Critic in Progress . . .

Book and Movie Review:  World War Z

Over vacation I read a few books and when I got back I went to see the movie adaption of one.  I thought for my Monday (which is being published on Tuesday courtesy of my dear friend Mr. Migraine) blog I would share my thoughts on both. 

As is so often the case the book was way better than the movie.  There are two times I can think of where this has not true.  Case #1 The Count of Monte Cristo.  I found the book so depressing. Intriguing, yes.  Interesting, no doubt.  And obviously it is  incredibly well written, classic literature blah blah blah, but utterly without any hope for humanity.  The movie twisted the plot a little and made the characters that much more redeemable and so I liked that.  My second exception (and I know there are those in my life who will vehemently disagree with me here but I don’t think they read my blog so I probably won’t get chastised)Anne of Green Gables.  I actually love the Anne character from the movies (stopping before the horrible 2000 movie) better than the Anne of the books.  Hate me if you will.  I think those are the only instances, for me, where the movie actually surpasses the book. 

Usually, the movie is at a severe disadvantage.  It can’t give you the same feel as a book, communicate the way a book can a character’s thoughts, ideas and justifications.  So allowances must be made.  Also, inevitably good books are kind of long and apparently I am one of the only people who think a four hour movie is okay and so movies have to cut things out and book fans will always criticize what got cut, how much got cut etc .  That being said . . .

World War Z by Max Brooks                                                                                                   

The book is told from the perspective of a UN worker after World War Z.  He is interviewing people who played different roles in the war.  This includes everyday citizens, military personnel, government officials, medical workers and others from all over the world.  Each interview is only a couple of pages although they do go back to some of the same people so you get a little more from them.  The format is jarring.  It is also told in reverse chronological order.  We obviously know the war is over at the beginning of the book and that’s what we start with, the end and where humanity is and work backwards from there.  As a writer I appreciated the unique storytelling method.  Apocalyptic dystopian tales are a dime a dozen at this point but the way in which this one was presented was certainly fresh.  It also wasn’t really a character driven book.  We do meet a lot of people but we don’t really follow them through.  Who we are really concerned about is humanity at large not any one person in particular and that too is a unique aspect of this book among those in the genre.

At times I found it difficult to follow the events as we were going backwards and there were so many people coming and going, dying and surviving.  However this didn’t really curtail my enjoyment of the book.  I didn’t really feel like I had to remember the details about each character so much to follow the war itself and I suppose the war was the main character in the end.   All in all I recommend the book.

The movie was something of a disappointment.  Given the set up of the book I didn’t know quite how they would do the movie.  They sort of needed to create a protagonist.  I think I went in to it with an open, if somewhat nervous mind.  Those ads with the Zombie hordes climbing all over each other were crazy freaky.  In the end it was just a sort of blah big budget movie with more money spent on effects than plot kind of film.  They start out with Brad Pitt making pancakes which fine he’s Brad Pitt and watching him watch paint dry can be fun for a bit so we’re okay for a while.  After not too long the city they are in (come to find out its Philadelphia which is nice because you know Philly doesn’t get much play in the blockbusters) gets overrun by zombies and they get airlifted out by the UN as the international body is in need of Brad’s services (we never actually learn why he is so desirable).  The family is taken aboard an aircraft carrier before Brad has to go off and help figure out how to fight the zombies again because of his aforementioned but never fully explained skills.  Before he leaves he and his wife have an inane conversation where she complains about his going because she remembers “what this job has done to him.”  Seriously lady?  The world is overrun by zombies and this is your issue?  Anyway minor point but kind of illustrates how they tried to sell us too much on the relationship between Brad and what’s her name when really we were there for an end of the world zombie movie not an angsty marriage flick.  Anyway, they made up a plot whereby they come up with a way to begin to combat the zombies. Maybe they did this intending to use more of the actual war substance from the book in the inevitable sequel. 

Parts dragged in the middle and I was tempted to check Facebook and/or Twitter as the people in front of me kept doing.  However as the bright lights of their phones made it hard for me to focus on the movie I didn’t want to pass along that annoyance to the people behind me so I refrained.  I think at one point the moviemakers felt they had not gotten us up close and personal enough with the zombies and so we watched one click his teeth at Brad Pitt’s character for a full minute.  Honestly before this the zombies seemed menacing, deadly or at least creepy at various points.  After the clickety clacking I just wanted to call a dentist and be done.  As I indicated the end was more a beginning, setting up the next movie which may be good if it actually contains you know a War.  In the interest of honesty this one should have been called The Vaguely Unexciting Period Immediately Prior to World War Z.  Although its possible this might not have sold too many tickets.

Well there’s my 2-5 cents . . . do with it what you will.

American in progress . . .

I love celebrating “America’s birthday”.  We have amassed a lot of great traditions around this holiday! I love red, white and blue cakes and dresses and streamers and those crazy headbands people wear. I love barbeques and fireworks and history channel marathons about the revolution or the founders.  I love American history, but my favorite period is the revolutionary war.  I mean not that any war is good and even one so long ago should not be romanticized, but I am fascinated by that time period and the men and women who lived it.

On this Independence Day I thought I would blog a little history cause I do love to talk history every now and then.  And by now and then I mean as often as possible.

So here are some facts about the Declaration of Independence so you can be the Know it all next time it comes up!

 John Adams, who happens to be may favorite founding father (what? You don’t have a favorite founding father?), might argue that we should be celebrating our nation’s birthday on May 15^th.  That is when the Continental Congress passed a resolution he had drafted and that he humbly described as “the most important resolution that ever was taken in America” instructing the colonies to draft new constitutions to replace the existent British charters of governance.  This was a de facto declaration of independence.

Wanting to make things perfectly clear on June 7 Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved and Adams seconded a resolution of independence:

                Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

They decided to postpone a vote because  some of the delegates had to confer with their colony legislatures before voting for independence. In the meantime they decided someone had better draft something to spell out what they meant to say.  A five man committee was appointed which included both John  Adams and Ben Franklin.  Neither felt it was a terribly important assignment and so it was given to the committee’s junior most member – Thomas Jefferson.  He is said to have taken about two days to draft it before bringing it back to the committee.

The Resolution for Independence passed on July 2, 1776.  John Adams actually wrote his wife after the session predicting that this day would be celebrated for generation to come as the great anniversary of our country.

A draft of the Declaration was presented to the Congress on that same day.  They debated its wording for two more days.  In this debate they passed right over the words we have come to value most perhaps because the ALL men and UNALIENABLE rights would have seemed glaringly unfulfilled if examined too closely.  Anyway, apparently each deletion, addition and modification was like a knife to Jefferson’s heart.  He kept original drafts and always resented the interference with his genius.  But agreement was reached on the Fourth and Voila!  We had a Declaration that outlined our divine right and obligation to dissolve the political bands which had connected us, form our own government and eloquently listed our many grievances against our former King.  John Hancock (president of the Congress) signed it (taking up half the space left) but most everyone else did not do so until August 2^nd.

Now don’t misunderstand I realize that the Declaration of Independence while beautiful and meaningful and revolutionary was an imperfect document crafted by imperfect men

It was written by a man who held slaves and yet declared all men to be endowed by their creator with unalienable rights

It did not envision a world where political rights were available to women, blacks or Indians or even men without property for the most part

It did not do everything but it was a beginning – it cast a vision that many have followed and expanded on and I think we can be thankful for and honor that. 

The story of our nation’s founding is an improbable one.  And in studying the Declaration and so many of the events before and after it I find much to inspire me.  In many ways it is a David and Goliath tale.  A group of men come together from all over the colonies agreeing on nothing at first except not wanting to be taxed without their consent, an army with almost no leadership or ammunition, fighting an elite Army and their hired guns, a form of government that’s never been tried on such a scale before.   It shouldn’t have worked.  But it did.  It does.  Sometimes.  Sort of.  I am proud to be an American and ashamed that I too often take it for granted.  It is a privilege and a gift and I am thankful.

My Sister in Progress . . .

Today’s post comes to us from my baby sister Maggie about a topic that unfortunately is one of those issues that crops up in the news in the most tragic circumstances and something with which she has some personal experience.

 

Teased, made fun of, bullied, tortured. However light or serious you want to put it, this was my high school experience. And although I had plenty of good times in my adolescence, it is the painful memories that seem to take hold in my mind.

 

At 14 you have not yet come into your full potential. You are uncomfortable in your own skin, and easily broken. no matter how much your friends or family tell you what bullies say or do is wrong, you still feel that awful hurt in your heart. At 27, I remember that hurt and wish I could go back and give myself the confidence and complete unconcern for cruel and unkind peoples opinion of me.  But I can't and I have learned over the years that my situation was not uncommon.

 

My bullying was not provoked. I was an eighth grader just starting highschool. My three closest friends had all left the Holliston school system after middle school and I felt like an outsider.  I did have the luxury of growing up in a home and church where I was accepted whole heartedly despite my eccentricities, so i was happy with who I was. Unfortunately, at 14, no matter how happy you are with yourself, you still believe people when they put you down. I don't remember exactly when it starred but about halfway through eighth grade, I started to dread going to school. Two girls had decided on me as a target, for whatever reason, and began to torment me in the halls. And when they couldn't find a reason, they would make one up, like yelling at me for wearing the same color t shirt as one of them.  No matter how absurd or hurtful

Their words were, my reply was always silence. This seemed to bore them and although it never all together stopped, it certainly lessened over the years

 

 I realize that not all the people in that unfortunate position are as blessed as I was. And even though I had three older sisters and a wonderful mother and father, all telling me how the bullies at school "were just jealous", it did not lessen the blow of their actions.  As an adult, after having come into myself and after talking to others who were bullied, I can look back and understand a little more about my experience and why it occurred. 

 

I was talking with my future sister in law one night and discovered that she was also bullied. She remembers her high school experience as an awful one and when she revealed her bully’s name.  I was shocked. This girl, that had been so mean to my sister in law, was a girl I had class with years earlier.   She had been a victim of bullying.  She was tortured by the upper classmen and sought counseling almost daily from our schools guidance team.  Bullying is obviously a learned behavior, and although I can't fathom why someone who has suffered through it would then bestow that pain on someone else, I understand that it happens. Those who are abused sometimes turn around and become abusers themselves.  This is not a new concept. However, it hadn't occurred to me that my bully was probably the victim of similar taunts. 

Even if I had this knowledge 13 years ago, I know it wouldn't have helped.  When you are 14 you cannot see past your own immediate world and when someone bullies you, it hurts. Justifying their behavior, does not take away any of the pain. In fact, not many things do much to console your broken heart, but know this; you move on, you grow; you become who you are and love yourself. Bullies do not stay at the high school doorway, they are everywhere, in every walk of life. Because of the scar they leave on your heart you are understanding, you are caring and empathetic, and you think before you use hurtful words, and because of you, the world is a better place. High school is only a small stop on the way. Please don't stop there, continue on, I promise it gets better. 

. 

 

We the People in Progress

So we have stopped buying chocolate that contains cocoa harvested by child slaves – we have right?  No?  Well stop now then.  We have substituted it with Fair-trade chocolate. No?  Do that – it’s really good.  If you want some advice on the best kinds check out my blog on that because honestly if I am going to put in the hard work of taste testing I want as many people to benefit as possible.  And we have called, e-mailed or personally asked our stores to carry Fair-trade chocolate to make it more available to  us and others.  No?  Let’s get on that because demand is what makes this fair economy go round and the stores need to hear our demands from our lips or keyboards and then see the results in their inventories for it to really make a difference!

And now we come to the world of politics.  It’s not as bad as everyone thinks. I’ll walk you through it.  Not to be all Mr. Smith (from  Mr. Smith goes to Washington just in case the uniqueness of the name didn’t immediately call the reference to mind) but our government is meant to be accessible to us, to be responsive.  I think someone once said ours is a government – of the people, by the people, for the people (Gettysburg Address btw).  That’s us, the people.  So if we the people think that children in West Africa should not be trafficked, enslaved and exploited so that we can eat chocolate than our government should be made to care as well.

So we, the people, are going to try and get our government back on the track it started in 2001 with the Harkin-Engel Protocol.  For a start.   Little old me and little old you.  Yes.  We are going to attempt to get the Congress of the United States of America to do something effective and important.  Yes!  It has happened and it can happen.  What we know for sure.  For absolute certain.  100% of surveys agree 100% of the time is that if we do nothing nothing will change.  We don’t know that our actions will bring about the change we seek but we can know for certain that if we choose to do nothing that things will stay exactly as they are.

Let me just say this.  My senior year of college I did a semester in DC.  Perhaps the best semester in all my many many years in academia.  And oh there were many.  Anyway half the time we were in class and half the time we were at our internships.  Somehow I ended up interning in Senator Kennedy’s office.  It was an amazing experience. Learned a ton.  Highlight – attending the Nelson Mandela Congressional Gold Medal of Honor ceremony .  Lowlight –that would have to be the many occasions I was “asked” to walk the Senator’s dog.  I’d be traipsing around with this little yippy dog in my cute little skirts suit and high heels around the outside of the Capitol Building.  Not humiliating at all. 

Anyway, back to the relevant point.  Senator Kennedy was about as tenured as you could possibly get.  He didn’t even need to run for reelection.  His biggest concern when his six year term was up was if anyone knew the name of his opponent and whether he would get ninety-eight instead of ninety-nine percent of the vote.  Even someone as insulated as him kept very careful track of constituent communications.  Two people in the main lobby office and several others at different locations tracked constituent calls on specific issues and for general matters.  These were communicated to higher level staffers and became part of the discussion on bills and policy.  My point being our representatives do care what we think, they need to because their jobs are connected to it, but also, because I hope and want to believe  they take seriously their responsibility to represent US with the power and position they hold.

If you do not know who your representatives are you can follow the links below.

www.senate.gov

www.house.gov

 After you use the links to find out who your representatives are (quick primer – we each are represented by two Senators in the Senate and one Representative in the House).  Most of them have links on their pages to contact them directly.  I would encourage you to either call or e-mail and ask your representative and both of your Senators to reintroduce this issue.  I have included below the e-mail I sent to my representatives.  Yours can be shorter, longer, more eloquent I'm sure.  But just say something.  Let them know this is an important issue.  Use my words if you want.  Feel free.  Use your own.  Whatever works!

Having recently become aware of the fact that most of the chocolate we buy in the United States is made with cocoa harvested by child slaves in west Africa I have switched my own small consumer power to fair trade encouraging friends and family to do the same.  In my research on the issue I have also discovered that Congress almost did something about this issue in 2001 but was persuaded against real action.  Although something called the Harkin Engel Protocol was established and was meant to set a deadline for ending child slavery in cocoa and force the industry to change.  But 12 years later it has not.  I am very interested in seeing this issue brought before Congress.  It is hard to believe that in 2013 we are still having to work to eradicate slavery in different parts of the world.  The fact that children are stolen from their homes or lured away with promises of jobs and then forced to work as slaves on cocoa plantations is deplorable and sickening.   At the very least Congress should put pressure on the chocolate industry to make good on the many promises they have made over the twelve years since the passage of the Protocol.  At the time they acknowledged the existence of slavery and the need for reform.   Why has no one held them accountable?

 Please reintroduce this issue and help me and those who are passionate about it bring us one step closer to a world without slavery.

Thank you for your time and prompt attention to this important matter.

Elizabeth Grady Harper

Go make the most of this great democracy of ours!

 

Rabid Biker in Progress!

So I recently went for my first bike ride of the season.  I mean my first one out on the open road.  Not on my Wii or on a bike at the gym which is hard but doesn’t actually go anywhere despite reporting back to me that I have gone some fabulous distance (these I do all the time). 

So this is the first clue (many more to follow) that I’m not what you’d call a serious biker - my first ride comes in June and not say March when you can conceivably get on the road without frost bite and snow banks.  But I thought it was time as I am allegedly doing another triathlon this year.  Another clue as to my lack of biking prowess is that this was in fact my first time on my bike since I got off my bike to start my run at a triathlon last September – the number was still on it.  Getting going was quite an ordeal.  I couldn’t find my helmet and when I did I discovered that a fairly large family of spiders had made a home of it.  Getting them out was not as scream and freak free as I would have liked but it happened (ok fine my husband may have been involved but spiders are my Achilles heel.  They have too many limbs, it’s not right.  So then I couldn’t find my sneakers.  These I do wear a little more frequently but still they seemed to have gotten lost and just when I was ready to don a pair of flip flops because seriously what’s the difference I’m just pedaling not running (clue number three I’m not a real biker?) I found them in my car. 

So then I’m off.  It’s 2 miles to the bike trails by my house and I’m all “ok this isn’t so bad” when I get there thinking I can do this.  The trail is about 4 miles and then it’s another 3 back to my house.  That’s 9 miles ( I am so much better at math than biking).  It would have to do even though the course of the Tri would be 12.5.  I’d work my way up to something closer to 12 miles at some point in the summer. 

It does start to feel a little harder a mile or so into the trails but I soldier on.  Maybe I am a biker after all?  Oh no, not so fast.  Confidence begins to waiver on the trail however as Mrs. Van Uppity speeds by me on a banana yellow bike ringing her bell (that part may be as made up as her name) with a neon pink shirt and matching neon pink helmet.  Yup she passed me.  Like I was standing still.  I took a deep breath and tried to keep up using her scrunchied pony tail swishing back and forth up ahead as motivation. 

Then a gentleman passes me. A gentleman of somewhat advanced years with folds in his elbows that reminded me of that game we used to play in middle school.  The fortune teller one where you pick a color and then the person counts out the letters and then opens one of the panels.  Anyway, he passes me too.  Clue number 67 that I’m not a real biker I suppose (one for each fold).  Then come to find out they are a couple.  I know this because as the trail passes over the road they stop to fight about whether they needed to wait to cross as traffic may or may not yield.  I take this opportunity to speed ahead.  I may be the world’s slowest biker but I can tempt traffic with the best of them.   I did go to school in Boston where if you wait for the cars to actually stop as opposed to slow down you’d forever remain on the sidewalk.  So I start pedaling faster trying to leave Mr. and Mrs. Van Uppity in the dust sure that any minute little Susie Van Uppity on her little Schwinn ten speed with the banana seat and a basket full of Barbies will whiz by.  But I mange to stay ahead, thanks mostly to three more road passes where I’m sure more arguing about the best way to proceed slows them down considerably.

So now I have to do this like a hundred more time before my race in August and I wonder  . . . how will I survive?  Maybe with some more motivation from the Van Uppties I’ll be ready in time. 

We’ll talk chocolate again on Monday!

 

 

An education in progress

Ok we are back and hitting the ground running.  Sorry for my long absence.  A Little unplanned hiatus there.  Long uninteresting story as to why but hopefully we will be back at it regularly from now on.  At least weekly although my goal is to post on Mondays and then throw in an extra blog or two throughout the week on various topics so please stay tuned and bring a friend (or ten) . . .

If you are interested in the issue of Fair Trade or Consumer Justice or want to learn more about that treat we all know and love – CHOCOLATE! - and haven’t seen the previous posts – please go back and review them I think they provide a good background for the issues we are trying to tackle here.  We have been talking about the underlying injustice of the cocoa industry and what we can do to change things.  My goal is to provide information about the state of things so we can become knowledgeable as well as specific ideas about steps we can take to actually impact the situation to make a difference.  So far we have identified three actions steps that anyone who chooses to can take to make a difference:

1.      Stop buying chocolate that was grown or harvested by slaves – this essentially means any non fair trade chocolate (except Ghiardelli which uses cocoa from South and Central America where slavery is not known to be a problem);

2.       Buy fair-trade chocolate; and

3.       Contact the stores where you normally buy chocolate and urge them to carry fair trade.

Now what we have been addressing thus far is not supporting a great evil (chocolate touched by slavery) and choosing instead to support companies that ensure their products are also not touched by slavery.  The second and third action step moves us into the positive change arena.  By buying fair-trade and urging our stores to carry more fair-trade we are attempting further support for an industry that makes real and important efforts to create products that compensate laborers fairly and do not harm the environment.

But the other side of the coin is the cocoa industry itself and the chocolate companies that profit from the atrocities of slavery and forced labor.  It’s all well and good to support those outside the mainstream cocoa industry and hope they will become more popular and commonplace.  But in the mean time children are trafficked, beaten and oppressed in the service of the major chocolate companies. 

So we turn our attention now to the political arena.

First a little history lesson because well I love history and our government did actually try and address this issue back in 2001 with something I referred to in one of my earlier posts called the Harkin-Engel protocol.

It was an amendment to an agriculture bill.  It would have given the FDA $250,000 to develop a label to put on chocolate products to indicate no child slave labor was used in growing or harvesting the cocoa used– similar to the dolphin safe tuna label.  Honestly not sure why the development of a label cost a quarter of a million dollars but there it is.  The bill passed the House 291-115.

Then the Cocoa lobby got involved.  Didn’t know there was a cocoa lobby?  I think there is perhaps a lobby for everyone and everything hidden somewhere in the recesses of Washington DC just waiting to be needed.  Like they hit a button and a secret cave emerges and the necessary forces emerge. The Cocoa lobby hired some big guns though, former Senators George Mitchell and Bob Dole.  They lobbied hard against the Protocol and before the Senate even voted on it the Cocoa industry agreed to address the problem itself without any formal legislation – why was no one even slightly skeptical?

So then Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa and Representative Eliot Engel from New York negotiated a deal with representatives from the cocoa industry that they called the Harkin-Engel Protocol.  Somewhat narcissistic but I’m sure they would have named it something else if they had realized how forgettable and/or useless it would end up being.  It was signed in September of 2001.  Its stated objective was to eliminate the worst forms of child labor and adult forced labor on cocoa farms in West Africa.  It was signed and witnessed by the heads of the eight major chocolate companies, Senator Harkin, Representative Engel, the Ambassador from Cote d’Ivoire, the Director of the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor and others.  So frankly I’m thinking where have all of these people been for the last twelve years as this thing has been completely ignored . . . but more on that in the future. 

The protocol laid out  - key word coming – NON BINDING – agreements for the cocoa industry to regulate itself without any legal implications if they did not but Engel threatened to reintroduce the deadlines form the original bill if they did not – kind of an empty threat I guess because well twelve years later and  not much has changed slavery is still rampant in the cocoa fields of west Africa. . . So this seems to be how lobbyist earn their big fat paychecks.  They get Congressman to drop bills that will affect real change and sign on to “protocol” that sound good and leave child slaves hacking away with machetes in the fields of West Africa.

 

So what can we do besides rant and rave as I have done above just a little? 

We will talk about that next time.  Hopefully I have gotten you angry enough to want to do something more than our reps did and we’ll walk through the what and the how next time.  Did I say stay tuned yet?  Well please do!

 

Making a Difference in Progress

So before taking my first ever trip to Whole Foods in search of Fair-Trade chocolate last week I decided to contact some of my more regular haunts to see if they carried any fair-trade stuff or if they had plans to.  I e-mailed CVS, Stop and Shop, Hannaford, Target, Wal-mart and Shaws.  This was about nine days ago and at this time I have only gotten three responses.  I have cut and pasted them below.

CVS:

Ms. Grady Harper,

Thank you for your email regarding your suggestion that we sell Fair Trade Chocolate. I am eager to respond. We do not sell this product at this time however, I would be more than happy to forward your request to our product team for future consideration.

We appreciate your feedback and we take our customer's comments very seriously. If you would like to discuss the matter further, please call us at 1-800-746-7287. We are available Monday through Friday 8:30 am - 7 pm ET.

Have a great day.

Dee
CVS Customer Relations

Target:

Dear Elizabeth Grady Harper,

We appreciate the time you've taken to let us know what you're looking for at Target. I'm sorry but we doesn't carry Fairtrade chocolate at Target.

Hearing your feedback is very important because it helps us learn more about the merchandise you want and need from Target. Although I can't promise we'll carry this item, I'll let our Buying team know you'd like to see it at your local store.

Thanks for letting us know how we can make your Target experience even better.

Sincerely,

Maqsood

Target Guest Relations

 

Hannaford:

April 15, 2013

Dear Ms. Grady-Harper:

Thank you for contacting Hannaford. We are pleased to have the opportunity to respond.

I am writing you in response to your inquiry regarding Fairtrade Chocolate. Our merchandising team has advised that in our Milford Hannaford in our Nature Place Energy Bar section you will find such options as LaraBar and others. Please look for the Fair Trade Certified Symbol. We hope you find this helpful.

Again, thank you for contacting Hannaford. If we can further assist you, Ms. Grady-Harper, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Sincerely,

Lacey Greene
Consumer Research Specialist

Ref 3239368/lacgre

I think Hannaford is referring to an Energy Bar but I haven’t checked it out.

So nothing from Wal-Mart, Shaws or Stop and Shop yet.

Here’s what I am thinking we should do.  E-mail, call or stop by customer service at places we would regularly buy chocolate and 1. Ask if they carry Fair-trade chocolate and 2. If they don’t let them know we’d like them to.

It could be something like this:

I was wondering if you carry any fair-trade chocolate.  If you don’t at this time do you have plans to do so?  I have recently become aware of the fact that most chocolate is made with cocoa farmed by child slaves in West Africa.  I have decided that I will no longer buy this chocolate from your store or anywhere.  I would hope that your company would be concerned about the issue of child slavery as well and begin to stock fair-trade chocolate in order to support those companies that have made a conscious choice to support cocoa plantations that do not use slave labor.

Or anyway you want to say it. I think it would make a difference if a number of people start to express a desire for Fair-trade in the stores they shop.  I can’t really see another way these mainstream stores will start carrying it other than hearing from customers who want them to.  It's a start anyway and this action step has a part B - ask your friends, family and co-workers to do the same.  I truly believe more people would be involved in causes like this trying to make a difference if they were only made aware of the problem and given a way to participate in affecting change.  I guess that's what I am trying to do here . . .so tell people about the problem, tell them about this blog, encourage them to seek out knowledge and to act whatever works . . .

So that’s our Action Step 3 – contact stores we shop and urge them to carry Fair-trade and spread the word.

And BTW my Mom wanted me to mention Ghiradelli as I failed to include them in my taste test last week.  Ghiradelli is not Fair-trade but the company has issued a statement saying their cocoa comes from farms in Central and South America where child slavery is not an issue.  So in that sense they are safe. As for taste if we want to evaluate Ghiradelli there’s just one word – DELICIOUS!  I have yet to meet a piece of Ghiradelli I didn’t absolutely love!

Processing in progress . . . some thoughts on the Boston Marathon

Boston Marathon bombings

This is not a word I wanted after Boston Marathon  . . .

For those of us who grew up on or near the marathon route Boston Marathon has meant many things and been followed by many words but never this

Boston Marathon jackets . . .

My church was at the starting line and as a youth group one of our best, and most fun, fundraisers was selling soda and snacks to the thousands who gathered to send the runners on their way.  For some reason we really admired the windbreakers all the marathon workers got every year.  They varied in color and style but each year we would spend part of our time plotting how to get one.  Looking back I really can’t say why.  They sort of looked like the kind of jacket an 80 year old man or a perp on SVU would pair with matching pants before stepping out on the town.  I think it was because you couldn’t buy them – they were bestowed.  Sometimes we’d ask workers setting up the barricades or directing traffic if they would give them to us after the race sometimes we’d troll the discarded clothes after the start hoping one got dumped.  I don’t think any of us ever ended up with one.

Boston Marathon runners . . .

These people are just a little crazy.  As a non-marathoner I think anyone who decides to run such a long distance when time and technology have made this unnecessary is crazy.  But Boston marathoners seem to have a special helping of lunacy.  It must be hard to train for this race if you live in New England because up until and sometimes on Marathon Day it’s still like 4 degrees.  Spring doesn’t tend to come to us until mid April.  So in addition to weather hampering training you also never know what you’re going to get on race day.  It could be 80 degrees or it could be zero.  The runners adopt the classic New England mantra – layers!

Boston Marathon Day . . .

Since the world really begins and ends here we tend to just call this Marathon Day.  The Sox play an early game, the Redcoats attack at Lexington and Concord and the kid’s school vacation week begins.  It holds the promise of spring, a sort unofficial start where we all cautiously begin to stow away our winter gear and perhaps, quietly, count on the weather to get warmer and not colder from now on.  It’s a special day. It’s our day.  A day filled with memories of how we spent it as kids, or when our kids were kids or last year when we did this or went there.  It’s a day you remember what happened and not because your world was shattered by hateful insanity but because it’s a day where we all are looking at something together, sharing something, watching something.  As much as is possible in hard-nosed, individualistic, eyes down New England we come together. 

Boston Marathon Coverage . . .

Starting ridiculously early you can tune in to any one of the three main local stations for all things marathon.  They report from the starting line, the finish and all places in between.  They have feel good stories on the runners, up to the minute weather conditions and tales of marathon’s past.  It seems a little strange to have live and continuous coverage at some point because it’s like oh look here’s a really skinny guy running down the street, oh and there’s a pack of three women running together, yup still running and we’ll cut away to commercial and then some talking and let’s get back to it – still running  . . . but somehow it’s fun and if you happen to be home that day you tune in or in your car you check with BZ to see what’s what.  We can all stay plugged in to it all day long.  It’s our race.

And whoever planted these bombs took that from us.  We can say they didn’t.  We can rail and rally urging ourselves and others not to let them take it.  Not to let them change us.  But the truth is we can’t change those horrible moments four hours in to the 2013 Boston Marathon.  The images of smoke, terror, fear, blood, confusion and pain will stay with us.

 But what the terrorists never understand, what these people never count on is what those images, those events do to us.  They make us afraid, they cause us grief and pain, but then they do something else.  They bring out the best in people.  The EMTs, doctors, nurses, police who ran in to help while people fled in terror.  The friends and family who carried one another out of harm’s way.  The stranger’s who helped each other contact loved ones.  Some stories we’ve heard.  More will come out in the days to come.  In the aftermath we see the solidarity of our nation – We are Boston.  The moment of silence before every sporting event to remember the victims, to remember the day.  The crying, hugging and cheering for our National Anthems at baseball fields, hockey rinks and basketball courts across the country.  The post in the Chicago Tribune, the display by the now not so hated Yankees, and on and on . . .

 It’s not trite, or false or contrived.  Tragedy, senseless, inexplicable, undeserved, really does bring us together.  It’s like this act of senseless inhumanity reminded us of the humanity we have in common.  All of our political, religious, geographic , cultural and other differences seem to fade in these moments.  We are Boston, We are America, We are Humanity.

My hope and prayer is that in the days to come we will remember not only to keep supporting the victims, but also to keep honoring the common humanity that such tragedies inevitably awaken in us.  We cannot stop the word bombings from coming to mind when we hear Boston Marathon anymore than we can fail to feel the weight of the numbers 911, but we can decide what we do from here and the terrorists do not get a say in that.

So I have really taken one for the team this week.  I went out and bought a lot of Fair-trade chocolate and taste tested it for all of you!  Because I am just nice like that I did share it with some other people in order to a) not gain 300 pounds and b)get some more taste buds involved for more opinions.  I will share our thoughts on which chocolates tasted best and which ones are best avoided.

I spent about $25 at Whole Foods on 8 different items. Most were large bars for $3.99 each.  Not really sure why but I ended up with an excessive amount of Dark chocolate.  I like dark, but I think next time I’ll be more balanced.  I shared them with a few friends and family members.  First some background on the brands.

Theo:  Seattle based.  Claim to be the first organic and fair-trade chocolate company in the US.  Their founding principle is that “the finest chocolate can and should be produced in an entirely ethical and sustainable fashion.”  They are third party verified for social and environmental responsibility.

Divine:  All fair-trade.  45% farmer owned.

Green and Black:  Organically grown and fair-trade certified.

365:  This is the Whole Foods brand.  They indicate that anything with the “Whole Trade” symbol meets their quality standards, provides more money to producers, ensures better wages for workers, high environmental standards and 1% of sales goes to their Whole Planet Foundation.

Equal Exchange Chocolates:  From their website -

In 1986, Equal Exchange was founded to challenge the existing trade model, which favors large plantations, agri-business, and multi-national corporations; support small farmers; and connect consumers and producers through information, education, and the exchange of products in the marketplace. With our founding, we joined a growing movement of small farmers, alternative traders (ATOs), religious organizations, and non-profits throughout the world with like-minded principles and objectives. Underlying our work is the belief that only through organization, can small farmers survive and thrive. The cooperative model has been essential for building this model of change

Here’s what we thought.  On a scale of 1-10.

Theo Organic Milk Chocolate Bar - 10+

This was probably the favorite of the few who got a sample.  Why only a few?  Because my husband thought tasting meant eating every last bit.  Seriously, after a friend and I got a small sample he ate the rest.  This was not a small bar.  He should know better than to come between a woman and her fairly traded chocolate, but he took the risk and endured the subsequent wrath which must also speak to the deliciousness of this one.

Theo Congo Vanilla Nib – 2

Me and almost everyone who had this did not approve.  It just tasted wrong, like they threw a bunch of ingredients together to see what would work.  I should mention though it did get a good review from one taster.  If you try it and don’t like it let’s blame him.

365 Everyday Value Dark 56% - 7

This one had a good initial taste, but a slight aftertaste that didn’t rock.  I tend to like the dark chocolate but even if you don’t this one wasn’t so dark that you couldn’t try it even if you usually prefer milk.

Panama Extra Dark 80% - 6

My older daughter declared this one to be “ok”.  My younger however said it “tastes like the fish kind” but she refused to give it back and ate it all so . . .

It was a little too dark for me but I imagine if dark chocolate is your favorite thing this one could be for you.

Divine Dark 70% - 8

This one got rave reviews including two thumbs up from my seven year old niece.

365 Dark 56% - 7

We got mostly positive feedback on this one except from my Mom who simply said – no.  My three year old daughter said “it’s good.  I love it.  It tastes good actually.”  This review would be better if you could hear the way she says actually – it’s fabulous.

Green and Black’s Dark 70% - 8

One of my daughters loved this while the other gave it the mediocre status “kind of good”.  I wasn’t its biggest fan either, there was a tangy taste I didn’t like.  However the other grown-ups who had it all gave positive feedback.

Green and Black’s Toffee Milk – 6

Not awesome.  Okay taste but really not worth the calories in my opinion.

When we started I talked about wanting to learn more so I could do something, make a difference.  As a result I am working through actions steps  . . .

So our action step for this week is to buy some Fair-trade chocolate.  You can do this at Whole Foods like I did or online at Amazon or you can go directly to the websites of any of the brands above.  In case you missed it our first action step was to stop buying chocolate produced using slave labor.  The first step is important as it stops us from supporting the institution of slavery the second step is us endorsing companies that have chosen to hold themselves to higher standards.  Stay tuned for our next action step!

 

 

 

Understanding in progress

For today’s post I am almost taking a step backward.  I want to talk about some of the actual people and conditions on the cocoa plantations.  Sometimes I have a hard time imagining it. 

So I wanted to know what does slavery look like in our world?  I wanted faces, names, stories and specifics.  What I found wasn’t lives filled with savage beatings, chain gangs and whip wielding overseers.  The slavery I read about is more subtle but just as cruel and hopeless.  I found stories of children whose childhood was stolen along with their freedom, who live on the edge of subsistence with little hope and no one to look out for them. 

SPECIFICS:

Most reports estimate that about twelve thousand of the two hundred thousand child laborers on the cocoa plantations and farms of the Ivory Coast may be victims of trafficking and slavery. 

In sub-Saharan Africa thirty percent of children under fifteen are child laborers, mostly in agricultural industry including cocoa harvesting.  Just a note about what we mean by child labor (found this definition and think it explains it well)

Child Labor:  work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children.  Interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, by obliging them to leave school prematurely or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

Not all work that kids do is child labor – work done that is not detrimental to children’s health, development or schooling is not labeled as “child labor”

For the most part kids working with cocoa are either slaves or child laborers.

Here’s the process they go through:

Cocoa trees are treated with pesticides and fungicides.  The harvesting happens year round so the chemical treatments do as well.

The clearing of vegetation and harvesting of the pods from trees is done with machetes.  So kids as young as seven wield these weapons against grass and brush and their little limbs often bear the scars of their missteps.

They then transport wet beans to the place where they will be dried.  This can be a long distance and usual involves heavy loads to maximize the return

Young kids are forced to carry up to thirteen pounds of cocoa sacks on their shoulders

They then spread the beans in baskets or on mats and cover to ferment then uncover and dry in sun

                Finally the dried beans are loaded into bags and placed on trucks for transport

About the kids:

64% younger than 14

40% are girls

Usually work twelve hour work days

Beatings are common for failing to complete assigned work, being unable to carry a certain load or trying to leave

In the Ivory Coast 34% of kids on farms go to school compared to 64% of non workers.

NAMES AND STORIES:

Aly Diabete was 11 when a slave trader promised him a bike and $150 a year to help support his poor family in Mali.  After being taken to the Ivory Coast and sold to a farmer the only reward he has seen is a rare day off or any day when the overseers or older slaves don’t flog him with a bicycle chain or cacao tree branch.  He serves with 18 other boys on a 494 acre farm.  They work sunrise to 6:30 everyday.  Their dinner is usually burned bananas except when they are treated to yams with salt water “gravy”.  After dinner the boys are ordered in to a 24x20 room to sleep on wooden planks without mattresses.  The room has a baseball sized hole in it to let air in.  They are given cans to urinate in.  The boys were told they had been sold to the farmers and had to work off that debt.  They are beaten for not moving fast enough, not being able to carry a heavy enough load or trying to escape.

Brahima Male (12) and Siaka Traure (14) are also from Mali. At a bus station they met a man who promised them training and work as carpenters or welders.  Work they were told would pay $170 a year.  The man promised to take them to their work site for free.  When they neared the border the boys were told that if the police stopped them they were to say the man was their older brother.  They slipped over the border after separating in to motorcycle taxis, small vehicles that are generally not stopped by border patrol.  A man bought them  for $28.    Tarure tried to leave once.  For this he was tied up, beaten and threatened with a gun.

Abdul is ten years old and had been enslaved for three years when he told his story to a western journalist.  After his mother died a stranger brought him over the border from Mali.  He is given little food.  He and his fellow workers toil long hours with little hope for something better, something different.

Yacou ‘s scars from the machete he uses to clear vegetation criss-cross his legs.  His dream?  “I wish I could go to school. I want to read and write.”

Some of these stories are from years ago and I wonder where the children are now.  Unfortunately their circumstances are not unique or rare and as conditions have remained unchanged for so long they provide us with a look at what children have suffered through in the pursuit of chocolate over the past decades.

Children like these are being stolen, tricked or coerced onto cocoa plantations all over West Africa by a vast international network of human traffickers.  The kidnappers troll bus stations searching for kids traveling alone and offer them “jobs”.  They prey on the most vulnerable and seem to operate with little fear of legal consequences.

The toil and suffering of these children bring us cheap chocolate for our candy, our cakes and our drinks.  The cocoa they produce is sent away to be processed and combined with that produced by more humane means and by the time it reaches the companies who produce our chocolate it may hardly seem tainted by Yacou’s scars or Abdul’s stolen childhood.  But it is . . .

Next I’ll be bringing the results of my taste testing.  I’m going to sample whatever Fair-trade chocolate I can get my hands around here and let you know my thoughts . . . I know I’m so giving, I just really believe in empirical research!

 

 

Responsibility in progress . . .

When I was first presented with the horrible truth that one of my favorite treats was brought to me courtesy of child slave labor I considered throwing out my considerable stash and giving it up cold turkey.  My impulse, though admirable, was in no way sustainable as I am a full fledged chocolate addict.  After this initial chock the danger for me when confronted with a horrible truth like child slavery in the cocoa fields of West Africa is moving on.  Being horrified, sickened even, wanting to help, knowing the problem is too big and moving on.  Blinking and reading the next tweet, skimming  the next story, watching  the next episode.  I do it all the time.  I move on.

After all it is so far away and I really can’t be held responsible for knowing not only what is in everything I eat, but also where it is made, by whom and under what conditions.  That is simply too much to ask of this busy American consumer.  It’s not as if I am writing checks to Slaveholders R Us and liking their status on Facebook.  Or am I?

Before I could blink my way past this atrocity and talk myself out of some sense of responsibility my love of American history reared its tricorne covered head.  I thought of the cotton wearing northerners of  nineteenth century America blithely allowing the institution of slavery to flourish without raising a finger or a voice to stop it.  Wearing the fruits of the labor of hundreds of thousands of people held, under law, as property.  It is sickening, maddening and almost inconceivable.  Yet as I pop a bite size Snickers in my mouth am I not doing the same thing?  I don’t believe in slavery, but it exists anyway.  I don’t support it yet without me and my fellow chocolate lovers would it still exist in this market?  Just as the suffering of people they could not see, whose cries they never heard was ignored by Americans of the north and west for over a century ago am I ignoring the suffering of people I do not know, will never meet and whose lives I cannot imagine simply because I can shut my eyes, stop up my ears and close my mouth pretending not to know?

So then even my deep and abiding love of all things chocolate would not permit me to remain blind to the truth that the money I spent feeding my habit was sustaining a harmful, oppressive and evil reality.  I then shifted my thought process somewhat, but my intent/interest remained inherently shallow and basically selfish.  I wanted to be able to eat my chocolate without feeling guilty and I began to research the cocoa industry with that small goal in mind.

What I have discovered has led to me to a desire to not simply not support slavery but to find a way to help be part of a movement that would eliminate its existence in this world in my lifetime.  It has also led me to many additional questions about the cocoa industry, fair-trade, international markets, child trafficking and so much more.

This blog entry is sort of the narrow focus.  I’ll start by defining some terms and sharing general facts that I think give context then a brief history of the international awareness of this issue and finally the short answer on what chocolate has cocoa from the places involved in child slavery and forced labor.

Facts:

Cocoa is the main ingredient in chocolate.

70-75% of world’s cocoa supply is produced on small farms in West Africa mostly in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

40% of the world’s cocoa is produced in the Ivory Coast.

820,000 children in Ivory Coast and almost 1,000,000 in Ghana are working on cocoa related activities.

The US State Department estimates that over 100,000 children in the Ivory Coast work under worst forms of child labor and that 10,000 are victims of human trafficking or enslavement.  A 2007 Unicef report puts the number closer to 200,000. The conditions for these children involve long hours, dangerous tools, exposure to pesticides and traveling long distances in grueling heat as well as beatings and other forms of severe punishment.  Some children are stolen from their homes, some families are tricked in to sending their children to work there and some plantation owners pay tariffs to traffickers who round up children for them.

How the problem came to international attention:

In 2001 a documentary and several related articles exposed to the world the reality of child labor and slavery, trafficking and other horrible conditions present on the cocoa farms of West Africa.  As a result US lawmakers put pressure on cocoa industry to reform.  They created the Harkin-Engel Protocol. Named after the two senators who took lead in its negation.  It is an international agreement aimed at ending the worst forms of child labor and forced labor in the production of cocoa.  It was signed in 2001, but its actual impact on the atrocities it sought to eliminate is unclear. To avoid legislation that would have forced that would have forced chocolate companies t label their products “child labor free” the  industry pushed back and eventually they agreed to end child labor in the Ivory Coast by 2005.  But lo and behold in 2005 they needed more time and so the deadline was extend to 2008.  What happened in 2008 you ask – that’s right the deadline was again extended to 2010.  And in 2010?  Well read on because the chocolate companies are getting more creative in avoiding the actual problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harkin-Engel_Protocol

Short Answer – what chocolate is safe?

There is a legal principal that says remedial efforts cannot be admitted as evidence of wrongdoing.  Meaning that when the landlord is being sued because someone fell through the floorboards the fact that he subsequently replaced all the floorboards cannot be used as evidence that they were bad in the first place.  The idea is that we don’t want to discourage landlords (or anyone) from fixing a problem out of fear that that will then confirm their guilt.  The short lesson on legal principals is due to the following:

Over the past few years Nestle, Hershey and Mars have all issued very eloquent and earnest statements saying all of their chocolate will be basically fair-trade certified by 2020.  Great.  So since we are not in a court of law I feel completely comfortable taking this as meaning -  yes right now our cocoa comes from fields worked by stolen, captive children but we get that that’s bad and give us a decade and we are pretty sure we can stop it.  Admirable.  Glad you acknowledged the problem, but why is it going to take ten years to make a change?  Also, remember what has happened with promising in the chocolate industry over the last ten years – a lot of not much.

I guess this is not turning out to be the shortest of short answers so here it is:

So what you want to look for is chocolate that is certified Fair Trade.  Just a warning - Fair Trade certified stuff currently makes up only about .5% of the market.

The Fair Trade certification means workers are paid fair wages free from abusive and exploitative labor practices, work in healthy and safe conditions and use environmentally sustainable methods

Long story but there are two types of Fair Trade Certification

Fair Trade USA and Fair Trade International – the former’s standards are somewhat lower than the latter’s and there has been some criticism about how easy it might be to get the Fair Trade USA certification so I vote Fair Trade International for now at least

Go to Whole Foods – they seems to have the highest amount of fair-trade chocolate in the area.  Look for chocolate with the Fair-trade certification on the label.

You can also get Fair-trade chocolate online, but chocolate being what it is I think melting could be a concern.

                Cadbury – Cadbury gifts direct

                Divine Chocolate – www.divinechocolateusa.com

                Lutheran World Relief – www.lwr.org

Ghirardelli has issued a statement (http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Trade-chocolate-fair-trade/forum/Fx29RC6LN8C9N1B/TxDETGP6RBDVYY/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B000KNFBJC) essentially saying that almost all of their cocoa comes from Central and South America where there have never been the same concerns about forced, slave and child labor as in West Africa.

So that is a little bit about how to make sure your dollar isn’t going to support child slave labor in this industry at least . . .next up is some ideas on how we might go further in urging the major chocolate companies to speed up their commitment to Fair trade and ending these deplorable practices.