King Corn!

We finally saw the movie KING CORN! Woooha!

After seeing Food, Inc. and Supersize Me, King Corn is a great film that takes you to the root of the problem. How, why and where corn is used in our food system- which is everywhere! Yup, it's making us fat!

This film is entertaining and informative - it traces the complete life cycle of corn, from seed to grain elevator to soda and your cheap hamburgers. College friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis decide to move from the East Coast to Iowa for one year - to find out what it takes to grow and acre of corn, and where it goes.

Besides the facts about corn it is very interesting to see the lives of farmers in Iowa, and how they have changed over the last few decades due to politics and how America has come to use high fructose corn syrup in everything. None of the corn grown is edible right off of the plant - it is bred to be high in starches, and must be processed into myriad forms in order to be consumed.

I also loved the graphs, charts and little stop motion animated segments illustrating facts about corn farming and how it has grown. The time and detail put into these handmade features perhaps says something about how much time these guys had to sit around waiting for their one acre of corn to grow.

Now.. the challenge... eat nothing with corn in it for a full month! I am tempted to try...although I feel my options will be quite limited!

Movie Review: Garbage Warrior

We just finished watching a very exciting documentary about Michael Reynolds - creator of the Earthship style of home. These homes are ingenious in how they are self sustaining living spaces, where water, food, heat, electricity and even sewage treatment are taken care of by the house.

The movie follows his 40 year journey into the world of experimental building, using recycled materials, earth and passive solar rays to create houses that are a living part of the landscape. We also see his battle with the government to legalize experimental building and also how he and his team helped to teach people in several different countries to build earthships as housing after the devastating tsunami and hurricane Rita.

It is a very inspirational story of how one person has not only made a difference, but taught others to do so as well.

Check out more about the Earthships at www.earthship.net

Go with the FLOW

Another must see movie! If you drink, bathe, cook and wash with water (and I know you do) go out and rent "FLOW" - For Love Of Water.

One of the most important issues in the world today hardly gets any press - water rights, the privatization of water and the lack of clean drinking water for a large portion of the population. Without water, we have no life.

Living in New England, especially after the most rainy spring in decades, it is easy to take water for granted. Only for a short while in high summer do droughts occasionally occur, and towns limit lawn watering to every other day. Someone living in Arizona or California should naturally have a bit more respect for water - although the way they build golf courses out there, it is not always the case.

But no matter how rainy or dry it is where you live, everyone should have a very healthy respect for water. Funny enough, the night I watched the movie our tap water turned brown due to the town flushing out the pipes. Instantly, we did not want to drink or bathe in the light brown water, and happened to have two bottles of water in the fridge we could drink in the meantime. But this is where the problem lies - for although your area may be rich in water, many companies are bottling water, common tap water, and selling it all over the world at very high prices. Folks in Minnesota noticed their streams, creeks and ground water levels decline when Nestle Waters moved in and started pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons a day. In essence, Nestle is taking water for free that should belong to the people, and selling it back to them at exorbitant prices.

But that is not even close to the worst case- multinational companies that privatize water systems are actually depriving people of water around the world, selling substandard water back to people who can't afford to pay for it. These people must then resort to using polluted water, and many of them die from water bourne bacteria. In Bolivia there were riots for many years against the water privitazation that was forced upon them by the world bank - just a few years ago the people won and were given back the right to control their own water.

In Peru, strikes against the privatization of water have been frequent - in fact, on our honeymoon my husband and I saw one in the square in Cusco. Many farmers and peasants, a lot of them looking quite nervous, marched in the Plaza de Armas. Police and soldiers lined the edges of the Plaza, keeping an eye on the march. The people put rocks in the road on the way to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu to stop tourists from getting to the site and draw attention to their cause. Thankfully (for us), the strike was only one day long and we were able to travel to Olantaytambo and start our Inka Trail adventure the next day. We did see the remnants of the rocks in the street however, and out bus driver really had to be careful and swerve around debris still in the road. Hopefully, the power of the people can stop the impending destruction that one of these water companies would cause.

Water is such an important part of every human being's life, and should be free and clean for all as nature intended. See FLOW and you will be reminded of what is most important in life - and makes up 70% of YOU!

Food Inc.

We have a joke in our house. When I offer my husband some organic whole wheat bread or organic pop tarts, or he washes up with the soap made right here in Massachusetts by bicycle power, he often asks, "Why is everything in this house gay?"

Of course what he means by gay is hippie. Or eco friendly, whatever. My response is always the same: "Because you're gay." And the discussion ends with a lot of laughing.

But we just went to see an amazing movie - one that finally puts together all of the peices about the food industry and why it is a system that is collapsing in on itself. If you eat food, you should see this movie: Food, Inc. http://www.foodincmovie.com/ And I am going to guess that, yes, you eat food.

This isn't a movie that preaches about being a vegetarian or vegan, they don't even mention the fact that going veggie is a great eco friendly move. Properly raised meat has it's place ina healthy ecosystem, too. They simply present the facts - the extremely disturbing facts - about where our food comes from and how it gets to the table. Factory farmed meats are the most controversial and disgusting part of the picture, but of course the movie also touches on the evils of giant corporations patenting genetically modified seeds, and suing small farmers for keeping their own no modified seeds instead of buying from them.

But instead of never eating ever again, following the green rules will help to create healthier planet with healthier people - buying local, buying organic, and demanding better laws protecting our food sources. www.takepart.com/foodinc is a great place to start!

What Would Jesus Buy?

"You don't need to buy a gift to give a gift."

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping have got to be some of my favorite activists. Not only are they totally entertaining, they have a wonderful message for the holidays and everyday. Reverend Billy, while not an actual reverend, uses the format of a religious service to get his point across - put family, God and love back into the holidays.

From their Statement of Belief:"Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives....So we are singing and preaching for local economies and real - not mediated through products - experience."

The theatrical release of "What Would Jesus Buy?" in the fall of 2007, produced by Morgan Spulock of "Supersize Me" fame, follows the Rev and his Choir on a tour of the country. It also features portraits of a wide range of people - from mega consumers maxing out credit cards, to the just barely not homeless - and how the holidays affect their minds, spirits and wallets.

Funny and scary at the same time, scenes of shoppers trampling one another to buy the latest video game system, spitting in the faces of employees who are the bearers of 'bad' news, and maxing out several credit cards, is enough to make you want to never enter a mall again.
Reverend Billy, being the only champion of victims of out of control shopping, has recently held several services in honor of Jdimytai Damour, a young man who was trampled to death by shoppers entering a store on black friday.

But the message of hope, of turning Christmas back into a holiday of love and family and being thankful for what you have is at the heart of the sermon. For some, this is a hard thing to do. We are accustomed to showing our love by giving wonderful material gifts to one another. And it is exciting to open a gift on Christmas, and especially fun to watch children open them! And it is fun thinking up a gift that you know your loved one will be very excited to receive.

At our house, even more than gifts, the point of the holidays are to get together with family and friends, to catch up with dear ones we may not have seen in a long time, and share homemade food, made from the heart. This ideal, to me, is my favorite part of the holidays. I feel so lucky to have a family to share it with!

Happy Holidays!

Update: 12/17/08 WWJB? Is now available On-Demand! "The Christmas Revolution is coming to cable! Families all over the world have watched WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY? on DVD and discovered how they can BUY LESS and GIVE MORE this Christmas, now you can also see it on over 100 "On-Demand" cable providers including: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Cablevision, Verizon, AT&T, RCN, Insight, Mediacom, and Bresnan!"  We also saw that it was available to rent through our Library system, so check it out!