Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Ithaca’s farmers’ market: the annual rutabaga curl
I was lucky to be in Ithaca for the end of the farmers’ market season on Saturday and the not-to-be-missed Rutabaga Curl, now in its 21st year.
Contestants hurl rutabagas toward a traffic marker. The one that gets closest wins.
Ithaca’s mayor, the charismatic Svante Myrick, does the opening curl.
The event begins with the kid curlers:
This is Ithaca, after all, so there are protesters.
I’m not much of a sports fan, so I come for the performance of the Rutabaga Chorus by Ithaca’s Vociferous Cruciferous Choir to the tune of Handel’s Messiah (its last-minute rehearsal).
- You can listen to the audio of a previous performance here.
- Or watch a 2012 performance here.
I went once before in 2012 (unfortunately, the links seem to have disappeared).
But my favorite lines remain the same: “Rutabaga! Rutabaga! Repeat refrain, forever and ever. Rutabaga.”
Happiest of holiday seasons.
