Don’t miss the 3rd Annual Seattle Sacred Music Festival Nov. 5 and 6
at the Center for Spiritual Living.
November 2004 | Evergreen News
Now Playing and Getting a Rise
OK, show of hands out there. Who among us talks to plants?
Thought so.
Well, all of you conversant with your plants — and our guess is Evergreen Monthly ranks high among Puget Sound area publications in this reader quality — will be happy to hear about the Next Audible Thing regarding plants and other live organisms.
Here’s the vibe: Researchers in Spain have discovered that the yeast used to make wine floats “more uniformly and thicker” in casks when the right music is piped into the fermentation room. Yeast floats to the top of wine casks to protect against the damage air can cause your favorite red or, in this study’s case, fine sherry. The thicker and more even, the better.
The lead researcher in the study is a microbiologist, Aurora Sanchez Sousa, at Madrid’s Ramon y Cajal Hospital. Sanchez Sousa also happens to be a pianist who wrote some music matching the do-re-mi scale of music with the building blocks of the DNA double helix. Spanish sherry mogul Jose Estevez liked the music and the notion that maybe yeast, just as alive on the cellular level in his experience as any flamenco dancer, would be moved by the do-re-mi DNA beat.
Estevez’s winemakers hung speakers from the ceiling and played four DNA-inspired songs from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, including one number with a “jazzy slant.”
So far, so good. The winemakers feel their yeast layers are better and Sanchez Sousa is encouraged, if realistic that more studies must be conducted.
“We have a lot to investigate,” she told the Associated Press, noting that sherry itself can take three to five years before it is ready to drink. “This will take time.”
Understandable, but given that it is November in the Northwest and the ebb of our gardening season, this report is, ahem, the yeast we can do.
— Andrew Mulholland
Bean Counting: Starbucks’ Plus Side
Say what you will about Starbucks — and there is plenty of debate (see “Fair Enough” in the Jan. 2004 debut issue of Evergreen Monthly) — but it’s important to give the Seattle coffee giant some tall (or grande?) credit when due.
At the “Profitable Sustainability: Future of Business” conference in late September at the Westin Hotel, Starbucks was award the first-ever “Recognized Leader Distinction” by the EnviroStars Program. Nationally recognized, EnviroStars (www.envirostars.org) was pioneered in King County in 1995 by the Local Hazardous Waste Management Program to certify businesses for reducing, recycling and properly managing hazardous waste, rating them with 2 to 5 stars according to their demonstrated commitment to environmentally responsible practices. The program has since expanded to dozens of towns in the Puget Sound area, and about 600 businesses in King, Pierce, Kitsap, Jefferson and Whatcom counties have been certified.
King County’s EnviroStars program manager Laurel Tomchick lauded Starbucks’ corporate Environmental Footprint team and the company’s Green Team, which is a group of store managers around the country dedicated to raising store awareness of environmental issues.
Specifically, Tomchick said Starbucks has reduced natural gas, electricity and water use in its stores, plus worked to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution and parking demands when possible. She also said the county is impressed with the coffee giant’s new Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) initiative aimed at “more equitable relationships with farmers.”
— Bob Condor
Make Heart Space For Sacred Music
Just a friendly and heartfelt reminder: Don’t miss the 3rd Annual Seattle Sacred Music Festival Nov. 5 and 6 at the Center for Spiritual Living. The last two festivals have received rave reviews. If you’re moved by the music at your worship and spirit-building services, this year’s won’t disappoint. It features artists from Hawaii to Nepal along with local musicians.
Some examples: Seattle’s own drumming ensemble, Rhythm Churchy, will be a highlight. Himalayan flute player Manose is scheduled. You can discover just what is Hawaiian Chanting from the Kauai-based Antion group or sink deeply into the gospel music of the Witherspoon quartet. A special concert of soloists (many write their own songs) from Unity and Religious Science congregations in the Pacific Northwest will round out the sacred schedule.
All performances are at the Center for Spiritual Living, 5801 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle. Ticket prices are $15 to $35. The complete Festival lineup and information is available by calling 206/527-8801 ext. 8500 or visiting www.sacredmusicfestival.com.
— A.M.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Sometimes what you don’t see is what you get. While the newly finished Broadview Green Grid in the northwest section of the city features dozens of new plants, trees and shrubs (with an emphasis on not installing too many tall evergreens to block views or sun access), the natural wonder of the project is in the drainage system.
The streetscapes on 15 city blocks were designed differently than most typical American urban/suburban grids. There is a lot more than meets the eye (see architectural rendering accompanying this article) in the Piper’s Creek Watershed. Stormwater flow will be better managed over approximately 32 acres.
The goal of the Broadview Green Grid was to reduce the adverse impact of stormwater runoff (we are headed into the season for plenty of that) on Seattle’s creeks, lakes and bays. There will be less damage to habitat when stormwater is high and the “bioretention” helps keep the creeks flowing in drier months.
Other benefits include less flooding, improved water quality, calmer traffic and increased safety for pedestrians — along with the aforementioned enhanced landscaping. A sidewalk was added on each north-south street, making it easier for kids to walk to their schools (a not-unimportant issue to public health officials concerned about childhood obesity).
If that all sounds good to you, you have company. This summer Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government awarded the city’s Natural Drainage Systems program a $100,000 grant to expand its reach. The Harvard school grants are often called the “Oscars of good government.” Seattle Public Utilities and the city’s department of transportation partnered on the award-winning project.
There are other Natural Drainage System projects transforming neighborhoods around the city, including the High Point housing redevelopment in southwest Seattle’s Longfellow Creek Watershed. Another project is planned for the Pinehurst neighborhood. Three other natural drainage projects have been completed in the Piper’s Creek Watershed: 2nd Avenue Northwest between Northwest 117th and 120th; Carkeek Cascades, on 110th between Greenwood Avenue North and 3rd Avenue Northwest; and Viewlands Cascade, on 105th Street west of 3rd Avenue Northwest.
— B.C.
Documentary Fever Continues at Theaters
In a year that has already offered up a swell of meaningful and wildly popular documentaries — “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “What the #$*! Do We Know,” “The Corporation,” “Super Size Me” — there is room for one more. Keep your eyes out for “The Take.” Here’s a report from writer James Westcott on the newest project by author and doc maker Naomi Klein, who wrote “No Logo” about runaway product branding:
When the Forja auto plant in suburban Buenos Aires closed down after Argentina went bankrupt in December 2001, even the pigeons deserted the factory.
“There were always so many pigeons in here,” says a tearful laid-off worker named Freddy as he revisits the factory with his old colleagues two years after they lost their jobs. This incursion into the defunct factory is the first step in the workers’ “take” — taking back the company — and the most poignant moment of “The Take,” Naomi Klein’s and Avi Lewis’ documentary about the National Movement of Recovered Companies (MNER) in Argentina. A year later, Freddy and his buddies at Forja would be back on the shop floor, forging parts again, their bosses nowhere to be seen.
Klein, the author of “No Logo,” the bible of the Seattle-Genoa global justice movement, and Lewis, a Canadian TV news host, made “The Take” in response to their opponents’ persistent question: “We know what you’re against, but what are you for?” When they heard about worker-run factories in Argentina filling the vacuum left by corrupt managers, the husband-wife team found something concrete that they were for: democracy in the workplace.
Expropriated companies (the legal term for businesses that are stolen, or stolen back, by the workers) nearly always become more productive than they were under the old managers. The Zanon ceramics factory in the southern city of Neuquen now produces more tiles and employs more people than it did under the old management structure.
Brukman, a garment factory in downtown Buenos Aires, fought off eviction, paid overdue gas and electricity bills and resumed production even though they couldn’t legally issue receipts for the suits they made. According to the solidarity group Workers Without Bosses — which is making an appeal on behalf of the Brukman seamstresses for machine parts and instruction manuals — there are now about 200 worker-run factories in Argentina, employing around 10,000 people.
“The movement isn’t exploding, but it is undergoing stable growth,” Lewis said after a screening of “The Take” in New York, where it had an initial two-week run through early October. “There were halcyon visions of a shadow economy developing. But it’s not an alternative economy, and it’s not necessarily how we should proceed in the U.S. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.”
So instead of propagating a factory-takeover system, the documentary focuses on small, usually emotive details of the workers’ struggles. We see Forja workers doing target practice with slingshots and marbles in preparation for a forced eviction, the women of Brukman — with the whole community behind them — repelled by tear gas and water cannons when they try to force their way back into the factory, and lots of moody shots of derelict buildings.
What the movie doesn’t show is how the workers afforded lawyers, and under what precedent — if any — they made their case for expropriation. But we do see the Forja workers weeping when the decision finally goes their way on appeal.
This focus is deliberate, Klein explained.
“We didn’t want to make a lecture. A film should grab people emotionally and from there get them to read a dissertation on bankruptcy law,” said Klein, who wrote the film while Lewis directed it. “We aren’t constitutionally capable of writing a manifesto. Even if I could write one, I really don’t think I’d want to. I’m not hungering for ideology.”
— James Westcott
The Chemicals in Our Cosmetics
You might have missed the June report from Environmental Working Group, the Washington, D.C.-based consumer watchdog organization, that one of three personal-care products has at least one ingredient classified as a possible carcinogen. And that one in 100 contains a substance the government certifies as a known or probable cause of cancer. EWG studied the labels of 7,500 hair, skin, tooth, makeup, baby oil and shaving products.
But readers of USA Today in late September found it hard to miss a full-page ad taking U.S. cosmetics companies to task about whether they will remove toxins already banned by the European Union (why is Europe always ahead of America on such issues?). Twenty-five EU countries now have a law prohibiting any use of phthalates (going by such acronyms as DBP and DEHP) used in some fragrance, hairspray and nail polish. Any such products will have to be off the shelves by spring 2005.
The USA Today ad named names regarding U.S. products. Big names, such as L’Oréal, Revlon and Unilever, were cited for not removing toxins from their product lines. Thirty-two companies were lauded for signing an agreement to remove possible carcinogens.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which placed the ad, said L’Oréal did not respond to requests for meetings or information, but did send a letter from its attorneys demanding the campaign stop using the slogan “Because We’re Worth It,” a play on the L’Oréal slogan “Because I’m Worth It.”
Revlon sent a form letter from an industry trade association, while Unilever simply didn’t answer at all. One interesting note: Unilever’s Korean subsidiary has pledged to remove phthalates sold in South Korea.
For more information about toxins and cosmetics, visit www.safecosmetics.org.
— B.C.
WHO SEZ
Albert Camus, Nobel Prize-winning writer: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Julia Cameron, author, “The Artist’s Way”: “Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness.”
Martin Luther King Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Chinese proverb: “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
Rachel Carson, environmental pioneer: “A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods.”
George Carlin, funnyman: “Weather forecast for tonight: dark.”
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