Efficacy

I am watching Food, Inc. right now.

Lets just say that I am feeling fairly validated in my recent choice to eschew meat from my diet.  However, this movie is also making it clear that it is pretty much impossible to avoid the inherent evils of the food industry as its corruption extends so much farther than the meat industry.  Before watching this movie I did not even realize how many different ways corn is used — seems like it is in just about anything.  Not that corn is bad for you, but the corn industry is being monopolized and has become evil by being run in an efficacious manner.

I am not going to set out to explain this movie to you because a) I am trying to pay attention to it while I write this and b) you should just watch it yourself.  Geez.  I am going to point out an underlying theme, and that is the title of this post.

Based on the notion of efficacy, I’m not even sure the original understanding of farming exists anymore.  That is probably too extreme, but I think it would be fair to say that the traditional farming methods have been marginalized.  I mean, even seeds are being patented these days.  Corporations are now able to investigate and prosecute farmers for “saving seeds” that have been patented.  Saving seeds is a process of cleaning unused seeds from a harvest season so that they can be used in the next season.  There are genetically modified seeds, meaning that seeds have become a sort of private property.  If a farmer’s crop even gets contaminated by a neighboring genetically modified seed crop, the person with the contaminated crop can be prosecuted for patent infringement.  This sounds ridiculous to me, and yet this is what is going on in our world.

The farmers in this movie bring up a good question:  “How is a farmer supposed to go up in court against a multi-million dollar corporation?”  Most of our farmers are in a huge amount of debt that they will never get out of.  Don’t even get me started on the section they did on chickens.  That made me cry.

“Efficacy”:  capacity for producing a desired result or effect; effectiveness.

Hiding behind the shield of efficacy, corporations are being allowed to hold all the power in order to achieve the desired result of all the food we want when we want it.  This means that we are now clueless as to where our food comes from.  This means that 70% of our food has a genetically modified ingredient in it.  It means the food industry has become a sort of mafia-esque entity that has shut down communication and has instilled fear in consumers and producers alike.

This is what this movie has taught me so far.  I’m not sure what I should eat anymore…I will get back to you.

Study Break

I was perusing my last post and got to thinking about how every day of the year holds some sort of historical significance.  Google once again came to my rescue as I “googled” historically significant events occurring on December 13th.  I found one list that seemed decent, and found one that only raised questions for me.  Apparently on Tuesday, December 13th, 1949, “The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.”

First of all, what are the “Knesset”?  I apologize if this is insensitive in some way, but I profess up front to be totally ignorant of the meaning of this term — hopefully until now.  Using my wikipedia powers, I am informed that “Knesset” is the legislature of Israel and is located in Givat Ram, Israel.  (No worries, I also clicked on Givat Ram to figure out where that was exactly since it wouldn’t make sense for the legislature to make Jerusalem the capital if the legislature was elsewhere.  Turns out Givat Ram is a neighborhood in central Jerusalem).  Turns out the Knesset also first convened in February of 1949, same year they moved the capital to Jerusalem!

Okay, so where was the capital of Israel before it was in Jerusalem?

Turns out that may be a dumb question because in 1948 there was a War of Independence; the armistice wasn’t in effect til February of 1949, coincidentally the same time the Knesset was born.

Okay, so I am way out of my league in this area, and don’t have near enough time to delve into the many layers that are the middle east nations.  Yikes!  Definitely bit off more than I could chew for one little study break.  At least it served its purpose and gave me a little mental break.  Yes, that is how I give myself mental breaks, by trying to figure out something even more confusing than I was originally working on.

Luckily, I get to eat homemade spaghetti tonight with friends.  Maybe they can bring some sanity back to me!

Vitriolic

Vitriolic:

1.	of, pertaining to, or resembling vitriol.

2.	obtained from vitriol.

3.	very caustic; scathing: vitriolic criticism.

So I’m thinking of sticking with the third definition, as the other two don’t actually seem to define anything.  Specifically I’d like to focus on the “vitriolic criticism” portion, which I suppose is interchangeable with “scathing” or “caustic” criticism.

Here is an example:  Supreme Court Justice Scalia was presiding over the final round of a moot court competition at my law school, and his intense questioning was vitriolic in nature.  During the questioning he was intense, but he actually gave some pretty constructive criticism afterward.  It was awesome to watch, let me tell you.  I would have hated to be the teams arguing in front of him, but I’m sure it is something they will always remember!  Scalia also made some funnies (albeit at the expense of the arguing teams) but they lightened the mood.

I chose the word “vitriolic” for this entry because its a word I have oddly enough heard several times this week.  I’m sure I’ve heard it before, but for some reason I feel like its a word that doesn’t get tossed around a lot so I probably heard it more often than is normal.  Yay for the word “vitriolic!”  I just love it when I hear seldom-used words, makes me happy for the English language.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like it applies in too many ways other than in the context of describing harsh criticism, or as some type of metal.  As I have heard the word several times that week, that means it was all in the context of criticism (I don’t generally hear much about metal).  That makes me a little sad.  Criticism isn’t necessarily bad I suppose…as long as it is constructive.  I prefer to be able to address whatever may have gone wrong — mitigate it somehow.

I’m rambling, and now I’m done 🙂