My letter to Whole Foods Market about their changes at Greenlife
Dear Ms. Townsend:
First of all, I want to let you know that I am a long-time supporter of Whole Foods Market. In fact, I shopped at your original store when I lived in Austin during the 1990s. I appreciate your creating opportunities for folks to purchase healthy foods across the nation and wish you continued success in that regard.
I am writing to you today, however, about Greenlife Grocery in Asheville, North Carolina. Since Greenlife is less than a mile from my home, my wife Shonnie Lavender and I consider it our neighborhood grocery store. We shop there regularly and spend between $200 and $300 per week, primarily on groceries. We also frequently meet friends and business associates there for coffee and for meals.
When we discussed Whole Foods’ purchase of Greenlife with the staff members there, we were told that Whole Foods didn’t intend to change anything that made Greenlife the success it has been. Now, however, I’m finding conventional produce mixed with the organic produce, and I am very concerned about this.
I understand that Whole Foods thinks that taking such measures will bring in shoppers who may be interested in purchasing lower priced produce and other food items. Maybe so. But actions such as these may also drive shoppers such as my wife and me to back to Earth Fare or the French Broad Food Co-op, both within an additional five-minute drive of our home.
I’m guessing that you did a good bit of market research before you bought the Greenlife stores, so I’m sure that you know that Asheville is a unique market with many political progressives, spiritual activists, outdoor athletes, participants in holistic healing and a variety of combinations thereof. We are not purists, but we want what we want. And what we want is to be able to count on the grocery store to which we give our loyalty and our money to carry organic, locally grown produce whenever possible without adulterating it with conventional produce from factory farms. This is not only a personal health issue, it is also a values issue. We want to eat healthy food, and as much as possible, we want it to come from farmers and suppliers who really care about those who will be buying their products, from farmers who nurture the earth from which the bounty came.
I don’t want to have to regularly wade through the plethora of so-called “natural” foods that I see cluttering the aisles of Whole Foods Market stores when we visit Raleigh, Denver or NYC. There’s plenty of that stuff for sale in regular super markets for those who want it. In the end, I can only speak for myself: If Greenlife continues becoming more like your other stores, I will be taking my business elsewhere. Furthermore, I will be encouraging others to do so as well.
I would appreciate a response to this message.
Respectfully,
Bruce Mulkey
Friday, July 23rd, 2010Be afraid . . . be very afraid!
The fear that permeates our culture is designed at least in part to keep our attention focused outwardly on Islamofascists and other such bogeymen rather than on the real culprits–the plutocrats of our ruling elite who have purchased political power and thereby dismantled democracy here at home. Over the past two years, the Washington Post has examined the enormous, secret apparatus America has spawned in reaction to 9/11 and the perceived threat to our nation.
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The Washington Post, July 19, 2010
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies duplicate the same work.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
The investigation’s other findings include:
- Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
- An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
- In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.
- Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
- Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
The Third Depression
In my humble opinion, Paul Krugman nails it in his New York Times column yesterday today. We’re in for some tough economic times, and those who proclaim that we are seeing the “green shoots” of recovery in the U.S. economy are sadly mistaken.
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The Third Depression
by Paul Krugman
New York Times, June 27, 2010Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.
Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.
We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.
Click here to read the entire column
For another view of our nation’s economy, see “Say What?” by James Howard Kuntsler.
Monday, June 28th, 2010Forgiving our fathers
On this Fathers’ Day . . .
On this Fathers’ Day, what if we decided to finally forgive our fathers
For being too soft or too hard
For always being there or rarely being present
For holding us too close or never holding us at all
For smothering us with love or withholding it as reproval
For wearing their feelings on their sleeve or expressing only anger
For being generous in their criticism but meager in their praise
For the perpetual safety net or ample rope to hang ourselves
For telling us what to do yet not sharing how to be
For saying “You can be anything,” or “You can’t make a living doing that”
What if, on this Fathers’ Day, we finally release these and any other real or imagined transgressions
And honor our fathers for the blessings they provided and for loving us the very best way they knew how
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I wrote this and first posted it for Fathers’ Day 2009.
Saturday, June 19th, 2010Buy the people or for the people? Asheville needs publicly financed elections.
by Bruce Mulkey, Mountain Xpress, 06/02/2010
How much do you think a candidate should have to spend to run a competitive campaign for the Asheville City Council — a job that pays $13,800 per year?
Would $10,000 be enough? $20,000? $40,000?
Would it surprise you to know that in 2007, Bill Russell spent approximately $63,000 to win a City Council seat? Russell edged incumbent Bryan Freeborn, who spent about $10,000, by 74 votes. In the end, each of Russell’s votes cost approximately $11.30, compared with about $1.90 per vote for Freeborn. Incidentally, most of Russell’s campaign contributions came from a single special-interest group: builders, developers and realtors.
In 2001, Charles Worley reportedly spent a whopping $120,000 on his successful push to become mayor of Asheville, barely defeating Brian Peterson 7,936 votes to 7,399. For the record, last year’s three victorious City Council candidates averaged less than $25,000 in campaign expenditures; Mayor Terry Bellamy spent just over $33,000 on her re-election bid.
I’m not suggesting that Russell or Worley did anything wrong; certainly nothing unscrupulous or dishonest. They were playing by the same rules as everyone else. And only they can say whether they felt beholden to their biggest contributors. But such large infusions of cash into our local political process endanger the time-honored principle of one person, one vote. To remove the influence of big money and level the playing field, it’s time for Asheville to implement publicly financed elections.
In 2007, the N.C. General Assembly named Chapel Hill the pilot city for publicly financed local elections. The Voter Owned Election Program is entirely voluntary; candidates qualify by raising a sizable number of small contributions and agreeing to spending and fundraising limits. Both candidates who qualified for financial support during last fall’s municipal election collected more votes than any of the nonparticipating candidates, and the program cost the city less than $1 per resident. Once the state House and Senate pass the necessary legislation, Asheville will have the option of creating a similar program that fits our specific needs.
WNC for Change, a grass-roots group that grew out of Barack Obama’s campaign for president, believes the time has come for publicly financed elections in Asheville. Here’s why:
- Big money can unfairly influence the outcome of local elections. By making generous campaign contributions, wealthy donors, corporations, political action committees and special-interest groups with a stake in Asheville City Council decisions can give their chosen candidates an unfair advantage.
- The high cost of running for office deprives us of more diverse leadership. Many aspiring local leaders decline to run for office because of the rising cost, leaving us with a primarily white, affluent, male, heterosexual City Council that doesn’t fully represent our city’s population.
- Council members whose campaigns were publicly financed would be accountable to all Asheville residents. Publicly financed elections ensure that our elected officials are more accountable to their constituents than to special-interest groups making substantial campaign contributions.
- Voters are more likely to participate in publicly financed elections. When people understand that all qualified candidates have a chance to win and that the election isn’t rigged in favor of the affluent or those backed by big money, they’re more likely to vote.
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court removed restrictions on corporate spending to influence elections; nothing now prevents a corporation from spending huge sums of money in an Asheville election in hopes of electing a slate of candidates sympathetic to its interests. But in a Feb. 8 Washington Post-ABC News poll, 80 percent of respondents opposed this decision. And recent focus groups in Charlotte and Denver for the Campaign for Fair Elections and the Public Campaign Action Fund clearly showed that voters across the political spectrum are angry about the problem of special-interest money and want fair elections in which candidates receive small donations from ordinary people.
Act now to curb special interests and create greater accountability
Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, a Tea Party member or a Green, an independent or none of the above, you now have an opportunity to reclaim your power. At the Tuesday, June 8, Asheville City Council meeting, Council member Cecil Bothwell will propose a resolution calling on the General Assembly to enact legislation giving the state’s larger towns the power to sponsor public-financing programs — a first step toward publicly financed Asheville elections.
This is a concern for all of us, not just city residents. We must urge Asheville City Council members to support this resolution (see below).
You may hear various justifications for refusing to support publicly financed elections: It would be too expensive, it would penalize candidates who are good at raising money, the system we have works fine, such a program is untested, the state legislation is flawed, etc. But none of these excuses hold up under scrutiny.
It’s time for Asheville to join Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem, Cary, Wilmington and Greenville, which have already approved similar resolutions. By doing so, we help ensure that “one person, one vote” is not an obsolete expression but a reality in our community.
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Make your voice heard…
A single e-mail message to AshevilleNCCouncil@ashevillenc.gov will reach all City Council members. It’s also important to contact Sen. Martin Nesbitt (919-715-3001, 828-252-0490 or Martin.Nesbitt@ncleg.net) and ask that Asheville be included in the pending state legislation so our city can choose whether or not to implement publicly financed elections.
To learn more about public financing, visit:
To view Council member Cecil Bothwell’s resolution, go to: mountainx.com/xpressfiles
To learn more about N.C. House Bill 120: http://ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2009%20%20&BillID=h120
To contact other members of the local legislative delegation:
- Rep. Susan Fisher: Susan.Fisher@ncleg.net
- Rep. Bruce Goforth: Bruce.Goforth@ncleg.net
- Rep. Jane Whilden: Jane.Whilden@ncleg.net
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Asheville resident Bruce Mulkey (bruce@brucemulkey.com) is president of WNC for Change (http://wncforchange.com).
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010Jubilee! A Call to Life!
Below is an essay about Jubilee! by Avery Shackelford for her Introduction to Religious Studies course at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School in Sewanee, Tennessee. Avery is the granddaughter of Mimi Shackelford, who has been involved with Jubilee! since the beginning and who made the lovely fabric wall hangings that adorn the interior walls at Jubilee!. By the way, Avery recently graduated after receiving an A+ on her paper.
Jubilee! A Call to Life!
By Avery Shackelford
In the mountains of North Carolina there is a place where hands come together to work, pray, create, celebrate, and love. These hands belong to the members of “a unique Community of Faith”1 called Jubilee!. Jubilee! is an inclusive community filled with people of many different religious backgrounds and beliefs, and as Minister Howard Hanger states, “Diversity is our middle name!” The people in this community, who refer to themselves as Jubilants, live up to their namesake as they personify all of the word jubilant’s synonyms including joyful, exultant, and exuberant. In a place where love is given out as freely as candy at a parade, there is certainly much to be jubilant about.
Jubilee! has a mission to make their community and the world a better place. In 1989, when Jubilee! first got its start, the group donated ten thousand dollars to organizations both locally and world-wide to feed and shelter the hungry and homeless.2 Today, Jubilee! annually donates about thirteen times the amount they gave out in their first year; as Mimi Shackelford says “Our goal is to give half of what we take in.” Among the agencies that receive from Jubilee! are Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, and Boys & Girls Club. Service based ministries in Jubilee! include “Outreach” whose mission is “ministering to needs of others through the appropriation of our outreach dollars” and “The Service Team” who “locates and facilitates ‘action oriented, hands-on projects’ that benefit those in need.”3 One unique way in which Jubilee! helps lend a hand is through their “Room In the Inn” program, “a local program of Homeward Bound, sponsored by 26 Asheville area faith-based communities, to provide safe and overnight accommodations and nourishing meals to twelve homeless women.”4 Approximately four times each year Jubilee! provides food and housing for these women with the help of 70 hands. Why are Jubilants so willingly ready to help? This question is answered by Jubilee! member Pam Raymond in her essay “How Much We Love.” She says, “We love…we love wildly and freely! We love the kind of love that is not afraid of dirty hands!” She goes on to say, “Radical love can change a life. Relentless love can change the world – one heart at a time. Keep on loving, Jubilee! that’s what is real.” Jubilee!’s drive to help make their community and world better stems from their perpetual love for all human beings.
The attitude of many Jubilants reminds one faintly of the ideas of the romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge both of who discuss the importance of human beings’ connection to nature in their writing. In Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the narrator talks about his discovery that even the slimy snakes in the sea are part of God’s creation. Likewise, Jubilants say “Even the beasts of the field and every creeping thing praises God, according to the psalms.”5 The Jubilant! church year is unique in its use of “the vias”, “used as a quarterly focus for worship[, there is] one via for each season: Summer—via positiva, Autumn—via negativa, Winter—via creativa, and Spring—via transformativa.”6 The purpose of the vias is to help create your own path of thinking and being while still giving you clear spiritual guidance. The vias are a path, not “THE path.”7 Via positiva is a celebration of yes. Summer is a positive “yes-like” season in the abundance of color and nature. Via negativa affirms that there is darkness in life and that darkness should be approached with courage.
Autumn represents this darkness, as life appears to be dying. Via creativa helps produce a creative time to go inside one-self. Winter is the season of creativity. Via transformativa represents positive change and fullness of life. Spring is a time of change as life is reborn anew.8 In a recent via transformativa celebration, the congregation sang a song about the earth of which Mimi Shackelford says, “After we sang this Howard [Hanger] suggested we imagine singing it to the planet—the moon, stars, earth, and flowers.” Jubilants feel a deep connection to nature. Members of Jubilee! can actively participate in “Earth Team” whose goal is “creating awareness of the interconnection of all things and sponsoring projects related to the environment or justice”9, but being part of the Jubilee! community is enough to help one realize nature’s great effect on and connection to humanity and foster a deep appreciation for the earth. Aliyah Schick says, “I believe that everything that exists is part of the whole, part of what we call sacred, part of what we call God. All that we know and encounter is expression of the sacred and contained within it. Things change form—we live in change, everything is constantly changing—but nothing just ends or stops existing. It transmutes to another form. Water becomes ice, a tree becomes compost, minerals become crystals, oil becomes heat; matter becomes energy and energy becomes matter. There is much more going on than we humans will ever begin to imagine, let alone understand. I have a powerful sense, deep in my bones, that all is well, whether I know the details or not.” Jubilants have come to realize that God is with you in nature and the closer we are to nature, the closer we are to God. (more…)
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010Support publicly-financed elections in Asheville!
WNC for Change supports move toward publicly-financed elections by Asheville City Council.
As you are no doubt aware, big money currently plays an enormous role in our elections. From city council races to the election of the President of the United States, PACs, lobbyists, corporations and wealthy individuals threaten the concept of “one person, one vote” merely because they have deep pockets.
Here in Western North Carolina, we now have an opportunity to reclaim our power from the special interests. We have a chance to take a step toward publicly-financed campaigns in Asheville. And we need your support.
Bothwell to offer resolution to Asheville City Council
At the Tuesday, May 25 Asheville City Council meeting, Council member Cecil Bothwell will offer a resolution in support of local campaign finance reform. If passed by the Council, this resolution will call upon the North Carolina General Assembly to enact legislation that gives larger towns the authority to sponsor a public financing program for their local elections.
Bothwell’s resolution does not mandate implementation of public financing for our municipal elections; it merely puts Asheville on record as supporting the legislation that would allow our city to choose whether or not it wishes to implement public financing of local elections. By doing so, it becomes more likely that Asheville will be included as a pilot city in the legislation before the General Assembly.
Let your voice be heard
Whether or not you live within the Asheville city limits, this is a matter of concern for all of us. It appears that some members of the Asheville City Council and some members of our North Carolina legislative delegation have been reluctant to support publicly-financed elections for Asheville. So it’s time once again for grassroots action to let our elected officials know where we stand, to let them know we want a community that works for all of us, to let them know that we want big money out of our political process.
Actions you can take right now!
- Call or email Sen. Martin Nesbitt requesting that Asheville be included in proposed legislation that would give our city the authority to choose whether or not it wishes to implement public financing of municipal elections: (919) 715-3001 or (828) 252-0490, Martin.Nesbitt@ncleg.net. Contacting Sen. Nesbitt is probably the most important action you can take since he is the NC Senate Majority Leader and, thus, has a great deal of authority in determining what transpires in the General Assembly.
- Email all of the members of the Asheville City Council expressing your support for Cecil Bothwell’s resolution for local campaign finance reform options. To reach all City Council members, send your message to AshevilleNCCouncil@ashevillenc.gov.
- Email our state legislators expressing your desire that Asheville be included in proposed legislation that would give Asheville the authority to choose whether or not the city wishes to implement public financing of municipal elections: Jane.Whilden@ncleg.net; Susan.Fisher@ncleg.net; pjkeever33@bellsouth.net
- Write a letter to the editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times (letters@citizen-times.com) and/or the Mountain Xpress (letters@mountainx.com) expressing your support for Councilperson Bothwell’s resolution and publicly-financed municipal elections in Asheville.
- Post a link to this post on your blog/website and Facebook.
- Forward this email and ask your friends and neighbors to take these actions too.
Suggestions for your emails, calls and letters
Here are some suggestions for making your communications with our elected officials as effective as possible. You may also want to keep these suggestions in mind when writing a letter to the editor.
- Always be respectful in your content and tone.
- Put your message in your own words rather than repeating someone else’s.
- Use an email subject line that will grab the attention of the reader.
- Make your point briefly and clearly.
- Remember that the Asheville Citizen-Times limits letters to the editor to 200 words while the Mountain Xpress has a 300-word limit.
- Call or write today!
If you have any questions or want assistance with any of this, merely reply to this email.
Let’s join other North Carolina cities!
Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem, Cary, Wilmington and Greenville have already passed resolutions similar to the one that is being offered on May 25, and the Chapel Hill pilot public financing program worked well last fall. Let’s join these cities in the march toward a more democratic society.
Please take action today!
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Read Cecil Bothwell’s draft resolution by clicking here.
For more information on publicly-financed elections in North Carolina, visit the following websites:
North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections
Friday, May 14th, 2010On the sidewalks of Montford
Last Saturday I participated in the Asheville Z-Link effort to clear and clean sidewalks in Asheville, a project led by City Council member Cecil Bothwell. From the Asheville Z-Link blog:
Some of Asheville’s neighborhoods have wonderful sidewalks. Older areas, developed in the heyday of Asheville’s trolley system, were designed with walkers in mind. In the new era of raised environmental awareness, a national childhood asthma epidemic and expensive gasoline, more and more of us are rethinking our local travel options. Walking and biking are obvious choices.
A common problem with older sidewalks is that poor maintenance has resulted in accumulation of dirt and debris, followed by weeds and exacerbated by the encroachment of shrubs. The City sidewalk ordinance requires that property owners keep public sidewalks across their property clear, but enforcement is a low priority and there are some folks who are physically unable to perform the work. Then too, vacant lots often go untended for years. There are many places where perfectly good walks extend for blocks, only to be obstructed in one short section, rendering them impassable for wheel chairs, baby strollers or those with ambulatory disabilities.
The video below shows how you can join in.
Also be sure to visit the Asheville Z-Link blog for more information.
