Agricultural Digest
In early August, a group of Iowa farmers sat down with three members of the House Select Committee on the CCP to discuss their allegations that the Chinese government is stealing proprietary American seeds. In 2011, the FBI famously caught one Chinese national doing just that; in fact, he was part of a larger seed-smuggling ring that is just one piece of the estimated $225 billion to $600 billion a year in intellectual property being stolen by China. Illinois Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi was sympathetic to the farmers, saying, “We can’t have a situation where we’re constantly developing secrets and research and doing the hard work of innovating — and then all of a sudden having that stolen from us.”
One of the farmers, a sixth-generation soybean grower named Suzanne Sherron, cautioned the group, noting that “one out of every three rows of soybeans you saw as you were driving here goes to China — …
Why UPS Didn’t Strike in Vegas
Mooning over glories, pitfalls of manual labor; expressing radical solidarity with down-trodden
It’s good being a Teamster
Vegas is a Union town
In 1830, Frances Wright, a Scottish writer and abolitionist who, in 1825, had just become an American citizen, delivered a lecture called “An Address to Young Mechanics.” “I have made human kind my study, from youth up,” she said. “The American community I have considered with most especial attention; and I can truly say that, wherever the same are not absolutely pressed down by labor and want, I have invariably found, not only the best feelings, but the soundest sense among the operative classes of society. I am satisfied, and that by extensive observation, that, with few exceptions, the whole sterling talent of the American community lies (latent indeed, and requiring the stimulus of circumstance for its development) among that large body who draw their subsistence from the labor of their hands.”
Understanding yourself in the context of manual labor can be difficult, even comical. I planned to speak …
Belle & Sebastian’s Boaty Weekender
Shoegazer Titanic sets sail to Sardinia
Twee Scots hold out promise for late bloomers
People are interesting, even if they need to be glued back together
There’s a woman in Sweden I think about sometimes. We’ve never met, but I’ve seen enough of her to know how brave she is. Her star turn happens halfway through Ten Meter Tower, a short documentary that features one or two people at a time standing on a diving-board platform that’s ten meters high, or almost 33 feet, trying to talk themselves, or one another, into jumping off. She’s blonde, fit, and the eldest of the bunch by far. Like many others that day who were part of the Gothenburg swimming-hall experiment — “a portrait of humans in doubt,” according to the directors — she’s up there alone, surrounded by a handful of cameras and microphones capturing the slightest of reactions and reflexes. Bent over, hands clasped over knees, she does some breathwork before stepping forward, all the way to the edge, meaning she’ll now receive the roughly $30 participation prize no matter what follows. Then she …
