>> When Good Causes Go Wrong: 7 Utterly Outrageous PETA Stunts. Earlier: PETA’s cheap attention-getting schemes often treat women like meat.

>> A big year for L.A. Transit. Steve Hymon says the groundwork’s been laid for major transit changes as he recounts the year’s events in the L.A. Times.

>> A Fair Trade Year in Review. Change.org recounts both the successes and disappointments in the fair trade movement this year — including Starbucks’ promise to double its commitment to fair trade certified coffee.

>> Relatedly, here’s a primer on fair trade becoming mainstream. This article from the Institute for Food & Development Policy, titled “Fair to the Last Drop: The Corporate Challenges to Fair Trade Coffee,” provides a synopsis of the problems that’re emerging now that big corporations like Starbucks, Nestle and Wal-Mart are getting into fair trade, which used to be a fringe socially-progressive movement.

The conclusion here’s that farmers need to be given more voice, so that they can “not only be ‘stakeholders’ in development, but ‘shareholders’ in the business.” Whether or not that’ll ever happen is still a big question.

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