Spare Change News | October 19- November 1, 2012

7/31/2019 Spare Change News | October 19- November 1, 2012

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As o September 1st, the state o Massachusetts hasrevised the conditions or Emergency Assistance, inparticular, eligibility or shelter. Homeless patrons maynow only enter a shelter i they have lost their homethrough natural orces, no-ault eviction, eeing romdomestic violence, or unsae habitation or their children.I am writing today, not to complain about a systemcurrently in eect, but rather to call as many to action aspossible to attend the public hearings and raise concern.

Because o the laws currently in eect, being homeless

in itsel is not enough to qualiy or entering a homelessshelter anymore. A signicant number o people who arein shelter at this moment would not be eligible i theyhad to enter today, making this a threat to those still inshelter as well. Without support rom the community atthe public hearings, these laws are slated to be nalizedin November.

o start this call to action, lets discuss why this is sucha big deal. Some shelters will admit patrons under extremecircumstances, but only or specic targeted groups. eenparent shelters only allow people between the ages o16-20, with child, and cannot live at home because o

violence, substance abuse, or other documented unsaeconditions or their child. For those deemed legallydisabled by the Social Security Act, the MassachusettsRental Voucher Program plans to open 400 subsidies tothe public but those are to be allotted so that there

are 240 or those in emergency hotels, 160 or those inshelter. Tis is not a viable option or those who are notalready in the system.

For all other cases, homeless or near homeless areat the mercy o homeless prevention charities likethe Residential Assistance or Families in ransitionprogram. Tose who have already hit rock bottom are let

without many options under this new system.Granted, this is a generalization; the eligibility

requirements or Emergency Assistance only applyto shelters run by the Department o Housing andCommunity Development. While they moderate the

vast majority o the shelters in the greater Boston area,there are a ew small shelters that provide servicesindependent o DHCD, like Queen o Peace. Butbear in mind that the smaller shelters have ar stricterrules in other areas; or example, Queen o Peace onlyaccepts women and children, and has a three week staymaximum. Tree weeks can be a good amount o time to

recover rom the outdoors, but its nowhere near the timea larger congregate or scattered site could allow anda more permanent residence plays a crucial role in jobsearch, apartment hunting, and any subsidized housing

waiting list that requires a consistent mailing address ororm updates. In short, these shelters exist, but they willnot help people at the same volume o other shelters.

Which brings me to the next problem: without apermanent residence, the stigma o being homeless isharder to avoid. Lacking a consistent mailing address,or even a bathroom or proper hygiene, can stampsomeone as homeless, and the rest o the world will beginstereotyping. People instantly wonder why someone ishomeless, then make assumptions, and treat the personas, well not a person. By giving someone an addressand temporary home, shelters provide more than justservice; they allow a homeless person to blend in withthe rest o the world, which is a valuable asset.

Governor Deval Patrick recently gave this statementto News alk Radio 96.9 on September 28:

I simply want to say that the point is there are somepeople who seek shelter having had a alling out at home,or some kind o break down with they were living withbeore, or just cant make that next months rent or thatlast months rent and are on the verge o being madehomeless because o that. So what were trying to do ishave a way to intervene beore they become homeless.(Te rest o the statement can be ound at http://homesoramilies.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/governor-

patrick-on-eliminating-homelessness/.)In short, he reiterated that those nearing homelessness

have programs like RAF and HomeBASE HouseholdAssistance (not to be conused with HomeBASE RentalAssistance, which has not seen nearly as much use sincethe budget cuts at the end o the 2012 scal year). Tosein hotels or shelters have access to the MRVP lotterysubsidies.

What Governor Patrick ailed to address in hisstatement, however, was the uture o those homelessthrough other means right now. Tose that dont qualiyor any programs anymore because o this new rule willinevitably all through the cracks. Not everyone will beable to ght o homelessness with just an additional$4,000 a year rom HomeBASE Household Assistance.Some individuals could make this easible, but anyone

with kids will be at risk, especially i they couldnt nd

better employment beore their time with HomeBASE

ran out.Put optimistically, Governor Patricks new p

tries to nip the problem in the bud, and encoupeople to not let it get so ar as to need shelter, win theory is moving the homeless towards more perresponsibility. Put pessimistically, Governor Patnew policy turns the entire states back on those thaalready in need o shelter.

Te entire mindset behind this new restrictioeligibility is moving towards an economically damnotion: the only people worthy o homeless sh

are people who are homeless through no ault o own. While theres certainly something to be said awasting the working mans money on someone clearly wont work towards his or her own sel sufciits blatantly proling to assume that anyone who ma mistake here or there wont be the kind o personcould or would x his or her problems i givensecond chance. By the logic o this program, anyonecant aord to unction on HomeBASE or RAFalternatively enter shelter, is let to sleep on the streein a car and even worse than that, this system promthe logic that they deserve it!

o speak out at these meetings, please attendWestern Mass Hearing at the Springeld State OBuilding on October 22nd rom 10:00 a.m. to p.m., or the Eastern Mass Hearing at the State HoGardner Auditorium on October 25th rom 10:00to 1:00 p.m. I also recommend calling Governor Pat

ofce at 1-888-870-7770, and telling all you know so as well.

As it is, Massachusetts is widely renowned ooutreach. Te sheer number o non-prots out thera reason to be proud o this state, and were one oew states legally obligated to have homeless shelike options (i you want to see real homelessnesto Caliornia). Movements like this new eligibilitynot only limit the number o people these nonpcan help, but they also tarnish the name weve buiourselves as a caring community.

We must not become so cal loused to say that twho cant or wont help themselves simply deserstarve on the streets, with no one reaching out to tNobody deserves that kind o abandonment.

-Chalkey Horenstein

about our contributors: Joseph Agliatais a ormer vendor with SCN. Lynsey Bourquin is a student intern rom Suolk University. Liam Cunningham is a recent graduao the University o Rhode Island. Poet, Drew Dellingerholds a PhD rom the Caliornia Institute or Intergal Studies.Joshua Eatonwrites about Buddism, politics, andthe American South.Jacques Fleury authored Sparks in the Dark. SCNs Editor-in-Chie emeritus, Marc D. Goldfingeris the author oPoison Pen and he Resurrection Syliva Plath. A native o Ft. Smith, AR,Hollidayis a ormer student at the Berklee School o Music. Editorial Assistant Chalkey Horenstein works or the Heading Hoscattered site amily shelter.Emily Kahoud is a recent graduate o Cornell Universitys Division o Nutritional Sciences Program in Health Studies.J. Marechal is a writeand artist based in Cambridge, MA.James Sheareris a ounder and ormer board chairperson the Homeless Empowerment Project. Vendor/Writer Robert Sondakis thdirector o the Nutrition Education Outreach Project. SCNs Senior Writer and Online editor, Noelle Swan is a graduate o Harvard University. Anthony Thames has ba vendor/writer with SCN or several years.

( op-ed)

As I watched the Presidential debate, the one thingthat struck me was not how bad the president looked,but how neither one o the candidates talked about thesubject that neither o them seems to want to address.

Te only exception was o Mitt Romneys inane remarksat a private undraiser a ew weeks ago, which is the 47%,and by that I mean the real percentage o people wholive in poverty in this country. No one seems to want totalk about the 47%, not just the presidential candidates,but both Senatorial candidates and those running orcongress arent talking about it either. From all that Iveread, those running or governorships in other statesdont seem to be on the topic either.

Everyone wants to talk about the middle class, but incase no one has noticed, poverty has moved up to andgone through the middle class. People are living on themargins o society just one paycheck away rom disaster.

oday there is more homelessness, more hunger, morepeople living in sub-standard conditions, etc.. than ever

beore in this country. Still, there is very little, i anyconversation about it.Forget about Mitt Romney or a moment, the President

o the United States, a man who once was a streetorganizer and has seen poverty up close has little tosay on the matter. When Barack Obama rst ran orthe White House, he talked as a person that wantedto solve the problems o poverty and homelessness. Iremember one speech in which he talked o having nomore homeless veterans, and yet there are still homeless

vets. Ater he was elected there was little i any talko poverty and homelessness. Te First Lady talks ochildhood obesity with a passion that has inspired manychanges throughout the country, but why couldnt she,

who is supposed to be so amily oriented use that samepassion to address amily homelessness? As much asthere is childhood obesity in this country, there is anequal amount o children who go hungry on a daily basis.

Tere is also an equal amount o homeless children inthis country, and the count on homeless children is overa million according to some stats and still rising. Single

adult homelessness among adult men and women, including war vets returning home is at an all time and yet Mr. President you have remained silent. Whthe outrage?

Could it be that neither you nor your misguopponent have a clue how to begin to solve this probBoth o their actions seem to bare that out as one choto ignore it, while the other bashes those living in poreerring to them as those people. Tose people

which Mr. Romney reers to are indeed those in ponot the middle class. Could it be that you dont rconcern yoursel with the 47% either? I mean, it certseems that way with not only you but also withpolitical elite in DC as well. Tink about it olks, w

was the last time weve heard anything out o Washinto really address the plight o the poor in this couOh yes I orgot Housing First, and it would prob

work i it was unded properly. Face it, when it comthe real 47%, no one really has a clue.

-James Shearer

the real 47% | curb |


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Otentimes, when we pick up the newspaper or watchthe local news, we hear stories about Dorchester and itssurrounding communities. All too oten we are greeted

with stories o crime and violence. Rarely do we hearpositive things about Dorchester or any instances o itsupward mobility.

Dorchester has evolved rom a demographic composedprimarily o Jewish Americans to a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic community. Tough crime and poverty are inact a reality or a lot o residents in Dorchester andits surrounding communities, olks are talking and arecoming together to stake a claim in its uture. Healthcenters such as Te Codman Square Community HealthCenter, Dorchester Court in cooperation with variousoutreach programs, as well as other organizations areuniting to improve the lives o Dorchester residents. Onesuch organization is Te Dorchester Community FoodCo-op.

Spare Change News recently had the pleasure tomeet up with Jenny Silverman, spokesperson or theDorchester Community Food Co-op, a member- owned,member-controlled business that operates or the beneto the community. We agreed to meet at the Flat BlackCoee Shop located at the Ashmont station where we

talked at length about the Co-op, how it was oundedand its ultimate objective. Miss Silvermans appearancecan only be described as a small, petite, attractive woman.But ater one minute o talking with her, it was obviousshe had the heart o a lioness. I personally was moved byher knowledge and deep sense o commitment both tothe organization as well as to the community as a whole.

SCN: ell me a little about your organization?

Jenny Silverman: Te Dorchester Community FoodCo Op is about one and a hal years old. Its an initiativeto build a new ood co-op in Dorchester. It started inthe late winter, early spring o 2011 with olks startingto talk to each other about the act that we dont have asmany healthy ood options in Dorchester as we wouldlike. For dierent people that means dierent things. Alot o us eel that there arent enough supermarkets in

the community, number one, and the ones that we haveseem to be a little sub-standard compared to what youmight nd in other communities where you have a widerchoice o options. Like Central Square in Cambridgehas a Shaws, a rader Joes, and it has two Whole Foods,as well as a Food Co-op. It has an Asian market anda number o others, so basically it has a lot. Tats justnot the case here and oten-times, you go to the storeshere and you think, Do they ship all their really badproduce to Dorchester?. In addition to that, people whoare interested in buying whole grains, organic produce,or other natural green cleaning products... all o that,

you know there are little sections in the Stop and Shop,but there are no stores here that ocus on those kinds oproducts.

SCN: And those products can be very expensive.

Jenny Silverman: Yeah, but thats an issue thateveryones going to have to ace. But the other idea abouthaving a ood co-op is that a community owned oodco-op is a community owned asset. And so it createseconomic opportunity in our community. Because it isowned by the members, it means that we get to makethe decisions about whether it will stay or leave and

that the prots stay in our community so they then getredistributed within the community.

SCN: I wanted to ask about how the co-op is stafed. I knowthat people buy into the co-op and can work within the co-op, like say, some o the stores you have or hope to have. Do

you welcome volunteers?

Jenny Silverman: Right now were an all-volunteerorganization. We actually dont have money to hiresta, but we are working on getting some sta positionsunded or this development period. Obviously, once webuild the store we will have ull-time sta, were hopingto have about 40 sta positions, but they may not all be

ull-time, you know, the store is open many hours so wewill have rotating sta. But when were selling productsin the store we will have a revenue stream to hire sta.Right now in the organizing aze, we need to come up

with other ways o unding some sta positions; maybethrough grants. So right now its all volunteers, everybodyis doing it or ree.

SCN: Te Co-op, recently, received the 2012 SustainableFood Leadership grant.

Jenny Silverman: Right, that was a lovely honor, butnot a grant. No money attached to that one (laughs).

Yeah, that was recognition by the Mayors Ofce or ourwork. Particularly the work at bringing a winters armersmarket to Dorchester.

SCN: Right, but I did read something about a $10,000.00grant.

Jenny Silverman: We did get a grant, yes or$10,000.00, we just got that. Tats rom somethingcalled the Food Co-op Initiative, which is a nationalorganization. Tere are many, many new Food Co-opsbeing developed all over the country. Tis is a real time oCo-op development. I think or all the reasons as I saidDorchester wants one. So there is a national organizationthat has both ederal money as well as private oundationmoney, and they awarded ten grants across the countryand we were one o them and we are very excited to havebeen included in that top list.

SCN: So is that primarily how the organization is uthrough grants and donations?

Jenny Silverman: Trough grants and donaRight now we are selling memberships but were tto not spend that money yet, those equity shareshave raised a little bit o money or the various pro

we have done, but were trying to raise more moncreate some sta nutritionists

SCN: One issue that is o concern to me is the issobesity, especially childhood obesity and I was wond

how, i you are in any way, combatting the issue o obespecially in the more urban neighborhoods.

Jenny Silverman: Yeah, its a very big problem icommunity. Dorchester has some o the highest obrates in the city. So we think that is a combinatiodierent actors. Te question is do people have acchealthy oods as opposed to what I call highly procoods like chips, and soda that rarely have anytreal? As opposed to being able to buy resh ruits

vegetables and whole grains like rice and thingsthat. So number one, do people have stores nearby wthey can access those oods? Te second questionaordable? And the third question is, do people k

what to do with it and also do people have tim

their lives to cook? I think there has been a disconbetween the ability to cook and work with natural as opposed to opening up a box and putting it inmicrowave. You know, back in the old days when I w

junior high school, we took home economics whiclaughed about at the time, but there was still some do teaching people some lie skills like cooking. Anso this conversation is happening nationally. MicObama is doing a great job, but we want Dorchesteits surrounding communities not to be let out oconversation.

SCN: So i a person wanted to volunteer or give a donto the organization, how would they go about doing t

Jenny Silverman: We have an email [email protected] and we are working membership drive right now, trying to get people to

Were asking people in other neighborhoods to invto their house party, lets say, invite a ew neighbors

where we can talk about the co-op. We also needwith the winter armers market with volunteers coand working at the market. So there are a variedierent things, mostly centered around outreach.

We ended the conversation talking about Fridays, a series o Friday night events in AugusSeptember where there was live entertainment, oodbeverages, as well as activities or children. For inormon urther events or to nd out more about DorchCommunity Food Co-op, I encourage readers to cout their website at dotcommcoop.wordpress.com.

-Anthony T

eeding the ock:Te Dorchester Community Food Co-op is an organic oasis in a ood desert.

On Tursday October 4, 2012, Mayor TomasM. Menino announced that Boston has received a $4.6million rom the Racial and Ethnic Approaches toCommunity Health (REACH) grant program to helpreduce the obesity and hypertension among black andLatino communities around Boston. Over the next three

years, the REACH program will partner up with theYMCA o Greater Boston, Harvard School o PublicHealths Prevention Research Center and Department oNutrition, Boston Public Health Commission in orderto address the correlation between racial inequalities and

health problems in the Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan,East Boston and Hyde Park communities.

Te program intends to attack this problem with ourdierent strategies: increase bicycling opportunities,develop more out-o-school physical activity programs,support more outdoor exercise, and supply more healthybeverages across Boston.

REACH plans to work with Hubway to createlow-cost memberships or low-income residents, andalso to ensure that the roads are sae or bicyclists. Te

YMCA will also be working with REACH to providemore out-o-school programs in order to increase daily

physical activity or students. Te Boston Parks, Pand ransportation Departments will be collabor

with REACH so that parks and common greens aror people to exercise and play on. Te nal intentito work with communities and public locations arBoston to decrease the amount o sugary drinks avaand provide more access to tap water.

By addressing social inequities around BostonREACH grant program hopes to eliminate some ocauses or obesity and hypertension, and with their

work they will create a healthier and happier society -Lynsey Bourqu

healthy bostonCity o Boston receives $4.6 million grant to reduce obesity and hypertension.

Do they ship all their reallybad produce to Dorchester?

4 October 19 -November 1, 2012 ( local) 20th Anniversa


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20th Anniversary ( local & regional) October 19 -November 1, 2012

In July o 2011 the Patrick-Murray Administrationand the Department o Energy Resources DOERinvited cities and towns statewide to apply or an electriccharging station grant. Tis grant was part o a settlementobtained by Attorney General Martha Coakley s ofce in2007 or alleged pollution control equipment violationsby an Ohio-based power plant.

Program unding amounting to $384,000 wasmade available to 25 cities and towns or 94 electric

vehicle (EV) charging stations, through a partnershipbetween the Obama Administration and Coulomb

echnologies o Caliornia. Additional nancial supportcame rom Coulomb echnologies, which received aU. S. Department o Energy American Recovery andReinvestment Act (ARRA) grant to provide equipmentinstallation and re-granted awards in the orm o chargingstations to Massachusetts cities and towns.

ARRA unding devoted to the Coulombs Charge-Point America program, totaled one-hal a million dollarsor the state. Nationally the program unding amountedto 37 million dollars and provided charging stations to10 regions o the country including greater Cambridge-Boston. Cambridge represented one o two cities locatedon the Charles River including Boston that has created a

two tier EV charging network.Te city has built 3 municipal EV charging stations

rom grant unding rom the Department o Energyresources (DOER) at locations throughout the city.

Te city has also worked with seven private partners toinstall the stations in places which are accessible to thepublic, near requently visited locations and accessible toresidential areas.

Municipal charging stations are open at threelocations within the city. At the Department o Public

Works acility located on 147 Hampshire Street there isone dedicated charging space at the ront o the building

or either a level one and two charge. On the First Streetgarage 2nd level entrance on Spring Street there is adedicated charging space or two cars at the same timeor a level 2 charge.

At the City Lot-5 on Bishop Allen Drive betweenNorolk and Douglas Street there is a dedicated chargingspace or two cars at the same time or a level 2 charge.According to John Boldu, Community Development

planner or the city, Cambridge was allocated stateunding involving the receiving o three EV-chargingstations. Coulomb was the manuacturer and sponsor othe program because they received a ederal ARA grant.

Private corporate partners including CambridgeSideGalleria, Cambridge Center, Holyoke Center, TeCharles Hotel, Pilgrim Parking , the MBA and MIhave located EV charging stations at their properties orresidents, students and workers to use.

Tis corporate support allows the City o Cambridgeto make Coulombs nationwide ChargePoint systemo high tech charging acilities available locally. Tisnetwork o charging stations oers cutting edge eaturesor EV drivers including the ability to use smart phoneapps to locate the nearest charging stations and managetheir charging sessions remotely.

Coulombs ChargePoint system is the largest online

global charging network connecting electric vehicledrivers to charging stations in more than 14 countries.All o the private charge stations provide at least a level1 and most a level 2 charge. Forest City Enterprisesthe developer and manager o University Park at MIthe 27 acres lie science park comprised o over 1 millionsquare eet o biotechnology space, 675 apartments ,three parking garages, LeMeridien Hotel and Shawssupermarket provides three ev-charging stations operatedby a second electric vehicle solutions company reerred toas Car Charging Group (CCG).

CCG represents a nationwide provider o convenient

electric vehicle EV charging services. CCC utilizesame EV charging stations manuactured by ChargeP

Tis is known as Level II, which provide 240 volts32 amps o power to quickly reuel an electric vehbattery. In the March 29, 2012 city-press reCambridge City Manager Robert W. Healy commeElectric vehicles will become more common in theand especially in a community like Cambridge th

technology-savvy and likes to be on the cutting edgTe City is being orward-looking and startin

provide the EV charging inrastructure that wineeded to support these vehicles. We see this as bekey part o Cambridges initiative to be a climate-riecommunity. Te City appreciates the support o DOCoulomb, and our partners.

According to the Community developDepartment public inrastructure or EVs will plaimportant role or making electric vehicles ava

within the city in the next ew years. Providing chastations will enable city departments and the grCambridge community to take advantage o the benthat EV cars can provide.

Tese benets include lower uel costs and emissions than uel powered cars. Jay Kiely, ProManager or Forest City Enterprises at University

at MI said: We are thrilled to oer this servithe University Park community, Cambridge muncharging stations cost $1.25 per hour or the use ostation with a- level 2 charge 4 to 6 hours and a leveEV charge takes 8 to 12 hours.

Te hourly ee has been set to meet three gcover the cost o electricity, cover the administrativeassociated with oering EV charging station serviceskeep the cost per mile or electricity lower than theper mile or gas.

-Robert So

plug-in: State o Massachusetts recieves grant to install electric vehicle charging stations.

hinking o gardening in the context o the GreaterBoston area, many peoples minds might rst gravitatetowards soccer moms and parents working in the ront

yards o their suburban home on a weekend aternoon.

But gardening within Bostons city limits, and in urbansettings throughout the nation, is gaining increasingprevalence as a hobby, a source o ood and income, and asa method o community improvement.

Opened in the Spring o 2010 by Jon Napoli, the

Boston Gardener has become a leading resoand popular shop or the growing number o ugardeners in Boston. When he opened the BGardener, Jon Napoli not only had visions oown successul small business, but aspirathat the BG would become not only a storean impetus or positive change in the surrouncommunity.

I started the Boston Gardener because I wto use it as a way o giving something back tcommunity, and to improve the overall look oneighborhood, Napoli said. Urban gardenisomething more and more people are becointerested in. Te purpose o the store is to inpeople to do it, and help them be able to by giving them the resources they need, wit

having to travel to a store like Home Depot.Located at 2131 Washington Street in Bo

Dudley Square Neighborhood, the BG convenient outpost or gardening enthusiasts in the city. While urban gardening has bpopular urban activity long beore the openiNapolis store, he believes strongly that the popuhas been increasing rapidly in recent years, ancontinue to do so in the years to come.

Urban gardening is denitely becoming and more popular, or a number o reasons. Fpeople want to have their ood grown lo

they want to grow it themselves, and they want tomoney. And its a great way to improve the look oneighborhood. Its popularity is absolutely increasing

re-seeding bostonTe Boston Gardener in Dudley Square is a hot spot or urban gardeners Boston and is revitalizing it s surrounding neighborhood.

RE-SEEDING continued on p

PHOTOLAUREN

DAVALLA


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6 October 19 -November 1, 2012 (local) 20th Annivers

hard to quantiy exactly, but it is denitelytrending upwards.

Te Boston Gardener is a one stopshop or all kinds o gardeners. Testore provides lights, equipment, plants,

vegetables, soils, pest control and much,much more. Indoor and outdoor; organicand hydroponic gardeners can nd alltheir necessities. You need it, we got it.

quipped Napoli.Urban gardening is also proving to

be a hobby appealing more and more toyounger generations. Napoli recentlybegan using social media outlets to engage

younger demographics.We see a lot o young people in here,

but a lot o older people as well. From whatI see its pretty much across the board. Wedid some stu recently with GroupOnrecently which brought in a lot o youngpeople rom Back Bay and South End,said Napoli. It was a pretty standardGroupOn deal, and was limited to plantsand vegetables, but the response was great.

Coming up in the next ew months,Napoli stated the BG will be oeringgardening classes through GroupOn

where people will be able to get hal-othe classes using the promotion.

Napoli has also used his store as ameans o community improvement andrevitalization. Around a year and a hal ago,he started a project where an abandonedalley in Dudley Square was slowly

transormed into a thriving urban garden.We converted an alley on Dade Street,

which is o Washington Street in DudleySquare. Beore we took it on people woulduse it as a bathroom, or to get high. Wecleaned it up, put in a bunch o compostand soil, and turned it into an organicgrowing area.

According to Napoli, the alley-gardennow boasts a diverse assortment oplants, vegetables, and herbs; raspberries,strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes can allbe ound within the garden.

Te project has not only improvedthe aesthetics o the previous rundownneighborhood, and served as a source oood or its residents, but Napoli statedthat the garden has had a positive impact

on kids growing up in the surrounbuildings.

Its been a great experience o living the in the nearby buildings whoto eat ood which they see grow, wis an opportunity they wouldnt haveotherwise. Its an ongoing project wstarted about a year and a hal ago.

As the scope and popularity o ugardening continues to increase incoming years in Boston, Jon Napoli the Boston Gardener will surely contto not only serve as an extremely uresource or gardeners; but move orw

with revitalization projects much likeone on Dade Street in Dudley Square

- Liam Cunning

Its an interesting gamble. One o the most relevantelds o study today is Emergence Teory, the science ohuman cooperation. Te Somerville Stock Exchange, aninteractive art project, undraiser, and neighborhood orumall in one, is a supple demonstration o Emergence Teoryin purposeul practice. Created by artist im Devin, theproject is a malleable model o how, by contributing to thequality o lie o Somerville, people can both earn stocksand help the value o same stocks rise. Although stockshave no monetary use, their implicit value is accrued orthe good o the residents o the city. Te idea is that peoplecan be directly engaged in creating positive change or theplace in which they live, while learning about others doinglikewise.

Te exchange charts three markets: environmental,community, and creative. o earn stocks, locals partakein activities in those three concerns, and then inorm theExchange. Te action is posted on the orum, and thestock is re-evaluated in kind. Individuals and companiesmay also make donations in lieu o participation, theSSE donates proceeds to three corresponding charities:Somerville Climate Action, Somerville Homeless

Coalition, and the Somerville Arts Council(Devin is onthe board o the Arts Council, but the project is his own).

In the creative orum, you can get acquainted withArtisans Asylum, zines at the Armory, the Artbeat Festivaland the Printers Devil Review. Community matters

noted include Nave Gallerys Yarnstorming Event, theWelcome Project, Sprout & Co.s proposal or an alternativeHigh School ocused on science and technology, and theSomervil le Moms List. Environmental happenstanceincludes word on the Union Sq. Farmers Market, MetroPedal Power, Earthos Institute, Recover Green Roos,

Groundwork Somerville, My City Gardens and more. Youcan learn about the Environmental Protection Agencysrating o Mystic River, how to compost your ood, andraised bed gardening.

Community is an ongoing theme o Devins work.Te History o Somerville, 2010-2100 used ideascollected rom residents to create a uture history o thecity. In uture Somervillebased on submissions romlocalscars are banned, uts University is an overlord,and a dog has been appointed Mayor.

Hey, it could happen.At cursory glance, this creative piece might be

underestimated as a quaint philanthropic eort. In act,this artwork is subtly provocative in that it uses digitalmedia, which can oten produce a real-time disconnect inhuman interaction (with attendant social ills), to promotepersonal contact and collaboration (with associated boon

to humanity). Similar to Josiah McElhenys stunningSome Pictures o the Innite showing at the Instituteo Contemporary Art, this piece is a stimulating hall omirrorsin that, or example, in reviewing it and itsbenets, Spare Change News has, ostensibly, just earnedstock. And maybe bumped values too. Te Somerville

Stock Exchange is an endlessly looping sel-reereexposition on the nature o Emergence Teory. akin to a stock market o neighborhood stoops. (Wthe tallying o Porch Fest, in which 100 musicians ree concerts [see the 2cd Quarterly Report], the Snudging o people to ully inhabit and experience

place o living is chicken-and-egg literal).Currently, Environmental stocks are up, due to a

million EPA grant to clean up the Kiley Barrel brown(heavily contaminated site). Sadly, creative stock a hit with the closing o Creative Union, a gallery sold art made by adults with disabilities. Unortunacommunity stock is down as well, due in part to a study by Chronicle o Philanthropy which rated Boston Metro area 49th in giving to charities and nprots.

Te artwork runs through March 2013, but knows? With a little eort, maybe we could blowthing up. I you nd it difcult to get excited a

wagering on pork bellies, human incarceration ratemunitions manuacture, check out http://timdevin.csomervillestockexchange.html or a better return

your investment. Te dividends are both tangible

incalculable at the same time. Possible year-end bomaking the Chronicle o Philanthropy group look twWhat do you want to bet?

- J. Mar

the ne art o investing: Somerville Stock Exchange trades interactive art that invests in the community.

RE-SEEDING continued on page 5

Victory is in the air, and the smell is sweet. 14,000New England janitors have succeeded in preparing orbattle without having to go to war. September 17th,it was a Tursday, I ound mysel at Copley Square

witnessing what could only be preparation or inevitablecivil disobediencea demonstration o how to peaceullydisobey, and ultimately get the point across.

Te SEIU Local 615 coordinated the demonstration;a property service union representing 18,000 workerso Mass, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Once atCopley I noticed something o a chaos engulng union

workers, students, janitors and passer-byers trying to get apeak at the actionall walking around the grass decorated

with SEIU posters demanding action and airness. Oncestarted, the chaos quickly, and somewhat alchemically,turned into all eyes and ears in attention. What can

we do and how can we help was on everyones ace, thesolidarity and unison, sitting in the grass listening to thespeaker, was enough to inspire generations. Te SEIUrepresentative goes on to explain that our precious Janitorso Massachusetts are preparing or a contract renewal, andi there is no compromisethen we are to take action.

Te practice demonstration is a model or peaceulprotest that is broken down into our groupsthe

Arrestees, Supporters, Peacekeepers and nally, the police.Ater all the participants are assigned, by volunteering,they are split up into these our separate groups.

I run over to the Arresteesthese are the participantsthat are ready and willing to put their civil liberties onthe line; the martyrs, the ones who will be the rst to behandcued and thrown into the back o squad cars, i theopportunity is to arise. Te ones you see sitting in the

street locking armsthe soldiers and the soul. Ten tothe Supportersthe kids singing songs in the back, out odangers but not out o mind. Tese are the people oeringmoral support, chanting, oering a change o energy to anotherwise hostile environment. Te Peacekeepers, actingas something o a wall between those who are involved andthose who are not, it is with them that we see a perimeterestablished; locking arms, just as the Arrestees, but tokeep the everyday passer-by rom becoming involved andinnocent people rom being arrested. And as much as Ihate to say it, it was the group assuming the role o thePolice that seemed to be having the most un, pretendingto arrest and practicing what they would say to protestersAll right, keep moving Do you want to get arrested?

Ater scrambling around, trying to immerse mysel inall the dierent rolesit was time; I would like to add thatthis is one o the only times in the world when someone

over a mic can yell Is everyone ready to get arrested?everyone whoos! ...3, 2, 1 Action!

Te Arrestees are already sitting, linked in arms, brand sister. Representing nothing more or less than ththe sovereign right o complementary wage.

Te Supporters singing, chantingJusticeJanitors, Justice or Janitors! Te Peacekeepers kebarrier; excluding outsiders rom involuntarily beco

involved. Ten ENER: the Police Move, I gave yoorder! Few are arrested, Supporters still singing, chanTe remaining Areestees are taken away, breaking chain. It is only one at a time they are taken awaynot without struggle. Fortunately or the police, and rankly, the city o Boston itsel, a compromise was on the ollowing Monday o October 1st. Tis new conpromised a ull-time work increase o 200% since thcontract signed in 2002. It also promised approp

wages and workloads, healthcare, job security and apersonal day. What can be taken rom this? First that Massachusetts cares about its workers, and second

where there is injustice, there is a voice that will stanor those who are unrepresented, silent, or discourage

- Ho

cleaning up democracy: 14,000 Massachusetts janitors reach a deal with employers, averting a strike.


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20th Anniversary www.sparechangenews.net October 19 -November 1, 2012

he rst time Ashley Stanley walked into the backroom o her local grocery store in search o discarded ood,she ound towers o eggplants, tomatoes, and potatoesrising up around her. Te produce was not spoiled or rotten;it simply no longer t on the display shelves and had beenmoved o the oor to make room or resher shipments.Dumbounded, she asked i she could have the ood. Sheloaded up her car with as many vegetables as she could

and drove to Pine Street Inn, a homeless shelter in Boston.A week earlier, Stanley had been out or lunch withher mother. She had no idea that a new career would beon the menu. I guess you could call it anaha moment,although I hate that term, Stanley said, recallinghow she came to start Lovin Spoonuls, a ood rescueprogram based in Brookline. It was December 2009.

Everything you hear around the holidays is sucha concentrated message around hunger. Teres notenough to go around. Give what you can give. We werebeing inundated with it, she said. But there we were atlunch, with all this ood that I knew we werent going tobe able to nish. I just had this moment with a little bito electricity that said, We cant be the only ones lookingat [letover] plates o ood. I thought, Maybe themessage that theres not enough isnt the right message.

A recent study rom the Natural Resources DeenseCouncil lends credibility to Stanleys suspicion that thecountry is not experiencing a lack o ood. Nearly halo the ood produced in the United States never makesit to the table, according to the study released in August2012. Food goes to waste at every link in the ood chain.Farmers plow unharvested crops into the ground, grocersdiscard unsold ood by the caseload, and restaurantspour mountains o letovers into dumpsters. In total,Americans throw away $165 billion worth o ood every

year, 40 percent o all the ood produced in the nation.

At the same time, 1 in 5 Americans was unable to payor ood at some point in the last year, according to a recentGallup poll. Forty-seven million Americans participate inthe ederal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program

(SNAP, ormerly ood stamps). In Massachusetts,more than 870,000 people relied on SNAP benetsto purchase groceries in 2011. Many SNAP recipientscount on ood pantries, soup kitchens, and school lunchprograms to make those benets last through the month.

When Stanley rst showed up at the door to PineStreet Inn with her arms ull o vegetables, she said the staseemed shocked to see her. Tey looked at me like, Wheredid you get all that ood? I just blurted out, Tere is enoughood out there. We have to go get it, Stanley recalled.

Since then, the ormer corporate luxury retailerhas redistributed more than 150,000 pounds oood to area homeless shelters, domestic abuse saehouses, and ood pantries. She started out deliveringood in her own car while seeking donations andgrants. oday, she has three employees, two trucks,and a waiting list on both sides o the equation.

Lovin Spoonuls is just one o a handul o oodrescue organizations in the Boston area. While LovinSpoonuls ocuses on diverting the stream o ood wasteat the retail level, Boston Area Gleaners in Walthamhas ound a bounty waiting to be picked in the elds.

Farmers rely on a air amount o guesswork whenplanning their crops, explains Laurie Duck Caldwell,executive director o Boston Area Gleaners, a nonprot

organization based in Waltham that started gatheringcrops let in the elds ater primary harvest in 2004and incorporated in 2007. Farmers oten plant morethan they need in case they lose a portion o the crop,and then they end up with more produce than they canmove. Farmers also try to lengthen the harvest season oa crop by planting rows two weeks apart in succession.A particularly hot summer, however, could cause theentire crop to ripen simultaneously. Tat is exactly whathappened with much o the areas corn crop this summer,Caldwell says, making it a boon season or gleaning.

In addition to surplus crops, armers oten pass overcrops that do not t the homogenous shape or color thatgrocery stores demand. Caldwell says that while someo the ruits and vegetables they pick do not look as

perect as what is ound in the store, they have the nutritional value. She adds that she tells her volugleaners only to pick what they would eat themsPeople who utilize the emergency ood system enough going on in their lives. Tey dont need to havact that they are getting letovers thrown in their

Last year, Boston Area Gleaners collected 45pounds o produce. It distributes about hal o is gathered to ood pantries in Boston-area toincluding Lexington, Waltham, Medord, Arlinand Belmont. Te other hal o the gleaned progoes to Food For Free in Cambridge, which distriit to 80 shelters, pantries, and meal programs in BoCambridge, Medord, Peabody, Chelsea, and Some

Food For Free has been a xture o the emergency ood system in the Boston area or than 30 years. In addition to ood donated by the BoArea Gleaners, Food For Frees produce rescue pro

collects letover produce rom local grocery storesChelsea Produce Market, and 10 area armers ma

Recently appointed director Sasha Puexplains that Food For Free aims not onlbridge the gap between waste and want but to help bring healthy choices to those in

Te people eating rom pantries are just everybody else, she notes. Tey want the same

Tese are normal people that oten just a ew wago shopped at the same grocery stores you and I

Trough donations rom armers markets and BArea Gleaners, Food For Free is able to provide extreresh and healthy ood. She says that much o the promakes it rom arm to pantry shel within 48 h

Sarah and Ryan Voiland o Red Fire Farms welgleaners onto their diversied organic arm in Gr

to pick what the arm cannot use. Te companydonates letover produce rom its community suppagriculture (CSA) program to Food Not Bombs, a program run by volunteers. Sarah Voiland says thathave donated $95,000 worth o produce simply bethey do not want the ood to go to waste. We somewhere to send this produce to. We do not wato be going into a dumpster; we want it to be gsomewhere we can use it. We put a lot o energygrowing the ood. Having it go to waste would be very

Every Sunday, volunteers rom Food Not Bpick up resh produce rom the Voilands when come into Jamaica Plain to deliver ood to their (Cmembers. Tey cook up a simple hot meal in a donkitchen in Allston, strap it to a bike-cart that resema ladder with training wheels, and ride it across

river into Central Square, where they set up on theBarron Plaza. Tey pop up a table, pull on dispogloves, and start serving meals to whoever comeuntil they run out o ood, usually or about two h

Lily Sturman o Allston signs up to cook serve meals or Food Not Bombs whenevercan. Its really important to help eed whocan, but also to give some degree o visito the problems o ood waste and hun

Te people that pick up a bowl o ood doknow that they are eating organic vegetables

were just picked the day beore. What theyknow is that they will not go hungry that n

- Noelle S

where waste meets want Every year, Americans throw away $165 billion woro ood while 1 in 5 people struggle to put ood on the table. A handul o local non-prot organizatio

are working to divert healthy ood rom the waste stream to people in need.

PHOTO:MIKEDISKIN


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8 October 19 -November 1, 2012 www.sparechangenews.net 20th Anniversary


9/16

October 19 -November 1, 2012 (eature) 20th Anniversary

(eature)

Poor people are not something that we talk abouttoo much or pay much attention to in our world, BillMcKibben said, sipping a glass o sparkling water to nursea throat hoarse rom a weekend o meetings and rallies.

McKibben knows something about poverty. In theearly 1980s he helped to start a 15-bed homeless shelterat Te Riverside Church on Manhattans Upper WestSide. He spent several months living in the sheltersystem himsel and wrote about his experiences or TeNew Yorker in hopes o shocking the public into action.

In recent years he stepped out rom behind thereporters role as an observer. He became a leadingparticipant in what he calls the greatest battle the

world has ever seen: the ght to halt climate change.Teres nothing weve gured out how to do that

makes lie harder or the poorest people on this planetthan climate change, and the great irony is that thosepeople have had nothing to do withcreating the problem, McKibben said,hunched over in a rattan chair beore aundraiser at a private home in Newton.

He draws a contrast between theindustrialized countries that producethe greenhouse gasses linked toclimate change and the developingcountries that suer the eects.

Rapidly industrializing Chinacontributes more carbon dioxide thanany other country largely because oits population size. With less thana quarter o Chinas population,the United States comes in a closesecond with more carbon emissionsthan India, Russia, and Japancombined. Americans contributemore carbon dioxide per capita to theatmosphere than most people on theplanet, second only to Australians.

Te developing world hasexperienced the rst eects o climatechange, McKibben said, citingoutbreaks o dengue ever linked toincreasing ooding in Bangladesh,diminished glacial water suppliesin Peru, and territorial loss due tosea level rise in the island nation oMaldives. Tose countries rank 55th,61st, and 161st in carbon emissions.

He adds that this years widespreaddrought in the United States, which

he attributes to climate change andhas led to a 50 percent increase inthe global price o corn, has directlyaected poor amilies around the world.

Later, leaning casually againsta wall, with hands thrust deep into his pocketsand sneaker-clad eet crossed at the ankles, headdressed a small crowd o about 50 environmentalactivists, proessors, and potential donors.

All over the world, there are people that right noware scrambling around to nd enough coins to buyenough corn meal to make dinner or their amiliestonight, he told group crowded into the living roomand perched on couches, radiators, and the oor.

While the scientic community debates what roleclimate change may or may not have played in the recent

drought, a consensus among climatologists is clearthat climate change certainly will bring more extreme

weather conditions such as drought in years to come.McKibben has been warning o the dangers o climate

change since he published his rst book, Te End oNature, in 1989. He worries that time is running out. Smallchanges in liestyle such installing energy-efcient lightbulbs and toting reusable bags to the grocery store will notbe sufcient to halt or even slow climate change, he said.

McKibben aims to take on oil and gas giants wherethey will eel it, by going ater their stockholders.

His latest campaign calls on universities,institutions, and churches to sell their stockholdings in ossil uel companies, in a collaborationamong 350.org, 350 Massachusetts, and TeBetter Future Project, an environmental advocacygroup that seeks a transition to renewable energy.

McKibben scos at the idea that Americans are

addicted to ossil uels and suggests that the averageAmerican would be just as happy to use energy derivedrom the sun and the wind as rom oil, gas, and coal.

Instead, he charges that the ossil uel industry is addictedto huge prots, which it has invested in lobbying againstpolicies avoring a shit rom ossil uels to renewable energy.

Tey intimidate everybody in Washington.Te ossil uel industry is spending more moneyon this election than anybody else. Nobody daresoend them and as a result the planet is silentlymelting, he said quietly as guests st started to arrive.

rying to get politicians to listen to concerns aclimate change is like waiting on hold or custservice, he later hal-joked with the crowd. Listeto the music or 20 minutes is one thing, he but ater 20 years, it is time to hang up the ph

McKibben and 350.org earned a temporary viin Washington last year ater staging one o the laacts o civil disobedience in the nations history. Parrested more than 1,200 people surrounding

White House during a 15-day-long protest o KeysXL, an oil pipeline designed to carry oil drained the Canadian ar Sands in Alberta to exas ren

President Barack Obama backed o o project soon ater, and Te Boston Globe decMcKibben the man who crushed Keystone However, both beore the event and while addrethe crowd, McKibben voiced suspicion that

the election is out o the way, the President, eObama or Romney, will push orward with the pr

We are not going to global warming one pipat a time. Teres just too moil wells and coal minespipelines. Later he adWere going to have[attack] more at the co the whole problem, wis the ossil uel indu

Tis November, startinday ater the election, McKand his supporters will ba bus in Seattle and begnationwide tour o 25 in 25 days, designed to b

public attention and pressuhis call to universities, churand institutions to unload holdings in ossil uel compa

McKibben modeled hiscampaign ater the campo the 1980s that calledorganizations to divest corporations supporting apartheid government in SArica. Te movement wa

widely successul in georganizations to participadivestiture, he noted. B

was everywhere successubringing the issue straighthe heart o the discussionadded, pointing out that than 200 colleges and chuaround the country did chtheir investment prac

McKibben reminded group that the rst calls

divestment rom the apartheid regime came romUnited Nations in the 1960s. It took more than 20 or that action to gain sustained momentum. He wothat this time, the world might not have that

I we dont do this relatively quickly, in act quickly, then its not worth doing because there wbe the intact planet to deal with, said McKib

- Noelle S

Renowned journalist, environmental activist and author Bill McKibben reects on experiences covering homelessness, the efects o climate change on the worlds poor, and his upcomicampaign to pressure organizations to divest rom ossil uel companies.

earths evangelist


10/16

O the millions o hackneyed expressions, you arewhat you eat proves to be a double entendre with seriousethical implications. In the past ew decades, the meatindustry has been insidiously transormed into an entity

with unrecognizable semblance to its ormer sel as the

practice o actory arming has inected our nationssystem o agriculture.

Te streets are teeming with so-called animal lovers,yet how many o us care to consider the horric crueltiescommitted behind the closed gates o actory arms?Gene Baur, author o Farm Sanctuary: Changing Heartsand Minds About Animals and Food, writes, I thinkeveryone has the capacity to experience compassion andempathy or animals, but most o us have it adulterated.

Te sickening cruelties occurring on actory arms arethe compilation o years o indierence. As JonathanSaran Foer writes in Eating Animals, Cruelty dependson an understanding o cruelty, and theability to choose against it. Or to chooseto ignore it. Observe the great lengthsmany o us go to to ensure the comort o

our household cat and dog companions.Yet, or those larger mammals whoare not the average pet (although theyindisputably share the same intelligence,sensitivity to pain, and vulnerability),

we ail to apply the same rules ocompassion. We oten either swallowthe bitter pill and continue eating meatin quiet observance o our inconsistentliestyles, or worse, we resort to denial.

We tell ourselves that eating meat is okay,as its what our ancestors did, and whattheirs did beore them.

However, this justication couldnot be arther rom reality, as todaysmeat industry has been undamentally

altered rom the amily-owned arm andbutcher shop days o ormer generationso meat eaters. And importantly, thedespicable treatment o animals that isrampant at actory arms is dependentupon a misinormed public that will not interere in thesecorrupt corporations assumption o liberties to conductbusiness with total disregard or the ethics and qualitycontrols o ormer generations o armers. Yet many ous are simply unaware o how drastically the practice oarming has been desecrated in the past ew decades.

Tus it is essential or people to understand exactly whata actory arm is, and how its evolution- or perhaps moreprecisely, its devolution- has created an industry devoid oits ormer values.

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary,

a actory arm is dened as a large industrialized arm;especially: a arm on which large numbers o livestockare raised indoors in conditions intended to maximizeproduction at minimal cost. Tis implies that actoryarms go to great lengths to manipulate a host o actors-including light exposure, hormone therapies, and evenood additives such as antibiotics- to improve eedefciency and increase the livestocks overall productivity.Importantly, actory armings corporate hegemonyhas bullied ranchers and armers into conorming withthese mechanized, soulless standards, or else risk beingcrushed by the corporate arming empires that have noqualms about obliterating centuries-old mom-and-poparms. Baur cites Ezra at Benson, the secretary oagriculture under President Eisenhower, as saying that

armers have to get big or get out. Critically, with theindustrialization o arming, the intelligent, sentientcreatures that were highly valued and respected duringthe amily arm era have been reduced to mere tradecommodities whose suering and keen awareness ophysical pain need not be regarded. In order to keeppace with ever-accelerating consumer demand, the status

quo on actory arms indicates atrocious conditions withtotal disregard or ethical implications as animals aresavagely chained and dragged, beaten, strangled, burnt,choked, sawed, and sliced, too oten beore being renderedinsensible. Unortunately, with the exception o theoccasional leaks o video ootage (www.peta.org or www.mercyoranimals.org) that go viral over the internet, theactory arm industrys insistence upon insularity and itshyper-vigilance in keeping the public eye out o its aairshave been quite successul: the industry has, or the mostpart, succeeded in squelching the wailing and screaming

o billions o animals raised in lth, tortured in suocatingconditions, and savagely mutilated.

However, a number o animal rights advocacygroups such as Farm Sanctuary, Mercy or Animals,and PEA, have worked tirelessly to inorm the publico the egregious acts o violence committed on actoryarms in hopes that consumers may contemplate theconsequences o their habits. In Eating Animals, Foerilluminates the act that as the American diet grows evermore carnivorous, Americans are currently choosing toeat less than 0.25 percent o the known edible ood onthe planet. Tus, by propagating an increasingly meat-

centric society and subscribing to actory arms unethicalvalues by purchasing their products, this indicates that weare a society that tolerates and even endorses the acts o

violence casually inicted upon these creatures who livemiserably and suer immeasurably, having no one todeend their right to live naturally and die humanely.

Lastly, i this article has allen short o appealing toreaders hearts, then perhaps an argument against thepromotion o actory arming can appeal to ones desireor sel-preservation. Factory arming poses deleteriousconsequences or uture generations, the earth, andhumanity in general. For example, according to theU.N., livestock arming contributes to 18 percent o allgreenhouse gas emissions. We the consumers have beendirectly impacted by actory armings domination o the

meat industry. Te acute impact is demonstrated b76 million Americans who become ill rom their annually; however, the chronic eects are not quiobvious, but present just as ormidable a threat. Te therapeutic supplementation o arm animal eed antibiotics preempts the animals inevitable sickn

which emerge rom compromised immunity due t

lthy conditions and chronic stress rom mistreatmTese antibiotics are contributing undeniably toemergence o antibiotic-resistant bacteria, suchMRSA. Antibiotic resistant pathogens are creating hin hospitals and have also been known to attack youtargets as well (recall 2011s deaths o high school athdue to MRSA in locker rooms). In addition, the inuo synthetic hormones and other unnatural elementour oodstus means that we too are being exposethese toxins and well-documented endocrine disrupthe nearious eects o which may present only later i

(e.g., cancer) and will thus be obscu

Also critical to bear in mind is thaoten, sickly animals known as doware being slaughtered and entour ood supply. As Gene Baur reater perusing through slaughterhrecords obtained through the Freeo Inormation Act, We were astouto nd that animals with abscgangrene, hepatitis, pneumperitonitis, and malignant lymph

were approved or human ood, ano them were entering the ood supConsider the act that, as Eric Schlmentions in Te Cow Jumped OveU.S.D.A. rom Te New York Te Agriculture Department hdual, oten contradictory mandatpromote the sale o meat on behAmerican producers and to guarthat American meat is sae on beh

consumers. He continues, For toothe emphasis has been on commerce, aexpense o saety. And although weverelatively ortunate in conning outbr

o bovine spongiorm encephalopathy (e.g., maddisease), campylobacter (causing ood-borne illnand BLK or bovine leukemia virus (which studies linked to increases in human leukemia), the potentidevastating uture consequences is always looming.

Especially with the United States subpar insperates: only 40,000 cattle are tested or BSE out oroughly 90 million slaughtered. I these scant inspecever ail to identiy the disease at the outset,consequences could be disastrous as it takes monteven years or humans to present with symptoms oresulting atal neurodegenerative disease, a variant o

Creutzeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). Finally, as solepredicted by the World Health Organization, the to a uture inuenza pandemic or which actory create the perect breeding ground, is only too real

Undoubtedly, quantity o consumption is the drorce behind the actory arm industrys enumecruelties. What we eat and how we eat speaks nov

who we are and how we have been raised. It is eto swallow the act that society is unaware oconsequences o supporting actory arming than itaccept the ar more disconcerting reality that societygrown inured to the atrocities that take place so thcan have some bacon with our eggs.

- Emily Ka

memo to animal lovers:Studies show that actory arming is cruel to animals.

10 October 19 -November 1, 2012 (national ) 20th Anniversa

Female pigs used or breeding (called breeding sows by industry) are conned most o their lives ingestation crates which are so small that they cannot even turn around. Te pigs basic needs are denied,and they experience severe physical and psychological disorders. -source: Farm Sanctuary

PHOTOS:FARMS

ANCTURAY


11/16

October 19 -November 1, 2012 www.sparechangenews.net 20th Anniversary

Resist much. Obey little.----Walt Whitmantakenrom Te Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, oneo the Spiritual inspirations or Earth First!

Earth First! or the Earth Liberation Front was rstormed in 1979. It is an environmental activist groupthat came together in the Southwestern United States.

Tis dynamic group even has its own magazine, calledthe Earth First!Journal. No Compromise in Deenseo Mother Earth is the slogan on the ront o allpublications.

Environmental activistDave Forman, ex-Yippieo the Youth InternationalParty, Mike Roselle, BartKoehler and Howie Wolke(Wyoming WildernessSociety representatives),and Ron Kezar (a Bureauo Land Managementemployee) ormed thebeginning o Earth First!because they were disturbedby the planning processo the Forest ServicesRoadless Area Review andFormation (or RAREII). Tey believed that themainstream environmentaladvocates were selling outrather than working toprotect the environment.

Te ve o them chose tojourney rom the PincanteDesert in Mexico toAlbuquerque, New Mexico

to oversee this giantrevolutionary movementin order to preserve multi-million-acre ecologicalareas all across the UnitedStates. Tey pledged, NoCompromise in Deense oMother Earth!

Howie Wolkeremembers the momento clairvoyance when thename was developed on their travels. Suddenly Foremancalled out Earth First! Te next thing you know, Roselledrew a clenched st logo, passed it up to the ront o the

van, and there was Earth First!

Te group borrowed rom the notions o authorEdward Abbey, and the rules are very strict. Protectingthe environment is the top priority. Te growth o themovement and to advance the creation o a world reeo speciesism, classism, ageism, racism, sexism, violence,exploitation and oppression is a central part o EarthFirsts philosophy.

It became a movement that had cells without leaders.People gather together to party and plan Earth LiberationFront (ELF) activities such as tree sit-ins, using spikesin trees to break chainsaws, puke-ins at shopping malls,ag burnings and so on. However, each part o themovements main thrust was to protect Mother Earth;the actions only diered in intensity.

Te rst tree sit took place on May 23rd, 1985organized by Mike Jabukal. Te purpose was to sit in or

around the tree to prevent the tree rom being cut down.Jabukal was up in a nest he had built in the upper reacheso the tree, while the rest o the supporters sat at the base.

Te rst tree sit lasted only one day. When Jakubel

came down at night to look around, he saw that the resto the orest around his tree had been clear-cut and theU.S. Forest Service ofcers who were hiding in the areaarrested him and his supporters. But the tree-sittingtactic was adopted by Earth First!, and since that rsttree sit, there have been many successul actions.

From 1987 on, Earth First! adopted many tacticsto prevent the destruction o wild lie habitats or therape o wild places. Te deense o Mother Earth thentook two directionsthe legal ones, i.e. Protests, timbersale appeals, and educational campaignsor civil

disobediencetree sitting, road blockades, and sabotageo industrial and orest cutting equipment. Tis wasknown as ecotage by some Earth Firsters who statedthat it was necessary to deend Mother Earth.

In 1990, when Earth First! moved toward morecriminal acts to protect the Earth, ELF truly cametogether. Since ELF was so active, this change attractedmany new individuals to Earth First!, many o whomcame rom anarchistic political backgrounds and otherareas o the counter-culture.

One o the joiners, Judi Bari, welcomed the newintense direct action and letist direction o Earth First!However, Baris support put her not only in harms waybut also placed her in political turmoil. In 1990, a bombexploded in Judi Baris car, almost killing her and injuring

activist Darryl Cherney, who was in the car with he

Tey were both arrested by law enorcement ofwho claimed that they were transporting the bwhen it accidentally exploded. Judi Bari stated th

she were transporting a live bomb, it would be suicidplace it under her ront seat.

Te case against Bari and Cherney was contand it was dropped due to tainted evidence. AterBari sued the FBI and the Oakland Police. Despitact that Judi Bari died in 1997 o cancer, the law

continued and it resulted in a jury verdict awarding her eand Darryl Cherney a total omillion. Eighty percent o damages were or violation o First Amendment Rights by theand the police who tried to discthem in the newspapers as viextremists even though all evid

was contrary to the event.

In recent years the government has classied the ELiberation Front as a terrorist gMany Earth Firsters are in p

with lengthy sentences. Every EFirst! Journal has a two page spdedicated to the Earth First! PriSupport Project, a prisoner and prelease support group or earthanimal liberation political prison

Te anarchist political acticaused the movement to splinterdierent actions moving in altedirections. Tere was a clear divbetween those who publishedDirect Actions and those who

part in them or the protection omovement itsel.

Tey protected the moveby creating the Earth First! Jo

which became the spoken piethe organization.

Earth First!s proposals published (and still are) in periodical,Earth First!, Te RaEnvironmental Journal whicinormally known as Earth

(Well Strip Mine the Other Planets Later) Journalin atongue in cheek manner.

I have been a subscriber to their Journal or ovyears and still nd vital inormation about acts toour Mother Earth within its pages.

Earth First! is now active in over 19 countries wmain ocus o environmental protection through daction. Each year they have a gathering o the group cthe Round River Rendezvous, which still takes placdierent wilderness area o the country. By going to

website, you may nd where their gathering is.

Te ght to preserve living conditions and endanspecies continues as the growth o industrializationpopulation growth continue to destroy our MoEarth. Ask yoursel: what can you do to help ourhome, the planet Earth.

- Marc D. Gold

earth rst! In the turbelent late 60s, radical enivormentalists gathered to deend Mother Eaby any means necessary.

EARTH FIRST! LOGO


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October 19 -November 1, 2012 www.sparechangenews.net 20th Anniversary

arts&culture (poetry)hymn to the sacred body o the universe (excerpt)

lets meet

at the conuence

where you ow into me

and one breath

swirls between our lungs

lets meet

at the conuence

where you ow into me

and one breath

swirls between our lungs

or one instant

to dwell in the presence o the galaxies

or one instant

to live in the truth o the heart

the poet says this entire traveling cosmos is

the secret One slowly growing a body

two eagles are mating--

clasping each others claws

and turning cartwheels in the sky

grasses are blooming

grandathers dying

consciousness blinking on and o

all o this is happening at once

all o this, vibrating into existence

out o nothingness

every particle

oaming into existence

transcribing the ineable

arising and passing away

arising and passing away

23 trillion times per second--

when Buddha saw that,

he smiled

16 million tons o rain are alling every second

on the planet

an ocean

perpetually alling

and every drop

is your body

every motion, every eather, every thought

is your body

time

is your body,

and the innite

curled inside like

invisible rainbows olded into light

- Drew Dellinger

(Excerpt o hymn to the sacred body o the universe, rom

love letter to the milky way.)

Nature

Nature

Your supple hands caress my cheeks

Like a loving motherYour breath twirls across my eyes and

Slowly collapses like a graceul silhouette

As the dirge o song birds

echoes in the darkness



Ten there came a cold chill

as a wave o winter dust descended deliberately

rom the mountains and pierced right through me

like a thousand needles kissing me

knocking me down so that my head rested

wantonly against your breast

then I could hear what I couldnt see

the rustling o your leay ngersthe rush o your wakeul breath over the mountains

then there came the tree slayers

I stood there watching how

their mockery and complacency cut right through you

like a giant persistent knie and i watched you bleed

I watched you nurse your wounds

With a gentle elevated elegance

Ten I watched you crumble

Only to see you rise again,

Just a little greener than beore.

- Jacques Fle


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14 October 19 -November 1, 2012 ( arts& culture) 20th Anniversary

Solitary connement at the Louisiana StatePenitentiary is among the most desperate and orlornplaces on Earth. Te prisonbetter known by itsnickname, Angolais the largest maximum-securityprison in the country, with 5,000 inmates. It is a placelargely indistinguishable rom the slave plantation it once

wasa place where sexual slavery and rape are endemic,where the largely black inmates still pick cotton in theelds day in and day out without pay.

Angad Bhallas Hermans House (2012) tells thestory o Herman Wallace, whos been in Angola or 45yearsorty o them in solitary connement. Wallacewent to Angola or bank robbery. He started a prisonchapter o the Black Panther Party in 1967 with ellowinmates Robert King and Albert Woodox. Te grouporganized sit-ins, strikes, and other protests againstprison segregation, sexual slavery, and other abuses.

However, Wallace and Woodox were convicted inthe stabbing murder o prison guard Brent Miller in1971, and King was accused as an accomplice. Tis wasdespite the act that none o the ngerprints ound atthe sceneincluding one in bloodmatched their own.All three went to solitary connement. Kings originalconviction was overturned ater 29 years in solitaryconnement and he was released; Wallace and Woodox

are still in solitary connement. Known as the AngolaTree, the three men have become an international causeclbre.

Te lm tells Wallaces story through the eyes o JackieSumell, an artist whos carried on a correspondence with

Wallace over a period o years. In 2003 Sumell beganasking Wallace about his dream home. She documentedhis responseincluding a ull-sized wooden model o hissolitary connement cell and a scale model o his dreamhomein a mixed-media exhibit called Te House thatHerman Built thats been shown in galleries around the

world.

Bhallas lm takes us through the conception,construction, and exhibition o Te House that HermanBuilt while telling Hermans story and the story o the

Angola Tree. Eventually we see Sumell move to NewOrleans, LouisianaHermans hometown and the homeo his sister, Vickito build Hermans dream home asa real-lie, brick-and-mortar youth center. She becomesan adoptive member o the Wallace amily, and o the

depressed, majority-black community she moves into inNew Orleans.

Tis unusual relationship between Wallace andSumell is the lms main ocus, which is both its greateststrength and its greatest weakness. While we meet blackactivists like Vicki Wallace, Malik Rahim, and RobertKing, the lm hovers over them only briey. We neverget a ull, rich portrait o the organizing-rom-below thatrst brought the Angola Tree to the worlds attentionand has kept it there or teen years. At the same time,the story o how a culturally elite, thirty-something

white artist rom New York City could grow so close toa sixty-something black Angola inmate with little ormaleducationalong with the amily and communities thatormed himis irresistible.

Te lm narrowly avoids driting into a NicKristo-style white savior narrative by showing Sumells ailures and Wallaces agency. Ater she mto New Orleansdeeply in debt, as the lm saysher eorts to buy land and build Hermans dream hmuch less make a living, start to ounder. We listerecorded conversations between the two as Su

vents her rustration and Wallace calms and encouher. Later we watch as Sumell cries on the phater Wallaces nal state appeal is denied and Wacomorts her. At one point Sumell talks into the cam

about how much shes learned rom Wallace, KingRahim. Its obvious that their riendship is one o p

with deep mutual respect and admiration.

Bhalla also shows us vignettes that speak to Walcharacter and integrity. In one a white ormer inmatehis mother discuss how Wallace took him under his won the solitary connement bloc and taught him acompassion. I that man can do that or my son in ththe mother says, in a drawl plain and beautiul asLouisiana earth as she mixes a Waldor salad, ima

what he could do out here.

In another, a lawyer tells how Wallace volunteeretestiy against his own deceased nephew so that anoprisoner wouldnt be unjustly convicted or a mu

When the lawyer told Wallace he didnt have to the stand and risk being cut o rom his sisterhismeans o supportWallace looked him in the eyesaid, simply, I expect you to call me to testiy. Itright thing to do.

Te overall impression one is let with ater watcHermans House is o Wallaces deep humanity anour prison systems deep inhumanity. Herman Waand Albert Woodox have been locked in six-ootnine-oot cells 23 hours a day or the past orty yor speaking out against the racist, violent, and sexabusive conditions that are central to Americas pri

Tere are many words to describe that; civilized isno them.

- Joshua E

review: Hermans House directed by Angad Bhalla. ( lm)


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16/16

athering: a short story (essays)

I WANT YOU!riend&undraiserood&beverages:

oggi gourmet restaurantlive music | rafe

ridaynovember 16, 2012

7pm-10pm

holyoke center1340 mass. ave.cambridge, ma

general admission: $20

students: $10

tickets available at door or visit:www.sparechangenews.net

or more inormation: [email protected](617)-497-1595

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Spare Change News | October 19- November 1, 2012