tagged w/ Local
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I've been tired of the holiday season since Halloween. What's with trampling people to death, store clerks screaming at shoppers, and waking up at the crack of dawn for "deals"?
Luckily there's a light at the end of the tunnel and that is buying handmade goods. In fact, there's a pledge out there to support smart shopping. I think we need a revolution. A handmade revolution!
Go check out the blog where you can sign up to take the pledge, and see links to some pretty nifty Etsy shops!
Happy Shopping Y'all!I've been tired of the holiday season since Halloween. What's with trampling... more
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Wall Street might have been happy with the government's latest multibillion-dollar banking intervention, but many small community banks are asking for equal treatment.
"I guess appalled is not too strong a word," Cindy Blankenship said to describe her feeling after learning of the government's help for Citigroup. Blankenship and her husband founded the Bank of the West back in 1986. The bank, based in Grapevine, Texas, has since grown to eight locations in Northern Texas and has about $280 million in assets.
Late Sunday night, the government announced $306 billion in loan guarantees for the giant bank as well as another $20 billion cash infusion in exchange for preferred shares in the bank. The banking giant got $25 billion under the first bailout plan announced earlier.Wall Street might have been happy with the government's latest... more
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HAVERHILL, N.H. - A county treasurer who lost her bid for a fourth term last week to a 20-year-old Dartmouth College student from Montana blames her failed candidacy on "brainwashed college kids."
Republican Carol Elliott said students just voted for the Democratic ticket, which included Dartmouth junior Vanessa Sievers. Sievers won by nearly 600 votes out of 42,000 cast after targeting voters at Dartmouth and Plymouth State University through a $42 ad on the Web site Facebook.
"It was the brainwashed college kids that made the difference," Elliott, 66, told the Valley News of Lebanon. She said she had little faith that Sievers will fulfill her duties adequately.
"You've got a teenybopper for a treasurer," said Elliott, who has held the position for six years. "I'm concerned for the citizens of Grafton County."HAVERHILL, N.H. - A county treasurer who lost her bid for a fourth term last week to a... more
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"President Bush recently turned to Brit Hume of Fox News and told him flat out that he prefers to get his "news" from White House and national staff, rather than as reports from journalists. Though that may have stunned the media elite, many ordinary Americans cheered. For two decades polls increasingly have indicated public dismay at the spin and fantasies of the press.
In fact, a recent Gallup Poll says Americans rate the trustworthiness of journalists at about the level of politicians and as only slightly more credible than used-car salesmen. The poll suggests that only 21 percent of Americans believe journalists have high ethical standards, ranking them below auto mechanics but tied with members of Congress."
"President Bush recently turned to Brit Hume of Fox News and told him flat out... more
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The readers of more than 70 alternative newspapers are being urged to spend at least $100 of their holiday money this fall at locally owned stores in their communities -- a move that could pump more than $2.9 billion into urban economies during this recession-plagued season.
The project is based on data showing that money spent in locally owned businesses tends to stay in the area and circulate through the community, increasing economic activity. Economists call this the "multiplier effect."
"If every one of the 17.5 million readers of these weeklies were to spend just $100 with local, independently owned merchants, the impact would be enormous," said Jody Colley, publisher of the East Bay Express in Berkeley/Oakland and the originator of the project.
The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) helped develop the unprecedented project. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a trade organization of 130 alternative newspapers, helped line up 73 papers in the United States and Canada.
"This is an incredibly exciting and unprecedented effort by the press to reach out and work with the local economic development community," said Erin Kilmer-Neel, program officer at OneCalifornia Foundation, and active member in both BALLE and AMIBA. "In my mind, this can be a perfect partnership -- local, independently-owned publications helping other local indie businesses in their community toward positive economic change."
Added Kilmer-Neel: "When people choose to shop at locally-owned, independent businesses in their communities, they are re-circulating dollars in those communities, supporting more local jobs, keeping their neighborhoods interesting and unique and reducing their carbon footprints.
"We came out in the millions to make change this week by voting. Conscious shopping, like voting, is a powerful way to make change. Collectively, we will continue to spend billions and billions of dollars as we shop throughout our lives -- imagine the power that this money can have if each one of us tries to be conscious about where it goes."
The move is "simply part of our mission as a newspaper," Tim Redmond, executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, one of the early supporters of the project, said. "A sustainable community needs a sustainable economy, and that starts with locally owned independent businesses."
The project will run through the holiday season. The readers of more than 70 alternative newspapers are being urged to spend at least... more
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My name is Alton W. Plemmons III. I work for Hillsborough Community College, and also take classes at their Plant City campus. For the past seven months I have been stalked and harassed for my political views, by one student in particular. I have personally told him to back off time and time again. After he would not leave me alone and continued following me I had my friends inform him to back off and leave me alone. In May I brought up my worries to a few in the Administration, and they assured me that they would handle it. I told them about how he had sent me information on how Liberalism is suicide, and even more disturbing his secret plan to take over the College’s Student Government Association. I also told them how he has expressed unabashed hatred towards African Americans, Muslims, Asians, Latinos, and any other race that is not White and Christian. His writings were disturbing enough to me that I felt they needed to be addressed by the Administration. They informed me that they had talked to him and informed him also, to leave me alone and stop with the insensitive writings.
Yesterday, September 11th 2008, my stalker followed me all the way from my Psychology class to my workplace on campus. He the stood outside my office banging on my window and raising his voice telling me that I needed to come out and speak with him for nearly two and a half minutes. I would not, and he finally left. Later in the day he roamed the campus and found me in the school’s library. I had to move as quickly as possible to get out of the library without him trying to get to me. I went to the campus security, and finally filed a formal compliant. I was rather shaken up by the day’s events, and since I have PTSD, all my horrible memories started coming back, and I felt as if I was no longer safe on campus. After I made the complaint, I went to the Dean of Student Service’s office, with security, and told the Dean my problem. The campus’s Guidance Counselor was there too, they informed me that they would deal with the matter.
This morning, Friday September the 12th, I received a phone call from one of my close friends, informing me that the Campus President was actively trying to blackball me, and that I was being investigated, after pressing the charges against the student who has been harassing and stalking me. I am very afraid that the College will do nothing to protect my safety, and furthermore, that the College is now blaming me the victim. I was just wondering if stalking and harassment is happening not just my College, but other Universities and Junior Colleges around the country.
Yours truly, but very scared,
Alton William Plemmons III
My name is Alton W. Plemmons III. I work for Hillsborough Community College, and also... more
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BuddyP
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added this
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3 years ago
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Some folks in Wisconsin are rolling out a sweet initiative in a couple weeks. The "Wisconsin Eat Local Challenge" encourages state residents to sign a pledge to eat local food for 10 days, from September 5 - 14.
And it's not your everyday "eat local" week. Participants are asked to sign up and track their progress online, as well as complete a follow-up survey. The website gives tips on tracking down local food, provides a blog for dialogue, and lists other resources and events related to local food.
Wisconsinites have it made, really. I mean, with the plethora of local cheese and beer options, and the longish growing season for vegetables, too, choosing Wisconsin items in the grocery store and farmers market should elicit pure pleasure.Some folks in Wisconsin are rolling out a sweet initiative in a couple weeks. The... more
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Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has apologised after he recommended use of a poisonous plant in recipes.
In a magazine interview about watercress and other wild foods, Mr Worrall Thompson said the weed henbane was "great in salads".
Healthy & Organic Living magazine's website has now issued an urgent warning that "henbane is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten".
The chef had meant to recommend fat hen, which is a wild herb. Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has apologised after he recommended use of a... more
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After three years of germinating the Seed Library concept, we are ready to blossom--from selling seeds that are grown in distant soils to cultivating a regional seed production network in New York and surrounding states. In 2009, almost all of our seed will be locally grown, and most of our varieties will be rooted in the history and soils of the Northeast. Please consider supporting our efforts to revive the local seed trade and save heirloom seeds and their stories by growing our seeds in your garden and becoming a member of our unique regional Seed Library.
Membership to join the seed library is a donation of $15 per year and in this program you can borrow seeds in spring and return them in the fall after your harvest! What a brilliant idea.After three years of germinating the Seed Library concept, we are ready to... more
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As a class, lower income people have been well represented in some of the best-covered food stories of our day, particularly hunger, obesity, and diabetes. As these issues have faded in and out of the public’s eye over the last 25 years, another food trend was rapidly becoming a national obsession—namely, local and organic.
At about the same time that Berkeley diva Alice Waters was first showing us how to bestow style and grace on something as ordinary as a local tomato, the Reagan administration’s anti-poor policies were driving an unprecedented number of people into soup kitchens and food banks. And as organic food advocates were putting the finishing touches on what was to become the first national standard for organic food, supermarket chains were nailing plywood across their city store windows bidding farewell to lower income America.
In low-income circles, however, such food anxieties got little traction. Between getting to a food store where the bananas weren’t black and having enough money to buy any food at all, low-income shoppers had little inclination to parse the differences between grass-fed and grass-finished. But this didn’t imply that their awareness of organic food was non-existent, nor did it mean that low-income consumers were less likely to buy organic if they had the chance.
Read the whole article. Very interesting points to make.As a class, lower income people have been well represented in some of the best-covered... more
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A short historical documentary about a ghost story originating from my home town of Larkhall. The Lady was brought in to the country by a wealthy member of local aristocracy. She vanished some time later and it is believed that her ghost haunts the Millheugh area of the village. A short historical documentary about a ghost story originating from my home town of... more
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Then there’s New York organic dairyman Jerry Snyder, who has chosen the path of most resistance. His quest is to carve out a super-high-quality niche that few producers will be able to achieve—but that consumers will flock to support, and detractors of raw milk will have to recognize as producing a dairy product of superlative quality.
Strong, sometimes militant, consumer interest in high-quality raw milk is a beacon of hope for the future of well-run family-scale, grass-based organic farms in his region of New York.
The proposals continue the current raw-milk testing protocol, which exceed the bulk milk testing standards. The raw milk bacterial limit is less than one third of Grade A pasteurized milk while honoring the same 10 colony per ml. coliform count. Raw milk is tested for specific pathogens on a monthly basis, while Grade A milk is not, on the assumption that the pasteurization process neutralizes disease-causing microorganisms.
Snyder and other adherents believe that it is an important part of a healthy lifestyle that maximizes vitality while it minimizes antibiotics and immuno-suppressant treatments. “Pure milk” has natural components (lactoferrins, for instance, Snyder says) that serve to fight infection, and that are compromised somewhat by standard pasteurization and crippled by UHT treatment used to greatly extend shelf-life.
Then there’s New York organic dairyman Jerry Snyder, who has chosen the path of... more
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On Sept. 30, mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) will be enforced for beef, lamb, pork, fruit, vegetables and peanuts. The provision was originally approved as part of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, but special interests have lobbied to delay it since then. (Purveyors of wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish, nonetheless, have had to disclose their origin since 2005.) And as the date nears, COOL is gaining momentum in Washington: Last month, the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 expanded the list of covered commodities to include chicken, goat meat, ginseng, pecans and macadamia nuts.
ARTICLE CAN BE FOUND AT:
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/client/e3i9ddc10f5e9f2a6aa70bb97c75cc1a386?pn=1
(The normal upload/link process wasn't working properly to anything on the adweek site.)
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Pay attention to all sides of the story, as it has direct implications for consumers and businesses, and will result in both sides having to modify their behavior to adapt.
On Sept. 30, mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) will be enforced for beef,... more
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The fight between large-scale corporations including Monsanto and Smithfield, and the Polish family farmers continues. This is a very interesting an informative article. Well worth the 3 minutes it takes to read it.The fight between large-scale corporations including Monsanto and Smithfield, and the... more
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Post shower a lovely big rainbow was on show in the local sky, it looked very nice.
Post shower a lovely big rainbow was on show in the local sky, it looked very nice.... more
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The secrets and forgotten history of Utah.. explored by a handful of serious artists.
The land you see is more common than you realized; it has been featured in numerous car commercials and films - such as Independence Day, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and The Hulk. What you may not know is it's a 13 mile stretch of pure salt. Look it up yourself.. city: Wendover, park: Bonneville Salt Flats.
About this clip: "GPS Expo"
The first annual of GPS Expo! Temperature: 115 degrees. The art is ultra fun and super cool.The secrets and forgotten history of Utah.. explored by a handful of serious artists.... more
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Grassroots internet TV food show starring pregnant mommy and Mikko, two year old boy. Promoting sustainable communities and good healthy food to create a happy generation of healthy kids. Grassroots internet TV food show starring pregnant mommy and Mikko, two year old boy.... more
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A New Jersey historic preservation advocacy group has come out with its annual list of the most endangered historic sites in Jersey.A New Jersey historic preservation advocacy group has come out with its annual list of... more
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With the whole city devastated, water pumps out, no electricity and no help from the military regime in sight, local organizations are coming together to support each other and provide relief to homeless families.
Gitameit music school, which is normally a local NGO that provides scholarships to students from all over Myanmar as well as outreach programs both by their teachers and their students to orphanages and monastery schools in poor townships of Yangon, is focusing it's resources on disaster relief and is accepting donations that can go directly to helping the people of Yangon.
Please visit the above site for updates and information from inside Yangon on what is being done and how you can help.With the whole city devastated, water pumps out, no electricity and no help from the... more
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