The 'C' is for Curmudgeon - why Xmas need not be so gross.

Yep, it’s that time again. Minds are lost, stress levels rise and we all go a little ‘na’nas trying to figure out which throw away gift will best provide momentary gratitude and fleeting approval. Schedules are juggled as we try and figure how much we can fit in our fridge; the whole idea of ‘sustainable living’ is shirked as a tad unrealistic as we find ourselves thinking, who the hell has the time to find/make biodegradable baubles and vegan mince pies?

Junk and stuff is gathered - lights, tinsel, stars, hats; food pushes the insides of your belly so hard buttons erupt. Momentarily we’ll pause to how wasteful, silly and cruel Christmas is as we’re advertised to by sweltering young Indian students dresses as Santa hold ‘Christmas Mega Sale’ signs.

And for those die-hards who make the effort to be sustainable during the silly season (we applaud you), it’s not always so easy to enforce your ideas onto others.

But then again, maybe it is? Here are some common silly season scenarios that are just begging for not only a sustainable bur practical and humane touch – warm and fuzzies guaranteed.

a) Kris Kringle

No it’s not fair! You have to buy something for your [insert obligatory recipient]. Thanks to Kris Kringle, most of us will end up in an awkward buying position- especially if you draw a work colleague or family member you don’t rate/know/like the smell of. What to do?

b) Person you have the hots for or would really like to impress

This time of year is also the time where that casual fling might just turn into a budding romance and is the perfect time to make the move on someone you’ve been eyeing off all year. What better way to say ‘so…how bout it?’ that with an excellent little gift – but what to give?

c) You’re a jerk

There’s also the situation where at sometime throughout the year you have been a real little (or big) jerk. You may have drunkenly said something that hurt the cleaners feelings, fed your ciggy butts to the dolphins, revelled in polystyrene, flown across the world a few times – something that warrants absolution. Help is at hand.

The answer:

The good folks at A4UNHCR, Australia’s branch of the United Nations Refugee Agency have decided to send the World’s Biggest Relief Package to the 300,000 refugees living in Dadaab, a camp near the Kenyan-Somali border.

And while we all know the UNHCR are good folks, this year you too can bask in their karmic glow all the while ticking the virtue box at Kris Kringle, impressing that special someone, proving you’re not a jerk and most importantly helping out someone whose life is pretty hellish right about now. Winners all round.

So, spend $12 bucks on a Jerry can (bout the same cost as 2 rolls of wrapping paper and a dodgy card), or shell out a little more coin if you can afford it to make to make the UNHCR’s World’s Biggest Package – HUGE.

Why?

Originally built for 90,000 people Dadaab is now home to more than 300,000 people, mostly those who have fled Somalia. So as you can imagine it is ridiculously overcrowded, no loos, limited food, without fresh water – the list goes on. Santa certainly does not visit Dadaab.

Add to this conundrum a dash of imminent flooding in the coming months and life in Dadaab is going to get even trickier - it’s a really rough deal, and we’re bloody lucky we weren’t born Somali – but don’t thank your stars, be part of the World’s Biggest Package.

Check out the website (great design once again from a Republic of Everyone/Circul8 collaboration), click some stuff, learn something new and maybe even part with a little cash.

www.worldsbiggestpackage.com

Get your rocks-off!...NY is simply [bike] pornographic

I've already confessed to fetishising bikes so finding NYC absolutely titillating will come as no surprise.

Mayor Bloomberg's award-winning work has made the five boroughs easy for cyclists , (I assume for the fact that one would need to be rich/mad/ostensibly patient to even consider driving) which means that NY is now awash with bicycles.

A bike is moored to a post every few metres. Each has its unique character: some are bawdy and over the top, others technological perversities; there are elegant fixies, and sissy bars and banana saddles galore.

Beyond simply painting the tarmac green and hoping for the best, the City has constructed dedicated bike lanes that isolate cyclists from other traffic. It means the chances of being run off the road by an angry bus or cab are lower and cyclists are guarded from surprise 'clothesline-style' dismounts (opening-car doors frighten the hell out of me).

Glorious pedestrian-free lanes that safely deliver over bridges, maps, bike fashion parades, guitar-shaped bike racks, bike clubs, big signs, greenways - not just being utilised by the slightly mad and fit, but by Nannas, business people, students, littler kids. Almost everybody in NYC is riding a bike - hallelujah!

[This said, the fact that I saw at most two people wearing stack hats was a little worrying, the whole ' I don't have to wear a helmet - you can make me' ethos must be firmly entrenched in the Bill of Rights...somewhere.]

Sydney could have all this and more. And while progress is being made, it is excruciatingly slow. People are still not confident enough to commute, when it comes to creating bike infrastructure it absolutely must be case of 'build it and they will come'.

We all know that bikes can save the world - obesity, peak oil, emissions, mental health etc. etc. - yet there is still widespread resistance. Silly duffers on Burke street protesting because they'll lose their car spot and obstructionist 'can't-do, won't-do' attitudes from unimaginative councillors means that rather than burgeoning into a progressive cosmopolitan city, Sydney will inevitably be known as a dirty, congested cesspit of a city. Particularly as the population swells in numbers (and size - yes, I mean fatter).

It's a calamity. But not hopeless. Doing your bit is easy.

1. Get your rocks-off with bike porn for a little inspiration - I will upload the best of mine and there is more here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126567&id=630785807

2. Get on yer' bike (especially all those duffers spending thousands of dollars on 'Boot-Camp' every morning - if you just rode to work your bum would be hard within weeks, you'd get to sleep in, save money and not undergo ritual public humiliation)

3. Have a whinge

Enjoy. And sincere apologies to my NY colleagues, pausing every few metres while I took pictures of bikes must have been really, really annoying - but you'll be 'right ;)

New York By Peer Review - Jesse Presley Jones

Irish Artist and current fellow at the Location One artspace, Jesse Presley Jones is another peer of Dan Cass, with whom I reviewed New York City.

As far as I could tell, Dan and Jesse met in Coober Pedy while shooting a film that was an adaptation of a Bertolt Brecht play. I have to admit I hadn't heard of Jesse or her art before but the Whisper Choir she conducted in Bucharest looked intriguing.

Jesse had been in New York for about a week - so not really a Phyllis-type experience but a great one nonetheless. An Irish artist, I met her at her Soho studio in the Location One artspace. As I walked in I was greeted by angry Richard Bell art - which was even more pointy taken out of the Australian context and dropped into NYC. It made Australia feel like a silly (racist) pimply teenager.

Anyways, Jesse and I meandered East over toward Bowery and the New Museum.

There's nothing like a gaudy artspace to help bond with an artist. It was the loudest, screechiest, over-done art gallery space I have ever been to in my whole entire life. Though it did give us something to tak about.

It's a pretty controversial space. Though no-one can doubt that it has been beautifully built, the heavy involvement of curators in the process has made the space feel like a five-year old chucking a tanty in a supermarket. The building screams attention and detracts from the works.

This was most offensive on the top floor where there was some great installation video art. But instead of being able to quietly sit-down and watch and attempt to 'get' it, the bloody door kept screeching open for the endless thoroughfare of people trying to get in and out of the room.

Having given-up, we had a coffee and checked-out the book store (which was by far the highlight of the whole experience) - which was kinda cool, Jesse kept pointing out books made by friends of hers and one where she herself featured. Needless to say, I was super impressed.

We headed-out and cruised the Bric-a-Brac, street art and cemetaries. Jesse gave some insight into how New York (calm and well-behaved) compared to Dublin (angry and a bit mental). It was also really interesting meeting an artist who was completely 'normal'. Not a skinny jean, hipster do, abnoxious iconic t-shirt or word of wank at all - it really made me think how freaking weird and pretentious the Sydney art scene actually is.

New York By Peer Review - Ciao Phyllis Arnold, you are Gotham

Ciao Phyllis Arnold, you are Gotham.

Phyllis Arnold began with the wonderful Walter Jennings. She invited us to her Upper East Side apartment for wine and cheese, proclaimed that she “was Gotham” and triple-checked none of us were allergic to cats (we would then have to go someplace else).

None of us ladies had ever met anyone called ‘Phyllis’ before, and in the lead-up to our visit, she was the subject of much speculation, like:

- “Phyllis is 80, has 20 cats and lots of newspapers”

- “Fast-talking ‘proper woman’, bookish, dusty academic”

- “Phyllis is kinda like a Jewish version of Samantha”

- “Phyllis has four kids and is an evangelical Christian”

- “This will be awkward”.

We were so far way off.

Phyllis Arnold is not only Gotham, but deserves her own genre. We hung out with Phyllis for a few hours at her apartment, this is some of the best of Phyllis:

- “You do work with [insert PR company], ow dear uuunnnh…well that’s owkay hunny, we can still tawk”

- “My fawther was a musician and so you never approwch and awtist after a show…but I would break that rule for Russel Crow”

- “I can count on my hands how many times I’ve been to Brooklyn – 9 times. If I have to go over a bridge or through a tunnel – well…that’s travelling”

- “My friend said ‘Phyllis, Brooklyn’s not a third-world country’ – I’m not sow shaw”

- “Ow look, Bear [the cat] is showing us how to do it”

- “Do not text me…it’ll take 2 days to reply, send me an email…”

- “Bear (cat), get owffa the table” as Phyllis chases Bear across the room with a spray bottle full of water.

AMAZING. Though she looked not a day over 50, 66 year-old Phyllis was the only person we met that had grown up in Manhattan, she has been married once and ‘did her time in Connecticut’. She’s not much of a cook, but put on a great spread of meatballs (gleaned from a friend’s freezer, a toothpick in each), orange cheese, a great dip and plenty of other treats.

We asked Phyllis where to get a Martini, so she calls about five people, she (rightly) assumed they know is calling and immediately launches into a “I need a place, four lovely friends from Australia, they wanna good martini”…”Nawh, don’t text…email the address…ok..ciao”, the other person left talking on the phone, Phyllis ended the call. The lady don’t mess around!

We were treated to two bottles of incredible Zinfandel courtesy of her lovely sky-diving (he took an 80-year old up recently) friend and his upstate winery, the wine was topped-off with tequilas and Baileys on ice (oh yeah!). She told us all about what it was to grow-up and be a true New Yawkan – good and bad as well as her stories of travel, love and some brilliant life lessons “it awl gets better after 25! Trust me…”.

As our wonderful time with Phyllis came to an end, she asked if we could do her a favour as she ran into the bathroom ‘”Oh this stuff is a-mazing stuff, I’ve never used anything better, and so cheap you have to send me some from Awstralia – that would be just great..oh…we don’t have it here”, Phyllis emerged from the bathroom moments later with none other than a pink can of Cedel hairspray in her hand….

New York By Peer Review - The Oxfam Connection

In New York City there’s Manhattan and there’s Brooklyn. Across the bridge things are much less shiny, but oh so interesting. Rachel lives in Brooklyn. An Oxfam peer recommended by two wonderful women there was never any doubt that Rach would be anything less than a rockstar.

Despite the ankle-deep rain, a foiled cab ride and a minor Subway incident I made my way over to hang out with Rachel, her friend Elyssa and housemate Chris.

Over a few beers, some ridiculously good Little Italian pastry and blue corn chips we talked about the organising Rachel had done, most recently on the Obama campaign, with Mayor Bloomberg (apparently being the Mayor of NY is comparably difficult to being the President) and how that type of experience compares to the grassroots climate movement in Australia.

Undoubtedly those involved with the Obama organising did a great job – but talking to Rachel it became apparent that the stratosphere status and ridiculous fees campaign ‘consultants’ attract may not be worth it. The Obama campaign was heavily resourced, worth millions upon millionsof dollars, controlled and hierarchical – can it really be replicated in a different, social political, media and economic context?

The Obama campaigner price tag question aside, it's good to know that in the US (well the Peoples Republic of NYC) there is an exuberant and progressive energy, beautifully skilled and creative organising going-on. The universal challenge is to ensure that the momentum can be built and good people don’t become frustrated and burnt-out.

NY By Peer-Review: Peter Singer

So when I asked people 'who do you know that is interesting in NY?' I guess I kind of expected...well, I'm not so sure really. I certainly didn't expect Peter Singer. But if anyone was going to introduce me to a celebrity academic, one-time Greens Senate Candidate and all-round brave thinker, it was going to be Dan Cass.

So thanks Dan.

After a few emails, moments of intellectual self-doubt (would my ethics be judged by a professional?) induced by a New Yorker friend Matt (whose nurse Mum was blown-away by Peter's piece in the New York Times about health care), I met Peter and his wife Renata next to a Surviva Ball at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and tagged along with them on the 350.org day of action.

Renata and Peter have lived in New York city for the last 20 years. Peter is an academic at Princeton and Renata works at a local NGO - their accents only slightly impinged by the NY twang, they still very much had the laconic, relaxed 'Aus-Melbourne' going on.

Obviously I had heard of Peter Singer, and may have even read his books courtesy of my Mum's libary and political science degree, but I don't remember them and am not particularly on top of his politics. So I did what anyone else would do and googled him.

If you've not read his books or papers (of which there are many), Peter goes where its not comfortable. From infanticide, to animal rights to euthanasia - it's brave logic. What I didn't know was that he writes on environmental policy, and that to him meat consumption huge climate issue.

I haven't really considered this in much depth as to me it feels like a self-evident lifestyle issue, when I'm more concerned about big structural concerns (coal). Most 'movement' people I know don't eat a great deal of meat and personally, I'll eat what ever is in front of me and am a big fan of Kangaroo.

I raise this, to which Peter said "someone did some research and said that if beef were to be replaced by Kangaroo in Australia, the entire current existence of the Roo population would need to increase fivefold to supply the equivalent amount of meat". Sensical.

I also lamented the 'knowing to much' and bliss of ignorance. To which he said something to the effect of "well in the States most people are ignorant and they are causing the problem - is it fair that the rest of us take responsibility for this?" (or something like that). I guess it reminded me of the whole 'if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem' adage.

So, say I am part of the solution. Does walking over the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain, with people around you chanting slogans to cars really make a difference? You could argue media coverage and awareness make it worthwhile but for the most densely populated city in the world, 400 people showing-up to care about our common future of an estimated 22 million is pretty lame.

Nonetheless. It was an interesting experience because it made me think and also afforded the opportunity to be somewhat voyeristic about the movement - a bit of an outsider for a day.

The Green Drinks NY Folks - NY by Peer Review.

So the first of the NY by Peer-Review stops was in a cute little office tucked-away in Nolita - it was the wonderful Liane's idea.

Margaret began Green Drinks NY 8 years ago, works on it full-time and now has something like 10,000 people on her e-list - it's big! Not only that, but there is a manual, a media kit, sponsors, a regular newsletter, (people pay to come) and best of all - the Yes Men are known on occassions to rock-up in Surviva Suits.

Yep. Jealous? Yep.

In Sydney, our Green Drinks (GreenUps) is still really fresh and like many great things happening in sustainability requires lot's of 'love time'. It's been really interesting to see how other people are turning their passions into their livelihoods. It's a bloody hard balance to strike.

I also found out that not so long ago Dan and some other folks from the Melbourne Green Drinks caught-up with Margaret, which is amazing and just goes to show the strength of the network and energy it has not only at home but all over the place.