> BEIJING, June 20 (Reuters) - China will spend almost twice
as much this year on subsidies to encourage farmers in the
northeast to reduce corn plantings as it intensifies its push to
rebalance grain stocks.

> The country will issue 2.56 billion yuan ($374.95 million)
in funds to pay farmers subsidies to rotate their corn plantings
with other crops every other year as well as to leave some land
fallow, the Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday.

> The funds are 78 percent higher than last year, and the
acreage targeted by the subsidies is double last year's area at
around 800,000 hectares.

> It seems that everyone is surprised to learn that there are two Americas. More surprising is the fact that rural life—idealized for its calming sensitivities and neighborly good-will—is a place of anger, local political conflict, and wide-spread alienation. Many rural residents are mad at each other, and they are mad at those who live in the throbbing metropolitan core of American capitalism. Actually, it is a surprise that everyone is surprised.

Marion Nestle links to Dole's declarations as it prepares to go public. As ever, though, while the company may have to settle lawsuits and what have you, it does not contribute to the costs borne by those who succumb to food poisonning.

In among the firehose of suggestions to someone wanting to know "why #indieweb" was this gem from Matthew Butterick, who sets out, at great but appropriate length, precisely what is wrong with Medium.

I've used his advice on Practical Typography before, on one of my sites; seeing it again, I think I need to spend some time making some more deliberate choices on the site I am currently gussying up.

I did a silly little thing in WordPress that made me inordinately happy and advanced my #indieweb progress.