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Mossad Assassins Draw Red Interpol Cards

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Mossad draws a red card (Getty Images)

In a soccer match, when the referee draws a red card the player is ejected. In international law enforcement, when Interpol issues a red card you damn well better be in a secure place and never raise your head to see the light of day. This means that the 27 Mossad agents implicated by Dubai in the al-Mabouh hit will be in cold storage for a long time and unavailable for any future heroics in the international battle of the Jewish people against Islamic terror (that’s meant ironically):

Interpol said it would join an international task force investigating the Dubai assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and issued “red notices” on Monday for 16 more suspects.

The notices…bring to 27 the number of suspects that Interpol is assisting Dubai’s search for connected to the Jan. 19 murder of Mr. Mabhouh…

“The creation of the task force and the publication of the new Red Notices came as investigative information provided by the authorities in Dubai bore out the international links and broad scope of the number of people involved,” Interpol wrote in a statement.

The agency also explained why a first group of 11 suspects were identified before the additional 16. It said that the first 11 were a “core group alleged to have carried out the killing” while the second group of 16 “is believed to have aided and abetted the first team by closely watching, following and reporting Al Mabhouh’s movements from the moment he landed at Dubai airport until his murder.”

The red notices lend additional credibility to the case being assembled here…

By pressing for the international alerts, the Dubai authorities are “throwing the ball in the court of the Western police forces,” says Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis here…The authorities here are sending the message that they are doing all they can…If nothing happens “it would make the international community look bad,” he says. They are saying, “if you can’t do your job, then don’t blame Dubai.”

In case you thought that the Mossad had exhausted its portion of sheer brazenness in this murder case, rest assured it has not. Bloomberg reports that the pre-paid debit cards issued fraudulently to the assassins by an Israeli-American company, Payoneer, with potential ties to Israeli intelligence, allowed the assassins who entered the U.S. after the killing to actually work in this country. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe. But the Mossad is nothing if not ballsy:

Suspected assassins of a Hamas leader in Dubai “fraudulently” acquired prepaid payroll cards and stole identities to obtain jobs at U.S. companies, according to card-issuer MetaBank. Authorities informed Meta, a unit of publicly traded Meta Financial Group Inc., that the suspects used fake passports to get cards issued by the firm and other banks, according to an e- mailed statement from Meta yesterday.

Paul Woodward asks the excellent question: which companies? Of course, they would be companies that either would provide cover for their spy identities or allow them to pursue their assassination plans (or both). I’d love to know though whether any of these companies enjoy, like Payoneer, extraordinarily close ties to Israeli intelligence agencies or those affiliated with the Israel lobby.

Friends of Mossad (perhaps an idea for a new Israeli NGO?) have been busy, eager beavers spreading the good news about how the agency rid the world of a nasty piece of work and should be wished a hearty mazel tov for doing our dirty work for us. A splendid example of this is the notorious Judy Miller, of faux WMD fame, writing in the Jewish Tabloid (er, Tablet). She breathlessly recounts in vivid prose, doubtless due either to her overactive imagination or cozy ties with Israeli intelligence and aligned journalists, previous Israeli assassination attempts against al-Mabouh. The takeaway: Mossad always gets their man.

Note but one example of her love affair with spooks and gooks, no matter whether they’re Scooter Libby or Meir Dagan:

As an Israeli reporter put it to me, al-Mabhouh’s death was a “two-fer”—a man who from Israel’s standpoint deserved killing not only for having murdered Israelis in the past, but also because he was buying weapons from Iran that would be used to kill Israelis in the future.

Did you recoil as I did when you read the word “twofer,” as if you’d just heard a joke in especially bad taste? But this is Judy Miller, the queen of slavish devotion to every bad habit of every overreaching intelligence agency from DC to Tel Aviv. Further, Judy seeks to deflect blame from the Mossad and turn it back on Dubai. You see, it wasn’t the fault of the actual assassins, but of Dubai which didn’t stop them before they snuffed their quarry:

Emirati and Hamas officials, both apparently eager to blame the victim rather than themselves for failing to prevent the murder, criticized Mabhouh for having been lax about his own security.

Further weakening the case against Israel, Miller claims that Arab states are actually happy about the killing:

…The operation…has fascinated the world, infuriated Hamas, and been quietly condoned by many Arab states…

In fact, so “quietly condoned” that none seem to have breathed a word about their satisfaction–except to Judy of course.

Judy really should be writing for Rupert Murdoch, one of Israel’s greatest media supporters. But Rupert has someone already on the job–the managing editor of Australia’s largest daily, Alan Howe, who is Mossad’s biggest fan Down Under. Howe expects an updated version of Munich any day now featuring those he-men and daring women who offed Mahmoud al-Mabouh:

THE good thing about Israel quite correctly eliminating threats to its existence is that it is undertaken professionally. We seldom lose anyone of worth and there’s normally a ripper film celebrating it.

After the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, then prime minister Golda Meir famously said: “Send forth the boys.” It became Operation Wrath of God in which dozens of the organisers of the atrocity were hunted down and killed over two decades…Wrath of God produced Sword of Gideon and Steven Spielberg’s Munich. Perhaps there’ll soon be 9 Minutes in Dubai.

I asked Sol Salbe, who pointed me to this drivel, who this moron was, hoping he’d tell me he was some Australian version of Steven Plaut, a ranting pro-Israel wingnut. No such luck, as I mention above. Thanks to Rupert, the Mossad has a huge fan planted in the editor’s chair at Melbourne’s and Australia’s largest daily. The Mossad has it made in the shade.

David Kimche, Mossad's next target for identity theft?

I did have one rather modest proposal for the Mossad. Since 27 out of what one journalist claimed were 48 agents called kidonim, or trained assassins, have been outed, I can at least offer one new identity that it would be safe for the Mossad to appropriate. Yesterday, one of Israel’s greatest modern civil servants and spies died, David Kimche. He rose in the ranks of the Mossad to become deputy director before moving to the foreign ministry where he became director general (chief of staff).

Kimche was remarkable in his pragmatic, but idiosyncratic views. Most recently, he advocated Israeli negotiations with Hamas. He also signed the 2003 Geneva Initiative. He served during a time when Israeli leaders were known for actually having strategic ideas and ethical principles. Alas, we will not see his like again.

What is convenient for the Mossad is that Kimche was an English Jew and therefore a prime suspect for identity/passport theft. If you’ll note this 1983 photo, he sports glasses and what looks to possbily be a toupee. I’d maintain this would be a perfect disguise for the next Dubai-type assassination. And the crowning good of this proposal is that Kimche won’t be needing his British passport any time soon. Go to it, Mr. Dagan and colleagues.

Tags: film, hamas, israeli assassinations, mossad
Posted in Gardening, Mideast Peace | 2 Comments »

Burpee Owner Pictures Heronswood as ‘Nice Condos’

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

Heronswood garden in better days (photo: LindaPlato.com)

I kid you not. Anne Raver wrote another one of her terrific gardening columns (the online version is truncated unfortunately) in today’s NY Times, an epitaph for the wonder which was Heronswood. For those who don’t know the story, after buying Heronswood in 1999 for $4.5-million, Burpee closed it down last week and sent the staff packing and its 6,000 plants back to corporate headquarters in Pennsylvania: an act of botanical Vandalism of the highest order.

Raver’s column provides a careful and balanced discussion of the pitfalls of large corporate nurseries buying small, distinctive ones and notes the many failures which have ensued. She also notes that Burpee president, George Ball recognized his error as early as 2002 and offered to sell Heronswood back to Dan Hinkley and Robert Jones for $2-million. Despite the good deal it was still more than they could muster. This is pure speculation, but I know Dan and Robert built a new home with the proceeds of the original sale and I’m guessing that with the expense of that enterprise they were loath to take on a new financial burden.

Heronswood founders Dan Hinkley and Robert Jones (photo: Andrew Councill/NYT)

George Ball, ever a man for the bon mot, continues his foot and mouth disease of a public relations campaign explaining Burpee’s motives and actions. Raver quotes the following doozy from him:

I would like to find some kind of buyer who would keep it open to the public,” Mr. Ball said. He pictures a “high-end retirement community with nice condos” built around the gardens on the 15-acre property.

In my earlier post about Heronswood’s demise, I called Ball a Vandal and worse. To this may I add “jackass?” The saddest aspect of this tragedy is that those 15 acres are worth far more to a real estate developer than they’d ever be worth to a nursery owner. Ball will more than recoup his $4.5-million investment. He clearly doesn’t give much of a shit about preserving the Heronswood site as he’s carted off the specimens. Likely, one of the finest nurseries in the nation will go the way of the dodo bird and morph into luxury condominiums.

I’ll never be able to buy a Burpee product again (not that I bought many to begin with).

Posted in Gardening, Outdoors, Seattle | 2 Comments »

Burpee’s Act of Garden Vandalism: Heronswood is Gone

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006

(photo: Heronswood.com)

For the gardeners among us, you may never buy another seed packet from Burpee’s after you read this travesty of a story. Six years ago, Burpee’s bought Dan Hinkley’s Heronswood Nursery. If you’ve never read, heard about or seen Heronswood I feel sorry for you. It was an oasis of the beautiful, rare and exotic plants from around the world which Dan dug up on his trips around the world. Hinkley is one of the great botanical adventurers of our time. He sought out regions of the world whose climate mirrored the Pacific Northwest and hiked into the backcountry to harvest specimens which he grew back home and sold to the public. In this way, he introduced American gardeners to some of the most extraordinary plants they’d ever see. A visit to Heronswood’s site was a feast for the eyes–filled with sumptuous colors and luxuriant forms.

I always loved Hinkley’s catalogues which he published yearly. They were filled with his charming, idiosyncratic prose. They purposely didn’t have any pictures (at least until Burpee got hold of it), just plant names (Latin only) and descriptions. Dan made you work hard. He didn’t give it to you on a silver platter. If you visited Heronswood, which I was privileged to do once before he sold it to Burpee, you wouldn’t find a single plant name in English–only Latin. If you weren’t botanically trained it made for some difficult shopping. But you had to respect the purity of his vision and I did.

George Ball, chief Burpee vandal (photo: Harley Soltes / Seattle Times)

Then Dan sold his baby to Burpee’s with the promise that nothing would change. He’d continue to gallivant around the world looking for the most wonderful plants and his partner, Robert Jones would manage the business end. But it didn’t work out for Burpee’s. A nursery which Dan and Robert had managed successfully for years before they sold it to Burpee’s somehow didn’t churn enough cash for the corporate maw. Security guards came early on May 31st and took possession of Heronswood from Dan and Robert. The wonderful Heronswood that we knew and loved is no more (this from the Seattle Times):

For the founders of Heronswood as well as the thousands of gardeners who visited the lush nursery over the years, the news was devastating.

“This has been like dealing with a death in the family,” said Daniel J. Hinkley, who began Heronswood with his partner Robert Jones nearly 20 years ago. “We’re sad because we believed in Heronswood and believed it was more than just a nursery. We were trying to contribute to the horticultural community and the community as a whole.”

…”This is a disaster,” Richard Hartlage, a prominent landscape architect said. “Everyone is just shocked.”

George Ball is a cultural vandal just as surely as those who tore down the old Pennsylvania Station in New York City in 1966 and consigned the stone facade of the McKim Mead and White landmark to the New Jersey Meadowlands (where a preservationist found them years later neck deep in swamp). One could compare this to the burning of the ancient library at Alexandria, the largest then existing library in the world. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating. But don’t believe me, let Dan tell it:

“One thing I want to tell the people at Burpees is that the garden is filled with some extraordinarily rare things, and I hope that whoever acquires it values it.”

Do you think George Ball is listening or gives a shit??

Burpee’s is slime as a company. Their Neanderthal president, George Ball, wrote a heinous Op-Ed column/advertisement (link to my blog post which links, in turn to the column) in the New York Times a few months ago in which he attacked the Native Plant movement as ‘plant elitists.’ If you love plants, gardens and natives as many of us do, reading that column makes your blood boil. And if this post doesn’t turn you off Burpee’s for good, then reading that column will surely do the job.

Ball’s comment in the Seattle PI are unintentionally damning:

“But we’re not closing it, we’re just moving it,” he said.

Right, just moving it to Pennsylvania; or else moving it online. What about the physical Heronswood we all know and love from its Whidbey Island paradise?

Oh and in case you didn’t know, Mr. Ball seems to be under the mistaken impression that gardeners only live on the east coast:

When we purchased this six years ago,” he said, “we were anxious to make it a profitable company that would be fulfilling our ambition to serve a national audience of gardeners, which is predominantly on the East Coast. For six years we worked away at it. But finally we decided the best thing would be that we relocate.”

Makes lots of sense to me. You buy one of the world’s most prominent nurseries located on the WEST COAST when you all along believe the “national audience” for gardening is on the east coast. Is he a lunkhead or just a Vandal or both?

And in this interview from the North Kitsap Herald, Ball appears geographically-challenged reminding me of the subject of a Stephen Colbert interview:

“This will be the best of both worlds,” Ball said. “We’re not moving away from the Pacific Northwest, we’re moving to Pennsylvania.”

Huh??

And how about clueless:

Ball said he and Burpee worked hard to provide a good severance package for the employees and wishes nothing but the best for them. He also said they didn’t seem too upset by the news….

“I’m still angry,” [Heronswood employee Connie] Lammers said. “I was in shock when I first heard about it. Working there was more than business or a job. The employees were like extended family.”

There’s more:

“The plants we’ve collected from around the world will be tested under conditions more similar to those of our customers,” he said.

You see, there are no Burpee customers on the west coast; or if there are Ball sure doesn’t give a damn about ‘em. To which I say let’s give ‘em hell and make sure they have no customers not just on the west coast but in other places which don’t care for nursery vandalism (see last paragraph).

Though Dan has a five year non-compete clause with Burpee’s, I hope he’ll begin planning now for a new nursery venture. Dan, don’t let Burpee’s have the last word in this matter. Don’t let Burpee’s commit an act of nursery vandalism by dismantling the treasure that was Heronswood. We need you to act as a counter to the Burpee’s of the gardening world.

Another aspect of Burpee’s corporate philosophy which I detest is that they’re not content to just sell plants. They want to own the plants and their DNA.

I propose that gardeners and native plant lovers organize a national boycott of Burpee’s. What’s more, we should pressure our favorite nursery retailers to join the boycott by refusing to stock Burpee’s products. I know they’re the biggest seed sellers in the world, but who needs ‘em. There aren’t other seeds for sale from other companies? Companies which don’t ride roughshod over the botanical heritage of the Pacific Northwest.

Posted in Gardening, Outdoors, Seattle | 15 Comments »

Trillium Ovatum: Northwest Native Blooms

Wednesday, May 10th, 2006

Trillium ovatum in my garden

The trillium ovatums have finished blooming in nearby Madrona Woods. That’s one of the signs that spring has firmly taken hold and the bonds of winter are broken. Unfortunately, local development has driven the trillium habitat far back into the Cascades and you rarely see it within the city. It’s a delicate plant to grow from seed. But once it takes hold it knows how to hold its own. One local neighbor has made it a project to grow seedlings every year and distribute them to folks who’ll try to bring it back in their home gardens.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much success growing it from seedlings. But I did succeed with these plants which I bought at Florabundance, the wonderful annual Washington Park Arboretum plant sale. After two years of cultivation in my garden they are starting to propagate themselves nicely and I should get a nice patch of trillium each year.

When I first saw this plant while hiking in the Cascades I was confused by seeing what seemed like two varieties, one with a white flower and one with a pinkish one. In fact, when it first blooms the flower is white and as it ages it gains pink-purple blotches. Trillium ovatum is one of the truly lovely Northwest natives.

Tags: Seattle
Posted in Gardening, Outdoors, Seattle | 1 Comment »

Burpee’s War on Native Plants

Tuesday, March 21st, 2006

The NY Times today published a distressing ode to invasive plants in Border War, a column penned by George Ball, “president of the seed and plant company W. Atlee Burpee & Company” as the Times author credit notes. I was under the impression that Martha Stewart owns Burpee, but I haven’t been able to confirm that online. But for those of you in the Pacific NW I know for a fact and must sadly say that one of our finest nurseries, Dan Hinckley’s Heronswood, is also owned by horticultural pirate. I can’t help but wonder how Hinckley, one of the word’s great nurserymen and an intrepid plant explorer, makes of this column.

Pacific NW native, trillium ovatum, does battle with invasives (photo: NWPlants.com)

What I particularly object to is that an executive of one of the world’s largest agricultural seed companies was given prime NYT real estate to argue that his products (the non-native, hybridized and denatured seeds used by agriculture, both big–massive industrial farms–and small–suburban homeowners) are cool for the environment. The Times should be ashamed. Where is the column by a director or board member of the thousands of organizations in this country which support native plants?

Before I get farther on in this discussion, I should stop to explain that “exotic” plants (also called invasive, noxious or pest) are plants which arrive from other places and take root in our local landscape. Many times (though not always) such plants have aggressive growth habits and overwhelm more delicate native species. Speaking of which, native plants are those which have grown in your region for centuries during which they’ve adjusted themselves to climate, terrain, pests, and diseases. These plants have found a balance with nature which many exotics have not yet done. For this reason, many horticulturists prize native plants.

Back to shilling for big bucks…here’s how Ball dishonestly sets up the premise of his argument:

THE horticultural world is having its own debate over immigration, with some environmentalists warning about the dangers of so-called exotic plants from other countries and continents “invading” American gardens. These botanical xenophobes say that a pristine natural state exists in our yards and that to disturb it is both sinful and calamitous. In their view, exotic plants will swallow your garden, your neighbors’ gardens and your neighbors’ neighbors’ gardens until the ecosystem collapses under their rampant suffocating growth.

If anything suffocates us, though, it will be the environmentalists’ narrowmindedness. Like all utopian visions, their dream beckons us into a perfect and rational natural world where nothing ever changes — a world that never existed and never will.

Himalayan blackberry thicket–imagine tearing that out with your own hands, Mr. Ball (photo: Invasive Species Initiative)

“Botanical xenophobes”–very catchy. Must’ve been written for him by some sharp publicist. But champions of native plants are not “xenophobes.” They do not hate all exotics, but only those which destroy native habitat. Here in the Pacific NW we are overrun by English laurel, Himalayan blackberries, and English ivy among others. These plants aren’t mere annoyances. They actually overwhelm a landscape and force all native species to the margins. That’s one sure recipe for the potential eventual extinction of some of our finest plants. Ball promotes another lie when he says environmentalists dream of a “perfect and rational world where nothing ever changes.” One thing anyone who studies Nature comes to learn is what Edmund Spencer noted in his Faerie Queene, mutatis mutandis, everything changes within it and does so constantly.

In this passage Ball seems to be deliberately playing an neocon idelogical card in calling native plant exponents “radical fundamentalists,” another preposterous statement. But I find it instructive that Ball seems to be aligning his argument with political conservativsm. If you think about what’s between the lines of this article, Burpee and other seed conglomerates are under attack around the world from small farmers who believe its seed choices are destroying the diversity of seed stock developed over thousands of years of natural selection. As Sustainable Table notes:

A few huge companies now produce much of the seed used by farmers; in 1999, the 10 largest seed companies controlled about 31% of the global seed market. These companies typically sell only the widely-used industrial varieties of plant seeds. This makes it increasingly difficult for farmers to buy non-industrial seed varieties and thus contributes to the disappearance of traditional plant varieties.

And this Purdue University Center for New Crops and Plant Products site puts the argument even more strongly:

The loss of biodiversity threatens global food security, especially for the poor, who rely on biodiversity for 85 to 90% of their livelihood needs.

[An alarming] trend I’d like to mention is privatization of plant breeding and seed sales. The first half of 1998 witnessed a dramatic consolidation of power over plant genetic resources worldwide, a trend that began over three decades ago. The global seed trade is now dominated by “life industry” corporations whose vast economic power has effectively marginalized the role of public sector plant breeding and research. Of course, the consolidation trend is not just in seeds but in all sectors of the life industry.

* 20 years ago there were thousands of seed companies, most of which were small and family owned. Today, the top 10 global seed companies control 30% of the $23 billion commercial seed trade.

Not to mention that native plant lovers are turning away from Burpee’s unimaginative plant selections and returing in droves to the plant choices that have worked best in local landscapes over millenia–native varieties.

Burpee can’t like any of this. It hits them where they live– in the pocket book. Hence, Ball’s mini temper tantrum in the Times’ Op-Ed section.

Here’s more specious argument:

The anti-exotics argue that gardens should be populated exclusively by native plants, as if the exotics were trying to enter the flower bed illegally.

What is it with this immigration trope?? Anyway, I’m not aware of “anti-exotics” who argue gardens should be populated exclusively by natives. Seems to me, the author is trying to set up a strawman who’ll fall over at the mere breath of his counter-argument. Horticulturalists, as far as I can tell, argue that we should return to natives and feature them prominently. But I know of few who argue against exotics, period. That seems extreme to me, which is why I doubt there is such a person except in Ball’s fervid imagination. I’ve had a garden here in Seattle since 1998. When I first planned it I told the landscape designer I worked with that I wanted to have as many native plants as I could while still featuring those exotics which I liked. I believe in a mix of the two with the native plants deserving pride of place for their long-lasting existence among us in this place.

[Denying exotics a place in our gardens] would compare with the denial of human immigration on grounds that certain ethnic groups breed in numbers “too prolific” for the existing elite to tolerate. Imagine, then, a horticultural ruling class. No “invasives” need apply: let the lily find another valley. Such prohibitions of exotic plant species demonstrate only an elitist snobbery that is as dangerous to a free society as it is to a free botany.

What horse crap! This is why the immigration trope is so idiotic yet so desirable for Ball. Using it, he can bring up to specter of racism calling native plant lovers racist and elitist for choosing natives over exotics. Ball’s argument is pathetic. Exotics actually DO crowd out natives and bring some species to the edge of extinction (at least in their local habitats, if not universally). Again, I’m aware of no horticulturalist (and Ball doesn’t provide any examples either) who’s advocated a “prohibition” against exotics. That would seem preposterous and impossible to enforce. Natives are not an elite, they are just common sense. In gardening, you generally go with what works in your environment. Natives work because they’ve been tried and tested over centuries, if not millenia.

Another fallacy of Ball’s argument:

No one, and certainly no gardener, grows truly destructive invasive plants in his garden.

Not true. There are many exotics grown in gardens by unsuspecting folk who do not realize the danger if those same plants are let loose in native habitats like forests which might lie right across the street. Not to mention that one of the hallmarks of exotics is that they hitchhike everywhere and easily establish toeholds in places like gardens even when the owner doesn’t want them there.

Aside from requiring a bit of weeding, exotics are safe as milk, unless one considers gardening a chore rather than a passionate hobby.

Reading this made me realize I need to invite Ball to join my neighbors in Friends of Madrona Woods who’ve spent seven years tearing out ivy, holly and Himalayan blackberry from the hillsides of this lovely urban park (and we’re nowhere near done yet). We have work parties every month. If Ball thinks exotics are charming little creatures who deserve our tender mercies and consideration, I don’t think he’d feel the same way after tearing out ivy vines for a few hours on our hillsides.

Friends of Madrona Woods is a Seattle environmental group devoted to restoring a local city park to a native habitat. We plan the first Seattle “daylighting” of an urban stream from source to Lake this summer. To learn more about how the native vs. exotic debate plays out in our little patch of woods visit our site.

Tags: Seattle
Posted in Gardening, Outdoors, Seattle | 7 Comments »

Madrona Park Creek Restoration, October 13th Public Hearing

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

Friends of Madrona Woods (of which I am a board member) is a Seattle neighborhood environmental group which has “adopted” Madrona Woods (bordering 38th Avenue and Lake Washington Blvd). After doing much forest restoration by rebuilding trails and stairways, removing invasive and exotic plants (holly, ivy, etc.) and replacing it with native plants, FOMW has taken on the ambitious goal of restoring Madrona Park Creek. In the early 20th century, this stream once ran above ground from the 38th Avenue ravine all the way down to Lake Washington. Now it runs underground in pipes. As I said it’s a big (at least for a small neighborhood group like ours), expensive project which requires much planning, permitting, and approvals from city agencies.

The Seattle Parks Department decided to schedule a public hearing about the stream restoration project on Thursday, October 13th at 6 PM at Park headquarters, 100 Dexter Avenue N. If you support our project, I hope you’ll try to attend. Or alternatively, you may supply written testimony by e-mailing Sandy Brooks.

If you’d like to donate to the project (such donations are gratefully appreciated), send it to Friends of Madrona Woods c/o J. Scott, 3700 East Marion Street, Seattle, WA 98122. Please make your check payable to Madrona Community Council. Gifts are tax-deductible.

PROJECT LOCATION:

853 Lake Washington Blvd

BUDGET:

This creek daylighting project will cost approximately $450,000 and is being funded by grants and private donations.

SCHEDULE:

Phase I (the ravine) and II (the shoreline) are scheduled to begin construction in summer 2006.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Proposed Project:

This community-initiated project would take Madrona Creek out of pipes and run the water on the surface in a new creek bed. The sloping lawn area between Lake Washington Boulevard and Lake Washington would be replaced with native plantings. The project includes:

Restoration of a creek channel where water is currently piped, from above 38th Ave down to the Lake Washington shoreline.
Construction of an observation deck at the creek’s headwaters in the 38th Ave ravine.
Modification of the land between Lake Washington Blvd. S and the shoreline. A 4,800-square-foot wetland cove would replace a small portion of existing lawn area (the northern section near the bus turnaround).
Installation of new creek culverts under 38th Ave., Lake Washington Blvd., and the path through which fish could pass.
A crushed rock pedestrian trail along the lakeshore and around the wetland cove.
Four new creek crossing bridges, one below the boulevard and three in the ravine.
Re-vegetation of approximately 1.5 acres of existing park with native plants, including in the ravine and along the lakeshore.
Maintenance of views to the lake in three key view corridors through plantings three to four feet in height.

Anticipated Impacts:

Park access will be limited at times during construction and there will be truck traffic, equipment noise, and traffic modifications during construction.

If you have any questions about the project or this post please add a comment or send me an e mail via this blog. Friends of Madrona Woods will have a new website built very soon.

Posted in Gardening, Outdoors, Seattle | 1 Comment »

Food and Class: Julie Powell’s Attack on the Organic Food Movement

Saturday, July 23rd, 2005

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One

I remember when I read Amanda Hesser’s wonderful profile of Julie Powell, a then-secretary who took on the daunting and heroic project of cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a tiny Long Island City apartment kitchen. The article was utterly charming and I was won over by Powell’s indomitable spirit.

Julie Powell cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking in her tiny kitchen (credit: Christopher Smith/NYT)

Powell has apparently become a food writer for the Times. As such, she has written a remarkably outspoken, politically incorrect and in your face column, Don’t Get Fresh with Me, in the New York Times in which she savagely attacks nouvelle cuisine, Alice Waters, Brillat-Savarin, farmer’s markets, Whole Foods and Julia Child among others. It’s quite a tour de force of culinary knife-wielding. No one who’s embraced the Slow Food movement comes out unscathed.

She argues that the high priests and priestesses of American food are snooty, elitist, rich, affected, overly fussy and classist. She claims they are self-centered and monomaniacal in their pursuit of the purest ingredients, caring only for themselves and other likeminded members of their class. All to often, she claims, food mavens ignore the “lower classes” in the missionary zeal to spread the mantra of Slow Food and nouvelle cuisine. The movement, she says, is not meant for poor people or minorities. It is meant for the kind of people who can look a Whole Foods price tag in the eye and not blanch at the expense.

First, we have to concede that those who love food CAN be a snooty, opinioniated, overbearing bunch. And it’s also true that if you obssess about getting the best of everything food-wise then chances are you may lose sight of the fact that others do not have the time, money or inclination to be as much of a fetishist as you. And when we divorce ourselves from our fellow human beings in this way, we are being elitist and classist.

But who’s to say that because I love good food, shop at Whole Foods and several local farmer’s markets, eat in fine restaurants (though infrequently now with three little babies), and admire Alice Waters that I’ve lost touch with my fellow man?

And as far as farmer’s markets go, how did they all of a sudden become symbols of privilege and snobbery? I shop at two local farmer’s markets here in Seattle, one of which (Columbia City) is in the heart of South Seattle, where the bulk of the city’s ethnic minorities live. This market is a celebration of economic, religious and culinary diversity. You see African women in flowing robes, women in hijabs, poor people, rich people and everyone in between. Do only Whole Foods shoppers shop at the farmer’s market? Come on. In fact, the prices at Powell’s local farmer’s market are probably lower than at the Key Food or Western Market stores she highlights in her article.

Do enough of the poor know about farmer’s markets and the benefits they might provide them and their children? No. That’s why local and state governments need to do more to publicize this culinary asset to the economically disadvantaged. We need to figure out how to better get this message to those who aren’t media sophisticates. The way to do this is not to accuse farmer’s markets of being the bastion of privilege.

Regarding the snootiness factor she notes–who’s to say that because I love a good French meal (very rarely) that I don’t also love downhome simple cuisine as well. I couldn’t put it any better than Alice Waters does is the quotation below. Loving food doesn’t mean looking down your nose at those who are of a lower class than you. Loving food means loving good food everywhere and from whatever origin it derives. And it means loving the people who’ve created the cuisine whatever their class or economic background.

And how about this gratuitous slap in the face of the organic movement:

What makes the snobbery of the organic movement more insidious is that it equates privilege not only with good taste, but also with good ethics. Eat wild Brazil nuts and save the rainforest. Buy more expensive organic fruit for your children and fight the national epidemic of childhood obesity. Support a local farmer and give economic power to responsible stewards of sustainable agriculture.

This passage is, of course, a coarse reductionist version of the tenets of the organic movement. Who is their right mind believes that you can eliminate child obesity by paying more for your fruit? No, you eliminate obesity by finding sources for good healthy food for your children. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to do this as any farmer’s market shopper can tell you. It’s a cheap shot, Ms. Powell.

Let’s return to Alice Waters–she has not only donated much money and food for philanthropic causes, she’s spearheading a national project, the Edible Schoolyard, to place youth gardens in as many public schools as possible. That’s public schools, Ms. Powell, not Choate or Exeter. And guess who those students will be? You guessed it–Anglo, Latino, African-American, Chinese-American, etc. And they will be from diverse economic backgrounds as well. Waters’ goal for the gardens is to teach children how to enjoy gardening itself and also to enjoy the fruit of their labors. Most American children know no more about a vegetable than what their parent places on the plate in front of them. The doyenne of nouvelle cuisine reckons that a boy or girl who grows aspargus, artichoke or baby greens will be more likely to eat them. She wants to widen the palate of the average American child so they will eat healthier and be healthier. Since when is that snobbish or elitist? In fact, read this passage by Waters on the Edible Schoolyard website which deplores the demise of the family meal in modern society:

“Dinner rituals have nothing to do with class, or working women’s busy lives, or any particular family structure. I’ve had dinners of boiled potatoes with families in Siberia, suppers of deli cold cuts with single welfare mothers in Chicago, bowls of watery gruel in the Sahara–all made memorable by the grace with which they were offered and by the sight of youngsters learning through experience the art of human companionship.

So there, Ms. Powell!

To learn more about Alice Water’s campaign to improve the culinary education of all America’s children (not just the rich and white among them), read R.W. Apple’s wonderful profile of Waters’ attempt to bring the Edible Schoolyard to the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Tags: food
Posted in Food and Drink, Gardening, Seattle | 5 Comments »

Seattle Summer: June 2005

Monday, June 20th, 2005

My garden seems to have distinct classes of flowers that display at different parts of the growing season. I’ve already featured the Spring flowers in my blog: rhododendron, tulips, daphne odora and madrona tree. Now, it’s time for the early summer flowers to take front and center. Later on, the dahlias, thalictrum, astrancias and other gorgeous high summer flowers will strut their stuff. I can’t wait–but I don’t mean to give short shrift to the beauty I see in my garden today. For more garden photos, visit my photo gallery.

phragmepedium calurum