Hail a new entry on the blogroll – the Food Riot Project. It’s a review of historical materials about women living in New York’s Lower East Side at the time of the 1917 food riots, and it’s lovely in so many ways. Least of all, it was sparked by an appearance of your author on NPR here in the US, but more importantly, the site’s a wonderful archive to dip into. Ultimately, it’ll all feed into a play that’ll be put on by The Anthropologists in Spring next year. Watch this space for more on that, and in the meantime, watch that space for more on the history of US food riots…
Another missive via the Retort group, this time from Greenpeace and one that I reprint not least because the “Fish Here Fish Now” line is so very apt.
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Here’s a splendid reminder about the context in which ‘charity’ happens today, written by Jonathan Glennie whose new book, The Trouble With Aid, I’m very much looking forward to reading.
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Next week sees World Food Day. Some of us will be trying to draw some indication about food policy out of the McCain and Obama camps by holding a big event in New York City. But in Asia, the Pesticide Action Network is telling it how it is, for nearly a billion people. Below, the press release for World Foodless Day.
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EL SALVADOR: Increase in Poverty Driven by Soaring Food Prices
By Raúl Gutiérrez
SAN SALVADOR, Oct 6 (IPS) – In the village of Talchiga in northeastern El Salvador, 20 families live in wooden shacks with earth floors, have no piped water, electricity or sewer services, and suffer from high levels of malnutrition.
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Yes, it has been an embarrassingly long time since I posted something of substance up here. I blame it on too much travel, and the flu. Sifting through the accumulated mail, the financial crisis is of course front and centre.
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I’ll not make a habit out of trumpeting upcoming speaking engagements, much less repeating said trumpeting, but for two good reasons, I’m going to make an exception. First, I’ll be speaking this Friday at the new California Academy of Sciences and it is one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. Above, a picture of the 2.5 acre living roof that Renzo Piano put on top of the building, and crammed with nearly 2 million native plants. The Academy has just opened its doors, and it is just as thoroughly on the inside as it is out.
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Here’s a press release from the Kenyan Bunge la Mwananchi (Swahili for “the Peoples’ Parliament”). Unlike many of the press releases that I put up here, this one reads like poetry. It’s well worth a read, not least because it’s always worth reminding oneself that, around the world, hunger is never experienced impassively. There is anger in peoples’ bellies, even when there’s nothing else. Via Shailja.
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I’m a fool. It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and the last post clearly leaves itself open to a piracy-related gag.
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File this under ‘End Times’. Here’s a bag of grapes that you can use only if you abide by the condition that “The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of the produce, including (but not limited to) seeds, stems, tissue and fruit.” Via Sam.
