Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Friday, October 21, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Documentaries and the Truth We Can Still Tell (But for How Long?)
Documentaries and the Truth We Can Still Tell (But for How Long?)
by Vivian Norris, Phd, Based in Paris-Globalization Studies
Posted: 06/13/11 09:19 AM ET
There may be an awful lot of lawyer jokes out there but for more and more documentary filmmakers, the legal challenges they are up against when trying to tell a story are no laughing matter. Forty years after the initial publishing of The Pentagon Papers, the full truth about Vietnam is finally being released. Daniel Ellsberg has stated that what he did back then as an investigative journalist was actually legal. Today, post-9/11 and Patriot Act, not only would it be illegal, it would be much more difficult to find any published information at all. Some information has indeed disappeared completely. And for those wonderfully stubborn souls who keep searching for the truth and trying to get it out there in front of audiences, they often find themselves, especially in the US, attacked by layer upon layer of lawsuits funded by corporations with deep pockets.
Take the case of Bananas! and the hell the Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten and his producer went through when putting on the screen the stories of workers who were "allegedly" suffering from infertility due to exposure to pesticides while employed by the biggest fruit company in the world. The well-known legal story of Joe Berlinger's never-ending battles with his film about Chevron's pollution and the health affects on people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Crude, overshadowed his message at times. And some turn to fiction to avoid the lawsuits by making feature films such as Michael Clayton which refer to the wrongs of companies such as Monsanto. And the list seems to be growing longer. Documentary filmmakers have enough problems trying to find the money to get their films made, but adding to that the mountains of legal bills and the time-consuming reality of defending oneself and one's film from being sued, one imagines the corporations are hoping that the filmmakers will back down and their docs will disappear.
But they won't.
And that was obvious by the lineup at the Sex, Docs and Rock and Roll Festival and Market in Sheffield in the UK this past week. The screenings were full of both industry folks and regular folks and the conversations in the pubs afterwards showed that documentary film attacking serious subjects is alive and well. But will many of these docs go on to have a life on television and in cinemas?
In Europe, Asia and other parts of the world independent documentaries can find a home, on a national broadcaster, but when we hear the stories of the thousands of indie docs applying for small pools of funds, the only reason they end up being made is because of the passion of the filmmakers.
People across the globe are indignant about everything from the deadly silence on Fukushima to the reality behind the BP disaster and how our health is being affected, and many recent documentary films are showing us why we should be. I argue we need these factual-based programs more than ever before and the stories they tell are more urgent and more dramatic than ever before. The subjects they deal with affect our lives, our children, our planet.
More foundations, film institutes, equity funds as well as more and less well known production companies such as Participant, are supporting "social issue" campaign-driven documentaries. But what can they do when a film they are supporting is attacked by a company which has endless cash to throw at some of the toughest law firms around?
They tell their stories anyway.
Brands are looking to documentary films as a way to help improve their corporate social responsibility image, and perhaps at times there are good "fits" between a company and the message in a doc beyond what might be considered to be "green-washing". But often this is not the case, take, for example, one doc about pollution and climate change released last year in France was supported by the same oil companies which seemed to be causing the problems being confronted in the film. The press exposed this hypocrisy and it lasted all of one week in the cinemas.
Taking this idea of brand support for a documentary to the extreme is Morgan Spurlock's Pom: The Greatest Film Ever Sold
in which the filmmaker literally brands not only almost every scene in the film, he ends up branding his own body by wearing a suit covered by logos. We are bombarded by advertising more now than ever before, and the effects this is having on us and especially on our children, is disturbing. Spurlock travels to Sao Paolo in his film to show us what happens when people become fed up with swimming in Consumerstan, they simply ban advertising in all public spaces... the problem is, for much of the world, the privatization of what was once public has reached turbo speed.
How do you feel about visiting a national park and having your escape from it all experience sponsored by companies which want a piece of your down time? Would you sacrifice your integrity, or that of your family and community's common grounds to Starbucks, Wells Fargo and Coca Cola in order to keep services being cut because of the financial crisis? What about your children's school? A recent debate on the BBC over advertising in the classroom seemed quaint compared to what school districts are up against in the US. Spurlock's documentary shows one district in Florida in which administrators seem to be looking for ways to sell out to keep their schools able to offer the same things they did pre-crisis.
Have we already sold our souls to be branded? Have we started down that slippery slope, never to return to some kind of private sphere in which we remain protected from someone wanting to sell us something? Or have we all become as Roseanne Barr recently wrote in her magnificent diatribe about the media industry which is one of the most empowering pieces about the industry ever written. (Entitled "Fame's a Bitch, It's Hard to Handle Then It Drives You Nuts") in which she makes it extremely clear that there are no powerful people in television "... unless they work for an ad company or a market-study group. Those are the people who decide what gets on air and what doesn't."
And though this is not always the case in much of Europe, with its so-called bans on advertising, especially for children, and with its subsidies etc., it is a warning that if the private channels (or public channels which are acting like private channels, or yes, the monopolies owned by folks like Berlusconi or the near monopolies of Mr. Murdoch), don't watch out, there will be no truth told by documentary films, nor on the news, or very little of it and not the bits we need to know most. And we will have to either throw the television out the window and lose what could be one of the greatest most powerful forces of educational, entertaining good ever invented (though it seems the man who invented the television would not allow one in his home!).
Barr finds solace in the same words that documentary filmmakers trying to get the truth out there can find some comfort in, from Sun Tzu's Art of War, "He who cares the most, wins" -- but it does not pay the legal bills.
I agree with BBC's Nick Fraser that filmmakers should not risk their lives to make a film, and we spoke of a friend of his, the French filmmaker, Christian Poveda, who was killed when he returned to El Salvador to do a follow up on his powerful doc, Vida Loca. But perhaps that is indeed what they will find themselves doing as they work to tell the truth and penetrate the layers of corporate protection (someone please explain to me again why in the United States corporations are still given the same rights as human beings, in fact were given those rights before African Americans and women were?!). Why should filmmakers have to choose between life and truth?
If we lose the independence of the documentary voice, we have lost our freedom to know, to be informed, to look for and find knowledge which can help us as human beings, parts of communities, and as citizens of a world which needs us to know and to want to be curious about it.
Documentaries can be wonderful ways to lose ourselves in reality, not virtual reality, not reality tv, but "real" reality; they are not only enjoyable to watch, but because they are based on these facts, force us to question when we are fed lies. Good documentary filmmaking preserves our common human accomplishments and documents the natural world and ways of life (which in some cases sadly is disappearing. See a great doc about disappearing cowboys and shepherds in Montana called Sweetwater).
We don't want to find that documentary filmmaking has become extinct, or worse, that the truth is now inaccessible, privately owned by a tiny elite who can afford all those lawyers. I would hate to think that if we do not support documentary filmmakers, or worse, ignore their work, because it challenges us, that they may one day stop challenging us at all and will disappear from the party. If we, the audience, do not care, then nobody will. We need to notice. Because documentaries tell us who we are, what our world is about, and give us that Truth. Without this, you might as well throw your television out the window.
[READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE]
by Vivian Norris, Phd, Based in Paris-Globalization Studies
Posted: 06/13/11 09:19 AM ET
There may be an awful lot of lawyer jokes out there but for more and more documentary filmmakers, the legal challenges they are up against when trying to tell a story are no laughing matter. Forty years after the initial publishing of The Pentagon Papers, the full truth about Vietnam is finally being released. Daniel Ellsberg has stated that what he did back then as an investigative journalist was actually legal. Today, post-9/11 and Patriot Act, not only would it be illegal, it would be much more difficult to find any published information at all. Some information has indeed disappeared completely. And for those wonderfully stubborn souls who keep searching for the truth and trying to get it out there in front of audiences, they often find themselves, especially in the US, attacked by layer upon layer of lawsuits funded by corporations with deep pockets.
Take the case of Bananas! and the hell the Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten and his producer went through when putting on the screen the stories of workers who were "allegedly" suffering from infertility due to exposure to pesticides while employed by the biggest fruit company in the world. The well-known legal story of Joe Berlinger's never-ending battles with his film about Chevron's pollution and the health affects on people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Crude, overshadowed his message at times. And some turn to fiction to avoid the lawsuits by making feature films such as Michael Clayton which refer to the wrongs of companies such as Monsanto. And the list seems to be growing longer. Documentary filmmakers have enough problems trying to find the money to get their films made, but adding to that the mountains of legal bills and the time-consuming reality of defending oneself and one's film from being sued, one imagines the corporations are hoping that the filmmakers will back down and their docs will disappear.
But they won't.
And that was obvious by the lineup at the Sex, Docs and Rock and Roll Festival and Market in Sheffield in the UK this past week. The screenings were full of both industry folks and regular folks and the conversations in the pubs afterwards showed that documentary film attacking serious subjects is alive and well. But will many of these docs go on to have a life on television and in cinemas?
In Europe, Asia and other parts of the world independent documentaries can find a home, on a national broadcaster, but when we hear the stories of the thousands of indie docs applying for small pools of funds, the only reason they end up being made is because of the passion of the filmmakers.
People across the globe are indignant about everything from the deadly silence on Fukushima to the reality behind the BP disaster and how our health is being affected, and many recent documentary films are showing us why we should be. I argue we need these factual-based programs more than ever before and the stories they tell are more urgent and more dramatic than ever before. The subjects they deal with affect our lives, our children, our planet.
More foundations, film institutes, equity funds as well as more and less well known production companies such as Participant, are supporting "social issue" campaign-driven documentaries. But what can they do when a film they are supporting is attacked by a company which has endless cash to throw at some of the toughest law firms around?
They tell their stories anyway.
Brands are looking to documentary films as a way to help improve their corporate social responsibility image, and perhaps at times there are good "fits" between a company and the message in a doc beyond what might be considered to be "green-washing". But often this is not the case, take, for example, one doc about pollution and climate change released last year in France was supported by the same oil companies which seemed to be causing the problems being confronted in the film. The press exposed this hypocrisy and it lasted all of one week in the cinemas.
Taking this idea of brand support for a documentary to the extreme is Morgan Spurlock's Pom: The Greatest Film Ever Sold
in which the filmmaker literally brands not only almost every scene in the film, he ends up branding his own body by wearing a suit covered by logos. We are bombarded by advertising more now than ever before, and the effects this is having on us and especially on our children, is disturbing. Spurlock travels to Sao Paolo in his film to show us what happens when people become fed up with swimming in Consumerstan, they simply ban advertising in all public spaces... the problem is, for much of the world, the privatization of what was once public has reached turbo speed.How do you feel about visiting a national park and having your escape from it all experience sponsored by companies which want a piece of your down time? Would you sacrifice your integrity, or that of your family and community's common grounds to Starbucks, Wells Fargo and Coca Cola in order to keep services being cut because of the financial crisis? What about your children's school? A recent debate on the BBC over advertising in the classroom seemed quaint compared to what school districts are up against in the US. Spurlock's documentary shows one district in Florida in which administrators seem to be looking for ways to sell out to keep their schools able to offer the same things they did pre-crisis.
Have we already sold our souls to be branded? Have we started down that slippery slope, never to return to some kind of private sphere in which we remain protected from someone wanting to sell us something? Or have we all become as Roseanne Barr recently wrote in her magnificent diatribe about the media industry which is one of the most empowering pieces about the industry ever written. (Entitled "Fame's a Bitch, It's Hard to Handle Then It Drives You Nuts") in which she makes it extremely clear that there are no powerful people in television "... unless they work for an ad company or a market-study group. Those are the people who decide what gets on air and what doesn't."
And though this is not always the case in much of Europe, with its so-called bans on advertising, especially for children, and with its subsidies etc., it is a warning that if the private channels (or public channels which are acting like private channels, or yes, the monopolies owned by folks like Berlusconi or the near monopolies of Mr. Murdoch), don't watch out, there will be no truth told by documentary films, nor on the news, or very little of it and not the bits we need to know most. And we will have to either throw the television out the window and lose what could be one of the greatest most powerful forces of educational, entertaining good ever invented (though it seems the man who invented the television would not allow one in his home!).
Barr finds solace in the same words that documentary filmmakers trying to get the truth out there can find some comfort in, from Sun Tzu's Art of War, "He who cares the most, wins" -- but it does not pay the legal bills.
I agree with BBC's Nick Fraser that filmmakers should not risk their lives to make a film, and we spoke of a friend of his, the French filmmaker, Christian Poveda, who was killed when he returned to El Salvador to do a follow up on his powerful doc, Vida Loca. But perhaps that is indeed what they will find themselves doing as they work to tell the truth and penetrate the layers of corporate protection (someone please explain to me again why in the United States corporations are still given the same rights as human beings, in fact were given those rights before African Americans and women were?!). Why should filmmakers have to choose between life and truth?
If we lose the independence of the documentary voice, we have lost our freedom to know, to be informed, to look for and find knowledge which can help us as human beings, parts of communities, and as citizens of a world which needs us to know and to want to be curious about it.
Documentaries can be wonderful ways to lose ourselves in reality, not virtual reality, not reality tv, but "real" reality; they are not only enjoyable to watch, but because they are based on these facts, force us to question when we are fed lies. Good documentary filmmaking preserves our common human accomplishments and documents the natural world and ways of life (which in some cases sadly is disappearing. See a great doc about disappearing cowboys and shepherds in Montana called Sweetwater).
We don't want to find that documentary filmmaking has become extinct, or worse, that the truth is now inaccessible, privately owned by a tiny elite who can afford all those lawyers. I would hate to think that if we do not support documentary filmmakers, or worse, ignore their work, because it challenges us, that they may one day stop challenging us at all and will disappear from the party. If we, the audience, do not care, then nobody will. We need to notice. Because documentaries tell us who we are, what our world is about, and give us that Truth. Without this, you might as well throw your television out the window.
[READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE]
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Friday, October 29, 2010
Chuck Palazzo
I dig this cat.
From Veterans Today:
Chuck Palazzo: "Marine Combat Veteran, served with 1st and 3rd FORCERECON. RVN 1970-1971. Currently living, writing and working in Da Nang, Vietnam. Agent Orange and Unexploded Ordinance activist and researcher."
Chuck is paying attention to the chemical industries and is trying to get the word out.
From Veterans Today:
Chuck Palazzo: "Marine Combat Veteran, served with 1st and 3rd FORCERECON. RVN 1970-1971. Currently living, writing and working in Da Nang, Vietnam. Agent Orange and Unexploded Ordinance activist and researcher."
Chuck is paying attention to the chemical industries and is trying to get the word out.
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Corporation
Possibly my favorite part of the 2003 film, The Corporation. My favorite part of this clip is at the end:
"...court judges found that falsifying news isn't actually against the law..."
"...court judges found that falsifying news isn't actually against the law..."
Sunday, July 18, 2010
New Year's Resolutions Revisited
I recently reviewed my New Year's Resolutions for this year and was pleased to discover that I'm sticking to it better than I had expected.
First was this blog, which, admittedly, I haven't kept up with lately as I should. I've been busy with other things, but I need to get better at posting even something short from time to time.
On The Waterfront and second half of Lawrence of Arabia are the movies I need to watch to complete the AFI's top ten. I thought I still needed to see Vertigo, but it turns out I did watch that one last year. I haven't done anything about this one other than putting On The Waterfront in our Netfilx queue. I'll have to check Lawrence of Arabia out from the library. Those will be good ones for later in the year when the weather is yucky.
The goal of “eating food, not too much, mostly plants” has been going better lately than it was at the beginning of the year. It's always easier when fresh produce abounds and, despite the weather being cool-ish for the season, the garden is doing very well! We added a second raised bed (another resolution) and have been doing better than last year with our planting-harvesting-replanting schedules, though I have not been as diligent with this as I wish I were. Still, progress is being made.
I have reloading completely under control. There are a couple items I would like to get to make the job easier, less messy, etc., but right now I have everything I need to reload the two calibers I shoot with any regularity and have reloaded several hundred rounds.
I have done three hike-in camping trips this year -- Olympic Hot Springs, Geyser Valley Complex, and Hoh Rain Forest. I have gotten a handle on the gear, what I do and don't need to pack, AND have made plans for a big trip. In a week I will venture out for a six-day excursion from the north end of the Olympic National Park to the south end. About 45 miles from Lake Mills to Lake Quinault (technically, from the Whisky Bend Trailhead to the North Fork Trailhead). I am excited!
Airline tickets have been purchased for the wedding in October and money is being saved for the trip and to cover time off work.
I found someone local who had two acres cleared in January and is letting people come harvest firewood pretty cheap. I have about two thirds of the wood we will need for this winter already.
Between the hiking and woodcutting, I have definitely been getting more exercise this year. I have also been exercising more just to get in shape for the big walk next week.
Cheese making and homemade pectin are two things I just have not gotten to yet. Filling a deer or elk tag is going to have to wait until the season starts this fall, but I have begun making plans.
I'm still looking for ways to do more with my son. He and I did do the Geyser Valley Complex hike just the two of us, and the other two hikes were my wife, son and me. He is very much into Legos and what I really need to do is make time to actually build Lego stuff with him. That should be a goal.
All in all, I have to say I'm pretty pleased with how this year has been going!
First was this blog, which, admittedly, I haven't kept up with lately as I should. I've been busy with other things, but I need to get better at posting even something short from time to time.
On The Waterfront and second half of Lawrence of Arabia are the movies I need to watch to complete the AFI's top ten. I thought I still needed to see Vertigo, but it turns out I did watch that one last year. I haven't done anything about this one other than putting On The Waterfront in our Netfilx queue. I'll have to check Lawrence of Arabia out from the library. Those will be good ones for later in the year when the weather is yucky.
The goal of “eating food, not too much, mostly plants” has been going better lately than it was at the beginning of the year. It's always easier when fresh produce abounds and, despite the weather being cool-ish for the season, the garden is doing very well! We added a second raised bed (another resolution) and have been doing better than last year with our planting-harvesting-replanting schedules, though I have not been as diligent with this as I wish I were. Still, progress is being made.
I have reloading completely under control. There are a couple items I would like to get to make the job easier, less messy, etc., but right now I have everything I need to reload the two calibers I shoot with any regularity and have reloaded several hundred rounds.
I have done three hike-in camping trips this year -- Olympic Hot Springs, Geyser Valley Complex, and Hoh Rain Forest. I have gotten a handle on the gear, what I do and don't need to pack, AND have made plans for a big trip. In a week I will venture out for a six-day excursion from the north end of the Olympic National Park to the south end. About 45 miles from Lake Mills to Lake Quinault (technically, from the Whisky Bend Trailhead to the North Fork Trailhead). I am excited!
Airline tickets have been purchased for the wedding in October and money is being saved for the trip and to cover time off work.
I found someone local who had two acres cleared in January and is letting people come harvest firewood pretty cheap. I have about two thirds of the wood we will need for this winter already.
Between the hiking and woodcutting, I have definitely been getting more exercise this year. I have also been exercising more just to get in shape for the big walk next week.
Cheese making and homemade pectin are two things I just have not gotten to yet. Filling a deer or elk tag is going to have to wait until the season starts this fall, but I have begun making plans.
I'm still looking for ways to do more with my son. He and I did do the Geyser Valley Complex hike just the two of us, and the other two hikes were my wife, son and me. He is very much into Legos and what I really need to do is make time to actually build Lego stuff with him. That should be a goal.
All in all, I have to say I'm pretty pleased with how this year has been going!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Backstory Part III
The third and final installment of the "how I got here" story...
---
Before moving to the east coast I had taken an interest in archery and this lead me to bow hunting. While hunting I came face-to-face with the reality of meat and exactly how an animal becomes food. It was also around the time of this move that we started taking a look at the anti-Wal-Mart hype. While we had shopped at Wal-Mart from time to time, I frequently found myself aggravated with the experience. I decided to try and find out why.
While I found books on Wal-Mart and organic foods, my wife was looking into childbirth and the medical industry. When our son started having unexplained seizures at age six, the doctors at the hospital had absolutely no explanation and our motivation for answers grew. It turns out that the over-the-counter allergy medicine we were giving our son each spring causes seizures in a small percent of people; mostly children. None of the doctors to whom we are still paying bills had ever heard of such a thing. Money well spent.
Around this time I had made a complaint among my college friends about how difficult it is to reduce one's carbon footprint even when trying to do so. I was admonished by a vegan friend who suggested that I could do a lot more by simply not eating meat. I decided to really examine this perspective which lead me to more information about Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations, food transportation, and why eating locally is important. Now I was torn between local and organic and found it seemingly impossible to reconcile the two.
We never did find a local brew shop in Wilmington that could get us anything we couldn't find online from the same origin or closer. We never found a local butcher. Seriously. The local supermarkets would reluctantly hand-cut shipped-in raw meat but did not want to have to clean the slicer for a private order. I ended up buying a meat slicer online because no one in Wilmington that I could find sold such an item (I did not check Wal-Mart).
On top of all of this, we were appalled by both the school food and the local school system. One day we picked our son up from school when he was on the verge of tears. We had to pull from him that the school was having a "McDonald's Day" that Friday and that, while he didn't want to let his class down, he didn't want to eat McDonald's food. Now the school has made me a bad parent for teaching my kid to eat better. When I emailed the principal, I was informed it was not a school program, but a PTA fundraiser, never mind the giant banner in the school entryway and the competition between classrooms for participation. The PTA cashed my enclosed check for the "recommended contribution" plus what an average family might generously spend at McDonald's, but never responded to my letter. Still, that wasn’t the last straw.
My wife was reading articles by John Taylor Gatto and decided it would be a good idea to volunteer at the school library to help out. One afternoon the school went on “lock-down”, which means the lights went off, the shades were pulled, and the kids all got on the floor while police searched the school. Once the police cleared the building, the shades remained closed and no children were allowed outside without an adult escort for the rest of the day. It turns out someone down the street had been shot and the police were looking for the shooter. Now I don’t have a problem with the lock-down procedure, what I have a problem with is that the school did not tell any parents about it. The only reason we knew about it was because my wife happened to be there that day. How do you put kids through something like that and not mention it to the parents? After one year in the local, public school and three and a half months in the local magnet school, we removed our child from compulsory education and started a homeschool, but not without threat of litigation. Schools get money based on attendance now, so every child counts at least as far as the budget is concerned.
We were reading books like Crunchy Cons (Dreher), When Corporations Rule the World (Korten), Deep Economy (McKibben), The Ecology of Commerce (Hawken), The Great Turning (Korten), Choice (Bender & de Gramont), Conscious Conception (Baker & Baker), The Empty Cradle (Longman) (a disturbing book on several levels), and The Wal-Mart Effect (Fishman). We saw documentaries such as Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Why We Fight, The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, The Corporation, and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. We began to really reconsider how we live and how to live better.
By the time I was able to secure work and move our family back to the northwest, we had become staunch anti-Wal-Mart, anti-industrial, organic-foods, homeschooling, label-reading shoppers. Once again, change seems to be easier when habits change. We now found ourselves closer to home, but in no context with which we were familiar as our habits and priorities had so dramatically shifted. We found that the neighborhood Fred Meyer's (now owned by Kroger) "natural" section closely resembled the co-op we belonged to on the east coast. We were relieved to find a supply of natural and organic products, but we soon discovered a local butcher and several local markets sprinkled about the area. It was as if we had stumbled into the perfect storm of local access and organic options. We were also able to gain access to a much more user-friendly library than we had been to in years. Instead of buying a few books a year I was now able to borrow a few books a week and learn much more about local and sustainable. The book Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown shook my world all over again. We planted a vegetable garden, started raising chickens, learned canning, freezing, pickling and jam making. I continued homebrewing and making sausage and jerky.
Which brings the whole story up to speed. We are now several years into this journey and we are making progress, but we can always do better. Our worldview has changed some, but what has really changed is how we interact with the world and our environment. We are learning to consume less, produce more, and be more involved with our own lives.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.
---
Before moving to the east coast I had taken an interest in archery and this lead me to bow hunting. While hunting I came face-to-face with the reality of meat and exactly how an animal becomes food. It was also around the time of this move that we started taking a look at the anti-Wal-Mart hype. While we had shopped at Wal-Mart from time to time, I frequently found myself aggravated with the experience. I decided to try and find out why.
While I found books on Wal-Mart and organic foods, my wife was looking into childbirth and the medical industry. When our son started having unexplained seizures at age six, the doctors at the hospital had absolutely no explanation and our motivation for answers grew. It turns out that the over-the-counter allergy medicine we were giving our son each spring causes seizures in a small percent of people; mostly children. None of the doctors to whom we are still paying bills had ever heard of such a thing. Money well spent.
Around this time I had made a complaint among my college friends about how difficult it is to reduce one's carbon footprint even when trying to do so. I was admonished by a vegan friend who suggested that I could do a lot more by simply not eating meat. I decided to really examine this perspective which lead me to more information about Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations, food transportation, and why eating locally is important. Now I was torn between local and organic and found it seemingly impossible to reconcile the two.
We never did find a local brew shop in Wilmington that could get us anything we couldn't find online from the same origin or closer. We never found a local butcher. Seriously. The local supermarkets would reluctantly hand-cut shipped-in raw meat but did not want to have to clean the slicer for a private order. I ended up buying a meat slicer online because no one in Wilmington that I could find sold such an item (I did not check Wal-Mart).
On top of all of this, we were appalled by both the school food and the local school system. One day we picked our son up from school when he was on the verge of tears. We had to pull from him that the school was having a "McDonald's Day" that Friday and that, while he didn't want to let his class down, he didn't want to eat McDonald's food. Now the school has made me a bad parent for teaching my kid to eat better. When I emailed the principal, I was informed it was not a school program, but a PTA fundraiser, never mind the giant banner in the school entryway and the competition between classrooms for participation. The PTA cashed my enclosed check for the "recommended contribution" plus what an average family might generously spend at McDonald's, but never responded to my letter. Still, that wasn’t the last straw.
My wife was reading articles by John Taylor Gatto and decided it would be a good idea to volunteer at the school library to help out. One afternoon the school went on “lock-down”, which means the lights went off, the shades were pulled, and the kids all got on the floor while police searched the school. Once the police cleared the building, the shades remained closed and no children were allowed outside without an adult escort for the rest of the day. It turns out someone down the street had been shot and the police were looking for the shooter. Now I don’t have a problem with the lock-down procedure, what I have a problem with is that the school did not tell any parents about it. The only reason we knew about it was because my wife happened to be there that day. How do you put kids through something like that and not mention it to the parents? After one year in the local, public school and three and a half months in the local magnet school, we removed our child from compulsory education and started a homeschool, but not without threat of litigation. Schools get money based on attendance now, so every child counts at least as far as the budget is concerned.
We were reading books like Crunchy Cons (Dreher), When Corporations Rule the World (Korten), Deep Economy (McKibben), The Ecology of Commerce (Hawken), The Great Turning (Korten), Choice (Bender & de Gramont), Conscious Conception (Baker & Baker), The Empty Cradle (Longman) (a disturbing book on several levels), and The Wal-Mart Effect (Fishman). We saw documentaries such as Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Why We Fight, The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, The Corporation, and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. We began to really reconsider how we live and how to live better.
By the time I was able to secure work and move our family back to the northwest, we had become staunch anti-Wal-Mart, anti-industrial, organic-foods, homeschooling, label-reading shoppers. Once again, change seems to be easier when habits change. We now found ourselves closer to home, but in no context with which we were familiar as our habits and priorities had so dramatically shifted. We found that the neighborhood Fred Meyer's (now owned by Kroger) "natural" section closely resembled the co-op we belonged to on the east coast. We were relieved to find a supply of natural and organic products, but we soon discovered a local butcher and several local markets sprinkled about the area. It was as if we had stumbled into the perfect storm of local access and organic options. We were also able to gain access to a much more user-friendly library than we had been to in years. Instead of buying a few books a year I was now able to borrow a few books a week and learn much more about local and sustainable. The book Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown shook my world all over again. We planted a vegetable garden, started raising chickens, learned canning, freezing, pickling and jam making. I continued homebrewing and making sausage and jerky.
Which brings the whole story up to speed. We are now several years into this journey and we are making progress, but we can always do better. Our worldview has changed some, but what has really changed is how we interact with the world and our environment. We are learning to consume less, produce more, and be more involved with our own lives.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
New Year's Resolutions
I should preface by saying that I'm not really big on New Year's resolutions, per se. I am a fan of self-examination, striving to do better, and having goals of some kind. The new year is as good a time as any to re-evaluate and set some goals and, since the tradition is already there, why not? I’ve also found that writing it down and revisiting it throughout the year helps. I am often amazed at how the act of writing something down can seem to affect it’s outcome. Something about putting things out into the quantum universe I suppose. Last year’s list included a few things I thought were highly unlikely that actually did come to pass, so this year I’m going to just put it all down and see how it goes.
The first resolution I’ll list is this blog. I pretty much covered that in the intro, so we’ll just have to stay tuned to see how I do there.
There are a couple carry-overs from last year. I wanted to see all of the AFI’s top ten films, which are actually twelve films because they did the original list in 1997 and then changed it in 2007. I missed On The Waterfront, Vertigo, and I only made it through half of Lawrence of Arabia, but I watched (or had already seen) the rest. This year I want to finish the top ten and start in on some of the seven that I haven’t already seen in the top twenty-five.
Another carry-over is to continue eating food, not too much, mostly plants. A resolution straight out of Pollan’s, In Defense of Food, I did a pretty good job eating better last year and I want to continue to get better. The gardening, canning, and freezing all help us do a better job of eating seasonally and locally and it is my intent to look for ways to improve there as well.
I had a resolution last year to be able to reload by the end of the year. I did acquire some of the tools, but not all and I still have yet to learn the actual process. However, my wife’s uncle has offered to teach me and we have made plans to do it while we are in Portland during the next few days. In an added bit of serendipity, my wife’s grandmother just told us she has a couple boxes of her late husband’s reloading gear and that I am welcome to it. So this one is just a little behind schedule, but should right on track this time next week. It’s kind of crazy how just putting it out there colluded and the pieces came together.
Not really a carry-over so much as an expansion of last year’s resolutions, we are planning to add another raised bed for the garden this year. I hope to pay closer attention to the planting-harvesting-replanting schedules to get a little more out of this year’s garden. I hope to have more canning and freezing to do next fall. We are still eating peas, green beans, pickles, and tomatoes from last summer’s garden and corn, jam, and jelly from other local sources, but I would like to be able to buy even less from the store next winter.
I’m going to put camping and hiking together here since our goal this year is to do some hike-in camping. Back when I was single my transportation was a motorcycle and I could strap everything I needed for a camping trip to the seat and handlebars. Now, with the wife and child and the VW bus, our camping gear has expanded quite a bit. During the last year we began picking up things like hiking packs, a small tent, lightweight sleeping bags, etc. By summer we hope to have everything we need to do at least two or three family hike-in camping trips. It would also be nice to do at least one big hiking trip like last fall’s Mt. Ellinor hike.
I made good on last year's goal to get out deer hunting. Since I am relatively new to the area my goal here was primarily to learn the state regulations and where the deer are. I did that and also found a really good elk spot. This year’s goal is to actually fill a deer or elk tag. Now that I better understand the seasons and where to go, I think this can be do-able.
I need to get more exercise this year. The first year we were here we did a pretty good job of getting out on the bikes or going for walks but this year we’ve been busy and regular physical activity has fallen by the wayside. I need to figure out a way to remedy that.
I have a good friend in North Carolina who is getting married in October. I resolve to make it to that wedding. Since our family lives on a pretty moderate budget, cross-country trips require planning and saving. We have already started, but we will need to keep everything on track to make it happen.
A couple things I would like to try this year are cheese making and homemade pectin. I’m not sure when we’ll find the time, but I’m going to put it out there anyway.
This past year I acquired a pick up truck and a chainsaw (thank you to my uncle who upgraded both!) and I would very much like to harvest some of my own firewood this year. There is no reason for me to pay to have some else cut and split it – I need the exercise!
Finally, I always need to do more with my son. Between our family’s schedules and homeschooling, we actually do spend quite a bit of time together as a family. Still, I feel that we always need to be striving to do more together. This is a constant goal.
…So, that’s it. I did actually leave a couple things off, but I think this is enough to keep me busy this year. Besides, I need to save something for next year, right?
The first resolution I’ll list is this blog. I pretty much covered that in the intro, so we’ll just have to stay tuned to see how I do there.
There are a couple carry-overs from last year. I wanted to see all of the AFI’s top ten films, which are actually twelve films because they did the original list in 1997 and then changed it in 2007. I missed On The Waterfront, Vertigo, and I only made it through half of Lawrence of Arabia, but I watched (or had already seen) the rest. This year I want to finish the top ten and start in on some of the seven that I haven’t already seen in the top twenty-five.
Another carry-over is to continue eating food, not too much, mostly plants. A resolution straight out of Pollan’s, In Defense of Food, I did a pretty good job eating better last year and I want to continue to get better. The gardening, canning, and freezing all help us do a better job of eating seasonally and locally and it is my intent to look for ways to improve there as well.
I had a resolution last year to be able to reload by the end of the year. I did acquire some of the tools, but not all and I still have yet to learn the actual process. However, my wife’s uncle has offered to teach me and we have made plans to do it while we are in Portland during the next few days. In an added bit of serendipity, my wife’s grandmother just told us she has a couple boxes of her late husband’s reloading gear and that I am welcome to it. So this one is just a little behind schedule, but should right on track this time next week. It’s kind of crazy how just putting it out there colluded and the pieces came together.
Not really a carry-over so much as an expansion of last year’s resolutions, we are planning to add another raised bed for the garden this year. I hope to pay closer attention to the planting-harvesting-replanting schedules to get a little more out of this year’s garden. I hope to have more canning and freezing to do next fall. We are still eating peas, green beans, pickles, and tomatoes from last summer’s garden and corn, jam, and jelly from other local sources, but I would like to be able to buy even less from the store next winter.
I’m going to put camping and hiking together here since our goal this year is to do some hike-in camping. Back when I was single my transportation was a motorcycle and I could strap everything I needed for a camping trip to the seat and handlebars. Now, with the wife and child and the VW bus, our camping gear has expanded quite a bit. During the last year we began picking up things like hiking packs, a small tent, lightweight sleeping bags, etc. By summer we hope to have everything we need to do at least two or three family hike-in camping trips. It would also be nice to do at least one big hiking trip like last fall’s Mt. Ellinor hike.
I made good on last year's goal to get out deer hunting. Since I am relatively new to the area my goal here was primarily to learn the state regulations and where the deer are. I did that and also found a really good elk spot. This year’s goal is to actually fill a deer or elk tag. Now that I better understand the seasons and where to go, I think this can be do-able.
I need to get more exercise this year. The first year we were here we did a pretty good job of getting out on the bikes or going for walks but this year we’ve been busy and regular physical activity has fallen by the wayside. I need to figure out a way to remedy that.
I have a good friend in North Carolina who is getting married in October. I resolve to make it to that wedding. Since our family lives on a pretty moderate budget, cross-country trips require planning and saving. We have already started, but we will need to keep everything on track to make it happen.
A couple things I would like to try this year are cheese making and homemade pectin. I’m not sure when we’ll find the time, but I’m going to put it out there anyway.
This past year I acquired a pick up truck and a chainsaw (thank you to my uncle who upgraded both!) and I would very much like to harvest some of my own firewood this year. There is no reason for me to pay to have some else cut and split it – I need the exercise!
Finally, I always need to do more with my son. Between our family’s schedules and homeschooling, we actually do spend quite a bit of time together as a family. Still, I feel that we always need to be striving to do more together. This is a constant goal.
…So, that’s it. I did actually leave a couple things off, but I think this is enough to keep me busy this year. Besides, I need to save something for next year, right?
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