community

Drinking Liberally: This Ain’t No Tea Party

Janice | February 15, 2012 - 12:43 pm

Are you wearying of the Republican primary marathon?
 Sure, it was amusing at first watching the Perry and McCain gaffe machines, but lately all the fun has gone out of it. The incessant finger pointing and negative advertising is enough to try the patience of even the most committed political junkie.

This would be a fine time to connect with your local chapter of Drinking Liberally.
Drinking Liberally is an informal, nonpartisan social gathering where left-leaning individuals can go to share a drink and a little political chit chat.

There are currently 227 Drinking Liberally chapters in 47 states plus a few overseas chapters for expats. Each meets at a regular bar or pub and at a regular time each week or month. Drinkers aren’t necessarily policy wonks, or even members of the Democratic Party, and progressive political discourse tends to be just a starting point for a night out with like-minded friends and strangers.

Think about the last Republican debate.
 You probably sat at home with your head ready to explode from the especially inflammatory and preposterous candidate statements. Instead, you could have gone to a Drinking Liberally debate-viewing party where everyone is welcome to vent their outrage among friends, boo at the screen with every mention of Obamacare or debt ceiling, and empty their glass when Ron Paul talks about the Federal Reserve.
Drinking Liberally makes activism fun.

Promote democracy one pint at a time.
 Find a Drinking Liberally gathering near you.

Drinking Liberally is a project of Living Liberally, an organization that builds progressive communities through social networks and events. You can also engage through the political comedy fans of Laughing Liberally, attend a film with Screening Liberally, have a good meal and conversation with Eating Liberally, and discover progressive authors with Reading Liberally.
 Conservatives don’t have nearly this much fun.

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Would You Trade Your McMansion for a Cup of Coffee?

Janice | February 9, 2012 - 10:36 am

How’s this for a cultural shift: most Americans would forgo square footage for a house near a Starbucks.
For generations of strivers a big house was one of the most important emblems of status, a four bedroom jacuzzi-tubbed signpost along the roadway to success. The Jeffersons were movin’ on up; the Clampetts got their Beverly Hills mansion with a ce-ment pond in back. Now, it seems, you’re a nobody if you can’t walk out the front door and get a latte.

According to the Community Preference Survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors, 77% of Americans say that walkability is an important factor in their housing decision, and they prefer nearby restaurants over schools, churches, parks, and movie theaters. 88% say that they would choose a smaller home in a neighborhood with nearby amenities over a larger home where they have to drive everywhere.

If you’ve ever lived in a highly walkable neighborhood, you already know what a beautiful thing it is. It gives you convenient access to the daily destinations of life. If you’re lucky, you can walk to school or work. If you’re even luckier, there are groceries, a decent bakery, and the all-important cup of coffee within walking distance.

A premium coffee vendor is no small thing to a neighborhood. It speaks to the area’s economic and cultural vitality; it signals that the neighborhood has arrived. A successful cafe can add to a neighborhood’s momentum, drawing in more businesses and raising property values, an upswing cycle that realtors and civic associations refer to as the ‘Starbucks Effect.’

You can learn the walkability rating of any home or business. Walk Score calculates a score from 0–100 for any address— 100 is a Walker’s Paradise and 0 is totally Car Dependent. The algorithm assigns points based on the nearby amenities, as well as factors like cul de sacs (not a walk-friendly feature) and block lengths (shorter is better). A car-free lifestyle becomes possible with a score upward of 80.

Check your Walk Score and see how it matches up against some of these well-known residences:

The Obama’s former Chicago home has a middling Walk Score of 71. The move to the White House got them into a home with the very robust score of 97.

The Brady Bunch ranch house had a Walk Score of 74; very respectable for the San Fernando Valley.

Monica’s lower Manhattan apartment on Friends scores an unbeatable 100 points.

 

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Supermarket Waste: Where Does the Old Food Go?

Janice | January 27, 2012 - 1:23 pm

image via Scary Mommy

The out-of-date yogurt cartons, the dented cans, the misshapen potatoes that shoppers passed over.
There’s a lot of activity behind the scenes and after hours at your local supermarket. Employees strip the shelves of brown bananas, opened boxes, broken jars, and stale muffins. They take the past-peak quality produce and meats to the deli or the salad bar and recycle them into prepared foods. They also remove packaged foods approaching their expiration dates—still perfectly good, but who’s going to buy a 5-pound block of cheese with 3 days left?

The good news is that more food than ever is finding a second life.

Wholesalers and supermarket chains have set up reclamation centers that operate as clearing houses for products considered unsaleable by the stores. The centers are filled with Christmas cookies in January, Valentine’s chocolate in March, and a year-round assortment of products that are nearing their sell-by dates or have packaging that has since been updated by the manufacturer. Much of it is shipped off to dollar stores and discount grocers, two categories that have become important to the food chain in our current economic state. There you’ll find an ever-changing assortment of foods—items discontinued by manufacturers, unfamiliar regional brands, foods labelled for export, and plenty of familiar and even high-end products all offered at highly discounted prices.

Food banks are another outlet for unsaleables, and most supermarket chains and reclamation centers participate in some sort of hunger relief program. The passage of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act encourages participation by protecting the stores and distributors from criminal or civil liability around issues of food safety. The FDA also enthusiastically supports the practice and has even emphasized that other than baby food and formula, most food expiration dates refer to the point when a product’s taste, texture, color, or nutritional benefits start to deteriorate rather than the point when you need to worry about the product’s safety.

Americans waste a lot of food—more than 40% of  all we produce. According to the The Natural Resources Defense Council if we wasted just 5 percent less food, it would be enough to feed 4 million Americans; 20 percent less waste would feed 25 million. This is indefensible at a time when both food prices and the number of Americans without enough to eat continue to rise.

On his Wasted Food website, Joanathan Bloom has a lot to say about food waste and what we can do about it.

AlterNet grades the food waste handling of Wal-Mart, Safeway, and other top grocery chains.

 

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Q: Should Food Stamps Be Used to Pay for Fast Food?

Janice | November 18, 2011 - 1:05 pm

 

image via SoapBlox

A: Yes. It alleviates hunger and avoids demeaning and intrusive Nanny State regulations.
A: No. It’s a blatant money-grab by the fast food industry at the expense of the health of our neediest and most vulnerable.

Hunger advocates are howling over fast food giant Yum! Brands’ campaign to allow low income Americans to use food stamps at its Taco Bell and KFC restaurants. Anti-hunger advocates feel that any increase in the availability of food is a good thing.

It’s a nice chunk of change to go after.
The number of Americans who use food stamps is now close to 46 million—that’s 15 percent of the population—with almost $65 billion to spend on food. The program (properly called SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, it’s been stamp- and coupon-less for years, but the ‘food stamp’ name stuck) currently places purchase restrictions on alcohol, cigarettes, pet food, vitamins, and hot, prepared food. Chips, candy, soda—all fair game.

Yum! Brands is trying to put a common sense spin on it, and groups like the Congressional Hunger Center and the Coalition for the Homeless are backing the fast food lobby. With five fast food outlets for every supermarket in the country, they argue it’s a convenient option, especially for the elderly, disabled, or homeless. And food stamps can already be used in convenience stores and gas stations, places not known for healthy options.

On the other side of the argument, health advocates have the U.S. Department of Agriculture in their corner, and that’s who funds the food stamp program. They feel that we can’t afford to be indifferent to the quality of the food. Access to fast food, with its often alarmingly high levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar, should not be expanded for low income populations that are plagued by high rates of obesity and diabetes. And for those trapped in a sedentary lifestyle, like the elderly and disabled, these foods are especially insidious.

According to the Food Stamp Act of 1977:
It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress, in order to promote the general welfare, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s population by raising levels of nutrition among low-income households.
Clearly, the policy is not referring to access to the KFC Double Down, but is it really better to go hungry?

 

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For $500 You Can Be a Restaurant Seatholder

Janice | October 11, 2011 - 10:19 am

 

image via Bruno Fosi Industrial Design

Restaurant reservations have never been easy to come by in New York.
When the neighborhood is trendy (TriBeCA), the executive chef is a big deal (Daniel Patterson of San Francisco’s Coi), and the cocktails are overseen by a legendary bartender (Dale ‘King Cocktail‘ DeGroff), you’re either waiting a year or so for the place to cool down or dining at 5:15, six weeks from next Tuesday.

The team behind The Elevens is counting on that kind of buzz; in fact they’re banking on it. A good 6+ months from the spring 2012 opening, they’re looking to sell $1 million worth of something they call seatholderships. For $500 you can be one of 2,000 seatholders. That one-time investment will get you ‘priority’ reservations, a 25 percent discount on everything you order (and up to 3 guests, if you’re paying), and access to special events. They’re also promising to put some of the business decisions up for voting by seatholders.

The team behind The Elevens says that selling seatholderships is not just about the money, and certainly with all the accolades trailing them (James Beard Foundation awards, Michelin stars) one would assume there were other funding options. They are hoping to foster “a convivial community of compatriots… camaraderie with the staff and fellow regulars… a sense of proprietorship… of belonging.” And you can get a table on Saturday night.

An early draft of the food and cocktail menus are posted on the website, along with a little do the math section to show seatholder savings over 10 years. As of this writing, 84 seatholderships have been purchased.

 

 

Posted in community, restaurants | 1 Comment

Is Access to Healthy Food a Basic Human Right?

Janice | October 6, 2011 - 11:23 am

Is access to healthy food a basic human right?
That’s the question being asked by California Governor Jerry Brown.

Not just food, but healthy food.
Food access is a right. That one has been with us since 1948, the result of the experience of the Second World War. At the end of that war, vowing that the world would never again see such suffering, the international community created the United Nations and drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among the various protections, guarantees, and liberties is the individual’s right to food.

Back in 1948, nobody thought to specify the type of food. When those words were written, the Big Mac was just a gleam in Roy Kroc’s eye, and the Colonel had yet to fry his first chicken. Who could have imagined a time when nutrition would be so divorced from food that malnutrition could go hand-in-hand with obesity?
This is the paradox of modern-day poverty.

It’s like the line in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
Millions of Americans are adrift in a sea of junk food. They are surrounded by cheap and abundant processed foods, with little access to healthy foods. This landscape has been dubbed ‘food deserts,’ to describe low-income communities with plenty of processed foods at convenience stores and fast food outlets, but little or no fresh food, and the nearest supermarket is one mile away if it’s an urban community, and 10 miles away if it’s rural.

The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that this is a reality for more than 20 million Americans, and 1.7 million of them are living in California. The bill on Governor Brown’s desk would create the California Healthy Food Financing Initiative. It enables the state to collaborate with public, private, and philanthropic entities to bring loan and grant financing to the under-served neighborhoods. The goal is to encourage existing businesses to expand their healthier offerings, and to attract grocery stores, food cooperatives, farmers’ markets, and other fresh food retailers.

Is access to high quality food a basic human right?
The State Assembly and the Senate in California think so; in fact they have thought so twice. The previous governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was inclined to believe that healthy food is a privilege earned by the state’s wealthier residents who own cars or live within striking distance of farmers markets; last year he vetoed a similar bill after it passed both houses of the legislature. Once again, it sits on the governor’s desk where it is a signature away from becoming law.

Find out where they are: the Economic Research Service of the USDA created a Food Desert Locator based on census tract-level data.

The Food Environment Atlas lets you go deeper into a community’s statistics, looking at factors like restaurant expenditures and meals cooked at home.

 

 

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You Can Bring a Gun into a Restaurant in 49 States

Janice | October 3, 2011 - 10:54 am

image via the Chattanooga Pulse

This weekend, Ohio became the latest state to open its bar and restaurant doors to gun-toting customers. Ohio joins four other states, Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia, and Virginia, that recently enacted laws explicitly allowing loaded guns in bars, while 17 other states allow weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol. The status is fuzzy in another 20 states, including New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, where legislatures have not explicitly addressed the question; by default they are allowing their residents to carry guns into establishments that serve alcohol.

These laws are the latest wave in the country’s gun debate, and represent progress made by the gun lobby as it seeks, state by state, to expand the realm of guns in everyday life. They follow last year’s Supreme Court rulings affirming that citizens have an individual right to keep a loaded handgun for self defense. The rulings opened a floodgate of lawsuits challenging various state gun laws. Some of the most extreme proposals have come from gunslinging Governor Rick Perry who thinks Texans should always come to the table strapped, even when that table is in a school cafeteria.

The laws in most states allow people licensed to carry concealed weapons to take them into taverns, hotels, and restaurants. Armed customers are not supposed to drink, although that’s little comfort to servers and bartenders, many of whom feel that the mix of guns and alcohol-emboldened customers creates an unsafe work environment. Bars and restaurants are free to post signs banning weapons, but compliance can be iffy, with local gun-carry forums springing up to point out loopholes, and of course the weapons are concealed in the first place.

The logic of the madhouse
On November 1, when Governor Scott Walker signs Wisconsin’s Personal Protection Act into law, Illinois will be the nation’s last hold-out; the only state to prohibit the  carrying of guns into restaurants. It’s a sad day when a state’s General Assembly thinks its citizens need to carry weapons to be safe in restaurants.

We know that alcohol and firearms are a dangerous mix, but we seem to have lost touch with common sense on this life-and-death issue.

Keep up with the latest gun legislation with the public interest law center Legal Community Against Violence.

The NRA website has in interactive, state-by-state map of current firearm laws, as well as a citizen’s guide to federal laws.

 

 

 

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Culinary Crusaders: lending a hand in the volunteer kitchen

Janice | April 27, 2010 - 1:08 pm 

image via saavi

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If you can chop or bake or just wash dishes, then have I got an opportunity for you!

From gleaning fields after a harvest to feeding the hungry in Appalachia to a bake sale in your community, there is a food-focused volunteer opportunity to fit every calendar, budget, and skill set. [...]

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