I'm Seeing Green

An Explosive War Film

What makes the Hurt Locker one of the most magnificent war films made recently? Perhaps it's because it's directed by a woman…a friend said to me that only a woman could've brought out the nuances shown so powerfully in this film. 

 [inage:Summit Entertainment]

Directed by Katherine Bigelow (Mission Zero, Point Break,) a rare non-chick-movie woman director, whose previous efforts don’t' even hint at the intensity and acting power she's brought out in this film, it is set in Iraq in 2004…before you decide it's yet another gung ho propaganda-effort-masked-as-movie, read on.

 

The opening scene of this movie (it starts abruptly without credits, or, for that matter, any real "opening" trope,) shows the efforts of the Delta Company bomb squad to defuse a roadside bomb in Iraq. Tense from the start, it stays that way relentlessly though most of its 130 minute running time. There's a sameness, almost ordinariness about it; except it's the sameess of war, with its attendant tension, horror and imminent death. The bomb squad is led by Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty); when their defusing expert is killed in the opening sequence, he's replaced by maverick William James (Jeremy Renner in a bravura performance,) who's not exactly a by-the-rule type of guy, but who has defused 873 bombs (give or take a few;)  he also seems to having a wonderful time while being barely in control. The classic male wartime ego conflict…rule-breaker vs. the chief who cannot control him. And Eldridge is a nervous never-quite-there-for-you personality who you sense is a disaster waiting to happen.

Except, not quite. The devil is in the details, and the details are superb. James tossing off his bomb suit because it would make no difference at that point, he's dead if the bomb explodes and he'd rather be comfortable.; fearless James ignoring Sanborne's pleas to pull out as he desperately searches for the  bomb trigger in a partially burned car; James (he does get all the good scenes,) finding the body of the boy he tried to befriend  days after his last contact with hum (and why is that body so obviously staged in an abandoned warehouse?); the semi-obligatory punch-fest between James and Sandborne, with an awesome funny ending…all perfectly staged.

 

How you feel about this movie depends on how much you can take its intensity, its brutality, its relentless downbeat-ness…as just a movie…in which case it is an absolute must-see, a rare combination of acting, directing and writing (by Mark Boal, from real-life experiences) perfection. Regard it as a commentary on the horror of war, its mindless destruction, its visceral danger, its soldiers retching at the sight of a bloody body, its dissonance between an occupying force's necessary hair trigger paranoia and  the routine-ness of kids watching the scene waiting for another explosive (in all senses of the term) denouement, and it is to weep; and yet to laugh in relief from time to time. Black humor was never so edgy.

 

No clichés here, thankfully, or at least not any that are remarkable. A late scene between James and his wife (a small but pleasant cameo role for beauteous Evangeline Lilly, Kate of Lost,) is heartbreaking in its banality; them shopping in the typically over-choiced suburban supermarket, her pointedly ignoring his tentative comment about the scariness of his job…what could she say? and yet why say nothing?...but it underscores his loneliness and his total commitment to the job.

 

The excellent cinematography (filmed on location in Jordan) by Barry Ackroyd and the spare and effective music by Marco Beltrami add immeasurably to the experience.

 

Playing at the Beekman in Manhattan

Online Community Goes Live

I'm a very regular reader of the Brooklyn real-estate blog, brownstoner.com. Its older self-description was 'an obsessive interest in brownstone Brooklyn,' though now its slogan is 'Brooklyn inside and out,' as befits its broader perspective. It's a prolific site, with all kinds of news about real-estate and current events broadly connected to the state of life and the built environment in Brooklyn (and New York). The Forum section deals with advice about everything from the minutiae of sealing marble counters, to how sleazy real-estate brokers are, to how to deal with the odd stoop-pooper.

One of the regular posters decided it would be a good thing to organize a get-together of 'brownstoners' in the flesh; the first one was back last October and the second was yesterday, both in bars with boccie courts, oddly enough, though none of the attendees actually played it...too much of interest otherwise.

I approached the first one with considerable curiosity. Being a regular ranter on the blog myself, and having been called many names due to my over-solicitousness to tenants' predicament and my over-willingness to suggest raising taxes on everyone making more money than me (that's my detractors speaking,) I wondered how it would be to meet in person the anonymous people I had been having many conversations with. Not the least of the curiosity was the unmasking of the body behind the login name, so to speak...since the names may not reflect the persons behind them at all, though over the months the sex (I was trained to use 'sex', not 'gender' as I keep telling my son, who's at the age that any use of that three-letter word is hilarious) of many had been revealed through their writings.

It was a very pleasant surprise. Rabid ranters seemed normal in person and I actually wondered whether it would be harder to make fun of/ridicule/dismiss as idiotic the writings of those whom I'd met (actually, the answer is yes and no, but that's another story.)

Last night was the second meeting. Though I'd forgotten many (the name tags were usually the on-line names, not the real ones,) it was like meeting  slightly eccentric family members at the next major holiday.

The blog/response scenario is of course such a recent phenomenon that practically anything could have been anticipated. The anonymity granted by posting on blogs under a pseudonym is quite cherished and unique...almost like writing anonymous letters in another era. But that action was considered anti-social and usually confined to the 'poison-pen' world. Nowadays the anonymity, while still used as a cloak for all kinds of excess, is self-protective as well...who wants the many internet trolls to identify you (I wondered if protectiveness  was operative in the ratio of men to women in the group yesterday, which was high, or whether there are many more men posting on brownstoner than women)?

Which is why this second meeting, with its glimmerings of an actual community developing, is so interesting. If you didn't know it, you might have thought that this was a group who worked together having an after-work social session. Lots of conversation and drinking. This may become a regularly scheduled event, and maybe real-life friendships will develop. But then would you have to control your posting language? I wondered perhaps if that was why many regulars were not present.

Denmark Rocks, US schlocks

Had any doubt about these United States of America not exactly being a hotbed of cycling fervor?  Here's some statistics to prove the point; cycling distances per person per year [copehagen.com ]

Denmark: 954 km [ 590 miles ]

Netherlands: 879 km
Japan: 354 km
Belgium: 329 km
Germany: 298 km
Sweden: 277 km
Finland: 256 km
Ireland: 186 km
Austria: 173 km
Italy: 159 km
Great Britain: 84 km
France: 81 km
Greece: 77 km
USA: 33 km  ... [ 20 miles ]
Luxembourg: 31 km
Portugal: 29 km
Spain: 27 km

Welll, we're better than Luxembourg, but then there's probably only 27 fatcat bankers living in that tiny state, and as for Portugal and Spain? That's a mystery, but maybe it's something to do with the Catalonian temperament.

The Unnamable Play at the Old Stone House

I'm somewhat of a Shakespeare purist at heart, so I approached the Old Stone House , where I was to see "Dzeici Makbet" ("a Wicked Work in Progress") last night with some trepidation.  But from the very enthusiastic reception I got at the entrance, greeted by cast members, to the thoroughly enjoyable hour-and-a-quarter of the show, I'm glad I my fears were far from coming true.

To give you an idea of what the performance was like, consider these points:

Instead of a program with the usual notes on the actors and the obligatory notice praising Actor's Equity, we're handed a "Rules of Engagement..." which says, among several points, that all Actor must know the entire text, and that each is "encouraged to play a Witch, Makbet (Macbeth), and Lady Makbet at least once per enactment."

Before the play begins, the cast, speaking in various sometimes-put-on accents, encourages the audience to eat (bread, sausage and macaroons) and drink (wine, and a potent sweet liqueur) to get in the mood. Glasses and utensils are not much in supply; straight from the bottle and bits off the hunk is the way.

The "stage" is somewhat smaller than the average living room carpet (in fact, it is a living room carpet,) and contains at times, eight actors, and eight lit candles; the only other prop being a bucket (put to good use, among other things, as the witch's cauldron,) and a hand-held spotlight used to great effect as the only source of non-candle light.

Actors change roles at the drop of a hat, negotiating the change in the manner of an improvisational exercise (the director, Matt Mitler told me at the end," well, we've not had two Macduffs in the final scene before".) This may, and does, lead to a considerable level of confusion and sometimes incoherence (a knowledge of Macbeth is essential, check synopsis here before you go if your knowledge of the play is spotty), but the action moves smartly along, propelled by the energy and acting acumen of the cast. If you consider the additional tension induced by this number of actors working quite physically in such a tiny space, surrounded by audience members inches away, with breakable and lighted objects around, you'd see why there's probably a clause in the non-program prohibiting lawyers from attending. Nobody yesterday seemed even remotely fazed.

Not the least of the delights of this performance is the melding of the Shakespearean text (well, considerably truncated, of course, distilled to its essence is perhaps the more operative word,) with songs in multiple languages and a consistent humming refrain which begins and ends the show (and yes, the audience is encouraged to join in the haunting sounds.) Does it matter that we wonder exactly who's who at the moment? No. It adds to the effect.

I wished I had my son with me as I know (aside from the libations, of course) it would be greatly enjoyable for anyone  of any age with a love of theatre, an open mind and a sense of fun. Only other performance tonight at 8pm

The Dzieci Theatre "is an international experimental theatre ensemble dedicated to a search for the "sacred" through the medium of theatre." They will be at La Mama on Apr 16-19 with "Fools Mass at LaMaMa" and I certainly intend to be there.

 

 

Do We Care if the World is Watching?

From the Guardian's Johnathan Freedland, this commenton his predicted reaction of the world if Obama fails in November. There will be a predictable number of comments from right-wing Americans excoriating him for daring to suggest the great US voting population is less than perfect. Or that the opinions of Europe, or of the world count for aught...(after all, didn't the US save the effete Europeans twice in the last century?) But what does it say of us that Obama's demonstrated appeal outside the US actually hurts him here?

For a country, and a party that is constantly saber-rattling its way around the world, this is a remarkably short-sighted attitude. The US will not for ever be able to march into countries and invade them at no risk to itself; it will be able to ignore world opinion only so long. Or so I feel. And Freedland agrees:

The feeling is familiar. I had it four years ago and four years before that: a sinking feeling in the stomach. It's a kind of physical pessimism which says: "It's happening again. The Democrats are about to lose an election they should win - and it could not matter more."

In my head, I'm not as anxious for Barack Obama's chances as I was for John Kerry's in 2004 or Al Gore's in 2000. He is a better candidate than both put together, and all the empirical evidence says this year favours Democrats more than any since 1976. But still, I can't shake off the gloom.

...If Sarah Palin defies the conventional wisdom that says elections are determined by the top of the ticket, and somehow wins this for McCain, what will be the reaction? Yes, blue-state America will go into mourning once again, feeling estranged in its own country. A generation of young Americans - who back Obama in big numbers - will turn cynical, concluding that politics doesn't work after all. And, most depressing, many African-Americans will decide that if even Barack Obama - with all his conspicuous gifts - could not win, then no black man can ever be elected president.

But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.

....Let's not forget, McCain's campaign manager boasts that this election is "not about the issues."

Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American. But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us - and, make no mistake, we shall hear it.

Cows and Global Warming

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) would not approve; here's a prestigious UN report that strongly suggests we eat less meat, not because of health reasons but to mitigate global warming. Turns out that producing, transporting and eating meat create 18% of all global warming  gases (well, maybe not eating it unless you masticate it for an inordinate time;) transportation creates the next-largest amount at 13%. From the Guardian:

People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world's leading authority on global warming has told The Observer

Dr Rajendra Pachauri [Nobel Prize winner in 2007,] chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.

His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning.

Pachauri, who was re-elected the panel's chairman for a second six-year term last week, said diet change was important because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals. It was relatively easy to change eating habits compared to changing means of transport, he said.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century.

However, Chris Lamb, head of marketing for pig industry group BPEX, said the meat industry had been unfairly targeted and was working hard to find out which activities had the biggest environmental impact and reduce those. Some ideas were contradictory, he said - for example, one solution to emissions from livestock was to keep them indoors, but this would damage animal welfare. 'Climate change is a very young science and our view is there are a lot of simplistic solutions being proposed,' he said.

[Image by skinnydey  licensed by Creative Commons]

No to Cloned Animal Products

Washington, D.C., September 3, 2008 – The Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth today announced that 20 of America’s leading food producers and retailers have stated that they will not use cloned animals in their food.  The companies include Kraft Foods; General Mills; Gerber/Nestle; Campbell Soup Company; Gossner Foods; Smithfield Foods; Ben & Jerry’s; Amy’s Kitchen; California Pizza Kitchen restaurants; Hain Celestial; Cloverland, Oberweis, Prairie, Byrne, Plainview, and Clover-Stornetta Dairies; and grocers PCC Natural Markets, Albertsons, SUPERVALU, and Harris Teeter.  The move by these companies represents a growing industry trend of responding to consumer demand for better food safety, environmental, and animal welfare standards.

“This rejection of food from clones sends a strong message to biotech firms that their products may not find a market,” says Lisa Bunin, PhD, Campaigns Coordinator at the Center for Food Safety.  “American consumers don’t want to eat food from clones or their offspring, and these companies have realistically anticipated low market acceptance for this new and untested technology.”  This sentiment is echoed by General Mills in their letter to the Center which identified “consumer acceptance” as an important consideration with respect to the potential use of ingredients from clones in their products.

Kraft Foods expressed a similar position in a letter stating that although they defer to the conclusions of the FDA on the safety of ingredients from cloned animals, “product safety is not the only factor we consider in our products.  We must also carefully consider additional factors such as consumer benefits and acceptance...and research in the U.S. indicates that consumers are currently not receptive to ingredients from cloned animals.”

In May 2008, the Center for Food Safety began reaching out to companies involved in the production, use, and sale of meat and milk products, regarding their position on the use of food from clones.  In response, three of the top-earning food manufacturing companies indicated that they will not be using ingredients from clones or their offspring. 

Kraft Foods, North America’s second largest food and beverage company, reported revenue of approximately $37.2 billion in 2007, with products such as Cracker Barrel, Cool Whip, Velveeta, Oscar Meyer, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  General Mills, another leading American food processing company, with brands that include Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Totino’s, Yoplait and Haagen-Dazs, reported revenue of approximately $12.4 billion in 2007.  Gerber/Nestle, a top international food manufacturing company and leader in baby food and infant formula production, whose brands include Carnation, Toll House, Lean Cuisine, and Stouffer’s reported approximately $121 billion in revenue in 2007; Bringing their total revenue for 2007 to $170.6 billion.

Ben & Jerry's Social Mission Director, Rob Michalak, told the Center for Food Safety “Cloning presents a host of complex social, economic and animal welfare consequences.  The decision to approve clones for food use was rushed through, under the radar, without a proper, comprehensive review.  As a result, we now need to establish a national registry and tracking framework so that people know where the clones are.”

Ben & Jerry’s, Amy’s Kitchen, Clover-Stornetta, Oberweis Dairy, Prairie Farms Dairy, Plainview Dairy, PCC Natural Markets, and Hain Celestial have gone one step further by stating that they would not use ingredients from clones or their offspring.  The Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, and the American Anti-Vivisection Society are working to obtain more commitments of this kind.

In addition, Friends of the Earth has worked with top U.S. grocers to determine their policy on the use of cloned animals and their offspring in their food, and presented them with over 8,000 signatures from consumers who reject products made from these animals.  To date, Albertsons, SUPERVALU and Harris Teeter have informed Friends of the Earth that they will not sell products from cloned animals.  SUPERVALU, owner of Shaw’s, Cub Foods, Acme Markets, and partial owner of Albertsons, is the second-ranked grocer in the nation, with a reported 2008 revenue of $44 billion.  Albertsons, which operates more than 300 Albertsons supermarkets nationwide, reported over $40 billion in revenues in 2006.  North Carolina-based grocer Harris Teeter reported $3.3 billion in revenues, supplying upwards of 90% of parent company Ruddick’s profits.

“Grocers are recognizing that people do not want to eat food from cloned animals,” said Gillian Madill, Genetic Technologies Campaigner at Friends of the Earth.  “Food safety authorities must also recognize this and – in keeping with their public interest mandate – enact labeling regulations that allow Americans their fundamental right to choose.”

The American Anti-Vivisection Society, Center for Environmental Health, Center for Food Safety, Citizens for Health, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Farm Sanctuary, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Humane Society of the United States, Organic Consumers Association, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Interfaith Center on Cooperate Responsibility have sent FDA over 150,000 letters from their supporters who oppose the unlabeled introduction of cloned animals and their offspring into the US food supply.

The Center for Food Safety is national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. On the web at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org

Zero Waste

From worldchanging.com, this story about a way to improve waste management; it is at present only a plan, but one that is an "an effective tool for discussion." "Lombardi explained that even if we reached zero waste, cities would still need residue facilities, but that zero-waste cities could expect to eventually down actual residual trash to about 10 percent or less of all the waste we throw away."

Eric Lombardi, the waste-management guru behind Boulder, Colo.-based recycler Eco-Cycle, is fighting incinerators around the world with a vision. Although his Zero-Waste Park may never be built, he has been able to use the artistic plan as an effective tool for discussion that has allowed city planners to consider alternative solutions.

The Zero-Waste Park was originally conceived by Lombardi when he was working with a Hawaiian community group called Zero Waste Kauai (we originally mentioned the design in our post on Vancouver's RCBC conference). The island of Kauai was facing a landfill closure, and considering building an incinerator to handle waste disposal. The park is sized to handle solid waste from about 300,000 people (about the size of Boulder County, or the entire island of Kauai).

This is what the park looks like:

The park would be a one-stop dumping ground for truck loads of already-sorted city waste. The park includes a composting facility for organic materials; reuse center for still-good items; a center for hard-to-recycle materials (Eco-Cycle has already successfully created one of these in Boulder); a materials recovery facility for recovering valuable technical nutrients like metals; a residue facility for handling any trash that is leftover after the former; and a public education center.

Aga Ranting

Living  a sustainable life is not only changing energy uses and switching to non-toxic cleaners. What you buy is also an indicator of how green you're living. One might argue that buying, say, a more-expensive appliance is no more pressure on our over-burdened planet than buying a less-expensive one, which is true up to a point. But the more-expensive one typically has a higher embodied energy, that is to say it took more energy to produce it, and to that extent the less-expensive one is "greener"

These thoughts come to mind as I obsessively read the brownstoner, a local blog about the brownstone community I live in. In my many comments on that blog (for which I get regularly excoriated as a socialist and even a communist, how quaint, I thought the use of that word pejoratively went out with the cold war,) I try, unsuccessfully for the most part, to point out the follies of buying something just because you have the money to do so.

I will never be a politician, I probably couldn't convince my 10-year-old.

One interesting thread lately concerned the Aga Cooker (actually the questioner was talking about the newer versions, but my automatic rage when I see the word Aga blinded me.)

What, you might ask, is the issue with the Aga Cooker?

Well, this unconscionable British device is a range that has several burners that are permanently on. You read that correctly, the thing uses a constant supply of precious gas,  24/7.

People who have the Aga rave about it's cooking abilities. They seldom mention the steep learning curve involved; since there's no way to regulate the heat, you control it by...get this...altering the distance from the hot spot to the pan! And it has several ovens constantly hot at different (fixed) temperatures, so you bake cookies in one and roasts in another. Saves you from getting carpal tunnel from twisting the oven temperature knob, no doubt?

But that's not the point.

It's the sheer waste of energy. One comment in a magazine that touted the Cooker said "it uses about the same energy as a dozen 100w bulbs." Do the math. That's like having a space heater on constantly, summer and winter. Well maybe in winter it can heat the kitchen as a side-effect, but in summer? And the waste of money too, with NYC rates, that's about $200/month extra. Add the additional air conditioning you will need in summer.

So people with more money than sense still buy this terminally wasteful device. And claim it works better than an adjustable range, a serious case of delusional adjustment if I ever saw one

Oh, and did I mention that it costs over $12,000? And weighs 910 lbs? And that's for the smaller model?

Sure is a pretty one, though.

Compact Fluorescents II

"Not for use with Control Devices" are the words we see on many CFL sites, meaning that you are not supposed to use then with dimmers (this is more obvious) but also not with timers, light sensors (dusk-on switches) and motion detectors.

When I first bought CFLs from a website called 1000bulbs.com, they were selling the SatCo brand, and I installed them in all fixtures, one with a motion detector and two with light sensors with no problem (actually I hadn't noticed the warning.) Later bulbs, however, of a different brand, burned out in a few days when so installed. I wondered why. It was difficult, even in these days of the ubiquitous wiki and other sites, to get that information.

Turns out that most control devices use a constant, very low level of current, to maintain their state (in the case of timers, to run the clock,) which is routed through the bulb or bulbs they control...which is why, when your bulb burns out, your timer stops as well. This tiny current has no effect on incandescent bulbs, but for some reason damages the electronics in CFL's. Voila...CFL burn-out.

Of course, you may wonder why the CFL manufacturers cannot account for this tiny flow, but that may be another story.

How can you get around this? If you have more than one bulb controlled by the same device, you can put one incandescent, say a 15w bulb, in one socket and CFL's in the others.

This works for many multi-socket hall lights, or multiple outside lights on the same timer, for example. The incandescent bleeds the vampire current and keeps the CFL's safe. Unfortunately there's a lower limit to the wattage of the bulb and 15w seems to be the minimum; if you use less, the CFL's get too high a proportion of the current and damage ensues.

Of course, you increase your energy usage a bit, but if you have, say 2 CFL's and one incandescent, you're saving 60% instead of 75%.

Or you can pop for special control devices that control CFL's...hard to find, and not always easily installed as they require a "neutral wire" in the switch box, which is not always there. You can use the ground, but that's against code, so I didn't say it.

One such device that actually knows when dusk and dawn are reached and switches lights on or off at varying times during the year (you have to program it with the latitude and longitude of where you are,) is the Aube Solar switch in the image.

It can handle all kinds of loads, including CFL's and small motors. Note that, unlike a regular wall switch,it has three wires, not  two. The third is the above mentioned neutral wire. So it can only be used where the switch box has an incoming neutral wire.

But it won't burn out your precious CFL's.