The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry – and What We Must Do to Stop It – Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda, has given us one of the best books ever written about the oil industry. In the tradition of Ida Tarbell, The Tyranny of Oil exposes the insidious inner workings of the global oil cartel. Juhasz begins with an overview of Big Oil’s origins and how they have evolved into what they are today. The author looks at how Big Oil buys politicians, causes major health problems and devastates eco-systems around the world. The Tyranny of Oil is an important contribution for anyone interested in a world that respects people and the planet.

Crude: The Real Price of Oil – Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

Sunday, June 13th at 6 PM there will be a potluck and discussion about the US Social Forum and a workshop on permaculture and alternative lifestyles via the Permibus! This will be held at the 4th Street Garden Oasis, located at Pettibone Ave. & 4th st. NW, Grand Rapids 49504.

Monday, June 14th at at 7 PM the Caravan Riders will be putting on a variety show featuring clowns, a puppet show, the permibus, and music by Thistle! This will be at the Blandford Nature Center Farm; 3143 Milo St. NW, Grand Rapids 49534.

We hope to see you there!

Our new hours are as follows:

-Monday: 12pm – 6pm
-Wednesday: 8am – 1pm
-Thursday: 1pm – 7pm
-Saturday: 12pm – 4pm

If you have materials checked out from our place on Wealthy please return them to our new space

Also, the U.S. Social Forum will be held in Detroit June 22-26. The USSF is a massive, national gathering of people working around common goals of social justice. People there will be putting on and attending workshops oriented around skill sharing, educational, and informational topics.  We at the Bloom plan on attending. If you’d like to come and were looking for a ride or more information feel free to contact us at bloomcollective@gmail.com . You can check them out at www.ussf2010.org/.

We hope to see you soon at Steepletown!

With love and rage,

The Bloom Collective

Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography has emerged as one of the most visible and profitable sectors of the cultural industries, assuming an unprecedented role in the mainstream of our popular culture at the same time that its content has become more extreme and harsh, more overtly sexist and racist.

This eye-opening and disturbing film tackles the complexity behind this seeming paradox, placing the voices of critics, producers, and performers alongside the observations of men and women as they candidly discuss the role pornography has played in shaping their sexual imaginations and relationships.

Honest and non-judgmental, The Price of Pleasure moves beyond the liberal versus conservative debates so common in the culture to paint a myth-busting and nuanced portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, liberty and responsibility have become intertwined in the most intimate area of our lives.

Thursday, March 25

7pm

Bloom Collective 1134 Wealthy

$3 Suggested Donation - Discussion to follow the film.

Empowered Women’s Health
Sat. March 20 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
The Bloom Collective
1134 Wealthy SE

Info: bloomcollective@gmail.com
www.thebloomcollective.org

Celebrate Spring Equinox in solidarity with sisters! The Bloom Collective hosts a free workshop,Empowered Women’s Health, Sat. March 20, starting at 10 a.m. at 1134 Wealthy SE. The workshop will share information on alternative practices and philosophies around the issues of women’s healthcare as well as provide a safe space for women to share health wisdom with each other.

Such wisdom was the basis for good health in times past, before healthcare became a commodity on the stock market and a product on the pharmacy shelf. The workshop is intentionally free because access to health information, or healthcare for that matter, should not be based on one’s ability to pay.

Sessions include:

• Simple Herbal Remedies for Mothers and Others, a presentation by Chrysta Coronado, local herbalist and women’s health advocate.
• DIY facial and body care recipe exchange.
• De-sanitizing Our Menstrual Health with Rachael Hamilton, a presentation/discussion which will include a DIY pad making activity.
• Women & AIDS: Alive and Well in Kent County, Kelly Knudtson, CleanWorks.
• Expressive Language and Self-esteem with Dance, Painting
  and Writing, a participatory session with Zulema Moret, director of Latin American Studies, GVSU.

We’ll have coffee and muffins in the morning and a potluck lunch—please bring a dish to pass. The Bloom Collective will provide vegan dishes. We do have seating available but if you have your own comfortable folding chair, bring it along.

DVDs

American Radical: the Trials of Norman Finkelstein

Black Is, Black Ain’t

Che – Part 1 & 2

Books

* A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice, by Malalia Joya

* Venezuela Speaks: Voices from the Grassroots, by Carlos Martinez, Michael Fox & JoJo Farrell

* Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda, by Gretchen Peters

* Che Guevara: A Life, by Nick Caistor

* The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again, by Bob McChesney and John Nichols

* The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy, by Raj Patel

* Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer, by Phyllis Bennis

* The Food Wars, by Walden Bello

* The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry – and What We Must Do to Stop It, by Antonia Juhasz

Our next film is Beauty Mark: Body Image and the Race for Perfection. In this courageous, deeply personal new film, Diane Israel examines American culture’s toxic emphasis on thinness, beauty, and physical perfection. Israel, a Boulder-based psychotherapist and former champion triathlete, talks candidly about her own struggle with eating disorders and obsessive exercising, fearlessly confronting her own painful past as she tries to come to terms with American culture’s unhealthy fixation on self-destructive ideals of beauty and competitiveness.

Date: Friday, March 12

Time: 7pm

Location: 1134 Wealthy SE

A discussion will follow the film. $3 suggested donation.

Our first one will be Argentina: Hope in Hard Times which takes a look at that country’s economic collapse in 2001 and the peoples response. We’ll be showing it on Thursday, January 28 at 7pm.

Also, feel free to download/share the pdf flyer for all five films we have coming up!