Thursday morning roundup

Lots to talk about in this article on foodie yoga, mostly the concepts of judgment and purism. My yoga teachers have always taught me that yoga is non-competitive; however, one did ban meat (and mushrooms and garlic, like one of the yogis in the article). The idea of eating during yoga grosses me out, but nothing wrong with feasting afterward, if you ask me. This is a really interesting excerpt:

And in yoga and foodie circles alike, contemplating the awesome significance of every bite taken — its flavors, its implications, its history — often seems to lead to moral judgments about others.

I mean, it doesn't have to be that way. There are, indeed, judgmental foodies, and I started to cross that line with RM only after he would constantly draw attention to the contrast in our eating habits. There's a difference between arguing that people should eat more mindfully and sustainably, and judging them.

On that topic, check out Kathleen Parker's column on hunting that I posted earlier this week (was it Sunday?) Here's a different piece on hunting, whose last paragraph elicited in me a non-judgmental 'gag me.'

While we're on the topic of meat... call me a cynic, but if the meat industry is happy with the Adminstration's food safety nomination, I'm skeptical and hoping to for a pleasant surprise, because there's no time to lose.

If you didn't watch the Daily Show clip I linked to on Tuesday, or yesterday's Colbert Report, read up on the Bauer incident here.

I've been using Rosetta Stone recently--I have free web access through work--and I've been discussing it with a couple of friends, one of whom is taking a language class and one of whom is also learned in the way of linguistics. I find RS extremely annoying, but I have to admit that it kind of works. For now. It's a good start--I've also used RS for a language in which I had more of a basis, and it was clearly an experience in diminishing returns. And still annoying. I should check out the BBC language aps.

Gail Collins cracks me up.