If you’re a regular in these parts you might recall my ongoing mission: Some people fight AIDS, some animal abuse, and my cause is banning plastic beads. (Well, actually, I do what I can for other causes as well, but I guess this one is my “pet.”) Many moons ago I discovered an article in scientific journal Orion about how polyethylene (plastic) beads found in many products wash right down the drain and go on to harm marine life. Then I spoke with Scientifica about the synthetic beads found in their rather awesome, bestselling Raspberry Lactic Scrub, and because they were unaware of the danger these beads pose, they actually agreed to alter the ingredients, making the product even, well, awesomer than before (and restoring my faith in humanity). Now Slate has caught on and published an article on the subject, and they call out Olay’s newest exfoliant and some other offenders.

Hillary Rosner writes:

A smiling model glides, mermaidlike, through a lush underwater garden. Undulating ribbons of something resembling kelp rise from the sea floor, and tiny enchanting pearl-like beads bubble up though the aquamarine water. Polish your troubles away with Olay Body Wash Plus Spa Exfoliating Ribbons, the subject of this commercial, and you too might feel as if you’re floating through a luxurious Atlantis.

The trouble is, the more you exfoliate, the less Edenic that underwater realm becomes for the creatures who live there. That’s because the exfoliating ingredient in Olay’s body wash, and in most similar big-brand products (such as Dove Gentle Exfoliating Foaming Facial Cleanser and Clean & Clear Daily Pore Cleanser), is actually made out of plastic: tiny particles of polyethylene that scrub the dirt from your face and then wash straight down the drain and into watersheds and, eventually, oceans.

Here’s what you can do: Besides writing letters to these companies, you can boycott any and all exfoliants containing synthetic exfoliants. On that note, I have an environmentalist friend who encourages all her friends to lay off all plastics because they’re not even remotely biodegradable and contain loads of possibly cancer-causing chemicals and toxins. I know it sounds rough, but consider that humans went without plastic for centuries and centuries, and hell, everyone survived. The easiest way to start: Refuse to use plastic bags and BYOB to the grocery store. My local Whole Foods actually just banned plastic bags, and I hear some progressive places like Seattle are actually considering a city-wide ban. And don’t forget to lay off the plastic beads!

Article courtesy of productfiend.com

http://productfiend.com/2008/06/the-saga-of-the-plastic-exfoli.php

Posted: June 26th, 2008 under Green Life.
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Maui Film Festival at Wailea and the Maui Arts & Cultural Center

By JON WOODHOUSE, Contributing Writer

Big Island reggae artist Jack Miller invited some musician friends to join him on the opening track of the soundtrack of the new documentary “Dreadlock Rock,” which receives its world premiere tonight at the Maui Film Festival.

The anthemic song “Love, Peace & Unity,” features help from Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals fame, Cat Coore and Bunny Rugs of Third World, Jamaican rhythm kings Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Big Youth, and legendary guitarist Earl Chinna Smith, who worked with reggae greats from Peter Tosh and Jimmy Cliff to Black Uhuru and Gregory Isaacs.

It’s an astounding ensemble, and a tribute to Miller’s stature in the Jamaican reggae community.

Many of those artists appear in Miller’s new documentary, a personal homage to the power of roots reggae to move audiences around the globe. Profiling his early immersion in reggae music in the mid-1970s to the present day, the film provides a unique perspective on the history of Jamaica’s profound gift to the world.

“It’s an autobiographical story about the journey I’ve had having these relationships with some amazing musicians,” Miller explains. “It all started in 1975 when we formed the Roots Band, the first surf reggae band in Southern California. We started seeing the different Jamaican acts coming through like Toots and the Maytals and Jimmy Cliff, and of course Bob Marley. I ended up going to Kingston (Jamaica) and meeting Sly and Robbie and the Revolutionaries. The film is about this journey and it comes full circle to the present. I went down about two years ago to finish the soundtrack for the film and I hooked up with a lot of the same musicians from the early days like Sly and Robbie, Big Youth, and Cat Coore and Bunny Rugs from Third World. It was like a homecoming.”

Featuring interviews (subtitled for the non-Rasta-patois literate) with a number of leading reggae artists including Peter Tosh, Sly and Robbie and Aston “Familyman” Barrett of the Wailers, it includes a clip of Bob Marley describing reggae’s evolution from ska through rock steady.

“In terms of getting archival footage, the seed started back when a musician named Chili Charles had a video company in Los Angeles and had a show called “L.A. Reggae with Roger Steffens,” Miller continues. “They were going out videoing all the reggae bands that came through Los Angles, and they heard about these white guys playing reggae and shot us live one night. Shortly afterwards, we put together the Reggae All Stars. We went to Sunsplash and he shot that.”

As a young white musician raised in Kansas, Miller surprisingly recalls he had little difficulty entering Jamaica’s insular studio world.

“The scene was pretty much in its infancy in terms of the U.S.,” he notes. “England had a lot more exposure through the Jamaican immigrant population. In many parts of the U.S., it (reggae) was almost completely unknown in the mid-’70s. So the musicians were quite open to me, and very few people were willing to go into the ghettos of Kingston and look these guys up. I had studied the music and knew who these people were and they could see this guy gets it. They dug it because it was different from what they had been doing in the studio, they enjoyed that I mixed up rock and soul and R&B with it.”

Some rhythm tracks from these early Kingston sessions are mixed with songs on the exceptional soundtrack CD, which features such other legends as the Mighty Diamonds, Peter Tosh bassist Fully Fullwood, Bob Marley and the Wailers guitarist Junior Marvin, and Willie Nelson dueting with Maui’s Marty Dread on the powerful “Take No Part.”

In conclusion, Miller hopes his film will “pull people into the story and then they will look deeper. It’s like what ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ did for Cuban music. A lot of young people in Hawaii love reggae, but they don’t know a lot about the founding fathers of the music, they don’t know how it evolved. We want to get people on the train and let them go on this journey and hope that it will spark some deeper interest in the music.”

http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/504834.htm

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Posted: June 19th, 2008 under Rooted Creatives.
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