Word: phils
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Word of the event spread fast: soon the camera crews came, and so did Tyra Banks and Dr. Phil. The Abstinence Clearinghouse estimates there were more than 4,000 purity events across the country last year, with programs aimed at boys now growing even faster. And inevitably the criticism arrived as well, dressed up in social science and scholarly glee at the semiotics of girls kneeling beneath raised swords to affirm their purity. The events have been called odd, creepy, oppressive of a girl's "sexual self-agency," as one USA Today columnist put it. Father-daughter bonding is great...
...news cycle, however, refuses to slow - and thanks to Jesse "hot mic" Jackson, Phil "nation of whiners" Gramm, its pace picked up a bit this past week...
That's hardly news to El Phil, as he stands between two long rows of peach trees on his Grombalia farm, 22 miles (35 km) south of Tunis. Just four years after starting to export to Europe, Jinene Agro now gains half its profits from foreign sales. Tunisia's sunny latitude allows El Phil to ship fresh peaches and plums during the weeks from mid-March to mid-April when there's space on supermarket shelves throughout Europe. "We harvest after the end of production in Chile and South Africa, and before Europe begins," he says. "We exploit that...
...success of El Phil's enterprise should not obscure how much remains to be done. Pierre Beckouche, a senior researcher with IPEMED, a Paris-based think tank on Mediterranean issues, says that regional economic advantages have been well exploited elsewhere over the past decade: by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in North America and the ASEAN free-trade area in Southeast Asia. But the E.U.'s 1995 "Barcelona Process," which was meant to encourage deeper ties across the Mediterranean, has largely been a Brussels-driven dud. "What's missing is a network of firms, of experts, of political...
Jinene Agro, for its part, is keeping folks on the farm. El Phil has lost no workers to European dreams since the night watchmen's attempted escape. The two dozen laborers he retains only earn about $11 a day, but they can make a living for their families, knowing prospects are improving. That is because El Phil is focused on adopting the higher standards that foreign markets expect. He now promotes not only the ability to harvest before European competitors, but also "traceability." His peaches, plums and nectarines are all labeled with the location of his grove, and cool-packed...