Setting the watchdogs on deforestation

Deforestation increases as demand continually rises for palm oil

Deforestation area (Brazil). Credit: Brent Stirton / Getty images / WWF

Palm oil is used widely. It is used for preventing diseases and is high in vitamins. Usages span a great range from cooking to cosmetics and from increasing the body's metabolism to keeping our bodies clean. It is used in biofuel and is found in about half of all grocery store finds. It is a prevalent ingredient, common. It is also a readily available and affordable resource that has been reported to promote significant deforestation.

According to Ethical Consumer, 6.7 million acres of deforestation occurred as a result of the increased demand of palm oil in the 1990s. Demand has not decreased. In fact, palm oil manufacturers are looking to more places in which they can create plantations to harvest and process the oil because demand has continually increased. It has long been apparent that a solution is needed.

In an article on Tuesday, July 1, Wired Magazine noted that a newly made map of palm oil plantations, created by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), could help stave off rainforest destruction. The idea is to make the plantations visible. The map mentioned shows the location of active forest fires (which is the most common of the deforestation methods) and differentiates between sustainable and unsustainable palm oil plantations. The map puts the information not only into the hands of RSPO member companies but also into the hands of the public, making it possible for many more people to act as watchdogs over current practices.

It was a challenge to create a real-time map for this purpose but with the combination of data gleaned from Google, NASA, and other sources, the feat has been accomplished. While the map is a big step in the direction of holding palm oil plantation owners accountable, it does not guarantee compliance.

According to the RSPO’s own resources, the program is limited:

The Mass Balance system does not guarantee that the end product actually contains sustainable palm oil as conventional and sustainable oil are mixed throughout the supply chain (RSPO).

Unilever (one of the founding members of RSPO) suggests that palm oil users take responsibility in these efforts as the RSPO does their work:

The RSPO is a voluntary organisation and it has two mechanisms to ensure that members live up to their commitments. One is the Code of Conduct and the other is the certification framework. Palm oil producers are required to commit to having their operations certified against the RSPO standards. Users of palm oil are asked to commit to purchasing and using certified, sustainable palm oil. The mandatory annual reporting of progress is the check on each member, available on the RSPO website.

One way to shirk this whole business is to check your labels. Another is to just buy palm oil free products.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com

I have poems at the Denver Crossroads

in front of one of the Santa Fe Arts District murals
"History of the Westside Community," by Marc Anthony Martinez, 2002

*****

Some time ago, Denver poet, Carson Reed asked me to give him some poems for his wonderful project, The Denver Crossroads. Below follows one of those poems. Following the poem is a link to more of them, and in the sometime future, there will be more poems from me for his site.

He takes submissions! Links for more info follow below!

*****

a strawberry field in Oregon, summer of ’96

My beau, smiling in the sun, 

cracking jokes in Spanish

never looked so bright, crouched in the fields
with his friends.

The ladies, too, wives,
buckets full already, gossip and laugh,
and I’m trying to pick faster.

My beginner’s Spanish,
my 1/10th full bucket of berries,
my wobbling ankles and lips already cracking;
no hat for sun, and clothes
too warm for this — I’m only 40 minutes in,
feeling faint and weak.

I’d like to taste
a berry, juicy, sun-warmed,
straight from the bush,
but I need water, shade,
and a bushel or two.
No time to pick for me.

I am a tourist here
and when the farmer comes
looking after the workers,
poking fun as they blink,
throwing a bonus of Taco Bell
to supplement a pittance, I turn,
lips quivering, tongue
sticking in my mouth, telling him
I speak perfect English.

*originally published at the Denver Crossroads

To learn more about the Crossroads poem, developed by Carson Reed, go here: http://denvercrossroads.wordpress.com

"Writers are Assholes"

photo courtesy of Steve Eggleston

The other day, over a beer and fried pickles, two friends and I talked about many things including writer's groups.

"Writers are assholes," one friend said, "I'll never attend another writer's group again."

The other friend agreed. I found that I couldn't agree, really, so I asked them to explain.

The one friend said something close to what follows:

"Every time I have tried to get together with other writers to work, they agree to the gatherings, and then pass out copies of their own work for everyone else to read and be really resistant to feedback. In fact, they just won't take it and then, they'll go on to mention how awesome their work is and tear everyone else's work to shreds for no reason. Sometimes the critiques aren't even constructive ("This sucks!). Sometimes they don't even know how to string two sentences together. It's frustrating. It's maddening."

I thought about this. I had been to some workshops like that, mostly as an undergrad. On the whole, though, I seemed to have had some really good experiences with writing groups.

I asked if I could tell them about my experiences. They gave the go ahead. I'll repeat them here plus some:

In college, I was president of a poetry club that a friend and I had founded. Sometime during the course of the year, attendants (of which there were no less than 10 every single week) asked us for poetry writing workshops. This made me nervous at first. I hadn't even finished my undergrad yet. But nonetheless, there it was. People came to our meetings, stayed two or three extra hours after so they could share their work, receive and give feedback. The workshops were productive, fun, and consistent. 

There were a few things that were very key in the workshops' success. Our poetry meetings were very inclusive. We'd invite members to present on topics they cared about. Then at the workshops we would gauge where writers were as far as receiving feedback went. Not everyone was there to publish. Some attendants wanted to feel that their work had potential. Some just wanted to write and share their work. It was our opinion that all of this was okay.

For me, meeting the writer where s/he was became pertinent. I'd ask questions to gauge like, "What kind of feedback are you looking for today?" and then continue when the answer had been received. I would mention what I  liked most about the work, favorite or strongest, most moving parts of the work and how the writer could grow as a whole (speaking while keeping in mind where the writer was). I would tell them colors or images if I saw them, emotions, things they could hold on to and recognize. The critiques were not highfalutin and this kind of workshopping became the model on which this particular group was based. 

***

I have attended a few odd or so workshops with some of the local slam poets. I was not able to attend consistently but I could see that they had a really consistent group attendance. The goal was to write performance poems, and really good ones, poems that captured the audience and won them. One of the leaders and many of the attendants were already receiving significant attention and had been working in the poetry community for a long time.

The temperature there was kind but it was not without its work. The workshops also felt inclusive. Attendants would workshop one poet's piece at a time as a group. After listening, they would take turns and tell the performer/writer what really worked for them, what hit them in the gut and the heart, what didn't, what was unclear, cliches, and on and on. No one left angry, as far as I could tell. Everyone was there for that particular goal. Everyone gave something and everyone gained.

***

I belong to some other writer's groups, currently. I work with a group of ladies who gather two or three times a year for poetry writing marathons, to share and workshop, talk about ideas, memories, stories, and to celebrate our accomplishments. It's always a wonderful time and we get a lot of work done. Between workshops/writing retreats, we check in and support one another.

I also sometimes attend other groups. I study formally in paid workshops with accomplished writers as well as have gatherings of my own to discuss everything from grammar to craft and reading. Sometimes I'll meet with someone once over coffee or tea. Sometimes, I touch base with an ongoing group, some of them hybrid on-line/3-D meetups of writers in just about every stage of development, some of them academic-minded, for example, some of them just getting started. Sometimes the meetings surround a small project or a fun writing activity like exquisite corpse.

I'm not really sure if writers are assholes or not. Maybe we all are. Here I am writing a blog post about something unresolved in a conversation I had with friends. I guess, for me, the key in all of this is knowing what you really need or want from a workshop. When you know what you need or want from a workshop, you can then decide whether the one you are attending works for you or not. You are allowed to walk away and make new groups or connect with others depending on those needs and wants. You steer the boat.

Strange How Things Are Connected. In this Case? Ludlow, Burroughs, and the Passing of 100 Years.

ruins of the Ludlow Massacre
image found here: https://libcom.org/history/1914-the-ludlow-massacre

This is just a note on the strangeness, sometimes, of how things are connected: 

On the bus ride home, I was reading about Burroughs from his anthology, Word Virus. I had just read about Burroughs' family's connection with Ludlow from the introduction. A passage read, "Burroughs' maternal uncle, Ivy Lee, a pioneer of public relations, had helped John D. Rockefeller Jr. improve his image after the Ludlow Massacre of 1914."

I thought, "Wow. How could something like that be summed up in a sentence with a note of slight connection between the author and this grand historic thing? [The connection was meant to show that William S. Burroughs was connected to many important and also, often "ominous" points in history by blood]. Also, I must (!) catch up and find out what this Ludlow thing was that happened."

It's been coming up a lot. At a dinner party last month, at the writing retreat fairly recently, and then a day or two ago or maybe even this morning, a line passing on the ticker tape at the Denver Post building showing the headline for their article for the recognition of the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow catastrophe. I never had time to follow up why it tickered by until now (quite literally, now).

Then, I looked down onto the bus floor. Right there, close to my left foot was a crumpled Westword for this week. It lay face up, a fiery painting of a miner staring up out of the floor, and inside the rag, the article, talking about Ludlow, speaking to why it's important to remember.

Strange how things are connected, indeed, and this is some deep stuff I'm reading, no matter how you go about it.

Lately, Writing Samples Can Maybe Look Like This

This picture is neither here nor there. It's just
a picture of some possible blog ideas. 

I just wanted to share this. It was part of an application I turned in for a social media customer support position in Denver. I'm not sure it was what they were looking for but who knows? Maybe? It's fun stuff to guess, in any case. I'd love any feedback should those writer friends out there have any. Peace!

Writing Sample

An Example of How I Connect on Facebook:

After a friend recently introduced me to a girl band from Japan that mashes up Japanese Idol-Pop with Metal, I started a conversation about it and I also felt the need to do a little research:

My Response to Seeing BabyMetal for the first time: https://www.facebook.com/sireneatspoetry/posts/10100178757630793

The Research: https://www.facebook.com/sireneatspoetry/posts/10100179147968553

These two posts also resulted in multiple posts on my page and shares from my posts sharing either metal bands from Japan, the US or thoughts about BabyMetal.

Blogging:

Self-Made Internships

An Introduction to an Upcoming Music Research and Outreach Blog

Meetings with Mentors

Reinstating an Anchor for Creative Writing Discipline

Music Blogging

Old gig picture taken by my Mom. 
I might not even be 21, yet.
Taken at Flying M Coffee House in Boise, Idaho. 

Finally! After a year or so of thinking about posting at Reigniting My School Girl Crush  for Music, I've done it!

This blog sort of serves as a hub for many blogs. At least, that is the goal. I want to run a series of music research blogs that start at that page and really, help me keep track of things I come across.

I haven't completely thought this out yet. In fact, figuring out the way in which I would go about the music crush blog was a bit of an accident, or rather, it came from a reminder, a conversation about music, which I talk about in the first post.

I'm not a critic, nor do I really want to be. I just want to share experiences and learn. So, there you go. That's precisely what this blog aims to do and where it begins. It aims solely to express excitement about music, share that excitement and even relate what I learn from the music that comes into these ears. I might even sometimes talk about craft, and how I might apply what I learn.

Hopefully within this year, I will work on more thorough research and study projects, as well. Some of those projects involve connecting with other folks in the musical and sound healing arts. Some of them just involve listening, going through my old CDs, and ever finding new reasons to be simply in love with music. Maybe, I'll find some new ideas along the way. I hope you'll listen and share along with me. I'm always open to listening to new tunes, new sounds, etc. Please, please, feel free to send them my way, should you think of it!

A Few Degrees Separated from Fame

It seems that I am often somehow just a few clicks (more or less) shy of being where the famous people are in the strangest way. Here are some examples:

I have a friend who tells a story that on the day that Kurt Cobain died, Courtney Love called his house and he happened to pick up. He heard, "He's dead." on the other end.  

My first real boyfriend and his brother went to Seattle on a trip long ago. I wasn't able to go because of work and I'm sure they wanted their own brotherly time together. During that weekend, they'd run in to Saul Williams and spent maybe a couple of hours with him, maybe exploring the city and chatting. I don't quite remember the details. I'd written an email shortly after that to Saul Williams and mentioned what a strange coincidence I thought it was, that two clicks shy thing, and that perhaps sometime we too would meet and maybe even collaborate on something. He wrote back, open to the idea but not attached to it, as good journey makers do. Since then, I've never been where he is aside from listening to or reading his work. 

Maybe a year ago, maybe more, I met a producer who offered a gig to me that I later said no to (I still sometimes kick myself) who owns Michael Jackson tracks that no one else has heard. He carried them around via Dropbox on his smartphone and I wondered why he wouldn't let me listen to the whole song. I suppose it could have been that we were talking about the blues. Also, it really was proof about the caliber of producer he is. 

 I know an art conservator who has worked on some Andy Warhol pieces and divulged that the artist didn't really care about what the art's materials were. His work was done in crummy mediums, on flimsy, cheap paper and canvasses, and maybe a bit haphazardly and just because. 

I'm not sure why I am thinking about these things today. It's not important to me per say to be where the famous people are. It's not something I aim to do let alone care to do. I'm genuinely interested in people, especially if they are passionate about something. That could be art, music, politics, travel, etc., maybe even just watching nature and breathing.

Working at a coffee shop downtown puts me eye to eye with many famous people, most of whom I rarely recognize. The ones I have recognized or have had any correspondence with really seem to be like me, people who are following their loves and passions and who happen to be passing through.

Also, there are the friends and acquaintances within my circles who are amazing people and who are doing amazing things, some of them blowing up, have, or will. Some of them maybe never will. Some of them are big fishes in small ponds, others non-descript and still unyielding in their art or work. All of them passionately, or even half-heartedly, at times, chasing their very beautiful passions and dreams. . . .

I don't know where the difference is; famous or not famous, accomplished or not accomplished. Sometimes, maybe it's just a little bit of luck and who knows how important, really.


*all selfies taken at Madame Tussaud's in Las Vegas, Nevada, 2008.