November 2005 | Dock of the Bay
Intelligent Design? Use Your Noodle
The Kansas School Board’s recent decision to teach Intelligent Design in science class caused the biggest local dust-up since Dorothy was blown into Oz. “Why not teach Hopi Creation stories?” critics asked. “If you can teach creationism in science class, why not teach haikus in auto shop?” others queried. And then came Bobby Henderson, the self-appointed head of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).
Henderson professes a belief that the world was created by a levitating bug-eyed bowl of pasta, and he has petitioned the Kansas School Board to request “that this alternative theory be taught in your schools.” Otherwise, he adds: “We will be forced to proceed with legal action.”
His website (venganza.org) is getting 2 million hits a day, and the number of people converting to Flying Spaghetti Monsterism tops 10 million worldwide. FSM believers call themselves Pastafarians. They hold that their supreme deity guides the universe with His Noodly Appendage. They consider every Friday a religious holiday and insist that FSM Heaven is “WAY better” since it features “a Stripper Factory AND a Beer Volcano!” FSM is the only faith with its own online animated video game.
Major newspapers around the world have heralded FSM — including Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet (“Pastamonster intället för Darwin”) and Der Spiegel (“Mein Gott, ein Nudelmonster!”), and The Taipei Times.
Henderson’s emails reveal a clear consensus: “95% [are] in favor of teaching Flying Spaghetti Monsterism in schools; 5% [are] telling me I am going to Hell.”
FSMism has won the support among religious thinkers. “If supernaturalism be called for,” professes Stephen D, Unwin, (author of The Probability of God ), “the pasta family of theologies seems the most plausible and, unquestionably the tastiest with cheese.” And Anthropologist Susan Johnston praises FSM for honoring “aspects of both male and female, with both ‘noodly appendages’ and two round meatballs which clearly represent the Breasts of the Great Mother Goddess.”
Not to be out-noodled, Kansas City School Board member Sue Gamble wrote Henderson: “I will add your theory to a long list of alternative theories I intend to introduce when it is appropriate. I am practicing how to do this with a straight face.”
And how do devout Pastafarians end their prayers? “Ramen.” — Gar Smith
Total Recall: Revenge of the Anti-Arnold
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger calls his 2004 election victory “the original” and says his re-election bid will be “the sequel.” But if Berkeley physician Kenneth Matsumura has his way, the next chapter in the Governator’s political saga might look more like a replay of Gov. Gray Davis’ demise.
Matsumura has created a Web site (www.saveCALnow.com) and filed a recall petition against the governor. He hopes to collect more than a million qualifying signatures in less than six months. Matsumura has a number of gripes but his biggest beef concerns the governor’s My-Gain-Is-Your-Migraine approach to health care. “I’ve helped the poor take one step forward in my medical practice,” Matsumura says, “but the governor makes them take four steps backward [by] starving public hospitals of funds they desperately needed to care for the poor.”
You could call Matsumura “the anti-Arnold.” While Schwarzenegger has devoted his talents to magnifying the achievements of one man — himself — Matsumura has devoted himself to improving the lives of others through his Alin Foundation. He is a doctor, publisher, researcher and innovator whose inventions include a bio-artificial liver, a bio-artificial pancreas, cancer medications and the HeartAlarm™, a wristwatch that can warn of an impending heart attack.
Unlike the buff, boastful Hollywood hulk, Matsumura is soft-spoken, slight and retiring. He wouldn’t last a nanosecond in the ring with Arnold. But that’s the beauty of democracy. If enough financially sand-bagged Lilliputians sign on to the good doctor’s petition, Arnold’s political epitaph could read: The One-Terminator. — GS
Nonprofit News: Environmental Literacy
When a landfill at Hunters Point caught fire and burned for three months straight, teachers at three local schools within a half-mile of the site weren’t sure what to do or who to call. Should they keep the kids inside? What about the ongoing rashes and headaches? How were they supposed to protect themselves and their students?
The upcoming Education Not Contamination Conference (December 4-6 at the Women’s Building in San Francisco), aims to answer those questions — and more. The organizers hope to give educators, parents, students and childcare workers tools for responding to environmental emergencies.
There are 20 schools and childcare centers within a three-mile radius of Hunter’s Point, according to Sherlina Nageer, a manager at Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ), a group organizing the conference. All of the schools face some environmental risk, she says. At least 44 California schools sit within a half-mile of a superfund site, and hundreds more are located dangerously close.
Conference organizers want to train educators in environmental emergency preparedness and suggest how to incorporate environmental health into their curriculum. They hope to raise awareness among educators concerning the toxic-related health conditions that put students at risk. State legislators have also been invited.
The LEJ began as an urban environmental education and youth empowerment organization that addressed concerns of the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. Now, Nageer explains, they are looking at these issues statewide. Conference sponsors include the California Wellness Foundation, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the California Endowment. Scholarships are available for travel expenses. To learn more, visit lejyouth.org — Jennifer Liss
California Says “Cool It!"
With Super-hurricanes storming through the South like atmospheric freight trains, residents from Florida to Texas might take heart from Assemblyman Joe Nation’s (D-San Rafael) AB 1229. Nation’s notion involves slapping a “Global Warming Label” on vehicles sold in California.
Nation notes that cars and trucks account for a whopping 40 percent of humankind’s Earth-cooking emissions. Taking a hint from the EPA’s Energy Star program, which rates the energy consumption of household appliances, AB 1229 would give car-buyers the information they need to determine which car or truck they want to buy.
Meanwhile, citizens in Berkeley, California aren’t waiting for the governor’s signature to take a stand on clear air. On September 12, Mayor Tom Bates announced that his city had managed to cut carbon emissions by 14 percent since 2003. The biggest drop came from the city’s vehicle fleet, which has abandoned gasoline in favor of electric, hybrid, natural gas and biodiesel fuels. Turning its municipal back on high-priced gasoline not only saved the city thousands of tank-topping dollars, it also accounted for nearly half of Berkeley’s 14 percent air-pollution solution. Bates estimated that eliminating thousands of tons of heat-trapping exhaust was the equivalent to removing 450 cars from the roads or planting 52,000 trees to suck up excess carbon.
Berkeley has joined Oakland, Chicago, Portland and Boulder as a partner in the Chicago Climate Exchange. All of these cities have managed to significantly cut their pollution, which means they can sell “emission allowances” to cities with dirtier air. In 2002, George W. Bush promised to cut emissions 18 percent by 2018 through “voluntary” efforts. Like most of the administration’s environmental and fiscal promises, the words have not been matched by results. “With the outrageous failure of our federal government to take action,” Bates states, “it is essential for cities to step up to the plate and show real leadership in the fight against global warming.” — GS
Triple Bottom Line: Cause for Success
In November, the Novato-based New World Library will publish Christine Arena’s Cause for Success, a visionary book that promises to show “how solving the world’s problems improves a company’s corporate health, growth and competitive edge.” The 200-page paperback profiles ten contemporary companies that “put profits second and came in first.”
After three years of research, Arena concluded that “the corporate world is responsible for a large portion of today’s worst social and environmental problems.” On the plus side, Arena discovered a moral renaissance that is driving many new companies to concentrate more on social performance and the common good than on the stockholders’ joie de vivre. Corporations can be powerful social engines capable of marshaling resources for positive ends. Arena was pleased to report how “more companies are waking up to the fact that it is within their best interest to try and do so.”
Cause for Success offers cause for hope since it not only profiles well-known “ethics-driven trendsetters,” but also identifies lesser-known companies that have earned a “competitive advantage” by finding ways to serve the needs of the world’s poor. Arena’s most inspiring — and counterintuitive — lesson was discovering “how some of the worst corporate citizens have become some of the best.” Who are these paragons of sustainable business acumen? Here is the list of honorees:
Interface (Ray Anderson’s innovative carpet company); Eziba (an Internet catalog benefiting Third World artisans); Stonyfield Farm (Gary Hirshberg’s hip and happening organic dairy); Timberland (an outdoor-goods supplier that promotes social activism with the phrase “Pull on your boots and make a difference”); Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (which formed alliances with its suppliers to improve the lives of Third World coffee farmers); The Body Shop (under Anita Roddick, it pioneered the merger of commerce, sustainability and social justice); The Grameen Bank (a life-changing “microcredit” alternative that allows the poor to invest in their own futures), Hewlett Packard (a $74.7 billion firm that’s striving to become a good Corporate Citizen), Avon (a $6.8 billion cosmetics company that is trying to find a cure for breast cancer), and BP (a $179 billion oil company that is promoting the transition to solar power). — GS
The ABA Awards
For more than 25 years, the American Book Awards have been heralding luminaries in our richly diverse literary culture. Incisive and panoramic, the awards know no categories, nor any fixed number of slots. Their only criterion: outstanding contributions to American literature.
Two tomes by vocal locals found their way to our reading list this year. Californian Jeff Chang received recognition for his amazing Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, a superb curricula for everyone from aficionados to the merely curious. No less deserving is Hiroshi Kashiwagi, known to some as a “No-No Boy,” one of the rare Japanese- Americans punished for refusing to serve in the US military during WWII — his protest against Washington’s mass detention of Japanese-American citizens. Kashwagi was honored for his memoir, Swimming in the American. (The book’s publisher, Asian American Curriculum Project, is another local cultural treasure that has distributed books on Amerasian themes for more than 30 years.
Other 2005 ABA awards went to an anthology of black women writing on motherhood, a spiritual-historical novel, an insider’s look inside the White House Situation Room, an Alaskan tribal children’s book, works by heavyweight veteran writer Lamont B. Steptoe, charismatic Southern Appalachian author Don West, an environmental jeremiad by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and more. The ABA bestowed a special Journalism Award on the Bay Area’s Bill Berkowitz for his unflinching weekly critiques of the American right. As the ABA put it, Berkowitz “shines a light on what crawls beneath the rocks.”
Next time you’re browsing in your neighborhood independent bookshop, check out the books with the Before Columbus Foundation gold sticker on the cover.
For the complete ABA list: bookweb.org/news/awards/1293.html. — Gary Gach
Light the Way for the DJJ
“Everyone agrees that ‘Chad’ [the Chaderjian Youth Facility, California’s most notorious youth prison] needs to be closed. But they won’t close it,” says Lenore Anderson, director of Books Not Bars (BNB). “We are concentrating on the Governor at the moment.” This reluctance to shut the facility comes despite recent deaths of three young inmates there, a scandal that has rocked California’s troubled Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ, formerly the California Youth Authority).
The DJJ is now staring down the barrel of a November 30 legal deadline to release a finalized plan for reorganizing the juvenile justice system. Inmate advocates hope that will include, at the very least, Chad’s closure; at best, termination of all eight of California’s youth prisons (see “Books Not Bars,” June 2005 CG ).
BNB and other youth advocates are taking no chances. On Nov. 16, BNB is holding a series of candlelight vigils across the state designed to “Light The Way To A New Juvenile Justice System” by demanding the closure of Chad and the other youth prisons where five youths have died over the past two years. As Van Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, put it: “This kind of injustice CANNOT stand.”
As always, with the California Department of Corrections (CDC) and its youth division, the big question is: “Will anything happen?” Earlier this year, momentum for real change was gathering; but the CDC is looking like it may revert to its old ways — i.e., hunkering down when under fire, making promises and, once the pressure is off, doing nothing.
Anderson is cautiously hopeful. After all, her group has already achieved the near impossible by getting the state to discuss closing the youth prisons — something no one could have imagined two years ago. “I have mixed feelings,” says Anderson. “It’s like rolling the dice. But we have much better odds than this time last year.” — Tim Kingston
Nibble on, Nabalom!
Elmwood’s Nabalom Bakery and Café has the distinction of being “the greenest restaurant in the Bay Area.” Established 29 years ago as a workers’ collective by four women in response to the neighborhood’s desire for a bakery, today Nabalom, with the help of eco-activist Ritu Primlani (see “The Goddess of Small Kitchens", Nov. 2004 CG ), scores top marks on Alameda County’s criteria for green-certified restaurants.
Just over a year ago, Nabalom announced that it might have to close its doors. Poor financial management left the business in debt both to its vendors and the IRS. In response to its plight, dedicated patrons purchased “Sustainer Certificates” — promissory notes towards future purchases in exchange for a 10% discount. The advance payments allowed the shop to stay afloat, but, last August, the collective was forced to post a notice that the bakery would close forever on September 1.
Letters from distraught patrons poured in, a testament to the affection and fond memories this Russell Street eatery inspires. (One man remembered courting his wife over Nabalom’s cinnamon twists 20 years ago on a sunny bench out front. A woman recalled visiting three days a week during her pregnancy and, later, watching her daughter grow up with the bakery). Fortunately, two days before the deadline, an anonymous friend came through with a $55,000 loan. Nabalom (which means “house of the jaguar” in Mayan) was resurrected.
Today, the bold lettering of its newly painted façade announces the bakery’s rebirth. Thanks to community support, Nabalom will continue to serve vegan delicacies and vegetarian pizza; and, as usual, it provided plenty of hamantashen and honey apple cake on Jewish High Holy days. Shoppers also can enjoy the delicious array of fruit loaves, scones and cookies at the newly remodeled kiosk where the collective offers delectables from 6:30 am to 6:00 pm. — Suzanne Saucy
Capitalism Meets Idealism
Robber barons and multinationals have given Capitalism a bad name but it doesn’t have to be that way. Entrepreneurs like actor Paul Newman have proven that the “red tooth and claw” of smash-and-grab corporate capitalism can be replaced by a business model that directs profits to needy stakeholders instead of greedy shareholders. Now this movement has a new name: Profit-donation Capitalism.
The PDC website (www.profitdonationcapitalism.org) lists more than 50 booming businesses that donate 100% of their profit to charities and social causes. The goal: “a kinder, more intelligent utilization of free-market capitalism.” With healthcare in the US becoming more costly and unavailable and with more than 3 billion people on Earth living on less than $3 a day, it’s clear to PDC’s organizers that “conventional capitalism is failing our global village.” PDC hopes to inspire philanthropists, entrepreneurs and leaders to accelerate the creation of thousands of new profit-donating businesses whose revenue will be used to eradicate hunger, illness and poverty worldwide. — GS
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