Free Republic

BURLINGTON, Vt. — The trials of Odysseus are really not that different from the struggles of those learning to readjust after wars of today, modern veterans are finding. A small group of military veterans has been meeting weekly in a classroom at the University of Vermont to discuss "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" for college credit — and to give meaning to their own experiences, equating the close-order discipline of men who fought with spears, swords and shields to that of men and women who do battle these days with laser-guided munitions. Homer isn't just for student veterans. Discussion groups...

Americans waste nearly 150,000 tons of food per day, amounting to about one pound (422 grams) per person, and fruits and vegetables are mostly what gets tossed, said a study Wednesday. The amount of land used annually to grow food that ends up in the garbage in the United States is 30 million acres, or seven percent of total US cropland. Some 4.2 trillion gallons of irrigation water gets wasted, too, said the report in the journal PLOS ONE. Fruits and vegetables made up 39 percent of total food waste, followed by dairy (17 percent), meat (14 percent) and grains...