IP, Agriculture and Corporate Welfare

Lessig writes about our hypocrisy with respect the free trade of intellectual property and the free trade of agricultural products.

[Lessig/Taste of Our Own Poison]: While the US sings the virtues of free trade to defend maximalist intellectual property regulation, we poison the free trade that developing nations care about most - agriculture - by subsidizing farming in the industrialized world to the tune of $300 billion annually. Rhetoric about family farmers aside, most of that money passes quickly to agribusiness. This is not Adam Smith; it is corporate welfare par excellence.

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Vortices

Will you wear that BookPeople T-shirt? I asked Ben. It was one of the presents we gave him yesterday.

Of course! Ben answered immediately, his arms extended above his head and a smile beaming from his face.

Because it's not very colorful. The only other color was black, and black isn't a very practical color for T-shirts down here.

Trudy added And black isn't very good for teenagers, anyway.

Ben looked perplexed.

Don't want to encourage you to get sucked into the Vortex of Goth. I said, guessing at what she meant.

Trudy nodded.

Ben laughed glibly and said, I'm not getting sucked into any vortex.

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