| Summary: | ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT THE CONCORDIAN - CONCORDIA COLLEGE - MOORHEAD, MINNESOTA Volume XCVI, Issue 10 - Friday, November 19, 2004 8 11 19 MAIZE AND THANKSGIVING By Pete Morsch Mention that you’re a her-bivore, and you’ll get one of two inevitable responses: the utter shock of “Oh my God! How long have you known? I can’t imagine life without meat!” or, every so often, the “that’s cool, man.” The fact is, life without meat is flippin’ grand. Meat’s expensive. Meat spoils easily. Meat breeds all kinds of little microscopic beasties. Plus, eating meat means buying into an agricultural-industrial complex that is cruel to the “disassembly technicians,” mostly underpaid and unpro-tected migrant workers who shoot, hook, flash-boil and saw their way through thou-sands of dirty, drugged-up, force-fed animal carcasses every day and harmful for the environment. Millions of tons of excre-ment are pumped from con-crete feedlots ending up in thousands of lakes, streams and the backyards of Monsanto, Tyson or Cargill neighborhoods countrywide each year. Oh, and millions of acres of former rain-forests turned grazing lands, but who’s counting? Hungry? I thought so. Cooking vegan, by com-parison, is stress free. Toss just about anything veggie into a soup pot, and with enough salt, time and happy thoughts, chances are you’ll be souping it up in style. Buying locally grown and organic ingredients means you reduce stress on the envi-ronment as less resources are wasted on growing, packag-ing and shipping your food. Plus, you can compost the leftovers, and if you garden, you get all of these benefits free! It’s such a sweet deal, you almost want to give thanks. As we close shop on American Indian Heritage Month and look forward to Thanksgiving, we can honor the memories of the Abenakis, the pilgrims and Mother Earth all in one fell swoop: eat better, eat native, eat vegan. Okay, okay. I realize that the first Thanksgiving did include some roasted veni-son, but I see no problem with humanely-taken, per-sonally- processed and sacredly-appreciated animal protein gracing your plate. Hunting is to meat-eaters as gardening is to veg-heads: the eco-friendliest way to get your eat on. The Native diet was rich in such animal pro-teins, but more importantly included the Three Sacred Sisters: maize, beans and squash. Eat ‘em together and you get all your amino acids in one, perfectly protein-rich money-shot. Eat ‘em sepa-rately, and you still get a mouthful of pure tastiness, not to mention the most reg-ular and colorful bowel movements ever. Oh, the fiber. This Thanksgiving, no matter what you eat, make sure you bow your head and thank your land, your god and your local farmer for the bounty. Remember how blessed we are to be able to spoon up extra helpings. Oh, and remember to thank grandma for her killer pie. Eat well, and spread the love. C O M M E N T A R Y This month’s National Geographic cover story concludes that Darwin’s evolutionary theory is well-supported by scientific evidence. In spite of the preponderance of proof, 45 percent of Americans still believe “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” Images courtesy National Geographic magazine. By Brandon Teachout A suburban Atlanta school district decided recently to include a warning sticker in its biology textbooks saying that evolution is “a theory, not a fact,” according to recent AP articles. That claim is true. But it’s also highly misleading. Yes, evolution is a theory. So is gravity. So is a heliocentric universe. So is electricity. Yet we trust that we will not fly off the earth, we launch satellites into outer space and we charge our world with power. The idiocy of this sort of literalist, hard-line religious propaganda is blatant to any-one with a simple under-standing of science and will-ingness to accept empirical evidence. Clearly, however, plenty of Americans lack those two traits—a Gallup poll in 2001 found that 45 percent of Americans believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” This view of God excludes the possibility of creation through evolution. This is according to National Geographic magazine, which for its November cover story printed a compre-hensive explanation of the theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory, the maga-zine explains, was based on evidence falling into four pri-mary categories—biogeogra-phy, paleontology, embryolo-gy and morphology. Biogeography, the study of animals and the locations they inhabit, found that “closely allied” species lived in neighboring areas, and ani-mals differing more greatly lived farther apart. For instance, two types of large, flightless birds—rheas—are found in South America, but ostriches populated Africa and emu Australia. Paleontology, the study of bones, reveals similar trends. The development of the horse can be traced through time and space from Hyracotherium well over 5 mil-lion years ago to Equus, today’s genus of horse and from North America across the Bering land bridge to Asia and Africa. Embryology finds that mammalian embryos pass through reptilian-esque stages and that the embryos of moths, flies and beetles are all quite similar. In these earliest stages of life, inter-special differences are mini-mized. Lastly, and most convinc-ingly, morphology—what Darwin called the “very soul” of natural selection—uses the “tiered resemblances” of the animal kingdom to evi-dence evolution. The classifi-cation Darwin pioneered provides more than just fancy Latin names for things. It provides the death knell for literal interpretations of cre-ation. New methods of provid-ing evidence continue—most recently, work on the human genome and an understand-ing of how similar it is to, for instance, the genome of the mouse has added to the argu-ment that we come from a shared lineage. The bottom line is that plentiful evidence for evolu-tion exists and more is being added every day. All that is necessary is a desire to learn. So why do so many refuse to believe? The magazine theorizes that the majority are simply unaware of the facts. If enlightenment were to come, one would hope, that 45 percent would quickly dwindle. Then again, cognitive dis-sonance— an inability to rec-oncile previous beliefs with new evidence—is a powerful force. C O M M E N T A R Y Evolutionary theory is as good as fact By Anne Carlson By this time, most students have probably seen “Guys and Dolls.” If you didn’t see it at one of the reserved-out shows this past weekend, then you probably saw it in one of the many off-Broadway, local theatre companies or high schools. Regardless of the number of productions that Concordia is pitting itself against, it more than held its own and proved its ability to put on a professional-quality production. Director Jim Cermak says this is only the third time in Concordia Theatre history that a show has sold out all of its performances two days in advance of the first performance. This shouldn’t be surprising since the marketing crew for the show have all but wallpapered campus with signs and reminders to see the production. Set in New York City, circa 1948, a group of gamblers and their Ace man Nathan Detroit, played by junior Joe Willand, are looking for a place to set up a craps game. Nathan’s fiancé of 14 years. Adelaide, played by senior Molly Zupancich, is doing all that she can to get Nathan to quit his gambling and finally tie the knot. Instead, Nathan makes a bet with a fellow gambler, Sky Masterson, played by freshman Ryan Rubek. Sky believes that all dolls are the same, and he is confident in his abilities to charm any of them. Nathan bets Sky that one doll in particular would be immune to Sky’s flattery and pur-suits. Sky takes the bet that he could get Sgt. Sarah Brown, leader of a local mission, to accompany him on a trip to Havana. Sky then finds that Sarah is a lot harder to sway than most of the women he has perused in the past. Some of the highlights of the show include the numbers “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat,” performed by Matt Krage, and “Luck be a Lady,” sung by Rubek. The dance numbers, including tap, Latin and jazz, were also strong and polished. Zupancich gave an outstanding all-around perform-ance as a singer, dancer and actress. She and Willand had a genuine but subtle chemistry. Willand’s greatest strength was his ability to make his character so lovable even when his actions might have had the audience feeling otherwise. The overall pace of the show was what you could expect from a family-friendly musical like this. Some scenes moved a little slowly, but at the same time it’s relaxing to watch when you can clearly anticipate the happy ending. If you are able to see one of this weekend’s shows plan on waiting in the rush line. The theatre cannot give an estimate of how many seats will open up, but they have been able to get a lot of audience from the rush line seats for previous per-formances. The Concordia Theatre Department has been working hard to put on a production that students can be proud of, and this show will leave most students looking for-ward to the next production. R E V I E W New York dolls sell the stage Concordia College Mainstage Theatre: “Guys and Dolls,” by Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. Nov. 11. Frances Frazier Comstock Theatre. Adventures in aboriginal tastiness or how squash can save the earth Life without meat is flippin’ grand. Meat’s expensive. Meat spoils easily. Meat breeds all kinds of little microscopic beasties. “ ”
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