Note: There’s a great short story link at the bottom of this post; don’t miss it because of my ramblings above the fold. ~Joe C.

So, I finally watched Food, Inc. last night, the Academy Award best documentary nominee I’ve been hearing so much buzz about the past few months. I’d been putting it off because not long ago I’d read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and thought I knew most of what would be on display, mainly that government subsidies make corn cheap, so we grow a lot of cheap corn, and since there’s so much cheap corn a huge percent of the food in your supermarket is a derivative of corn including corn-fed cow, pig, and fish (yep, they’re teaching fish to eat corn now, too.) And, let’s face it, being clued in on the crap I’ve been sticking in my mouth is not the delightful subject I usually want to take in on a feel-good Friday night.

But, for some reason I decided to end the procrastination, maybe because Food, Inc. was available for the “instant play” cue on NetFlix.

Let me tell you, there is a reason you can go to Disney World and book yourself into an Animal Kingdom themed resort, or a Sports or Music themed resort, or the Wilderness Lodge themed resort, but they don’t offer a Beef Slaughterhouse themed resort. My wife updated her Facebook status during the movie: “Watching Food, Inc. and seriously doubting that I’ll ever eat meat again!” I won’t go that far, because I do love an artery-clogging diabetes-inducing Big Mac on occasion, but I will be eating more beans, tofu, and broccoli this week.

Anyway, the essense of the film is not anti-meat, but our vanished lack of respect for meat. The gist of the film is that corporate greed — and more truthfully, the American people’s misplaced thrift that leads them to buy cheaper bad food instead of more expensive good food, organically-grown food that isn’t a subsidized corn-derivative — has caused Henry Ford’s assembly line principles to be applied to the production of the animals that provide meat. Besides causing all sorts of problems, from E. coli outbreaks to a generation where 1 in 3 will develop early onset diabetes, it’s caused us to lose respect for meat. In order to grow meat in the terrible way we do, we must either lose respect for it, let our conscience drive us insane, change, or ignore reality. Ignoring reality and disrespecting meat is a lot easier than the other two options.

No Respect for Meat

So, today while contemplating our lack of respect for meat, I surfed on over to the blog of Indigobusiness, God is Not an Asshole, and his post about Terry Bisson’s short story, They’re Made Out of Meat, slapped me in the face, because among other things, this short sci-fi story is concerned with a large lack of respect for meat:

“No brain?”

“Oh, there’s a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“So … what does the thinking?”

“You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.”

“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”

This short story, published in OMNI in 1990, was later published in Bisson’s 1993 anthology Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories. It’s short, even for a short story, and best of all, Bisson has posted it in full on his website: They’re Made Out of Meat. It’s a good light-hearted weekend afternoon read, especially after something heavy like watching Food, Inc.

Just how brainwashed are you?

Watch embedded below, or click the link: WTC7 — This is an Orange.

If, after watching the video, you irrationally feel very defensive of the the government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory, you may need help…

Tip of the hat to Gerard Ryan for the video link.

Ram Bomjon from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal, may be enlightened.

While some say he is the reincarnation of the Buddha, Ram himself has clearly stated he is not (Duhhh…like, dude, Siddhartha Gautama already reached nirvana, so, like, why would he be coming back here for another round?)

A couple of years ago, in 2006 and 2007, he gained a lot of media attention for spending months in meditation — supposedly without food or water. Unfortunately for Ram, the further he moved into the jungle to be alone and meditate, the more people followed to hang out with him, until thousands of visitors were making the trek to watch him sit all day in unmoving silence.

I vaguely remember the media bubble popping with rumors that he’d been proved a fake. Then I ran across this video investigation done by a crew from the Discovery Channel…

Let me see if I have this straight: a boy goes off to be alone and meditate. Strangers throw a party on whatever spot he retreats to in search of solitude. The world puts him on a pedestal, then denounces him as a charlatan.

I’m guessing Buddha Boy, who, after the media’s feeding frenzy disappeared into the jungle for a year and then reemerged briefly in 2008, is glad the world moved on. Actually, I’ll bet he doesn’t care whether the rest of us have moved on or not…the world is what it is.

Watch the documentary embedded below, or click this link: The Boy with Divine Powers.

I’m guessing the long-term survival rate in the sport of extreme wingsuit base jumping is pretty low.

Exhibit A: Pioneering Michigan-born birdman Clem Sohn (1910 - 1937). As the old saying goes, it wasn’t the fall that killed him; hitting the ground did.

Exhibit B: French birdman Leo Valentin (1919 - 1956), whose death was also the result of wardrobe malfunction (if one considers functional primary and reserve chutes essential apparel.)

That being said, watching these modern wingsuit flyers skim the cliffs of Norway at freefall speeds exceeding 100 mph is beautifuller than bowling, more excitingful than golf, and a heckuva lot zippier than watching baseball with a beerless fridge.

Zoom zoom, indeed!

One final note: it’s well worth your while to watch this video full screen.

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Tip of the hat to stunt pilot Paul Johnson for forwarding the video.

In his TED talk, Juan Enriquez ponders the economic meltdown. He also talks about wolves who dress like sheep and talk about entitlement. And he explains how the dollar in your pocket today may be worth a trillion 2010 dollars.

But more than that, Juan Enriquez offers a glimpse of the Big Reboot that is surely coming, and, I’ve gotta tell ya…it’s amazing and a little scary at the same time. I had no idea common people were already walking around with replacement tracheas and bladders and ears grown to order from their own cells.

I feel like we’re topping the peak on the roller coaster, right before the big rush; it’s going to be a very fun and thrilling ride — as long as the car doesn’t detach from the track and we aren’t flung into space and dashed on the amusement park asphalt. But nevermind the backseat pessimist…this wave is coming, in fact it’s already here, and we can choose to enjoy surfing it and hope the sharks aren’t biting, or resist and catch a choking throatful of ocean.

One of the big questions Enriquez alludes to: if you lose an eye, and doctors can replace it with an eye that can see many times better, how long before people start gouging out the good eyes they were born with and tossing them on the trash heap?

Welcome to a new species of human, Homo evolutis. Our kids are going to be different: Juan Enriquez Shares Mindboggling New Science.

Tip of the hat to Indigobusiness for pointing Juan Enriquez out of the crowd.