Biking, reading and researching has taken up time I used to devote to blogging, but there are a few tidbit musings I thought I’d throw out to regular readings.
First of all, my friend Shelly managed to get her mother, the guru of the “IHHEBY” philosophy to make a more in-depth appearance on her podcast. There, Shelly’s mom reveals she used to hang out with supermodels! So was hanging out with supermodels what made her cool, or was she so cool the supermodels wanted her to hang out with them? Even the normally unflappable Shelly seems cowed in the presence of such awesomeness. I’m still too lame to figure out how to make my site a podcast mirror, so all I can give you is the link to listen to the show yourself.
I’m still trying to get the Cornell Waste Management Institute to tell me who said “The US produces 50% of the world’s garbage,” a “fact” they include on their curriculum for educating elementary school children. I’m on their 5th try to give me a legitimate source, and this time it’s supposedly William Rathje, an archelogist (who excavated US landfills) as quoted in a 1986 New York State pamphlet on nutrition. Who uses a nutrition pamphlet as the basis for an enviromental science course? Meanwhile, I found some real international waste numbers at the Organization for Economic Growth and Development. They only have municipal waste data for the 30 countries that work with them, which don’t include Russia, China, or Brazil. It appears the US creates about a third of the aggregate garbage of the OECD countries, but it’s also by far the largest, and that’s still less than 50%. Something’s rotten in Ithica, if you ask my opinion. Neil made me promise not to send him to Cornell when it comes time for him to go to college, and if this is what science looks like in the Ivy Leagues these days, I concur.
The problem with biking a lot, as I have been doing lately, is that it makes me perpetually hungry. I think the cost of the calories I have to consume to fuel myself is probably more expensive than gasoline on a per mile basis. I suppose it doesn’t matter, because the exercise and extra food is good for my body; burning gasoline doesn’t do anyone any good, but it does get you places quickly and efficiently.