracked: The Terrible Truth Behind The Food Pyramid.  Consider it a preview for next Monday, which is Food Day.

Pretty much everything you learned as a child is a lie.

In case you're wondering what prompted me to post this, I'm showing Food, Inc. to my students this week.  I'll have more to say about the movie on Monday.

Cracked on insects as a food of the future

Eating insects as the future of food has been a recurring theme on this blog for more than four years, so I couldn't resist sharing the following section from Crack's 5 Shocking Ways The World Is About To Change on the topic.

You'll Eat Bugs (And You'll Like It)

If you found a cockroach in your cereal, your whole year would be ruined. We have such a physical revulsion to bugs that the above headline probably sounds like a threat: "In the future, food will be so scarce that you'll scarf down a grasshopper! You know, right after cooking and eating your own diiiiick!"

But I've already told you this isn't about making you afraid of a nightmare future. I'm saying that bugs will slip seamlessly into our diets the same way high fructose corn syrup did, only this time the world will be much better for it. I'm going to prove it to you in five steps. Ready?

Follow over the jump for more from David Wong's Cracked article, along with my commentary.

Zombies, gangsters, and sideshows

I'm finally making good on one of the topics I promised last week, but copped out on when I posted World Series Music--Lorde's 'Royals' vs. They Might be Giants' 'San Francisco'--entertainment leftovers from the past month's Overnight News Digests.*

Before I serve the leftovers from campuses on the campaign trail, I present this appetizer from Cracked, which explains 4 Ways Terrible Zombie Movies Foretell the End of Society so I don't have to.

#4. Zombie Movies Explained the Horrors of Our Society ... Until They Stopped

[Z]ombie stories get me every time...[b]ecause they're a story where our monster plays like a societal problem. Zombies are an insistent and dramatically useful malevolent force you can plan against...[I]f you're facing a corrupted mob of fellow PTA members operating in ways that can be scientifically studied like a sociological phenomenon? Time to grab some guns and potable water, and find out if your personal politics are compatible with the real world.

I can't defend any non-pilot episode of The Walking Dead, but damned if their third season poster tagline doesn't sum up what makes zombie movies worthwhile. Fight the dead, fear the living, and find out what makes society work and what's killing it in the process. George A. Romero formatted the whole genre that way: an implacable zombie epidemic pushes the surviving members of society to face their racism or consumerism or municipal governing corruption, and they either survive by fixing it or die instructively.
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#3. We're All Convinced Society Is Screwed
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[W]hat's worse than our disagreements (and what's magnifying them) is that we're sure our only problem-fixing apparatus is broken. If Congress doesn't work, and capitalism is robbing us blind, maybe Western, free-ish market democracy doesn't work. But if we re-elect that democracy's leaders every chance we get, and we don't have any better social arrangements in mind, and our favorite new levers of change like Occupy-ing and the Internet and hashtivism don't accomplish anything ... well, shit. Are we really out of ideas?
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#2. If We Invented a Way to Save the World, We'd Work It Into the Next Great Zombie Movie
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Zombie fiction can work the same way. It's basically science fiction already, just instead of (or in addition to) future technology changing our lives, it has got future biocatastrophe turning us into Earth/space's rough-and-tumble badasses. And biocatastrophe is the perfect sandbox for SF-prototyping new social models.
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#1. What's Left of Zombie Movies Casts Us as the Zombies
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These days, every one of us is changing the world! As long as a sluggish horde of other people are in lockstep with us...[I]f anything, our undead mob is good at entertaining itself. And maybe it'll start to demand better entertainment from the artists making today's zombie epics.

I couldn't have said this better myself.  Thank you, Cracked, for showing how humor is good at telling the truth, especially these days, when the comedians are sometimes the only ones who dare to do so.

Follow over the jump for entertainment news from campuses on the campaign trail, including more on zombies.

Silly Sustainability Saturday: While the world burns, Farmville thrives

Time for another tour through the lighter side of sustainability this week, with sustainability news that is funny, silly (including just plain stupid), fun, or simply positive. This week's news features Next Media Animation, Cracked, Grist, and Hysterical Raisins with supporting roles played by CNBC, The Huffington Post, USA Today, Data Driven Detroit, and others and continues over the jump.