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Category: Politics

Published June 13, 2011

Kristof on Food Safety

From a column by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times this weekend:

“We would never think of trying to keep our children healthy by adding antibiotics to school water fountains, because we know this would breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It’s unconscionable that Big Ag does something similar for livestock.

Louise Slaughter, the only microbiologist in the United States House of Representatives, has been fighting a lonely battle to curb this practice — but industrial agricultural interests have always blocked her legislation.

‘These statistics tell the tale of an industry that is rampantly misusing antibiotics in an attempt to cover up filthy, unsanitary living conditions among animals,’ Slaughter said. ‘As they feed antibiotics to animals to keep them healthy, they are making our families sicker by spreading these deadly strains of bacteria.’

Vegetarians may think that they’re immune, but they’re not. E. coli originates in animals but can spill into water used to irrigate vegetables, contaminating them. The European E. coli outbreak apparently arose from bean sprouts grown on an organic farm in Germany.”

 

Published June 7, 2011

Berlusconi and Bunga Bunga

“When I finally met Berlusconi — ‘Mr. Winner, Mr. Machismo,’ as Flavia Perina described him — I was shocked. He is tiny, no more than five feet four inches tall. He wears white eyeliner on his lower lids to make his eyes pop in photographs, and he uses heavy foundation on his face, which renders him the same orangey-brown color as the cast of ‘Jersey Shore.’ His hair is thinning — ‘because I had too many girlfriends,’ he once said, before he got implants — and dyed a vivid burnt sienna. Despite these efforts, he is not a young seventy-four; Berlusconi, in the words of his best friend, is a bit dilapidated.”

This is from an article on Italy’s three-time and current prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in this week’s New Yorker. And here is Ariel Levy, the author of the article, talking about Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power and political career.

Published June 3, 2011

Hear Me Talk About Food Prices and Political Instability

A few weeks ago I agreed to talk with SFN Today’s Rhonda Garrison about the relationship between food prices and political instability.

Although I knew she was recording my answers, I didn’t know it would be for an audio segment. Thanks to a great editing job on Rhonda’s part, I actually sound knowledgeable. You can listen here.