Dawn Allen is a freelance writer and editor who is passionate about sustainability, political economy, gardening, traditional craftwork, and simple living. She and her husband are currently renovating a rural homestead in southeastern Michigan.
Hanjin, South Korea’s largest shipping company and seventh largest in the world, is on the skids. Although it represents 2.9% of the world’s shipping capacity, the company has posted net losses every year since 2011 and filed for bankruptcy protection on August 31st, 2016. For almost two weeks, 92 of the 141 container ships operated
In Part 1, I discussed how everyday choices in fashion and shopping, while well-intentioned, lead to suboptimal results if the goal is to make the world a better place. These are far from the only examples, though, and liberalism as a fashion statement also extends to some of the bigger actions we can take, such
This week I heard a story on NPR about barn wood. The Midwest is losing their scenic, falling-apart barns because the wood is a hot commodity for people who would like to add that weathered look to their restaurant wall, bar counter, or expensive home. The barns in question have already lived out their useful
What do you do with a piece of poisoned industrial land that is the site of the defunct former Anaconda Lead Product smelting operation, downwind from an old USS Lead industrial site and next to a DuPont site? Why, you build an “affordable housing complex” there for low income minority families with children, right? Isn’t
It’s been a decade since the first HPV vaccine was administered in Australia on August 29, 2006. While the vaccine has been surrounded by some amount of controversy, ten years is enough distance from which to look back and take stock of the results. Happily, there’s good news to report! Since that day in 2006,
Is aspartame dangerous? The answer you receive depends upon who you ask. However, do varying answers prove an actual controversy surrounding the safety of aspartame and artificial sweeteners in general? Or could it be that something else is informing the debate between two sides who both believe that the weight of science rests squarely on
From January 1, 1935 to May 20, 1999, Fort McClellan, located near the town of Anniston, Alabama, served as a training ground and military base for the Army Military Police school, the Women’s Army Corps, and the U.S. Army Chemical Corps school, among others. Before it was closed as part of the Army Base Closure
For years, Walmart has been able to offer customers low prices. These low prices are often criticized as being unsustainable, as the costs are foisted off onto any entity that doesn’t run away fast enough. Walmart’s suppliers are squeezed for pennies by economically coercing them into signing deals that they can’t refuse, because to be
For protesters at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline, everywhere is downstream. A historic gathering of Native Americans from sixty tribes, including Sioux who haven’t come together since the time of Greasy Grass (Battle of Little Bighorn), has converged near Cannonball, North Dakota where Dakota Access, LLC, is set to build a pipeline to
After Dylann Roof gunned down nine parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, people of conscience all over the United States agitated for the removal of the Confederate flag from public venues like the South Carolina state house. Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill into law, and it looked like we