Surprising Report on the Ethical Food Movement

I just read this article about the ethical-food movement (i.e. organic, fairtrade and local).

The aims of much of the ethical-food movement -- to protect the environment, to encourage development and to redress the distortions in global trade -- are admirable. The problems lie in the means, not the ends. No amount of Fairtrade coffee will eliminate world poverty, and all the organic asparagus in the world will not save the planet. Some of the stuff sold under an ethical label may even leave the world in a worse state and its poor farmers poorer than they otherwise would be.
-The Economist Dec 9, 2006

His Sheep Am I

In God's green pastures feeding
by His cool waters lie
Soft in the evening walk my Lord and I;
All the sheep of His pasture
Fare so wondrously fine.
His sheep am I

Water's cool... in the valley
pasture's green... on the mountain
In the evening walk my Lord and I;

Dark the night... in the valley
Rough the way... on the mountain
Step by step
Walk my Lord and I

News Channels

I just read this in the Economist regarding English-speaking news channels:

If there is heavy-handed government influence, viewers will notice, and switch off. "Russia Today", an English-language news channel from the Russian government, has had little impact since its launch last December; neither has Channel NewsAsia, started in 1999 by a firm owned by Singapore's government to challenge Western dominance of the airwaves.

Ouch! I think Channel NewsAsia has a pretty good well-updated website, but otherwise they appear not to be as popular in the region as they claim to be....