Writer/filmmaker/activist/stuntman Colin Beavan will be in Boston this week promoting his movie, "No Impact Man," which opens today at the Kendall. 

Everyone needs an editor. Of course I would say that, having been employed as one for almost 30 years. But I see it often as a blogger, too — a blogger without an editor.

Yesterday, I started out saying something else — what I hope to get to now — but by the time my prelude was done, I had a post that was longish already.

You may have noticed that I'm in my third paragraph already, and I haven't gotten to the point still yet! So here it is...

In writing a new first chapter for my book, I've flirted with the idea that we are under some form of mass hypnosis. I don't want to assert that in any clinical way, 'cause I wouldn't know enough to make a good argument, and so far, I haven't found a way to express it credibily enough for inclusion.

The CEO of Coke thinks a federal tax on soft drinks would be ghastly. Now there's a surprise.

Oh, and the Pepsi dude thinks it's bad, too.

Link.

Get used to this discussion. Taxing the foods, or in the case of soda, "foods," that aren't healthy is going to come up again, and those who would be taxed will fight, of course. Coke's Muhtar Kent, the chairman and CEO, invoked the Soviet Union in his reply.

Let's start with this basic fact: The US population is estimated to grow at .975 percent this year. If everyone keeps eating at the same rate, doesn't that mean that food companies are looking at a growth rate of less than 1 percent this year? How's that going to play on Wall Street?

A friend of mine, Joan Ifland, draws strong parallels between how the tobacco industry conducted its business for decades, and how the food industry is conducting itself today.

I have some sympathy for you, my readers, who must be wondering, wtf? If not for the reduced level of posting, then for the apparent veering away from what seemed to be the blog's theme of energy efficiency, green-building issues, etc.

Note: This is also posted at fisherblue.com/blog.

"Why are the missiles called peace keepers, when they're aimed to kill?"

You probably recognize the Tracy Chapman lyric, from her song "Why?" and it arises in my mind this morning in response to the announcement by Kraft Foods that it will use the Smart Choices nutrition guidelines to determine which foods it will advertise to 6- to 11-year-olds.

On the face of it, the move suggests vision and leadership, and perhaps those are accurate impressions. Really, they could be — look at Wal Mart, which has legitimately gone from corporate scourge to corporate not-bad guy. But no one alive in today's world should accept anything — except my pearls, of course — without looking a little further, and these are some of the points apparent:

Jim Wilson, the fourth-generation farmer at the helm of Wilson Farms in Lexington, likes to note the distinction between good farmers and good businessmen, and listening to him during a 90-minute tour last week, it's clear he claims membership in both cohorts. Considering the thriving concerns his family operates both in Lexington and in southern New Hampshire, there should be no argument, either. 

Not for a second do I believe Monsanto's response page to the movie "Food, Inc.," even though I scored a perfect 7-for-7 on its facts quiz it deploys to help carry its attack against the film.