Rachel Laudan

Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven – corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats – account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors. Exactly the same is [...]

That’s the question posed by Princeton ethicist Peter Singer in his new book.  Here’s Easterly’s review. My thoughts?  That would need a longer and more reasoned discussion. Let’s just say I am not in general persuaded by Singer.  And I think giving to charity is very, very tricky.  But those are just promissory notes.

Some years ago I was contacted by a bright-eyed (or at least so I imagined since we’ve never met in person) graduate student, Anne Bramley, who was balancing a PhD dissertation on Shakespeare with a then-incredibly innovative podcast series on food, history and culture called Eat Feed.  She had the good sense to bring on [...]