Electric autos, crushed in the desert.
June 2006 | Dock of the Bay
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Filmmaker Chris Paine grins as he describes why he made his former car — General Motors’ all-Electric EV1 — the star of his new documentary: “It blew the doors off any car I’ve ever driven,” he recalls. “It was super-fast, quiet, tune-up free and fun.” Fun while it lasted, that is, until GM suddenly ordered the cars recalled and destroyed. “There was only one thing left I could think to do: make a film.”
Paine’s “Who Killed the Electric Car?” documents how a California law forced GM to build an electric vehicle that became so popular that Detroit had no choice but to destroy it. It shows hundreds of sleek, beautifully engineered EV1s being recalled over the passionate protests of the car’s users (including actors Peter Horton and Amanda Peet, who was handcuffed and arrested for trying to save her beloved EV1). GM secretly trucked the cars to the Arizona desert and crushed them.
The Dock caught up with Paine and some of his cast as they were gearing up for a showing at the SF International Film Festival. Former GM marketing whiz Chelsea Sexton disputed GM claims that the cars weren’t popular: “We sold every electric we made and we had a waiting list —100 percent sales? That’s pretty good.”
Wally Ripple, a former GM engineer with 23 US patents to his name, recalled that “the EV1, as good as it was, was built with 1980s technology. If Detroit hadn’t abandoned the EV1,” he added, “we would now be three steps ahead of Toyota.” According to Ripple, “a lot of people inside GM would like to see [the EV1] revived.” But if GM’s leadership remains obstinate, Ripple says, “I’d like to see Porsche get interested.”
There’s a fortune to be made replacing 200 million gas-powered vehicles, but Big Oil knows that the end of cheap oil means that “most of the dollars lie ahead” — when petroleum hits $100 a barrel. By that time, Paine predicts, other nations will have converted to electrics and “the US will become Protectionist City,” struggling to prevent the import of “cheap Chinese electric cars.”
Torture: From State Secret to Child’s Play
With the release of 24 Hours: The Game, a new Playstation game based on Kiefer Sutherland’s hit TV show, the world can now refer to America as “the country that teaches its children to torture.” In a review of the new game, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Sylvie Simmons describes how a computer-animated Jack Bauer, the show’s “champion Geneva Convention breaker and existentialist American hero,” is set loose to “shoot at terrorists and torture perspiring perps to stop them from destroying the Free World.” The game includes a torture session that allows players to chose four different levels of interrogation — Calm, Coax, Aggressive and Break. Gamers are advised that, with excessive brutality, “the suspect may become noncooperative” (a coy euphemism for “unconscious” or “dead”). When Sutherland (a co-producer of the video game) was asked if he felt any moral responsibility for promoting a pro-Bush, pro-torture worldview, he replied: “I don’t write the scripts.”
The Art of Flotation
It’s a gallery! It’s a spa! It’s Float, “the first stand-alone flotation center and art gallery in the Bay Area.” The unique Oakland-based salon plans to bridge the Mind-Body divide with a flotilla of 8x4-foot isolation tanks, each filled with nearly a foot of water saturated with 1000 lbs of Epson salt to assure “neutral buoyancy.” The water is heated to body temperature so that, when you slip inside, stretch out and turn off the lights, you experience a near-instantaneous out-of-body experience. The National Institute of Mental Health has a name for this: Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique (REST). The RESTing brain quickly drifts into a comfy hum of theta waves. “Within 15 minutes,” says Float co-owner Allison F. Walton, “you can reach a level of relaxation generally only attained with years of training in deep meditation.” As a result, people emerge from the tanks “seeing things more brightly, enjoying things more deeply, and feeling connected to the beauty around them” — the perfect attitude for an art exhibit. Nine artists were chosen to christen the gallery, which opened for business in mid-April at the Cotton Mill Studios, 1091 Calcot Place, #116, Oakland. So the next time you feel like escaping stress by getting tanked, hightail it to Oakland. You won’t have to stress out over unpaid bills once you realize you can always float alone. TheFloatCenter.com
Zawadi — The Gift of Tea
Robert Kamau Kihanya left Kenya in 1983, intent on securing a US college degree in food science. Instead, he wound up with a BA in business administration. When he returned to Kenya in 2002, Kihanya discovered his small Kikuyu village ravaged by AIDS. He decided to do something to help the 1.1 million Kenyan children orphaned by the disease. Back in Oakland, he founded the Zawadi African Tea, a company whose business plan involves “blending commerce and humanitarianism.”
“Zawadi” means “gift” — an apt name, since Kihanya channels 7.5% of company profits to the Kenyan AIDS-Orphan Rescue Campaign, which provides clothing, shelter and education for children in western Kenya.
Kihanya’s struggling business was the first independent company to offer pure Kenyan black tea in the US. (For 400 years, the tea trade was monopolized by powerful British merchants.) The tea, which is grown organically in the Kenyan highlands by family farmers, comes in three varieties — Karibu (welcome) and Safari are spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, clove, ginger and pepper; Jambo (hello) is a dark brew for java-junkies who want a healthy boost with only half the caffeine.
Kihanya began by supplying loose tea to local gourmet shops, cafes and supermarkets, preparing each package by hand. Kihanya has recently introduced individual tea bags for home enjoyment. Drinking black tea is not only good for the soul, it’s good for the body. The Tea Council of the USA reports that antioxidant-rich black tea is more effective than green tea in lowering bad cholesterol (LDL) and boosting good cholesterol (HDL). For more, visit: zawadiafricantea.com; kaippg.org
US to World: ‘Save our Democracy’
In the name of “installing democracy,” Washington spent $2 million in tax money in an attempt to determine the elections in Iraq. Washington has made such a habit of interfering in foreign elections that it even has an agency (the National Endowment for Democracy) devoted to this ignoble cause. Critics have accused the NED of stooping to sabotage and death squads to push elections in Washington’s favor.
A few months ago, NYU Professor of Politics Bertell Ollman jokingly suggested that what was needed was an International Endowment for Democracy (IEFD) that would allow foreigners to contribute funds to restore democracy inside the US. To Ollman’s surprise, the idea took off. He now finds himself heading a nonprofit whose board of directors include author Gore Vidal, Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and National Lawyers’ Guild President Michael Rattner.
Instead of using money to subvert democracies abroad, the IEFD is asking freedom-loving folk around the globe to “help build a real democracy in the country that needs it most — the USA.”
The IEFD contends that the “democracy deficit” currently afflicting the US poses “a greater threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of people all across the globe than the actions of any other regime.”
The IEFD vows: “We will not give money to any political party or accept money from any organization involved in violent forms of political activity or from any foreign government.”
The IEFD has one other request of America’s neighbors abroad: “We call on the international community to monitor elections in the US.”
A full menu of articles, arguments, blogs, cartoons and videos is available in IEFD’s online Democracy Library at: iefd.org
GET ACTIVE!
Save the State’s Water
Our health and environment depend on clean water, but many of California’s rivers, lakes and bays are too polluted for fishing and swimming. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is making it easier to pollute by taking away protections from waterways around the country and opening these waters to pollution and development. Fortunately, Congress has the power to ensure that all waterways remain protected.
Despite the successes of the 1972 Clean Water Act, many of California’s great waterways — including SF Bay and Lake Tahoe — struggle with pollution. In 2003, the Bush administration established a policy that removes Clean Water Act protections from many of America’s streams and wetlands. As a result, tens of thousands of miles of streams are at risk. The EPA estimates that 20 million acres of wetlands — 20% of the total wetlands in the continental US — could lose protection as a result of this policy.
Fortunately, Congress doesn’t have to accept the Bush administration’s “No Protection” policy nor wait for the Supreme Court to decide a pending case on waterway protections.
Please take a moment to ask Senator Dianne Feinstein to co-sponsor the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act of 2005 (S 912). To take action, go to: environmentcalifornia.org
UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE
Who’s for Impeachment?
Sonoma State University Sociology Prof. Peter Phillips finds it odd that the media, which has detailed how the Bush administration “lied about Iraq, illegally spied on US citizens, and continues war crimes in the Middle East,” has managed to ignore growing calls for impeachment. Phillips, who hosts the Project Censored Awards, cites the Wall Street Journal, which offered its first editorial comment on impeachment on March 18 — and dismissed the impeachment movement as an obsession of “the loony left.”
So who are the members of the “loony left”? Here’s a short list:
Ramsey Clark. Garison Keilor. Richard Dryfuss. Howard Zinn. Noam Chomsky. Neil Young. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Vanity Fair. Harper’s. The Nation. Op-ed writers at Newsday, Barrons, Detroit Free Press, St. Petersburg Times, Boston Globe and the Yale Daily News (George W. Bush’s former alma mater). The National Green Party. A growing list of city governments (including Arcata and SF). The State legislatures in Vermont, Illinois and California (representing 16% of the US population). Hon. John Conyers and 32 members of the House of Representatives (who are supporting HR 635 to hold impeachment hearings). And finally, a majority of Americans responding to opinion polls — Public Affairs Research (50%), Zogby International (53%) — and the more than 720,000 citizens who have signed impeachment petitions.
For more information: Impeachbush.org; impeachpac.org
KPIX Nixed for ‘Fake News’
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) recently caught 77 TV stations passing off corporate-sponsored “video news releases” (VNRs) as unbiased journalism. One of the culprits was SF’s own KPIX. Under FCC laws, such pre-fab footage must be clearly labeled. Many stations cited by CMD not only failed to tell audiences that the material came from General Motors, Intel, Capital One, and Pfizer, but they also disguised the source by adding their own logos and having local reporters “re-voice” the material. The worst offenders were stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, Clear Channel, Viacom, Fox and the Tribune Company.
KPIX was nailed for airing a report on a new Pfizer inhaler that used a pre-filmed product demonstration and a testimonial without attribution. Contacted by The Dock, KPIX VP and News Director Dan Rosenheim replied: “I am very chagrined by this.” He noted that CBS policy requires that “all video news releases be labeled and attributed.” So what happened? According to Rosenheim, “a new reporter on our staff neglected to label the video. It was a mistake…. but I want you to know that it was an aberration.”
CMD’s John Stauber was not satisfied with KPIX’s explanation. “You can’t do that and not know what you’re doing,” Stauber told The Dock, calling the use of VNRs “the worst case of plagiarism in history.” The first lesson of Journalism 101, he reminds, is that “you never use someone else’s work without credit.” But when J-school grads get hired by a corporate news operation, it appears that they are told to look the other way.
If it’s unethical and illegal, why is it done? “Simple,” Stauber explained: “VNRs are free. Reporting news that’s meaningful to local communities isn’t. By opting to air a VNR instead of sending a reporter into the field, station owners save a fortune.”
The report is online at: prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary. Also see: gradethenews.org
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