Halloween morning roundup

Good morning, all! I'm going to keep this short--will leave for work as soon as it's light enough to bike--but I wanted to throw more things out there to discuss later.

Can a trade agreement create the conditions for a more sustainable food system?

The road to peak garbage.

Do watch Jon Stewart's takedown of CNN (I'm opting to link to a story about it rather than embed the videos, at this point).

Alexandra Petri's issue here--how funny that someone who's complaining about the misuse of words is... misusing words--is not these words, per se, but their misuse. With the exception of "mansplaining," which she handled with wit: the word is bad, but the thing is worse.

I agree with the Hax rule but I would say that the argument can certainly be made for excluding certain types of people from one's life, or at least limiting their influence, and active addicts are the poster case for that.

Whatever; the seeds of cooking pumpkins are better, but those of carving pumpkins are still fine. Don't trust anyone who ruins pepitas by adding butter.

Alright, let's move on to that which I don't have time to discuss right now: the humanities. This is not the first time I've posted about it, or its conceptual counterpart--scientism--but I somehow missed the series of columns in the New Republic. It is with mixed feelings that I tell you that Steven Pinker's is the best written (Leon Wieseltier does himself no favors with his rambling, nor with his needless defensiveness).

I have yet to read Christina Paxson's (Brown's President), and, well, you know how I feel about Adam Gopnik, though he makes a few good points. Excerpts from each (or maybe not quite) later; for now, I have to run. 

Later, if I still care enough, I will bitch to you (again) about the people who think it's a good idea to bring small children to the ballet.