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Long-time Iowa farm cartoonist fired after creating this cartoon

“Rick Friday has been giving farmers a voice and a laugh every Friday for two decades through his cartoons in Farm News.
Now the long-time Iowa farm cartoonist tells KCCI that he has been fired. Friday announced Sunday that his job was over after 21 years in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.”

Source: www.orrazz.com

There are some intriguing layers connected to the politics of agribusiness in this story.  First off, the political cartoon highlights a pithy truth–that while the ‘traditional’ farmer is a lucrative position, in the global economy, there are corporations that are amassing fortunes in agribusiness.  The second connection is more telling–the newspaper company felt compelled to fire the cartoonist as for voicing this perspective as the newspaper advertisers flexed their pocketbooks to change the direction of the news being reported.  

 

Tags: agriculture, food production, agribusiness, food, economic, industry, scale, media. 

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The Incredible growth of megacities

“The world’s cities are booming and their growth is changing the face of the planet. Around 77 million people are moving from rural to urban areas each year. The latest UN World Cities Report has found that the number of “megacities” – those with more than 10 million people – has more than doubled over the past two decades, from 14 in 1995 to 29 in 2016. And whereas the developed world was once the home of the biggest cities, this map shows that it is now the developing world taking the lead.”

 

Tags: urban, megacities, regions.

Source: www.weforum.org

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How the first city got started 12,000 years ago

“In this animated video, Jonathan F. P. Rose explains how the first city was started in Turkey, 12,000 years ago.”

Source: www.youtube.com

What led to the first urban settlements? We know that the beginnings of agriculture are closely connected to the first forays into agriculture and the domestication of animals.  This brief video puts some archeological specificity on the though exercise, “what would you need to start the first city in a world without cities?” 

 

Tags: urban, place, historical.

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Entomophagy: Bugs in the system

IT WOULD once have been scandalous to suggest the merits of eating insects; these days, it has become old hat. Western-educated entrepreneurs will sell you protein bars made from cricket flour. TED talks extol entomophagy’s virtue. Top-end restaurants in the West’s largest cities tout insect-based dishes.

Source: www.economist.com

While it might make economic, nutritional, and environmental sense, I’m sure that many are squeamish at the idea of insects primarily because in violates many deeply ingrained cultural taboos.  The main reasons listed in the video for promoting the production and consumption of more insects:

  1. Insects are healthier than meat.
  2. It is cheap (or free) to raise insects.
  3. Raising insects is more sustainable than livestock.

 

Questions to Ponder: Would you be willing to try eating insects?  How do you think this idea would go over with your family and friends?  What cultural barriers might slow the diffusion of this practice?    

 

Tags: food, culture, diffusion, economic, agriculture.

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The dim reality of South Africa’s new dawn

In April 1994, South Africa held its first democratic elections and all races went to the polls to bury apartheid for good. But hopes of a new dawn have been tarnished by fraud and corruption at the highest levels.

Source: www.youtube.com

The first 2 and a half minutes of this video are a good historical analysis into the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, culminating in the election of Nelson Mandela and the empowerment of the ANC.  Today though, the ANC and South Africa is mired in endemic corruption.  South Africa is one of the most unequal societies with high unemployment and a faltering economy. 

 

Tags: South Africa, crime, Africa, political, race, governance, ethnicity.

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During World War I, Propaganda Erased Visible Markers of German Culture

As the U.S. entered World War I, German culture was erased as the government promoted the unpopular war through anti-German propaganda. This backlash culminated in the lynching of a German immigrant.

Source: www.npr.org

German-Americans are America’s largest single ethnic group (if you divide Hispanics into Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc). Yet despite their numbers, they are barely visible. During the first world war, parts of America grew incredibly anti-German. Many stopped speaking German and anglicized their names. “In 1915 about 25% of all high school students in America studied German, but by the end of the World War I German had become so stigmatized that only 1 percent of high schools even taught it.”

 

Tags: culture, historical, ethnicity, USA.

 

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Why do people and nations trade?

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“Mark Blyth of Brown University explains international trade.” 

Source: vimeo.com

To understand international trade, you need to understand how the factors of production vary from place to place, resulting in different locations having a comparative advantage on a global market.  This video nicely explains that with the example of Scotland’s comparative advantage raising sheep with southern Europe’s comparative advantage in producing wine.   Does the size of a country matter in trade?  You betcha.

 

Tags: regions, economic, diffusion, industry. 

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New Orleans to remove prominent Confederate statues and monuments

Statues to Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard and Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis will be removed.

Source: www.businessinsider.com

I find issues such as these endlessly fascinating because it the cultural politics behind the shaping of the landscape are so evident. The cultural landscape clearly isn’t just an innocent reflection of the society, but is actively constructed and contested.  Some, including the NOLA mayor, claim that it isn’t political, but preserving or reconfiguring a place’s public cultural heritage is always political.

 

Tags: monuments, New Orleans, the South,  urban, architecture, landscape.

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Memorializing Manzanar

“During World War II the US government incarcerated over 110,000 Japanese Americans, in ten different detention centers throughout the United States.  One of these sites was Manzanar; in 1992, Manzanar was declared a National Historic Site. But apart from the cemetery, there was little there. The committee did not want to settle for a staid, sterile museum and so they worked with the National Park Service to rebuild portions of the camp exactly as they had been during the war. The most powerful symbol might be the site’s newest addition, a replica of the women’s latrine with a trough sink and row of five toilets with no dividers between them. It’s a stark reminder of the humiliation felt by many Japanese Americans during their incarceration.  The annual pilgrimage of Japanese-Americans and others will take place on April 29th, 2017.”

Source: 99percentinvisible.org

How we collectively remember history in the landscape?  Do you erase national embarrassments that open wounds of the past or is the act of memorialization cathartic and part of becoming a better country?  After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. listened to the fears of the public and military officials and interned U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry.  Today, how this history is remembered is deeply important to many groups in the United States.  There are some great images, videos and primary sources in this episode of the 99 Percent Invisible podcast. 

 

Tags: podcast, culture, California, historical, monuments, place, landscape.

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