Month: September 2011

I see I’m a little late to the discussion, but I just bought a bag of Domino’s Sugar and noticed that the bag carries a claim about carbon neutrality.

Looks like, when this product launched a couple of years ago, there was plenty of ranting and raving about it from all quarters, including Joe Romm’s climate blog and, of all people, Glenn Beck. (Don’t think I’ve ever mentioned him here before.) The complaints ranged from the fact that carbon offsets are a dubious business to the highly irrelevant, but amusing, point that the sugar molecule itself contains carbon.

My objection is closer to what these folks are saying: Growing sugar is a nasty business, environmentally, regardless of some good steps Domino’s may be taking. Start with the fact that massive swaths of the Everglades have been drained to create the land needed to grow this crop, throw in heavy pesticide use, and then sprinkle a topping of rampant habitat loss. It’s bad news.

And it’s a reminder that I shouldn’t have been buying Domino’s sugar in the first place. At least I should spring for the organic stuff, but better yet, I should look for better ways to sweeten my food.

For starters, honey is local and versatile. And the family farmers who sell it to me aren’t insulting me by greenwashing their product. (Check out the saccharine language here, starting with this nonsensical sentence: "Sugar is a naturally sweet product from our earth, so it’s natural for us to want to be good stewards of our environment.") Someone get me a toothbrush!

This morning, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce released its comprehensive 2011 job report. According to the Chamber, the Charlottesville region began to steady itself in 2010 after a net loss of more than 4,000 jobs in the previous two years.

The region lost 23 government-related jobs in 2010, but added 34 in private enterprises for a net gain of only 11 jobs. Robert Hodous, chair of the Chamber’s Board of Directors, said the report “confirms that the jobs decline which started in late 2007…ended in 2010.”

Louisa and Albemarle counties posted 26 percent and 25 percent job growth, respectively, since 2000. However, the City of Charlottesville lost 3,248 jobs during the same period—an 8.6 percent decline, according to the report.

Locally, the private sector shows the same disparity. Private sector jobs in the Greater Charlottesville area—the city and Albemarle plus Greene, Louisa, Nelson and Orange counties—grew a cumulative 6 percent during the last decade, outpacing the statewide .08 percent growth. However, the City lost 2,386 private sector jobs during the same time.

The 2011 Chamber Jobs Report can be found here. To read C-VILLE’s jobs feature, "The Work of the Future," click here.
 

My column in next week’s paper is about the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcase, which is not this weekend but next. Part of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the Folklife Program highlights some of the Commonwealth’s dustier corners, all in an effort to distill what, exactly, it means to be a Virginian today.

For example, one of the traditions highlighted at next week’s showcase will be a master and apprentice maker of Mongolian masks. Mongolian masks at a celebration of Virginia? Turns out, says Virginia’s state folklorist Jon Lohman, the Mongolian population is large enough in Arlington to make it the third most-spoken language in schools there.

But what interested me most about the showcase is a local group called the Rivanna River Sacred Harp. The local group’s two founders will be studying with experienced Sacred Harp leaders from Berryville, in Clarke County, where there is apparently a rich tradition of Shape Note singing.

The tradition began in New England, but is enjoying something of a revival nationally, after some Shape Note tunes were included on the soundtrack to Cold Mountain, and the 2006 documentary Awake, My Soul.

Among the interesting things the guy who runs the local group, John Alexander, told me, was that it is a "very democratic" tradition. The music itself bears this out: The chorus sings four syllables—fa, so, la and mi—that are plotted on sheet music with distinct shapes—triangles, ovals, squares and diamonds—intended to make sight-reading easy. As songs begin, singers warm up with a verse using the sounds associated with the shapes; by the second verse, singers start with the lyrics.

I won’t bore you with the history of Shape Note just now—look at Tuesday’s column for that—but I did want to share what Alexander says is one of the most famous Shape Note tunes, "Idumea."