This piece was originally posted at The Guardian.

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This piece was originally posted at The Huffington Post

Wendy’s, the world’s third largest burger joint, is having a makeover. From being “Wendy’s Old Fashioned Burgers” we’re now told it’s just “Wendy’s.” The ginger-haired befreckled Wendy remains on the logo, though in their TV spots she’s a hipper twentysomething. Yet behind the new facade lie some very old-fashioned attitudes.

CIW Protest outside Wendy’s (Credit:CIW) Keep Reading »

Part of the reason I’ve been a bit quiet here is because RajPatel.org is acting up a little, with hackers figuring out increasingly smart ways to inject malicious code into the site. After the most recent blacklisting by Google, I’m determined to get it under control. I’m turning off the comments feature – which has already been hacked a couple of times – to see if that keeps this site malware-free for a couple of months. Apologies if your comments have been, or will, get lost in the hacking battle. If that does the trick, I’ll find an alternative way to make sure that comments can continue to be posted. If not, looks like I’ll be migrating off WordPress.

That’s what I’ll be asking on Monday, when I call the Lao Embassy in Washington on Monday between 9:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 16:30 Eastern time on (202) 332-6416/7. “It has been 100 days; Where is Sombath?” And then I’ll send em this fax on (202) 332-4923.

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From the Huffington Post.

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This essay first appeared in The Earth Island Journal special issue on The Anthropocene. More here.

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Three last things on the Mark Lynas story (some of which is reprised by the CBC here). First, thanks to Daniel “Foodieana Jones” Bowman Simon for observing that I have, contrary to a previous statement, heard of Mark Lynas. I’ve even cited him, in an academic piece on food rebellions. Although his original ‘Selling Starvation’ piece in CorporateWatch magazine isn’t on the original site, the good folk at the Internet Archive have it here.

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Via Campesina Africa Solidarity Statement on the farmworkers mobilization in South Africa

Stop rural slavery! Respect the farmworkers!

(Maputo 14th January 2013) – During the month of November last year, the world watched farmworkers strikes, particularly those working in vinyards, in the Western Cape Province, in South Africa. They were protesting against exploitation and poor working and living conditions on farms, demanding an increase in minimum wages. In many cases, South African police responded to the demonstrations with violence and intolerance and showed no respect for laws. Many farmworkers and activists were arrested, including peasants of The Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty Campaign, a member of La Via Campesina.

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It was such a non-issue that I really didn’t want to write about it at all. I didn’t know who Mark Lynas was and didn’t know that he had changed his mind about genetically modified crops from being an opponent to a fan. But, clearly, it was a slow news week. The killing and the rape and the corporate crime and the climate change had been successfully reported. So a range of news outlets decided to give Lynas the air time he wanted, following this speech.

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Council member Ken Cockrel must be trippin! On Tuesday, December 11, after he, along with Saunteel Jenkins, James Tate, Gary Brown, and Charles Pugh, voted to approve the ill-conceived Hantz land sale proposal, he was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying, “a ‘no’ vote would have sent the message to the world that Detroit isn’t really serious about urban agriculture.” The foremost advocates and practitioners of urban agriculture in Detroit opposed the Hantz proposal. It is groups like Feedom Freedom Growers, Earthworks Urban Farm, the Garden Resource Program and D-Town Farm that have informed the nation and the world that Detroiters are serious about urban agriculture.

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