Jill Richardson
Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.
Articles by this author
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Views Sunday, August 23, 2020 Colleges are Still in Uncharted Territority In a few weeks, I begin my semester as a teaching assistant in an undergraduate sociology class. I am not sure what to expect. Last March, when our school sent the students home, everything happened suddenly. We weren’t sure what time zones our students would be in. We didn’t know if each student... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, July 29, 2020 Happy 30th Birthday, ADA. What’s Next? The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) celebrated its 30th birthday this July. Three decades ago, the ADA represented a huge step forward for the rights of people with disabilities. In 2020, I think it’s time to advance even further. The ADA offers people with disabilities the right to "... Read more |
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Views Thursday, July 23, 2020 Trump's Authoritarianism Is Ill-Suited to a Pandemic The Trump administration is apparently undertaking its latest effort to make 2020 more of a Kafkaesque nightmare than it already is. Yes, we’ve got murder hornets and a swarm of flying ants that can be seen from space over in Ireland , but maybe the scariest plague of the year is the president... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, April 29, 2020 A Death Sentence for Meatpackers Meat processing plants are high risk for spreading COVID-19 , and many are shutting down. Animals due for processing have nowhere to go, and they are being culled. Workers there aren’t treated a great deal better. I’ve interviewed one meatpacker who worked at a pork plant, years ago. He told me he... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, April 08, 2020 Wisconsin's Unconscionable Sham Wisconsin might have just decided the November election for Trump at the expense of its own citizens’ lives. As of April 7, the state’s primary election day, there were 2,511 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state, with the disease continuing to spread. Thanks to Wisconsin Republicans and the... Read more |
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Views Sunday, April 05, 2020 Efficiency vs. Resilience Many years ago, bestselling author Michael Pollan explained there’s a trade-off between efficiency and resilience. For example, your grocery store probably did not have a warehouse full of toilet paper backstock sitting around somewhere when their customers bought out their entire supply. It would... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 26, 2020 Stay in Your Home—And Stay Angry Social distancing is hard, and it’s not fun. I don’t question that we are doing what is necessary. Until better testing, treatment, and prevention are available, it is. But quarantining us in our homes separates us at a time when we need connection. And you know what? It’s okay to feel angry about... Read more |
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Views Thursday, February 20, 2020 Trump Wants to Cancel Student Loan Forgiveness for Public Servants Before sharing my opinions about Trump’s recent proposal to cut student loan forgiveness , let me explain my own situation. In my 20s, I was fresh out of college with a business degree and worked in software for a few years. In my 30s, I went to graduate school for sociology. I’m single and I had... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, January 15, 2020 Why Do We Have School Lunch Debt at All? A Google search for “paying school lunch debt” reveals a long list of recent news stories about good Samaritans paying off the school lunch debt of children whose families cannot afford it. A Fredonia, New York man paid off $2,000 in school lunch debt in his area, helping 140 families. A Rigby,... Read more |
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Views Thursday, December 05, 2019 Is Marijuana a Gateway Drug? Like nearly all Americans of a certain age, I was told in school that tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana are gateway drugs—and that is why marijuana should remain illegal. First of all, even if you accept that these three substances are “gateways” to something worse, why is it that adults can use... Read more |