Poetry feeds our souls. Sweet potatoes feed our bellies. And a poem about sweet potatoes -- here called "yams" -- well, I'd venture that feeds multiple appetites simultaneously, including our curiosity.
Wait. Check that.
It doesn't feed our curiosity as much as spark it, as an appetizer warms us up for eating.
But before I get into that, read today's poem. Just pay special attention to the first line.
American Life in Poetry: Column 154
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Though some teacher may have made you think that all poetry is deadly serious, chock full of coded meanings and obscure symbols, poems, like other works of art, can be delightfully playful. Here Bruce Guernsey, who divides his time between Illinois and Maine, plays with a common yam.
Yam
The potato that ate all its carrots,
can see in the dark like a mole,
its eyes the scars
from centuries of shovels, tines.
May spelled backwards
because it hates the light,
pawing its way, paddling along,
there in the catacombs.
Okay, so we know potatoes don't eat carrots, unless we're talking compost, so we'll chalk that up to creative license and a nod toward the "yam's" orange flesh. But what about this potato business in a poem titled "Yam"? Anybody catch the problem here?
Turns out, yams are not sweet potatoes, and yet, kinda, they are.
Here's the deal. Technically, botanically, yams and sweet potatoes are unrelated. Yams are monocots; sweet potatoes, dicots. Yams are from the Dioscoreaceae or Yam family; sweet potatoes arise from the Convolvulacea or morning glory family. And the list goes on.
But here in the U.S. yams are sweet potatoes thanks to a blend of tradition and a marketing ploy the Louisiana growers trotted out some decades back. Seeking to set their product apart from the other varieties of sweet potatoes available, the folks in Louisiana took to calling their sweeties "yams" after the soft African yams they resembled.
And thus a market niche -- and consumer confusion -- were born.
But don't go thinking that's the only point of confusion here. Here's one more for the road.
Yams, as we've noted, aren't sweet potatoes, but then, just to round things out, sweet potatoes aren't even potatoes. They're distant cousins at best, with each a part of a different genus:
Lively discussions and different opinions are encouraged within the bounds of respectful civil discourse. Questionable language, personal attacks, off-topic comments, and gratuitous links will either be edited or deleted. Comments are moderated and will not appear on InfoFarm until they have been approved.
Great story you got here. I'd like to read more about this matter.
Submitted by: MarkRight on October 26, 2009 05:47 AM
Nice work, your awesome content has forced me to to leave some positive feedback.
Submitted by: zaklady bukmacherskie on November 6, 2009 04:02 PM
This blog does not represent official communications from the National Agricultural Library, the Agricultural Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Climate Change Resources: A Blog Action Day Contribution
Today, October 15, is Blog Action Day, an annual Web event intended to harness the reach and power of blogs to tackle one important common issue. This year's topic: climate change.
The event's goal is to "raise awareness and trigger a global discussion" by inviting bloggers everywhere to address that one issue from our unique and varied perspectives and to apply to it our respective expertise.
Taking that to heart, I decided that the most appropriate thing a librarian like myself can do is to point you to a handful of quality resources on climate change. That way, true to the librarian code, I can empower you to study the issue for yourself and make your own decisions.
Here's what I got:
The Environmental Protection Agency delivers a primer on climate change, offering background information on the science behind the headlines, along with a look at policy issues, regulatory initiatives, economic impacts and related topics.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program coordinates and integrates federal research on the topic, encouraging cross-disciplinary approaches from the 13 agencies that participate. And yes, they do make available their research and reports.
NASA's Global Change Master Directory gets real with climate change by pointing you to actual data sets and services relevant to global change and Earth science research. It also serves up a particularly rich collection of links to sites that address policy around global warming and climate change.
You can also snag more climate change data from the Energy Information Administration, the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, and study historical changes in environmental indicators to your heart's content.
The U.S. Geological Survey Office of Global Change gives you a glimpse into what that agency is doing to study and address climate change. And bless their Web 2.0 souls -- they even offer podcasts.
I could go on. Other goverment agencies like NOAA and USDA tackle climate change. So do research institutions like the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the Woods Hole Research Center. Even newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have set up focused topics pages on the subject that pull together in one place their news stories and multimedia offerings through the years. And let's not forget my own colleagues here at NAL, who have collected hundreds of articles and books that wrestle with the complex issues associated with global warming and climate change.
Of course, the Web is a huge place, and there are countless other sites that pick up one thread or another in the climate change debate. These are just a few. Feel free to suggest others below. Lively discussions and different opinions are encouraged, after all.
Lively discussions and different opinions are encouraged within the bounds of respectful civil discourse. Questionable language, personal attacks, off-topic comments, and gratuitous links will either be edited or deleted. Comments are moderated and will not appear on InfoFarm until they have been approved.
Well done, MA!
Thanks for a shotgun snapshot of some of the best topic-related items out there from our Wide Web World.
I really liked news about a Sundance 2009 documentary that describes and discusses issues confronted in real efforts to "Go Zero." This film played a short while in DC, but I missed it there. Now it seems to be on limited view, in Maine and Nebraska sites at the moment. There's a neat trailer to view, here: No Impact Man. It is listed on Netflix, but is not available as yet...
It's great that many are getting tuned-in. Now, if we can only find our individual paths toward whatever effective and appropriate responses we may embrace.
For some simple, do-able and perhaps obvious suggestions, I do like the site from the Conservation Fund, here: Go Zero.
Some neat thinking is obvious for the kid-focused site: Zerofootprint KidsCalcualtor. It shows and discusses "footprints" involved in various living/lifestyle choices.
Many more exotic and flamboyant opportunities do exist, and these are accessible in a number of places. One extreme-type example is here: How to Build an EarthShip. This fellow designs, builds and/or helps builders with "0" (zero) impact homes, built from waste materials and with lots of work and creativity.
I imagine great fun just looking around for some of these, and have had some of that. I hope others might also enjoy - and prosper!
Thanks, again!
- Karl S
Submitted by: Karl S on October 19, 2009 04:25 PM
This blog does not represent official communications from the National Agricultural Library, the Agricultural Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The food folks here at NAL have recently launched a couple of new tools that should make the lives of dietitians, nutritionists, nutrition educators and food service trainers a little bit easier.
You enter the basics -- a person's sex, age, height, weight and activity level -- and the tool will compute his body mass index, daily calorie needs, and the recommended amounts of various macronutrients, vitamins and minerals.
It's simple to use but not necessarily simple to interpet. Of course, that's where the healthcare professionals come in. The tool, after all, was designed for them, for the registered dietitians, doctors, nurses and others involved in dietary planning who can help John and Jane Q. Public interpret and use the information to lay out healthy ways to eat.
Also fresh on the scene is the new Education and Training Materials Database, which points you to all types of educational materials related to food safety and nutrition.
Looking for a game that'll teach 10-year-olds about eating a balanced diet?
How about a video on the importance of hand washing for restaurant staff?
Or food safety posters in Spanish specific to child care centers?
This comprehensive tool delivers them all and more.
You can even type in a keyword, such as "fiber," and then, with a click, easily refine your results by format -- activity, book, brochure, presentation, etc. -- to find exactly what you need for your next class.
One note here, though. You won't usually be getting the content itself. The actual activity, book or brochure won't necessarily be waiting for you one click away. But what you will find is information about how to get it, whom to contact, what it will cost, etc. The rest is up to you, but you gotta appreciate the time it saves hunting.
One place, one search, and you're quickly on the phone or on the Web ordering the absolutely perfect training curriculum.
Lively discussions and different opinions are encouraged within the bounds of respectful civil discourse. Questionable language, personal attacks, off-topic comments, and gratuitous links will either be edited or deleted. Comments are moderated and will not appear on InfoFarm until they have been approved.
This blog does not represent official communications from the National Agricultural Library, the Agricultural Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Lively discussions and different opinions are encouraged within the bounds of respectful civil discourse. Questionable language, personal attacks, off-topic comments, and gratuitous links will either be edited or deleted. Comments are moderated and will not appear on InfoFarm until they have been approved.
Hey, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, anyway cool blog, I bookmarked you. :)
Submitted by: GeneTinsley on October 9, 2009 08:41 PM
This blog does not represent official communications from the National Agricultural Library, the Agricultural Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
InfoFarm Turns Two
On October 1, 2007, InfoFarm launched, becoming the 16th blog within the Federal government. Today, I count 58, including one from USDA and another from the White House. We're happy for the company.
What else are we happy for over this past year?
☆ A sweet, albeit brief, mention in Slate that links out to my April Fools' Day post:
The best government blogs actually sound like blogs, too. InfoFarm, the Department of Agriculture's blog, may be the first-ever instance of government-sponsored snark.
The USDA National Agriculture Library blog: Infofarm is awesome. Seriously.
☆ And a discovery I made today about one more notable event that shares October 1st as its anniversary.
Those of you who have been around InfoFarm for a while know that I have a little thing about baseball and like to fold it into my posts here and there when I can. So I was particularly thrilled to learn that on this day 48 years ago Roger Maris hit his 61st home run, breaking Babe Ruth's Major League record for the number of home runs in a season.
Yea, it's not easy for me to acknowledge a Yankee player for anything, but Maris actually broke into the majors with my beloved Cleveland Indians, so I'm willing to make some allowances here. And since he hit the record-setting home run during his 2nd at-bat, I'm also finding some eerie coincidence between that and InfoFarm's 2nd anniversary. (Of course, that coincidence will be gone next year, but by then, I'll find something else to remark upon, don't worry.)
But the connections don't end there, since technically, October 1st is also a record-setting day at InfoFarm. No NAL blog has ever existed this long; no NAL blogger has ever written this many posts.
What can I say?
Maris and I -- we're record-setters.
And I can't resist pointing out that we've both done it without steroids.
Lively discussions and different opinions are encouraged within the bounds of respectful civil discourse. Questionable language, personal attacks, off-topic comments, and gratuitous links will either be edited or deleted. Comments are moderated and will not appear on InfoFarm until they have been approved.
I don’t usually reply to posts but I will in this case, great info...I will add a backlink and bookmark your site. Keep up the good work! :)
Submitted by: PatShelby on October 7, 2009 01:51 PM
Hey, I really enjoy your blog. I have a blog too in a totally unrelated field [gratuitous link removed], but I like to check in here on a regular basis, just to see what's going on and it's always interesting to say the least. It's always entertaining what people have to say.
Submitted by: HenleyL on October 13, 2009 12:10 PM
Nice blog you got here. It would be great to read a bit more about that topic.
Submitted by: PhillDoc on October 23, 2009 09:38 PM
Thank you! You often write very interesting articles. You improved my mood.
Submitted by: Brown on October 29, 2009 11:57 AM
This blog does not represent official communications from the National Agricultural Library, the Agricultural Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Poetry feeds our souls. Sweet potatoes feed our bellies. And a poem about sweet potatoes -- here called "yams" -- well, I'd venture that feeds multiple appetites simultaneously, including our curiosity. 
The food folks here at NAL have recently launched a couple of new tools that should make the lives of dietitians, nutritionists, nutrition educators and food service trainers a little bit easier. 
On October 1, 2007, 
