The only solution traffic congestion in Santa Monica is...

...More traffic!

Let's face it. Only if the traffic tangle gets immeasurably worse than it is already will we get light rail. And only when we Santa Monicans cease going to our own downtown altogether, because it's just too damn hard, will we be offered other ameliorations like minicabs, pedaltaxis, and Tide-sized buses to all parts of town.

If you favor the development of a rational public transportation system, you've got to look on gridlock as your ally and friend.

Planning and development and even growth are not the enemy, by the way. The enemies of the good life in Santa Monica are bad and wasteful planning, mediocre development, and growth that is unaccompanied by the planned and managed creation of a workable infrastructure.

Growth is going to come. The only question is how we will manage it for the better.

If you are a progressive, you probably favor development: development means jobs, it means housing, it means improved infrastructure, it means public transportation.

And if you are concerned about the environment, then you must have realized that the only solution to urban sprawl, to the loss of farmland, recreational opportunities, plant and animal diversity, water resources, and so on, resides in encouraging the creation of much denser urban environments. And you have to ask yourself where in Southern California the concentration of development should occur if not in the zone that puts the least drain on the infrastructure and the environment by needing neither air-conditioning in the summer nor much in the way of heating in the winter. There is also a huge benefit to having a large population within a short hop to the beach.

In Santa Monica, a successful future can be expressed in a simple two-part formula: Develop the commercial areas! Protect the neighborhoods!

This means allowing new construction of mixed-use housing and commercial developments along the commercial streets, while doing everything possible to protect the character and density of the purely residential neighborhoods.

In the meantime, while we wait for the traffic grind to a halt, there are many alternatives to automobiles for getting around our little (3 mile x 3 mile) town. Those who are are neither lame nor lazy can easily walk from our neighborhoods to downtown or to other parts of the city. Although City Hall has pursued traffic policies over the past decade that have made it increasingly dangerous to ride, the climate and the basically flat topography make Santa Monica almost ideal for commuting by bicycle (and, while it is true that riding safely here requires great alertness, it is equally true that as more of us do it, the safer it will become). Why is it left to a city like Long Beach to pioneer a downtown bicycle valet service while Santa Monica relies on bike lanes to nowhere and ridiculous "Share the Road" signs?

Finally, we are lucky in having a relatively efficient and inexpensive bus system. The Big Blue Bus is cheap, clean, and safe (at least for people on the bus), and with innovations like the Tide shuttle linking the major hotels to downtown and Ocean Park and the new express bus to LAX, Santa Monica's bus company has demonstrated a willingness to think outside the lane. And Metro's red express buses connect Santa Monicans to a growing county-wide transportation system.

See Travel: ExperienceLA.com

ACLU Report: Restrictions on Scientific Research and Publication

Science Under Siege: The Bush Administration's Assault on Academic Freedom and Scientific Inquiry (42 pages, pdf): <http://www.aclu.org/Files/OpenFile.cfm?id=18533>
Science Under Siege Executive Summary (pdf): <http://www.aclu.org/Files/OpenFile.cfm?id=18535>
"The American Civil Liberties Union released a report today examining government policies and practices that have hampered academic freedom and scientific inquiry since September 11, 2001" (press release): <http://www.aclu.org/>

The Ties That Bind China, Russia and Iran (Asia Times)

I never expected to one day miss Henry Kissinger. Though a misguided architect of empire, Kissinger at least knew how to protect his creation. While the current administration squanders lives and wealth in Iraq and fixates on sideshows like North Korea and Venezuela, consider the growing axis of power discussed in this article from The Asia Times of June 4, 2005 (posted at Japan Focus on June 6).
--------------------------------------

By Jephraim P. Gundzik

The military implementation of the George W Bush administration's unilateralist foreign policy is creating monumental changes in the world's geostrategic alliances. The most significant of these changes is the formation of a new triangle comprised of China, Iran and Russia.

Growing ties between Moscow and Beijing in the past 18 months is an important geopolitical event that has gone practically unnoticed. China's premier, Wen Jiabao, visited Russia in September 2004. In October 2004, President Vladimir Putin visited China. During the October meeting, both China and Russia declared that Sino-Russian relations had reached "unparalleled heights". In addition to settling long-standing border issues, Moscow and Beijing agreed to hold joint military exercises in 2005. This marks the first large-scale military exercises between Russia and China since 1958.

The rest of the story: <http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=303>

Congressman Conyers Hammers the Post

By Congressman John Conyers | Letter

Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor; Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman; Mr. Dana Milbank

The Washington Post, 1150 15th Street, NW Washington, DC 20071

Dear Sirs:

I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.

In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that "only one" member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline "Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight". Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.

The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats "pretended" a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing.

In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.

That said, to give such emphasis to 100 seconds of a 3 hour and five minute hearing that included the powerful and sad testimony (hardly mentioned by Milbank) of a woman who lost her son in the Iraq war and now feels lied to as a result of the Downing Street Minutes, is incredibly misleading. Many, many different pamphlets were being passed out at the overflow room, including pamphlets about getting out of the Iraq war and anti-Central American Free Trade Agreement, and it is puzzling why Milbank saw fit to only mention the one he did.

In a typically derisive and uninformed passage, Milbank makes much of other lawmakers calling me "Mr. Chairman" and says I liked it so much that I used "chairmanly phrases." Milbank may not know that I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee from 1988 to 1994. By protocol and tradition in the House, once you have been a Chairman you are always referred to as such. Thus, there was nothing unusual about my being referred to as Mr. Chairman.

To administer his coup-de-grace, Milbank literally makes up another cheap shot that I "was having so much fun that [I] ignored aides' entreaties to end the session." This did not occur. None of my aides offered entreaties to end the session and I have no idea where Milbank gets that information. The hearing certainly ran longer than expected, but that was because so many Members of Congress persevered under very difficult circumstances to attend, and I thought - given that - the least I could do was allow them to say their piece. That is called courtesy, not "fun."

By the way, the "Downing Street Memo" is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials - having just met with their American counterparts - describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank's article.

The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn't make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter - whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.
------------------------------------------------------
For background on the development if the Downing Street memos and the other sources of information about official lies in the buildup to the attack on Iraq, please visit Greg Palast's website at <http://www.gregpalast.com/index.cfm>.

Baggage, Indeed

One of the truly pleasurable SoCal travel experiences is flying in to and out of Long Beach Airport. With it's WPA-ish terminal -- actually, it predates the New Deal by a decade -- and lack of such refinements as miles-long passageways and cramped loading funnels, boarding and deplaning are swift and enjoyable.

On foggy nights, climbing up the back stairs to steerage on JetBlue's red-eye to New York or Florida, you feel like Louie and Rick on the tarmac in Casablanca.

So it's dismaying to learn from a report in the Times that "[b]usiness leaders, led by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and JetBlue, want a modernized airport terminal of up to 133,000 square feet that offers more amenities." <The Los Angeles Times>

This is about money, natch. The business leaders in question argue that the city has failed to take advantage of business opportunities, such as concessions -- there is a restaurant, a fast-food outlet, a gourmet coffee kiosk, and a gift shop, and is thus missing out on tax revenue. They also are trying to make an argument for the project out of the fact that fewer than 1% of the facility's 3 million annual passengers stayed overnight last year, though its hard to see why more flights would make anyone look with greater favor on the prospect of hanging around Long Beach.

According to the Times' Nancy Wride, foes of a proposed expansion of the "cozy" terminal worry it will lead to pressure to lift the city's limit on flights, currently maxed out at 41 (compared to the OC's 130 and LAX's 900), and lead to violations of legal noise limits. It's not hard to sympathize with people who hope their neighborhood won't turn into Inglewood.

Proponents of the project want to increase the capacity of the Art Deco facility by adding an annex of up to 133,000 square feet. According to Wride, the existing building, which provides about 58,000 square feet of passenger area including 23,750 square feet of temporary wooden space that resembles a ferry terminal, is a historic landmark, which means even its color can't be changed without the approval of several commissions. And architectural review boards and landmark commissions almost never say yes to anything.

Facing a city council that seems disinclined to support the full extent of the Chamber/JetBlue proposal, the developers are threatening a referendum, an end run around representative government that will not only cut elected officials out of the process but also eliminate the unpleasantness of an environmental review to determine how much the project will degrade the quality of life in Long Beach and vicinity by adding to the noise, traffic congestion, and dirty air.

Even though it is off the beaten track for most Los Angeles and Orange Country travelers, the airport has boosted JetBlue by providing cheap and easy parking, short lines, painless baggage handling, and quick boarding and deplaning. Will people from Beverly Hills and Irvine continue to make the trek to Long Beach to get the same endless corridors, parking sharking and other niceties already much closer to hand at LAX and John Wayne? Compare your recent two-a-half hour ordeal in Southwest's LAX abattoir with the comfort of being dropped at the door in Long Beach.

If you ask me, Long Beach would be better off leaving the airport more or less as is. Some revenue could be generated by improving the ground floor amenities -- the gift shop and fast food outlets -- and by inviting a world-class restauranteur to turn the beautifully situated, three-tiered eatery on the second level into a regional dining destination. With its excellent view of one of the busiest fields in the country for private aircraft and its almost unlimited parking, the Long Beach Airport restaurant would be hard to beat for a romantic evening out.

If you like the airport in Long Beach the way it is, you should let city officials and JetBlue know. Not only would keeping the airport intact benefit residents and travelers, but JetBlue may find that unintended consequences -- like increased competition: the city will be hard-pressed to keep other airlines out of an expanded airport -- and the loss of frequent fliers like me, who may not see low fares alone as sufficient to justify the long haul to what in New York would be one of the outer boroughs, for no other reason than to save a couple of bucks on a plane ticket -- aren't worth the trouble.

Brain Dead

They can have everything going for them, as they did in the debate over whether the federal courts should intervene in the Schiavo family tragedy, and still the Democrats can't find the nerve or the energy to counter right wing hypocrisy, inconsistency, malversation and blatant opportunism.

The party that aggressively seeks to limit judicial authority over such issues as the death penalty, abortion, gay marriage and public displays of religious bric-a-brac should be a sitting duck for its pharisaical effort to force judges to step between families and doctors in what are difficult, painful, emotionally-charged personal decisions. You'd think that the opposition would have an easy time unmasking the party of states' rights and judicial restraint when it tries to strong-arm the federal courts into contravening state courts in a particular case that has already been litigated to death.

But, just as it took moderate Republicans to drive a stake into the heart of the neocon plan to put the Social Security Administration out of business, it was conservatives like Harvard law professor and former Reagan solicitor general Charles Fried who were left to call the president and congressional Republicans to task for reneging on their professed commitment to states' rights. Has the Democrats' embarrassment over their own many compromises -- on the death penalty and militarism and corporate welfare and health care and trade policy and a hundred other issues -- shamed them finally into silence?

"In their intervention in the Terri Schiavo matter," Fried wrote in the New York Times, "Republicans in Congress and President Bush have, in a few brief legislative clauses, embraced the kind of free-floating judicial activism, disregard for orderly procedure and contempt for the integrity of state processes that they quite rightly have denounced and sought to discipline for decades." Fried concluded the congressional action was an "absurd departure from principles of federalism and respect for sound and orderly judicial administration."

It was depressing to watch the Democrats enter another battle in command of the moral and political high ground and proceed to lose the fight, especially a skirmish they should have been ready for. Already looking to the states to market-test solutions to such problems as health insurance, economic equity, corporate responsibility and environmental degradation, they wouldn't have to do much more than find-and-replace their way through old speeches on states rights to light upon sound arguments for not changing what until last Sunday was settled law.

Whether or not the Republicans' perpetual vegetable bill could or should have been voted down, the debate was a missed opportunity to drive home arguments about the need to change national priorities in the area of health care. Instead of accepting the brannigan as a disagreement over the fate of Terri Schiavo, the Democracts might have propelled the discussion toward more burning questions about health care policy. Politicians willing to expend unconscionable quantities of time, effort and emotional and political capital to prolong a single life should be required to devote at least a fraction of as much energy and zeal to considering what they are going to do about the desperate need for national health.

That, in the long run, would extend and save the lives of millions.

If the brain dead are entitled to have Congress go into special session on their behalf, how much less deserving are the living?

NWO: More on the PATRIOT Act

-> The Proposal to Reauthorize and Expand Parts of the USA PATRIOT Act: Why It's Unnecessary and, In Some Respects, Dangerous, By Anita Ramastry.

-> Patriot Act Extension Debated at Closed Congressional Meeting
(ALA).

-> American Civil Liberties Union Testimony at an Oversight Hearing on the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001: Section 505 (National Security Letters) and Section 804 (Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction) and the Material Witness Statute Before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the House Judiciary Committee, Submitted by Gregory T. Nojeim Acting Director, Washington Legislative Office and Timothy H. Edgar, National Security Policy Counsel.


-> "The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is writing today [May 23, 2005] to urge the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to give careful consideration to whether provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act should be renewed as written. We also urge you to oppose the broadening of the FBI's investigative powers in the absence of evidence that such expansion is necessary."


- > Little Progress in Bid to Extend Patriot Act (NYTimes).

U.S. Tour of Duty Presents SUNDAY SANCTUARY

LA Supports Military Resisters

Sunday, June 12 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
The Palmer Room
3387 Motor Avenue (1 block south of National Blvd.)
310.839.2500

Comedian GREG PROOPS
co-star of ABC's "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

Music by I SEE HAWKS IN L.A.

Plus Iraq war veteran SERGE LOUCHNIKOV

FREE ADMISSION
FREE LOT AND STREET PARKING

"Greg Proops went off on a brilliantly sustained, free-associated riff...A cheering audience gratefully lapped it all up." - San Francisco Chronicle

"I See Hawks In L.A. play the finest cosmic cowboy music since the Burrito Brothers." - LA Weekly
U.S. Tour of Duty (www.ustourofduty.org) is a non-profit project of SEE (www.saveourplanet.org).

Iraq veterans and military families demand the truth!

Please visit www.gregproops.com and www.iseehawks.com.

Needed: Universal Wi-Fi Access

Santa Monica needs to move quickly if it is not to be left hopelessly behind by the wireless revolution.

It's not as though providing a wi-fi network is a major capital expense requiring a big investment by the city. In fact, it may not require public funds at all.

What's needed, more than anything, is leadership.

In Turku, Finland, according to MasterNewMedia.Org, a city-wide network of wi-fi hotspots was installed in one month time with absolutely no centralized investment or public funding. Using the cooperative model, community members agreed to share surplus broadband connection capacity on a municipal-wide basis.

SparkNet and OpenSpark are two similar projects in Turku that use a specific combination of low-cost/free software/hardware tools to leverage community members' extra internet capacity.

SparkNet, a partnership between public sector organizations and private companies, including University of Turku, Åba Akademi University, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Turku Polytechnic, ICT Turku Ltd and MP-MasterPlanet Ltd., has created a network outside of any of the participating institutions' firewalls. Using a shared open source operating system that allows each partner to use its own internet gateway (e.g., wherever a student uses this network, the connection goes through the college's internet gateway), each institution has acquired a number of inexpensive access points. With the participation of private companies, municipalities, etc., every student in Turku (over 50,000) can use the SparkNet wi-fi network all over the city free of charge. SparkNet has now over 100,000 user accounts, more than 5,000 active users and over 500 access points. It is the most used wi-fi network in Finland.

Private companies or even individual home users can also easily and inexpensively create a voluntary co-op network. Using one version, OpenSpark, anyone can share his broadband connection with others wirelessly. Both OpenSpark and SparkNet can be installed and operated in any home or office with a broadband connection. Any ADSL or better type of connection will do. Participants can connect to the internet wherever there is an OpenSpark access point. In Turku, using OpenSpark, 600 access points have been acquired with more in the pipeline.

Either SparkNet and OpenSpark can be deployed anywhere. There is already one OpenSpark access point in New York City and more are expected to pop up in other locations. Many municipalities -- from Philadelphia to Culver City -- are installing citywide public networks. All that is needed is a broadband connection, free software, and an access-point hardware device costing $130 or so. In a city as small as Santa Monica, the expense of covering the commercial and retail areas -- Santa Monica, Wilshire, Pico and Ocean Park boulevards, downtown, the Pier, Main Street, Montana, Broadway, Colorado, SMCC and the airport -- would be a phenomenal value.

But, although the software is free and the hardware very inexpensive, it will take a commitment of someone's time to get this project organized. What company, institution or agency is willing to take the lead in bringing universal wi-fi access to Santa Monica by freeing up one of its employees for a month or so to put together the necessary resources? The neighborhood associations? The business districts? Santa Monica College? City Hall? The Chamber of Commerce? An internet company like Yahoo or Google? Someone needs to step forward now.

Let's do it.

Source: <http://www.masternewmedia.org/>

To learn more about OpenSpark: <http://open.sparknet.fi>

Political Action (but fun): Westside Bike Ride

Santa Monica Critical Mass is a monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists' right to the road. The Critical Mass concept started in San Franciscoin September 1992 and has spread to cities all over the world.

1st Friday of every month
Next ride: Friday, July 1, 2005

We have three starting points to choose from:

6:30 pm, Santa Monica Pier, Colorado Blvd. & Ocean Ave. (at top of pier ramp)

map | satellite | live webcam

6:00 pm, UCLA*, Westwood Blvd. & Le Conte

map | satellite

6:00 pm, Venice Beach*, 1401 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, CA

map | satellite | live webcam

* Early "satellite" groups that merge into main group group at Santa Monica Pier.

For more info: <http://www.CriticalMassRides.info>
<http://www.critical-mass.org/>

The next time you want a light beer…

…consider wheat beers, aka "white" beers:

During fermentation so-called white beers develop a pale head of foam, and, since they're often unfiltered, suspended sediment can give these concoctions a milky mien. And like many traditional beers, white beers pursue a secondary fermentation in the bottle that can also make them hazy with yeast.

While some of these beverages take their appelations from wheat – German Weizen; tarwe in Flemish; froment in French – others, like the one we're going to consider today, are named for their cloudy, pale-yellow-verging-on-white color: Weisse, wit, blanche. They might more accurately be called gelbes Biers, but who wants to drink something called yellow beer.

Anyway, to press on with today's lesson, beers made using wheat are usually fermented with ale yeasts, making them lighter than those employing lager cultures. Since white beers aren't usually very high octane, they make great hot weather refreshments, perfect for the deck of your yacht. Only a shade more mundanely, they also make a great companion for fruity desserts, like Library Alehouse's superb Mocha Torte with Raspberry Sauce. Back home in Belgium, they're typically served in chunky, bevelled tumblers that look like French pastis. Very classy.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, in the days before barley came to dominate brewing, wheat beers were produced all over the place. In Germany and Belgium, wheat beers never entirely went away, and they've made a big comeback with the growing market for "light" beer. The traditional use of fruits, spices and herbs as seasoning began to recede as hops gained the upper hand in the middle of last millennium. In Germany, only hops are now permitted, though a barkeep or patron has been known to add fruit, raspberry syrup or essence of woodruff, whatever that is,* to some styles of beer.

The best-known Belgian Witbier or Bière Blanche is the principal justification for the existence of Hoegaarden, a pretty but otherwise insignificant town in the wheat-growing Brabant farmlands east of Brussels and Leuven. In the 1960s, a local milkman named Pieter Celis, about whom more in a moment, revived a traditional brewing style of the region that ordinarily combined equal portions of raw wheat and malted barley (sometimes with an admixture of oats), spiced it up with dried Curaçao orange peels and ground coriander seeds and -- something else…what? cumin, maybe -- and then fermented the lot with a conventional yeast.

The resulting drink, named Hoegaarden after its hometown, is a lovely and enticing elixir, pouring a very pale yellow color that intensifies to a hazy gold when the yeast sediment is aroused. If held up to the light, the liquid appears almost off-white, true to its witbier ycleption. The creamy head sustains with a moussy feel.

As far as taste goes, there's enough complexity here to incite the verbal excesses of a wine connoisseur: a sugary wheat flavor dominates, but the coriander and citrus, often pursued by a mild phenolic aroma, contribute to a complex, elegant, nearly winy disposition. Heady, virtually Bazooka-level sweetness, bestowed by the cereal grass, frequently with plum, apple or banana appoggiaturas, is nicely undercut by the piquant orange and herb colorations – you'll think you're catching intimations of cinnamon, cloves, pepper and nutmeg -- and by a faintly astringent dryness. That trailing nose is bright and highly fruity, with a pleasing hint of muskiness. Behind it all, a muted and nectarious bitterness, reminiscent of the absent hops, is probably contributed by the amaroidal orange peel.

Despite its lightness and freshness, this is a beverage that weighs on the tongue, graceful, bracing, yes, but because of the wheaty twang and slight acidity, surprisingly firm and grainy, with more heft than you'll ever encounter in German Weizen beers.

If it were a movie actress, Hoegaarden would be Anne Heche.

Lastly, an aside: Pieter Celis, who had reincarnated Belgian white beer, sold Hoegaarden but was subsequently unhappy with the bier as produced by its new owners (he was a purist, after all). Entrepreneurial Pieter (now Peter) relocated to Austin where he microbrewed a similar drink, Celis White (the real Hoegaarden, I guess) that was very popular in Texas in the 90s. A familiar story followed: In 1995, Miller Brewing bought majority interest in Celis' brewery, took complete control early in 2000, by December 2000 announced the brewery would be closed and sold, and ceased production before the beginning of 2001 (apparently, neither Starbucks nor Walmart was involved). At the time, the equipment and brands were sold to Michigan Brewing Co., but it now appears Celis White is under license by the De Smedt in Opwijk, a two-hundred-years-old family-run brewery north-west of Brussels that makes Abbey beers (Affligem, Aulne and Postel).

As this saga demonstrates, beer ain't just beer.
_________________________________________________________________________

*Looked it up, of course:

wood·ruff ( P ) Pronunciation Key (wdrf, -rf)
n.

1. A fragrant perennial herb (Galium odoratum) native to Eurasia and North Africa and widely cultivated as a shade ground cover, having small white flowers and narrow leaves used for flavoring wine and in sachets. Also called sweet woodruff.
2. Any of various plants of the genus Asperula, having whorled leaves and small funnel-shaped flowers.

[Middle English woderofe, from Old English wudurofe : wudu, wood + -rofe, of unknown meaning.]