Corn’s Dominance of American Agricultre Exposed in “King Corn”
—Hartford Courant

But fast-food restaurants are virtual corn stops: from the corn-fed beef to sodas sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup to the corn oil used to cook the fries. …Corn is the country’s most-planted, most-processed and most-subsidized crop. There were 92.9 million acres of corn last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. …Anyone taking a cross-country trip certainly sees an ocean of it.

The technology that will save humanity
—Salon

One of oldest forms of energy used by humans — sunlight concentrated by mirrors — is poised to make an astonishing comeback. I believe it will be the most important form of carbon-free power in the 21st century. That’s because it’s the only form of clean electricity that can meet all the demanding requirements of this century.

Putting the brakes on East L.A.‘s taco trucks
—Los Angeles Times

Business was brisk one recent night as the smell of sizzling carne asada floated from an East Los Angeles taco truck. A row of customers sat on folding chairs, tacos and quesadillas in hand. …Two blocks down Cesar Chavez Avenue, Jesus Huerta’s La Tia Tamale restaurant stood empty. …“If they weren’t there,” Huerta said of the shiny chrome-sided Taqueria “El Pecas” truck, “I’d be selling right now.”…That may change Tuesday, if Los Angeles County supervisors place new restrictions on the mobile grills that patrons praise as icons of East L.A. life but competitors disparage as a nuisance.

As Visit Nears, Sexual Abuse Victims Group Plans Protest
—Washington Post

A decade ago, Toni McMorrow and her husband might have joined in the prayer and pageantry of the pope’s visit to Washington. But now, she says, Benedict XVI’s arrival and the throngs who will cheer him are “like daggers cutting into our broken hearts.”…McMorrow thinks that her son was molested seven years ago by a priest at their Germantown church, she said. And, like many victims of clergy sex abuse and their families, she doesn’t think the pope has done enough to punish bishops who engaged in or covered up abuse.

Construction Halted Ahead of Games
—The New York Times

Officials laid out an ambitious series of measures on Monday that will freeze construction projects, slow down steel production and shut down quarries in and around the capital this summer in an attempt to clear the air for the Olympics. Even spray painting outdoors will be banned during the weeks before and after sporting events, which begin Aug. 8.