Ahna Kruzic and Erik Hazard , Director of Publications and Communications at Food First/writer, Editor and Researcher for Food First - Alternet/Food First
Stephan: Here is a rather surprising portrait of what is going on in American agriculture.
Female farmer.
Credit: Impact Photography
While globalization and industrialization of the food system has resulted in fewer farms and farmers, the number of women farmers in the U.S. is increasing—and they’re fighting against a system that fails to serve them and their communities. Women are taking control of their food systems by farming, organizing in their communities, and advocating for systemic policy change that can create food systems that are better for farmers, workers, their communities, and our planet. Despite an increase in the number of women farmers, however, there is not a parallel trend in representation or power; women rarely control or hold power in the agriculture and food industry as a whole, and exploitation is rampant, especially among women of color.
Let us delve further into how patriarchy is integral to our food system as we know it—most notably characterized by 795 million chronically undernourished people in the world, most of which are women and girls (despite the fact that women participate in the production and processing of food at roughly equal rates […]
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John Cassidy, Staff Writer - The New Yorker
Stephan: I have not been doing stories on the Comey mess partly because it is getting wall-to-wall coverage on virtually every media outlet in the country, much of it just repeating the same few facts over and over, larded with speculation, fantasies and political wet dreams. Also, partly because I have been following something else, namely, why are Mitch McConnell and other party leaders so very quiet?
The obvious answer: these men place party above country. But what exactly does that mean? This essay gives a first approximation of an answer.
Senator Mitch McConnell’s reaction to James Comey’s firing was in keeping with his record of demonstrating an unwillingness to look beyond partisan concerns.
Credit: Win McNamee
It is often said that the U.S. Presidency is a relatively weak office—but that is a contingent statement. To prevent the President from gaining too much power, or abusing that power, the Founding Fathers divided authority among the different branches of government, and established some fundamental governing principles. These are the fabled checks and balances, arranged, as James Bryce, the British jurist, noted in his venerable 1888 tome, “The American Commonwealth,” to “restrain any one department from tyranny.”
But the checks and balances only work if each of Bryce’s departments agrees to play its allotted role. A President enabled by a spineless and supine Congress that fails to exercise its oversight powers isn’t a weak executive at all: he is a potential despot. Using his authority to hire and fire federal officials, he can rapidly remake the government to his own design, appointing loyalists to key positions, eliminating […]
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, - University at Buffalo
Stephan: Here is some very interesting social outcome research on empathy. I will be looking for further studies on these lines, to see whether they support these conclusions. However, I feel strongly enough that this is on the right track that I am willing to publish it now.
BUFFALO, N.Y. – When it comes to empathy, the idiom that suggests “walking a mile in their shoes” turns out to be problematic advice, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
“That’s because there are two routes to empathy and one of them is more personally distressing and upsetting than the other,” says Michael Poulin, an associate professor in the University at Buffalo Department of Psychology and co-author of the study led by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Anneke E.K. Buffone, who was a PhD student at UB when the research was conducted.
The findings, based on stress physiology measures, add a new and previously unexplored dimension to understanding how choosing a path to empathy can affect a helper’s health and well-being. The study’s conclusions provide important insights into areas ranging from training doctors to raising children.
The routes to empathy Poulin mentions diverge at the point of the helper’s perspective. The two may sound similar, but actually turn out to be quite different in terms of how they affect the person who is trying to help another.
One approach observes and infers […]
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Ben Tarnoff , - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: This is a trend that is really beginning to concern me: America's declining place in creating innovation. It isn't being discussed much in the American media (this report is in a British newspaper) but it has profound implications for our future. Trump's immigration policies are drying up the innovative foreign component of U.S. science and medicine, and his slashing of science funding has resulted in declining innovation. And we mustn't forget the cannabilizing capitalism that is devouring itself, as well as corrupting science, and social wellbeing.
This essay gives the flavor of this alarming trend.
Juicero tickled social media’s insatiable schadenfreude for rich people getting swindled – but it shed light on a bigger problem.
Credit: Juicero
SAN FRANCISCO — If you’ve used the internet at any point in the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard of Juicero. Juicero is a San Francisco-based company that sells a $400 juicer. Here’s how it works: you plug in a pre-sold packet of diced fruits and vegetables, and the machine transforms it into juice. But it turns out you don’t actually need the machine to make the juice. On 19 April, Bloomberg News reported that you can squeeze the packets by hand and get the same result. It’s even faster.
The internet erupted in laughter. Juicero made the perfect punchline: a celebrated startup that had received a fawning profile from the New York Times and $120m in funding from blue-chip VCs such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures was selling an expensive way to automate something you could do faster […]
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Michael Corcoran, - truthout
Stephan: It is astonishing to me that it is not clear to everyone that an educated populace is in the interest of society, rich and poor alike. But that is the case. The Trump administration, in fact, is actively undermining that interest as this report describes.
Trump is gutting the few protections student borrowers have, even as the largest student loan servicer faces a major lawsuit.
Credit: Pexels
“The struggle between rich and poor has largely taken the form of conflicts between creditors and debtors.” — David Graeber
Zack’s Investment Research recently recommended that people buy stock for Navient (formerly Sallie Mae), the nation’s largest servicer of student loans. This may seem curious given that the company is facing a historic lawsuit filed on January 18 from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), that alleges (in agreement with aggrieved student borrowers) that the company has “illegally cheated many struggling borrowers” for years through “shortcuts and deceptions.”
Organizers are cautiously optimistic the lawsuit may lead to relief and/or reform in the coming years. But this “heightened regulatory scrutiny over alleged anti-consumer practices” isn’t scaring investors, who remain bullish on student loan bullies. Navient’s shares outperformed expectations, benefiting from a 30 percent spike in its stock just as Donald Trump was elected president.
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