How my propaganda would be better than yours

One downside of no longer living alone is that when it's midnight, and you can't sleep, someone else IS asleep, and would probably be justifiably annoyed by your getting up and going to the kitchen to bake midnight ginger sparkle cookies. Even if ginger sparkle cookies are waaaay better than counting sheep for insomnia. Or, at least, they make you feel better about being awake.

This is true even if that person is partially to blame for said insomnia, having inflicted a climate-crisis-horror film on you after you spent the day researching environmental permits. In his defense, he meant well. It's definitely a mutual interest - usually environmental flicks are a place we can meet in the middle of the spectrum that runs between sex, 'splosions & slapstick (me) and artistic, deep, lovely, and torrentially boring art house films (him). However. I am developing some rules for myself as I get deeper into this whole environmental law thing; I think that one of them is going to be setting limits on how much exposure per day, and of what sort.

Tonight we watched "The Age of Stupid", and while I primarily agree with what it has to say, I didn't love the methods. For one thing, the thing feels like propaganda. I am fully in agreement with 99% of the scientists - climate change exists, and we're currently screwing ourselves. So, fundamentally, I am fully in agreement with the point of the film. But. If you are going do a documentary - and in spite of this films VERY clumsy "plot" of having one of the last remaining keepers of knowledge on earth going back through the news record leading up to the extinction of the human race, it is basically a documentary - you have to at least make an effort to present alternate points of view. There were none. All of the people doin' wrong were unpleasant, unattractive and unlikeable. . . and frequently fat. Further more, their only reasons for resisting changes were self-serving and small minded. All of the people either being victimized or trying to fix things were attractive and well spoken.

People. If this were actually the case the world over, I promise you, we would not be having the problems we're having changing behaviors. There are real issues that can make some blanket fixes extremely difficult. Giving fuel (heh. I kill me.) to the people who accuse liberals of making up climate change by making a film that doesn't take all the issues into account doesn't help anyone. (side note: why? why would anyone invent this? what is the benefit to the scheming liberal?) This film will resonate with people who are already convinced, and piss off the people who aren't.

Anyway (spoiler alert!) in the end, we all died in a gotterdamerung of fire and flood, drowning in blame for the deaths of our grandchildren; the old nimbys with their bad teeth along with the cute little family with the wind turbine and the chickens.

The movie did make one point I thought was interesting - our current inaction does seem a lot like a collective suicide on the part of the human race. The narrator asks why, after all this effort, we don't feel like we're worth saving. My answer, on sleep-deprived reflection, is that we have lost sight of the fact that individuals are all bits of a community; a single organism. Humanity thrives on balanced challenge within itself. The balance has been thrown off, and the cells are attacking each other. It's stupid, but we can't seem to stop. My mother would say there were devils in the house, trying to stop the next good thing from happening. It's not suicide, it's a disorder. Some kind of catastrophic imbalance. I think it's the blame game.

Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on the movie. I've been repelled by hellfire and brimstone sermons from the time I understood what they were, but some people get a lot out of them. I sort of prefer the carrot to the stick. My propaganda film: Here's how to make a totally healthy, tasty, nutritionally balanced vegetarian diet! Here's how to get to work without driving your hummer! Here's how to order just about anything you want environmentally friendly style! Here's how to use the great google to figure out how to do just about anything. (actually, I would just have to make a compilation of youtube videos) PS - if you fuck it up the first time, try, try again. Also, walk. Share space with other humans.

Finally - ginger sparkle cookies. Might save the world. (especially if you make 'em with brown sugar and white whole wheat flour)

Brew Prep and a little Atlantean Exploration

In honor of the spring break that isn't (yes, I do have one scheduled, no, it isn't actually a vacation) I pretended my world was pre-law school today. First I got up and watched episode 4 of She-Ra, Princess of Power on Hulu while I had my coffee. I eschewed the business casual wardrobe that has become a necessity during the week and put on tight, goofy t-shirt, converse all stars, and, my old Buddy Holly rimmed glasses. Then I went exploring.

A lot of people bitch about Atlanta, and many of the same people then wax lyrical about Portland, OR being one greatest places on earth. (Me included.) It is true that it's hard to see past unbelievably bad urban planning and the big coke signs here in the ATL. It's also true that it takes very little time to forget how hard it is not to jump off a bridge by mid march and the 90th straight day of gray, drizzly sky in the Great Northwest.

Anyway. During my explorations today I had a very Atlanta experience, and an epiphany. The epiphany had to do with the Portland/Atlanta comparisons that I try very hard not to make, but still do. I was driving down Ponce towards Peachtree, passing buildings that would be alternately glaring plastic chain restaurant glitz, broken down, grafitti covered brick; brightly painted, bohemian looking chic, or old gothic stone, in no particular order.

The interesting thing is, particularly in Atlanta, what the thing looks like on the outside will be absolutely no indicator of what will be inside. It seems like a lot of people spend a bunch of money making a place look and feel amazing. . . but then totally fail to have decent food, or forget to hire good customer service. Also, the assumption here is frequently that the bigger and shinier something is, the better it must be. My experience in Portland was that a lot of times, if a place or a person presented as being kind of bohemian, poor and gritty, if you scratched the surface, the person would have a Ph.D. in philosophy and a trust fund, and the place would be serving organic, farm fresh eggs on a paper plate. Here, you are just as likely to find a great, shiny atmosphere or (or hairdo), scratch the surface, and find eggbeaters served to you on really nice china. It's weird. Both sides are faking it, but the perception of what will be valued is totally polarized.

That being said, I've recently been finding all sorts of nifty little places, hidden in the crooks of Atlanta's twisting, nonsensical maze of multi-named streets.

In pursuit of a project for my blog on the Docket, (and also personal enrichment and all that) I made my way through downtown and the Georgia Tech Campus to "Hop City", and incidentally, Five Seasons Brew Pup. Hop City Might be my new favorite place. It's a combination craft brew and wine shop. I mostly didn't care about the wines section, but the shelves and shelves of microbrews almost brought me to tears. There is an entire aisle just for stouts and porters.

One of the salespeople, Craig, helped me come up with a recipe for a porter and find the minimum number of gadgets I need to make the brewing process happen. Then he walked me through his version of how to brew this particular recipe. He was very nice, and it was generally a pretty fun experience.

But this isn't just about Hop City - the whole development it's in is very cool. I mean, aside from having more parking space, it could have been in the Pearl. Very pleasant and walkable. . .though, naturally, hemmed in on all sides by busy surface streets.

Anyway. Having purchased my equipment (and, ok, one mix pack) I wandered into Five Seasons for lunch. One of our neighbors knows the owner, and recommended it. Craig also said "you gotta", so I did. I was unsure - Atlanta "brewpubs" may brew (or may not), and they defnitely don't feel like pubs to me. In my world, a pub is a relatively small space, dim, with a wooden bar and some tables - probably a few more tables that there's really room for. There is random funky decor covering the unfinished brick walls, and maybe a few things hanging from the rafters. The waitstaff are hairy, tattooed and wearing whatever they want, probably with a cig behind one ear.

A well-lit, three story-high-ceilinged, shiny-metal-and-plastic, windows for walls establishment does not say brew-pub to me. I like to feel safe and enclosed while I'm having my beer. But then again, I've only been here for three years. Give me time. Anyway. Five Seasons is nice, but it definitely plays to Atlanta Money, not Portland Alcoholic. It's very big, shiny and open feeling, but they got points for playing Joni Mitchell, the bar and tables are wood, and the line of taps behind the bar with handwritten labels of all their microbrews warmed the cockles of my judgmental little heart.

Since it was only 12:30 in the afternoon, I got to choose my table. I found one sort of behind a corner of the bar, where I could have a wall behind me and watch everything that was going on; and settled in to taste this highly regarded local brew. Even though it was only noon I tried the "Dark Star Porter" (yes, I like Porters. This has never been a secret)

Fabulous. If I hadn't had to drive home, I'd have sampled everything they made. The Dark Star was sooo good. Dark and rich, but very smooth and drinkable going down, with a lovely aftertaste. Agh! So Good! At this point I also found out that it's illegal in Georgia to fill Growlers. So, you know, we still have a ways to go.