| On Movies: Austin fete braces for the Philadelphians
Yo, it's a Phillywood moment. In a couple of weeks, indie filmmakers from Philadelphia will be out in force - and out and about in Austin, Texas - at the 15th annual South by Southwest Film Festival. Running March 7 through 15 in front of the storied SXSW Music Festival, this year's screen program boasts hundreds of features and shorts, and more than a few prominent entries from the buzzing Philly scene. Anyone who has ambled around South Street, down the streets of Queen Village and the back alleys of Bella Vista, knows the work of Isaiah Zagar: His mosaics - mirror shards, broken china, clay figurines, wine bottles, tiles and bicycle wheels - adorn the exteriors of scores of houses and businesses, and his studio, on the 1000 block of South, has become a tourist destination. Jeremiah Zagar, Isaiah's son, has made a deeply personal documentary, In a Dream, about his father, his father's art, and his father's marriage to Julia Zagar.
In our view: Common sense is the best reason to applaud helmet law
If you have wheels under you, better have a helmet over you. That’s the message from the Vancouver City Council, which on Monday passed a law requiring helmets on riders of bicycles, skateboards, roller skates, roller blades, scooters and unicycles on public streets, sidewalks and trails. The helmet law is the first in Clark County but is similar to regulations in Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma. We hope Clark County commissioners and other cities in the county follow suit. Both supporters and opponents of the helmet law are able to debate this topic ad infinitum, and anecdotal references often cloud their arguments, but our preference is to rely on basic common sense. It just stands to reason that riders of these wheeled implements should be required to wear helmets in public places for reasons of public safety.
A Personal Rememberance by John Allen, League Board Member
In 1972, I was halfway home with a flat tire and walked into a bike shop that was just closing. Sheldon stayed late to fix it. That's how I first met him. There were 46 bicycles in or around his house "with a few shared wheels", by his recent count, mostly in his basement. He didn't buy bicycles off the shelf -- as a challenge to his mechanical ingenuity, and a way to spend less money and spend more time doing what he liked to do, he cobbled up customized bicycles from parts he acquired mostly through special deals, barter or secondhand, to suit himself or someone in his family. He often came up with a something unique, clever and useful. You may read about his bicycles on his Web site. He had an eye for style, but also, one or two rusty clunkers hung out by the back door getting rustier, for the quick ride to the convenience store, and several old hulks of bikes lived under the front porch.
Baked from scratch: Local bakers sprout plan to grow wheat
It won't be your run-of-the-mill bread they're spinning their wheels for. The bicycle-driven thresher and grain mill being demonstrated at Saturday's first-of-its-kind Winter Fare at Greenfield's Second Congregational Church points to a Montague baker's plan to grow his own wheat for 'Daniel Shays Bread.' Jonathan Stevens and Cheryl Maffei of Hungry Ghost Bakery became interested in what some are calling their 'little red hen' idea of giving people wheat seeds to grow locally after a New Mexico baker at a conference eight or nine years ago introduced them to bread made from locally grown grain. Instead of baking with organic flour grown in North Dakota that gets trucked to North Carolina for milling, Stevens said, it makes much more sense to look at growing wheat and other grains nearby and milling it locally -- especially since Massachusetts is believed to have been the site of North America's first oat harvest -- on the Elizabeth Islands -- in 1602.
For Bellingham’s Mark Wheatley, the bicycle is way of life
Sitting behind a computer all day is Mark Wheatleys job. But his passion is outside out anywhere he can get to on two wheels. Im not the kind of guy who really likes to sit still, says Wheatley, 53, an instructor and systems engineer who bikes often from his home in Bellingham for overnight trips to his job in Bellevue at computer-training company SQLSoft. I like to do something bigger, he says, getting out and seeing a big horizon. In that spirit, Wheatley takes his bicycle everywhere: he rides it to and from work, on tours and even on vacation. He spent a week before and after a Microsoft conference in November 2006 in Barcelona to tour Europe on his bike. Its sustainable transportation, and I never feel like a road trip (in a car) is at all satisfying to me, he says of his work-and-play biking habits.
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