Big Chocolate’s Child Slavery Addiction

Sorry to scare you, but on Halloween much of the chocolate Americans will hand out to trick-or-treaters will be tainted by the labor of enslaved children. Hershey’s, NestlĂ©, and the other big chocolate companies know this. They promised nearly a decade ago to...

The Faces of Government

I had dinner the other night with one of those villains, a “faceless bureaucrat” working as a wildlife biologist for the Department of the Interior in northern Florida. A college friend of my wife, she had spent many years in research on endangered...

Really ‘Making It Right’ on the Gulf Coast

BP is everywhere in the media vowing “We will make it right.” Pardon my skepticism, but BP has a long and dishonorable history of greenwashing, even prior to its Deepwater Horizon disaster. Remember BP’s highly touted rebirth a few years ago as...

Dead Miners and Ethically Dead Senators

Some members of Congress complain that they have a really tough job. Also, they say their hard work is not appreciated by the public and that they’re really not paid enough. Well, not to worry, Congresspeople, for I have the perfect cure for your job grievances:...

Safe Food, from Soil to Plate

E. coli-laden romaine lettuce recently sickened dozens of Americans in five states, as a food-related listeria outbreak killed at least two Texans. These were just the latest in a string of similar incidents. An endless deluge of foodborne illness outbreaks demands...