Fair trade or free trade? How many understand the differences between them? As many of you know, I prefer fair trade, buying local when possible and linking the local with the global. Perhaps you'll see the advantages as I do.

If you enjoy drinking a glass of wine now and then, you're probably familiar with the numerous choices of brands and types to be found in many local grocery and drug stores. The rows and rows of creatively labeled bottles — like Cupcake, Barefoot, Red Truck or Fat Bastard — seem to represent a whole world of wineries. But labels can be deceiving.

As we enter the colder months and the holiday season, the face of hunger in our community will be brought closer. The annual giving requests will pour in from the charities that work to address the immediate needs of the hungry.

Even the most market crazy economist believes that for markets to work their magic there needs to be accurate information available for consumers. Joseph Stiglitz got his Nobel recognition precisely for his work affirming this bedrock principle of neo-liberal economics.

Sorry for the gulf between columns. I had the privilege of visiting West Africa — specifically, Burkina Faso and Senegal — last month as part of a small delegation from Lansing. Dropping in for a short time hardly makes me an authority on anything I experienced, but I was awakened to a world hitherto only glimpsed through books and TV disaster snippets.

Rapids of locally owned businesses. It was a whirlwind of entrepreneurs from all regions of the country, sharing their energy, successes and pitfalls freely with one another in an atmosphere of”can-do-ness.” Young and old (Grace Lee Boggs, 93-year-old matriarch for social justice from Detroit, gave a sterling keynote from her wheelchair); black, brown, white and all colors in between; bankers and bakers, bookstore and film theater owners, restaurateurs and farmers, architects and manufacturers were all represented.

This column tries to focus on “local” as part of the sustainability ethos, where we minimize our ecological footprint while strengthening our social fabric and sharing our economic prosperity.

Unbeknownst to me, we exercised a similar approach locally in the past couple of months. A local businessperson was stymied in an attempt to accelerate her business because of a needed immediate infusion of about $1,500. Insufficient cash flow in her business was going to delay this significant business accelerator for months.

How little we know of the larger world around us. Point of order: How many readers knew that the UN has made this the International Year of Cooperatives? I stumbled upon this fact recently when I was working with the East Lansing Food Co-op and looking for examples of how businesses organize themselves.

Ahh, 2012: Leap Year, a presidential election and the beginning of the rest of our lives. Michigan is not immune to the onslaught of negative campaigning that swamped Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and other states whose primary elections are over.