Ïîïóëÿðíûå ñîîáùåíèÿ

вторник

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is casting his eye beyond the Big Apple — and is trying to cement his legacy as a progressive champion that could help boost his political future.

On Tuesday, de Blasio, less than two years into his first term as mayor of the country's largest city, will unveil at the U.S. Capitol his ambitious "Contract with America" for the left. Modeled after former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's conservative promises of the same name, his 13-point plan will call for robust progressive policies, including universal pre-kindergarten programs, a $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, what he perceives as fairer tax plans and more.

After consulting on the plan with other progressive leaders at Grace Mansion, the mayor's residence in New York, last month he's now aiming to mark his turf early on these issues. By appearing alongside the progressive movement's other favorite champion, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at the National Press Club just before unveiling his own agenda later that afternoon, de Blasio is trying to send a message that he's a force to be reckoned with in the growing wing of the Democratic Party.

"He wants to be the gatekeeper and definer of who is progressive and who is not around the country," said New York Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who worked for one of de Blasio's 2013 primary opponents.

De Blasio didn't cut his teeth early on as a progressive voice, though. A longtime political aide and strategist, he worked in the Clinton administration before managing then-First Lady Hillary Clinton's successful 2000 bid for New York's open Senate seat.

Those connections helped him launch his own political career the next year. But when his former boss launched her second bid for the White House last month, he balked, declining multiple times to endorse Clinton, who's been under pressure from the left.

Sheinkopf argued that delicate dance would make his endorsement more valuable to Clinton later on. That neutrality, along with his new agenda he's touting, is together a way to protect his own brand he wants to take beyond the Big Apple.

"He appears to want to be the first mayor to get out of here alive," said Sheinkopf, noting other former New York City mayors like Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg saw their onetime national ambitions evaporate.

"This is not by accident — this is purposeful and very smart," he added.

But casting his eye beyond his city has risks. The New York Times calculated he has spent a third of the last month on the road for political trips, from Iowa to Wisconsin to Silicon Valley.

De Blasio defended his out-of-state trips at a press conference Monday, saying he wanted to "use tools we have here to address income inequality and a whole host of other issues. But I also have to participate in changing the national debate, and changing the reality in Washington in a way that will have the support of people in New York City. We've got to do both at once."

A Marist poll last week showed there could be trouble brewing at home. Forty-nine percent of respondents said the city was going in the wrong direction, the first time the number fell below 50 percent since de Blasio took office. What's more, 56 percent said their quality of life in the city had gotten worse. While de Blasio's approval rating had ticked up five points to 44 percent since last year, and a majority of voters still had a favorable impression of the mayor, 53 percent said they didn't think his policies were transforming the city.

Marist pollster Lee Miringoff told NPR that in the poll, de Blasio's liberal base in still intact, but that New Yorkers as a whole were "very divided on his heading out to the national stage versus the job he's supposed to be doing as mayor."

Miringoff said, "He's coming out of the starting blocks fast, and he clearly sees there's a national stage for that kind of dialogue and that national Democrats are desiring that discussion."

It's a discussion national progressive leaders are anxious to hear more from de Blasio. He was the first mayoral candidate MoveOn.org ever endorsed, and Ben Wikler, the group's Washington director, said their members are looking for him to do even more over the next few years, starting with the plans he is releasing Tuesday.

He's a national progressive champion," Wikler said, "and he's demonstrating how you can run as a movement progressive, change laws and create a country we all want to live in."

But, challenges at home are still very real for de Blasio. Critics look at de Blasio and think he is being presumptuous, that he has not accomplished enough in his current job to think he deserves the national spotlight.

Though he was able to get one of his campaign promises through — universal pre-K — income inequality, the core of his progressive message, remains a big problem in New York, where the gap between the haves and have nots is as wide as anywhere in the country. He has faced criticism from community groups because, unlike past mayors, he has shied away from holding town halls or taking questions on radio programs. And though a supporter of de Blasio's, New York's public advocate called attention to the city contracting with a small percentage of minority-owned businesses. She went so far as to accuse de Blasio and the city of "institutional racism" and that "people of color need not apply."

It's a delicate balance politicians need to strike between the national stage and governing at home. Governors, including the current crop of presidential candidates, often face a similar dilemma. That's something de Blasio is going to have to keep an eye on, as he looks ahead — or it could be his undoing.

Bil de Blasio

2016 Presidential Race

Democrats

New York

Not far from the glitzy Mediterranean film festival venue of Cannes lies another town with a connection to cinema. There are no stars or red carpet, but La Ciotat has an even longer relationship with film, and boasts the world's oldest surviving movie theater.

Audiences are enthusiastic when the lights go down at the Eden. This historic cinema house has been showing movies for the last 120 years, which makes it the world's oldest cinema still in operation.

The Eden lies smack in the middle of the tiny town of La Ciotat, and in front of the Mediterranean Sea. As the story goes, one half of La Ciotat met the other half on its velvet benches.

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

Municipal employee Thierry Mabily says he's a pure product of the Eden. We sneak inside the cinema while a movie's playing so he can show me why.

"It was right here on this second-floor balcony, near that last pillar there, that my mother met my father," Mabily whispers as the film starts. "The year was 1958 and the film playing was The Four White Feathers."

La Ciotat is also the setting for some of the very first moving pictures, recorded by the pioneering Lumiere brothers on their invention, the cinematograph. Building on advances of the day by other inventors such as Thomas Edison, Auguste and Louis Lumiere patented their cinematographe, the first portable motion picture camera and projector.

Trarieux says the Lumiere family built a large mansion in La Ciotat when the brothers' father, Antoine, a successful photographer from Lyon, visited and fell in love with the Mediterranean light and color. One of the very first moving pictures, Arrival of a Train in La Ciotat, is said to have astounded Parisians when they saw it in 1895.

"That's the film of my grandmother coming on vacation," says Gilles Trarieux-Lumiere, Louis Lumiere's great-grandson. "Louis Lumiere took his camera, went on the platform and filmed his daughter arriving on the train."

The Lumiere brothers sent photographers carrying their cinematographes across the globe to record scenes of daily life. They were the first to project their films to audiences, in rooms that became known as cinemas. The screenings generated widespread excitement around the new technology.

During its heyday, and before television, the Eden played to packed houses, but by the 1990s, it had fallen into disrepair and closed. The building was nearly demolished, but a committee, led by Jean Louis Tixier, raised funds to save the Eden.

i

Cannes film festival director Thierry Fremaux gives a speech at the Eden's official re-opening in 2013. Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Cannes film festival director Thierry Fremaux gives a speech at the Eden's official re-opening in 2013.

Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

"Cinema should not be watched at home on a TV screen," Tixier says. "Cinema is about people breathing and having emotions together. Cinema is a collective, human experience."

Today the Eden's programming evokes the Lumiere brothers' spirit of exploration and sharing.

An enthusiastic Cesaria Granier has come with her mother to watch a documentary about a young man who sails to France from the Bay of Bengal on a sailboat that is its own ecosystem.

"We don't usually see films like this," says the 12-year-old. "It makes you realize, with ideas and the will, you can do anything."

понедельник

"My dad was going to play banjo and he never got into it, so he advertised in the Palo Alto newspaper: 'Banjo for sale,'" Kreutzmann says. "One night there's a knock on the door. I open the door and Jerry Garcia was standing there."

A number of years later, Kreutzmann saw Garcia again, playing with Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, and was "completely taken away." That night, he swore to follow Garcia everywhere. Two weeks later, Kreutzmann got a phone call from Garcia asking if he'd like to be in a band.

"I thought that was a very good idea," Kreutzmann says. "Turned out to be a pretty great idea, don't you think?"

'It Can Be Like Fractals'

In the band's beginnings, altered states of consciousness fueled the Grateful Dead's creativity.

"Well, acid was the most beneficial drug," Kreutzmann says. "I jokingly refer to it as my college education, my graduate school, whatever. If I hadn't taken acid, I just would not be here talking to you today. It opens you up; it lets you see that what you're taught in school or what your parents have taught you, or society lays on you, isn't necessarily all there is to see. Your art can flourish and flourish and flourish. It can be like fractals, your art; it can just keep growing. That's what LSD did for me."

But drugs ate away at the band, even as the Grateful Dead grew into the biggest touring attraction in America.

"When cocaine came into the Grateful Dead, it really hurt us," Kreutzmann says.

Kreutzmann says that 1995, when Jerry Garcia died, "was a terrible year for me. I moved to Hawaii to get healing. I was in a really bad way—"

After a moment, Kreutzmann composed himself.

'He Was My Best Music Teacher'

The drummer and the bandleader had once made a pact: If the Grateful Dead ever came to an end, Bill Kreutzmann and Jerry Garcia would move to the Hawaiian island of Kauai, clean up and go diving. In the end, Kreutzmann moved there alone.

"I thank him. He was my best music teacher," Kreutzmann says of Garcia. "He taught me more about music than anybody else. And not necessarily just in words, but how he played. The way he played, you can learn so much from it. Doesn't matter what instrument you play.

"I [was] a senior in high school when he asked me to join the band; when that phone call came in. I knew how to play the drums just a little bit. I had the desire. The thing he said was, 'Bill, play full value. Make four beats be a really full four beats. Don't rush to the end of the bar.'"

As with tropical trees around the world, the koa forests of Hawaii have been decimated — cut down to make way for sugar plantations and cattle ranches. One company is using an innovative business model to bring back koa forests. The secret is a digital tag that helps track individual trees.

At upscale Hawaiian shopping malls like Kings' Shops, wood from the native koa tree is in high demand. Its color ranges from light to dark brown. Koa's curving lines make it popular for furniture, or ukuleles.

"People love the koa," says John Kirkpatrick, owner of Genesis Gallery. "They like the idea that it only grows here in Hawaii."

He shows me a 3-foot vase made of lustrous koa wood that's priced at $9,000.

Koa is expensive because it's increasingly rare, as most of the native forests have been cut down.

Several projects aim to reforest the Big Island of Hawaii with koa. One of the most innovative efforts is run by Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods.

From an all-terrain vehicle, company CEO Jeff Dunster tours the operation, climbing up steep dirt trails to reach 5,000 feet, toward tall grass overlooking fields of new koa.

Dunster started as a consumer of koa furniture. Then he discovered that he was part of the deforestation problem.

"We wanted to be creative with ways where we could put back forests, leave them intact and make it financially viable for the landowner," Dunster says.

The company's business model relies on investors, who pay around $110 per tree.

i

Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods COO Darrell Fox (left) and CEO Jeff Dunster stand beside the massive trunk of an old-growth koa tree. The company aims to grow similar trees from seeds. Courtesy of Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods

Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods COO Darrell Fox (left) and CEO Jeff Dunster stand beside the massive trunk of an old-growth koa tree. The company aims to grow similar trees from seeds.

Courtesy of Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods

Over the next few decades, the trees will be harvested for timber — a potential windfall for investors.

"The historical data shows that koa has appreciated 1,000 percent in the past 10 years," Dunster says.

Money from the investments helps the company buy land and plant koa trees that will never be harvested. The company calls them "legacy trees."

"For every investment tree we plant, we plant three legacy trees," Dunster says.

Chief Operating Officer Darrell Fox gets down on his hands and knees to plant a legacy tree. Next, he pours a little water. Finally, he inserts an RFID (radio frequency identification) tag in the soil next to the tree. The ID helps reassure both investors and conservationists.

"The biggest concern was — how do I know you're not selling my tree multiple times?" Fox says. "And that was one of the reasons we got involved in the RFID tagging program in the first place. So, if you look at the quarter-million-plus trees we've planted out here so far, every one of them has its own unique ID number."

That ID number allows customers anywhere in the world to zero in on specific trees via the Internet.

"The individual tree owner will be able to look at the database and see when the tree was planted, what its mother tree was — the one who provided the seed," Fox says. "They'll be able to see what the weather conditions were at the time of its planting."

Despite these innovations, there is some uncertainty in the process. For one thing, no one has successfully planted and grown koa trees for timber.

Though, people have tried.

J.B. Friday, a forester with the University of Hawaii, says, "I've seen koa plantations that I know the original owner had the idea that he was going to be harvesting trees, and in hindsight, it's not going to happen. So, I guess they lost money on that."

i

Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods has created an Internet interface so customers can zoom in and view information about specific Koa trees from their computers. Courtesy of Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods

Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods has created an Internet interface so customers can zoom in and view information about specific Koa trees from their computers.

Courtesy of Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods

There are threats from pests and diseases, and the possibility that these newly planted trees won't yield the kind of wood most valued in the marketplace.

Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods advises investors about the risks, including the possibility of a total loss.

Nonetheless, the company already has a waitlist of investors lined up to buy trees for next year's planting season.

The New And The Next

Building Eco-Friendly Instruments, Paths For Women In Tech

Environment

Ecologist's Airborne Scanners See The Forest And The Trees — All Of Them

rfid

reforestation

koa tree

Hawaii

Blog Archive