Taming the Thermostat

by Bridget Kelly

Ruth West has lived in the same house on the Lower West Side for close to 20 years now. Over the years, she and her husband made continuous improvements to the energy efficiency of the house, including installing triple-pane windows. “The interesting thing,” she says wryly, “is that at no time has our heating bill ever gone down. The price of gas is rising much more rapidly than we can keep up with. It’s hard to feel like you make any progress.”

The Food Co-op and the Hate Group

by Michael I. Niman

It seems wholesome enough, looking at the loaves of fresh locally baked organic whole grain bread lined up at the Lexington Food Co-op – each one bearing the homey label of Hamburg’s Common Ground Bakery. An actual visit to the bakery reinforces this bucolic image. There you’ll find a small shop with smiling friendly bakers and the lofting aroma of fresh bread. What’s not readily apparent is that shoppers on four continents are simultaneously walking into Common Ground Bakeries and experiencing the same illusion of a small independent community bake shop. In actuality, however, what they’re walking into is the local franchise of a growing multinational organization, The Twelve Tribes, dedicated to spreading a reactionary racist, anti-Semitic, sexist homophobic ideology.

Paradise Lost

by Peter Koch

The valleys and foothills of Northern Pakistan’s Hindu Kush form a ruggedly beautiful landscape. Carved out of the world’s tallest mountains by roaring, ice-cold rivers, the steep-sided valleys have served as a home and refuge to a variety of people for thousands of years. The lower valleys could almost be Switzerland, the way the evergreens line alpine wildflower meadows. On the morning of October 8, however, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake rocked the entire region for 30 long seconds, forever altering the landscape and transforming it into an unforgiving hell for millions of Pakistanis.

by Rob Brezsny

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the estimation of many fashionistas, Libran rock singer Gwen Stefani is a style queen. The New Yorker recently put her on the cover of its fashion supplement, and she’s at the top of many best-dressed lists. She doesn’t fully enjoy the fruits of her success, though. “I still think of myself as a fat little dorky kid from Orange County desperately wanting to be cool,” she told OK magazine. If Stefani called me up for a consultation right now, I’d tell her what I’ll say to you: This is a perfect astrological moment to use your willpower, your imagination, and your sense of humor to shed your old self-images—especially those that are acutely at odds with the reality of the person you have become.

Jon Elston

by Tom Waters

Why you should know who he is: Jon’s got a list of awards and credits longer than his collection of loud ties: Artie Awards for Best New Play (2005) for Private Viewing, Best New Play Award (2004) for Interrogation Room, Best New Play Award (2003) and Source Theatre National Literary Prize (2003) for Project and he also won Best Senior Screenplay as well as Best Junior Screenplay for Charlie Bowles and the short film Meant To Be, respectively. In 1999, he wrote and directed the film Lemkin’s Last $ale, which premiered at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center. On October 21, lightning will (in all likelihood) strike a fifth time with Jon’s newest play, Peddler’s Bones, a Halloween tale about “ghosts and murders.”