John Funiciello

The world’s largest retail department store and supermarket discount chain announced this month that it has launched a global commitment to a program of buying and selling that is designed to help sustainable agriculture grow and, in particular, to help small and medium sized farmers survive and grow. In making the announcement from its worldwide…

The Obama Administration has tried its best to convince the people that economic recovery is beginning to show. It might be slow, but it’s coming. Others, notably many observers on Wall Street, are telling the people that, if there is a recovery coming, it had better be based on something more than additional jobs in…

A restive general, police armed with the latest technology in “non-lethal” force, and grid locked government have been joined by an FBI that seems to have morphed into the thought police, all firing the shot across the bow of those who seek to exercise their constitutional rights and the Bill of Rights. The news of…

There are two things growing simultaneously in America that do not make sense when they’re viewed together: the poverty rate and the ranks of the Tea Party and their cheerleaders in Congress. Granted, the government is beleaguered and the economy is in turmoil – jobless rates are holding steady at about 10 percent (officially) –…

Last week, a fighter for equality, civil rights, and justice for all in every sphere of American life died at the age of 72. Ron Walters, a political activist, scholar, and expert in American political life started his involvement in a broad range of issues at an early age. He told an interviewer last year:…

Millions of Americans have weighed in on the proposed Islamic Center two blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York City, but few of the people who rabidly oppose construction and the pundits and others who analyze the debate look at the reality at street level. We’ll have to assume…

For a very long time, Americans on the political right have known that anyone who receives anything from the government – especially a helping hand in time of need – is a somehow inferior being and is to be approached with some caution. That rule applies, of course, only to individuals. The reason for that…