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
In fifteen minutes, I’ll be heading to Shattuck and Central to take part in the first General Assembly of Occupy Berkeley. I spent the start of this week frantically searching for plane tickets to get me to New York, hoping to stand up and be counted among the protesters of Occupy Wall Street before police… Continue reading 99% Plus One
This week, Oxford’s homeless population will be eating hot dog buns. I’ve said on this blog before that one of the high points of my week is my work with Food Justice, a non-profit in Oxford that diverts nearly-expired supermarket food from the landfill and gives it to organizations that provide meals for the needy. … Continue reading On Hot Dog Buns and Capitalism
Q: How do I know Yasuní National Park is the most biodiverse place in the planet? A: Because on Saturday mornings, that diversity is on sale in Pompeya. I´m not quite sure what I was expecting to discover this Saturday, but I certainly didn´t plan on finding anything as disturbing as I did. One of… Continue reading Blood on All Hands
At the start of June, the New York Times published a piece by Jake Halpern called “The Freegan Establishment” on a group of radicals near-and-dear to my heart. While some might be less-than-enthusiastic about being the person that comes to mind when the issue of eating trash comes up, I was quite flatterd to have… Continue reading Not (Quite) Buying It
The following is a brief excursus on the social science disciplines which should be of interest to absolutely no one. It should not be confused with the similarly titled article by Emily Sands ’09, who is brilliant. I’ve already many times registered my frustration with much of the criticism of development coming from the academy. … Continue reading Sexy-Nomics
Rural, northern Thailand looks a lot like rural, central Uganda. The vegetation in both places is lush and tropical but, thanks to an ongoing drought in each, also dry and dusty. A perpetual haze drifts around each place, which, while hard to explain given the lack of industry, seems fitting for the hot climate. Looking… Continue reading Ladder Theory
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 