Two excellent articles

Well, well...here we are again...me posting a pile of articles that I've sent to Facebook recently. I'll reatrain myself and only post two here today. But really, these are worth reading.

The first is about our good friend, the global food economy. If you are simplifying the cause of your rising food prices down to biofuel production and rising gas prices, you may want to check this out.
This article talks specifically about how policy has affected developing countries, but we get more and more of our food from "out there somewhere," at a seemingly great cost to us and a much greater cost to the pesant farmers who produce it. Next time you buy a can of black beans, check out where they came from...China? Can you even tell?

Long but worth it.

The second article is about the history of consumerism. Yes, we are all consumers. How did we come to live in this, well, consumptive manner? Hmmm...
The article is extremely interesting and backs up some of the general feelings and tendencies I have with actual historical info. Specifally, the Kellogg corp., at one time, had all employees only working 6 hours. When new management came in and tried to change things, no one wanted to give that up...not even for more money.

Also long and also worth it.

Happy reading!

Pastures of Plenty

A Federal Judge toured a migrant housing encampment outside of LA. The Judge is holding a hearing in January to determine if all of these workers will get the boot from the unsafe conditions.
I wonder if he realizes the double-edged sword he's dealing with? Specifically, if these workers were provided with adequate (and, by the nature of it, more expensive) housing opportunities, their wages would need to rise to accomodate the increase in their housing costs (or at least the would in a fair world). Our friend the Judge might just find himself paying a bit more for his pestcide soaked strawberries...

Read an article here.