The Phoenixville Public Library is in a tight spot. Literally, the Carnegie-era library currently crams a collection of 75,000 books, CDs, and other reference materials, as well as nearly 600 programs per year into an 11,000 square foot space. The shelves are cramped and the reading areas and meeting spaces are at a premium. Few would disagree that the library needs to expand — the question facing the Library Board and the Phoenixville community is how.

For the past two years, Tom Carnavale of Carnevale Eustis Architects, Inc. has been working on a “concept” — a word as overused in this debate as the Wall Street/Main Street dichotomy in the 2008 Presidential Election. This rough design of what the library expansion could look like pushes the square footage of the library out to a total of approximately 34,000. At its current collection size, the library should be about 22,000 square feet according to the American Library Association, meaning this expansion would exceed necessity to accommodate future growth. The concept calls for a dedicated young adult library, a vastly larger children’s library, up to 35 computer workstations, and plentiful public meeting space.

In order to provide the additional 23,000 square feet, Carnivale’s design proposes extending the library out onto Second Avenue, with the southern wall butting right up against Reeves Park. Where the corner of Second Avenue and Main Street currently stands, Carnivale and the Library Board propose a cul-de-sac, bordered by the new library extension to the west, the residences on Second Avenue to the north, and Reeves Park to the south. This is a move that some local residents passionately disagree with.At a school board workshop Thursday night, locals took turns speaking for and against this plan for expansion.

“You’ll see a big wall. We’re not going to have sunsets anymore,” said Mary Ann Wilk of 181 Second Ave, which is right next door to the library. Wilk expressed concern that the perimeter of Reeves Park would be disrupted, about increased parking on Second Avenue, and about increased traffic along Park Alley. “People have garages back there. Kids ride their bikes there.” Wilk suggests the library instead start a satellite building. “I love the library. I worked there, my sisters and my mother worked there. They’ve just outgrown their space. It needs a different configuration. Put a satellite on the North Side,” she suggested.

Michael Kammerdiener of 129 Washington Ave. agrees. “Stop this ill-conceived, short-sighted project before it becomes an embarrassment for the Borough of Phoenixville,” he wrote in a letter to the editor in the June 18th edition of The Phoenix. In an interview, Kammerdiener said that the Carnegie library and Reeves Park are community treasures that will be ruined by this expansion. “The windows are going to be covered over and the wall will not be seen from the outside. There are options that the Library Board has to build on other properties. They have no parking plan and no rationalization for blocking a major thoroughfare across the borough. What other options have they considered?”

John Kelley, executive director of the library, argues that building a satellite is not feasible due to staffing and operations costs. In the current plan, the expanded building would operate with the same number of staff. As for why the library can’t just find a new building, Adam Deveney, Secretary of the Library Foundation Board, explained that this would require the library to lease or purchase its own property and then build. The current building is owned by the Phoenixville Area School District and 0.6 percent of the 2009-2010 PASD budget ($494,200) goes to the public library. “The director of the central library is not going to fund a new building. We can’t afford the debt,” Deveney said.

“Vacating the Carnegie library voids our contract. We’d lose our funding and the Phoenixville branch would close,” said Library Board President Susan Meadows.

Building up is not an option, explained Kelley and Carnavale, because the century-old structures cannot support additional levels. Building backwards, along Second Avenue, would require purchasing the 100 block and taking away homes, which the library wants to avoid. Therefore, their best option for expansion is to build across Second Avenue on the portion between Main and B streets.

“There’s this perception that we’re railroading this project, but we’re willing to work with the community,” said Meadows. Indeed, Deveney and Carnavale have held somewhere between 44 and 60 meetings over the past two years, including up to 12 informal coffee sessions to discuss the expansion project with Phoenixville residents.

According to Deveney, the foundation board mailed invitations to neighbors and advertised meetings on Phantom TV, as well as on the library website. “We never had more than 20 people,” he said.

Karen Johns of 171 Second Ave. was one of the residents who attended those meetings. “We went to those meetings at the library and begged them to consider alternatives,” Johns said. “There were no concessions.”

Concerns about the expansion plans apart from park aesthetics include traffic, expenses to the taxpayer, and increased parking issues.

Deveney and Carnivale paid an independent contractor, John M. Schick of Rettew, to complete a Traffic Impact Analysis, projecting what traffic levels would look like on streets surrounding the library, assuming the expansion takes out a block of Second Avenue and that the Gay Street Bridge is still closed. There are certainly traffic increases, but all fall “within acceptable limits,” according to the study, meaning there should be no traffic jams, and an acceptable level of noise. Additionally, Carnavale Eustis received letters from both the police and fire departments stating that the library extension would not interrupt emergency services to the neighborhood.

Some of the more crucial numbers from the traffic study include the corner of Main Street and First Avenue, which may jump from 48 cars during morning rush hour to 132 cars and from 89 in the afternoon to 160; the corner of First Avenue and Starr Street, which will jump from 37 in the morning and 30 in the afternoon to 124 in the morning and 106 in the afternoon; Third Avenue and Main Street, which goes from 79/92 to 102/154; and Third Avenue and Starr Street, which could go from 34/64 to 68/162.

Regarding taxes, at the present time, the expansion should incur no cost to the taxpayer, according to Deveney. Funding for this project, which Deveney projects will cost $6.5 million to build and another $2 million to furnish, will be covered by an assortment of private foundations and donors as well as local, regional, and national grants. One example is Senator Andy Dinniman, who has secured an RCAP grant of $450,000 for the project. The only cost to the taxpayer that Deveney anticipates is the utilities. “We expect increased utility costs, but we hope to reduce those by refurbishing with newer, more efficient equipment,” Deveney said.

Then there’s parking. Deveney and Carnavale believe that sufficient parking will be found along First and Third Avenues and other adjoining streets. “Second Avenue is already a parking lot for the library,” Johns said. “By closing Second Avenue, it’ll drive the parking problem further into the town. You can’t expect a small neighborhood to absorb these problems.”

On Thursday, June 25 at 7 p.m. in the Phoenixville Area High School auditorium, the school board plans to vote on whether or not to purchase the portion of Second Avenue between Main and B streets for the price of $1.00 from the Borough of Phoenixville, conditional upon future approvals set by the planning commission, zoning board and other committees. Voting for the purchase means that the library board and Carnavale’s firm can hone in on fund raising and working with the public to make revisions to the current concept. A vote of ‘no,’ according to Carnavale, will set any library expansion back by two years.

The Potomac Bead Company, located at 167 Bridge Street, is the jewelry crafter’s dream shop. The walls of the two-story loft are lined with a rainbow of colorful strands of beads—gemstones, freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals, and festive lampwork glass. Bins around the store are piled high with beads and the metal pieces, called findings, that go between them in all shapes, sizes, colors and materials, priced sometimes by the bead or often by weight.

“We’re the largest bead store in the area,” said owner Connie Woods, who opened the shop in April. Woods first discovered beading three years ago when worked as an editor at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. A coworker came into work with a dazzling beaded bracelet and Woods had to know where she got it. When the coworker explained that she made it herself, Woods was incredulous. “She took me bead shopping and I never looked back,” Woods said.

Beading quickly became one of her favorite hobbies because it was flexible, versatile, and granted her instant gratification. “I don’t like waiting for things. I can make a bracelet in a few hours,” she said. “Also, you can make it as expensive or inexpensive as you like, depending on the materials you choose.”

Woods turned her hobby into a career last November, when she quit Wyeth to open this branch of the Potomac Bead Company franchise with her husband Antonio in downtown Phoenixville. It is a small chain, with eight locations across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida, and one in Glasgow, Scotland.

“Me and my husband talked about owning our own business for 10 years. We’re independent, but there are corporate rules to follow.” Owning her own franchise has helped Woods kick off a full calendar of programs at her shop, with classes nearly every day for both beginners (Basic Beading 101) and experienced beaders (Wire Wrapping and Fusing Dichroic Glass Pendants). The shop also offers private jewelry-making events, such as birthday parties and BYOB bridal showers. This isn’t just a store for the ladies, however.

Although most men who enter her store spend more time looking at the architecture than the beads inside, according to Woods, “We have a fly-fisherman who comes in and selects shiny beads to make lures. Now my husband is thinking about starting a men’s class.”

In addition to taking classes and buying materials, beaders can pay a $2 table fee to come in and work on their own projects with the added resources and expertise of Woods and her trained beading staff. The shop also does basic repairs, like restringing and replacing clasps, and sells their own hand-made necklaces, bracelets, and earrings crafted from supplies found right in the store.

“I really enjoy watching people come in who think they can’t do it, then take a beading class and look totally happy,” Woods said. In addition to instructing customers, Woods was responsible for training her six-person staff, including her friend and store manager Arlene Diaz.

“The most I do here is have fun,” said Diaz, a former secretary at Wyeth, who was paying the bills with temporary work for two years until Connie invited her to work in the store. “Connie had me come in and make a necklace and a bracelet and I was hooked. I fell in love with his, even if I didn’t come to work for her!” Most of all, Diaz loves having a job that allows her to be creative. “Being a secretary, I never got a chance to use that artistic side of myself. I used to paint a little but I never really had time. Beading is a quick art that you can wear when you’re done.”

While spreading that creative spark to their customers, Woods and Diaz have noticed that in the three short months they have been open, they’ve developed a beading community in Phoenixville including a dedicated group of regulars. “I have met some really cool people,” Woods said. “I had no idea there was such an artist community here.”

Woods is planning some big events in the future. In the late Fall, she’d like to start a beader’s club where people can socialize and work on projects together. She also hopes to collaborate with Kathy Bestwick at the Phoenix Village Art Center, and possibly also with Marilyn Gural at The Knitting Basket on Nutt Road. Next summer, she’d even like to start a beading camp where parents can drop their kids off for a few hours and pick them up with a finished project.

“Children love the novelty beads,” Woods said, pointing out a collection of glass beads shaped like cats, turtles, fish, and produce.

The Potomac Bead Company. 167 Bridge St., Suite 200. http://www.potomacbeads.com.

See the original article here.

Need motivation to stick with a strength-training regimen? Try starting small, suggests a new Elon University study. Researchers found that exercisers who worked minor muscle groups first (like the biceps and calves) and then moved up to bigger muscle groups (like the back and quadriceps) built up less muscle-tiring lactic acid than those who did the reverse order, allowing them to complete more reps in each set for speedier firming. Plus, they reported that their workouts felt easier, and they finished in better moods.

June 2009 Copyright 2009, Prevention

See the original article here.

Edan Schwartz wants you to think about what you’re putting into your mouth. The University of Minnesota senior is an activist in the Hekhsher Tzedek movement, which proposes the creation of a new seal for kosher food that will indicate that the food has been produced in accordance with Jewish ethics. He is also the first member of the movement to focus explicitly on mobilizing college students, using his campus’s Hillel as a springboard for Hekhsher Tzedek programming.

Between vegetarians, animal rights activists, and organic food obsessives, ethical eating is a hot topic on campuses across the country. “It’s one of the biggest things I hear about on campus as far as social justice goes,” says Schwartz. And yet, despite an overall surge in food activism, there is a noticeable absence of student activism relating to kosher ethics, even at a time when trust in the ethical standards of the kosher meat industry is at an all-time low.

Many are familiar with the story of Agriprocessors, the large kosher meatpacking concern that was the target of the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in US history last May. In the months following the raid, Agriprocessors executives were charged with child labor violations and eventually arrested for abetting identity theft. The company was accused of mistreating workers and animals at the facility.

Although no halakhic violations have been reported with regard to the glatt kosher status of Agriprocessors meat, many Jews, especially within the Conservative movement, have begun to argue that ethical treatment of the workers should be required in order for meat to be certified as kosher.

That’s where Hekhsher Tzedek comes in. A joint effort by the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Hekhsher Tzedek is the brainchild of Rabbi Morris Allen, a congregational rabbi at Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights, Minn.

“I’ve been promoting the observance of kashrut ever since I became a pulpit rabbi,” Allen said. He founded Hekhsher Tzedek in 2006 after reading an early expose in The Forward about worker mistreatment at Agriprocessors. “It was at that point that I said it wasn’t enough to keep ritually kosher. We have an obligation to address the ethical aspects.”

Enter Edan Schwartz, once a bar mitzvah student of Allen’s, who got involved in the Hekhsher Tzedek effort in March 2008 at a meeting of Jewish Community Action, a Minnesota-based Jewish social justice group that has been collaborating with Hekhsher Tzedek. Schwartz started helping out with JCA’s coordinating efforts, and this fall he began volunteering as an intern.

Schwartz hopes that food processors will support Hekhsher Tzedek as the movement expands. In the meantime, he is focused on getting people thinking and talking about where their kosher food comes from. In the spring 2008 semester, Rabbi Allen came to speak at the University of Minnesota, and since then the school’s Hillel has committed itself to buying ethically sound kosher meat. Earlier this semester, Schwartz delivered a D’var Torah on Hekhsher Tzedek, and he plans to do more throughout the year.

During a Hillel meeting early this fall, Schwartz says that he received a mixed response to programming ideas that involved Hekhsher Tzedek. “There were some Orthodox students who were worried about badmouthing Agriprocessors …People want to say, ‘let’s just not talk about it’ or ‘let’s just ignore it.’”

The concerns of those students echo the sentiments from some in the Orthodox community, who believe that regulation of employee treatment should be left to the government. As Orthodox Union Kosher Division C.E.O. Rabbi Menachem Genack put it in a New York Times letter to the editor, “We believe that the various social and ethical issues such as workers’ rights and safety, protection of the environment and animal welfare are significant and ultimately rooted in biblical and Jewish tradition. We also believe, however, that the definition, assessment and enforcement of these standards are best placed in the hands of the governmental agencies that have the expertise, resources and regulatory authority to deal with them appropriately.”

Schwartz takes issue with this perspective. “I think Jews need to stand up and say something publicly,” Schwartz said. “Part of [what is important] for me is saying that Judaism isn’t like this. Agriprocessors is such a public issue. It has tarnished the face of Judaism and we need to confront that.” He hopes that Hekhsher Tzedek will not only help Jews determine which corporations meet their ethical standards, but will also signal to the country that American Jews care about equal rights and social justice.

“I want people to become actively involved as much as they can,” Schwartz said. “I’ve heard from a lot of students who don’t have a lot of time, but if you’ve thought about it and you support it, just putting your name out there as a Hekhsher Tzedek supporter is powerful.”

Campaign advice and more from the nation’s first out crossdressing mayor.

Stu Rasmussen, a lifelong resident of Silverton, Oregon, was recently reelected for his third term as mayor. This time, however, he campaigned in heels. We spoke with Stu about his career, his relationship with 30-year partner Victoria Sage, and being an out transgendered elected official.

The Girl Inside: Do you feel you’ve received more national attention since your reelection? What do you think fuels their curiosity?
Stu Rasmussen: Well, I think it’s — I hate to say it — but it’s sort of a freak show. It’s like, “Well what in the world are these people in this little Oregon town thinking, electing a transgender person to be their mayor?” And the closer you get to Silverton, if you’re inside the city limits, it isn’t even an issue. People have passed over that long ago. It’s like, honestly, when maybe the first black person moved to town there would be a stir because that was different, and the first Hispanic family moving to town — I mean, this is way before my time — it was different in the community but they got over it. And it’s just life here and business as usual. But it’s unusual to people on the outside and I think people in my situation are considering to be [sigh]… what’s the kindest way to say freakish? I mean, there isn’t a kind way. It’s just so far off the map for people to connect that somebody who’s transgendered might have some real qualities to them. And the community of Silverton has accepted that and either overlooks or fully accepts that well, yes, Stu’s transgendered, but he’s still Stu — or she’s still Stu — we go through the pronoun problem occasionally, too.

TGI: Yeah, I was going to ask which pronouns you prefer?
SR: [Laughs.] Anything but “it.” … You know, what do you call yourself? It really doesn’t matter to me what people call me. It’s what makes them comfortable, because that’s good for me. So people who have known me all my life will use “he,” and people who want to be politically correct or aren’t entirely sure will use “she,” or “ma’am” or whatever — and that’s perfectly fine too. There’s no correction to be done here. They are both right.

TGI: As far as you know, do you stand alone in the pool of transgendered politicians or is there an underground wellspring nobody knows about?
SR: Oh, I would guess that there is probably 3 to 5 percent of the male population that cross-dresses regularly and I would then call them transgendered. And out of that 3 to 5 percent, I’m sure some of them have had the public service bug bite them already. I am probably the only out transgender mayor in the United States, but I will bet you dollars to donuts that there are other city counselors, other mayors, other library board officials, other fire board officials, or whatever who are transgender and are still closeted. They may stay that way or they may be emboldened by my move to step above and poke their head up and say, “Oh, me too.” It is absolutely not possible that I’m the only one. I’m just the poor soul out in front.

TGI: How did you get involved in politics?
Stu Rasmussen: Hmm, I don’t think anybody voluntarily gets involved in politics. I was, years ago, concerned about a city issue and frustrated with the way it was dealt with. I said “Well, I can handle it better than that,” so I ran for office and figured out how the system worked … It was my intention to make at least local government a little more user-friendly.

TGI: Do you think you’ve managed to make it more user-friendly?
SR: I believe that I did at the time. … Things like having the business office opened later in the day than 4:30 or 5 o’clock. This is a commuter community. A lot of people who live here actually work out of town. So by the time they get home at 5:30 or 6, the city offices had all closed, and there was no way for people to get a hold of city government. So we instituted later weekday hours to handle business for people who couldn’t make it during the normal workday. We’ve streamlined some of the things we did in the way of building permits. We’ve adjusted some fees that seemed unreasonable, because we should be charging for fees and services based on what they actually cost to provide, not just an arbitrary number that we picked out of the air and said, “Well, we’ll charge $50 for that because that sounds like a good number.” That sort of thing.

TGI: Have you perceived a difference in attitude from the first… how many times have you been mayor?
SR: This is the third time I’ve been elected mayor. I was elected to the city council in 1984, elected mayor in 1988, reelected mayor in ’90, ran again for the council in ’92, spent four years on that term, and then I went off and sewed some wild oats. I tried to run for the state legislature at that time and was unsuccessful in those runs, so when I came back to city government, I got on the local library board for four years — ’96 to 2000 — and then from 2000 to 2004 I was operating businesses and various things and then ran again for city council in 2004 and got elected. So this is the end of the 2004 term and starting a mayor’s term which is two years.

TGI: And this is your first time as mayor presenting as a woman?
SR: That’s true, although in 2004, I was already what I am now and the community elected me with no problem.

TGI: So you haven’t noticed a perceived difference in the way that they regard you?
SR: No because I think I had the street cred starting out to be a reliable representative regardless of what the package looked like. That was really the issue. I mean if I ran on a platform of, “Elect me because I’m transgender,” it would’ve been a non-starter.

TGI: How did you make the decision to come out?
SR: Well, it was sort of an evolutionary thing. I mean I’ve been a cross-dresser since my teens. Deeply closeted, I found the Internet in the early ‘90s and found out I wasn’t the only person in the world who dressed in women’s clothes — it was actually an active support community out there — and I found a group in Portland, hooked up with them for a while and got comfortable with myself and came out a little more and a little more and a little more. And the earth didn’t open up, I didn’t fall into a sulfurous pit, and it was just a natural evolutionary process.

TGI: What was life like before coming out in comparison to the way things work now?
SR: Oh, I don’t think my life has changed significantly. I have to admit that I’m much happier not having to hide this aspect of myself from the rest of the world. If you spend all of your time worrying about what’s going to happen internally to you if somebody finds out this deep dark secret of yours, and it eats and eats and eats at you, you’re not happy. And I made the choice to come out and slowly crawled out that way, you know, testing the waters as I went along. It seemed the community was ready for it long before I was. I needed to do a check-up from the neck-up and get my head in the right place.

TGI: So is it everything you thought it would be?
SR: Well honestly, I’m having more fun than a drunkin’ cowboy with a brand new pick-up. Since I didn’t know what I thought it would be, it was unknown territory to me. It has turned out just fine. Had it gone in some other direction, I may have changed course at the time. There were continuous course adjustments as the process evolved and certainly things could be different. They could be better or they could be worse, but I am very pleased with the way my life has turned out. I’m very pleased with the active support and acceptance I’ve gotten from my community. I mean this is absolutely the best place on earth.

TGI: In light of the Prop 8 campaign that passed in California two weeks ago, how receptive to you are the religious communities in Silverton?
SR: I think that’s a tough nut to crack and I have not had any overt hostility — any organized overt hostility. There are one or two people that aren’t on the bus just yet and are harboring their own difficulties and fantasies with their lives. They will eventually get over it. … I’m not going away.

TGI: After 40 years, I think not.
SR: Well it’s beyond 40 years, I’m 60 years old. … I got a late start into politics. I think I was… what was I, 40? I guess I was late 30’s when I first got elected to something … 37 or 38.

TGI: How would you describe the political climate in the state, especially towards LGBT people?
SR: Well Oregon has always been a very progressive state. I think the last legislative session passed a non-discrimination ordinance that even included gender presentation and gender identity. So on the state level, we are doing just fine. Honestly, I haven’t kept track of gay marriage in the state because it’s not an issue for me, being that I identify as heterosexual. But I think there was a legislative action that allowed for gay marriage or gay unions and a group of religious people got together and tried to put a referendum on the ballot and didn’t get enough signatures to put it on. So for the time being, the state is in good shape. Constant vigilance is always required.

TGI: And how would you compare Silverton against the state?
SR: Silverton is a rural community and by definition that makes it somewhat more conservative than the rest of the state. The big cities like Portland and Eugene are relatively liberal compared to the rest of the state and because of the population numbers there, they sort of drive many of the social issues throughout the state. Silverton is more conservative and they have been able to accept me because I’m me; I’m not an unknown strange quantity from somewhere else; I am a local person that they have had a chance to grow up with and watch the evolutionary process and it’s happened slowly enough that they are comfortable with it. And that shows.

TGI: Do you have any advice for trans or cross-dressing people who are working towards a leadership position?
SR: Do it. What’s holdin’ them back? I will confess that twenty years ago I would not have said something that I perceived to be that foolish at that time — it was “Oh god, I couldn’t, no no no, what will people think? It will be terrible, it will be awful!” — and 99 percent of that is just between your own ears. The rest of the world has way too much on their plate, in their own lives, to worry about what you’re doing. If you are qualified and confident for any job, most employers — most electorates — don’t really care about your personal life as long as it first of all doesn’t impact them, and that you can get the job done.

TGI: Is it better to get the transgender issue out on the table or do you just deal with it when it comes up?
SR: If you are comfortable keeping it hidden and think that you can do that, then that’s up to you. But it’s the kind of thing that if you’re in the middle of a campaign, working towards an election, and you’ve given this impression that you are the straight-arrow heterosexual all-American guy, and your opponent finds out, “Oh, well he has a Victoria’s Secret catalog and he orders from it regularly,” that information coming out will kill a campaign. So, what I have done is, I call it blackmail-proofing myself. I did it years ago, so that if somebody in the town starts a whispering campaign, “Did you know that Stu wears women’s clothes?” and the whole town knows it, it’s like “Yeah. So?” It becomes a non-issue. We hear of other campaign where people are unfaithful to their wives or they’re closet homosexuals and the information comes out — your campaign is over. Regardless of how good a candidate you are, that information will just poison the entire rest of the campaign. You can’t get over it. So it’s easier to have it out in the first place.

TGI: Many of our readers are in committed relationships with women who get involved in their cross-dressing to varied extents, so we’re wondering how your partner, Victoria, has been involved in your coming out process.
SR: Well, honestly, when we first got together which was 1973, my cross-dressing was in the closet so I don’t think she knew about it. But, slowly as trust developed between the two of us and the urges to cross-dress became larger and larger, you know we moved in together and all of that, so I came out to her and she said, “OK.” You know that was the first indication that maybe this isn’t as bad as it could be OR that Victoria is the most special person in the world to me, one or the other. But it was very supportive. We are inveterate shoppers. We do thrift stores and Goodwills and we just both love clothing. Actually, me more than her — she lets me be the pretty one. But we collect costumes, we collect period pieces, and she has been my biggest supporter and I am her biggest fan.

TGI: So did you make a lot of decisions together about, for instance cross-dressing full-time or getting breast implants?
SR: Well you know we’ve been together and we are a unit, so a lot of this stuff got discussed before it happened but I’m not sure how the relationship would have faired had I not been able to be myself. So that fact that she was supportive has kept us together. And I don’t think she’s being supportive to keep us together, she just is and was. I know from talking to other transgender people that not everyone is in quite that good a relationship. Some marriages will fall apart over that issue or that may be an excuse for the relationship to fall apart if it wasn’t that good a relationship to start with. You really don’t know, it’s hard to analyze that as a postmortem. If the relationship is bad and there’s cross-dressing, that’s just going to put a log on the fire. If the relationship is good and there’s cross-dressing, it may not be a problem.

TGI: Have you guys had to navigate any tough spots regarding these issues?
SR: Oh we had a counselor for a while… actually the cross-dressing was never much of an issue in counseling, it was interpersonal communication and the usual relationship kinds of things. It was surprising that because she was so accepting of it that that didn’t come up at all. It was a side issue that said, “Oh well he wears dresses and he looks better than me.” It was like, nobody cared. … The lucky thing for us is we don’t wear the same size clothing, so she has hers and I have mine. We don’t fight over stuff.

TGI: Thanks so much Stu for talking with us today!

Take 389 illegal immigrants and stick them in a meat processing plant. Add 57 workers under the age of 16. Stir in the fact that the company, Agriprocessors Inc., is the nation’s leading source of kosher meat, and not only do you get the biggest federal immigration raid in history, but thousands of pissed off American Jews.

A new debate was sparked this summer when feds raided Agriprocessors’ Postville, Iowa plant in May. They uncovered worker complaints of forced unpaid overtime, frequent accidents and abuse and extortion by floor supervisors, according to an article in The Forward printed in August. These reports became a source of embarrassment and outrage for Jews across denominations. Agriprocessors isn’t KFC or a third-world sweatshop; The company produces meat that is certified kosher, meaning clean — meat that is ritually slaughtered in accordance with God’s laws as specified in the Torah. Jews have been eating kosher for thousands of years, but in a country where the line between church and state gets fuzzy, so too has the jurisdiction on who should be looking out for worker safety. Now Jews from all over the country, including those who don’t keep kosher, are speaking out for change, not just at Agriprocessors, but across the industry.

One group trying to clear a path through this nebulous area is a grassroots campaign called Hekhsher Tzedek. The group seeks to add a second, voluntary seal next to the kosher hekhsher on meat specifying that the company meets standards for ethical treatment in five categories: Health, safety and training for employees; fair wages and benefits for employees; an environmentally-friendly business model; corporate transparency (no whispering behind closed doors), and product development. Only companies that have already been certified kosher will be eligible for this ethical seal.

“Ethics are woven into the fabric of Torah,” said Rabbi Morris Allen in a November 2007 interview with Zeek magazine . Allen, a congregational rabbi at Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights, Minn., is the main proponent of Hekhsher Tzedek, which is literally a “justice seal” in Hebrew. On certified kosher food around the nation, consumers can find labels on the packaging called hekhshers; One of the most trusted is an O with a U inside it for the Orthodox Union. These marks let shoppers know that a rabbi has overseen the production of the food, whether it be processed meat, a cup of yogurt or a package of Oreos. For meat, a rabbi will check to make sure that a kosher butcher has killed the animal in the correct place to ensure as quick and painless a death as possible; that all the blood has been completely drained; and that the meat has not come in contact with dairy products, among other specifications.
Hekhsher Tzedek took root 2 years ago when Allen first heard reports of worker abuse at Agriprocessors.

“I’ve been promoting the observance of kashrut ever since I became a pulpit rabbi,” Allen said. When The Forward printed the exposé that May, Allen felt guilty for promoting this ethically questionable processor. “I felt personally blindsided,” he recalled.

After visiting the plant with a group of other rabbis from the Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and The Rabbinic Assembly, Allen said they approached the Rubashkin family, the Lubavitch owners of Agriprocessors, directly. Allen said they asked the Rubashkins to take three “confidence-building steps” that would satisfy Jewish law, the United States government and take the heat off of Agriprocessors. Those steps were: 1) Invite the Iowa Department of Labor’s Consultation and Education division to do a health safety training scan of the plant; 2) Conduct all training sessions in the workers’ vernacular, Spanish, and provide Spanish-language training materials; 3) Have upper-level managers sign an agreement against intimidation so workers may feel free to “talk in an organized fashion” about their experiences at work.

The Rubashkin family chose to ignore the advice of Allen and the other participating rabbis and Jewish leaders in 2006, and this past May’s raid proved the consequences.

Worker mistreatment didn’t end with the raid, however. Immigrant workers were jailed, then deported, leaving their children and wives in Postville sporting chunky black ankle bracelets that monitor their every move. The federal government tore these families apart, in most cases leaving those who remain with little or no means of supporting themselves.

Jewish Community Action, a group fighting for economic and social justice in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region of Minnesota has done more than a decade of immigrant rights work. When more than a thousand people gathered in Postville for a march on immigrant rights, Jewish Community Action sent three busloads with 200 people bearing signs that said things like, “Jewish Values, Jewish Equality” and “We Want Justice!” The JCA has raised more than $20,000 for immigrant families affected by the raids and has taken the lead on Hekhsher Tzedek initiatives in the Twin Cities.

Although Hekhsher Tzedek is a national campaign, JCA has become the guinea pig by piloting community organizing efforts in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. According to community organizer Melissa Rudnik, JCA is taking a four-pronged approach to tackling kosher activism.

“What we’re doing with each constituency group is that there’s four areas that we’re asking teams to focus on. One is programming and education and that can look a million different ways in different communities, whether they want to do Shabbat evenings, house parties or kosher wine tastings for those of age,” Rudnik said, extolling the virtues of creative organizing. The second area of their campaign is maintaining ongoing buzz and visibility, whether plastering a college campus with thought-provoking posters or posting prolifically on the Hekhsher Tzedek blog . The third step is ongoing one-to-one recruitment.

“That is one of the challenges of organizing that I personally love. Say you’re at a Shabbat dinner at Hillel and you meet someone and you chat with them. Set up a time to meet with them over coffee and chat in depth about the project and how they might want to get involved.” She explained that finding out a volunteer’s interests and what motivates them is the best way to plug them into the efforts. The fourth avenue is a little more concrete: developing steps toward implementation means creating a list of tasks, like approaching kosher food businesses.

“There’s also the work of building relationships with people directly affected by the issues,” Rudnik added, citing worker organizations and immigrant rights groups.

“The depth of Hekhsher Tzedek really gets into the worker treatment. It’s subjective and verifiable. Someone can tell you it’s organic, but you still want to see the label. It’s a way to put a national standard on it.”

“I would love to get a hekhsher from them,” said Devora Kimelman-Block, the mastermind behind Kosher Organic-raised Local Foods, an independent kosher beef and lamb provider that prides itself in its commitment to sustainable kosher meat production that treats its animals and its workers humanely while stabilizing rural economies and doing less harm to the environment.

“An industrial system is not sustainable. I’m working outside the industrial system because I believe that. However, we [in this nation] are using the industrial system and that should be as ethical as possible,” said Kimelman-Block, whose enterprise began with a budding relationship between her family and the local farmer near her home in Maryland.

“I had a vegetarian kosher kitchen for years because I didn’t want to support the industrial meat farming and production system,” she said. “Then I started up an organic vegetable CSA and a couple of years after that I thought, ‘Hey why don’t I try this with meat?’”

In a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, people buy a share of their local farmer’s produce for the season. Over time, Kimmel-Block developed a relationship with her farmer and she sometimes brings her kids out to visit the farm. “I think it’s important to know where your food comes from,” she said.

One day the farmer approached her about arranging kosher slaughter for his animals. He had become friendly with the congregants at the synagogue where he delivered vegetables and was aware that they couldn’t partake of his beef and poultry. Kimelman-Block looked into what it would take to get the farm kosher certified, but plenty of roadblocks stood in their path.

“It was way, way more complicated than either of us had thought it would be,” she said. “In my head, I thought maybe my farmer could get kosher certified and he thought so too. But as it turns out, you need to study for a year, you need to be Orthodox, you need to be a man — there’s all these qualifications.” So they hired a freelance shochet , or kosher butcher, who they pay to come in and slaughter according to the laws in the Torah. Although the situation is not ideal because of its expense, Kimelman-Block has found a business model that works, and her kitchen is no longer vegetarian.

“I know the farms, I know the farmers and I’ve looked these animals in the eye. It definitely grows your relationship to look at them in that way — like what this animal is going to be giving up to become food for me. I want to treat that animal well and I want it to be special. I don’t want it to be just a McDonald’s hamburger, you know?”

Although KOL Foods is thriving within its limited distribution to synagogues and university Hillels from New Jersey to North Carolina, Jews outside those regions still must rely on the shrink-wrapped Empire chickens and Hebrew National hotdogs at their supermarkets. Jewish consumers know the animals were killed humanely because of the kosher seal on the label, but the scandal at Agriprocessors proves that a seal doesn’t tell us about how the animals lived, or about how the people packaging their koshered carcasses are treated.

That’s where Hekhsher Tzedek comes in. “We need Hekhsher Tzedek because we don’t know what companies we can point to,” Rudnik explained. “We can’t tell you where you can buy ethical kosher meat now because we don’t know.” She explained that the evaluation process behind Hekhsher Tzedek will help consumers make ethical decisions about the kosher meat they buy. Until then, Rudnik suggests that people start educating themselves and their communities about where their food comes from. “Is it local? Is it being brought in? Start investigating that. What do you mean when you say you are looking for ethical food? Start chewing on those issues together. Learning more about your local market and your local industry is an important step.”

“I’m just very glad they are doing it. It’s nice to have a strong voice, a rabbinic voice, coming out of the Jewish community, saying this is wrong,” Kimelman-Block said. “There are a lot of rabbinic voices that aren’t saying that. The OU’s line has been that the ethical concerns are concerns of the national government and that they don’t regulate that. For most of the Jewish community, that really isn’t good enough.”

A wealth of non-fiction for crossdressers and their loved ones has slowly crept into bookstores since the early ‘90s, providing stories, secrets and academic dissections on what it means to be a crossdressing man in our society. Listed below are six of the most helpful, thought-provoking, and entertaining titles out there. Best of all, you can grab all these books online or in stores like Barnes & Noble… and a few, like Vested Interests: Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety by Marjorie Garber, might even be waiting for check-out at your local library. (I know I was pleasantly surprised to see it there!) Better get cracking — you have some catching up to do!

My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser
“My Husband Betty” by Helen Boyd is an honest, tender discussion with readers about her marriage to Betty, her crossdressing husband. She tries to capture a realistic snapshot of the struggles they face together both among each other and as a united front out in the transphobic (and sometimes oddly accepting) world. In a way this is a book for wives and girlfriends, but crossdressers can glean much from anecdotes of their early dates and day-to-day living (like confronting a gay man at a Halloween party who refused to believe her husband in drag was in an exclusive, monogamous and heterosexual relationship with her). Beyond the stories and advice, “My Husband Betty” also offers an appendix of national advocacy groups like GenderPAC, publications such as Transgender Tapestry, and vacations and conferences for the gender-fearless family. Seriously, read it.

Miss Vera’s Cross Dress for Success: A Resource Guide for Boys Who Want to Be Girls (Paperback)
Sex journalist Veronica Vera has reached across the far corners of the Internet to bring you a published how-to guide with tips on everything from make-up and hair-removal to a candid, practically pornographic, comprehensive sex education course. It’s a complete guide not only for the men among us but the ultra-femme bio queens who share the same passion for fashion and gender as performance. She gets points for presentation, writing each chapter as if she were teaching a class at a brick-and-mortar finishing school, but promotes that “ideal” crossdresser that we don’t all strive to be throughout. It’s hard to break a stereotype when you play to one so faithfully, but maybe everyone should try the mold just once before they break it.

My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely (Paperback)
This. Is. My. Favorite. Book. Ever. If I ever taught a class on sex and gender, I would hand every student a copy of Kate Bornstein’s “My Gender Workbook.” This is almost the anti-Vera, presenting quizzes, diagrams, and other interactive strategies to help you find your own unique gender in an endless pool of gender possibilities. Her analysis of the gender binary and her focus on learning to operate outside of gender is absolutely freeing. If this workbook doesn’t ease the tumult of questions, concerns and curiosities that keep you up at night, nothing will. It’s like a good therapist with unlimited sessions for an iota of the price (I got my copy for $25 at Oscar Wilde in NYC. Amazon.com lists used copies for as low as $13).

The Lazy Crossdresser
All accounts of this book praise author Charles Anders’ approach to crossdressing as a way for men to simply enjoy wearing women’s clothing. It’s not about looking like a woman per se, but about looking damn good in women’s apparel. Anders illustrates the power that clothing has both to liberate and oppress us. Like the other books on this list, The Lazy Crossdresser offers practical advice and points to a variety of gender-bending resources. He makes crossdressing comfortable, easy and light-hearted all in a realistic world where the hobby/lifestyle has its dangers. Best-suited to the casual crossdresser.

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us
Yes, two Kate Bornstein books on one list! “Gender Outlaw” precedes the workbook by four years and is a more direct and personal field guide to the transgender world, haled by the Washington Blade as “The first book of gender theory written by a transgendered person.” I’m not sure that’s true — I think Leslie Feinberg was probably writing before 1994 — but this is a digestible 250-page romp through the things you probably deal with every day and the things you’ve never even thought about. And, because it’s Kate Bornstein, it’s hilarious! Sleep with this one under your pillow and you’ll ooze gender theory — impressive at parties, trust me.

My Husband Wears My Clothes: Crossdressing from the Perspective of a Wife
This is an excellent book to have on hand for “the conversation” with your wife if you are telling her for the first time about your cross dressing. It is an easy and relatively quick read, and covers the CD and TG issue well. It is an excellent book for discussion, though some criticize it for not being as “in depth” as some of the other books on the topic.

The following books are currently out of print or hard to find, but come highly recommended by John and Scott at The Lavender Inkwell Bookshoppe, my favorite gay and lesbian bookstore in Syracuse, New York. Try asking for these titles at your local gay or used bookstore:

Alice in Genderland: A Crossdresser Comes of Age by Richard J. Novic

How To Be A Woman Though Male

The man in the red velvet dress : inside the world of cross… by J. J. Allen

Blending Genders: Social Aspects of Cross-Dressing and Sex-Changing by Richard Ekins

By Marielle Messing

KIMBERTON — Camphill Village Kimberton Hills celebrated the grand reopening of their Camphill Café on Sunday with a live concert by Ensemble Casa de Venezuela.

The original Camphill Café closed about a year ago after the Chester County Board of Health declared that the café’s non-industrial kitchen was too small for the cramped, 30-person capacity cafeteria, according to café manager Erin Graver. Rather than just revamping the kitchen, Camphill directors moved the café to a completely different building.

“We said, ‘Let’s take this opportunity to pursue our commitment to sustainable building,’” said Bernadette Kovaleski, the director of Development and Public Relations at Camphill Village. They converted a former garage into the new café using recycled materials and eco-friendly technology. For example, recycled rubber tires line the bathroom floors, while geothermal pipes beneath the ground heat and cool the building. Solatubes skylights offer maximum sunlight indoors and Silestone quartz countertops provide antimicrobial protection and improve air quality in the kitchen. Camphill’s off-beat architect Joan Allen worked with Carnevale Eustis Architects, Inc., on the design and construction of these and other sustainable elements.

In addition to the building’s new green structure, the majority of the food served inside is organic and local, said Graver, including vegetables from the on-site Sankanac CSA, a garden of seasonal vegetables, herbs, flowers and livestock that serves up to 200 shares per season (February to November) according to their Web site, Camphillkimberton.org. The café also uses and sells their famous raw cow’s milk, which shoppers can always find at Kimberton Whole Foods, the exclusive sponsors of the café’s reopening reception.

Although the new café opened for business in January, the concert and reception came just weeks after the awning, landscaping and other finishing touches were completed in September. The $450,000 renovations were made possible by a score of donors, including a generous $105,000 grant by the Chester County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“We’re big arts and culture advocates,” said Kovaleski. She explained that Camphill Village, which has been running since 1972, often holds concerts and events for the public. Additionally, many of Camphill Village’s residents, adults with developmental disabilities such as Down syndrome and autism, sell their basketry and pottery in Camphill’s craft shop. These vocations, as well as working in the café, bakery and on Camphill Village’s dairy farm, provide valuable life experiences for these community members.

Camphill Village is one of a hundred Camphill campuses around the world. When the organization started in 1940, it was founded on “accepting of the whole person, mind, body and spirit,” said Kovaleski. Villagers, she explained, “are encouraged to make their own decisions and live independently.”

Graver noted that working in the cafée teaches villagers how to handle money and interact with customers. It’s also a freeing experience for villager customers. “When they go outside [of Camphill Village], someone has to drive them out. They can walk here and use their own money. It’s a nice taste of independence for them.”

To thank the many donors and those who worked hard to reconstruct the café, Camphill Village held a performance by Casa de Venezuela, a non-profit group dedicated to bringing Venezuelan culture and traditions to the Delaware Valley. The concert was held at 2 p.m. in Rose Hall, where the eight-piece ensemble gave a musical tour of the Venezuelan countryside including waltzes, meringue and calypso music. About a hundred people including villagers, volunteers and outside locals came to the concert, and by the end most were dancing along to the rhythmic performances.

“You could see people were really enjoying the music. They got up and danced and it was from the heart,” said Emilio Buitrago, the president of Casa de Venezuela. The Ensemble played in Rose Hall once before in 2007 and looks forward to future performances.

A mezzuzah (מזוזה‎ in Hebrew) is a sign of welcoming found in many Jewish homes. The mezzuzah itself is a small, rolled up piece of parchment with the words to the Jewish prayer “Shemah” printed upon it. It is encased in a decorative mezzuzah frame, usually made from wood, metal, glass, or ceramic. In the Torah, God commands the Jews to “inscribe [the words of the Shema] on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:9). Many Jews will therefore affix mezzuzot to their front doors, or for more observant Jews, to the doorframes of every room in the home. It is customary touch the mezzuzah with your fingertips and kiss them when entering the house or room to show reverence to God. Learn how to properly affix a mezzuzah to your doorway. Read more »

Or, “My totally unexpected wedding dress success story.”

This is my first post in the Wedding blog, so let me introduce myself quickly: I’m a 23-year old queer casual femme who has been planning her wedding for almost two years… and somehow, I’m still in the beginning stages. I’m engaged to an awesome man, a guy I knew I would marry shortly after we met at age 15 (even if I didn’t know much else about myself back then). We’ve both grown a lot since then, separately, but somehow amazingly in the same direction. After a 4-year relationship hiatus, we got back together in college and knew we were meant to be. We got engaged on January 1, 2007 and we’ve finally attempted to set a date for Sept. 13, 2009. We haven’t picked a place yet because of a long and painful saga trying to find a kosher caterer in Eastern Pennsylvania — but that’s a blog post for another time. I’m an Indiebride wanna-be but taming the indie-bridal beast is an ever more daunting task. So hopefully I’ll use my trials and tribulations to help you find a comfy spot between the industry rock and the indie hard place.

So, let me tell you how I was totally shocked by David’s Bridal.

For starters, I am a groovy chick. And I mean that in the curvacious, full-figured sense. My bust-waist-hip measurements are something like 38″-34″-46″. The fashion world sometimes considers making clothes for women like me, when it’s marketable, but usually they are baggy, figure-hiding affairs. I’m a fat-bottomed girl, if you will (which is great, since I just bought a bicycle) and I don’t own dresses. Mostly because the ones that fit on top bust seams on the bottom and the ones that flatter my hips drape off my shoulders.

So anyway, I didn’t expect wedding-dress browsing to go well at all. First of all, I hate David’s Bridal. I have three sisters, two of which are older than me, and both of them got their gowns and all our bridesmaid dresses at David’s Bridal. The dresses are these over-priced, mass-produced, completely impractical and not particularly attractive articles. And the idea of shopping for this expensive Halloween costume when I could just buy a few bolts of fabric at Joann’s and sew my own felt like a waste of time.

As it turns out, my bridal dress experience was nothing like trying to find the only “clover” A-line dress in the store that hides paunchy stomachs and accentuates the bust. Buying a bridal gown, even at this A1 example of the wedding industrial complex felt good.

First off, the woman who worked with me was a dream. She took me on like a dedicated case worker, determined to find the moment when I’d suddenly love my body. My oldest and younger sister came along and together the three women picked out four gorgeous dresses. I know the woman’s job is to make me feel good about myself so I’ll buy her $1,100 dresses. I know that. But she was fun; she didn’t take the process too seriously — just enough to do her job. She helped me squeeze into an enviable DD corset and told me that when it comes to wedding dresses, size doesn’t matter; it’s just about getting the right fit.

I don’t know what she did, but she made me feel like a goddess, or a queen. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter how out of control your body shape is. Somewhere, there is a wedding dress that makes it look sexy. And it might just be at that industry establishment around the corner. The dress pictured below is the first one I tried on. It felt like wearing a Renaissance fair corset with a quilt sewn to the waste. The train is a tad excessive, but actually the most manageable of all the gowns I tried on. I just was shocked, looking into the mirror and seeing my body transformed into something akin to all the Barbie dolls and Disney princesses of my childhood, only smart, sexy and confident.

I can’t explain what came over me gazing into the mirror wearing this thing. I was filled with inspiration — “Maybe we should have a masquerade-themed wedding.” Suddenly I was royalty. All because of one designer dress. The dress is on sale, I might add, in the $600-range.

This is temptation at it’s finest. As an amateur/intermediate seamstress, I had visions and visions of the many ways I could make my own dress, get married in the woods, having a camping honeymoon and wear jewelry I dug up on Etsy. Wearing this gown makes me want to throw it away and spend $30k on a grand wedding with sculpture gardens and signature cocktails.

While the fight to balance industry conventions with indie ingenuity rages on, for now I can simply thank David’s Bridal for helping me see the things that have always been beautiful about myself. An unexpected self-esteem boost courtesy of the people who’ve always done me wrong.