Buy your fair-trade coffee beans by all means, but don't assume fair-trade principles govern the conditions of the men who fetch it to you. You would be mistaken.

If they come back and assume that everything's going to be hunky-dory, I think they're mistaken.

Who cares about the men who steered your breakfast cereal through winter storms? How ironic that the more ships have grown in size and consequence, the less space they take up in our imagination.

Starbucks now spends more on health care than it does on coffee beans.

It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions

To govern means to pillage, as everyone knows.