Bitch about Headline News on Health, Environment, Internet, Politics and other Issues
Trees in urban areas deliver a range of benefits, BBC News reports here: The Woodland Trust says planting more trees has been shown to improve air quality, reduce ambient temperatures and benefit people’s health in UK towns and cities.
Spiegel Online reports here: Apple has long been considered a model company when it comes to privacy protection. But the US company now plans to serve geo-targeted advertising to its smartphone users using the GPS or WiFi data provided by the device. Privacy experts are up in arms — in America and Germany.
In the ten years since his classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, from Monday fish to the breadbasket conspiracy, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business—and for Anthony Bourdain.
Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author’s bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he’s seen, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food.
Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs that he compares to a mafia summit, Bourdain pulls back the curtain—but never pulls his punches—on the modern gastronomical revolution, as only he can. Cutting right to the bone, Bourdain sets his sights on some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, the young superstar chef who has radicalized the fine-dining landscape; the revered Alice Waters, whom he treats with unapologetic frankness; the Top Chef winners and losers; and many more.
And always he returns to the question “Why cook?” Or the more difficult “Why cook well?” Medium Raw is the deliciously funny and shockingly delectable journey to those answers, sure to delight philistines and gourmands alike.
Spiegel Online reports here: The US has heavily criticized German austerity measures in recent days. Now, Germany’s finance minister has fired back, warning against becoming addicted to deficit spending and noting that history has made the country extremely wary of national debt and inflation.
BBC News reports here: San Francisco has become the first city in the US to require mobile phone retailers to post radiation levels next to the handsets they sell.
Spiegel Online reports here: Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says that Germany has begun imposing austerity measures far too soon and that it could endanger fragile economic growth. His comments are just the latest in a trans-Atlantic dispute about fiscal policy.
Norway’s foreign minister has described the group of the 20 most important industrialized and developing nations, which will meet this weekend in Toronto, as the “greatest setback” for the international community since World War II. In this interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE here, Jonas Gahr Støre explains why the organization won’t function in the long run.
The best way to prevent cardiovascular disease is for people to eat better and be more active. BBC News reports here: Trans-fats should be eliminated from food in England, NHS watchdog NICE has said.
Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth
No matter how sophisticated or wealthy or broke or enlightened you are, how you eat tells all.
If you suffer about your relationship with food — you eat too much or too little, think about what you will eat constantly or try not to think about it at all — you can be free. Just look down at your plate. The answers are there. Don’t run. Look. Because when we welcome what we most want to avoid, we contact the part of ourselves that is fresh and alive. We touch the life we truly want and evoke divinity itself.
Packed with revelations on every page, this book is a knock-your-socks-off ride to a deeply fulfilling relationship with food, your body…and almost everything else. Women, Food and God is, quite simply, a guide for life.