Dining on Sacred Cow
Fewer Existential Crises, More Babies
What binds together a good majority of bioanthro writers, from the sloppiest to the most precise, is a cultural-political identification with the secular Right. Their atheism and belief in evolution sets them apart from their fellow conservatives (only 37 percent of whom admitted in 2005 to believing in evolution); their wariness of universalistic humanism and persistent consideration of evolution as an explanatory variable in human behavior sets them apart from secular liberals.
Thinking Right
My initiation into pure, triumphalist classical liberalism did to some degree have its roots into the spirit of my age: “You can’t tell me what to do.” But more than anything, it was a rebellion against longstanding, self-imposed order.
Siren Yogurt
Until now: enter Yogurtland—capital Y—perched tastily between Maharaja and Bon Chon, its all-glass storefront beguiling the crowds of Winthrop Park. Its product—some dozen flavors of take-however-much-you-want, top-how-you-like, weigh-by-the-ounce yogurt—knocks the daylights out of vaunted neighborhood incumbents Berry Line and Pinkberry, which dispense yogurt behind the counter in fixed, unfree increments. No better place to throw my lactose intolerance to the wind, I remark to my roommates almost every other night as we round the corner to the coolest new place this side of Beat Hotel.
Burning, For You!
“At least you’ll only be missing shopping,” my Cornellian friend assured me.
Real Issues
For many in the punditocracy and its feeder circles on university campuses, these debates mean everything. If it is noble to work on a Senate campaign, it is yet nobler to fight for a “struggle of our generation,” like marriage equality, national debt awareness, or wage increases for campus library workers. If it’s in front of our eyes and morally unambiguous, it simply must be world-historical.
