Slow versus fast

I attended my first meeting of my local Slow Food Convivia last night, in Portland. I had been invited nearly a year ago to some of the initial meetings of a group looking to explore community in greater Portland, around a monthly meal, consisting of healthy and local food. Obviously, I'm a bit of a procrastinator, as it has taken me a year to finally show up at a gathering. Ironically, the woman who invited me couldn't attend.

For those of you who don't know about Slow Food, it is a movement that was founded in Italy in 1986. Its founder, Carlo Petrini, sought to promote food and wine, as well as agricultural biodiversity worldwide.

Like many aspects of our culture, local food production has been co-opted by market elements, robbing it of uniqueness and resulting in the homogenization of much of what passes for production and preparation of food in the U.S.

While my intial experience of what Slow Food (the movement) was about came from an Utne Reader article, I didn't know alot about what the significance was of the worldwide movement.

I'm still in the process of understanding it, but my initial in-person experience was a positive one. The Portland Convivium (local chapter) had a communal meal, with members (and non-members) bringing various foods. All of us got to try new foods, drink some wine, socialize and then participate in the monthly meeting. As a newcomer, I met alot of new people, many with connections to food; either cooks, owners of bakeries or local markets, as well as others like myself, with no formal connection to food other than being a consumer.

The concept is an interesting one and I'll probably go back again. The meetings are the first Monday of the month and our next one will once again be at the beautiful St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center in Portland, with the meeting set to start at 6PM.

Play ball!

After five weeks of meaningless spring training games played in the surreal surroundings of palm trees and endless sunshine, the 2005 Major League Baseball season got under way in New York. The defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox (doesn't that have a special ring?) opened the season in New York, against their longtime rivals, the hated New York Yankees (aka, The Evil Empire). With the big league braintrust displaying their vaunted intelligence and usual concern for the well-being of the national pastime, baseball opened its season at 8pm in a northern city, with game time temperatures hovering around 40 degrees. Ever-ready to put television ratings above the quality of the game, the lords of the corporate suites decided baseball is best played in frigid temperatures that challenged the endurance of even the heartiest of fans. Ah, but the Sunday night primetime television spot was a TV ratings bonanza, so that takes precedent over anything else.

With two ancient mariners trotting out to toe the rubber for their respective clubs, the overweight and pathetic-looking David Wells for the Sox and the ageless Randy Johnson for the Yankees, the 2005 season opener seemed a contrast in strengths between the two clubs. Gone from the Sox' mound corps are the guaranteed 35-40 wins provided by Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, replaced by question marks such as the retread Wells and Wade Miller (of the persistent arm problems) and Matt Clement (with his lifetime record of 69-75, 4.34 ERA ). The Yankees, able to spend owner George Steinbrenner's money at will, added future hall-of-famer Johnson, as well as hard-throwers Carl Pavano (former Red Sox farmhand, traded to the Expos in the original deal to acquire Martinez) and Jaret Wright to proven vets Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown. Everyone knows what Johnson is capable of, but its Pavano who could be the real X-factor in their rotation. Last season with Florida, Pavano had the breakout year many have been waiting for, winning 18 games and making the NL all-star team. More importantly, he's only 28 years old and showed the poise and ability that made him the kind of prospect that the Montreal Expos would take in a deal for Martinez in November of 1997. The Red Sox and Theo Epstein actively sought Pavano during the off-season, but as often happens, Steinbrenner's money lured Pavano to the Big Apple.

With Wells looking out of shape and ready for the scrap heap, the Red Sox were trailing in the sixth, 5-1. It's early and no need to panic yet (we'll give it a couple more weeks). But with a starting rotation held together with bailing wire and bubblegum, there are some storm clouds on the horizon. Take for instance that ace Curt Schilling is coming off surgery and will be turning 39, Wells at 41 looks close to being done and then, you add the mercurial knuckleball of Tim Wakefield to the mix and well, Red Sox nation has some real concerns heading into the first month of the 2005 campaign.

Speaking of Major League Baseball; the new steroids policy is proving to be the tough deterrant promised with the first culprit being the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' Alex Sanchez. Alex who? Sanchez, who has hit a combined 128 home runs over his ten-year career, an average of about 12 per season, tested positive under the new Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program of Major League Baseball and will be suspended for 10 days.

The Sox are now trailing 6-1 in the bottom of the seventh and barring some late inning heroics (which you can never rule out with the Red Sox), they'll start the year 0-1. If you remember, the 2004 season also began with an opening day loss, this one coming at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles, 7-2.

Well, one down and 161 games left to go. If there's one thing about baseball that's different than most other sports, the season is a marathon rather than a sprint.

Weekends with Book TV

I don't know how much rain we received from late last night until the latter part of the morning. I'm sure many areas of the state are experiencing flooding. There is still a significant snow cover in much of the state and the melt, combined with the torrential rains must have pushed river levels to flood stage in many places.

In addition to rain, we had gusty winds which knocked out my power. After spending most of my morning without any electricity and no lights on a very dark morning, I realized that I don't think I'd enjoy life without some of the modern conveniences.

The lack of lighting forced me to sit near my window to be able to read my newspapers. With nothing else to do, I actually read a good chunk of a book that had been sitting on the coffee table for about a month. Hearing the whir of my fax machine and the sound of appliances kicking on however, was a welcome sound around noon.

Living in the country, everything is geared to having electricity. With a well supplying my water, no power means no well pump, so you can't take a shower, flush your toilets, or utilize any water other than what you have available in jugs or pitchers.

With the return of a modern convenience I often take for granted, I once more had access to my television. While so much drivel passing for programming, there are still those little gems that are available via this medium. One of my guilty pleasures on weekends, particularly Sundays, is Book TV on CSpan 2. I love the format of their In Depth program, which allows a given author three hours to talk about their work, discuss world events and other issues pertaining to their subject of expertise.

This Sunday's In Depth guest was Robert Kaplan. While Kaplan obviously holds contrary views to my own on the military and politics, I was very impressed with this author. A writer who got his start as a freelancer, receiving payment of $40 for his first published story in The Christian Science Monitor in 1984, Kaplan is now a respected novelist and regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly.

Kaplan has written ten books, ranging from books about the African Continent (Surrender or Starve: The Wars Behind the Famine), the Balkans (Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History), and his most recent book about the Mediterranean Region (Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Greece).

Kaplan described his political leanings as being that of a moderate conservative. I found his honesty about America's imperialistic inclinations rare, for someone who self-identifies as a conservative.

What I enjoyed about Kaplan's thoughts on his subject matter was his obvious belief in grounding his research in the history of the regions he writes about. I found some of his discussions about foreign policy particularly intriguing. What was refreshing in listening to Kaplan speak was his enthusiasm for journalism, rare in many interviews with those in the profession. Additionally, Kaplan came across as someone who doesn't start with ideology and then try to force everything he writes (and speaks) about into a box, constricted by being wedded to the constraints of his political leanings.

Like many writers talking about their craft, Kaplan talked some about how he comes to his stories, books and tricks of the trade. By listening to authors like Kaplan, I learn new ways of thinking about writing, pick up new tips and hopefully, glean one or two things that will help me to be a better writer.

As has happened in the past, my initial exposure to a particular writer on In Depth has led me to read their books and gain another author and viewpoint to draw upon and learn from. I will certainly pick up one of Kaplan's books soon and decide for myself if he is a writer I want to add to my canon.

If there are any writers out there reading this, I'd be interested in some of your "guilty pleasures" that pump life into your writing and possibly provides new ideas for the development of your craft.

Leaving comments

I have some concerns about the comments feature here at Blogger. Recently, I've posted comments at other blogs that allow me to preview and then, when I post them, voila!! They disappear and are not posted.

Of late, the comments on this blog have been non-existent. This might be a result of a problem at Blogger, or, it might signify that no one cares about what I write. If it's the latter, I can live with that. If it's the former, I'm kind of irked.

While generally, I enjoy Blogger as a blogging platform, I've heard others complain about issues such as this.

Just curious if you've tried to post comments with similar results as I've experienced. If so, drop me an email so I know there's an issue in this area.

Thanks.

Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart

From TomPaine.com comes this article about Wal-Mart, American's favorite retailer. I don't care what reason you give for stepping inside the walls of your local mega-center, when you do, you are doing your part to kill what remains of any local-based, sustainable model of retailing.

From the article, "Less than two weeks ago, the Beast paid $11 million to settle charges that it used hundreds of illegal immigrants to clean its stores. In February, those nice family-values people from Bentonville agreed to pay a pathetic $135,000 and change to settle charges of child labor violations. Think about it: a corporate culture that tolerates endangering children. As an aside, when the child labor deal was announced, I wrote that the level of the fine was scandalous; the whole sweetheart deal is now under investigation by the Department of Labor’s inspector general.

Wal-Mart is facing the largest gender discrimination lawsuit in history—involving 1.5 million women. I hear the company is deeply engaged in talks to settle the case for obvious reasons: it’s guilty as hell. The depositions in the lawsuit, detailed in Liza Featherstone’s new book, Selling Women Short, make it crystal clear that the company, as a matter of policy, consistently broke the most basic laws of workplace equality.

Not enough? Workers have been illegally fired for trying to form a union, and Wal-Mart spends millions to thwart workers basic rights, giving its union-breaking staff priority on resources (like corporate jets) over even higher-placed managers. In 2000, meat cutters at a Wal-Mart in Texas voted for the union—and Wal-Mart promptly violated the law by shutting down the meat-cutting department in the store and, for good measure, closing every other meat-cutting department in 180 other stores, just to make sure they had stamped out any smell of unionism. Even the National Labor Relations Board—no friend of labor—saw through the company’s actions and charged the Beast with illegal behavior."

[So why is it that you shop at Wal-Mart? Don't you dare tell me that it's to save money or I'll smack you up side 'yo head with a bat! An employer who endangers children, devalues women, and exploits low-skill and low-wage workers is not worthy of anyone's business. Why don't you put away your weak-ass excuses, acquire a bit of back-bone and take a freakin' stand for once in your pathetic lives--now that I've got that off my chest, I feel much better.]

Read the entire article.

On an entirely different note, after being jerked around by the media in their shoddy coverage of the Terri Schiavo circus, now we are getting the first whiffs of the circle-jerk that will be coming down the pike regarding the soon-to-occur death of Pope John Paul II. We'll hear report after report about the historical significance of the Pope, the Church, how life as we know it was brought to us courtesy of the Holy See, etc., ad nauseum. (In the past 15 minutes, I've heard the beginning of the mantra about the Pope's legacy and already have heard him linked with Ronald Reagan, Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher. I'm sure that will begin circulating over the weekend, like a fart in an airtight room.)

I just heard some blow-dried talking head just refer to their particular networks coverage as being a "vigil". This before leaving for a commercial on Wendy's chicken fingers. Oh Neil Postman where are you now?

What drives the insipid, shallow and sensationalistic coverage generated by the likes of CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the other cable wankers is beyond me. Even AirAmerica, which I originally had high hopes for, recently hired Jerry Springer to host a daily program that can only be labeled as a ploy for ratings.

I better stop before I say something that really ticks off the Pope lovers and other religious sorts out there. I know I need to turn off the idiot box and end the drivel spewing forth.