RecipeSource: Very Hot Cajun Sauce for Beef

RecipeSource: Very Hot Cajun Sauce for Beef: "Very Hot Cajun Sauce for Beef Recipe By : Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00 Categories : Cajun Sauces Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method -------- ------------ -------------------------------- 3/4 cup chopped onion 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper 1/4 cup chopped celery 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 3/4 teaspoon ground red pepper -- (preferably cayenne) 1/2 teaspoon white pepper 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 2 bay leaves 1/4 cup minced jalapeno pepper 1 teaspoon minced garlic 3 cups beef stock This sauce is excellent with Cajun Meat Loaf, roast beef sandwiches, hamburgers, pot roast and Cajun Shepherd's Pie. Note: Fresh jalapenos are preferred; if you have to use pickled ones, rinse as much vinegar from them as possible. Combine the oinons, bell peppers and celery in a small bowl and set aside while you start the roux. (Note: Unlike the roux in most other recipes in this book, the roux we use here is light brown. Therefore, instead of heating the oil to the smoking stage, we heat it to only 250 degrees; this prevents the roux from getting too brown.) In a heavy 2-quart saucepan heat the oil over medium-low heat to about 250 degrees. With a metal whisk, whisk in the flour a little at a time until smooth. Continue cooking,"

The Resentment Strategy

PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 4, 2008

Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?

Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?

Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?

Yes, they can.

On Tuesday, He Who Must Not Be Named — Mitt Romney mentioned him just once, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin not at all — gave a video address to the Republican National Convention. John McCain, promised President Bush, would stand up to the “angry left.” That’s no doubt true. But don’t be fooled either by Mr. McCain’s long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin’s appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.

What’s the source of all that anger?

Some of it, of course, is driven by cultural and religious conflict: fundamentalist Christians are sincerely dismayed by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the curriculum. What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn’t “flashy enough” for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats “look down” on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.

One of the key insights in “Nixonland,” the new book by the historian Rick Perlstein, is that Nixon’s political strategy throughout his career was inspired by his college experience, in which he got himself elected student body president by exploiting his classmates’ resentment against the Franklins, the school’s elite social club. There’s a direct line from that student election to Spiro Agnew’s attacks on the “nattering nabobs of negativism” as “an effete corps of impudent snobs,” and from there to the peculiar cult of personality that not long ago surrounded George W. Bush — a cult that celebrated his anti-intellectualism and made much of the supposed fact that the “misunderestimated” C-average student had proved himself smarter than all the fancy-pants experts.

And when Mr. Bush turned out not to be that smart after all, and his presidency crashed and burned, the angry right — the raging rajas of resentment? — became, if anything, even angrier. Humiliation will do that.

Can Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin really ride Nixonian resentment into an upset election victory in what should be an overwhelmingly Democratic year? The answer is a definite maybe.

By selecting Barack Obama as their nominee, the Democrats may have given Republicans an opening: the very qualities that inspire many fervent Obama supporters — the candidate’s high-flown eloquence, his coolness factor — have also laid him open to a Nixonian backlash. Unlike many observers, I wasn’t surprised at the effectiveness of the McCain “celebrity” ad. It didn’t make much sense intellectually, but it skillfully exploited the resentment some voters feel toward Mr. Obama’s star quality.

That said, the experience of the years since 2000 — the memory of what happened to working Americans when faux-populist Republicans controlled the government — is still fairly fresh in voters’ minds. Furthermore, while Democrats’ supposed contempt for ordinary people is mainly a figment of Republican imagination, the G.O.P. really is the Gramm Old Party — it really does believe that the economy is just fine, and the fact that most Americans disagree just shows that we’re a nation of whiners.

But the Democrats can’t afford to be complacent. Resentment, no matter how contrived, is a powerful force, and it’s one that Republicans are very, very good at exploiting.

How Home Became Homeland

Oh, yes, it’s good to be home.

Even if it’s a homeland, at least it’s not a fatherland. And how, I wonder, does our home look to others? As former President Bill Clinton noted at the Democratic national convention in Denver, the United States does better when it leads with “the power of our example” than with “the example of our power.”

To think this airport is named after J.F.K. — all that promise, and my Dad weeping at his loss in faraway London. Kennedy who asked us to ask ourselves what we could do for our country. Whatever happened to Lincoln’s “last, best hope?”

It got frayed. Let’s stop talking about an infrastructure bottleneck, sounds too like something in a Soviet 10-year Plan, and start talking about collapsing bridges, crawling trains, dilapidated airports, potholed roads, subway blues — the great national failure to build a network of public transport worthy of a modern state in the age of $110 oil.

We’ve been spending too much on fear while others spend on the future. And now J.F.K. looks like LOTH — Lagos-on-the-Hudson — while the Hong Kong airport shimmers the way American promise once did.

Yes, it’s good to be home. As Robert Frost noted, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.”

Unless you make the wrong joke, or knock yourself out on the scaffolding, or have a weird beard.

Speaking of the Democratic National Convention, security there involved police in shades with sub-machine guns riding around on the backs of trucks and the image they summoned with their truculent menace was Pinochet’s Chile circa 1986, the main difference being the Colorado vehicles still had license plates.

Police dogs combed through the gym and pool area of the Denver Grand Hyatt sniffing goggles and towels as wide-eyed kids gaped.

And there, at the convention, was another Kennedy, Senator Edward Kennedy, rising from his hospital bed with a bull-like courage that nobody who witnessed it will forget, and saying, unbowed: “We are all called to a better country and a newer world.”

Yes, it can still be good to be home.

Barack Obama had this to say: “America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.”

I reckon John McCain can agree with that. Everyone — Democrat, Republican or independent — can. Certainly the rest of the world can. Its thirst to close the Bush chapter is near feverish.

Winston Churchill said of the United States that it can be counted on to do “the right thing,” but only after it has tried every alternative. As Roger Smith, an acute political observer and blogger, put it in an e-mail: “Well, George W. is every other alternative.”

Unless you count Sarah Palin, John McCain’s new sidekick, the Republican lady risen from the ice out near Russia. She’s certainly alternative.

It’s good to be home, but it sure could be better.

The Final Days of the Presidency of George W. Bush - NYTimes.com

The Final Days of the Presidency of George W. Bush - NYTimes.com: "August 31, 2008
The Final Days
By PETER BAKER

The armored black limousine rolled to a halt near the foot of Air Force One. Secret Service agents opened the doors simultaneously, and from opposite sides emerged President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain. They circled around to stand side by side and, for the next 14 seconds, smiled and waved at the assembled cameras — 14 seconds of ritual demanded by political convention. Bush pecked the senator’s wife, Cindy, on the cheek, shook McCain’s hand and sprinted up the stairs. At the top of the landing, he waved again and disappeared into the plane. That was May. As of late this month, the president and the would-be successor from his own party have not spoken since.

A relationship fraught with bitter resentment, grudging respect and mutual dependence takes center stage this week as the Republican Party gathers in St. Paul to pass the mantle of leadership. As at that May photo opportunity in Phoenix, which followed a fund-raiser, Bush will be ushered out of the spotlight as quickly as possible — if not in 14 seconds, then not all that much longer. After an opening-night speech tomorrow, he will leave town with none of the celebratory rock-star attention Bill Clinton commanded at Al Gore’s"

The Final Days of the Presidency of George W. Bush - NYTimes.com

The Final Days of the Presidency of George W. Bush - NYTimes.com: "Bush’s place in history depends on alternate narratives that are hard to reconcile. To critics, he is the man who misled the country into a disastrous war, ruined U.S. relations around the world, wrecked the economy, squandered a budget surplus to give tax cuts to fat-cat friends, played the guitar while New Orleans drowned, politicized the Justice Department, cozied up to oil companies and betrayed American values by promoting torture, warrantless eavesdropping and a modern-day gulag at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for people never even charged with a crime. To admirers, he is the man who freed 60 million people from tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq and planted a seed that may yet spread democracy in a vital region, while at home he reduced taxes, introduced more accountability to public schools through No Child Left Behind, expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, installed two new conservative Supreme Court justices and, most of all, kept America safe after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

Op-Ed Columnist - The Candidate We Still Don’t Know - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The Candidate We Still Don’t Know - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com: "The truth is we have no idea what will happen in November. But for the sake of argument, let’s posit that one thread of the Obama-is-doomed scenario is right: His lead should be huge in a year when the G.O.P. is in such disrepute that at least eight of the party’s own senatorial incumbents are skipping their own convention, the fail-safe way to avoid being caught near the Larry Craig Memorial Men’s Room at the Twin Cities airport."

Little Artichokes, Provençal Style

Recipe: Little Artichokes, Provençal Style Time: 40 minutes

Time: 40 minutes

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, crushed, then peeled

Fresh thyme or rosemary, optional

1/2 cup flavorful black olives, pitted

Salt

12 little (or baby) artichokes

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved or left whole, or about 1 1/2 cups any other tomatoes, chopped

Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish.

1. Combine oil and garlic in a large skillet (cast iron is good), over low heat. When garlic sizzles, add herb, olives and a pinch of salt.

2. Meanwhile, one at a time, prepare artichokes: remove hard leaves, then cut off spiky end, about an inch down from top; trim bottoms, cut artichokes in half, and add them to pan as they are ready, cut side down. When about half of them are in pan, raise heat so they brown a bit; move them around as you add remaining artichokes so that they brown evenly.

3. When artichokes brown, add tomatoes and a splash of water. Cook until chokes are tender, 10 to 20 minutes. Add water if needed. Adjust seasoning, garnish and serve hot or at room temperature.

Yield: 2 to 4 servings.

Bethany Pond - recent observations

Lots of Mallard ducklings

House Finches having a big year with fledglings

Spotted Towhees fledge one

Cliff Swallows still on nest

Violet-green Swallows still in box

Song Sparrows fledge at least one

Osprey active over pond every other day for the past month

Green Herons very active for the past month

no Kingfishers this year

Calliope hummingbird(s) fir a couple of days

Blue-winged and Cinnamon Teal for the first time 3 weeks ago

Loads of Cedar Waxwings for about a week

Flickers and Downy Woodpecker pairs very active and hungry on suet

Trip to Wheeler County, Oregon and John Day Fossil Beds

Date: June 7, 2008
Location: John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Wheeler County, Oregon
Low temperature: 34 degrees fahrenheit
High temperature: 75 degrees fahrenheit
Wind direction: W
Prevailing wind speed: 6-11 km/h gusting to: 20-28 km/h
Percentage of sky covered by clouds: 20%
Precipitation: none

We took a nice weekend trip to Wheeler County from Portland. Traveledall over the country including all three units of John Day Fossil Beds.
Nothing extradordinary, but we lucked out with a hint of warmweather on Sunday.

Birds seen (in taxonomic order):
Canada Goose
Mallard
Chukar
Blue Grouse [1]
California Quail
Great Blue Heron
Turkey VultureOsprey [2]
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk [3]
American Kestrel
American Coot
Killdeer [4]
Common Snipe [5]
California Gull
Rock Dove
Mourning Dove [6]
Band-tailed Pigeon
Common Nighthawk [7]
Vaux's Swift
White-throated Swift [8]
Rufous Hummingbird
Red-naped Sapsucker
Northern Flicker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Gray Flycatcher [9]
Say's Phoebe
Western Kingbird [10]
Loggerhead Shrike [11]
Steller's Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Bank Swallow [12]
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
Mountain Chickadee
Brown Creeper
Mountain Bluebird
American Robin
European Starling
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Western Tanager
Green-tailed Towhee
Spotted Towhee
Brewer's Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Black-headed Grosbeak
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Brewer's Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Purple Finch
House Finch
Pine Siskin
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch


House Sparrow
Footnotes:
[1] lots of sign at Bear Hollow County Park, did not see
[2] 5 in the Gorge on the drive in
[3] two total at two different locations
[4] nesting with lots of dramatic distraction behavior (including collapsing and twitching on the ground) at the IOOF Cemetary in Fossil
[5] Heard only
[6] not on the checklist, but lots of Band-tailed Pigeons in Fossil
[7] Very common, foraging at noon in Painted Hills
[8] saw a dranatuc in-flight copulation at Blue Canyon
[9] Just one at Rock Creek/John Day River
[10] lots of them all over
[11] one bird
[12] big nest colony on the road into Painted Hills Unit

Total number of species seen: 69

News From Oregon

Hi Friends, I am not sure what condition this note with photos will arrive in but I suppose you will figure it out.

<<< Abandoned Farm House - near Fossil, Oregon.

Just a note and a short story about a trip that we took this past weekend. Most people think of Oregon as rain, thick forests, rocky coastlines, and mist but the reality is that the eastern two thirds of the state is high desert and very, very beautiful. We left on Saturday and drove out the Columbia River Gorge from Portland eventually turning south at the John Day River. The unusually named John Day River has a story unto itself. A fur trapper (John Day) and his partner in the early days of the exploration of Oregon Territory (1812) were ambushed by Indians at the mouth of the river where it flows into the Columbia. They were relieved of everything they had including their clothes and famously stumbled naked eventually into the fur trading post of Astoria on the Pacific Ocean. The site at the mouth became known as John Day's spot (with a snicker and a smile) and the 280 mile long river took the name even though John Day never saw the rest of this beautiful country. The John Day River is the second longest undammed river in North America (although the Columbia is damned just below the confluence by, of course, the John Day Dam.

This part of Oregon, about 10,000 square miles, sits atop sits atop 4 distinct layers of sediment and volcanic ash that dates back 50 million years and encompasses most of the history of mammalian life in North America. It is fantastically rich in fossils of the plants and animals that roamed this part of North America up until the last ice age. It is also a place of vast dry farmed wheat, cattle and sheep ranches and along the rivers and streams stunningly green hay and alfalfa fields. In the eroded lowlands the layers of soil and have weathered and oxidized into a rainbow of colors depending on the elemental properties of that layer - iron, aluminum, magnesium, manganese, and several compounds make for a stunning view.

<<< Moving Cattle near Mitchell, Oregon. This area is famous for "Painted Hills Beef" - grass fed, all natural beef sold for a premium and quite delicious. It is a co-op over 100 small ranches that commit to raising healthy and humanely treated beef cattle. You don't see horses and dogs herding cattle much anymore, except out here where it is still the best way to do business.

<<< The Painted Hills, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Wheeler County, Oregon. This area contains sediments and volcanic ash and tuff that dates from 37 to 15 million years old and is probably the richest layer for fossils. The area was subtropical to temperate deciduous forest during this time and densely populated with ancestral forms of camels, horses, bears, sloths, tapirs and elephants. It is most beautiful at sunset and sunrise, but pretty magical even here at high noon.

<<< Leslie at Blue Canyon (cliffs of celadonite), John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Wheeler County, Oregon.

Leslie is pretty much deathly afraid of all snakes, but she has a particular terror of rattlesnakes. So it was quite brave of her to come in this canyon when a ranger at the visitor's center had just told us that they had shooed a five foot long rattlesnake off of the trail that same afternoon. She made it into this spectacular celadonite basin though, pulse a little rapid but success nonetheless. We never found the snake although I looked hard, the skeptic in me sincerely doubting that a five foot long rattlesnake can be found in this rather cold high desert unless it was older than me (possible, but pretty unlikely). I suspect the ranger's estimate of size had something to do with his adrenalin levels when he was talking to us.

<<< Mike at Blue Canyon (without his 25 year old beard by the way),John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Wheeler County, Oregon.

Nearly pure basin of celadonite (a mica group mineral, a phyllosilicate of potassium, iron in both oxidation states, aluminium and hydroxide with formula: K(Mg,Fe²⁺)(Fe³⁺,Al)[Si₄O₁₀](OH)₂ - for the curious). This basin was loaded with nesting (and aerial copulating White-throated Swifts, the largest of the North American swifts). The deposits are rich in fossils of tortoises, cat-like saber tooth predators, and a number of early horses, camels. rhinos and elephants.

<<< Bridge Creek Flora Bed & Breakfast, Fossil, Oregon.

This 1905 house was the summer home of some the founders of the community. A pleasant B & B with enormous and very tasty breakfasts. Fossil is a small town doing a little better than other rural Oregon communities because it is the county seat of Wheeler County. The day we arrived was high school graduation day with 5 seniors and the whole town attending.

I hope all is well with everyone. It has been unseasonably cold through most of May and now June in Portland, in fact it snowed just north of us over a foot above 3500 ft elevation last night. It is tough on the vegetable garden as everything is several weeks behind schedule and I really want our fresh tomatos soon. We are in the process of remodeling the kitchen so we will be in a bit of a mess for the next month or so. We are planning a September trip by ship to Alaska along the inland passage, the first real vacation in three years (by then) for Leslie as her "new" job at Kaiser Permanente has been overwhelming and like most of health-care in the States, troubling.

Starting Over

Cliff Swallow starting over on last year's collapsed nest. There is an explosion of Cliff Swallows this year - both welcome and very messy.

Violet-green Swallow in our nest box

Spring has truly sprung. We have Cliff Swallows, Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows and here Violet-green Swalllows all nesting around the house. The only one we are missing (although not common here) are Northern Rough-winged Swallows. There are Vaux Swifts getting reday to nest in our chimney again, both Amerian and Lesser Goldfinches, Northern Flickers, Downy Woodpeckers, Spotted Towhees, Song Sparrows, Anna's Hummingbird (fledged 2 young all ready), and Bewick's Wrens.

Mallard chicks on the pond, no young geese yet. Kingfishers have not arrived nor Green Herons but it is still early.

How does Portland top itself?

The city's next mayor needs to mobilize the city

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The next mayor of Portland will ride into office on green coattails. Even if he knows nothing about climate change, he'll be regarded as something of a hotshot on the strength of the city's reputation alone -- plus its 15 years of work to reduce carbon emissions.

So here's a warning: Portland has the kind of head start that can vanish fast. The next mayor needs a very specific plan to capitalize on the city's global warming expertise, not coast on it.

Everyone everywhere is talking about creating "green-collar" jobs, including many candidates in the May primary. Portland has been talking for years about reaping the benefits of a greener economy. But unless the next mayor has specific plans to galvanize the community and create jobs, this could be yet another dream that passes Portland by. (Remember when biotech was going to be the next big thing?)

Meanwhile, the most difficult challenges in confronting global warming still lie ahead, including the need for green retrofitting of houses, businesses and buildings across the community. This is not nearly as sexy or exciting as building new and green, but it's essential, because buildings produce about 40 percent of carbon emissions.

Energy-efficient retrofitting can produce a quadruple win, reducing emissions, reducing energy consumption, reducing utility bills (with benefits for every size pocketbook) -- and creating jobs that can never be outsourced. Grasping the potential, many bright people are working on some facet of green retrofitting, but it will take mayoral leadership to ignite change on a communitywide scale.

The potential jobs bonanza (including some federal help in the offing) has mayors across the country scampering to launch green initiatives. Back in 1993, it seemed farfetched, even goofy, when Portland became the first city in the country to adopt a plan to counteract global warming. Not any more. As of Monday, 830 mayors had signed on to the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement, pledging to reduce greenhouse gases.

When mayors gathered to talk about climate change last fall, they sounded almost giddy in ticking off the fringe benefits of making their cities greener, more walkable and livable. Portlanders, of course, had heard it all before.

By 2006, Portland had notched real progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis by 14 percent. That should have voters elbowing the city's mayoral candidates and asking: "OK, buddy, how will you top this?"

The mayoral candidates need to explain exactly how they'll build on what Portland has achieved -- instead of basking in the city's (fading) limelight while boasting rights and economic opportunities slip away to other communities.

Cellphones & Poverty

NY Times magazine article

Cellphones & Poverty

NY Times magazine article

Bees v Basketball

Oregonian Letter: + Comments

Increments of Technology

USB Power at Oakland Airport

110V Plugs in one car on the Coast Starlight

References

Jefferey Sachs

• The End of Poverty
• Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

Paul Hawken

• The Next Economy (1983)
• Growing a Business (1987)
• The Ecology of Commerce (1993)
• Natural Capatalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999)
• Blessed Unrest: How th Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming (2007)

Adam Werbach

• Act Now, Apologize Later (1997)
• The Death of Environmentalism and the Birth of the Commons Movement (Speech to the Commonwealth of San Francisco, 2004) www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/04/04-12werbach-audio.html
• The Birth of Blue (Speech to the Commonwealth of San Francisco, 2008) www.saatchiS.com/birthofblue/

Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger, American Environics & The Breakthrough Institute

• Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (2007)
• The Death of Environmentalism and the Politics of Possibility (Speech to Cleveland City Club, 2008) http://cityclubpodcast.optiem.com/CityClubPodcast-080215.mp3

Blue is the way to integrate green

Thursday, April 10, 2008 (SF Chronicle)
Open Forum: Blue is the way to integrate green ideals
Adam Werbach

After spending most of my life as a full-time environmentalist, I declaredin 2004 that environmentalism was dead, unable to effectively work at thescale of the problems we faced. Since that time, I've been on a journeyacross the planet to find the next stage of ideas that can help catalyze anew movement to build the world we want. As I've traveled, my field ofvision has expanded. I've come to see that you can eat locally, co-op grown, organic heirloomtomatoes and still be a bad person. Eating those tomatoes is only onesmall way to take care of yourself, your community and the planet. Thosetomatoes are an entrance point, not an end. While I'll always be someonewith green ideals, it's clear that we need a new mass movement - not justfor professionals or experts or people who can explain photosynthesis andlifecycle analysis. We need a movement for people who care about spendingmore quality time with their family and also about climate change, forpeople who want to lose a little weight as well as bike to work, and forpeople who really need to save some money. When you travel to countries that have been green for decades, such asSwitzerland, there's already a color for this movement - it's blue. Ipropose that we begin to adopt this blue movement here. Don't worry, youcan still be green, but blue is a way to integrate your green ideals intoyour broader ideals. We still can't get where we need to go withoutpolitical change, but it's time to get serious about bringing our idealsto the way we live and the way we shop. Consider this: For the first time in human history there are twice as manypeople who are overweight than are hungry on the planet. The way we live,and the way we shop, are killing us. The average American woman spends an hour a day shopping. She is an expertat finding the right value for herself and her family, and increasinglyshe's looking to make a difference when she does. To date, the only socialchange movement that speaks to her says one thing: Stop. Stop shopping,start making your own household chemicals, rendering fat into soap, andhanging your clothes out on a laundry line. While these are noble ends,everything that we've learned about behavior change is that it happenssmall step by small step, so it's unlikely that a mom will switch fromCheez Whiz to tofu. Our battle is not between the organic carrot and theregular carrot, the battle is between the carrot and the Twinkie. There's a sense of green fatigue infecting many people, largely becauseit's being promoted as a panacea in ways that it doesn't deliver. "OrganicAmerican Spirit Cigarettes" still cause lung cancer and low-birth-weightbabies. Those cigarettes may be better for the "environment," but thissort of FOCUS obfuscates the fact that smoking kills a lot more peoplethan pesticides, and that we need to care about both the smoker and thefarmer. Organic is simply one step toward being blue even though it's thegold-standard for being green. While this movement will have many faces, it will use a platform that is adaily practice for most of us - shopping. While political activism is atbest a biannual pursuit, shopping is a regular activity for most people onthe planet, and if trends continue, for virtually everyone. Now before youattack me for sounding like President Bush who seemed to say after 9/11,"We can shop our way out of it," let me be clear. I'm not calling for youto get off the farm and into the mall. Engaging people as consumers, aspeople who shop, allows us the possibility of building a billion-personmovement. People don't need to join a listserv or pay a membership fee tojoin. They won't get a newsletter or a membership card that they need tostuff into their wallet. And no wall calendars. But how do we bring ouraspirations for the world into what we buy? This is the billion-personquestion. Every product you buy should be a gateway to a personal sustainabilitypractice. The first step is developing your own personal practices. Thesecond step is asking the stores where you shop to start carrying productsthat support your practice. And the third step is sharing your practicewith you friends. It all starts with you. 21st century award INFORUM's award is given to visionaries who are shaping the future. Recentrecipients include YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, KingAbdullah II of Jordan, Microsoft executive Paul Rutter, and tonight, AdamWerbach. INFORUM is a division of the Commonwealth Club. For text of Werbach's speech, go to www. saatchis.com/birthofblue For more information, go to http://www.commonwealthclub.org/ orgrist.org/birthofblue
Adam Werbach is the global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S and formerly servedas the national president of the Sierra Club. ----------------------------------------------------------------------Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle