"No one likes to admit that his or her best efforts at understanding and solving a problem have actually made the problem worse, but that’s exactly what has happened in the case of nutritionism. Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health. Perhaps what we need now is a broader, less reductive view of what food is, one that is at once more ecological and cultural. What would happen, for example, if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?"

-- Michael Pollan, "Unhappy Meals", The New York Times

Hong Kong

"I'm having my breasts redone because of HD."

-- Jesse Jane, in "In Raw World of Sex Movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real", The New York Times

"The ubiquity of the cell phone camera means that every moment in our lives is photographable. One consequence of this is an altered perception of the gravity of our day-to-day routines. We are now more aware of ourselves as observers of "history." When a van catches fire in front of our house, we and our neighbors are now out on the lawn recording. We e-mail this to our friends, who testify to the enormity of the event, and then we all await the next sensation. This impulse can be positive, but it also fuels the increasingly destructive American habit of oversharing. The snapshot speaks with a small voice: I'm alive and I saw this. The cell phone camera picture or video is a shout from the rooftop: Check out this crazy thing that happened to me."

-- Michael Agger, "When Camera Phones Attack", Slate

"Theories are word-tools for navigating history, directing movements, defining enemies, predicting the future, getting specific, exploring connections, and moving through the hard places. Theories are word-tools for saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Theories are community builders -- some divide and exclude, and some invite and incite. Theories also have smaller journeys between lovers, between minds. Some are even deadly... Which theories do you live in?"

-- Jacquelyn N. Zita, "A Suite for the Body (in Four Parts)", Body Talk

Vientiane, Laos

"Even if, juristically speaking, we were not accessories to the crime, we are always, thanks to our human nature, potential criminals. In reality we merely lacked a suitable opportunity to be drawn into the infernal melee. None of us stands outside humanity's black collective shadow. Whether the crime lies many generations back or happens today, it remains the symptom of a disposition that is always and everywhere present -- and one would therefore do well to possess some "imagination in evil," for only a fool can permanently neglect the conditions of his own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an instrument of evil... our lack of insight deprives us of the capacity to deal with evil."

-- Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self

"There are just some people who, if you give them a Web cam, are going to take off their clothes."

-- Jason Katz, in "Young Turn to Web Sites Without Rules", The New York Times