This blog isn't about opinion journalism, doesn't work weekends and certainly doesn't want to reward the Wall Street Journal with a link after they failed to deliver my paper this morning but all of that's going out the window to highlight that the great Virginia Postrel is now part of their columnist roster.
Postrel, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, editor of Reason Magazine, author of two books, The Future and Its Enemies and The Substance of Style, columnist for The New York Times and The Atlantic, will be writing every two weeks on "commerce and culture," starting today with a humdinger on why the slow food movement is determined to make fresh food too expensive for poor people.
She goes through all the ways that modern supply chains make possible a diversity of eating options that even 20-30 years ago would have been impossible but ends on a positive note about what she's been criticizing - typical of her thoughtful style.
The local-food movement's ideological parochialism would be dangerous if it were somehow enacted into law. But as persuasion, it tends to focus on the positive: the delights of local peaches and fresh cider, not the imagined evils of Chilean blueberries and prepeeled baby carrots. In this regard, it resembles the English Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century. William Morris, who is remembered today more for his wallpaper and book designs than for hjs social theories, didn't manage to overturn the industrial revolution. But he and his allies left a legacy of beautiful things. Pleasure is persuasive.
I hope the pleasure of reading her columns for many years will be persuasive to many.
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