By Richard Oswald Not too long ago, the worlds pharmaceutical companies lobbied Congress to drop strict safety guidelines saying those placed an undue burden on America. It was unconstitutional they said, by driving up the cost of medicine. US consumers shouldn’t care where medicine came from. It was none of their business actually, so long as they received adequate assurances of safety and effectiveness. It was the most efficient way, they said, to keep prices low. Pill imports Read More …
No one knows why James Hunter left his family for a two year gold prospecting tour in them thar hills. All we really know is a remote branch of the family tree once broke loose from his Missouri roots for the California Gold Rush. Maybe James wanted respite from routine … or plain old adventure. Or maybe he had gold fever. He found gold, probably not the bonanza he wanted, but when James returned there was just enough Read More …
Industrial agriculture erases the identity of our food, filtering its origins as cleanly as removing bee pollen from honey. Just mix, blend, inject it with a brand – and it’s ready for a shelf near you. Who made your food? In these changing times that’s becoming an important question. Maybe it’s something we should all ask more often as industrial food becomes rule over exception. But what makes food industrial? With so many working families and no one Read More …
The best explanation I’ve heard for why the world did not end last month according to Mayan prophecy is that “every calendar has a beginning and end”–when the last page is torn off we simply start a new one. If it ain’t the end of the world then maybe its just time to turn the page. End of days came again, in November, when President Barack Obama was reelected to his second term. I don’t really think he’s Read More …