Archive
The Slow Road to Better Fast Food
The Fed’s Wizardry Isn’t Doing Much for the Rest of Us
The Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle called economics "the dismal science." He was only half right. Dismal, yes, but a science, no. Economics is more like a religion, in which reality is shaped by belief or blind faith. And, in the case of free-market zealots, it can...
This Week in OtherWords: October 2, 2013
This week in OtherWords, Richard Kirsch explores the values divide contributing to the government's shutdown while Donald Kaul blames the impasse on the Republican Party. We also have several food-focused commentaries: Jim Hightower skewers the government's practice...
Challenging Big Chicken
Darn. I missed the official celebration in September — bet you did too. But even if we're a little late, we still have time to mark National Chicken Month. Websites are giving us myriad ways to observe the bird. Eat more chicken! Do the chicken dance! Read Chicken...
Engineering More Information for Consumers
One hundred calories per serving, two servings per container, three grams of fiber, product of USA, may contain traces of soy, manufactured in a facility that processes wheat. We're accustomed to seeing labels on our food that give us this information. However,...
The Values Divide
There's a lot of talk about how polarized the country is today. Sometimes that polarization is more than about partisan politics — it's about real differences in values. Take the House Republicans' recent votes to deny food and health care to millions of Americans....
Too High a Price for Courage
Berta Cáceres, an internationally respected leader of the movement for indigenous rights, is now living as a fugitive. The Honduran government ordered this soft-spoken dynamo imprisoned on September 20. From her undisclosed location, she emailed me and a few others....
It’s All Their Fault
Everyone pretty much agrees that what's going on in Washington right now ranks up there with the dumbest, most destructive episodes in our history. We are a great and powerful country, on the cusp of achieving that "Shining City upon a Hill" status that Puritan leader...
When Citizens Shocked Plutocrats
A hundred years ago, on October 3, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the first modern federal tax on income. John Buenker has been writing about the events that led to that signing for a good bit of the last 50 years. His 1985 book, The Income Tax and the...
Why Are We Eating in the Dark?
Have you ever eaten a genetically engineered food? If you're like most Americans, you have no idea. Genetic engineering is a controversial technology in which genes from one species (say, bacteria) are inserted into the DNA of a different species (for example, corn)....
