Honoring Dr. King

On this day in 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support the city's sanitation workers in their strike for better working conditions. The night before he died, he gave a speech at the Memphis Temple Church in which he said, "I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land."

This is the man who also urged the nation to judge a man by the content of his character, not the color of his skin. The timbre of the election season demonstrates to us that we have a long way to go before we live up to this part of Dr. King's dream. We're a complicated country, and it's a delicate topic, but if we teach our children that every kind of person deserves respect, we'll move farther down the road to true equality.

Get a massage....help the homeless??

My friend Carl Brown has a unique way of working toward his hourly credits as a certified massage therapist. He is asking for all payment checks for his very wonderful massages to be made out directly to Friendship Shelter, which helps temporarily homeless adults get back on their feet. Carl comes to your home with his folding massage table, is respectful and earnest, and values client feedback. If you've been hesitating to make time for the important self-care of a massage, think of this as a way to help others at the same time you take care of your body.

Here's the lowdown:
Carl has completed his training in Massage Therapy. His training was taken at the International Professional School of Bodywork in San Diego, one of the top 5 Bodywork/ Massage schools in the United States (http://www.ipsb.edu/Welcome.html). All of the massage sessions are in support of the Friendship Shelter in Laguna Beach. These are professional sessions conducted at the individuals residence, there is a minimum recommended donation that is suggested for the Friendship Shelter, if you have any interest scheduling a session email Carl at cabdtv@aol.com. Information about the Friendship Shelter can be found at their web site shown below.
Sessions can either be 1 hour or 90 minutes. Suggested minimum donations for the one-hour session are $40 to $60 and $60 to $80 for the 90-minute sessions. Checks are to be made out to the Friendship Shelter directly and given to Carl for delivery to the Friendship Shelter. You will receive a receipt from the Shelter for your donation and it will be 100% deductible.

Carl also does free yoga classes at Moulton Meadows Park twice a week -- here's the schedule:
http://yogainthepark.blogspot.com/

Catch this: FishPhone Finds Ocean-Friendly Dining Options

You want to be ecologically correct, you really do, but you're also hungry for dinner. What to do at the seafood restaurant with a list of delicious-sounding options staring from the menu? If you order the shrimp, are you complicit in the destruction of underwater habitats? If you buy a bag of Trader Joe's frozen orange roughy, are you part of the problem, not the solution?

Help is a text-message away: the Blue Ocean Institute has launched the FishPhone, which brings sustainable seafood information straight to your cell phone or PDA. So the next time you're about to order, just text 30644 with the message "Fish" and the name of the fish in question and within seconds you'll get an environmental assessment of your choice of seafood.
Read about sustainable seafood options at www.blueocean.org/seafood

Pick It Up: April 5, May 3, et cetera

Mark your calendar! Come out on the first Saturday mornings of each month and be part of the real Laguna Beach by helping to keep it clean. Chip McDermott has created a monthly event with his Zero Trash Laguna: bright and early each first Saturday, caring folks come out and pick up the flotsam and jetsam of the increasingly urban atmosphere we live in. Then we weigh it and, just for grins, count the number of recyclables collected. Last pickup on March 1 before the Patriots' Day Parade ZTL collected 148 lbs. of trash and 78 recyclables. That's crap that mostly would have ended up in the ocean. Thanks, Chip. It's actually a fun early-rising thing to do with your sweetie, your kids or your doggie-buddy. Adopt a street and help make Laguna more lovely! www.zerotrashlaguna.org

Up with Art: Party with LOCA

Stuck for an idea for a unique birthday party -- for kids or grown-ups? It doesn't get any more "Laguna" than throwing a LOCA Art Party!

LOCA (Laguna Outreach for Community Arts) is a local non-profit that makes art an everyday, accessible occurrence. The organization, under guidance by prez Sean McCracken, is branching out in new, exciting ways, and art parties is one of them. Check it out: LOCA will send one or two professional artists (don't worry, they are fabulous and have LOTS of experience with kids) to your house with all the materials and media needed to guide each guest through a fun, high-quality art project. The take-home party favor is literally a work of art -- way better than throwaway plastic toys! LOCA provides this unusual, memorable service at their cost. Get in touch with Sean at 290-5317 or at sean@welivethedream.com.

Learn more about LOCA at www.locaarts.org.

Nirvana Ahead: 50 Percent off all food for 5 days!

This Saturday, March 15 the grand opening of Laguna's new Nirvana Grille, its second location, will benefit Friendship Shelter. Get a sneak peek a day before the "official" opening on the 16th!

Owners Lindsay Smith-Rosales, named one of the “Great Chefs of Orange County," and her husband, Luis Rosales, formerly of the Ritz Carlton and the Montage will present her signature hors d’oeuvres and a distinctive Nirvana cocktail created exclusively for the restaurant by sponsor Ketel One Vodka.

The city’s Chamber of Commerce will kick the event off with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. Be part of the festivities -- call the shelter at 494-6928 for info.

And get this: the restaurant will offer 50 percent off all food and no corkage for the first five days (Sunday, March 16 to Thursday, March 20). Reservations are required.

From Jit Fong of the OC REGISTER: "I visited Nirvana Grille’s Mission Viejo restaurant in October 2006, shortly after it opened, and I was completely sold on its light, yet solidly flavored dishes. The strip mall location seemed too low-key for such a great kitchen, but that was part of the restaurant’s charm, too."
The new restaurant is located at 303 Broadway, Laguna Beach. 949-497-0027. Regular hours beginning on March 24 will be Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday 5-10 p.m., and Friday-Saturday 5 p.m.-11 p.m. Closed Mondays.
The existing restaurant is at 24031 Marguerite Parkway, #C, Mission Viejo. 949-380-0027.

Stuff

Resource extraction as it’s currently practiced is brutal business, but it’s only part of the people-using, planet-trashing picture. Take a look at this breezy, 20-minute little chalk talk on consumption, broken into chapters that make it extra easy to use. It’s hosted by Annie Leonard, a young and irreverent expert on sustainability who spent 10 years tracking the flow of stuff from the source to the factory to the dump and beyond. The Story of Stuff shows the connections between lifestyles and their impacts in an era of “changing climates and declining happiness.”

And the story ends on an upbeat note. As Leonard explains, “The good thing about such an all-invasive problem is there are so many points of intervention!”

http://www.storyofstuff.com

- From Peace x Peace newsletter 3/6/08