USDA
The Vocabulary of Flesh
Chewing over the meat industry's redefinition of chops and steaks
Do you know what the "T-bone" in a T-bone steak is, or where it's located on the steer's skeleton? For that matter, do you care? READ MORE >>
Bye Bye, Big Bird. Hello, E. Coli.
Now we know what life will be like if the House Republicans get their way: Financial aid for college will decline, food-borne illness will spread more easily, Head Start programs will shrink, and Big Bird might be out of business. READ MORE >>
Who's to Blame for the Superweed Invasion?
Reagan, Bush, and Rotten Eggs
The next time you hear a conservative ranting about big government, ask him how he likes his eggs--plain or with a side of salmonella. READ MORE >>
The Conservative Pseudojournalist Method
By now, the story of USDA staffer Shirley Sherrod is familiar. Conservative media magnate Andrew Breitbart obtained a video of her speaking to an NAACP convention. In it she discussed not wanting to help a farmer because he was white. Here was explosive evidence of the reverse racism that Breitbart and some conservatives find so endemic. She was quickly fired. READ MORE >>
Regional Innovation Goes Rural
One of the more gratifying aspects of the growing embrace not just by the Obama administration but Congress of regional innovation strategies (including those supporting regional industry clusters) has been the increased recognition among rural thinkers and actors that such strategies are in no way exclusively “urban” or cosmopolitan or high-tech. READ MORE >>
Budget 2011: Industry Clusters as a Paradigm for Job Growth
From its opening pages, the Obama administration’s FY2011 budget request adopts a stance that pervades this blog. Declares the document: “We need to recognize that competitive, high-performing regional economies are essential to a strong national economy.” (See page 20 of the federal budget.) READ MORE >>
The Survivalists
As the death toll from the cyclone that hit Burma earlier this month spirals past 100,000, the country's ruling junta continues its intransigence. Holed up in its new bunker capital in the middle of the country, the regime has gone from initially welcoming aid, to blocking U.S. and French assistance, to simply seizing relief supplies--before, finally, relenting and allowing some aid in. All the while, the chance for effective relief has grown slimmer. READ MORE >>
