My current leisure reading is "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-eye view of the world" by Michael Pollan. Pollan is a contributing writer for the NYT Magazine and teaches writing at Berkeley. The book is fascinating. It's not the page turner kind of book that science fiction stories are to me, but still I find myself amazed at what little I knew and still do not know about these four plants: the apple tree, tulip, marijuana, and the potato. Pollan links these four species to some primal human desires---sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control. There are some really convention-shattering things one will learn. For example, we have all heard of the Johnny Appleseed story, where Johnny lives the carefree life and wanders across America, like a bee, planting precious apple trees that eventually bear sweet red fruit. In fact, Johnny's original intention was to plant apple trees not for fruit, but to make hard cider. Alcohol! That's right. The apple tree planted ...