Reading Books, Riding Bikes: Buried in Killing Power and Cheap Food

I read while riding a recumbent bike in the basement and though I’d like to say I’m learning and staying lean at the same time I’d only be half right.

Cycling makes me hungry and soon after I dump sweaty clothes in front of the washing machine I open the door of the fridge and look for replacement fluids, especially in the shape of a can of Guinness.

The following is from The Little Green Handbook (TLGH), one of two or three books I dip into several times per week:

“Between 1989 and 1993 about 100 million pistols, revolvers and rifles were sold through US-approved commercial channels to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.”


After several mathematical calculations I learned that, if annual sales remained the same, another 350 million light weapons would have been sold since then - by the US alone. Many other countries sell vast numbers of weapons, of all kinds.

TLGH is a book that outlines seven trends shaping the future of our planet and ‘Conflicts and Increasing Killing Power’ is one of those trends. What a blast.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma I read of another disturbing trend:

“Of course the problems of our food system are very different - if anything, it produces too much food, not too little, or too much of the wrong food.” pg. 257, Michael Pollan

Why so many bullets and burgers?

When time allows, link to the two books; see “Recommended reading”, side panel.]

[On the lighter side, also see Cartoon in Progress at Four Mugs and a Crock]