Suggested Event: A Discussion about Homeland Security

10/25 Thurs, 6:30 –7:45 pm “Returning from “The Edge of Disaster””

A Discussion with a former advisor on Homeland Security and the faculty of NYU’s Center for Global Affairs.

RETURNING FROM “THE EDGE OF DISASTER”

Stephen E. Flynn, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for National
Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Michael Oppenheimer, moderator; clinical associate professor, CGA
Stephen Flynn, author of The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a
Resilient Nation (2007) is the former advisor on homeland security
for the U.S. Commission on National Security (Hart-Rudman
Commission) and a retired Coast Guard officer. He researches
and writes on issues related to homeland security.

Additional speakers to be announced.
Sign up for updates by e-mailing scps.global.affairs@nyu.edu
To register for an event or for more information, please call the NYU Center for Global Affairs at (212) 992-8380, or e-mail them at scps.global.affairs@nyu.edu.

If We Are What We Eat, Then What Should We Be Eating? More Michael Pollan

The story of how the most basic questions about what to eat ever got so complicated reveals a great deal about the institutional imperatives of the food industry, nutritional science and — ahem — journalism, three parties that stand to gain much from widespread confusion surrounding what is, after all, the most elemental question an omnivore confronts. Humans deciding what to eat without expert help — something they have been doing with notable success since coming down out of the trees — is seriously unprofitable if you’re a food company, distinctly risky if you’re a nutritionist and just plain boring if you’re a newspaper editor or journalist. (Or, for that matter, an eater. Who wants to hear, yet again, “Eat more fruits and vegetables”?) And so, like a large gray fog, a great Conspiracy of Confusion has gathered around the simplest questions of nutrition — much to the advantage of everybody involved. Except perhaps the ostensible beneficiary of all this nutritional expertise and advice: us, and our health and happiness as eaters.

Michael Pollan takes on this pressing question in this interesting article on what we talk about when we talk about food in the New York Times Magazine.

After King Corn: More From Michael Pollan

A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person’s wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?

Michael Pollan, who is interviewed in King Corn and credited as part of the inspiration of the film , comes up with an answer to that question in this provocative New York Times article available here.

I also suggest reading Michael Pollan's widely admired book The Ominvore's Dilemma. You can find it on line at Amazon or in local bookstores such as Three Lives, Biography Books, or The St. Mark's Bookshop.

King Corn Screening + Q&A with the Producers

As part of this month's topic for Big Ideas, "You are What You Eat," we'll be heading to a screening of the film, King Corn, at Cinema Village this Sunday.

Here's a review of the film from the Boston Globe:

Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney , two recent college grads from Boston, decide to plant and farm an acre of corn in Iowa. For a year they watch their crop grow, only to discover at the end that it's unfit for human consumption. What ensues is an enormously entertaining moral, socio-economic odyssey (and statistical bonanza) through the American food industry. Ellis, Cheney, and Aaron Woolf's documentary is clear-minded and fair, but just damningly descriptive enough to leave you distrustful of everything on your plate.

You can also check out this article about the film from the New York Times

Please RSVP with me at Eric.Ozawa at NYU and Tell Your Friends.
Time: Sunday, October 14th
Meet in the Broome lobby at 2:30.

Event: Film Screening, Pizza, and Discussion with Philosophy Stream

On Thursday night, we'll have a joint meeting with the Philosophy Stream, in which we'll be talking about some of the biggest Big Ideas of our era: Capitalism, Social Justice, and Globalism.
We'll start with a film, Mardi Gras Made in China and then move on to a discussion that will address Marx and Appiah.

Pizza (globalism's food par excellence) will be served.

8:30 - 10:00 in the Broome Room