Rachel Laudan

    The New York Times a couple of days ago had a long and well researched article on the slowing of Mexican migration to the United States. Yeah. Mexican is getting wealthier.  In fact Mexico is now 80% urban, something that has a lot to do with this.  Peasants eking out a living on [...]

I’ve edited this piece, added a few things, and changed the title. Wikipedia has a short and clear article on agribusiness, contrasting two ways in which it is used. The first is neutral. Within the agriculture industry, agribusiness is widely used simply as a convenient portmanteau of agriculture and business, referring to the range of [...]

Linguists use the term loan words for terms borrowed from another language.  Would this help clarify the discussion of what are popularly called “fusion cuisines?”   The more I think about this term, the more it seems to me to obscure more than it clarifies.  Cuisines are complex structures with culinary/social/political/aesthetic/economic/religious/health/even environmental goals, rules for achieving [...]