Monsanto’s Chokehold Of America

The Article: How Monsanto Went From Selling Aspirin to Controlling Our Food Supply by Jill Richardson in AlterNet.

The Text: Forty percent of the crops grown in the United States contain their genes. They produce the world’s top selling herbicide. Several of their factories are now toxic Superfund sites. They spend millions lobbying the government each year. It’s time we take a closer look at who’s controlling our food, poisoning our land, and influencing all three branches of government. To do that, the watchdog group Food and Water Watch recently published a corporate profile of Monsanto.

Patty Lovera, Food and Water Watch assistant director, says they decided to focus on Monsanto because they felt a need to “put together a piece where people can see all of the aspects of this company.”

“It really strikes us when we talk about how clear it is that this is a chemical company that wanted to expand its reach,” she says. “A chemical company that started buying up seed companies.” She feels it’s important “for food activists to understand all of the ties between the seeds and the chemicals.”

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Elizabeth Warren Takes On Bank Favoritism Again–This Time Via Student Loan Interest Rates

If passed, Warren’s Students Loan Fairness Act would allow students who are eligible for federally subsidized Stafford loans to borrow at the same rate the big banks get through the Federal Reserve discount window.

A Letter To Bashar Al-Assad

Surely one more application of toothless pressure by the UN will put a stop to the civil war raging in Syria.

To Criticize Islam

The Article: To Criticize Islam by Tauriq Moosa in BigThink.

The Text: Here is a statement that shouldn’t result in anyone being called racist: I think religion is a particularly harmful way of viewing the world, because it encourages irrational thought, groupthink, and unhelpful, backward opinions on many issues. Replace religion with one in particular, namely Islam, and you might find yourself on the receiving end of some strange accusations. This is unhelpful to important discussions, regarding the nature of religion and harm.

However, if what was written about religion in general is true, then it seems reasonable to ask follow-up questions, like: Are some religions worse than others? If so, which ones and why? Are religious people more prone to bad ways of thinking than non-religious? These don’t presume answers, since by questioning we come to determine the truth of these situations. But we should recognise that these, if formulated correctly, are empirical questions.

Consider Jainism and Islam. Were you to write a novel or draw cartoons mocking the Jains, would you lose sleep or fear for your life? Of course not. Most of us know that the same can not be said of Islam, even in countries that are secular and have a majority population of non-believers. The major tenet of Jainism is entirely premised on non-violence for all living things, known as ahimsa. This is so strong, Jains often walk with brooms, do not go out at night for fear of trampling animals or insects, refuse to eat honey since this does violence to bees, won’t farm for fear of digging and harming underground creatures, and so on.

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Sequesterless Airlines

As you probably know by now, Congress has reneged the portion of the sequester that inconvenienced, you guessed it, congressional and business travelers. So now, even if you can’t send your kid to Head Start anymore, you can at least know that you won’t have to wait as long at the airport for that flight you could never–especially now–afford.