Vegetarians everywhere UNITE! Join LA’s first VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE and help make veggie history!
The festivities will begin at 11:00 am at Culver Events, where “veg heads” will register, enjoy a pre-march rally with veg entertainment and a special keynote speaker to rally the veg troups for our historic march. At noon we will begin a 5K walk through Venice with participants adorned with eye-catching costumes and thought provoking signs to educate people about the humane, environmental, and health benefits of a vegetarian diet.
After the march we will gather for a post-parade rally to celebrate the vegetarian lifestyle, with special guest presentations, music & veg entertainment, costume contest, and of course, a smorgasbord of vegan food from our area’s top veg restaurants.
So, come and get your veg on with inspiring guest speakers Karen Dawn, Rory Freedman, Ken Williams, and other special guests. You’ll be able to explore great food and cruelty-free shopping with our Veggie Pride Parade Vendors!
The Los Angeles VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE was inspired by Vegetarians Against Animal Exploitation in France who will be celebrating their 9th parade in 2009 and by VivaVeggie Society who organized the first Veggie Pride Parade in the U.S. in 2008.
The Los Angeles event is being coordinated by Animal Acres, the Los Angeles farmed animal sanctuary and compassionate living center.
LA’s first VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE will begin at Culver Events (11948 W. Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066 ) and there will be a 5k VEGGIE PRIDE loop through Venice returning at Culver Events for a post-parade rally with special veg guests, veg food, veg entertainment & more!
Arnold's Way - Endurance Athlete On Low Fat Raw Vegan Diet. Michael is an ultra long distance runner who is fueled by large amounts of raw fruits and vegetables. Michael just completed a marathon before the taping of this interview in 02:32:35 Michael talks about the importance and benefits of following a low fat raw vegan diet.
Filmed over the period of a few months in and around Edinburgh by Dave Sowerby, this video of Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill features probably the best collection of street/street trials riding ever seen. There's some huge riding, but also some of the most technically difficult and imaginative lines you will ever see. Without a doubt, this video pushes the envelope of what is perceived as possible on a trials bike.
Credit to Band of Horses for their epic song 'The Funeral.' You can find out more about the band and their music at www.bandofhorses.com or www.myspace.com/bandofhorses
It reads "A Cover Built For Two". And it shows Ellen riding back seat on a vintage tandem bicycle with a wicker basket in front. The sub headlines read " a Tisket, a Tasket... Whats in Oprah's Basket?" and "Ellen Shows You How To Juggle Your Marriage and Your Career!"
Murata Manufacturing demonstrated Murata Girl, a unicycle-riding robot, at CEATEC Japan 2008, Japans largest IT exhibition held at Makuhari Messe.
Murata Girl is 50cm tall and weighs 5kg. It is equipped with two tilt-angle detection gyro sensors. It maintains balance by monitoring gyro sensor signals to control the movement of the wheel and the rotation of a fly wheel inside her torso.
It also uses a pair of ultrasonic sensors to measure the distance between an obstacle and herself.
Murata Manufacturing, which promotes science education as a part of its corporate social responsibility activities, developed Murata Girl in order to respond to the voice of children who requested the development of a unicycle-riding robot.
Bike Night at the Hammer!
Grab some friends and pedal on over for a bike-centric evening of food, fun, and film. Enjoy free museum admission, a screening of Breaking Away, a performance by Telematique, veggie snacks, drinks, and free bike valet parking by the LA County Bike Coalition.
Schedule of Events
7-11pm – Complimentary bicycle valet service
7-8:30 – Vegetarian delights and cash bar plus live musical performance with visual projections by Telematique
8:30pm – Film Screening: BREAKING AWAY
Nine Lives Exhibition Related Screenings
Selected by Lisa Anne Auerbach
Breaking Away is a coming of age film that tells the story of four teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have graduated high school and are not sure what they want to do with their lives, other than hang out and go swimming in an abandoned limestone quarry. (1979, 100 min., Dir. Peter Yates)
ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets for this screening are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office starting at 7:30. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.
Automobile parking is available for $3 after 6:00pm under the museum.
Secure bicycle valet parking in the courtyard is FREE. Please use Lindbrook entrance to the museum, one block north of Wilshire Blvd.
(Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility). It is a 2 seat all electric drive vehicle. It essentially is rolling on 2 wheels. It also has two kind of caster wheels in the front and another two in the back to help with keeping the vehicle upright at stops, while parked, if power was to go out, etc. It seems that the two wheels could be used durng times of attempted to save energy.
Is this GM's attempt at winning favor with the public and the government? GM has been opitomised as the giant corporation that does not care about the public and their desires, or the issue of dependence on fossil fuels. They have be dogged for their continued effort and developing ever bigger and bigger vehicles, which seem to get less and less fuel/energy economy. And at the same time they have been getting into more financial trouble. It seems that one of the only things keeping them afloat financially over the last few years is the massive profit they have generated from their lending company.City Hall explores pairing property owners with gardeners
By Melody Hanatani
March 31, 2009
MAIN STREET — For several hours every week, life for Helene Zuckerman is confined to a 400-square-foot retreat.
It is in the small nook of the Santa Monica Community Gardens on Main Street where Zuckerman cultivates her own produce section, covering nearly every inch with fruits and vegetables, from the blackberries sprawled along the fence to the Swiss chard on the ground.
"Every year I grow different things and learn more," Zuckerman said. "Everything is organic and tastes delicious."
She has maintained the garden for less than three years but had to wait nearly three times as long to call it her own.
The popularity of the community gardens program — which has a waiting list 175 residents long — has led to a dearth that can't match the growing demand, forcing city officials to get creative when looking at ways to expand opportunities for Santa Monicans with the green thumb itch.
One option City Hall has been exploring for several months is to create a registry that would match prospective growers with private property owners who have the land but not the time to garden.
"We would see our role as more of a registry to connect people but have them make their own arrangements," Kathy LePrevost, the community programs manager for City Hall, said. "We're just trying to be the facilitator."
Councilman Kevin McKeown, who sent a similar proposal to city staff last week, called the concept "21st century urban sharecropping."
"Lots of Santa Monicans would love to have fresh produce for their families," he said. "Many have yards or lawns that would make perfect gardens, but can't commit the time to grow food crops.
"At the same time, we know we have willing gardeners who've been waiting for city community garden plots to open up."
McKeown said he is trying to get a hold of 100 families who are currently on the waiting list.
"I want to make sure there is real interest in this from gardeners," he said.
City Hall currently operates three community gardens spread throughout Santa Monica, which have about 117 plots amongst the trio — Main Street, Park Drive and the newest addition, Euclid Park.
Applicants must be a Santa Monica resident and pay $60 annually for their plot of land. Residents remain on the waiting list for about five years on average, LePrevost said.
Residents in the Pico Neighborhood have lobbied city officials to open a community garden in their area, pointing out a vacant lot at the corner of 20th Street and Delaware Avenue as an option. Others have suggested building rooftop gardens.
"I think there is a larger movement that people are plugging into for the need for urban farming and accessibility to local produce and having the connection between where your food comes from and the meal on your table," said Linda Piera-Avila, a 2008 City Council candidate and Pico Neighborhood Association board member. "There is more appreciation now than in the past concerning pesticide and resource usage and living more sustainably."
Piera-Avila also suggested that City Hall should consider building a public garden over the I-10 Freeway between 14th and 17th streets if it decides to deck it.
"It's amazing how abundant a community garden can be in a small amount of space," she said. "You have excess tomatoes and zucchinis to show all your neighbors and that builds community too, to share excess harvest."
Those who already have a plot seemed intrigued by the idea of pairing property owners with gardeners, but saw some potential problems in the arrangements.
Tom Davidson, a Downtown resident who has managed a 100-square-foot parcel at Park Drive since June of last year, pointed out that some vegetables, such as asparagus, could take two to three years to grow.
For the arrangement to be successful, the gardener would need at least a two-to-three-year commitment from the property owner, he said.
There is also the issue of privacy and whether the gardener would be allowed to show up whenever they please, Davidson added.
"But from a community point-of-view, it might be helpful," he said.
Davidson spends several hours a week working on his small garden where he brings his two sons — ages 3 and 5 — to learn about horticulture.
While the produce is tastier than what is purchased at a market, Davidson said there is a misperception that growing is a cheaper alternative, pointing out that he has invested about $1,000 into his garden while only consuming about $200 worth. Much of the money was spent on a new fence, pots, soil and seeds.
"I do it because I love gardening and for the educational experience," he said.
Zuckerman decided to apply for a community garden after learning about it through a friend. She remained on the waiting list for about eight years and had forgotten until she received a phone call from City Hall about an opening.
Several months after she began gardening, Zuckerman received a letter from the IRS notifying that she would be audited. Stressed out, Zuckerman drove to the garden where she spent several hours working.
When she returned home, Zuckerman picked up the letter again and was surprised that she had gone two hours without thinking about the audit.
"When I'm here, this is all I think about," Zuckerman said. "Nothing else exists really."
melodyh@smdp.com
"Follow a group of dumpster divers on a musical journey through the back alleys of Montreal. Between song and dance routines about waste and the joys of reusing other people's garbage, five young adults discuss the philosophy of living off society's excess. Going through other people's garbage provides these young Montrealers with food, furniture, clothing and luxury items they could never afford if they had to buy them. For more info"
If you liked the documentary film "Ready, Steady, Skip!" documentary, you might also like another documentary that came out last month. It's called Skipping Waste (watch it below in full)."Skipping Waste" is a documentary about dumpster diving created in 2009 by Lily Barlow. It was shot in France and the Netherlands. The movie is distributed under the conditions of the Creative Commons ShareAlike NonCommercial Attribution license.
Monopolized supermarkets chains dominate food sales. Bananas from Columbia and avocados from Brazil fill food baskets of European consumers throughout winter-time. These and other unsustainable consumer habits lead to a well of waste, burned oil and overflowed landfills. Desperately seeking an alternative, dumpster divers take to the streets, feeding themselves and those hundreds in need with dumpstered food. "Skipping Waste" follows these communities through France and the Netherlands as they recoup and reuse what a capitalist society deemed as trash.
President Barack Obama visited an electric car factory in California and urged workers to help the country lead the way in building a clean energy economy. (March 19, 2009)
Last week, I spent a few days in California, talking with ordinary Americans in town halls and in the places where they work. We talked about their struggles, and we talked about their hopes.
At the end of the day, these men and women weren't as concerned with the news of the day in Washington as they were about the very real and very serious challenges their families face every day: whether they'll have a job and a paycheck to count on; whether they'll be able to pay their medical bills or afford college tuition; whether they'll be able to leave their children a world that's safer and more prosperous than the one we have now.
Those are the concerns I heard about in California. They are the concerns I've heard about in letters from people throughout this country for the last two years. And they are the concerns addressed in the budget I sent to Congress last month.
With the magnitude of the challenges we face, I don't just view this budget as numbers on a page or a laundry list of programs. It's an economic blueprint for our future - a vision of America where growth is not based on real estate bubbles or overleveraged banks, but on a firm foundation of investments in energy, education, and health care that will lead to a real and lasting prosperity.
These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air - they are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of health care and our dependence on foreign oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit.
Now, as the House and the Senate take up this budget next week, the specific details and dollar amounts in this budget will undoubtedly change. That's a normal and healthy part of the process.
But when all is said and done, I expect a budget that meets four basic principles:
First, it must reduce our dependence on dangerous foreign oil and finally put this nation on a path to a clean, renewable energy future. There is no longer a doubt that the jobs and industries of tomorrow will involve harnessing renewable sources of energy. The only question is whether America will lead that future.
I believe we can and we will, and that's why we've proposed a budget that makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy, while investing in technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and fuel-efficient cars and trucks that can be built right here in America.
Second, this budget must renew our nation's commitment to a complete and competitive education for every American child. In this global economy, we know the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow, and we know that our students are already falling behind their counterparts in places like China.
That is why we have proposed investments in childhood education programs that work; in high standards and accountability for our schools; in rewards for teachers who succeed; and in affordable college education for anyone who wants to go. It is time to demand excellence from our schools so that we can finally prepare our workforce for a 21st century economy.
Third, we need a budget that makes a serious investment in health care reform - reform that will bring down costs, ensure quality, and guarantee people their choice of doctors and hospitals. Right now, there are millions of Americans who are just one illness or medical emergency away from bankruptcy.
There are businesses that have been forced to close their doors or ship jobs overseas because they can't afford insurance. Medicare costs are consuming our federal budget. Medicaid is overwhelming our state budgets. So to those who say we have to choose between health care reform and fiscal discipline, I say that making investments now that will dramatically lower health care costs for everyone won't add to our budget deficit in the long-term - it is one of the best ways to reduce it.
Finally, this budget must reduce that deficit even further. With the fiscal mess we've inherited and the cost of this financial crisis, I've proposed a budget that cuts our deficit in half by the end of my first term. That's why we are scouring every corner of the budget and have proposed $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade.
In total, our budget would bring discretionary spending for domestic programs as a share of the economy to its lowest level in nearly half a century. And we will continue making these tough choices in the months and years ahead so that as our economy recovers, we do what we must to bring this deficit down.
I will be discussing each of these principles next week, as Congress takes up the important work of debating this budget. I realize there are those who say these plans are too ambitious to enact. To that I say that the challenges we face are too large to ignore. I didn't come here to pass on our problems to the next President or the next generation - I came here to solve them.
The American people sent us here to get things done, and at this moment of great challenge, they are watching and waiting for us to lead. Let's show them that we are equal to the task before us, and let's pass a budget that puts this nation on the road to lasting prosperity.
