Food Inc.

One of the most talked about films for foodies will be released in Columbus this month. On July 17th at the Drexel, Food Inc. addresses the benefits of local produce while jumping headfirst into the secretive world of factory food.

Food Inc. contains interviews with some of the great minds in food and other characters with insightful perspective on the issues at hand, including Gary Hirshberg, Joel Salatin, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. The movie covers topics from the unhealthy nature of macroproduced food, the pollution and warming produced by these enterprises, how factory food actually creates an unsafe methodology for preventing disease and ways to free yourself from the shackles of factory food.

If you believe that ignorance is bliss, stay away from this movie. If, on the other hand, you sometimes have more questions than answers when reading the food labels at your corner store, this might be the flick for you.

The Columbus Vegetarian Meetup Group is organizing a get together at the showing. You can join the group and attend with likeminded individuals, or you can fly solo and take in the information all by your lonesome. Either way, it's an event that should not be missed.

Bergman, Bush, Blair, Brown, Baldomir, Bartman and Baseball

The news leads of with the death of iconoclastic filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. Bergman created more than 50 films that explored the subjects that vanilla Hollywood was afraid to touch in a way that was uniquely his own style of expression. He died on a remote island, proving that the American film industry had gotten so vapid in the last few years that a genius director had to find a small piece of land floating around in the water in order to escape Hollywood's ignominious influence.

Britain and the United States have a new B and B duo. Instead of the combination of across-the-pond cowboys Bush and Blair, the new tag team is Bush and freshly-minted Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown, who is trying to win friends both in the U.K. and the U.S., called America Britain's strongest ally. His most important task is to keep relations between American and Britain friendly but not too friendly (because too friendly got Tony Blair kicked out of office). At this point in Bush's tenure, even the Atlantic Ocean may not be enough distance to keep his abrasive foreign policies from upsetting the new Killer B in London.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party suffered a major setback in a recent election that may cost Abe his seat as PM. His party lost seats in areas that they almost always win, and the defeat is blamed on Abe's policies as well as scandals that have kept his actions in the spotlight. If Mr. Abe doesn't right the ship, the opposing party may issue the ominous battle cry "All Your Base Are Belong To Us."

The 95-0 Senate vote to change the way the government puts poor college students in debt is one step in the right direction. Of course, it's a little too late as I am poor and already in crippling college debt. Better late than never, I guess.

Media news starts with video piracy hub YouTube pledging to install content filtering software that will prevent posting of copyrighted material...whenever they get around to it. Once the copyrighted materials are removed, the site will still have all of those banal video blogs , shots of guys getting hit in the nuts or drinking horrible things, and stupid pet tricks for you to enjoy. What a service!

The sports wires were bursting with news today. Cooperstown inaugurated two new members. Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken joined the ranks of Babe Ruth and Cy Young in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ripken, with his slight build, and Gwynn, who is built like he ate Ty Cobb, may make up one of the last elected classes for some time that won't have to have to answer questions about performance enhancing drugs. Hopefully Commissioner Selig got an opportunity to practice his secret escape from the induction so he can duplicate the exodus after Bonds hits his record-breaking home run.

On the heels of Vernon Forrest's victory over Carlos Baldomir for the WBC super welterweight title comes a New York Times report on the shortcomings in health care for professional boxers. In a given week, I typically agree with John McCain as often as I agree with Charles Manson, but this time he had a pretty good idea.This was one of his pet issues that was spurned by the sport and underreported by the media (and not mentioned in the Times' coverage). Don King and the boxing governing bodies look like such scum that they make John McCain and his Crazy Train actually seem more like the Straight Talk Express.

Nascar bad boy Tony Stewart crossed the finish line as the victor in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. Those who live in civilization and think that Nascar is an excuse for hillbillies to get together and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon while inhaling auto exhaust rolled over and continued sleeping.

Finally, researchers have determined through use of statistical modeling that the 2003 Florida Marlins should not have won the World Series. Using careful analysis, the researchers found that the Yankees were a better team than the Marlins in 2003. The Marlins were determined to be the worst team in 30 years to win an MLB championship. Finally Cubs fans will have a statistical anomaly not named Steve Bartman to blame for coming up a day late and a dollar short in their neverending quest for a Series title.

Eating Turned Up to Eleven

From Kobayashi's arthritic jaw to strokes caused by eating hard boiled eggs to death by bread and water, the sport of competitive eating is creating a new line of injuries that have a longer history then one might expect. With the titan of the sport on the sidelines with his injured jaw, the competition can be won by any number of fat, despicable slobs from Brooklyn rather than by a skinny Japanese dude. People will watch if anybody really cares about competitive eating.

Real scandal rolled in as expected with George Bush commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby. The decision was made without consulting his staff or the Justice department. Democrats were openly critical of the move, which keeps the felonious pawn out of prison while still keeping his record spotted. Bush might want to get Cheney in court and convicted now so he can pardon him before another administration gets a chance to make him serve real prison time.

Anarchy in the Middle East leads off with U.S. officials fingering Iran for killing five U.S. troops in Iraq. The military record is one in a long line that ties Iran to militant activity in Iran. If the place doesn't look bad enough with the influences attacking from outside the country, the Christian Science Monitor reports that bribes and militant groups are being used in Iraq to get kids through school. I don't know what this means for Iraq, but if I find a militia wandering around the streets of Athens, my thesis will be done this afternoon.

New names keep coming up in the Glasgow bombing case, and many of these names have the abbreviation Dr. before their name. Eight people have been arrested in the case and three are medical professionals. If these people had to work in the U.S. health care system, imagine how irate they would be! The attempts may be a model for future U.S. attacks, suggesting that Michael Moore's "Sicko" might also have touched off a nerve domestically.

Ohio University's board of trustees has put embroiled President Roderick McDavis on a short leash, extending his term for one more year. The only way the board could have selected a less popular man for President would have been to appoint George W. Bush Athens' new Decider-in-Chief.

On the music front, renowned soprano Beverly Sills died of lung cancer at the age of 78. Me and the other two opera fans have been crushed by the news.

Finally, people who have way too much money on their hands will be excited by the news that they can bid on a dinner date with Spinal Tap and Rob Reiner. Bidding started at $2,000 and got up to $5,000.52 as of press time on the eBay Web site. This information will push the stupid memorabilia purchasing knob up to 11.