Have Cause, Will Travel
On July 7th, Live Earth — one of the biggest concert events to hit the planet — will bring Al Gore’s climate-crisis message to millions of music-lovers, with 24 hours of live performances simulcasting from New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, Hamburg and Istanbul. While Live Earth may be the biggest and baddest of them all, it’s certainly not the summer’s only party with a purpose. Check out these nifty message-driven tours coming soon to a venue near you:
The Eat Well Guided Tour of America This summer, Sustainable Table, The Meatrix and the Eat Well Guide are celebrating sustainable foods by visiting farms, farmer’s markets and restaurants that serve local fare. The tour kicks off August 2nd in Hollywood, then travels up the coast and across the states (in a veggie bus of course). See if they’re visiting your town or follow along on their blog at SustainableTable.org/roadtrip.
30 Days of Peace Launching on the anniversary of September 11th and running 30 days (ending on the birthday of Daniel Pearl — the journalist who was kidnapped and killed while investigating Al Qaeda), the 30 Days of Peace initiative unites peace organizations around the world, with events and online media. There’s also a Gandhi music tour and a 30-day non-stop prayer vigil. CultureOfPeace.org.
Sustainable Living Roadshow With off the grid eco-festivals, eco-fashion shows, community action projects, alternative medicine workshops and educational seminars on topics ranging from solar energy to biofuel, this pack of travel bugs cruises the nation in CleanFuel Caravans to inspire communities to “live in more direct sustainable harmony with the earth.” For their 2007 tour route visit SustainableLivingRoadshow.org.
The Buried Life What’s on your list of things you want to do before you die? Skydiving? Getting a tattoo? Falling in love? This summer, four young Canadians are roadtripping across America, determined to cross 100 goals off their lists, while documenting their journey on film. The best part: they’re challenging everyone they meet along the way to do the same. Chart their success and offer support at TheBuriedLife.com. — Jenny Rough
If You’re Local and You Know It...
Many of us are familiar with the wildly popular system of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), organic agriculture’s response to commercial scale farming. By this system, fresh, local, organic produce is delivered door to door to registered participants who have chosen to bypass all the non-virtues of big-business agriculture.
Eight months ago, five Bay Area residents took the same concept a step further and presented their innovative answer to commercial scale food preparation, processing and packaging. The first company of their sort in the world as far as they know, the Berkeley culinary quintet call themselves Three Stone Hearth. Each week they cook up a storm using over 85 percent locally and organically grown meat and produce, then package it up for delivery or pickup in containers that are fully recyclable and compostable, if not reusable.
Signature dishes and entrees include traditionally cultured sauerkraut, soups made with slow-boiled bone broth, nutrient-dense hamburger patties enriched with whole grain bread crumbs and organ meats, and breakfast cereals free of additives, preservatives, refined sugar and toxins. The menu changes weekly, and customers may view upcoming options on the company’s website and make orders as they please.
Public response to Three Stone Hearth has been prompt. Approximately 840 families are currently signed up for the kitchen’s services, and scores of individuals make reservations and even help prepare for the monthly “Full Moon Feast,” held adjacent to the west Berkeley facility. Considering itself a prototype for more similar programs, Three Stone Hearth seeks to bring people and their food back together again.
For more information, visit ThreeStoneHearth.com— Alastair Bland
U.S. Military Spending:
One Seriously Chunky Monkey
What do an upside-down school bus and a stack of oreo cookies have in common with U.S. military spending?
It’s not the start of some random joke — it’s “Topsy,” an “art bus” created by Ben (as in Ben & Jerry’s) Cohen — and it’s following candidates along the Primary Trail this election season.
Part of a campaign co-sponsored by True Majority and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, the Topsy bus takes aim at the U.S government’s upside-down priorities. Bearing the message “The U.S. Budget is Topsy-Turvy,” Topsy follows in the tracks of earlier Cohen projects, like the animated flash “oreo cookie video” which made web rounds in 2004. In the video, a cartoon Cohen stacks oreo cookies representing the U.S. budget. A 40-cookie tower represents the Pentagon’s share of the federal pie, an annual allocation of $463 billion. The tower dwarfs the 4 cookies allotted for K-12 education, the single cookie allocated to world hunger, and the piddling quarter of a cookie parceled out to alternative energy projects.
The total annual cost for American “security,” including “defense” expenditures for the Departments of Energy, State, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Treasury and NASA, is 934.9 billion dollars — more than the total defense expenditures of all other nations combined. This incomprehensibly large sum still does not include the cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan — an amount which, growing by the minute, has already surpassed half a trillion dollars.
Cohen and his coterie propose that these “cookies” are taken from elements of the budget that are outdated and ineffective. “A bunch of the candidates have admitted that there is a tremendous waste in the Pentagon and that they would seek to compact that waste,” says Cohen, who is marshalling 8,000 volunteers to spread the word in Iowa and New Hampshire. “People are talking about how the military is so stretched now. It’s beginning to become mainstream.”
“Wars of the future,” according to Cohen, “are not going to be against other countries — they’re going to be against guerillas and terrorists. Nuclear submarines don’t really play a roll in that.”
The Sensible Priorities campaign proposes to take that $60 billion dollars (or 6 cookies) and rebuild schools, eliminate need for Middle Eastern east oil, feed the six million starving children worldwide, provide all children with health insurance, and give Head Start to every kid who needs it.
To find out when Topsy rolls into your town, check out sensiblepriorities.org/topsy.php. Watch Cohen in the cookie flash movie at truemajority.org/oreos. — Jessie Tierney
Adventures in Wonderlund
Think fairy-tale lands only exist in a child’s imagination? After a trip up the coast to Santa Barbara’s Bjorklund Ranch, you might reconsider your disbelief in magic. Nestled on 10 acres of rolling green foothills, Rob and Roxanne Bjorklund’s quirky, rustic homestead is a welcome respite from the grit and chaos of city life. Here, on the property their family’s resided on for generations, the Bjorklunds have crafted a peaceful sanctuary that respects and reveres the natural world.
Accommodations consist of a Swedish summer cabin and two spacious yurts. What exactly is a yurt, you ask? It’s essentially a round tent-like structure, built over a wooden lattice. Think of it as ultra-luxurious camping, with running water, comfy hand-hewn furniture and none of the creepy crawlies that come with sleeping on the ground.
The 700-square-foot Big Yurt features a full kitchen, claw foot bathtub, deck-side tiki bar and... a trapeze. (Yes, you read that correctly.) The smaller Lalu Yurt offers a full kitchen, a gorgeous Mediterranean-themed bathhouse and astounding views from its wrap-around deck. The cozy and quiet Swedish summer cabin (listed as the “Peachtree House” on their website) boasts an outdoor shower and picturesque views of the fruit orchard. In keeping with the Bjorklund’s earth-friendly philosophy, much of the accoutrements — like the decks, flooring and bathhouses — are lovingly fashioned from recycled and reclaimed materials found out in the wilds of the Santa Barbara foothills and beyond.
Take a dip in the hot tub and indulge in an in-room massage after a day of swimming and hiking trails enchanted with hidden art installations. If getting your hands dirty sounds like a good time, join in Rob’s onsite sawmill school (he makes beautiful furniture and flooring from reclaimed wood) or hop in the back of his truck for a “safari” down to the creek.
However you choose to spend your time at Bjorklund Ranch, it’s sure to be a magical experience.
Bjorklund Ranch. 1900 N. San Marcos Rd., Santa Barbara, CA 93111. 805.705.1154. bjorklundranch.com — Jessica Ridenour
Be A Force of Nature
Children are natural collectors, and playing cards are as old as civilization. That’s the basic idea behind Xeko, an eco-trading card game that launched on Earth Day 2006 (xeko.com).
Xeko features rare, collectable cards in the vein of Pokemon. But in this game, the gorgeous cards are printed with soy ink on 100 percent post consumer recycled paper — and the determining factor for card rarity is based on the animal’s endangered status. One of the scarcest cards, the hairy-eared dwarf lemur, is so imperiled that scientists once considered it extinct. In game play, cards link together to create an ecosystem. Each animal has different properties that children can put to use in “turf wars.” Xeko rewards strategy: it’s possible to lose every turf war and still win the game.
Xeko creator Amy Tucker hopes that lessons learned while having fun, will create positive change for years to come: “I like to believe the next E.O. Wilson is playing Xeko. I hope that our next great thought leaders are playing this game.”— Paul Constant
Don’t just get mad…get active
Has too much cubicle time made you forget what trees and sky look like? We shouldn’t have to tell you that the warm glow of a computer screen is no substitute for good, old-fashioned natural sunlight. This month, in the thick of summer, give “Get Active” a whole new meaning… by actually getting active and getting back to nature with these outdoor volunteer opportunities. Heck, you might even get a little exercise and a hearty dose of vitamin D while you’re at it. Just don’t forget the SPF.
Save the Bay relies on philanthropic folks such as yourself to help them clean up litter, scrub canoes (used for educational field trips), plant marsh gum, stuff envelopes and pass out literature at local events.
Join Clean City’s Clean Team to sweep streets and sidewalks, tend to neighborhood trees and plants, work on gardening projects, and paint out graffiti in parks and schools every Saturday morning.
San Mateo’s Coyote Point Museum is seeking museum guides, wildlife and aviary aides, and wildlife habitat docents to lead hikes.
Restore Sausal Creek Watershed by helping to remove invasive plants, planting, construction, clean up and more.
Worth Repeating
“Listening to a familiar song that you like activates the same parts of the brain as eating chocolate, having sex or taking opiates. There really is a sex, drugs and rock-and-roll part of the brain.” — Author Daniel J. Levitin explaining the universal appeal of Beatles songs (WashingtonPost.com, 6/1).
“Casey died for a country that cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.” — Beleaguered peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, on why she is giving up anti-war activism (DailyKos.com, 5/28).
“One way to beat the system is: take care of yourself. But you don’t have to do a lot. If you just moved around a little bit, turned the TV off and ate a few things differently, you could avoid the nightmare that awaits so many people enter[ing] the healthcare system in this country. We’re behind Costa Rica in healthcare and just ahead of Slovenia. That should be an embarrassment to most Americans.” — Director Michael Moore, whose new film Sicko exposes the corruption in the health care industry, in a live interview with Bill Maher (youtube.com, 5/30).
“The Spanish parliament is considering a bill to extend ‘fundamental moral and legal protections’ to apes. Once apes achieve these protections, American humans are going to want them too. I’m thinking food, shelter and medical-veterinary care.” — Barbara Ehrenreich commenting on a chimpanzee’s court petition for human status. The animal sanctuary where “Haisl” lives is out of funds, and only humans can receive personal donations in Austria (TheNation.com, 5/8/07).
