"The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity" -- an excellent article from yesterdays NYTMagazine on how Nixon-era farm subsidies create massive overproduction of corn in the US, which directly contributes to the obesity epidemic in the form of cheap corn syrup and cheap beef, i.e. Kraft, McDonalds, Applebees et al. Scary as it is, this political twist on the fast food nation phenomenon sheds a lot of light on the myth of simple overindulgence -- it's not just that people are eating more junk and exercising less, it's that "Big Food" is playing a pat hand dealt by our government and literally cramming surplus calories into our diets, since it's cheaper to produce a 20oz Coke today than it was to produce an 8oz one in 1975. Note also that third world farmers are undermined by the tide of cheap American grain, as it depresses worldwide prices...so we don't need it, yet we overproduce it, and we're killing ourselves with it while millions around the globe starve to death. Mmmmmmm, mmmmmm. There's a very similar article in my beloved Believer this month, but they don't put a lot of content online...perhaps you'd like to borrow my (preciousssss) copy? Actual text on paper...horrors! :P