We Gots Culture: We Gots Trucks

 

The annual folklife festival, an extravaganza put on by the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington, DC, is a wondrous event.  A million people each year attend it, even crowd-phobic people like me. This year, the organizers have included something special along with the more usual display of Latino dancing and Native American basket weaving: an oil sands truck from Alberta.


From today's Globe and Mail  

 “I've been the truck guy from day one,” said Smith, a former Alberta energy minister. Asked who is responsible for the curatorial decisions for the Folklife Festival, Smith joked that “the Smithsonian is good enough at it to let us think that we are” in charge.

Smith sees the oil sands a perfect fit for the Folklife Festival, saying it reflects the province's way of life, in the same way ranching, dinosaurs and the Rockies are part of provincial life. Those themes will also be part of the Alberta theme.

“I can't think of anything more appropriate in today's world than a deposit of 175 million barrels of crude oil,” continued Smith. “Because Alberta is known for its resource base, it's entirely appropriate that we reflect on how people work; that people live in these two-storey trucks 24 hours a day and deliver 450 tons of sand soaked in bitumen every two minutes, 20 seconds, to a dump.”

“It's truly an ethnographic festival. It's a really a huge way to highlight a culture,” said Nancy Groce, curator of the Alberta program at the Smithsonian, which is pitching in $1-million of its money to the program. Besides Alberta, this year's themes include native American basket-weaving and Latino music from Chicago.

Groce insists that the oil-sands theme has nothing to do with promoting Alberta's oil industry.
 

Yup, we've got culture, all right. OK, so maybe it isn't really culture, but it sure as heck is money, and the Smithsonian sure as heck is for sale.

 

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$$$$$

From the Specialty Coffee Association of America

LONG BEACH, Calif. U.S.A. (May 30, 2006)--- Panama’s number one coffee, from Hacienda la Esmeralda, once again set an online coffee auction record when it sold for over $50 dollars a pound during an online auction on May 30th. Hacienda la Esmeralda placed first in the “Best of Panama” cupping competition in April with a score of 94.6 out of 100.

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Well, it is, even if you are used to paying double digit amounts for a pound of roasted coffee beans at your local market or bean emporium. Certainly it is for a home roaster like me who normally pays around $7 CAD a pound, including postage, for really good beans bought over the Internet.

It's not nearly as impressive when you do the math and figure out that the cup of moka-joka you buy at Starbucks ends up costing in the neighbourhood of seventy dollars a pound, for the amount of ground up beans used to make it. That being said, it's more than I will be paying anytime soon.

Still, it's a good thing when the growers of a truly superlative coffee make the big bucks because they have done everything right. It has to be encouraging to other coffee growers when they see one of their own succeed, and get that pot of gold at the end of the coffee growing rainbow. Long term, that means better coffee, grown in sustainable ways, and sold at affordable prices that still allow the people involved in coffee production to make a living wage.

Chances are I will never taste Hacienda la Esmerelda's  record breaking, award winning coffee. Not this year. But the good folks that own this plantation are talking about doing the same thing in the future, only growing more of it, and making it available at a price that people like me and you can afford.

Yup, a good thing, for sure.

 

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Anonymous and Authentic

Is it possible to be both, simultaneously? Is it possible to get the kick in the ego that seems to come with writing as yourself, the person who goes to the grocery store and then names the store when she tells the story, if part of the deal is calling the store TameMart?

I guess I'll find out.

del.ici.ous tags:blog, tide, consumerism, marketing

 

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Misc Shtuff

Yes, other things are happening. I have a toothache and went to the dentist like a good, responsible person. This, however, did not make it stop. Oiler fever has taken over Tamingville, but fortunately, is not much in evidence on Taming Road. I suppose I should be upset that they lost tonight.

I'm trying. Really.

 

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Today in Roasting

Roasted: Cafe Justica, Guatemala,  Roast Profile #1. First crack 3:46 remaining, stopped at 1:40 remaining, one snap into second, City Plus

Drinking: El Salvador, Finca El Carmen, City Plus, roasted Saturday

New Arrival: Horse Harrar, 10 pounds from Sweet Maria

 

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