There has been an extraordinary amount of media attention and policy action around food waste lately. Major environmental groups like NRDC and totally not-at-all environmental groups like the Institution for Mechanical Engineering have released reports documenting how 30-50% of food is wasted in the US and abroad. While reports from non-profits on some issue or… Continue reading The Limits of Think.Eat.Save
I’ve been meaning to return to blogging for a while—in fact, since I made it a New Year’s Resolution and, immediately thereafter, abandoned it as quickly as a new exercise regime. Leave it to a not-at-all veiled attack on veganism to bring me back. Periodically, friends forward me links obliquely encouraging me to reconsider my… Continue reading Still Eating Quinoa
The reports are just rolling in, and boy, has it been enlightening. A few weeks ago, the University of California Police Department released a report determining that the real source of problems at Berkeley on November 9th was that police weren’t allowed enough “force options”—particular, pepper spray. Shortly thereafter, a quasi-independent review board at Davis… Continue reading November 9th and the Changing Repertoires of Activism
On June 12th, Berkeley’s City Council will vote on a “sit-lie” ordinance intended to prevent un-housed, homeless, and otherwise indigent people from sitting on city sidewalks during the day. This is a terrible idea. The ordinance would turn what is at worst a minor inconvenience for those of us with a low tolerance for disorder… Continue reading Quick Hits on Berkeley Sit/Lie
Dick Walker talks like he knew Karl Marx personally. “Man, Marx just couldn’t figure out what was going on with all this finance shit. You can tell he just fucking hated it”, he tells us, as we are puzzling over our weekly assignment for his Das Kapital reading group. He offers a bit of comfort… Continue reading Reading Marx
After a fall spent trying to make some social change, this spring I’ve withdrawn into my more comfortable habitus: reading about social change. I’ve been particularly drawn to stories about the Civil Rights movement, perhaps because I’ve been desperate to remind myself that change does in fact happen every once in a while. Most recently,… Continue reading The Long Haul
The day after New Years, I took a trip down memory lane to engage in what was one of my favorite activities during my undergraduate days at Princeton: digging through trash on the streets of New York with the members of freegan.info.* My ostensible reason for going was that I’ve been playing with the idea… Continue reading Elephant Graveyard
With all the time I spend reading Marx with other graduate students and talking revolution with other activists, I occasionally forget that my world is largely populated by people who don’t share my particular line of leftist politics. I’ve been reminded of the political diversity of my friends during conversations about the open letter which… Continue reading “I Don’t Actually Hate Bankers” and Other Thoughts on the Open Letter (Part 1)
Call: “Show me what democracy looks like.” Response: “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!” If you’ve been to a protest—really, almost any protest, but especially an Occupy Wall Street protest—you’ve heard this chant. No movement should be judged by its chants: “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” may not capture a lot of… Continue reading What does democracy look like, anyway?
It so happens that the very night Occupy Princeton mic checked J.P. Morgan, I myself was talking about Princeton—or, more specifically, avoiding talking about Princeton. A cohort-mate introduced me to one of her friends, and she asked me where I went to school before Berkeley. As per usual, I mumbled something about Central New Jersey.and… Continue reading Even Princeton
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 