The list of Things I Have to Do is getting very long indeed. It's at times like these that you're likely to find me procrastinating on Facebook. This weekend, I'm particularly glad I did. Reader Anne-Lise Francois was running a caption competition for this fine photo.

Suggestions for captions in the comments section, please. Jokes about 'ruffling feathers' will be disqualified.

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Posted on 2 November, 2009 - 05:15

In another piece of New York Times-related news, I'll be on the BBC World Service in an hour or so (12.30pm Pacific time, Nov 1) talking with Nicolette Hahn Niman, about her Times oped on meat and climate change. Tune in here.

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Posted on 1 November, 2009 - 19:12

Last week, I chipped in a contribution (below) to a New York Times discussion on biotech. The debate garnered about a quarter as many reader responses as a previous one about the future of laundry in the 21st century. I'm not sure how to interpret that other than, simply, more people have opinions about laundry than about food. But don't let that put you off visiting the site. There are some very fine (and sometimes very obtuse) comments beneath our interventions. More here. ... read more »

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Posted on 1 November, 2009 - 18:03

A mere two weeks late, published on World Food Day, here's something I wrote for Reuters/Alertnet about what to expect from our leaders in the upcoming World Food Summit and Climate Change summits...

Better ways to tackle hunger than recycling old policies

This World Food Day, for the first time in human history, more than a billion people will go hungry. In a month's time, the world's leaders will fly to Rome for another World Food Summit, at which they will wring their hands at this awful statistic. ... read more »

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Posted on 1 November, 2009 - 17:56

A bit of follow-up on the post I made on shackdwellers attacked by a mob in South Africa. Many are still in hiding, and the vibrant movement that was built by South Africa's poorest people has been damaged. But they're still organising, democratically, for change. If you'd like to support them, the South Africa Development Fund is collecting checks. Please mark them 'for Abahlali', and send em to

South Africa Development Fund
555 Amory Street
Boston, MA 02130.

In the U ... read more »

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Posted on 28 October, 2009 - 15:11

The ever-excellent InterPress Service reports on a new UN report on whether it's a good idea to privatise seeds. The answer: not if you want poor farmers to benefit. The report, written by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Food, is available here. Full disclosure: I advise the Rapporteur, but didn't advise on this report. More below the fold. ... read more »

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Posted on 28 October, 2009 - 14:57

Any Neruda fan will tell you that poetry can be political. But how about the other way around?

Today's Guardian has a disturbing story about how protesters are being treated in the United Kingdom - as menaces to society. It seems as if 'protest', with a fractured logic that only exists in poetry, can elide into 'domestic extremism' without skipping a line. After all, don't extremists and protesters both share the same irrational hatred of the way things are today? ... read more »

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Posted on 27 October, 2009 - 01:45

One of the central ideas in my new book, The Value of Nothing, is that there are other ways of governing ourselves than either the free market or central government. While there’s plenty of evidence that the state-market dichotomy is a false one, it’s always good to have more data.

One of the latest nuggets comes from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ... read more »

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Posted on 26 October, 2009 - 18:59