Archive
A Better Way to Say I Love You
"Why do American companies sell pesticides that are banned in the U.S. to my country?" my Colombian friend Luz asked me. I had no good answer. Yet, this question lies at the core of the bouquet of roses you might give or receive this Valentine's Day. Nearly all roses...
High Time for Hemp
Four years ago, Michelle Obama picked up a shovel to make a powerful symbolic statement about America's food and farm future: She turned a patch of White House lawn into a working organic garden. I'm guessing that now, as she begins another four years in the people's...
Free Trade Economics 101
The Road Back to Serfdom
Here I am In working prime, But all the jobs Are just part-time. The ancestors of many Americans came here to escape mingy monarchs, oppressive priests, and baleful barons who controlled all aspects of communal life back in their countries. They bravely left...
This Week in OtherWords: January 30, 2013
This week in OtherWords, we're mixing food and politics. Wenonah Hauter skewers the government's lackadaisical regulation of genetically engineered salmon, Jill Richardson calls for a fresh outlook on the relationship between weight and health, Jim Harkness asks...
The End of the Farm Bill?
"There is absolutely no way to explain this other than agriculture is just not a priority," said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow on the Senate Floor on New Year's Day. She was describing the bare-bones Farm Bill extension agreed to as part of...
Don’t Put a Fork in It
While most Americans were enjoying the holiday season or stressing out over the nation's imminent leap off the so-called fiscal cliff, the Food and Drug Administration delivered some big news as quietly as possible. On December 21, the agency announced that...
Dumped by Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable's decision to drop Al Jazeera English from its lineup, right after AJE had purchased Current TV and that network's carriage deals for $500 million, raised questions about the cable operator's motives. But whatever the particulars and politics of this...
Obama’s Battle Hymn of the Republic
I don't think President Barack Obama gave a good inaugural address this time. I think it was a great one. He began with the principles of freedom and equality that inform our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, and followed our journey through the many...
Hogging the Global Pie
Apologists for inequality have a standard retort to anyone who calls for a more equal distribution of the world's treasure. If you took all the wealth of the wealthy and divvied it up equally among all the poor, they claim, no one would gain enough to accomplish much...
