I was recently asked by Michelle Obama to share my thoughts on how the 2012 Democratic National Convention, being held in my hometown of Charlotte, NC, might be unique and more appealing to the masses. I had a few minutes to reflect on this and respond, but I feel like I passed up a really great opportunity, because immediately after I responded, I realized a much more profound and positive way that the DNC could reach out to the masses: LEAD BY EXAMPLE.
President Obama epitomizes the mantra of "lead by example," from his history of serving the American people directly through his days as a community organizer in the slums of Chicago, to his means of campaign financing. Very rarely, if ever, has Obama seemed to justify the means because of some positive end, and this enraptured the American people to the point that they put him into office as our president.
The 2012 DNC can become as significant of an event as the election of the first African American President if Democrats embraces the theme of Obama's recent State of the Union address: A NEW AMERICA CREATED BY DEVELOPING THE WORLDS LEADING ALTERNATIVE ENERGY ECONOMY.
Here is my proposal: Pick the building that will house the main DNC events in Charlotte and solar panel it. (Charlotte will love this as they are working their butts off to re-imagine the city as a "green" leader!) Then work with the American car companies we all recently bailed out to secure a fleet of electric vehicles for all the officials attending the DNC. Get some of these companies to build a new high security electric/bio-diesel hybrid bus that can carry the President and his family to the event. Get bio-diesel companies to recycle McDonald's grease in a public event showcasing environmental cross-commercial endeavors. Make a big show of everyone arriving at the DNC in these electric cars and when they all get there, they should step out of the cars and plug them into charging stations that are run off of 100% wind power or solar electric from the buildings roof top. Also, to really connect with the youth, get companies like Brammo, who make sexy all electric motorcycles, on board so some officials and DNC attendants can arrive on these and also plug them into the electric charging stations.
Also, before the whole show at the DNC you could organize a nation-wide electric vehicle, and ideally rail, decent on Charlotte. Anyone who could afford them, which is sadly only movie stars and pro-sports players right now, would purchase these alternative vehicles and drive them in a parade to Charlotte. I'll film and direct the documentary for you on this event, but additionally you could publicize it through mass media and social network sites around the nation. This would rally and unite the country in a way that would bring unprecedented attention to the democratic party leading us to a new era in America!
Additionally, since health care has been such a prevalent fight in politics these days, you should invite government officials and employees who have access to government based health care to tell compelling stories about the beautiful benefits of this health care system. The point again is to LEAD BY EXAMPLE.
I will do my best to get this blog post back to the 1st Lady. She inspires me as much as Obama and represents a fantastic model for women striving for success in our society. Her "victory garden" deserves far more attention that it has received. Our food security, and not to mention the health of our nation where 2/3rds of adults are considered obese, will rely on small gardens that re-connect people to the food they eat. So it is here that I will close my suggestions for the 2012 DNC: feed everyone at the convention only local food, beer, and wine. NC abounds with local CSA's, wineries, and beer brewers. Tap into, explore, and celebrate this local abundance so that the American people may remember that we have a lot to offer the world still. And lastly, get rid of the bottled water; this is America, and we can drink from the tap thank you very much.
Don't resign yourselves to the intelligent pondering prince party, but take the reigns as the kingly party who acts on their beliefs!
Sincerely, from a current Denverite who grew up in Charlotte, NC, and with all my love for the future of this nation that has blessed me with so much,
-Matt Talarico
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Robbed and reflected
So,
I apologize for this long delay, and I know that the majority of you are no longer following this blog. That's cool. Regardless, here is the skinny to wrap up the Chilean adventure.
I kept a log of our travels in a nice cork bound journal my parents had got me a few years ago. I would write about Juan Ignacio Fogliatti, a fearless Chilean who lit hills of invasive gorse on fire, disliked foreigners, raised boars and beans, and played on facebook while the cold wind blew in through the holes in the walls. I would write about Mateo from outside Puerto Montt who had crafted a pristine organic permaculture-esque farm where goats gave birth to twins that would need help nursing, and the yellow house in the forest where we lived on this fertile land. I would write about delirious 22 hour bus rides with no sleep, where 300 pound women stole food from their children and snored sonic explosions while the toilet claimed it's place as my second seat, whether I was resting my arms or arse on it. And then I would go on to write about Valparaiso, were it not for the fact that in Valparaiso we were robbed at gunpoint, at which point, my journal, and camera, both with beautiful and well crafted memories stored deep within their innards, were taken away. The emotional reeling after such an experience feels distorting to say the least. When you realize such items are gone, but that you still have the love of your life, not to mention your own life, right there in front of you, things seem fine. But reliving the moment, to question how things could have played out differently, comes as part of the post-robbing package. Whether you want it to or not! The fury and misplaced delusions that I was a mercenary ready to avenge my wrongdoers subsided in the house of Pablo Neruda. Not ironic at all. The power of eccentric beauty will always have the capacity to subdue anger and violence and so it is there, in the well preserved, well loved, well though out house of Pablo Neruda that our trip began to wind down. We had one more day following this excursion to sink in to the colors, smells, tastes, and of course, charm, of this seaside town. In the following weeks, returning from Chile to everyday life in CO, I found it next to impossible to pin down a phrase that could describe Chile; in transition? Yes. In need of a hug. Yes. Beautiful and somewhat inaccessible in a month. Totally. If anything, it was another adventure that will sink into me, just more slowly than some, and potentially, more powerfully.
I apologize for this long delay, and I know that the majority of you are no longer following this blog. That's cool. Regardless, here is the skinny to wrap up the Chilean adventure.
I kept a log of our travels in a nice cork bound journal my parents had got me a few years ago. I would write about Juan Ignacio Fogliatti, a fearless Chilean who lit hills of invasive gorse on fire, disliked foreigners, raised boars and beans, and played on facebook while the cold wind blew in through the holes in the walls. I would write about Mateo from outside Puerto Montt who had crafted a pristine organic permaculture-esque farm where goats gave birth to twins that would need help nursing, and the yellow house in the forest where we lived on this fertile land. I would write about delirious 22 hour bus rides with no sleep, where 300 pound women stole food from their children and snored sonic explosions while the toilet claimed it's place as my second seat, whether I was resting my arms or arse on it. And then I would go on to write about Valparaiso, were it not for the fact that in Valparaiso we were robbed at gunpoint, at which point, my journal, and camera, both with beautiful and well crafted memories stored deep within their innards, were taken away. The emotional reeling after such an experience feels distorting to say the least. When you realize such items are gone, but that you still have the love of your life, not to mention your own life, right there in front of you, things seem fine. But reliving the moment, to question how things could have played out differently, comes as part of the post-robbing package. Whether you want it to or not! The fury and misplaced delusions that I was a mercenary ready to avenge my wrongdoers subsided in the house of Pablo Neruda. Not ironic at all. The power of eccentric beauty will always have the capacity to subdue anger and violence and so it is there, in the well preserved, well loved, well though out house of Pablo Neruda that our trip began to wind down. We had one more day following this excursion to sink in to the colors, smells, tastes, and of course, charm, of this seaside town. In the following weeks, returning from Chile to everyday life in CO, I found it next to impossible to pin down a phrase that could describe Chile; in transition? Yes. In need of a hug. Yes. Beautiful and somewhat inaccessible in a month. Totally. If anything, it was another adventure that will sink into me, just more slowly than some, and potentially, more powerfully.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Reflections# 611: Food and Hostels
Empanadas are not on every street corner; however, there abundance could satiate the hungriest of travelers at 800 pesos, about $1.50 US, a piece. Despite the fact that the common empanada del pino contains mystery meat, hardboiled egg, lots of onions and a single unpitted olive (watch out), they taste muy deliciosas. Empanadas have served as the cornerstone of our low budget travel, and we guarantee a full report at the end of our journey here on who cooks the best empanadas in this long and slender country.
Also in abundance, a tragic export we think from the US, is fast food, especially in Santiago. Beneath 400 years old archways, stalls of fast food line the sides and through the center waddles the transitional Chilean. Standing, they grab vienesas (hotdogs) smothered in guacamole and mayonnaise, or pollo pronto-a cheap replica just two doors down from its inspiration, KFC. More traditional Chilean meals however, are there if you look for them. Costing a bit more, though not much over 3,000 pesos (US $7.50), you can find cored potatoes filled with beef and veggies and a side of tabbouleh, salads with lettuce, corn, chicken and veggies, and much more. The diversity in these traditional meals, as well as a diversity of international cuisine available such as Chinese, Italian, and Indian, surpasses most other Latin American countries, though it pales in comparison to the melting pot that is the US.
In most hostels, you can´t escape cheap white bread as the staple of breakfast. More like rolls than wonderbread, they´re served with jelly from a bag, a small cup of the ubiquitous jugo de durazno (peach juice) which pours like syrup, and instant Nescafe or Lipton tea. Most of the hostels we´ve stayed at offer this cheap breakfast as part of the package, but we´ve also sought out hostels that will let us use the kitchen to cook lunch and dinner. Hostels have turned out to be more expensive than we thought, and our guidebook has often led us astray- always ask to check out the bathrooms before you agree to stay anywhere, and sometimes it is worth the extra money. As we write this, we´re eating lunch at our hostel in Castro on the island of Chiloé; we got to Castro 2 days ago and love the change from Santiago. The mountains here are not veiled behind a thick layer of smog, and the tides from the surrounding fjords remind you that people here are much more tied into nature than in the crazy city.
We treated ourselves the first night to Hostal Palafito, which sits on stilts above the water overlooking the fjord. By far the nicest of the hostels we´ve stayed in, we splurged a bit in part because it started to rain as we arrived and we didn´t want to tote our massive packs around in that weather, and in part because we had just escaped a slum of a hostel in Santiago. This quaint, new, incredibly clean, and totally vacant hostel felt more like a B&B on the Oregon coast than anything else. After 16 hours on a bus to get down here, grabbing a bottle of cheap Chilean cab-sav wine, cooking a little dinner, and staring out at the ocean from the balcony, created the exact atmosphere we were craving in high-tailing it from the city.
In an effort to recoup our financial losses from this splurge, we took off the next morning for another space. The first hostel we stopped at had the right price so we dropped our bags and took off. We spent the afternoon touring the isolated island of Quinchao; playing on the beach while we bundled in our scarves and down jackets, eating tomato and avocado sandwiches, and all sorts of other fun touristy stuff like standing in awe beneath a beautiful 1740´s wooden church ceiling or trying to find a bathroom that didn´t cost anything. When we got back to the hostel that night though, we realized why you should ask to see the bathrooms first. We also realized the beauty of central heating and that the Hostal Central most likely serves as a cover up for some very shifty dealings. (Our theory is that its the port of entry for Peruvian goods to be sold on the black market: things such as gloves, scarves, and other woven wares from the locally forsaken alpaca. Though this is just a theory).
Needless to say, we´re at a much nicer hostel today, with clean bathrooms, a charming front woman, a beautiful view of the harbor and minimal illegal dealings in woolen woven wears. We hope all you gringos are rockin out stateside. We leave for our farm Monday morning and will try to stay in good touch.
Much love. Matt & Andi.
Anecdotal contraindications to Lonely Planet advise: Despite what the guidebook says, the popular Cafés con Piernas (Coffee with Legs) in Santiago are strip joints that happen to serve coffee, not coffee shops where baristas happen to wear a string bikini to work. Also, the clientelle isn´t the average Santiaguino conducting business over coffee. He is the "lonely-midlife-crisis-man" who needs far more than a coffee upper.
PS #74: The beauty of no central heating is that this entire island smells like a campfire, another great change from the big city, which lacked both central heating and fireplaces.
Also in abundance, a tragic export we think from the US, is fast food, especially in Santiago. Beneath 400 years old archways, stalls of fast food line the sides and through the center waddles the transitional Chilean. Standing, they grab vienesas (hotdogs) smothered in guacamole and mayonnaise, or pollo pronto-a cheap replica just two doors down from its inspiration, KFC. More traditional Chilean meals however, are there if you look for them. Costing a bit more, though not much over 3,000 pesos (US $7.50), you can find cored potatoes filled with beef and veggies and a side of tabbouleh, salads with lettuce, corn, chicken and veggies, and much more. The diversity in these traditional meals, as well as a diversity of international cuisine available such as Chinese, Italian, and Indian, surpasses most other Latin American countries, though it pales in comparison to the melting pot that is the US.
In most hostels, you can´t escape cheap white bread as the staple of breakfast. More like rolls than wonderbread, they´re served with jelly from a bag, a small cup of the ubiquitous jugo de durazno (peach juice) which pours like syrup, and instant Nescafe or Lipton tea. Most of the hostels we´ve stayed at offer this cheap breakfast as part of the package, but we´ve also sought out hostels that will let us use the kitchen to cook lunch and dinner. Hostels have turned out to be more expensive than we thought, and our guidebook has often led us astray- always ask to check out the bathrooms before you agree to stay anywhere, and sometimes it is worth the extra money. As we write this, we´re eating lunch at our hostel in Castro on the island of Chiloé; we got to Castro 2 days ago and love the change from Santiago. The mountains here are not veiled behind a thick layer of smog, and the tides from the surrounding fjords remind you that people here are much more tied into nature than in the crazy city.
We treated ourselves the first night to Hostal Palafito, which sits on stilts above the water overlooking the fjord. By far the nicest of the hostels we´ve stayed in, we splurged a bit in part because it started to rain as we arrived and we didn´t want to tote our massive packs around in that weather, and in part because we had just escaped a slum of a hostel in Santiago. This quaint, new, incredibly clean, and totally vacant hostel felt more like a B&B on the Oregon coast than anything else. After 16 hours on a bus to get down here, grabbing a bottle of cheap Chilean cab-sav wine, cooking a little dinner, and staring out at the ocean from the balcony, created the exact atmosphere we were craving in high-tailing it from the city.
In an effort to recoup our financial losses from this splurge, we took off the next morning for another space. The first hostel we stopped at had the right price so we dropped our bags and took off. We spent the afternoon touring the isolated island of Quinchao; playing on the beach while we bundled in our scarves and down jackets, eating tomato and avocado sandwiches, and all sorts of other fun touristy stuff like standing in awe beneath a beautiful 1740´s wooden church ceiling or trying to find a bathroom that didn´t cost anything. When we got back to the hostel that night though, we realized why you should ask to see the bathrooms first. We also realized the beauty of central heating and that the Hostal Central most likely serves as a cover up for some very shifty dealings. (Our theory is that its the port of entry for Peruvian goods to be sold on the black market: things such as gloves, scarves, and other woven wares from the locally forsaken alpaca. Though this is just a theory).
Needless to say, we´re at a much nicer hostel today, with clean bathrooms, a charming front woman, a beautiful view of the harbor and minimal illegal dealings in woolen woven wears. We hope all you gringos are rockin out stateside. We leave for our farm Monday morning and will try to stay in good touch.
Much love. Matt & Andi.
Anecdotal contraindications to Lonely Planet advise: Despite what the guidebook says, the popular Cafés con Piernas (Coffee with Legs) in Santiago are strip joints that happen to serve coffee, not coffee shops where baristas happen to wear a string bikini to work. Also, the clientelle isn´t the average Santiaguino conducting business over coffee. He is the "lonely-midlife-crisis-man" who needs far more than a coffee upper.
PS #74: The beauty of no central heating is that this entire island smells like a campfire, another great change from the big city, which lacked both central heating and fireplaces.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Thoughts over la Plaza de Armas...
The bullhorn flattens but elevates the voice of an angry protestor. His revolutionary rhetoric flits constantly like a small bird around the Plaza de Armas. He is not visible to me from our hostel terrace. He is not going to stop, and he is not a single person. As Columbus Day, a national holiday here that seems to receive as much positive press as an illegal hanging would in Alabama, draws close, the Mapuche people come out to show the strength of their numbers. Pharmacy workers wail on their plastic trumpets and bang on drums, not working. And the Iglesia Metropolitana teems with salvation seekers, grabbing for grace at the feet of Jesus, shelling out their last monedas for a better life to come.
No, not everyone here wants or needs more. In fact many people seem quite plump and happy here. Men and women in business suits sit in quieter, cleaner, and brighter parts of town, sipping an afternoon coffee, wine or beer. Teenagers lay in the shaded grass of the park on Cerro Santa Lucia, kissing and flirting until their antsy hearts are swollen. And even in the Plaza de Armas, little girls with their abuelitas throw old bread to chriping pigeons. Heck, the wii sells on every commercial street corner, and workmen, as I write, plant trees along the busy Avenida Merced.
But looking down on the Plaza de Armas, the central square where dictator Pinochet held public executions up until the early 90´s, one can see an obvious transition taking place here in Santiago. The vioce of a not yet at peace public rolls beneath the palms in the square, while the spring sun tries to beat back the smog of an overpopulated South American city.
No, not everyone here wants or needs more. In fact many people seem quite plump and happy here. Men and women in business suits sit in quieter, cleaner, and brighter parts of town, sipping an afternoon coffee, wine or beer. Teenagers lay in the shaded grass of the park on Cerro Santa Lucia, kissing and flirting until their antsy hearts are swollen. And even in the Plaza de Armas, little girls with their abuelitas throw old bread to chriping pigeons. Heck, the wii sells on every commercial street corner, and workmen, as I write, plant trees along the busy Avenida Merced.
But looking down on the Plaza de Armas, the central square where dictator Pinochet held public executions up until the early 90´s, one can see an obvious transition taking place here in Santiago. The vioce of a not yet at peace public rolls beneath the palms in the square, while the spring sun tries to beat back the smog of an overpopulated South American city.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Efficient travel
Today Andi and I got our feet wet in Toronto. The rain soaked through our new Toms shoes efficiently, our food in China-town came efficiently, commuting around the city worked efficiently as well; however, coming to Toronto en route to Santiago Chile: totally inefficient. Although,after a craZy summer we welcome this backward step and relished walking slowly through downtown. Furthermore, we wait excitedly in the airport here to have 11 lazy hours catching up on all the films we've missed!
Still, as avid travelers concerned with the proverbial Sasquatch footprint we are creating, we can't help but notice the inefficiency of our jaunt to Toronto. We booked this trip with frequent flyer miles so apparently for United it was cheaper to add in a few hundred miles to our itinerary. I feel like a dead salmon flying from Seattle to be processed in China, then sold in Manhattan as lox. Anyway, enough griping. In the morning we will arrive in Santiago, a couple of very fortunate travelers, ready for the next adventure. Keep connected and we'll do our darndest to fill you in on how the southern most vineyard in America is run!
Still, as avid travelers concerned with the proverbial Sasquatch footprint we are creating, we can't help but notice the inefficiency of our jaunt to Toronto. We booked this trip with frequent flyer miles so apparently for United it was cheaper to add in a few hundred miles to our itinerary. I feel like a dead salmon flying from Seattle to be processed in China, then sold in Manhattan as lox. Anyway, enough griping. In the morning we will arrive in Santiago, a couple of very fortunate travelers, ready for the next adventure. Keep connected and we'll do our darndest to fill you in on how the southern most vineyard in America is run!
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