Flagship of utter mediocrity

Amid the bleak global news on wars and jihads, there are awe inspiring stories on the food front that break through like slivers of sunlight on dead, forbidding nights. In frozen Alaska, for example, lettuce is now grown even in the deadest of winters. In Africa, field tests have been producing cassava of humungous sizes, two or three to a 50-kilo sack. Chinese wine makers have been challenging the vine yards of the French and those of Napa Valley.

Sudden bursts of rain seem to have ended the misery of farmers in drought-weary California.