Activism 101 primer: They Said it Was Impossible: How to Win Progressive Change When the Odds Are Against Us by LAANE in Los Angeles
precaution.org/lib/theysaiditwasimpossible.120304.pdf
99% Spring Activism Training Videos training.the99spring.com/training/99spring/?rc=RTD
I did get on a bike for about 15 minutes at a family Y camp weekend six or seven years ago. I walked away wondering if I could stand ever getting bike on a bike seat again because my rear end hurt so bad from my weight being concentrated on one tiny little seat. Despite misgivings, and having lost about 100 pounds since then, I drove to Liberty State Park in Jersey City yesterday and rode for half an hour. I’m glad to report that my butt was fine this time, I enjoyed the ride and I also learned a couple of interesting truths.
First of all, it is definitely the case that a person never forgets how to ride a bicycle – even a slim-wheeled road bike with the kind of handles you have to lean over to grasp hold of. But you have to be really brave to take the step of launching yourself forward into gravity balancing mode and relying on the mechanics of biking. Before I got moving, I almost fell over a bunch of times. Then I gave myself a stern talking to. I said, “You’ve done this zillions of times before. You know that once you get the bike going the forward movement will help you balance. If you’re too fat and out of shape to stay on the bike you’ll find that out pretty quickly and then you can go home with at least the accomplishment of having found this out under your belt.
Before you get to go home, though, you have to try to ride this bike. That’s what you committed to do today, it’s something you’ve thought about doing for about 10 years, you really want to get back in the bike riding habit and there’s no other way to get there except by actually riding; you desperately need more exercise and to launch into a more physically active lifestyle, and biking may be the key to all this so you really need to give it a shot. On the plus side, there’s a reasonably good chance that you’re going to be able to ride now, since you’ve ridden so many times before, even though that was many years ago. Basically, you just have to worry about falling over before you can get the happy forward motion going, and then how you’re going to hop off the seat to get your legs on the ground before the bike stops moving when you want to stop.” This pep talk helped, although I did ask myself why I hadn’t had the foresight to wear pants on this ride just in case I did end up falling over and scraping my flesh along the ground. I reminded myself that if that happened I probably wouldn’t be going fast enough to do any serious damage. I was a bundle of all kinds of enthusiastic optimism.
I adjusted the pedals so I could push down easily on one of them, pushed down firmly and lo and behold, Good Lord, there I was riding a bike all by myself!
I next discovered that when riding a bike configured with lean-over handlebars, steering is a challenge because your weight tends to be forward on the handlebars. If you’re leaning too hard on them your own weight makes it difficult to change direction. I backed onto the seat a bit so my weight was distributed more evenly between handles and seat, and then steering was easier. Easier, that is, not easy. I spent my half hour ride shouting out to people walking on the path in front of me to please move to one side because, “I don’t know what I’m doing. First bike ride in 30 years!” (Close enough to truth.)
I wobbled when I tried to direct the bike right or left, found it impossible to make tight turns because doing so required that I slow down too much to stay balanced; and when I went up any incline with a grade of more than 10% I pretty much lost control of my steering altogether. Apparently, the effort of cycling harder competed with my ability to keep my hands steady on the handlebars. That wasn’t fun.
Cross-country biker John Sowell had cautioned me to bring a sweater because the air tends to be cool next to the waterfront. Great advice because it was cool, but then I had the curious sensation of my face and legs being coolish while sweating under my sweatshirt from exertion.
I found out that biking leaning over the handlebars gives arms a workout as well as legs, and after dismounting my legs wobbled like they do after I’ve ridden a horse (another activity I haven’t tried for several decades). And, I learned that I really need a bike rack: some cool army guys and a volunteer for the fund-raising walk taking place in the park lifted my bike in and out of the car for me, but I can’t count on help like that always being available. I definitely didn’t have the strength to lift my bike into the back of the car when I was finished riding.
I discovered that I like riding a heck of a lot more than I like walking, and also discovered that while it must be nice to experience the surrounding world from the open-air perspective of biking, it’s going to be a while until I feel secure enough to look at anything besides the ground directly in front of me when I ride. I now understand why many lady bikers prefer not to bike alongside vehicular traffic. I can’t imagine doing any of what I did yesterday next to a moving line of cars, and surviving. It happens to be really difficult to find off-road flattish bike paths in northern New Jersey, though.
All good take-aways for my first independent bike foray. Most importantly, I had a good time and am eager to get back into the saddle again.
Since deciding I couldn’t continue to poison my children with high fructose corn syrup aka glucose syrup, corn syrup and the like, I’ve been looking for better alternatives that won’t break the bank.
At Fairway in Paramus, which is expensive for produce and many other items, but has the most fabulous bagels in the area at the great price of 79¢ each (but quite often on sale for 50¢) I found moderately priced ice cream by Alden’s Ice Cream which is not only made with real cream and sugar – it’s also organic! A 1.5 quart tub cost about $7.00, which made it much cheaper than the only real sugar alternative at Shop Rite which was $8.00 for 1 quart and is not organic. I made my kids promise that if I buy them really expensive ice cream that won’t automatically kill them when they eat it, that they won’t gobble the container up in a day and a half. They are going through this box slowly, so I’m really happy with the find.
So, what about jelly and cereal? The small jar of grape jam I got (also at Fairway) was way too pricey. Not sustainable. A friend told me to check the ingredients on Trader Joe’s cereals so walked down their aisle, discovering with relief that every one of their cereals uses sugar as a sweetener instead of corn syrup AND is affordably priced starting at $2.49 per large-sized box.
Trader Joe’s also has many flavors of jams and jellies all made with sugar, and none of them listing any ingredients resembling corn syrup. Nice sized jars cost just a bit more than I’ve been paying at Shoprite for the killer version.
Fortunately, there are plenty of grocery stores in northern New Jersey. With a small investment in time and a bit more expense, I’ve already made serious progress towards wiping out corn syrup from my family’s lexicon and our pantry shelves. Exciting!
Local Honey
New Jersey Beekeeper’s Association Directory
New Jersey State Directory
The Hudson Valley (NY)
Your county cooperative extension agent
Green Drinks Hackensack has been meeting at Victor’s Maywood Inn in Maywood since our first meeting venue, The Restaurant, burnt down. Victor’s has been very hospitable to us and they have great food, but there are a few reasons we’d like to find a new home for our monthly get-togethers:
Last night the group gathered was rolling ideas around about a change in venue, and I thought of a restaurant I’ve eaten at several times that’s located on Main Street and has great food. It’s a tradition for Green Drinks to take place in places that serve liquor, and this place doesn’t, but this is not a requirement or a big consideration for us anyway, since 70% of our members don’t drink at meetings. This morning I reached out to the restaurant’s owner to discuss the idea of us meeting there, but although he admits to his place being pretty empty on Monday nights, he still isn’t keen on the idea of hosting us.
In the couple of years I’ve been scouting out good places to meet, B is certainly not the first venue owner to offer discouragement instead of a warm welcome. He wanted us to commit to ordering a minimum amount per person, something I’m not willing to do since inclusion is part of the Green Drinks philosophy I’m sure B’s not asking casual diners who happen by on a given Monday night to do the same, so that’s a discriminatory practice! When restauranteurs hear “environmental”, do they think of wispy hippy types who consume only alfalfa sprouts, honey and wheat bread and ride bikes because they can’t afford to drive cars – and can’t imagine the reality: that the north Jersey Green Drink crowd contains plenty of professionally employed home owners who eat out on a regular basis?
I ended up asking myself – and now I’m asking followers: do you think it’s shortsighted of a food establishment’s owner to discourage Green Drinks from gathering there on an off night mainly because we won’t guarantee consumption of a minimum amount of food per person? Since I was thinking about it, I made up a list of:
Reasons a venue can benefit from hosting Green Drinks gatherings
Take Back Port Newark
When: Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Where: Essex County College
Siegler Hall, Room 2132
303 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102
SPEAKERS:
It’s time to take back the Port and make it work for Newark and its people!
For corporations in the Tri-State Area, Port Newark means:
Eating Very Well!!!
For Newark residents, Port Newark means:
Washing Dirty Dishes!
For more information contact:
Take Back Port Newark Coalition: 978-573-6013 or 201-878-8482
I don’t know a whole lot of transgenic foods, but I think there’s something wrong, anyway, in adding salmon fish genes to say, whatever plant my tortilla chips are produced from in order to make those plants not as susceptible to some disease or pest, or more likely to grow in a certain way or at a certain rate of speed. I don’t want to argue with people who say, “You can’t impede commerce and every part of the world has to be somebody’s commercial oyster.” Those people are wrong, but I don’t care to argue with them.
However, I do think that we, the people, should know when weird stuff is implanted in the foods we consume thinking we’re eating something we’re familiar with and that’s naturally derived. I am so not alone in my thinking. By the way, transgenic and GMO are terms for the same practice – modifying the genes of one form of life with a gene from a different life form. U-T San Diego reports,
In a nationwide telephone poll conducted in October 2010 by Thomson Reuters and National Public Radio, 93 percent said if a food has been genetically engineered or has genetically engineered ingredients, it should say so on its label — a number that has been consistent since genetically modified crops were introduced. FDA guidelines say that food that contains genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, does not have to say so and can still be labeled “all natural.”
In California, voters in November will decide on a ballot initiative requiring the labeling of such foods.
In October, an online campaign called Just Label It began collecting signatures and comments on a petition to the FDA, requesting rules similar to those in the European Union, Japan, China, India and Australia, stating what transgenic food is in the package.
and Natural Society’s Feb 1 2012 article shows Vermont is taking the GMO labeling issue seriously as well.
Vermont has taken the initiative against Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations in launching new legislation that would require the labeling of products containing genetically modified ingredients. The bill, known as the ‘VT Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act’, was introduced to the Vermont House of Representatives by Representative Kate Webb of Shelburne on February 1st, 2012. The bill would require the labeling of not only products filled entirely with GMOs, but also for those partially created using GM ingredients.
My friend Lenny Thomas attributes the death of honey bees to genetically modified crops. What do you think, New Jersey, should we get a movement like this started in our state?
Earthships
You can visit New Mexico and stay at a luxuriously furnished home built out of recycled and repurposed materials: the cost of a renting the home for a night is what you expect to pay for a room at a city hotel. You can also have one of these things built for you by their creator’s team.
Earthbags
Ever seen a movie where soldiers pile up bags of dirt as a barrier to enemy fire? Well, it turns out that if you pile up enough similar bags, also filled with dirt, in the right configuration you can end up with an Earthbag house, complete with windows and a door.
This Monday at Green Drinks, a few of us from the Fair Lawn Green Team will be discussing safe bike routes in north Jersey, especially how to create a direct connection from the county bike path to Bergen Community College. We welcome input and would love to know what your biking concerns are.
GREEN DRINKS HACKENSACK – FEBRUARY
Monday 13 February 2011 | 7:00pm
Victor’s Maywood Inn
122 W. Pleasant Avenue, Maywood, NJ
(201) 843-8022
Admission: Always free
Food: Pay only for food and drinks you order
Parking: free on site
GREEN DRINKS 3 SCHEDULE
Green Drinks Hackensack Monday 2/13 @ 7:00pm
Green Drinks Paterson/Clifton TUESDAY 2/21 @ 7:00pm
Green Drinks Newark Monday 3/5 @ 7:00pm
Espanõl-parlantes muy bienvenidos en todas las reuniones Green Drinks! Visite http://greendrinks3.org para información sobre nuestra organización en español.
ABOUT GREEN DRINKS HACKENSACK
We have a nice and growing group in Hackensack hosted by Ivan Gomez Wei, Sally Gellert, Yulieth Peña and Kim Wei. I hope you’ll come by and share a drink and some chicken wings with us. If you don’t drink alcohol, don’t worry – many Greendrinkers don’t. We are in Hackensack every 2nd Monday.
WHAT IS GREEN DRINKS?
A Green Drinks get-together is: Lively, casual conversation with other people interested in green or sustainable life, business and community practices, green jobs, the green economy and urban farming/gardening. Feel free to drop by for however long you like – as the general monthly meetings have no set format and people come and go during the evening.
We always meet in places where the food is good and prices are easy on the pocket. And by the way, Green Drinks gatherings ARE NOT about drinking or green colored drinks. They’re about the environment!
GREEN DRINKS IS OPEN
Open to the public, discussions are where you want to take them, and admission is always free. Green professionals, area residents and all others are welcome! Help us build a friendly new green community one person at a time, by joining us one evening.
More info at greendrinks3.org
I’m always telling people, “You can’t just buy green. You have to consume less.” But gee, there are some fun products out there, like the plantable postcards (they contain seeds) from the USPS. Find the postcards and check out some fun family activities at the USPS Go Green page. They’ve designed a series of 16 Go Green stamps too to encourage ride sharing – buy them and learn about the post office’s commit to sustainability at usps.com.