Follow up: http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-red-meat-study-20120313,0,7594229.story
This new study released about red meat seems extremely obvious at first, "eating red meat increases risk of death," is an accepted statement among meat eaters. It is like saying "driving a car can kill you" to anyone who own an automobile, everyone knows the risks, but they accept them. However, the statistical implications of this study is what causes a person to ask if they really know the risks of eating red meat. While it may not seem like a lot, according to the study eating red meat creates a 13-20% increase risk of earlier death. The study was taken over the course of 20 years, and that percentage rate is based on people who passed away during that 20 year span of time. The result on the opposite end of the spectrum, showing what will help you live longer, are equally interesting. Many are under the impression that fish is better than chicken, but it would seem that the chicken of the sea can't hold up against the land-lovers (chicken doubles the percentage of fish.) While the connotations of this study are making me want to continue altering my eating habits, it is the reactions to the study (found in the second link) that are interesting me the most. Un-surprisingly enough, the meat companies are attacking the 20-years-in-the making study, using its form of data gathering against it. It finds the data to be too randomly compiled, and dislikes the fact that it is filled out by the participants. The fact that participants could be lying about their true eating habits is enough for the companies to attempt to debunk the entire study. It is responses like this (and like those of the many responses from internet users) that show our society's greater concern with living how we want and ignoring the consequences, as well as the maintaining of big-business no matter what the industry's effect on people and the environment (we know that meat industries are just as bad for the environment as others and worse in some cases.) It is irritating to know that no matter how many studies are put out members of our society would rather make the assumption that it is a scare tactic than a legitimate study that they should take head from.
Art-
I know we have mentioned this in class, but this article detailed some of the work that is happening in the art world around the idea of "the art world." Artists are working to critique the institution of art, but inevitably finding themselves encapsulated in it, needing it to give recognition to their ideas. One of the larger issues that surrounds the art world and the artist is that of money. Money is needed for artists to continue to create, but in order to get that artists must show their work in galleries or artistic institutions. This creates an interesting loop that artists submerged in "the art world" full of galleries and collectors can't always find a way out of. However, I find the relationship between the artists and the world in which they are presenting their work to create a much more interesting paradigm than that of other works. They need the institution they critique, and that institution is embracing them for defacing their placement instead of rejecting them outright (as I can imagine the critics of old would have sought to have done.) Art is being created to make a dialogue about how the artistic institution is bad, and yet the only people who can endorse or provide space for the artists and their work are those who belong to that same institutions. The artists themselves admit the strangeness of their placement in the art world, but they continue to present their work in these places to continue fueling this paradigm and unconventional statement about the relationship between artists and the artistic institutions they inhabit.
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