Petey's Pipeline E-zine

Issue #42

December 18, 2006

Contents

Business First When in Doubt, Ask
Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings National Security—Safe or Sorry: Food Security (Part I)
Write Thinking Punctuation – the Marks of Professionals (the Comma, Part IV of IV)

Business First (Editorial)

When in Doubt, Ask

A couple of days ago, I typed my name into the Ask.com Search box and clicked on the Search button. I'll be damned if Perfect Text didn't pop up on the first page, in the first spot—a position earned through hard work and patience, no doubt.

In the interests of scientific integrity, accuracy, honesty, and credibility—oh, and fairness, let us not forget fairness—I decided to repeat the experiment using the Google search engine. It was a major disappointment. Despite having a Web site with more than a hundred pages of content, all of which bear my name; despite having dozens of original articles (each of which carries my byline) on my own and several client Web sites; despite having a blog at blogspot.com, Google didn't recognize my existence in the top ten pages of results.

There may be a good reason for this, but I have yet to figure out what it is. However, I'm not going to let that stop me from making specific recommendations: If you're a person looking to do me harm, please consult the Google search engine. Everyone else should just Ask.

• • •

For an occasional dose of insight and opinion, read Petey's Pipeline Blog.

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Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings

National Security—Safe or Sorry: Food Security (Part I)
by Phil Hanson

Any nation that can't supply its own food puts its population at grave risk of starvation in times of global conflicts and natural or manmade disasters. Indicators suggest that most Americans are closer to the brink of starvation than they think.

Thanks to globalization, global climate changes, government regulations, corporate ownership of food production and distribution mechanisms, high energy costs, rampant consumerism and an instant gratification mindset firmly entrenched in the general population, the U.S. teeters at the edge of a national food shortage disaster. Folks who are still caught up in the grand delusion of the American Dream remain oblivious to the signs. But to those who are paying attention, the signs are obvious.

Overpopulation

Sustainability in all that we do must become our top priority. We will never achieve a sustainable economy—indeed, a sustainable culture—until we get population growth under control. That single thing is the underlying cause of most of the problems facing society today. Overpopulation drives up demand for energy, increases housing, healthcare and education costs, threatens food and water security, and accelerates global warming and environmental destruction.

As one might expect, overpopulation is a major threat to national food security. The planet's biological carrying capacity is no match for the current global population.

More mouths to feed means more food must be produced, but they also mean that eventually the bodies that are, not coincidentally, attached to those mouths, will force the expansion of urban growth boundaries and encroach upon existing farmland. At a time when the population needs more food, the means of producing more diminishes.

More people mean more communities competing for available water resources. Do people get water for showers and to wash their cars and soak their lawns? Do farmers get water for irrigation? Does enough water remain to support native fish stocks? Water shortages in the latter two will inhibit the food supply.

Importing more food in not a satisfactory solution, because in doing so we put populations elsewhere at increased risk of starvation. According to the World Health Organization, 3.7 billion people—about 60% of the world's population—are malnourished. Each year the problem gets worse. Despite increased productivity, production capacity lags farther and farther behind population growth.

Economic Globalization

Globalization of markets siphons money and resources away from local economies, allowing profits to enrich those at the top of the economic pyramid while those at the bottom are further impoverished. Large companies absorb small companies and are in turn absorbed by still larger companies until economic and political power concentrates in the hands of a few multinational corporations. These corporations aren't concerned about the greater good of all citizens, only about maximizing profits for corporate investors. The next quarter's profits mean more to them than long-term sustainability.

Food Crop Production

When huge agribiz conglomerates, favored by federal regulations and subsidized by taxpayers, wield enormous power to influence markets, family farms go extinct. But this is only one of many weak links in the food security chain.

Today, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill are the biggest agribusiness conglomerates in the country. As you might expect, the major suppliers of farm chemicals to these agribiz giants are also large corporations. Do the names Monsanto, Lilly and Scott ring any bells? How about Chevron and Exxon/Mobil?

Factory farms use copious amounts of farm chemicals (synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones and antibiotics) that diminish food quality, poison food crops, land, aquifers, animals, and people. They also use exorbitant amounts of fossil fuels during various phases of planting, growing, harvesting, and animal husbandry operations.

Genetically modified (GM) crops pose a significant risk to food security, too. Today, many GM crops produce sterile seeds, making it impossible for small-time growers to propagate crops in future growing seasons. And no one knows what risks (if any) may be associated with eating food containing GM components.

Agribusiness ensures profitability at the expense of food security. Because the primary goal of corporations is to maximize profits for their investors, they care less about sustainable farming practices and food quality than they do about maximizing crop growth in the shortest possible time. Production takes precedence over everything else.

Despite high yields in the short term, chemical and energy intensive farming methods practiced by factory farms are not sustainable over the long term. The dream of infinite growth stops dead against the wall of finite reality, and the quest for corporate riches strikes another blow against food security.

Coming in the next issue: Part II of Food Security.

Copyright © 2006 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.

Write Thinking

Punctuation – the Marks of Professionals

Getting punctuation right is critical to making your writing intelligible and coherent. As with misspelled and misused words, misused or missing punctuation takes your message off track and confuses your readers. To help you avoid the avoidable, the next few installments of Write Thinking deal with punctuation marks, in all their many forms, with example sentences provided for clarification.

The Comma (,), Part IV of IV

• Set off dialog or other quotations with a comma.

• When an interrogative clause follows a declarative clause, use a comma to separate them.

• Use a comma to separate inverted names

• When a sentence element is out of natural order, use a comma to set it apart.

• A comma can indicate an omitted word.

• Separate proper names from honorary titles or academic degrees with a comma.

• In figures of four or more digits, separate the thousands with a comma

• Separate two identical words with a comma.

Note: When typing material, no space precedes a comma, and only one space follows it.

Disclaimer

The articles appearing in Petey's Pipeline E-zine are based on information believed to be true at the time of publication. Neither Perfecttext.com, Petey's Pipeline E-zine nor their publisher assume any liability or responsibility as to the accuracy or efficacy of any information, products or services that are submitted, advertised or rendered by contributors to Petey's Pipeline E-zine. While we make every effort to screen out scam artists and bogus offers, you should still do your homework. Caveat emptor!

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