juice

James Brett is an Englishman who, in 1999 while on a business trip to Peshawar in the north west province of Pakistan, had his first glass of pomegranate juice, and fell in love with it. He founded the first pomegranate juice drink in the UK, Pomegreat. (link NSFW...damn those Brits.)

FACT: Afghanistan has the best pomegranates in the world especially Kandahar.

Cut to 2007. His goal is to persuade farmers in Afghanistan - which produces 93 per cent of the world’s opiates - to stop growing poppies and grow pomegranates instead. By cultivating pomegranate fields, he insists their profits will more than double. He set up a charity called Pom354. He started with land owned/shared by 16 families in Kandahar.



According to UN and Afghan government figures, a typical poppy farmer makes approximately $2,000 per acre. James insists that pomegranate farmers will more than double that at around $5,000 per acre - a big incentive with a huge payoff - helping to rid the world of a drug that approximately 11 million people worldwide are addicted to.

Cut to 2008. More and more farmers wanted to make the switch to Pom354. A tribal meeting covering the entire Nangarhar Province was called, and 200 Tribal elders invited. The tribal elders agreed to finish poppy cultivation and switch to growing pomegranates throughout the entire Nangarhar Province by next year..

Poppy cultivation in the province of Nangarhar will cease from 2009, making it poppy-free for the first time in 100 years.

In the meantime, James’s company will help subsidise the farmers for the three years it takes for the region’s first pomegranate trees to mature.

The elders told Brett that their decision was based not only on a desire to maintain a level of stability, but because he was the first person who had ever come to them as just an ordinary man rather than a member of a foreign government or a military advisor, someone who simply wanted to see positive change.



The tribal elders and Brett then conducted the official opening ceremony in that first farmer's field, now cleared of poppies, and planted the first pomegranate tree sapling. A national meeting is now being planned to expand the pomegranate industry throughout Afghanistan, with the broad support of the Afghani tribal elders as well as the government.



This is the change I want to be.

Smart, bold change that benefits more than one person/company/country.

Economically grounded so that it is easier for the people who live there to make a choice that improves their quality of life, while working towards a global solution.

I'm sure there will be bumps in this road. I'm sure the opium dealers will fight this change. I hope our governments back this program and help these farmers move towards an independence from poppies.

It was just an idea...and then it was an action.

Now, I'm not sure that Pomegreat is available in the US...although, I'm a'lookin'.



With the economy still sucking the life out of folks' wallets, my family has decided (aside from my nephew) that we will not be exchanging presents for the holidays. But, I think that maybe, I might just have one gift that I'll give them all to share.

Adopting a pomogrante tree might just be the ticket.

file under: wtf




I love kids. I do, man. I love them. But, I see stuff like this, and even talking to my 12 yr old nephew - I wonder...what kind of generation of unfeeling automatrons we are raising? Yeah...we. Because no matter if you sired them/have a hand in rearing the rugrats of today or no, they're a'comin. And we're all responsible in part for them.

All the things that make me raise my eyebrow, shake my head in disbelief and then curl up into a ball include:

1) The fact that this kid wants to do bad things, I get. Breaking rules is always a temptation, even as an adult...but the idea that's it's fun to be a "hood rat"? Isn't the hip thing these days being a nerd? Nerds fucking rule. I thought we all agreed on that for 2008...?

2) That his friend (possibly the 7 yr old that joined in on the joyride), but at the very least an underaged kid, smokes cigarrettes - Man. I tried smoking in junior high. DUDE. 14 yrs old. THAT's when you take up the tabackie! Unfortunately for me, between the burnouts at the train tracks yelling at me that I wasn't inhaling, my lockermate putting up "Smoking Makes You Beautiful" posters in our locker to show her disapproval and with the constant fear that my father would find out and come at me with a Sam Jackson style whooping, my time as a smoker lasted all of about a week.

3) His logical conclusion to the thought, "Mom's pissing me off!" is, "I should...drive the car!" Whatever happened to slamming doors, going to your room, throwing yourself on your bed and then thinking of horrible ways that you might be killed and/or murdered, thusly putting your mother through the worst agony for yelling at/punishing you? Screaming silently in your mind, "They'll be sorry when I'm dead!" Then you roll over, wipe the tears from your cheeks, turn on the AM clock radio and lip sych to Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger." Isn't THAT the way to truly payback your mom?

4) He hit a total of 4 cars and two mailboxes - if that kid isn't playing some version of GTA, I'm a fucking goat.

5) That the ADULTS shooting this "news story" thought it would be a sound journalistic choice to "recreate" the joyride in quicktime. I'm sorry...I guess the war's over, the economy's great, the election has been resolved, and there's a lot of time to fill in the newscast now.

6) I can't tolerate child abuse, but I'm in the camp that there is a very wide chasm between abuse and swatting your kid on the ass when he's acting a fool. I'm all for grandma whipping his behind - stealing/smashing up the family car, putting himself and other folks in danger, causing thousands of dollars in damages...AND HAVING ZERO REMORSE ABOUT IT. Yeah, this kid needs some fucking disipline. He needs to get scared straight, hit the morgue, and put that little kid to work to help pay for all the damage he did. For the next 18 years. Whatever it takes to snap the "hood rat" fixation out of his 7 yr old body. The fact that he feels the appropriate punishment for all of thise is a weekend with no Playstation...I want to put this kid over my knee and explain why this is gonna hurt me more than it will hurt him.


Although, I have to say, the best part of this kid's complete unwillingness to absorb any gravity of the situation, is when the cop tries to make the kid understand that he just screwed over his grandma for thousands of dollars, the kid's response is, "Can my mom help out?"

I can't help but laugh...while I rock back and forth in my fetal position.