July 22, 2008

• Doctors and Sandwiches

  Blogger Hilzoy is blogging at Andrew Sullivan this week, and she cross-posts this wonderful factoid from the PB&J campaign:

  "Each time you have a plant-based lunch like a PB&J you'll reduce your carbon footprint by the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets. For dinner you save 2.8 pounds and for breakfast 2.0 pounds of emissions.
  
  Those 2.5 pounds of emissions at lunch are about forty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions you'd save driving around for the day in a hybrid instead of a standard sedan.
  
  If you have a PB&J instead of a red-meat lunch like a ham sandwich or a hamburger, you shrink your carbon footprint by almost 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions."

  I think I've posted about peanut butter before and how variations on it are being used to combat malnutrition and hunger.  Well, there's a sort of running joke in my family.  When I was schoolage, I basically had a PB&J every school day for about 12 years, with occasional variations.  Yes, really, from kindergarten to high school.  My mom worried long ago, but our family physician assured her that there were far worse things I could be eating.  I had an uncle that would snack almost daily on a Uneeda biscuit and peanut butter.  He's 90-something now.

  Things haven't changed too much even today.  You'll still always find PB&J in my house, but my tastes are somewhat more refined.  No more Skippy or Jiff, but some organic smooth peanut butter from Rainbow, and no more Welch's concord grape jam, but D'Arbo raspberry jam.  And multigrain, whole wheat bread.  It serves multiple roles of "light eating," "easy to make," and "comfort food."

  With Z-Man's return from Oaxaca, he and I watched the remaining three episodes of Doctor Who of season four.  This concludes the series for a year. The show is going on hiatus while David Tennant works in 2009 with the Royal Shakespeare Company.  Russel T. Davies, the writer who helped and helmed the show's rebirth, is also stepping down as lead writer, and Stephen Moffet is taking over.  Moffet is responsible for some of my favorite stores of the series to date, so I'm pretty happy about this.  There will be one Christmas special for 2008, then three episodes for 2009, and then season five will commence in 2010 (crap, I'll be 40! And older than David Tennant!).

  I've mentioned before Television Without Pity's Jacob and his recaps of the show, which are, really, brilliant.  Sometimes even a bit too clever by half, but I love the insight he brings and the dimensions he adds.  He goes a fairly sophisticated distance with the material, and I love him for it.  He latches on to themes that have run through a series, going for some fairly esoteric commentary.  He doesn't comment on the more mundane thematic content that seems to run from season to season, either because he doesn't see it or (I suspect) it's low-hanging fruit. 

  So I'm going to, at a timetable of my convenience.  It's fan wankery, so if you have no love of the show, feel free to skip over those posts.  I'll mark them in the title and give you fair warning.  My posts have been very sparse as of late, and I want to change that, and this is as good a way as any of padding for content.  I'll post other stuff too.  I'm hoping that this will prompt other posts. And certainly, my upcoming travel in August/September will prompt some posting, although I realize I've still got some pictures to download from my nephew's visit.  Hm, bad uncle. 

  So anyway, here's where my thoughts were taking me:  each season of DW has a theme that runs through the course of the episodes.  Sometimes, it's really apparent in each episode; sometimes it's quite subtle, and I'm probably stretching things to suit my purpose.  But nonetheless, here's what I've seen, and what the associated posts will be titled:

  Season 1 (2005) - "Endings and Remainders"
  This was the reboot season that started the show's renaissance.  Davies brought back the Doctor from nearly 20 years absence, save one very strange made-for-television movie in 1996.  In that long absence, we learn that there was a terrible conflict that transcended space and time -- the Last Great Time War, the Doctor eventually names it, and we learn that the Doctor is the sole remaining survivor of his home planet, culture, and people.  This season, although a new beginning for the series, deals largely with the fallout and impact of that war's ending, and the races of creatures who felt its impact, not the least of whom includes the Doctor himself.

  Season 2 (2006) - "Fits and Starts"
  A "new" Doctor.  A "new" ("new new new new new new new new new new new new new new") Earth.  A "new" enemy.  Some things which were old are new again, and everything starts somewhere.  Sometimes you get to be there at the beginning, to see something wonderful happen as it unfolds.  Sometimes, you have the misfortune to see great evil take root.  Beginnings don't much care themselves if they're good or bad.  The Doctor gets to watch them all.  In fact, he doesn't have much choice in the matter.  We get to come along for the ride.

  Season 3 (2007) - "Devourers and Other Hangers-On"
  Eternity is a lie.  We lie to ourselves all the time because we're too proud or too scared to admit that all things have their time, be it life or love.  Or, in fact, the universe.  Nonetheless, this lie that we tell ourselves can lead to greatness and achievements and wonder, and things that endure just a little bit more each time.  It's the Big Lie That Keeps Us Going.  By definition, things cannot live past their expiration date.  But that doesn't stop them from trying, and in those cracks of reality, in those pools of paradox, monsters arise that draw sustenance from victims in the world around it just so it can scramble and live another sweet, sweet day.  But, how is that any different from living?

  Season 4 (2008) - "Parents and Children"
  The desire to propagate the species is one of the accepted symptoms of life, as is eating (see Season 3).  It's also part of The Big Lie, but a direct refusal to buy into this little acre of it will absolutely result in the extinction of a species.  So, we have other ways of ensuring continuity, if not eternity, and our children become that little part of us that will occupy our space in the future.  Did you know that modern date trees are incapable of reproducing themselves anymore? Most commercial date trees must be hand-brushed with pollen in order to propagate.  Sometimes nature needs a hand.  Our desire for date trees doesn't go much beyond the simple need for more of them in this activity (the trees presumably would agree).  But if we're willing to go that far for a freakin' tree, imagine the lengths some will go to for their own kids?

  So, yes, I've been giving this some thought.  Stay tuned (or not).

  • 2:30 pm
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