DC Grays: Collegiate Wooden Bat Baseball on Georgia Ave. NW

Baseball in DC is happening even if no one is noticing! Finishing it's third season in DC is the DC Grays, a college age summer league team, who call home the newly renovated (and named) Maury Wills Field at Banneker Recreation Center on Georgia Ave. NW.

At the last home game of the regular season for the DC Grays on July 25, attendance was sparse. Those on hand to see the DC Grays ahead of the Nationals 5-0 in the 7th when the game was called due to lightning were treated to some nice baseball in a great new venue, Maury Wills Field. The DC Grays are worth watching and the price is right - free. The seating possibilities allow one to be very close to the game. There are bleachers on each baseline that are protected by a high fence. Behind home plate there are no bleachers - one can bring a chair or sit on the grass. The entire field is surrounded by a running track - so one can do jogging or walking while taking in the game, a real seventh inning stretch.

The Grays play in the Clark Griffith Collegiate Summer League, a league similar to the Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Summer League that the Bethesda Big Train play in. Both the Griffith and Ripken Sr. leagues use wooden bats as does major league baseball, instead of the aluminum bats used in college baseball. The DC Grays play on the same caliber as the Bethesda Big Train - it is a matter of time and promotion before the DC Grays are attracting much larger numbers to Maury Wills Field.





The DC Grays (in blue) of the Clark Griffith Collegiate Summer League on the field at Maury Wills Field at Banneker Recreation Center on Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC, on Saturday, July 25, 2009. The CGL is a wooden-bat league that has been operating for 64 years. During the months of June and July the team plays a 38-game schedule plus a post-season.



DC Grays on the field at Maury Wills Field, on Saturday, July 25, 2009. Unfortunately, the bleachers are empty.



Scoreboard at Maury Wills Field, on Saturday, July 25, 2009.


http://www.dcgrays.net/index.htm

Examiner: Harry Jaffe: Park service bureaucrats killing D.C.'s Baseball Academy

I have heard a variety of reasons/excuses for the lack of progress with implementation of the promised baseball academy in DC. Often I hear the blame on the Park Service - sometimes I think the Park Service is a convenient excuse. Time will tell. Harry Jaffe: Park service bureaucrats killing D.C.'s Baseball Academy By: Harry Jaffe Examiner Columnist July 24, 2009 Fort Dupont, a park atop a hill east of the Anacostia River, represents different things to Washingtonians. For Civil War buffs, it's one of the forts circling the city built to withstand Rebel assaults, similar to Fort Reno and Fort Stevens. For families seeking a respite from summer heat, the park is a 375-acre haven. But for thousands of kids across the region who had hoped to use a tiny corner of the park to play baseball and ice skate, Fort Dupont is an example of injustice brought to us by the U.S. National Park Service. The feds run the park, just as they control Rock Creek and our major downtown squares, from Franklin to McPherson. For some reason known only to bureaucrats, the National Park Service has been trying to close down the ice rink at Fort Dupont since 1996; now they are standing in the way of a baseball academy along Ely Street SE. "The Park Service's reaction to anything the District wants to do on park land is 'Just say no,' " says an attorney who has tried to make headway with the feds. "The longer they say no, the more they can wear the District down." "The Park Service's reaction to anything the District wants to do on park land is 'Just say no,' " says an attorney who has tried to make headway with the feds. "The longer they say no, the more they can wear the District down." The shenanigans and foot-dragging at Fort Dupont are nothing less than egregious. For more than a decade Friends of Fort Dupont has been trying to expand the ice rink. It now serves 10,000 kids each year. They come from swank streets of Chevy Chase and McLean across town to Capital Hill and Anacostia. They come to compete and learn the game. The Friends of Fort Dupont wants to double the rink's size and create a place where District kids can excel. They have the money, the plans, the teams. The Park Service has refused to permit the rink to expand. The plan seemed about to become a reality under Bush Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. At a meeting in Kempthorne's office, Council Chairman Vince Gray and others made their case, and Kempthorne gave his approval. One of the activists said that despite Kempthorne's approval, local bureaucrats would scuttle the plan. Peter May, the NPS official who essentially controls parkland in the national capital region, jumped out of his chair. "Not true," he said. Kempthorne left office before the deal was approved; May and others stalled it. Very true. May, who sits on the National Capital Planning Commission and the D.C. Zoning Commission, wields immense power behind the scenes. "He's the person who says yes or no to any projects involving federal land," says an activist. "He usually says no." That seems to be the case with the baseball academy promised for the corner of Fort Dupont near the rink. The Lerner family, through its foundation, has ponied up the cash to build the academy and the fields. Mayor Adrian Fenty and the local political establishment loves it. The Park Service has done nothing but stall. Peter May and the NPS need to get out of the way and let District kids play ball. Find this article at: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Park-service-bureaucrats-killing-D_C__s-Baseball-Academy-8011938-51519067.html

Allen Klein / managed The Beatles / obit

As an musician's manager, I think the goal is to avoid being the subject of a song........ Allen Klein, Yoko Ono and John Lennon... makes you wonder what John just signed that has him smiling yet in a couple of years he was suing Klein and writing disparaging lyrics about him....... Brash Record Executive Managed the Beatles By T. Rees Shapiro Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Allen Klein, 77, a cunning record executive whose clients included the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and who was known as the "toughest wheeler-dealer in the pop jungle," but whose ego and temperament also contributed to the breakup of the Fab Four, died July 4 at his home in Manhattan. He had complications from Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Klein was an accountant by trade and fell into musician and record company management by accident. Through his company, Abkco, Mr. Klein built his reputation on shrewd attention to financial detail. He ruthlessly negotiated rich contracts for his clients -- and for his own gain. He was the target of scores of lawsuits by clients and associates while making millions of dollars for many others. "Don't talk to me about ethics," Mr. Klein said in a 1971 interview with Playboy. "It's like a war. You choose your side early and from then on you're being shot at. The man you beat is likely to call you unethical. So what?" After early work for Sam Cooke and Bobby Darin, Mr. Klein was hired by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham in 1965 to renegotiate the Stones' record contract with Decca. He used his thick New Jersey accent and swaggering attitude to impress the group. "Andrew sold him to us as a gangster figure, someone outside the establishment," Mick Jagger said in Stephen Davis's book "Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-Year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones." "We found that rather attractive." In the early 1970s, Mr. Klein used his accounting skills to purchase the entire 1960s back catalogue of the Rolling Stones master recordings from Oldham without the band's knowledge. Mr. Klein also transferred more than $1 million of the Stones' earnings into his personal account. Around this period, Jagger chased Mr. Klein down a hallway of London's Savoy Hotel during one particularly energetic discussion about the band's finances. The singer, shouting expletives, demanded to know why a significant amount of his money had seemingly disappeared. "What did he want from us? Apart from the moon, I don't know," Jagger said while testifying during a lawsuit against Mr. Klein in 1984. "He wanted everything. He wanted a hold on us, on our futures." Mr. Klein saw his greatest aspiration realized when he became manager of the Beatles in 1969. He was aware that Apple Corps, the band's multimedia company, was months away from bankruptcy and set up a secret meeting with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. From that conference, Mr. Klein negotiated a contract to be the group's business manager. Lennon and Ono persuaded band members Ringo Starr and George Harrison to sign the contract as well. But Paul McCartney did not like Mr. Klein's brash manner and refused to participate. This rift helped lead to the band's dissolution in 1970 after McCartney filed suit against Mr. Klein and the other members. Mr. Klein bragged that the Beatles had made 9 million pounds in 19 months under his guidance-- more than the band had made in the previous six years. "Nobody sues a failure," Mr. Klein said around that time. "They only sue a success." By that measure, he was very successful. Forty lawsuits had been filed against him by 1972. In 1979 he spent two months in prison for tax evasion after selling promotional records of Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, a relief benefit held at Madison Square Garden in 1971. A series of suits and countersuits erupted among Mr. Klein and the Beatles. He eventually settled for $4 million. Allen Klein was born Dec. 18, 1931, in Newark. He was an infant when his mother died, and he barely knew his father. He spent most of his childhood in an orphanage and graduated in 1956 from the old Upsala College in East Orange, N.J., with an accounting degree. Mr. Klein earned his tough reputation in the music business early. One of his first auditing projects came when he helped Texas singer Buddy Knox collect unpaid royalties from Roulette Records. Under threat of lawsuit, Roulette paid out, and Mr. Klein found his calling. Through friends, Mr. Klein met Darin at a wedding in the early 1960s and reportedly walked up to the entertainer with a check for $100,000. He said there was more where that came from. Darin signed on immediately. Around the same time, Mr. Klein stormed Miami Beach's Fontainebleau Hotel because his client, Cooke, who was black, had been denied accommodation. Mr. Klein threatened to camp out in the lobby and screamed, "Don't you know what prejudice is?" The hotel quickly found Cooke a suite. Abkco became enormously successful by purchasing the rights to artists' music and owns more than 2,000 songs, including works by the Stones, Cooke, Chubby Checker, the Animals, the Kinks and Herman's Hermits. Survivors include his estranged wife, Betty; his longtime companion, Iris Keitel; three children from his marriage; a sister; and four grandchildren. After Mr. Klein's 1973 counter-suit against the Beatles, Lennon wrote the harsh lyrics of "Steel and Glass" with Mr. Klein in mind: "There you stand with your L.A. tan/And your New York walk and your New York talk/Your mother left you when you were small/But you're gonna wish you wasn't born at all." © 2009 The Washington Post Company

Small Scale Farming - Ex-CIA Man Stakes New Career on a Few Acres

Correction to This Article The article incorrectly said that the United States loses 6 million acres of farmland to development annually. The statistic referred to the period 1992 to 1997. The Farmer and the Lawn Ex-CIA Man Stakes New Career on a Few Acres By Jane Black Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Set among the rolling green hills of Loudoun County, Jim Dunlap's farm hasn't changed much since the 1780s. The original fieldstone farmhouse, designed by William Penn, is still there, albeit larger after two additions. So is the stone smokehouse and a spring house. There are peach trees, raspberry bushes and vegetables. If Isaac James, a former owner and the great-grandfather of outlaw Jesse, were to visit, he would see just one real difference: SnowBear Farm is now the only farm in sight. The property is surrounded by huge suburban mansions with wide, empty lawns. Of course, these days it's more surprising to find a working farm than McMansions in Loudoun. But Dunlap, a retired CIA operations officer, wanted to farm here. His little piece of suburbia is perfectly situated for a small farmer just starting out: The land is fertile, and the location, just 55 miles from Washington, puts him within striking distance of lucrative urban farmers markets, where prices and demand are high for produce grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. "We need to take a lot of this land that's used for pet horses and giant lawns and find ways to grow food on it again," Dunlap said. "My work is an experiment to figure out how we can do it." Local-food advocates salivate at the idea of creating farms near the city. So do small farmers, who can earn a good living meeting the growing demand for local products. But suburban and exurban farming remains an anomaly. Every year in the United States, more than 6 million acres of agricultural land, an area the size of Maryland, are lost to development, according to the American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit organization that supports conservation. The pop of the real estate bubble hasn't lowered home and land prices enough for new farmers to get into the market. Case in point: Though home prices in Loudoun dropped steeply in 2008, the average detached house still costs $482,000. Dunlap didn't set out to turn back suburban sprawl. He just wanted to farm. Throughout his life, personality tests such as Myers-Briggs had told him that he was well-suited to the profession. He's analytical, content to work alone and generally an introvert (though he's not shy about discussing his mission). After retiring in 2005, he hiked the Appalachian Trail. On the path, Dunlap decided there might be something to the farming idea and decided to plant crops on part of his 11 acres. Turns out the wiry 55-year-old liked it. An engineer by training, Dunlap sees every obstacle as a problem to be solved. Storage? He built his own 10-foot-by-17-foot refrigerated room. Celery? "It's the weirdest vegetable to grow," he said on a tour of his fields. "But I've never had truly fresh celery, so we'll try." Since 2007, Dunlap has planted three acres with fruit trees, berry bushes and vegetables including peas, radishes, tomatoes, cabbages, garlic, soup beans, green beans, several kinds of lettuce, potatoes, summer and winter squashes, even artichokes. He uses no chemical pesticides or fertilizers, and all of his produce is certified "naturally grown," an alternative to the "organic" certification that is tailored to small farmers using natural methods. Dunlap also goes to great lengths to keep his farm looking tidy. Where farms still do exist in the suburbs and exurbs, clashes are not uncommon between farming and non-farming neighbors who want to protect their pastoral views. "Jim is a small, small guy on a small amount of acreage who is going to make his living by farming," said Robin Shuster, who organizes the Bloomingdale farmers market in the District, one place where Dunlap sells. "He's a terrific model for young farmers." Indeed, Dunlap is growing his business with new farmers in mind. He, unlike many just starting out, has money in the bank and good credit. But he hasn't splurged on pricey mechanized equipment. Over the past three years, he has invested about $10,000 in his farm. He has yet to pay himself a salary. "I could have gone out and bought a tractor and a bunch of implements and pretended I'm a big operation," he said. "Instead, I'm pretending to be 20 years old and trying to figure out how to get started." His conclusion: It isn't easy. Dunlap bought his land in Round Hill in 1997 while employed by the CIA. But for many young farmers, it would be all but impossible to buy property so close to the city. Nationally, farmland prices per acre reached a record high in 2008, up 72 percent from 2004. That's one reason the average age of an American farmer is now 55: Such prices deter young people from starting out. High prices also make it difficult for those already farming to find workers. Dunlap has been unable to hire full-time help. He has not had a day off since mid-February and puts in about 80 hours a week in the fields. "I don't think it's possible to start from scratch, as it were, in Loudoun County," said Chip Planck, who bought property in Loudoun in 1973. "The money that yields demand for all these vegetables is the same money that drives up the price of land." Planck and his wife, Susan, have long tried to solve those problems for young farmers at their Wheatland Vegetable Farms. They lease small parcels to experienced but cash-poor farmers. Tree and Leaf and Greenstone Fields, both of which sell at local farmers markets, rent land, equipment and housing from the Plancks. Wheatland also hires seasonal workers who live on the farm. Planck believes that if urbanites want to continue to have access to local food, it's essential to think about how suburban and exurban land can be put to better use. Beginning farmers don't need huge tracts of land, Planck says. Like Dunlap, he is frustrated that acres of rich soil have been transformed into suburban lawns. As part of his experiment, Dunlap is working on a plan to reverse that trend. This month, he's providing room and board in his home to a young but experienced worker. In the fall, he hopes to offer young farmers room and board on his land in exchange for farm labor. If that's successful, he aims to solicit several more acres from neighbors to expand the farm. He envisions small tenant houses where young farmers could gain experience and save money to start out on their own. The plan is in the early stages, but Dunlap says his neighbors are supportive in theory. For Dunlap, the stakes are high. Reviving suburban farming is not a luxury but a must. If -- or he would say when -- oil prices spike again, it will be less practical than ever to fly in grapes from Chile and apples from New Zealand. "If the future that appears to be coming actually comes, local food isn't going to be a nice thing; it's going to be a necessity," Dunlap said. "We have to find a way to feed ourselves. And the only way to do that is to create farmers."

Bluegrass in a cavern - natural dub

This travel and music article about Nashville caught my attention for a couple of reasons. Playing music in a cavern especially intrigues me. In a recording studio, echo and reverb are controlled either digitally or with analog equipment. Echo in a cavern is dependent on the volume of the space, where things are in the space, where the sound is coming from...... all sorts of possibilities - natural dub.

Also I have recently met a couple of different people who either had gone through Tennessee recently or were about to on cross country drives. They seemed slightly overwhelmed by the east-west distance of the state and less than impressed with their ideas of "country music". I like a number of things about Tennessee which I mainly know from traveling through Tennessee on my way to somewhere else. With an interest in all kinds of music, from the mid 1980s I made a point of getting off I-40 in Memphis and Nashville to see what I could see, even if briefly. The area is rich in uniquely American musical history. Blues, country, rock 'n' roll, jazz, all have extensive roots in Tennessee.









Bluegrass in Nashville: A Picker's Paradise

By Jedd Ferris
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, July 13, 2009 3:10 PM

It's no secret that Nashville is a hitmaker's hotbed, with commercial country music standing tall as one of the record industry's last viable outlets. But while the Tennessee city slickers are looking for the next Tim McGraw or Taylor Swift, there's another flourishing scene in Music City that shouldn't be overlooked: Americana's most underappreciated genre, bluegrass.

The high lonesome sound, characterized by ascending harmonies and the skilled string interplay of banjo, mandolin and fiddle, is part of Nashville's old soul. It's widely accepted that the country offshoot was created here in 1945, when "Father of Bluegrass" Bill Monroe brought his Kentucky mandolin to the Grand Ole Opry and gave twang a technical twist, as he traded spitfire solos with three-finger-style banjo purveyor Earl Scruggs. Today the city is still a picker's paradise: It's home to the idiom's biggest advocate, the International Bluegrass Music Association; the residence of modern masters Sam Bush and Ricky Skaggs; and a breeding ground for young acts taking up the torch.

For fans like me, seeking out the best bluegrass in Nashville isn't hard if you know where to look beyond the city's neon cowboy exterior. I started at the source: the Ryman Auditorium, where seeing a concert feels like a religious experience. The spiritual vibes make sense, since the historic building was originally opened in 1892 as a house of worship, the Union Gospel Tabernacle. Eventually renamed after its builder, riverboat captain Thomas Ryman, the venue is best known in the music world as the former home of the Grand Ole Opry, which moved in for a 31-year residency in 1943. The Ryman's vast wooden stage was where Monroe and Scruggs first traded licks.

When the Opry relocated in 1974, the Ryman was almost abandoned for good, but a major renovation 20 years later gave the "Mother Church of Country Music" new life. Now it's a more inclusive concert hall and, safe to say, the only place you can catch shows while sitting in a pew, against a backdrop of ornate stained glass and with one of Johnny Cash's trademark black suits displayed on a rear wall. (Upcoming shows include those by Counting Crows, Snow Patrol and outlaw country legend Merle Haggard.)

Every Thursday through July 30, the spirit of Monroe -- who passed away just shy of 85 in 1996 -- is revived with the annual Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman. The summer series started with a show by four-decade mandolin stalwart Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, his band of fast-picking string slingers, who are known for blazing solos and choir-sharp harmonies, perfect for the Ryman's pristine acoustics.

As a National Historic Landmark, the Ryman is also open as a museum for daytime tours seven days a week. It's a way to take in its large collection of music memorabilia without a concert crowd, and you can get backstage access for a small additional fee.

When I was ready to leave the reverent atmosphere for a little more down-home grit, I headed across town to the Station Inn. In her revivalist ode "Wayside/Back in Time," Americana songstress Gillian Welch sings, "Drink a round to Nashville before they tear it down." The line came to mind as I approached the tiny, unassuming stone brick bar, which sits dwarfed in the Gulch, a revived industrial district that has recently been smothered by high-rise condos and upscale restaurants.

But it's unlikely that anybody in Nashville would let an eager developer mess with this bluegrass institution. "I've been told they want us to stay, and that's what we intend to do," said hospitable proprietor J.T. Gray, who has owned the nationally revered roots music mecca since 1981.

The Station Inn looks like a dingy, working-class watering hole where you can get cheap domestic beer and a basket of popcorn for a buck. But seven nights a week, this unsuspecting joint is graced with world-class string talent. It's a place where young pickers take the stage to cut their teeth and where established icons drop in for the relief of an informal jam session. Don't be surprised to see Welch jump onstage for a quick tune with the headliner or Emmylou Harris in the audience enjoying a set.

On my recent visit, 26-year-old upstart Chris Scruggs -- the grandson of Earl -- was joined for an impromptu gig by fiddle elder Buddy Spicher, a legendary session player who has recorded with Monroe, Hank Snow and even Bob Dylan. At tightly packed cafeteria tables, clean-cut older folks sat cheek-by-jowl with scruffy hipsters over nachos and pitchers of Bud Light. Both contingents listened attentively and then, as if on cue, clapped and howled together after each solo.

Later, I decided to follow the sounds out of town a bit and visit a place that has recently given new meaning to the label "underground music." About 80 miles southeast of Music City, below the rolling green hills of central Tennessee, is Cumberland Caverns, the second-longest cave in the state, with nearly 30 miles of rocky underground terrain. Last year, Nashville advertising executive Todd Mayo took a family trip to the caverns and hit on an idea as he toured the vast chambers. He now hosts Bluegrass Underground, a series of monthly concerts that take place 333 feet below sea level in the caverns' Volcano Room.

Reaching one of the world's most unusual natural amphitheaters required a guided 15-minute walk from the visitor's center through a deep, dark tunnel, past waterfalls and otherworldly craterlike geological formations. A few lights and a chandelier set the mood in the dank room, which stays at 56 degrees.

"It's kind of like playing on the moon," Jere Cherryholmes said from the stage during a show by his chart-topping family band, Cherryholmes.

As I huddled in the Space Mountain of concert halls with 400 other bluegrass fans, I noticed how the lyrics about lost love and highway introspection rang loud and clear through the cavernous expanse. Though most caves have extensive echoes, the angles of the Volcano Room's jagged rocks offer impeccable acoustics.

"It lends itself to the visual experience as much as it does to the ear," Mayo said. "We call it a bluegrass adventure."

That's just what I'd call any weekend in Nashville.

Jedd Ferris is managing editor of Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine in Charlottesville.


Where to Go, What to Do for Bluegrass in Nashville Monday, July 13, 2009 3:10 PM

FLIGHT TIME

1 hour 50 minutes

COST

TOTAL $580

Flight: $340 | Lodging: $140 | Food: $100

GETTING THERE

If you're up for a road trip, Nashville is a 10 1/2 -hour drive from Washington by the most direct route: Interstate 66 west to I-81 south to I-40 west. US Airways has direct flights to Nashville International Airport from Reagan National, while United offers direct service from Dulles.

WHERE TO STAY

Between downtown Nashville and the nearby Vanderbilt University area, there is an abundance of hotels. The Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University (2555 West End Ave., 615-321-1300) has rooms starting at $149 and offers a free shuttle to downtown.

WHERE TO EAT

If you have patience in the morning, endure the long line down the sidewalk to get into the Pancake Pantry (1796 21st Ave. S., 615-383-9333). The breakfast hot spot in Hillsboro Village is worth the wait for its extensive variety of flapjacks. Open Monday-Friday 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Later in the day, head to South Street (907 20th Ave. S., 615-320-5555), a lively smokehouse and crab shack with a range of tasty Southern fare, from Gulf oysters to pulled barbecue pork. Open Monday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 3 a.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to midnight.

WHAT TO DO

Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman (116 Fifth Ave. N., 615-889-3060) take place every Thursday through July and start at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25.50. The Ryman is also open for tours daily from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., when the last tour departs ($12.50-$16.25). The Station Inn (402 12th Ave. S., 615-255-3307) doesn't sell advance tickets. Shows start every night at 9, with doors opening at 7. For popular acts, get there early. Bluegrass Underground takes over the Volcano Room at Cumberland Caverns, which is in McMinnville, Tenn., about 80 miles southeast of Nashville. Monthly shows take place on select Saturdays.

Between shows, dig into the roots of country music with a stop at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (222 Fifth Ave. S., 615-416-2001), open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ($19.99). A few blocks away, Hatch Show Print (316 Broadway, 615-256-2805, closed Sunday) has been making iconic music posters since 1879. Vinyl fanatics shouldn't skip a stop at Grimey's (1604 Eighth Ave. S., 615-254-4801), an independent music shop with a huge stash of "pre-loved" records.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau, 800-657-6910, http://www.visitmusiccity.com.

-- J.F.

Somebody's Best Bets Ice Cream

Out of curiosity I am interested in what the Post thinks is good ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt........ I spent a couple of weeks in Italy recently and pursued many gelato bars - and the fancy ones don't have the best gelato! Now we will see if I actually get myself to any of the Post's favorites and compare... The Post does not include Tropical Ice which is the same as it was when it was named York Castle, on Georgia Ave near 16th St. in Silver Spring, so I question the completeness of their "Best" list. During peach season, Tropical Ice, like York Castle before it, makes fresh peach ice cream. Every year it is a delight and this year it is extraordinary. Bursting peach flavor. Also, in honor of President Obama, Tropical Ice has a new flavor named Harambe. It sounds like a wild combination but a sample got me to change my planned flavor of mango or mango-strawberry to accompany the peach. According to the sign and their web site, Harambe is made of banana and orange from Kenya, coconut and pineapple from Indonesia/Hawaii, rum from Chicago and other international ingredients. Rum from Chicago?????? Hmmmm. One sample bite and I was sold! Incredible stuff!! No flavor was over powering, the blend is exquisite and the hints of Chicago rum are fantastic. Sit and eat it to fully enjoy - this is not ice cream to eat while driving. Tropical Ice - http://www.yorkcastleicecream.com/home.html Best Bets Ice Cream We find it hard to turn down ice cream in any form, whether it's an old-fashioned double scoop or a swirl of frozen yogurt. Post writers have picked these as the cream of the crop. Boccato Gelato & Espresso The flavor combinations at Boccato range from playful (cake batter) to gourmet (pineapple basil) to traditional (tiramisu). 2719 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. 703-869-6522. The Dairy Godmother Indulgent, decadent and velvety are the words that come to mind after a custard infusion. 2310 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. 703-683-7767. Dolcezza The Argentine-style gelateria offers unusual combos like pineapple honey lime and strawberry lime tarragon. 1560 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-333-4646. 7111 Bethesda Lane, Bethesda. 301-215-9226. Larry's Ice Cream The subterranean Dupont shop has lovers and haters. Count us among the former. 1633 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-234-2690 Max's Best Ice Cream The name doesn't lie. This Glover Park staple has been scooping some of the creamiest and most inventive flavors for years. 2416 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-333-3111. Pitango Gelato For his gelato, owner Noah Dan focuses on the basics: fresh fruit and organic milk. 1451 P St. NW. 202-332-8877. 11942 Democracy Dr., Reston. 703-606-9906. Tangysweet Sweet-tart yogurt shops popped up across the region in 2008. We think this chain offers the best version of the treat. 2029 P St. NW. 202-822-2066. 675 E St. NW. 202-347-7893.

Mendocino County, Famously Laid Back, Reconsiders Its Stance on Marijuana

What a world! Only in America! Suddenly Righteous Dudes Mendocino County, Famously Laid Back, Reconsiders Its Stance on Marijuana By Karl Vick Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 27, 2009 FORT BRAGG, Calif. The steel-haired old hippies who grow the finest marijuana in the world began taking over Mendocino County four decades ago. "Going back to the '60s, early '70s in Mendocino County, land was cheap," said Tony Craver, twice elected sheriff, now retired. "Thirty-five hundred square miles, only three population centers, very little law enforcement. . . . The hippies, if you will, moved in and started growing pot. The hippies became the establishment." Democratic government serves at the consent of the governed; in this jurisdiction, enforcement of marijuana laws would be lax at best. A "grow" became an accepted component of the homesteads established by the back-to-the-land transplants who made their way across the Golden Gate Bridge, past the vineyards of Sonoma and into the woods. At Area 101, a club named for the highway lined with billboards for hydroponics and fertilizer, December brings the Emerald Cup, a public competition for the "best bud" in the county, if not the world. "It's so a part of Mendocino County," said K.C. Meadows, managing editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal. "There are fairly large businesses in this town that got their start with marijuana money. And that's okay with people." How, then, to explain what happened to arrests here last year? Pot busts up 60 percent. And what could account for the vote to roll back the nation's first law ordering police to make enforcement of marijuana laws their very lowest priority? A paradox indeed: The clampdown was set in motion by the entire state of California barreling down the path Mendocino blazed. In a Rube Goldberg sequence of cause and effect, growing acceptance of marijuana elsewhere in the Golden State unleashed a confluence of demand, tolerance and legal ambiguity rooted in political cowardice. The result set in motion forces that seriously harshed the mellow here and brought the "war on drugs" to the one place in America it had never really reached. * * * Pebbles Trippet arrived in Mendocino in 1970, escaping the drug laws of New York state. "California beckoned," said Trippet, an activist, columnist and grower who has been heard to ask, "Can I pay you in bud?" The year she arrived, Congress passed the Controlled Substance Act, which ranked all drugs by capacity for harm. Marijuana landed alongside PCP and heroin on "Schedule 1," a ranking even the establishment found reason to revisit just two years later. A commission appointed by President Richard Nixon recommended lightening up. "Damn near puked," Nixon said of this on the White House tapes, where he was heard ordering up a pot law "that just tears the [posterior] out of them." Meaning the longhaired, antiwar, free-love counterculture that was as much the object of the original war on drugs as any substance was. But in the years ahead more and more Americans sampled marijuana, and the republic remained standing. Then doctors defied the premise of the Schedule 1 holding of "no medicinal value" by reporting that marijuana alleviated conditions from glaucoma to asthma. Today, Trippet, 66, is president of the Mendocino Medical Marijuana Patients Union, a title that tidily sums up the current state of play on the issue: In 1996 California's voters passed Proposition 215, legalizing pot for medical use. Lawmakers in Sacramento took a few years to gauge the politics of the required implementing legislation. When they finally did, it was a wink: They decreed in 2003 that marijuana could be used to treat "any . . . illness." And if that wasn't clear enough, the bill was numbered SB420 -- 420 being a code phrase in the pot subculture. 420 Magazine competes with High Times. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed the new reality: Anyone with a doctor's card can smoke dope. What remains woefully unclear is where they are supposed to find it. Mendocino was an obvious place to look. In 2001, two years before the wink from Sacramento, Mendocino residents approved Measure G, permitting the holder of a medical card to grow 25 plants. It was a strong signal to city dwellers hard-pressed for the space to grow their own. Indeed, the county's growers were superbly positioned. Aside from the let-it-grow culture, the high-end strains originally cultivated in Mendocino became the preferred stock for the storefront "dispensaries" that began opening elsewhere in the state. "Things just took off," Trippet said. "Just about everyone felt they could grow. By then it was half the county. Now it's probably two-thirds." The money was easy. At the service window of a dispensary, patients page through binders of bagged snippets of Purple Kush and Train Reck. The tag says $50 for an eighth of an ounce. Growers could expect $4,000 for a pound, and get four harvests a year, growing indoors. "What a difference a couple of years make!" proclaimed the emcee at the Emerald Cup. "We all have medical permits. Everyone grows in the full sun. Marijuana is blooming right into mainstream America. The judging gets harder every year. And it's only going to get better!" But it didn't. * * * As growers lost sight of limits, things somehow got worse. The money changed people. Now some growers planted in town, considered declasse because flowering buds put up a powerful stink. In Ukiah, the county seat, a man was shot after climbing into a fenced pot patch. Another suffered a heart attack halfway over. "It's a huge problem in our schools," said Meredith Lintott, the district attorney. "Children come in reeking of marijuana." Worse, outsiders poured in, some armed. In September, three carloads of men aged 18 to 24 arrived from Sacramento carrying guns, radios and pruning shears. They had read about Mendocino in High Times. Home invasions rose to 40 from 24 the previous year. None of this was the Mendocino way. Mexican cartels grow pot in Northern California, but off in the national forests in huge grows that produce inferior herb. Locals brought a specific sensibility to their work, one in the spirit of the "New Settlers" who produced the nation's first organic commercial wine, at Frey Vineyards, and the first organic microbrew, at Ukiah Brewing Co. The outsiders, "these are people who had no pride of ownership," said Tom Allman, who was elected sheriff amid the tumult. "They don't care what they do to our land. A guy with a Caterpillar took off tops of two hills. . . . This is where government has to step in and do compliance checks." "I think after 2007, people started to look around and say, you know what? This isn't great the way it is going down," said Scott Zeramby, who runs a small garden supply store in Fort Bragg. "We've all seen it go from back-to-the-landers, where people wanted to get away from it all, to people who came here to get it all. Property values got so high, the only way you could afford it was to break the law." And so, in November, a measure passed to scale back Mendocino's legal limit to the state's suggested six-plant minimum. The sheriff sensed a mandate. Tips rolled in, and deputies saddled up. On Feb. 20, they busted the younger sister of a student shot dead at Kent State in 1970. Allison Krause was the young woman who said of the flowers in the barrels of the National Guardsmen who would shoot her and four others: "Flowers are better than bullets." "I thought this was a community that was forward-thinking, progressive -- that thought marijuana was a good thing!" said Laurel Krause, who was accused of having too many plants. Her doctor's card recommended pot to alleviate post-traumatic stress disorder occasioned by Allison's death. The social dynamics of small towns played a role in the backlash. Krause, who arrived from Silicon Valley, counts as an outsider. Her 24 plants grew under lights in a shipping container -- outsized PG&E bills are a reliable tip-off to cultivation -- but it vented onto the land of a neighbor, who called the sheriff. "They'd be growing 75 plants in their back yard," Craver said. "It'd be stinking -- and it does in the summer, while your neighbor's trying to have a barbecue." But there are greater forces at work as well. When state lawmakers legalized medical marijuana, they left the supply chain in the shadows. Drug dealers got to call themselves dispensary operators. But what were growers? Baffled. "When you come out, you have confused notions about what's possible," said Trippet, who grew 100 plants on her property a couple of years ago, but is down to 60 out of prudence. "You're not used to working at this end of the envelope. Many didn't know about the limits." Jerry Brown, known as Gov. Moonbeam in the '80s, is California's attorney general. His office last year took a stab at the open question of supply, publishing guidelines for enforcement of SB420. The guidelines hewed to the notion that suppliers of medical marijuana are "caregivers" and allowed "patients" to organize themselves as collectives. "The AG's new guidelines basically require the industry be vertically integrated. And to do that, you've got to get big. And that comes with risks," said a Fort Bragg resident, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep after her arrest. She was swept up with her boyfriend's huge grow, taken down even though it was supplying dispensaries. "I wouldn't have gotten involved if I didn't think it was legal," she said. A San Francisco Assembly member, Tom Ammiano, has introduced a bill taking what he calls the logical next step: legalizing marijuana, regulating it and taxing it. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged a serious debate, now unfolding in the state's media. "If everybody doesn't do it together -- state, federal, county -- it doesn't work," said Zeramby, the garden shop owner. "The communities with the most liberal standards are going to be inundated with the most opportunistic people." Legalization might well serve the consumer. "There is no way it costs $3,000 to $4,000 a pound to cultivate marijuana," said Keith Faulder, a former prosecutor who now defends pot cases in Ukiah. "These are the costs of keeping it underground." Growers, however, may well prefer the status quo, even with the risks. That would put them in a rare alliance with the police and prosecutors who back in 1996 campaigned against Proposition 215, warning against precisely what has come to pass. "It's going, definitely, in a direction that I don't believe in," said Ron Brooks, president of the National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition. His last, best case against: "Even if it's no worse than alcohol, we all know of people who lost their livelihood and their lives. Why would we admit legal respectability to another powerful drug?" In Mendocino, though, the quest is only for the clarity ducked by lawmakers, and emerging from courts at a pace that does little to help Sheriff Allman. Constituents pepper him with questions. Down at the courthouse, the district attorney sighs. "It's extremely confusing, even for those who work in it every single day," Lintott said. "Clearly when the law was passed the cover was cancer, glaucoma -- real distinct health issues. We're not there anymore." She sagged a bit behind her desk. "Quite frankly, I might benefit from a card. This is a high-stress job. It would probably do me good to go home and smoke some pot in the evening."

California sprouts marijuana 'green rush'

In January 2009, the US Justice Department issued a memo the effect that in reference to marijuana laws, Federal prosecutors are not to bring charges for actions that are otherwise legal by state law - sounds like that good ol' Republican principle of state's rights in action.... Hmmmm... from a Democrat administration. California sprouts marijuana 'green rush' By MARCUS WOHLSEN and LISA LEFF The Associated Press Sunday, July 19, 2009 2:00 PM SAN FRANCISCO -- A drug deal plays out, California-style: A conservatively dressed courier drives a company-leased Smart Car to an apartment on a weekday afternoon. Erick Alvaro hands over a white paper bag to his 58-year-old customer, who inspects the bag to ensure that everything he ordered over the phone is there. An eighth-ounce of organic marijuana buds for treating his seasonal allergies? Check. An eighth of a different pot strain for insomnia? Check. THC-infused lozenges and tea bags? Check and check, with a free herb-laced cookie thrown in as a thank-you gift. It's a $102 credit card transaction carried out with the practiced efficiency of a home-delivered pizza - and with just about as much legal scrutiny. More and more, having premium pot delivered to your door in California is not a crime. It is a legitimate business. Marijuana has transformed California. Since the state became the first to legalize the drug for medicinal use, the weed the federal government puts in the same category as heroin and cocaine has become a major economic force. No longer relegated to the underground, pot in California these days props up local economies, mints millionaires and feeds a thriving industry of startups designed to grow, market and distribute the drug. Based on the quantity of marijuana authorities seized last year, the crop was worth an estimated $17 billion or more, dwarfing any other sector of the state's agricultural economy. Experts say most of that marijuana is still sold as a recreational drug on the black market. But more recently the plant has put down deep financial roots in highly visible, taxpaying businesses: Stores that sell high-tech marijuana growing equipment. Pot clubs that pay rent and hire workers. Marijuana themed magazines and food products. Chains of for-profit clinics with doctors who specialize in medical marijuana recommendations. The plant's prominence does not come without costs, say some critics. Marijuana plantations in remote forests cause severe environmental damage. Indoor grow houses in some towns put rentals beyond the reach of students and young families. Rural counties with declining economies cannot attract new businesses because the available work force is caught up in the pot industry. Authorities link the drug to violent crime in otherwise quiet small towns. "For those of us who are on the front lines. It's not about pot is bad in itself or drugs are bad," said Meredith Lintott, district attorney in Mendocino County, one of the country's top marijuana-producing regions. "It's about the negative consequences on children. It's about the negative consequences on the environment." Still, the sheer scale of the overall pot economy has some lawmakers pushing for broader legalization as a way to shore up the finances of a state that has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. The state's top tax collector estimates that taxing pot like liquor could bring in more than $1.3 billion annually. On Tuesday, Oakland will consider a measure to tax the city's four marijuana dispensaries, which the controller projects will ring up $17.5 million in sales in 2010. The city faces an $83 million budget shortfall, and expects the marijuana tax to raise $300,000. Advocates point out that making pot legal would create millions if not billions of dollars more in indirect sales - the ingredients used to make edible pot products, advertising, tourism and smoking paraphernalia. With a recent poll showing more than half of Californians supporting legalization, pot advocates believe they will prevail. And they say other states will follow. Tim Blake is the proprietor of a 145-acre spiritual retreat center which holds an annual marijuana bud-growing contest in the heart of Northern California's pot-growing country. Politicians, he says, are "going to see the economic benefits, they're going to see the health benefits and they're going to jump on the bandwagon." --- On a property flanked by vineyards, Mendocino County farmer Jim Hill grows marijuana for up to 20 patients, including himself and his wife. He believes passionately in marijuana's purported ability to treat the symptoms of diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's; he says his wife suffers from a serotonin imbalance, and he uses the drug to treat digestive problems and intestinal cramping. Hill's plants enjoy careful nurturing in a temperature-controlled greenhouse. On a recent spring day, his college-age son spread bat guano to fertilize two dozen 6-foot-tall plants. Hill is 45 years old; he says he spent $10,000 to set up the garden. Patients receive their drugs free in exchange for helping with his crop. "It's kind of like living on an apple orchard," Hill said. "You don't pay for an apple." Though marijuana is cultivated throughout California, the most prized crops come from the forested mountains and hidden valleys of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties - the Emerald Triangle. The economic impact of so much pot is difficult to gauge. Authorities say the largest grows are run by Mexican drug cartels that simply funnel money from forest-raised crops back into their own bank accounts. Still, marijuana money from outdoor and indoor plots inevitably flows into local coffers. Marijuana increases residents' retail buying power by about $58 million countywide, according to a Mendocino County report. The county ranks 48th out of 58 counties in median income but, by counting pot proceeds, could jump as high as 18th. Businesses benefit from mom-and-pop growers who cultivate pot to supplement their incomes and from marijuana plantation workers who descend on the Emerald Triangle from all over the country for the fall harvest. Pot "trimmers" can earn more than $40 per hour. In Ukiah, the county's largest city, business owners say the extra cash is crucial. "I really don't think we would exist without it," says Nicole Martensen, 37, whose wine and garden shop is stocked with bottles from county vintners. The skunk-like smell of marijuana hangs over the town of about 11,000 during the October harvest, when cash registers brim with $100 bills. Sometimes the wads of cash spent in Martensen's shop come dusted with pot. But Ukiah banker Marty Lombardi says existing businesses cannot compete with pot industry wages for workers. Lombardi's bank does not make loans to anyone suspected of trying to fund a pot operation, but he said most growers do not need them. "I don't think you or I have any sense for how much money is generated," he said. Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says medical marijuana operations that follow state and county laws will face no hassles from his department. His deputies left intact 154 marijuana grows they visited last year, he said "If you're living in the boundaries, I'm not going to mess with you," Allman said. Which is not to say that there is no legal risk to growing, selling or buying marijuana. Federal laws still apply, and pot dealings not deemed medicinal are considered criminal by the state. Local, state and federal authorities pulled up 364,000 plants across Mendocino last year. And the state Department of Justice reported more than 16,000 felony arrests and nearly 58,000 misdemeanor arrests for marijuana offenses in 2007 - the highest numbers in a decade. Sparky Rose sits in the federal prison in Lompoc, serving a 37-month term. Law enforcement officials insist he is one of many sellers who have used the medical marijuana law as a guise for old-time drug dealing. Rose does not disagree, although he would like to think he helped some legitimate pot patients in the process. A one-time Web designer, he started out in 2001 making $15 an hour as a "bud tender" working the counter at an Oakland club. Four years later, he was overseeing a dispensary chain with stores in seven cities, 283 employees and sales reaching $5 million a month. That's not as much as it seems, he says. Much of the money went to pay salaries, to purchase equipment and to buy 200 pounds of marijuana each week. Rose says he was making $500,000 a year before his 2006 arrest, a sum he considers fair given the chain's volume and the risk he assumed as the company's public face. Before opening a new location, he would meet with local officials and police to get their implicit OK. "We operated out in the open, and the feds knew who we were and they let us do it for four years, so as time goes on you get this comfortable feeling," he says. "While I was still in the business, a lot people would ask me, 'I'm thinking about starting a club, what advice do you have?' "And I'd say, 'The biggest warning is sooner or later, you will start to think it's legal.'" --- Even people accustomed to buying marijuana over the counter are impressed when they visit the Farmacy, a dispensary-cum-New Age apothecary with three locations in Los Angeles. Decorated in soft beige and staffed by workers in lab coats, the Venice store sells organic toiletries, essential oils and incense along with 25 types of pot stored in glass jars, including strains such as Beverly Bubba and Third Eye. Anyone can shop there, but to buy the cannabis-infused gelato, olive oil, soft drinks and other "edibles," customers must show a doctor's recommendation, have the information verified by the doctor's office and obtain a patient identification number for future visits. During a two-hour span, the dozen or so customers who made a purchase all bought pot products and paid the 9.25 percent state sales tax on top of their purchases. The clubs, which are not supposed to turn a profit, call their transactions "donations." Allen Siegel is 74; he is dying of cancer and wants to try smoking marijuana to ease his pain without knocking him out like prescription drugs do. So his wife Ina brought him to the Farmacy for his first visit as a legal pot patient. "You go in there and they have so many choices," she says. California's "green rush" was spurred by a voter-approved law 13 years ago that authorized patients with a doctor's recommendation to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. Although a dozen other states have adopted similar laws, California is the only one where privately owned pot shops have flourished. Los Angeles County alone has at least 400 pot dispensaries and delivery services, nearly twice as many outlets as Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital whose coffee shops have for decades been synonymous with free-market marijuana. Promoted as a way to shield people with AIDS, cancer and anorexia who use marijuana from prosecution, the 1996 Compassionate Use Act also permitted limited possession for "any other illness for which marijuana provides relief." The broad language opened the door to doctors willing to recommend pot for nearly any ailment. In a survey of nearly 2,500 patients, longtime Berkeley medical marijuana advocate Dr. Tod Mikuriya found that more than three-quarters of the patients used the drug for pain relief or mental health issues. Dispensaries began selling marijuana, although they were risking federal charges. Some operators have become less fearful since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this year that the Justice Department would not target pot operations following state laws, reducing the risk of random federal raids that existed under the Bush administration. California's pot dispensaries now have more in common with a corner grocery than a speakeasy. They advertise freely, offering discount coupons and daily specials. Justin Hartfield, a 25-year-old Web designer and business student, founded WeedMaps.com, where pot clubs and doctors who write medi-pot recommendations list their services and users post reviews. Hartfield says the site has brought in nearly $250,000 in its first year. Hartfield exhibited at THC Expo, a two-day trade show at the Los Angeles Convention Center that attracted an estimated 35,000 attendees in June. There was hydroponic gardening equipment and bong vendors and bikini-clad models wearing leis made of fake marijuana leaves. Like just about everyone else connected to the cannabis trade, Hartfield has a letter from a doctor that entitles him to buy medical marijuana from a dispensary. But he sees no point in pretending he is treating anything more than his taste for smoking weed. "It is a joke. It's a legal way for me to get what I used to get on the street," he said. He recalls telling the doctor who provided the referral that he suffered from insomnia and anxiety, though neither was true. As he signed the paperwork, the doctor "congratulated me like I was getting my degree from Harvard." --- What would happen if marijuana was legal - not just for medical uses, but for all uses? Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, wants to tax and regulate all pot as it does alcohol. State Board of Equalization chairwoman Betty Yee, a supporter, projects the law would generate $990 million annually through a $50-per-ounce fee for retailers and $349 million in sales taxes. (The state now collects $18 million each year in taxes on medical marijuana.) The state would not start collecting taxes on marijuana under Ammiano's bill until the federal government lifts its restrictions on the drug. That's not enough for pro-pot activists who want Californians to vote next year on a proposal that would allow adults to legally possess up to one ounce of pot and allow cities to sell and tax the drug. "Local governments are malnourished and in need of revenue badly," said Aaron Smith, state policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates legalization. "There's this multibillion-dollar industry that's the elephant in the room that they're not able to tap into." Lintott, the Mendocino prosecutor, is not convinced that legalization would put an end to the underworld's marijuana operations. She argues that big-time growers would never bother filing tax returns. "Legalizing it isn't going to touch the big money," she says. But others predict the black-market business model would fall apart. Large-scale agri-businesses in California's Central Valley would dominate legal marijuana production as they already do bulk wine grapes, advocates argue. Pot prices would fall dramatically, forcing growers to abandon costly clandestine operations that authorities say trash the land and steal scarce water. And legalization, supporters insist, would save state and local governments billions on police, court and prison costs. But others survey California in 2009 and say the cannabis future is now. Richard Lee has parlayed a pair of Oakland dispensaries into a mini-empire that includes a marijuana lifestyle magazine and a three-campus marijuana trade school. Oaksterdam University's main campus is a prominent fixture in revitalized downtown Oakland. All without legalization. "It's like here's reality, and here's the law," Lee says. "The culture has gone so far beyond the law, people have gotten used to being able to get quality product. They are not going to go back." © 2009 The Associated Press

A bright idea: Philips lets flat lights out of lab

A bright idea: Philips lets flat lights out of lab By TOBY STERLING The Associated Press Wednesday, July 22, 2009 12:57 PM AACHEN, Germany -- Someday, our ceilings and walls might radiate light, illuminating indoor spaces as brightly and evenly as natural daylight. Though that possibility remains years off, the Dutch electronics company Philips is letting people tinker with the technology that would enable it. The world's biggest lighting maker has begun selling do-it-yourself kits with little glowing wafers called "Lumiblades." They come in red, white, blue or green for anyone who wants to pay nearly $100 per square inch. It's one of the first chances people outside research labs have had to get their hands on lights made from organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDs. The company's aim is to get designers, architects and other creative types thinking about how these flat lights can be used, and to start collaborating on early products. General Electric Co., Siemens AG and Royal Philips Electronics NV, which are developing OLEDs, believe the technology will eventually be more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs, energy-saving compact fluorescent lights and even the LED lights just now reaching the market. OLEDs have a key advantage: They emit light evenly from a whole surface, rather than a single point. That eliminates the need for lampshades and other coverings that scatter light and protect eyes from glare. Creating light and then immediately shading it is an inefficient way of doing things, from an engineering standpoint. For now, the Lumiblades are just small, flat lights - interesting in and of themselves. "We believe that OLEDs have a lot to offer in terms of design, in terms of its beauty, in terms of light effects," said Dietrich Bertram, who heads Philips' OLED operations in Aachen, just across the border from Philips' home country, the Netherlands. More than 100 of the Lumiblades kits have been sold since Philips began offering them in April, the company says. Buyers are mostly using them for prototyping, and plan to order larger numbers of customized OLEDs when they are ready to go to production. Random International, a trio of London-based artists, used 1,024 Lumiblades to make an art installation called "You Fade to Light." As people walk past the structure, which is 2.7 meters (9 feet) wide by 1.3 meters (4.25 feet) high, a camera and computer turn off the lights on panels opposite the passers-by, mimicking their motion, like a giant monitor. "Having worked with the OLEDs, I see it as far more of a material than a light source," said Hannes Kochs, one of the installation's designers. The diffuse light cast by the OLED panels makes them "stunning, and utterly different" from other kinds of light, he said. Lumiblades run from about 70 euros ($100) for a small square to 500 euros ($700) for a piece the size of a mobile phone. The bigger the piece, the brighter it is. When switched off, Lumiblades resemble small mirrors, with an aluminum backing inside two glass plates. When switched on, a microscopic layer of organic material inside begins to emit light, and the Lumiblade glows. Only the faintest hint of warmth is perceptible. This technology is early stage. Philips isn't trying to win prizes for presentation of the kits, which are sold online and come only with a simple wire. (The Lumiblades have to be plugged in, though battery-powered OLEDs are possible.) "All the contents of this experience kit are engineering samples only and do not comply with existing lighting and safety norms," a manual included in the box says. The company recommends buying a converter box and dimmers for an additional 70 euros to make sure users don't "overdrive" their panels. OLEDs have no bulb to blow, but cranking up the juice makes the lights burn brighter, and then wear out quicker. When used at recommended currents, the lights in the kit are designed to last for 10,000 hours, at which point they will have faded to half of their original brightness. That compares with a life span of 1,000 hours for an incandescent bulb, and is about the same as the current generation of compact fluorescent lights. The company says it sees interest from artists, architects, jewelers and some industrial applications where very even lighting is necessary. Separately, Philips and other companies are working with vehicle makers on using OLEDs in display panels, where their thinness and coolness would be valuable. TVs with OLED-based displays are also starting to emerge. Philips eventually hopes to market window panes that are transparent during the day and emit light at night. Similarly, GE, which is developing cheap, flexible OLEDs encased in plastic, imagines a rollable, light-emitting window blind. Bertram says his personal dream has been the same since he started working on OLEDs many years ago: "I really want to see the sun rise on my ceiling, even if it's dark and rainy outside." --- On the Net: Lumiblade site:http://tinyurl.com/dkmn4y © 2009 The Associated Press

Water Rights - It’s Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado

Water rights are a simmering issue all over - Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Colorado. Oh yeah, Nevada and other states too.

June 29, 2009 It's Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado By KIRK JOHNSON DURANGO, Colo. — For the first time since territorial days, rain will be free for the catching here, as more and more thirsty states part ways with one of the most entrenched codes of the West. Precipitation, every last drop or flake, was assigned ownership from the moment it fell in many Western states, making scofflaws of people who scooped rainfall from their own gutters. In some instances, the rights to that water were assigned a century or more ago. Now two new laws in Colorado will allow many people to collect rainwater legally. The laws are the latest crack in the rainwater edifice, as other states, driven by population growth, drought, or declining groundwater in their aquifers, have already opened the skies or begun actively encouraging people to collect. "I was so willing to go to jail for catching water on my roof and watering my garden," said Tom Bartels, a video producer here in southwestern Colorado, who has been illegally watering his vegetables and fruit trees from tanks attached to his gutters. "But now I'm not a criminal." Who owns the sky, anyway? In most of the country, that is a question for philosophy class or bad poetry. In the West, lawyers parse it with straight faces and serious intent. The result, especially stark here in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, is a crazy quilt of rules and regulations — and an entire subculture of people like Mr. Bartels who have been using the rain nature provided but laws forbade. The two Colorado laws allow perhaps a quarter-million residents with private wells to begin rainwater harvesting, as well as the setting up of a pilot program for larger scale rain-catching. Just 75 miles west of here, in Utah, collecting rainwater from the roof is still illegal unless the roof owner also owns water rights on the ground; the same rigid rules, with a few local exceptions, also apply in Washington State. Meanwhile, 20 miles south of here, in New Mexico, rainwater catchment, as the collecting is called, is mandatory for new dwellings in some places like Santa Fe. And in Arizona, cities like Tucson are pioneering the practices of big-city rain capture. "All you need for a water harvesting system is rain, and a place to put it," Tucson Water says on its Web site. Here in Colorado, the old law created a kind of wink-and-nod shadow economy. Rain equipment could be legally sold, but retailers said they knew better than to ask what the buyer intended to do with the product. "It's like being able to sell things like smoking paraphernalia even though smoking pot is illegal," said Laurie E. Dickson, who for years sold barrel-and-hose systems from a shop in downtown Durango. State water officials acknowledged that they rarely enforced the old law. With the new laws, the state created a system of fines for rain catchers without a permit; previously the only option was to shut a collector down. But Kevin Rein, Colorado's assistant state engineer, said enforcement would focus on people who violated water rules on a large scale. "It's not going to be a situation where we're sending out people to look in backyards," Mr. Rein said. Science has also stepped forward to underline how incorrect the old sweeping legal generalizations were. A study in 2007 proved crucial to convincing Colorado lawmakers that rain catching would not rob water owners of their rights. It found that in an average year, 97 percent of the precipitation that fell in Douglas County, near Denver, never got anywhere near a stream. The water evaporated or was used by plants. But the deeper questions about rain are what really gnawed at rain harvesters like Todd S. Anderson, a small-scale farmer just east of Durango. Mr. Anderson said catching rain was not just thrifty — he is so water conscious that he has not washed his truck in five years — but also morally correct because it used water that would otherwise be pumped from the ground. Mr. Anderson, a former national park ranger who worked for years enforcing rules and laws, said: "I'm conflicted between what's right and what's legal. And I hate that." For the last year, Mr. Anderson has been catching rainwater that runs off his greenhouse but keeping the barrel hidden from view. When the new law passed, he put the barrel in plain sight, and he plans to set up a system for his house. Dig a little deeper into the rain-catching world, and there are remnants of the 1970s back-to-land hippie culture, which went off the grid into aquatic self-sufficiency long ago. "Our whole perspective on life is to try to use what is available, and to not be dependent on big systems," said Janine Fitzgerald, whose parents bought land in southwest Colorado in 1970, miles from where the pavement ends. Ms. Fitzgerald, an associate professor of sociology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, still lives the unwired life with her own family now, growing most of her own food and drinking and bathing in filtered rainwater. Rain dependency has its ups and downs, Ms. Fitzgerald said. Her home is also completely solar-powered, which means that the pumps to push water from the rain tanks are solar-powered, too. A cloudy, rainy spring this year was good for tanks, bad for pumps. The economy has turned on some early rainwater believers, too. Ms. Dickson's company in Durango went out of business last December as the construction market faltered. The rain barrels she once sold will soon be perfectly legal, but the shop is shuttered. "We were ahead of our time," she said.

Government Readies Biggest Ever Push for Energy Saving

Government Readies Biggest Ever Push for Energy Saving By Kenneth R. Harney Saturday, July 25, 2009 You're probably familiar with some of the federal government's incentives for home energy efficiency -- heftier tax credits for solar panels, solar water heaters, geothermal heat pumps, heavy-duty insulation and windows and electricity-saving air conditioning and the like. But these come-ons are just the beginning of an unprecedented government-wide push for energy conservation in housing -- and even "locational efficiency" -- benefits. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a new generation of energy-efficiency mortgages is being rolled out, starting with Federal Housing Administration loans that offer 5 percent larger mortgage amounts to people who plan to undertake energy-efficiency improvements. For example, if you qualify for a $300,000 FHA mortgage to purchase a typical house, under recent guidance to lenders the FHA might now be able to offer you $15,000 more up front -- a $315,000 loan amount -- if the extra money is used to substantially lower the property's annual energy consumption. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan wants the FHA to offer additional incentives. One of the possibilities: Give applicants credit on their qualifying incomes in exchange for documentable savings in annual energy expenditures. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has passed a massive energy-conservation and emissions-control bill. Although the American Clean Energy and Security Act is better known for its more controversial "cap-and-trade" carbon emissions program, the bill also contains an entire subsection devoted to creating incentives for consumers and federal agencies to build and finance more energy-efficient dwellings. Among the key housing provisions in the bill: -- The FHA would be directed to insure a minimum of 50,000 new energy-efficient mortgages during the coming three years. An energy-efficient house is defined as one in which energy consumption is reduced by 20 percent after renovations. -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be directed to develop new mortgage products and more flexible underwriting guidelines to reward energy-conscious borrowers and builders. -- The two companies, currently operating under federal conservatorship, also would be required to help establish a secondary market for energy- and location-efficient mortgages for moderate- and low-income home buyers. The new generation of loans would increase the qualifying incomes of applicants by at least one dollar for every dollar of projected energy savings from renovations, green construction or efficient design. Similar concessions on loan applicants' incomes would be extended for properties in areas close to employment centers or mass-transit lines. No concessions would be made on dwellings in far-flung subdivisions that eat into family incomes through the expense of long commutes, which also add to carbon emissions. Real estate appraisers would be required to take energy improvements and the money they save into account as they value houses. As a hypothetical example, if you spent $30,000 on a series of major upgrades, an appraiser would need to consider the annual energy-cost savings produced and any effect they had on market value. States would require licensed appraisers to undergo additional training to equip them for their new energy-efficiency valuation responsibilities. Federal financial regulators would be directed to support the establishment of privately run "green banking centers" inside banks and credit unions across the country. The centers, which presumably could be anything from unmanned kiosks to staffed offices, would help consumers understand how best to obtain financing for energy-conserving home improvements, second and primary mortgages, and energy audits and ratings. HUD would also be authorized to conduct "renewable-energy home product expos" to educate the public about the latest technologies and financing concepts. State governments would be required to ensure that homeowners whose energy technologies allowed them to get "off the grid," no longer fully dependent on utility companies to provide them power, are not denied property hazard coverage by insurance companies. With all this emphasis on home energy efficiency and reduction of real estate-related emissions, is there any evidence that buyers would take part? Would they use energy-efficient mortgages or even pay more for houses that are highly efficient, loaded with the latest energy-saving technologies? The jury is out since a lot of this is prospective and hasn't yet been signed into law. But a Seattle-based real estate firm, G2B Ventures, which is raising $50 million for an "efficient real estate fund" to buy up and rehab houses, says green-certified, high-energy-conserving homes in its area sold for 7.5 percent more per square foot and 24 percent faster from 2007 to 2008. So maybe there's going to be some extra green in green -- better financing, higher property values, and faster selling times -- and more money in your wallet. Kenneth R. Harney's e-mail address is kenharney@earthlink.net.

Momentum Builds to Equalize Cocaine Penalties

I won't hold my breath, but glimmers of vaguely rational thinking about the misguided war on the American people called the War On Drugs are emerging since Bush is gone.......

Momentum Builds to Equalize Cocaine Penalties By Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 24, 2009 11:07 AM After two decades of criticism over cocaine sentences that disproportionately punish blacks, momentum is building in Congress and in the Obama administration for a legislative fix, representing a fundamental shift in politics and attitude, even among key GOP lawmakers. For the first time after multiple attempts, a House subcommittee this week approved a bill to equalize criminal penalties for people caught with crack and powder cocaine. The bill would also eliminate five-year mandatory minimum prison terms for offenders convicted of possessing rock cocaine without an intent to sell it. The subcommittee vote came as a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting to craft a similar proposal, which could be unveiled as early as next week, according to two congressional sources familiar with the effort. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) forecast the idea during confirmation hearings this month for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, when he said, "I think we're going to do that crack thing." Senior leaders at the Justice Department already have launched a wide review of sentencing practices, including laws dating to the drug epidemic in the 1980s that penalized crack cocaine offenders at rates 100 times higher than people caught with the same amount of powder cocaine. "We all know that this egregious difference in punishment is simply wrong," Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the National Association of Black Prosecutors in a speech Wednesday. "The Department of Justice will never back down from its duty to protect our citizens and our neighborhoods from drugs, or from the violence that all too often accompanies the drug trade. But we must discharge this duty in a way that protects our communities as well as the public's confidence in the justice system." In recent weeks, two federal judges, including one in the District, took matters into their own hands and gave crack cocaine defendants the lower sentences for powder cocaine possession. In testimony to Congress this year, Justice Department criminal division chief Lanny A. Breuer cited statistics reflecting that more than 80 percent of criminals sentenced for crack-related offenses are black. Blacks log only 27 percent of powder cocaine crimes, an issue highlighted for years by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Critical administration figures have offered support for the initiative, which President Obama and Vice President Biden promoted on the campaign trail. But the idea has been fought in the past by groups representing prosecutors, police chiefs and narcotics officers. The Bush administration never lent its support to completely eliminating the sentencing disparity. One thorny question for lawmakers is whether the measure should apply retroactively to convicts in prison, a move that could invite logistical and legal complications for courthouses already struggling with heavy caseloads. Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, called the House Judiciary subcommittee vote "one giant step for sentencing sanity." Stewart estimated that the move would save $26 million dollars a year by reducing prison overcrowding and shifting money to rehabilitation efforts. The House bill, known as the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act, still requires a vote by the Judiciary Committee and the full House. Sponsored by Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Va.), the legislation removes references to "cocaine base" from the U.S. federal code, a provision that has encompassed crack cocaine. Michael Macleod-Ball, interim director of the ACLU Washington Legislation Office, said that "Congress alone has the authority to put a stop to the crack-powder disparity and long mandatory minimum sentences."

june 29 President Obama Delivers Remarks on Energy

The President's remarks - save for future reference.

President Obama Delivers Remarks on Energy CQ Transcript Wire Monday, June 29, 2009 1:27 PM SPEAKER: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA [*] OBAMA: Good afternoon, everybody. Since taking the -- excuse me. Since taking office, my administration's mounted a sustained response to a historic economic crisis. But even as we take decisive action to repair the damage to our economy, we're also working to build a new foundation for a sustained and lasting economic growth. Now, we know this won't be easy, but this is a moment where we've been called upon to cast off the old ways of doing business and act boldly to reclaim America's future. Nowhere is this more important than in building a new clean- energy economy, ending our dependence on foreign oil, and limiting the dangerous pollutants that threaten our health and the health of our planet. And that's precisely what we've begun to do. Thanks to broad coalitions ranging from business to labor, investors to entrepreneurs, Democrats and Republicans from coal states and coastal states, and all who are willing to take on this challenge, we've come together to achieve more in the past few months to create a new clean-energy economy than we have in decades. We began with historic investments in the Recovery Act and the federal budget that will help create hundreds of thousands of jobs doing the work of doubling our country's supply of renewable energy. We're talking about jobs building wind turbines and solar panels, jobs developing next-generation solutions for next-generation cars, jobs upgrading our outdated power grid so it can carry clean, renewable energy from the far-flung areas that harness it to the big cities that use it. And thanks to a remarkable partnership between automakers, autoworkers, environmental advocates, and states, we created incentives for companies to develop cleaner, more efficient vehicles, and for Americans to drive them. We set in motion a new national policy aimed at both increasing gas mileage and decreasing greenhouse gas pollution for all new cars and trucks sold in the United States. And as a result, we'll save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles sold in the next five years, the projected equivalent of taking 58 million cars off the road for an entire year. OBAMA: We know that, even as we seek solutions to our energy problems at home, the solution to global climate change requires American leadership abroad. That's why I've appointed a global climate envoy to help lead our re-engagement with the international community, as we find sustainable ways to transition to a global low- carbon economy. And now, just last Friday, the House of Representatives came together to pass an extraordinary piece of legislation that will finally open the door to decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, preventing the worst consequences of climate change, and making clean energy the profitable kind of energy. Thanks to members of Congress who are willing to place America's progress before the usual Washington politics, this bill will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs, all without imposing untenable new burdens on the American people or America's businesses. In the months to come, the Senate will take up its version of the energy bill. And I am confident that they, too, will choose to move this country forward. So we've gotten a lot done on the energy front over the last six months. But even as we're changing the ways we're producing energy, we're also changing the ways we use energy. In fact, one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways to make our economy stronger and cleaner is to make our economy more energy efficient. And that's something that Secretary Chu is working every single day to work through. We know the benefits. In the -- in the late 1970s, the state of California enacted tougher energy-efficiency policies. Over the next three decades, those policies helped create almost 1.5 million jobs. And today, Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average, which over time has prevented the need to build at least 24 new power plants. Think about that: California, producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country, and yet they've been able to maintain their energy usage at a much lower level than the rest of the country. So that's why we took significant steps in the Recovery Act to invest in energy-efficiency measures, from modernizing federal buildings to helping American families make upgrades to their homes, steps that will create jobs and save taxpayers and consumers money. And that's why I've asked Secretary Chu to lead a new effort at the Department of Energy focusing on implementing more aggressive efficiency standards for common household appliances like refrigerators and ovens, which will spark innovation, save consumers money, and reduce energy demand. So today we're announcing additional actions to promote energy efficiency across America, actions that will create jobs in the short run and save money and reduce dangerous emissions in the long run. The first step we're taking sets new efficiency standards on fluorescent and incandescent lighting. Now, I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses. Between 2012 and 2042, these new standards will save consumers up to $4 billion a year, conserve enough electricity to power every home in America for 10 months, reduce emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 million cars each year, and eliminate the need for as many as 14 coal-fired power plants. And, by the way, we're going to start here at the White House. Secretary Chu has already started to take a look at our light bulbs, and we're going to see what we need to replace them with energy- efficient light bulbs. And if we want to make our economy run more efficiently, we've also got to make our homes and businesses run more efficiently. And that's why we're also speeding up a $346 million investment under the Recovery Act to expand and accelerate the development, deployment, and use of energy-efficient technologies in residential and commercial buildings, which consume almost 40 percent of the energy we use and contribute to almost 40 percent of the carbon pollution we produce. We're talking about technologies that are available right now or will soon be available, from lighting to windows, heating to cooling, smart sensors and controls. By adopting these technologies in our homes and businesses, we can make our buildings up to 80 percent more energy efficient or, with additions like solar panels on the roof or geothermal power from underground, even transform them into zero- energy buildings that actually produce as much energy as they consume. OBAMA: Now, progress like this might seem far-fetched, but the fact is, we're not lacking for ideas and innovation. All we lack are the smart policies and the political will to help us put our ingenuity to work. And when we put aside the posturing and the politics, when we put aside attacks that are based less on evidence than on ideology, then a simple choice emerges: We can remain the world's leading importer of oil or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc or we can create jobs utilizing low-carbon technologies to prevent its worse effects. We can cede the race for the 21st century or we can embrace the reality that our competitors already have: The nation that leads the world in creating a new clean-energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy. That's our choice, between a slow decline and renewed prosperity, between the past and the future. The American people have made their choice. They expect us to move forward right now at this moment of great challenge and stake our claim on the future, a stronger, cleaner, and more prosperous future where we meet our obligations to our citizens, our children, and to God's creation, and where the United States of America leads once again. That's the future we're aiming for. I've got a great secretary of energy who's helping us achieve it. I want to thank, again, the House of Representatives for doing the right thing on Friday. And we are absolutely confident that we're going to be able to make more progress in the weeks and months to come. Thanks, guys. END http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/29/AR2009062902308_pf.html