A Big Win for Fast Food Workers

A Big Win for Fast Food Workers

For many Americans, the only connection between Labor Day and labor is that you don’t have to do any of the latter as a result of the former. In other words, it’s just a day off work — an occasion to barbecue or go out of town for a three-day weekend. But...
Ethanol: A Love Story

Ethanol: A Love Story

It’s a timeless story of teenage romance: pledging love, abandoning reason, rebelling against authority. No, this isn’t the plot of a John Hughes movie. Instead, I’m talking about Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s love affair with ethanol. While Vilsack is tasked...
Summer Spells Hunger for Kids in Small American Towns

Summer Spells Hunger for Kids in Small American Towns

Metropolis, Illinois, population 6,465, isn’t much of a metropolis. But when Reverend Orlando McReynolds moved to that small town on the Kentucky border two years ago to become the pastor at the First Missionary Life Center, he found the same thing he left behind in...
Big Ag Spars with the First Amendment

Big Ag Spars with the First Amendment

The First Amendment may be inconvenient to some people at times, but it’s still the law of the land. Case in point: so-called “ag-gag laws.” These are laws in Idaho, Montana, Utah, North Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa that prohibit people from...
Local Markets Nourish Families and Communities

Local Markets Nourish Families and Communities

If anyone’s ever looking for me on a Sunday morning, they’d better head to the FreshFarm DuPont Circle Farmers’ Market. I can’t resist the tables piled high with bright green lettuces, plump purple eggplants, and juicy peaches. There’s fresh goat...
Rolling Up Some Common Sense with Willie Nelson

Rolling Up Some Common Sense with Willie Nelson

With marijuana prohibition finally ending in states and cities across the land — including full legalization in Alaska, Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. — who could be better than my friend Willie Nelson to lead the way for weed quality and...