In today's podcast, I focus on  examples of loss of liberty.  The first is JS Bach being imprisoned for having the effrontery of asking his employer to let him go so he could seek a more lucrative employment elsewhere.  It’s shoc...

TOM’S PODCAST #56:  AN EXPERIMENT IN TASTING CHOCOLATEIn today's podcast, I start with one of Chopin's Mazurkas, a dance form that, put to music, recreated his love for his native country, Poland.  Chocolate is my mazurk...

It’s been a while.  Seems like things just get more complicated by the day.  First, toward the end of September, Jacq N’Guessan and I flew to Côte d’Ivoire.  Jacq is the manager of the local radio and he and I meet weekly regardi...

In this podcast, we start by considering the current environmentally caused crisis in the chocolate industry.  If the cocoa farmer is to survive this crisis, the need for participating in more of the value chain has never been more critica...

Today's podcast begins with a history of how the cocoa tree made its way to West Africa, which now produces over 65% of the world's cocoa beans.  We then consider the primary barrier that keeps the West African cocoa farmer poor--the divis...