Meatless in the Midwest: A Tale of Survival

IN an ideal world, vegetarians would be built like camels. Not humpbacked, of course, but able to sustain themselves through long stretches by tapping stored energy reserves, like previously consumed soy products.
But after the first three dinners in my new hometown, where I moved from New York to cover the Midwest for this newspaper, even this veteran vegetarian was flagging. 

This city, after all, is celebrated as a Mecca of meat. And any newcomer should expect to start with a tour of the most venerable purveyors of cows, pigs and chickens in what I’ve been told are their most delicious forms.
So, yes, I’ve “eaten” at some of these famous restaurants. There was the meal at the Golden Ox steakhouse (baked potato), Stroud’s fried chicken (rolls) and Arthur Bryant’s barbecue, where, searching for vegetarian options on the menu, skipping over the lard-bathed French fries, pausing to consider the coleslaw, I ordered the safest option (a mug of Budweiser). 

After three days of this, starving, I went alone to the nearest Chinese restaurant I could find, where I feasted on a steaming plate of meatless mapo tofu.
It should be stated right up front that the Midwest, with its rich culture, stark natural beauty and superlative decency, quickly defies stereotypes. Living in the middle of the country is very different from living in the middle of nowhere.
But make no mistake: meat-loving is one stereotype that the region wears with pride. Lard still plays a starring role in many kitchens, bacon comes standard in salads, and perhaps the most important event on Kansas City social calendars is a barbecue contest.
Even though the region boasts some of the finest farmland in the world, there is a startling lack of fresh produce here. This is a part of the country — and there’s no polite way to put this — where the most common vegetable you’ll see on dinner plates is iceberg lettuce. 

“The mentality of the Midwest is, green is garnish,” explained Heidi Van Pelt-Belle, who runs Füd, a vegetarian restaurant in Kansas City.   

As a result, many heartland vegetarians say that eating, that most essential activity, can be a constant struggle. Longtime members of the club recall the days when doctors and family members alike warned that forgoing meat would result in serious malnutrition. This was not hyperbole to those who, lacking other options, subsisted on pizza.
Over the years, many have learned tricks, like calling ahead to a restaurant to negotiate a special entree. Dinner party? Best to eat first, knowing that side dishes might be the only options. Some say they have learned to cook for themselves more, to avoid the inevitable barrage of questions, if not outright mockery, that comes with eating in public. 

Just outside Iowa City, Sparti’s Gyros taunts vegetarians even as it caters to them. The menu includes the Greek Veggie Wheat Pita, but adds a punch line: “For people who just don’t like eating. Put some meat on it!” 

In Nebraska, a place where cattle outnumber people, vegetarians are sometimes accused of undermining the state economy. The owner of what was billed as the lone vegetarian restaurant in Omaha said it had several pounds of ground beef thrown at its doors shortly after opening. After a short run, it closed last year.
“Being a vegetarian in Nebraska is like being a Republican in Brooklyn — less of an outcast than a novelty,” said David Rosen, who became a vegetarian as a teenager in Omaha and is now a writer in Brooklyn. “Except that you don’t have to prepare special meals for Republicans.” 

But around the Midwest, the situation has improved, vegetarians acknowledge, not least because hummus inexplicably has joined Tater Tots as standard bar fare. There are two fully vegetarian restaurants in Kansas City, and most restaurants in the bigger cities of the region offer at least one vegetarian-friendly option.
There are all sorts of compelling reasons people become vegetarian. Health. Discomfort with the killing of animals. Environmental concerns. 

My own reason requires no soapbox. I never liked meat. And when I learned, while eating a burger at the cafeteria of the American Museum of Natural History at age 5, that “meat” was actually a euphemism for — and even dedicated carnivores hate being reminded of this — muscle, I felt my preference had received a hearty endorsement from common sense. Over time, even chicken stock disappeared from my diet.

Some patrons, unlike the reporter, line up for brisket at Arthur Bryant’s barbecue, in Kansas City, Mo.

Friends and family members have regarded my status as a vegetarian with curiosity and amusement over the years. But even with that practice I was unprepared for the barrage of jokes that followed the announcement of my assignment covering the Midwest — some playing on the theme of squandered opportunity (how could someone turn down all that delicious barbecue?) and others hinting at concerns about survival (are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?). 

There is, both here and elsewhere, something about being a vegetarian in Kansas City that simply strikes people as funny.

In truth, it is less satisfying to be a vegetarian here. Those on the coasts have it better. Like many of my brethren, I have instinctively gravitated to cuisine from faraway places where meat is a luxury not all can afford. In New York this meant frequenting terrific Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, Lebanese and Venezuelan restaurants. But here — with a notable few exceptions like the Aladdin (the best lentil soup I’ve ever had), Blue Koi (expert dumplings and noodle dishes) and Lill’s (terrific Spanish tapas) — the best options are better described as good enough.

To be fair, that is probably more than can be said for my cooking, which typically consists of simple batches of rice and beans large enough to sustain a week of protein-rich lunches. And my attempts to teach myself to make my favorite Indian dishes have had the unintended effect of making the local Indian restaurants that I had thought lacking suddenly appear more palatable. 

But most difficulty comes on the road during reporting trips in an area that stretches from Oklahoma to North Dakota. And though many meals, particularly in small towns, are of the bread-and-water variety, I have stumbled upon some decent restaurants as well: Japanese in Tulsa, Okla.; Indian in Lincoln, Neb.; Ethiopian in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Italian in Minot, N.D.; and, my favorite place to stop on a reporting trip, Thai Spice, just outside Joplin, Mo.

Along the way I’ve also picked up a few valuable lessons for vegetarians roaming these wide open spaces.  In no particular order: check out Web sites detailing the vegetarian options at fast-food chains; look for Chinese restaurants, which consistently turn up in the most unexpected places; carry a jar of peanut butter everywhere; and never underestimate the potato — what it lacks in flavor it makes up for in ubiquity.

And, finally, it is important to not forget that hunger is the price a picky eater must be willing to pay without becoming insufferable.

During a recent visit to the Ranchito Tex-Mex Cafe in Hugoton, Kan., a small community encircled by feedlots packed with cattle and the plants that process them, I inquired if the beans at the restaurant were prepared with meat.

“There’s no meat,” the waitress replied helpfully. “It’s just pinto beans smashed up with lard.”

Lard, of course, is rendered pork fat.

A day later and a day hungrier, a waitress at the Down-Town Restaurant in nearby Ulysses was more understanding and forthcoming about ingredients. The beans had lard. The rice had chicken stock. And on it went. 

“You want a salad,” she finally declared.

This, for the record, is one of the great misconceptions of vegetarians. Most do not, in fact want a salad. We want something with a bit more substance. 

But a salad it was. And yes, iceberg lettuce. Thankfully, no bacon. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/dining/a-vegetarians-struggle-for-sustenance-in-the-midwest.html?hp

Nurse reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality.

I learned never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what  others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

http://www.ariseindiaforum.org/nurse-reveals-the-top-5-regrets-people-make-on-their-deathbed/

The Iowa Caucuses & Extremism (from the NY Times)

The Iowa caucuses, in which a nation awaits the verdict of a handful of some of its least representative citizens, are not going to settle the race for the Republican nomination for president. But they did put on display the choice the Republicans present to voters: right, far right or the far, far right. 

The caucuses Tuesday night were headed to an astonishing draw between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, followed by Ron Paul. More than anything, the tight finish suggested that Mr. Romney has had a hard time selling his recently minted conservatism to hard-core Republican conservatives; two-thirds of caucusgoers identified themselves as Tea Party supporters. 

The Republican caucuses only do a middling job of predicting who will win the presidency in November. But, this year, perhaps more than others, they were an important event to watch for any American voter.

The errors, absurd misstatements and unrelenting extremism were not the result of some “gotcha” moment in which a candidate was cornered in an interview or debate by a tricky (or maybe not so tricky) question. The Republicans have had months, millions of dollars and the advantage of there being no competing Democratic contest, to present the images of their own choosing — and they are dark and disturbing. 

The candidates were all nasty to each other; Newt Gingrich called Mr. Romney a “liar” on Tuesday. But when it came to President Obama, they were off the charts with baseless charges that would be laughable if they were not so insulting to the president and to the intelligence of voters.

Iowa’s economy is not as bad as that in many parts of the country, so the candidates mainly tried to outbid each other in pandering to its socially conservative Republicans. Mr. Gingrich served up a right-wing theology that would dismantle every social advance since the institution of child labor laws and eviscerate the judiciary that has protected civil rights for a half-century. 

Mr. Santorum talked endlessly about his opposition to a woman’s right to choose an abortion and gay Americans’ right to marry, while insisting that he would protect Americans’ right to carry guns anywhere at anytime.

Even then, he had a hard time keeping up with Representative Michele Bachmann, founder of the House Tea Party caucus, who said she was the only Republican who would defend “faith, marriage and the protection of life from conception to natural death.” 

Representative Paul delighted young crowds with his libertarian slogans — no war, no Federal Reserve, basically no government — but seemed to have no real ideas other than to follow the literal words of the Constitution. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas based virtually his entire appeal on his religious faith — a desperation play that failed and led him to retreat to Texas to decide whether to continue his obviously pointless candidacy.

In the middle of all this, of course, was Mr. Romney, no real conservative trying to be all forms of conservative — forswearing his belief in abortion rights and global warming while insisting the health care reform he championed in Massachusetts isn’t right for the rest of the country. He rivaled Mr. Gingrich in his false attacks on Mr. Obama, including claiming that the president travels the world apologizing for America.

As the Republican competition moves to New Hampshire next week, it is likely to focus less on social issues and more on economic issues. But that means even more of the slash-and-burn economics and class warfare that were also on display here. 

Primaries bring out the extremism in candidates, but this year seems much worse because the “center” of the Republican Party has lurched so far to the right. The only good news in this primary season is that the more Americans listen to the Republican hopefuls, the more the voters will realize how out of touch these candidates are with the majority of Americans. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/opinion/the-iowa-caucuses.html?_r=2&src=tp&smid=fb-share

Will 'Semi-Vegan' Work For You???

Among your other resolutions — do more good? make more money? — you’ve probably made the annual pledge to eat better, although this concept may be more often reduced simply to “lose some weight.” The weight-loss obsession is both a national need and a neurotic urge (those last five pounds really don’t matter, either cosmetically or medically). But most of us do need to eat “better.” 

If defining this betterness has become increasingly more difficult (half the diet books that spilled over my desk in December focused on going gluten-free), the core of the answer is known to everyone: eat more plants. And if the diet that most starkly represents this — veganism — is no longer considered bizarre or unreasonably spartan, neither is it exactly mainstream. (For the record, vegans don’t simply avoid meat; they eschew all animal products, including dairy, eggs and even honey.) 

Many vegan dishes, however, are already beloved: we eat fruit salad, peanut butter and jelly, beans and rice, eggplant in garlic sauce. The problem faced by many of us — brought up as we were with plates whose center was filled with a piece of an animal — is in imagining less-traditional vegan dishes that are creative, filling, interesting and not especially challenging to either put together or enjoy. 

My point here is to make semi-veganism work for you. Once a week, let bean burgers stand in for hamburgers, leave the meat out of your pasta sauce, make a risotto the likes of which you’ve probably never had — and you may just find yourself eating “better.” 

These recipes serve about four, and in all, the addition of salt and pepper is taken for granted. This is not a gimmick or even a diet. It’s a path, and the smart resolution might be to get on it. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/mark-bittman-going-semi-vegan.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1325214998-j2kp1Np5tNOndQgNDe/1tA

Stylin' & Drivin' In The Rose Parade

HOW hard can it be to travel five and half miles at 2.5 m.p.h.?

Difficult enough: if you’re the pilot of a 22-wheel, 120-foot-long vehicle that weighs 110,000 pounds, even a simple right turn can have profound consequences. 

Yet a small cadre of drivers finds the experience of blind-driving a balky Rose Parade float so satisfying that they come back new year after new year. 

Wes Hupp, for example, has driven (or served as an observer, acting as the eyes for the driver tucked under the platform) in 34 Rose Parades. A resident of Weston, Vt., he is paying his own airfare to take part in the 123rd annual parade on Jan. 2 — to be held on Monday in keeping with the Pasadena Tournament of Roses’ never-on-Sunday rule. 

PARADE DRESS Natural Balance's Rose Parade float in 2011 weighed 84,300 pounds.

This time, Mr. Hupp, a 51-year-old pharmaceutical chemicals buyer, will serve as observer for Greg Hill, a 46-year-old health care technology project manager from Huntington Beach, Calif., who will be at the wheel. It will be their 17th consecutive year as teammates, and their assignment is literally the biggest challenge yet for Rose Parade drivers: they will maneuver the longest and heaviest single float ever to follow the parade’s 5.5-mile route. 

The float, called Surf’s Up, was conceived by Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance Pet Foods to fit the 2012 parade theme of “Just Imagine.” What the float imagines is a canine surfing paradise: an onboard wave machine will send seven actual dogs, riding eight-foot surfboards, down a 66-foot-long pool filled with 6,600 gallons of heated water. 

Powering the massive Surf’s Up float is a gasoline-burning Ford V-10 truck engine mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission. A transfer case further increases the gear ratio for continuous low-speed travel in first gear.

The first significant landmark on the parade route is the Tournament House on Orange Grove Boulevard, and just beyond that is the first big challenge, a 107-degree right-hand turn onto Colorado Boulevard that makes drivers sweat. Known as “camera corner,” this is the prime viewing spot for broadcast crews and thousands of grandstand spectators. To Mr. Hupp, who grew up in nearby Monrovia, the turn is “wicked.”

In his observer role, Mr. Hupp will sit in the lifeguard tower on the float’s nose. He will relay instructions by intercom to Mr. Hill in the driver’s compartment, nestled beside the engine bay underneath the front end of the pool.

“Greg doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing unless I tell him,” Mr. Hupp said recently by telephone from Vermont. “A wrong decision can get you some real excitement.” The two men endure this pressure and discomfort neither for glory nor a fat paycheck. Each receives $250 from Fiesta Parade Floats, the company that Natural Balance hired to build and operate Surf’s Up. Construction began in October.

The depressed economy has forced some longtime participants like the City of Long Beach and the Budweiser Clydesdales out of the 2012 parade; one float-building operation has shut down. But the president of Natural Balance, Joey Herrick, says his company will have around $300,000 “at least” wrapped up in its record-breaking effort. 

Since first entering a float in 2009, the company has made its Rose Parade participation a centerpiece of its marketing and promotion efforts. “We work it like nobody’s ever worked it,” Mr. Herrick said.

While Mr. Herrick’s eyes are on the company’s target of six billion media impressions, Mr. Hupp could be said to see things through the other end of the telescope. Part of his motivation to return each year, he says, is the camaraderie of the crews on the nights before the parades, when drivers stay with their floats, tell tales and get little sleep. 

“There’s only a hundred and some-odd people that do this every year,” he said. “Out of the billions of people that are alive and walking this earth, only a small handful can say they’ve driven in the Rose Parade.”

The appeal certainly doesn’t lie in plush accommodations within the driver’s compartment. Despite the advanced design and engineering of the elaborate, moving displays, the floats are in some respects nearly as primitive as their very earliest predecessors.

For example, on Jan. 2, 1905, The Pasadena Daily News reported: “Harry Zier’s automobile was a dream of beauty. The scheme was a barge and the striking effect was made by covering the big touring car entirely with a frame, boat-shaped, so that not a bit of running gear was visible.” 

Three years later, the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce entered a 41-foot automotive whale that wagged its tail and flapped its flippers.

If anyone could be called the Harley Earl of parade floats, it would be Isabella Coleman, a local woman who, over six decades, made the motorized displays not only lower, longer and sleeker, but also more ornate, with well-integrated floral designs. 

While the aesthetics improved markedly throughout the 20th century, the mechanical underpinnings evolved relatively little. The chassis of today’s float typically has no suspension whatsoever. In the austere driver’s compartment, there is a single seat of bare plywood.

“We usually bring a stadium seat cushion, or we bring hemorrhoid donuts,” Mr. Hupp said. “The problem with those is, they always end up getting punctured or ripped. It’s like going to San Francisco, blindfolded, on a piece of wood.”

In close proximity to the big engine, the driver can also expect temperatures of up to 120 degrees. A small electric fan is provided, but it does not offer much relief.

Decorating the floats with flowers, seeds and other natural elements leaves debris in odd places. “Every time you turn the fan on, you get a face full of seeds,” Mr. Hupp said. “I don’t care if you’ve been driving an hour. You turn on the fan again, you’re always going to get something in the face.”

It was ever thus. In the official 1949 parade program, an essay addressed the plight of “the forgotten man” who drives the float: 

“He breathes in dust and fumes which are impossible for him to avoid. On a hot day he is drenched with perspiration. On un-California-like days he enjoys his own series of chills. Doing a fine job, lacking any applause, appreciated by but a few, he works for varying amounts and a ticket to the Rose Bowl game. The line for those who want to drive floats next year forms to the right, and please don’t crowd.”

But Mr. Hupp may not line up for 2013. Last week, he phoned the president of Fiesta Parade Floats and announced his intention to retire. “The stress is almost too much,” he said, referring to the challenge of negotiating the course in ever-larger floats. “They’re pushing the limits, and this is as far as I really want to go with it.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/automobiles/with-22-wheels-its-tricky-on-the-turns.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

The Pope Needs An Eye Exam

During the Christmas Eve Mass, Pope Benedict XVI urged the faithful to:

"Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season"… 

All well and good, except that he did this while wearing gold brocade, sitting on a golden throne surrounded by golden trappings, holding up a book festooned in golden decorations. Not to mention the Vatican’s vast wealth in cash and treasures.

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”
–Jesus

http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2011/12/26/someone-has-a-golden-plank-in-his-eye-2/

Shimmering Nostalgia: The Aluminum Christmas Tree

 

                                               They entice and satisfy. They shimmer and spin. And these days, after years of near extinction, aluminum Christmas trees are back in the limelight, beloved by mid-century modern aficionados as the ultimate in holiday décor.

Once derisively called 'tin Tannenbaums,' aluminum Christmas trees provoked or infuriated many people when they first hit the market in 1959—but entranced so many others.

Jerry Waak, a sales manager for the Aluminum Specialty Company, the outfit that first mass-produced the silver-needled tinsel trees, recalls typical reactions. "People would laugh," recalls Waak. "Some people would say, 'You're kidding!' A lot of people said they would never sell. Some people would just about throw you out of their store."

But that wasn't what young Bill Yaryan thought about the aluminum tree his parents set up in their furniture store in the early 1960s. He'd sit on the floor and watch the silver tree rotate on its stand while the color wheel revolved as well in a kind of crazy dance.

"When the color wheel and tree were rotating, the effect was so wonderful and so totally artificial," says Yaryan, who lives in a modern Alexander home in the San Fernando Valley. "Tree, 'snow,' and ornaments would change in blazing unison to red, green, and blue, as the tree and wheel spun endlessly. It was completely unhinged from any other Christmas decorations in use then. Its space-age novelty was great."

Over the past few years, aluminum trees have made a comeback, and nowhere more so than in mid-century modern homes, where they just seem so—at home. What could be more eye-on-the-future, after all, or—dare we say it?—greener, than an aluminum Christmas tree?

"Aluminum," Gary Gand observes, "was the material that was going to save the earth back in the '50s. When we were kids, aluminum foil was just the greatest stuff. And aluminum cars."

"They are one of the great icons of the time," says Gand, who lives in an Alexander tract home in Palm Springs and in a Keck-and-Keck modernist home near Chicago, "like the boomerang, the Formica kitchen table top, and the TV dinner."

Unlike 'real' trees—but really, how is wood any 'realer' than aluminum?—the aluminum sort never drop their needles. "All the kitsch but no sticky pitch," is how Scot Nicholls, who lives in a San Jose Eichler, puts it. "There's no mess involved. Christmas goes up—and Christmas goes down and into a box, and it's gone. It's pretty easy."

And Gand, who insists against some evidence to the contrary that mid-century modern homes "are incredible green-friendly" thanks to passive solar design and compact plans, says that aluminum trees complete the environmentally friendly package.

"There's some astronomical number of Christmas trees that get thrown out every year. It's like 100 million trees every year. But people don't pay attention to it—because it's Christmas," he says. "The beauty of the aluminum tree, if you're a green person, it's the same tree over and over again for 50 years."

"The aluminum tree seemed to symbolize a new birth in technology, a better, more rational way of living," Julie Lindemann and John Shimon wrote in 'Season's Gleamings: The Art of the Aluminum Christmas Tree' (Melcher Media, 2004), their book that ignited the aluminum tree craze. They concluded: "The modernist Christmas had arrived."

Dave Peterson, who owns a San Jose Eichler home, sensed the modernist appeal of aluminum trees even when he was a boy living in his parents' 1870s Victorian home in Wisconsin—not far, coincidentally, from Manitowoc, where Aluminum Specialty manufactured its trees. Peterson's mother filled their home with precious antiques, and their Christmas was highly traditional.

But young Dave coveted his neighbor's Christmas. "The lady across the street from us had an aluminum tree in her picture window, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever."

"It's the rotating lights along with the chrome," he says. "Think about Cadillac bumpers—the chrome '50s."

But if 1950s modernism was all about rational planning and efficiency, then the aluminum tree transcends its genre—just as that other icon of the '50s, the flying saucer, transcends the U-2, not to mention anything flown by Pan Am. Lindemann and Shimon, who began their foray into aluminum mania by collecting as many Aluminum Specialty trees as they could find and arraying them, forest-like, in their art studio, picked up on this early.

"As we looked more and more closely at the trees in our studio," they wrote, "we became increasingly aware of their psychic presence. We wondered if their antenna-like forms attracted some kind of unknown magnetic energy and absorbed the vibrations into the wooden trunk?"
Their fellow Wisconsonite, Joe Kapler, takes a more hardheaded look, as befitting his position as a no-nonsense historian and curator at the Wisconsin Historical Museum, whose displays of historic aluminum trees have become legendary.
"I doubt that the good folks at Aluminum Specialty were thinking of modern aesthetics when they created this product," he observes. "They were doing aluminum toys, aluminum doggies, things that were classic.
"I'm sure they were not thinking, 'These would be great for all those new homes they're building in California.'"
As Waak recalls it, the mass-produced aluminum tree got its start when Tom Gannon, Aluminum Specialty's vice president in charge of toys, "took a gamble." The company had come upon a much costlier aluminum tree—selling for $75 to $100—invented in Chicago by a firm called Modern Coatings in 1957. "Gannon thought, if we could retail it for $25, and the customer could carry it out of the store in a box, we've got a hit."
Richard Thomsen, who ran Aluminum Specialty's engineering department, called on fellow engineer Wes Martin. Good choice. "If we had a product that we wanted to figure out," Waak says, "we'd give it to Wes. He'd come up with some weird things."
"Aluminum Specialty Co. took a good idea," Kapler says, "and made it great. They made it efficient and saleable."

Soon housewives laboring in converted naval barracks in Manitowoc—a blue-collar town on Lake Michigan that manufactured submarines during World War II—were inserting aluminum branches tipped with aluminum-foil needles into a wooden trunk.
They built the trees two, four, six, and seven feet high, sold them for $20 to $25, and did well when large tire showrooms—which don't sell many tires during the snowy Wisconsin winters—turned their glass-walled showrooms into glowing forests of aluminum trees.
Aluminum Specialty's first Evergleam-brand tree design made its debut at a toy show in spring 1959, pointing ahead to a very, very merry Christmas for the Waak family. "It became an instant hit," Waak says. The company produced between 200,000 and 300,000 Evergleams the first year alone, Waak estimates. "It was a salesman's dream to have this happen. Suddenly the guy who wouldn't give you the time of day is your best friend."
"Aluminum for lasting beauty," the company proclaimed. Aluminum Speciality also provided the Evergleam Color Wheel, the Santa-Light, and Turbo Color Projector to provide "a glorious panorama of slowly revolving colors."

"The thing you have to understand, these were seasonal products," Waak says. "Every season people want something new. These were new, and it catches the eye."
"Within a few years," Kapler says, "they were cranking them out by the millions."
Competition arrived within weeks. Dozens of firms, including Duralite Aluminum, Morris Novelties, Holiday Industries, Regal Electronics, Renown, and Astralite Ltd., were churning out their own aluminum trees. Some came out with budget models, others with luxury trees. Aluminum Specialty played it down the middle—and remained the market leader, with 65 percent of the market share in North America, Kapler says.
As Charles Darwin could have predicted, aluminum trees mutated and evolved over the years. "We tried putting ribbons on the ends of the branches, in different colors," Waak recalls. "Decorative balls. The revolving stand and lights."
Soon silver trees were joined in the forest by trees of pink, gold, and, unbelievably enough, green. By the third year, branches on Aluminum Specialty erupted in 'pom-poms.'

"By crinkling each needle on splitting machines, and curling it, it formed what we called a pom-pom," Waak says. "That was the biggest hit. You got a reflection of every needle because of the crimping, so you had the maximum amount of light being reflected. There was a real brilliance to it."

Full story at :  www .eichlernetwork. com/article/shimmering-nostalgia-aluminum-christmas-tree

Face To Face Talking Is Soooo........Yesterday.

We look askance at those young adults in a swivet of tech-enabled multifriending, endlessly texting, tracking one another’s movements — always distracted from what they are doing by what they are not doing, always connecting to people they are not with rather than people right in front of them.

 

But being neither here nor there has real upsides. It’s less strenuous. And it can be more uplifting. Or, at least, safer, which has a lot going for it these days. 

Face time — or what used to be known as spending time with friends and family — is exhausting. Maybe that’s why we’re all so quick to abandon it. From grandfathers to tweenies, we’re all taking advantage of the ways in which we can avoid actually talking, much less seeing, one another — but still stay connected.

The last time I had face time with my mother, it started out fine. “What a lovely blouse,” she said, plucking lovingly (as I chose to think) at my velvet sleeve. I smiled, pleased that she was noticing that I had made an effort. “Too bad it doesn’t go with your skirt.” Had we been on Skype, she would never have noticed my (stylishly intentional, I might add, just ask Marni) intriguing mix of textures. And I would have been spared another bout of regressive face time freak-out. 

Face time means you can’t search for intriguing recipes while you are listening to a fresh round of news about a friend’s search for a soul mate. You can’t mute yourself out of an endless meeting, or listen to 10 people tangled up in planning while you vacuum the living room. You can’t get “cut off” — Whoops! Sorry! Tunnel! — in the middle of a tedious litany of tax problems your accountant has spotted. 

My move away from face time started with my children; they are generally the ones who lead us into the future. It happened gradually. First, they left home. That did it for face time. Then I stopped getting return phone calls to voice mails. That did it for voice time, which I’d used to wean myself from face time. What happened?

“Text, Mom.”

I don’t text. Rather, I didn’t text. Because before too long, it wasn’t just the kids who were no longer listening to voice messages. No one was. Neither was I. A quick glance at the record of who had called was enough. This is mainly because people no longer leave voice messages while they are curled up on a sofa, in the quiet comfort of their living rooms, ready to chat. Instead, they catch up while they are outside, on the way somewhere, so that their message is drowned out by sirens, honking trucks and whistling winds. Why bother to listen? 

Texting didn’t last long with me; it is difficult to switch to reading glasses while negotiating sidewalk traffic. Now I simply ignore my phone — though I’m filled with admiration at the adroitness of codgers who are able to text and shop, or text and drink, or text and talk. 

Now I’m even finding voice time an ordeal. After having had a career of offices to show up in every morning, I went into shock when I woke one morning to realize I had nowhere to go — and no more colleagues to see. No more meetings, no more hallway conversations, no more business lunches. No more face time, when you get down to it. I was upset about this, for months. After all, 30 years of doing work that depended on that chance conversation, that closed-door pep talk when something was wrong, that shared play of delight when something was right — these are difficult work habits to shake.

But now I spend a great deal of time at a computer on my kitchen table. I’m in comfortable sweaters and sweatpants — when I’ve managed to ditch the pajamas. When I attend meetings, it is via earbud.

At this point, Skype seems impossibly intimate — the worst of both worlds. Imagine having to see the person you are talking to, without being with them. Except with one’s mother, why would anyone want to do that?

Apple is now promoting an amiable new feature called, laughably, FaceTime — which, it claims, is remarkable: “talk, smile and laugh with anyone on an iPad 2, iPhone 4,” etc. “Catch up, hang out, joke around and stay in touch with just a click. Sure, it’s great to hear a voice. But it’s even better to see the face that goes with it.” 

I’m not so sure. Seeing faces burdens us with responsibilities we may be too weary to shoulder. I’ve gotten used to not having to deal with everything that gets dragged in behind those voices, smiles and laughs. Things like the wince in the forehead, when you’ve been too sharp. Or the shadow across the eyes when you’ve hurt a feeling. 

Face time conversation is very different from faceless conversation. Silence, for example, is meaningless in the faceless realm. Whereas, in face time, silences are resonant, often resplendent, moments of connection. Face-to-face silence means, I’m thinking, I’m listening, I’m searching, I’m feeling your pain. Not, I’ve hung up. 

Recently I was talking to my 23-year-old son, Theo, about my nostalgia for LP record albums. Theo thought a moment and conceded that he, too, was feeling nostalgic ...for dial-up modem. (He had nice memories of pleasant beeping sounds.) I suppose the point is that we all start to pine for the way things were, once they’ve been gone long enough for us to forget how annoying they used to be. 

Which means we will soon enough feel nostalgia for face time. I’m not quite there yet. But I’m hoping someone is working on an app that replicates the sensation of snuffling a freshly bathed child. I remember how lovely it used to be, not so very long ago, before they grew out of face time, before I tired of face time, how delicious it was when both boys were little, to wrap my arms around them, listen to the day’s woes, rub noses and kiss goodnight. We clicked. And we didn’t even need “just a click.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/actual-conversation-so-yesterday.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

See What George Clooney Will Star In Next March!

George Clooney is throwing his considerable star power behind the fight against Prop. 8 by signing on to appear in a reading of the  play "8" in Los Angeles. The play, by Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, is scheduled to have a staged reading at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on March 3.

The play "8" is based on research and transcripts from Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the 2010 federal court battle that dealt with the legality of Prop. 8, the controversial ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California. The judge in the case ruled that Prop. 8 was unconstitutional, but the decision has been appealed.

The reading of "8" will serve as a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, an advocacy organization that has fought to overturn the initiative. Clooney is the first actor to be announced for the L.A. reading.

A spokesman for Clooney said the actor was traveling in Australia this week and was unavailable for comment. But in a release sent by the foundation, Clooney said: "It is astonishing that gay and lesbian Americans are still treated as second-class citizens. I am confident that, very soon, the laws of this nation will reflect the basic truth that gay and lesbian people -- like all human beings -- are born equal in dignity and rights."

Rob Reiner will direct the reading at the Wilshire Ebell. A spokeswoman for the foundation said that Reiner called Clooney to ask if the actor would be interested in being involved in the production.

Tickets for the one-night benefit reading can be purchased online.

The play received a staged reading in September at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York. The New York and L.A. readings are co-organized by Broadway Impact, an activist group of theater professionals.

Black, who along with Reiner is a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, has made revisions to the play since its New York reading.

Clooney, who currently is starring in the movie "The Descendants," has lent his support to political and humanitarian causes including the crisis in Darfur and last year's earthquake in Haiti.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/12/george-clooney-joins-cast-of-prop-8-play-reading-in-la.html

Walt Disney: The Maverick

Walt Disney was born 110 years ago this week and, if someone decided to build a Mount Rushmore for Hollywood next to Griffith Observatory, we all take it for granted that he would be in granite. Disney the brand is among the strongest in the world but Disney the man has a more elusive legacy.  We invited filmmaker Jon Favreau (the “Iron Man” movies, “Elf,” “Cowboys & Aliens”) to share his thoughts on that legacy. Favreau has been in a Disney state of mind recently — he’s doing research for a project called ”Magic Kingdom,” a fantasy set within the confines of the Anaheim theme park  – but, as he writes, Disney has been in his dreams since he was a child.

Disneyland, opening day, 1955. (Los Angeles Times archive)

I was born in 1966, the year Walt Disney passed away. He would’ve been 110 this week. I’m too young to have had a first-hand memory of him. In fact, I didn’t even know Disney was a man until late in my childhood. Disney was a place (Disneyland) and it made cartoons (Mickey Mouse) and it made movies (Snow White). I later learned that Disney was a person and not a swirling entity defined by Disneyland, Mickey Mouse and Snow White. Or so I thought.

As childhood slipped away, I clung to it through the discovery of Walt’s entire catalog of animated content. Even the earliest nightmare I can remember having was my family’s Toyota driving past me on a New York city street with Mowgli from “The Jungle Book” sitting where I belonged behind my parents. As I got older I became enamored with Fantasia and all of its psychadelia in the revival houses of Greenwich Village. Even as an adult, I am caught in the guts whenever I see Dumbo cradled in the trunk of his caged mother, no doubt accessing repressed pain through emotional back channels to when I lost my own mother as a kid.

And I’m not alone. In some families this emotional connection spans four and five generations. We have incorporated these myths into our own psychological makeup, like a tree growing through a chain link fence. In our secular and pluralistic society, the Wonderful World of Disney has emerged as a de facto least common denominator of shared cultural archetypes.

How did this happen? Was it some conspiracy of corporate America? An overachieving marketing exercise? I don’t think so. I’ve been on both sides of the curtain, having climbed from outsider to insider over several decades, and I believe the answer lies in a man who dreamed for an entire generation.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (Disney)

The avuncular television personality we all have grown to know and embrace (and occasionally pastiche, cf. John Slattery in “Iron Man 2″) was a cultivated persona that echoed the most accessible version of himself. In the autumn of his years, Walt had become an international cultural ambassador and the frontman for a giant media company. At his heart, however, Walt Disney was a maverick.

Walt started off, as the legend goes, as a small town hayseed from Marceline, Mo., who had an extra helping of gumption and sought to bring small town sensibilities to a growing and impersonal world. Like a modern day Paul Bunyan, he would single-handedly fight off the final clutches of the Industrial Revolution with elbow grease and good old-fashioned American values. I suppose this is all true (at least as true as a sound-bite snapshot couldbe), but it leaves out the part I most connect with and respect him for. Walt the maverick.

Walt flirted with bankruptcy his whole life. He took every success and let it ride. Both financially and creatively. And the secret sauce was always technology. We think of “Steamboat Willie” as an old timey black-and-white cartoon but, at the time, it was bleeding-edge tech. It was the first cartoon to marry music to picture, creating perfectly choreographed movement. It was far more expensive than they could’ve ever imagined going into the endeavor (a recurring Walt refrain), but they innovated something completely new and it was devoured by the public. And Mickey Mouse, that monetizable confection of I.P., surfed in on that wave and has been with us ever since. He bet the farm, almost lost it all, and then hit the longshot. He paid his debts and cleared a little more than he spent.

"Steamboat Willie" (Walt Disney Co.)

It was this business model that Walt rode his entire career, like a lumberjack dancing on a spinning log down the river. And when most people say Walt, they really mean Walt and Roy. His big brother was the yin to Walt’s yang. Walt was “Show,” Roy was “Business.” Walt dreamed it and his pragmatic older brother and business partner made it come true. It was the loving tension between these two brothers that so succinctly embodies Hollywood’s dichotomy of art and commerce. Not Cain and Abel, but Jacob and Esau jockeying for preeminence and their father’s blessing and legacy.

Walt hit the longshot again with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” another first. It was the world’s first full-length animated feature. This project was ridiculed as an investment. Who would accept the tone? Why spend so many man-hours on quality? But, after suffering the slings and arrows of the status quo and running through the coffers several times over, the movie was a huge success. It was a financial and critical victory. Sadly, Walt would never top this experience as a filmmaker. Although we all think of his entire library of animated films a pantheon of excellence, at the time the experience was not so rosy.

Each project delivered diminishing returns both critically and financially. Despite passion and innovation, the films were each more heavily scrutinized and the financial realpolitik of the movie business had to be considered more and more as overhead grew and profits dwindled. Then there was the shadow of the World War, which also diverted the river of fate.

The advent of Fantasound for Fantasia, the use of color in cartoons and television, the pioneering of the medium of television itself as a marketing tool, as a platform for content and as a driver of the creation of content were all bold and prescient moves on the part of the growing media giant. Few of them paid off in the short term and only in retrospect is their importance truly appreciated.

Walt found himself drawn into the current of something larger. He was the face of Walt Disney Inc.  The tide had turned and he abandoned the young man’s game of swimming against it. He sat by Roy’s side as his older brother helped mold the company into the giant that it is today. Then something woke up inside of him.

This, to me, is my favorite chapter of Walt’s life. The truly inspiring one.  The anointed king and namesake of Walt Disney Studios quietly slipped out the back door. He cashed in and took a handful of talented artists and, with Roy’s blessing, started over. He dreamed of a place. A place where families could come together and experience something unique yet familiar. A place to share an experience that offered comfort in a changing and scary world that seemed dead set on thumbing its nose at tradition and shredding families apart. A place where cutting edge technology and animatronics could create an immersive virtual reality of an idealized past and future, relying on each family to provide the present

The first ticket to Disneyland was bought by Roy O. Disney, who for decades kept it in the top desk drawer of his office. It's shown here as a preserved artifact in the Disney Archive. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Disneyland was Walt’s third act. It was a success on every level and continues to be. Some of my earliest memories are of the park, my eyes pinched closed as my father described everything we passed in the Haunted Mansion doom buggy. My 1988 cross-country trip on motorcycle culminated with my Sportster padlocked in front of the happiest place on Earth. It was this month-long adventure that ultimately inspired me to leave New York and try to make it in show biz. My first screenplay, “Swingers,” was rife with Disneyland references. Even now, with my own three children, I make the pilgrimage several times a year.

There were three shining moments in Walt’s creative career when everything went right: “Steamboat Willie,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and Disneyland. Maybe I understood more about Walt Disney when I was a little kid than I did when I grew up. I understood him not as the man, but what he was able to achieve. What touched me. And that is the genius of Walt Disney.  Happy birthday, Walt.

– Jon Favreau

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/12/09/walt-disney-the-maverick-a-guest-essay-by-jon-favreau/#/0

Writer From 'Family Guy' Recounts Occupy L.A. Arrest

A writer for “Family Guy” has garnered attention from a blog he wrote detailing, what he described as the forceful actions of police on demonstrators during LAPD’s raid on the Occupy Los Angeles encampment.

In contrast to the officers he said entered the scene with weapons, Patrick Meighan claims he was among a group of protestors during the early morning raid sitting Indian-style with their hands interlocked chanting words of peace.

“The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted ‘We Are Peaceful’ and ‘We Are Nonviolent” and “Join Us,” he wrote. Meighan described officers ransacking the encampment one tent at a time.

 

“As we sat there encircled, a separate team of LAPD officers used knives to slice open every personal tent in the park,” he blogged. “They forcibilby removed anyone sleeping inside, and then yanked out and destroyed any personal property inside those tents, scattering the contents across the park.”

Photos and Videos

Comedy Writer Speaks
out About Occupy LA...

Meighan described in detail the physical tactics he said were used by police to get those who were peacefully resisting arrest to unlink from one another.

“It was horrible to watch,” he wrote, “and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us.”

He said he ultimately decided to voluntarily unlink his arms, yet was not spared an arrest that would later produce bruising, and nerve damage in his thumb and palm.

Still, Meighan does not believe the arrests made that morning were, as he wrote it, “uniquely-brutal.”

“The LAPD officers were just doing their jobs, as they understood them,” he blogged.

Meighan says he wrote the blog to call attention to a differently injustice.

"We as a society, including the city of Los Angeles and the LAPD treat peaceful non-violent protesters one particular way, sort of give them the full force of the law. Whereas at the same time, there are folks who have defrauded our nation out of hundreds of billions of dollars, and those folks walk free."

NBC4 forwarded the blog to the LAPD. A spokesperson declined to make a public response, saying then they'd have to respond to every arrest.

But they say, all complaints can be made formally to the department and internal affairs will look into it.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Family-Guy-Writer-Patrick-Meighan-Occupy-LA-Arrest-135363078.html

OMG This Man Wants To Be PRESIDENT?!! (yes, Perry)

Numbers. They're the darnedest things. Just ask Rick Perry.

GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry campaigns in Charleston, S.C., on Thursday. (Alice Keeney / Associated Press)

The GOP presidential contender, whose misfires have become part of the legend of the 2012 race, appears to have made another flub or two Friday in an interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, getting wrong the number of justices on the Supreme Court and blanking out on the name of one justice altogether.

According to reports by the Register and the Associated Press, Perry was all set to call out Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama nominee, as a "activist judge" -- except he couldn't recall her name. He struggled for six seconds before saying "Not Montemayor?"

"Sotomayor," one of the editorial board members helpfully said.

Perry then went on to condemn "eight unelected and, frankly, unaccountable judges" in a discussion of prayer in schools.

Nine justices serve on the high court, not eight.

Numbers, of course, famously tripped up the Texas governor in a debate in November when he pledged that, as president, he would eliminate three Cabinet agencies -- but then could only summon the names of two agencies in some of the most painful-to-watch political moments in recent history.

The candidate is in the midst of a large-scale push to garner support in Iowa in advance of the Jan. 3 caucuses. He's bought a wealth of TV advertising time and next week plans to begin to campaign by bus across the state.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-perry-scotus-20111209,0,780790.story?track=rss 

The REAL American Airlines Story

American Airlines files Chapter 11

Video on msnbc.com: Workers lose as American Airlines puts profits over people. Ed shares his thoughts.

New Earth-Sized Planet Discovered

Kepler-21b: Near Earth-Sized Planet Discovered 352 Light-Years Away

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory announced on Wednesday the discovery of Kepler-21b, a new planet that's close to the size of earth and is only about 352 light years away.

"By astronomical standards, that's right next door," Katy Garmany, the Deputy Press Officer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, told HuffPost.

Astronomers frequently discover new planets (according to Time magazine, we're up to over 2,000), but Garmany said that what's exciting about Kepler 21-b is that the planet is relatively Earth-sized. While its mass is about 10 times the size of our planet, its radius is only 1.6 times the size of Earth's. 

"Until a few years ago, the smallest extra-solar planet that we had discovered was the size of Jupiter or Saturn, which are about ten times bigger than the Earth," Garmany said. "Now we're getting down to something almost the size of the Earth, showing that we have the technology to find the earth-size planets."

The new planet has a star that's just a bit bigger and hotter than Earth's sun, although it's substantially younger. But because the planet is so close to its star, it's far too hot to have liquid water, the base for life as we know it. At only 6 million kilometers (about 3.7 million miles) away from the star, Kepler-21b's temperature is a blistering 2,960 degrees Fahrenheit, according to scientists' estimates. 

By contrast, Earth is about 150,000,000 km (93 million miles) from its own sun.

The discovery of Kepler-21b was a collaboration of both sky (the Kepler observatory) and ground-based telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, writes in Discover Magazine that researchers examined the planet for 15 months. The results of the study will be published in Astrophysical Journal. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/kepler-21b-new-planet-discovered_n_1121938.html#s509344&title=Space_Shuttle_Discoverys

Did You 'Stuff' Yourself On Black Friday???

On the biggest shopping day of the year, think for a moment about the demands our consumption makes on the planet's resources and ask yourself: Does our family need more stuff?

 

Shoppers, including one who appears to be in her pajamas, line up in the electronics department at Target in Burbank shortly after 4 a.m. on Black Friday 2010. (Los Angeles Times)

Today is Black Friday, when holiday shopping hordes descend on malls across the country, and retailers hope to turn a profit as their accounting books transition from red ink to black. This year, Black Friday comes two months after Global Overshoot Day, when our planet's accounts — the ones that measure human demand on the planet's services that support our economies — transitioned the other direction, from black to red.

Each year our planet can produce a certain amount of resources and absorb a certain amount of use — nature's budget for the year. One group of scientists that keeps an eye on this is the Global Footprint Network, and by its calculations, in 2011 we exhausted the annual budget on Sept. 27, less than 10 months into the year.

That means we are currently 135% above the capacity of our planet to replace essential "services" like clean water, clean air, arable land, healthy fisheries and stable climate. Our overconsumption is eating into the very ecological systems that all the world's economies — and indeed, all life — depend on. If that is troublesome, consider that the Global Footprint folks project that in 2050 we'll be 500% above capacity unless we change how we make, use and throw away stuff.

What to do? That gets us back to today, Black Friday. The biggest ingredient in these frightening predictions — even bigger than the growth in our planet's population — is the growth in consumption of that expanding population. So one response — and one we believe will perhaps have the biggest impact — is for those of us in the overconsuming parts of the world to learn to get by with less stuff, and to ensure the stuff we do get lasts a good long time.

That's why the two of us writing this essay are collaborating. At the Story of Stuff Project we ask you to question whether you need ever more stuff — faster, cooler, bigger stuff — than you had last year. We ask you to question whether new stuff will, as the marketers want you to think, secure you love, status, entertainment and security. Or is it instead time to question the toll all that stuff is taking on your household budget, not to mention your planet's health? Is it worth it to be weighed down with consumer debt, overstuffed garages and a constant, stressful need to have the latest thing? We ask you to consider that maybe the non-stuff part of your life is really what matters: time with your friends and family, a sense of purpose in your life, working together with others toward shared goals.

At Patagonia, the outdoor clothing company, we're asking you to think twice about whether to buy a new jacket for yourself, your friends or family. Maybe you can get by with the one you already have? Or if your current jacket needs repairs, bring it back and let us fix it. Or if it's sitting unused in your garage or closet, we'll help you sell it (for no charge) to someone who will use it. Or if it's really worn out, bring it back and we'll recycle it.

Patagonia exists to make and sell things people want and need. The health of the business — and the livelihoods of everyone who works for it — depends on people buying our stuff. But we are also aware that, as environmentalist David Brower said, "There is no business on a dead planet."

And at the Story of Stuff, we aren't anti-stuff — we own and use stuff — but as this holiday shopping season starts, we encourage everyone to reexamine the stuff they do get. Appreciate the work and materials and energy that went into your stuff and eke out every last drop of use before replacing it. As anyone with gray hair will confirm, there was a time when having one toaster, one winter jacket, one couch that lasted years worked just fine. If making products to last for years worked then, why can't it work now?

We both recognize that economists and politicians want you to spend money to grow the economy. We know that redesigning products and our cultural norms may seem a herculean task. But it's easier than figuring out how to fix a planet whose resources are overdrawn year after year.

There's no one easy solution to ensuring a healthy economy and a healthy environment. It requires unlikely partners, such as a retailer and an anti-consumerism campaign, finding common ground and joining forces. It requires a commitment from our political and business and civic leaders to finding more ways we can all live within the budget of the one beautiful planet we have. But most of all it requires a commitment from you, from us, from everyone who makes, buys and uses stuff, to work together for a better future.

Annie Leonard is founder of the Story of Stuff Project. Rick Ridgeway is vice president of environmental initiatives at Patagonia Inc. 

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-leonardridgeway-blackfriday-20111125,0,2159130.story