DB#305 - ‘Dew Trampling’
In today’s Daily Breakfast: Feedback from Slovenia about music and inspiration; Ascension Day and local traditions; ‘ Dauwtrappen’ or ‘Dew Trampling’ in Holland; ‘24′ and the suspension of disbelief; the Pope about the use of modern media, internet websites and forums; Starbucks, coffee and Fair Trade. Star Trek about the beauty of creation.
Music: Adrina Thorpe - Did You Think
Download or listen: Today’s Show
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PS: He did a really good job 
In early days people got up at Ascenscion Day 3:00am in order to walk on the grass barefoot singing. People expected that this ritual had a magic or healing power. This is called ‘Dew Trampling’.
There yo go
(I’m not a master translator Dutch - English though).
Fr. I forgot my Fair Trade link for you, you can go over to FairFood or to Fair Trade (NL)
I buy my Fair Trade (Max Havelaar) coffee, tea and chocolate at the local supermarket (AH and SuperdeBoer sell it).
Sorry about the spamming here, I messed the last post (anchor tags) up, you can delete that one. This posts belongs in the first post… (I’m a natural chaotic)
OK, I buy at my local supermarket those fair trade products, a dutch site is monitoring ‘fair food’ (FairFood.org
You can also go to Fair Trade (Netherlands) to find out where you can get ‘fair products’.
For people in the US there is Fairtrade.com
Sorry for the mess I made, I apologize, I hope I did the tags right.
How strange Ascension Day isn’t tomorrow in the USA. Or is it just the celebration that is postponed till Sunday? I mean 40 days is 40 days, isn’t it? Well Father, best of luck tomorrow morning, I will think of you when I dew sleep along for a couple of more hours. I mean 3.30 is a time to go to bed not get out of it
Bye the way, hope you continue the story of your vocation soon as I think it very interesting.
@Marlous
There is a discussion of the reason for the shift in the celebration at this website for the diocese of St. Cloud, in Minnesota, USA.
http://www.stcdio.org/worship/transfer.htm
The US Bishops voted to allow each diocese the option of transferring the feast day, after approval by the Vatican, for the same reason the US transfers the feast of Corpus Christi from a Thursday to a Sunday, or the feast of Epiphany from a weekday to a Sunday. With workdays being what they are, it is thought that more Catholics will be able to participate in the celebration on Sunday, and devote more time and attention to this important celebration.
We Swedes celebrate Ascension tomorrow (or… *takes a look at the clock* today, actually *smiles*). I have a comment about 24. In my opinion, this season is the far best season ever. I have seen all but the first, though I have it (unwatched) on DVD. In Sweden, this season is only half-way through, but unless there is a MAJOR disappointment in the plot (as the one you mentioned) I don’t think I will regard this season as nothing else than THE season.
Fr some people still practice the old rite Mass (in Latin)! So they still have deacons and sub deacons. We do in Australia. So what you were reading out is still valid.
In Australia the traditional Mass celebrates Ascension Thursday today where as the Novos Ordo does it on the weekend.
With the Latin Mass there is even a youth traditional Mass strand at WYD in Sydney;
http://www.juventutem-australia.com/
Great discussion on buying Fair Trade coffee! During Lent I teach the curriculum of Catholic Relief Service’s (CRS) Operation Rice Bowl. The Catholic Social Teaching of Option for the Poor really touch my student’s hearts. After we discussed the families that raise coffee, I show them what the Fair Trade emblem is. I believe many of my students shared this with their families and help Mom or Dad out when shopping by looking for the emblem on a bag of coffee. My students ARE teaching their families about Catholic Social teaching!
DAUWTRAPPEN (Dew Treading) Ascension
Dauwtrappen, or “dew treading,” is an old folk custom that still is observed in both city and country areas. Townsfolk rise at dawn and take their children to the suburbs where the youngsters tramp through the morning dew and gather early spring flowers. Rural people, on the other hand, visit neighboring fields and meadows and then meet with family and friends at some country inn for a jolly six o’clock breakfast.
May rain, make me grow, yes grow,
May rain, make me tall,
is a popular nursery ditty which reflects the old superstition that May rain and May dew possess supernatural power. The delightful dauwtrappen custom doubtless originated in an early belief that Ascension Day dew or rain makes the body both sound and beautiful.
Making immense Ascension Day bread loaves is another folk survival which still is observed at Hengelo, in Overijssel. Centuries ago, people say, farmers of the area had permission to dig all the peat they needed, provided they baked Ascension Day loaves for the parish poor. Custom decreed that any farmer would be fined who baked a loaf weighing less than twenty-five pounds. As a special inducement to generosity a bottle of white wine was awarded to the man who produced the heaviest loaf. The winner of the wine was expected to treat all his friends to a party.
Keen competition existed among farmers and their wives to see who could bake the largest loaf. Often the stipulated weight was exceeded by three or four times. Even today immense Ascension loaves, filled with plump raisins and baked to toothsome perfection, are carefully prepared, weighed, and distributed among hospitals and homes for the aged and infirm
BBC World Service recently made a about the cost of coffee. (BBC WS documentaries are available as podcasts.)
The producers make very little money, but the retail outlets have such high overheads that many of them are only marginally profitable, despite their high prices.
Luckily for me, I don’t drink coffee!
Chris, there’s also Fair Trade Tea.
We in Holland have the ‘Max Havelaar’ emblem:
I listen on the way to work at a small hospital in Rhode Island. This morning I heard yesterday’s broadcast. I just wanted to let Father Roderick know that the Diocese of Providence is one of the few places in America that actually considers Thursday May 17th as a holy day of obligation.
RE Starbucks. Father, respectfully you are missing the major component to Starbucks prices. The US is a capitalist system, the government provides a safety net for the poorest but most of the citizens are required to provide their own food,housing, and healthcare. Social Security, that is the government pension, is designed to help a little with retirement costs. It will not provide a decent living for retirees. It is my understanding that this is not the case in many European countries. Most restaurants do not pay their employees enough to live on and do not provide healthcare or pension plans. Starbucks is different. The employees are paid a wage that a person can live on modestly, the employees get healthcare coverage, a pension and can become stockholders. A person who works at MacDonalds does not have any of these things. Many if not most people who work at fast food restaurants are also receiving welfare benefits. So I as an American taxpayer am paying the same $4 a cup for MacDonalds coffee as I do for a cup Starbucks.It’s just that MacDonalds only collects part of the cost and leaves the Internal Revenue Service to collect the rest.
A comment about the quotes on the cup. The cups you read on the air are critical of religion but that is not the tenor of most of the cups that I’ve seen. I’ve never come across a cup that is remotely antireligious. I have to admit that for budgetary reasons I only have Starbucks coffe once or twice a week.
Fr. Roderick, Hope I haven’t missed it, but I really want to hear more of you vocation story! Thank you for sharing it. It has helped me reflect on my faith journey. Thanks for all you do.
Hello Father R! Thanks so much for your entertaining outlook, my commute to London by train everyday (2hrs!) is brightened by your enthusiasm and observations…
In the Uk, Cafe Nero is a very popular coffee stop with much stronger, more Italian tasting coffee (and a bit cheaper than SB’s) didnt I hear that Dunkin Donuts had the best coffee in the US? Anyway, thanks again (a mention on your podcast would certainly wake me up in time for my stop!!) Hope the Dew was well and truly trampled this morning! God bless.
The US Bishops, as mentioned by Barb above, have been actively promoting the issue of fair trade coffee here:
http://www.crsfairtrade.org/
I am blessed to have a local produce store near my home that does sell *real* fair trade coffee. It costs me about $3.00 more per pound but I consider it quite worth it.
So glad you are dealing with this issue, Fr. Roderick!
Father, this has been in the back of my head ever since your trip to New York. I’m from Portland, OR, with a Starbucks at every other corner, and I drink their coffee fairly regularly. The price you’re complaining about is for what, a 16 or 20 oz. latte or mocha? For $4.00, that’s probably what you’re getting. I usually get a 12 oz. cup of regular drip coffee when I go, which runs me $1.45. McDonalds or 7/11 (a quick-stop mart chain here in the States) would charge about a dollar for the same thing. For the extra $0.45, in my opinion (and coffee taste is pretty darn subjective) I’m getting a lot better cup of coffee. Not over priced at all, in my opinion.
About one every week or two I’ll spend three or four dollars on a latte or mocha or cappuccino. While you may think this is expensive, I spent a month in France and Italy last summer on my honeymoon, and would go out for cappuccinos every morning. They were fantastic, and most of the establishments did, in fact, make a superior cup to Starbucks in the States. Be that has it may, I usually spent about two Euros for a 12 oz. cup, which would translate into — wait for it — about $3.50 for a 16 oz. cappuccino.
So, it comes down to first, comparing “a cup of coffee” with a latte, cappuccino, or mocha, which isn’t equal, and second, realizing that Americans (for good or ill) tend to buy their coffee in larger volume cups, thereby increasing the price.
Thanks for putting up with this long comment, but I needed to get this out.
I can’t believe I-tunes didn’t download this episode! I even hit refresh, and it didn’t work. Any ideas?
It took some searching, but I found that Guardian article you referenced about coffee prices, titled “Starbucks stirred by fair trade film.” It’s about a film produced by an Ethiopian coffee union to get higher prices for their coffee and the article compares apples to oranges to slant things in their favor.
It says, “Coffee retailers make about 52 espressos from a pound of coffee, worth up to $160 a pound” (emphasis mine). That’s the max revenue from a pound of coffee, not the average. Stores rarely use a pound of coffee on nothing but espressos. For the sake of comparison, a pound of whole bean at Starbucks.com is only $10.45.
Also, the Guardian article conveniently mentions that the growers earn $1.10 after costs, but they don’t mention Starbucks’ costs. Well, let’s jump over to Yahoo! Finance to see see that… yes, Starbucks only nets a profit of 7 cents from every dollar. McDonald’s nets nearly 17 cents!
That means Starbucks actually “makes” about $12 from that $160. They have their own slew of expenses (which The Guardian didn’t mention), such as roasting, health insurance (a rare benefit for food service employees), equipment, new stores, training, managers, hourly wages, etc. Bottom line, Starbucks isn’t charging $4.00 for a latte just to maintain an image, but because it costs $3.70 to make the latte.
That said, could they be more flexible with the Ethiopian growers? I think so. But that doesn’t mean Starbucks is an evil company. This older Guardian article talks about the efforts they’re taking to help growers.
Great discussion, but we need to be more critical of the things we read and hear, especially when numbers are used. They sound trustworthy, but usually are taken out of context to justify someone’s bias. Hmm… must like Scripture.
The whole East Coast (NY, Boston, Penna, etc) where I serve celebrates the Feast of the Ascension on Thursday…….
so, fr., instead of worrying about “wikpedia” and “mitres”……
let’s get updated on “america” and the celebration of feasts!
fr. jim torpey
penna, the us of a
Does the $4,- include
wireless internet ?
I don’t think my previous comment went through… try it again:
It took some searching, but I found that Guardian article you referenced about coffee prices, titled “Starbucks stirred by fair trade film.” It’s about a film produced by an Ethiopian coffee union to get higher prices for their coffee and the article compares apples to oranges to slant things in their favor (seems like they could’ve made just as strong a case using good logic, so I don’t know why they stooped to berating the company they want as a customer).
It says, “Coffee retailers make about 52 espressos from a pound of coffee, worth up to $160 a pound” (emphasis mine). That’s the max revenue from a pound of coffee, not the average. Stores rarely use a pound of coffee on nothing but espressos. For the sake of comparison, a pound of whole bean at Starbucks.com is only $10.45.
Also, the Guardian article conveniently mentions that the growers earn $1.10 after costs, but they don’t mention Starbucks’ costs. Well, let’s jump over to Yahoo! Finance to see see that… yes, Starbucks only nets a profit of 7 cents from every dollar. McDonald’s nets nearly 17 cents!
That means Starbucks actually “makes” about $12 from that $160. They have their own slew of expenses (which The Guardian didn’t mention), such as roasting, health insurance (a rare benefit for food service employees), equipment, new stores, training, managers, hourly wages, etc. Bottom line, Starbucks isn’t charging $4.00 for a latte just to maintain an image, but because it costs $3.70 to make the latte.
That said, could they be more flexible with the Ethiopian growers? I think so. But that doesn’t mean Starbucks is an evil company. This older Guardian article talks about the efforts they’re taking to help growers.
Great discussion, but we need to be more critical of the things we read and hear, especially when numbers are used. They sound trustworthy, but usually are taken out of context to justify someone’s bias. Hmm… must like Scripture.
So what ever happened to “Reg. Penna. Dept. Agr.” on all of our food packages, then?
To be fair, it’s hard to see over the ocean, especially with the fog that rises in teaching and reporting either way. After all these years, my European friends can still surprise me with the most amazing misconceptions that they learned years ago in school or yesterday in the news, and these are well-educated and interested people as a rule. They probably know as much about Pennsylvania as most Americans know about Belgium. So it’s hardly surprising that Fr. Roderick doesn’t know the details about which dioceses have or haven’t moved the celebration of the Ascension from Thursday to Sunday.
And I suppose it’s not too surprising that coffee producers make so little from a cup. An many-dollar sandwich will may have less than a quarter of a dollar of food on it as priced ‘down on the farm’.
I didn’t have any troubles getting this one via iTunes, Theresa. You may want to try the old-fashioned trick of unsubscribing and then subscribing again.
Father: The coffe grower produces something that is almost entirely useless in its raw state. Once the fruit is picked from the bushes the beans must be extracted. Beans from various producers must then be collected, brought to market, bought and sold, and transported all over the world. When they get to their destination the beans must be roasted and ground. Then, a restaurant owner (who must pay his employees and his rent) “makes” the coffee and sells it to customers.
It seems unfair that the grower gets only a fraction of the total cost of a cup of coffee, but how many of these steps would he or she be able to perform? If it was only up to the grower (or the people who pick it), we wouldn’t have coffee at all.
Wow! $160 per pound? I guess I’m REALLY ripping off Starbucks. I pay $8.99 per pound for whole bean Sumatra at my local Starbucks. Please don’t tell anyone, OK?
+ description of dew trampling
- criticism of Starbucks; tainted by using corporate propaganda as a reference; it should have been clear that Starbucks does not make $160 on a pound of coffee and that whatever source gave out that number had other motives.
For the record: I didn’t say that Starbucks made $160 on one pound of coffee! I quoted numbers from an article from the UK newspaper The Guardian, and they illustrate the enormous difference between the price paid to growers and the amount that retailers can make.
$1.10: Amount per pound of coffee that growers receive after deducting costs
$160: Amount that retailers can make on a pound of coffee
Here is the reference:
Starbucks stirred by fair trade film
The Guardian - Jan 29, 2007
Another article from last year in the same newspaper about Starbucks and Fair Trade:
Fair dunk’em - Last year, Starbucks doubled the amount of fair trade coffee it purchased, but it’s still only a drop in the global coffee chain’s black ocean.
For those who have time to download an watch a documentary about coffee and fair trade go over to One Cup.
Maybe this helps illustrating the point Fr. Roderick makes.
The Guardian mentions another documentary “Black Gold” which is far more negative and sometimes inaccurate. But this does not change the reality: local coffee farmers are extorted by multinational coffee retailers. Stichting Max Havelaar gives information and is one of the oldest fair trade organizations in the world. In the Wikipedia Link you can go over to their site, which is unfortunately only available in Dutch.
Our church took part in The Micah Challenge which made me aware of these facts.
I try to buy products that I consider as luxury (coffee, tea, bananas and chocolate) fair trade. I don’t need these products for my daily survival. I’m sure there’s a catholic equivalent of the Micah Challenge, which aims to be generic Christian, but originates in the evangelical churches.
In defense of The Guardian, they are correct in that if a coffee shop made nothing but espressos from a pound of coffee, with each espresso shot going for about $4, they would take in $160 in revenue (doing the math, apparently a pound makes 40 espresso shots).
Of course, espresso takes time to make and it’s easy to mess up. Anything that involves more than pouring coffee requires time and skill, so a lot what you’re paying for is the skilled labor (at least if it’s made right). And if they do make it right, be generous and tip your barista since they’re only getting about $7/hr. in wages
My last two cents is that capitalism works best when companies are voluntarily “spreading the wealth” instead of a government telling us who will get what. Of course, Starbucks foremost needs to make a profit, but profit needn’t require sacrificing those at the beginning of the chain of production. In the long run, helping them helps their economies and eventually helps all of us by creating more markets to trade with and reducing crime and political turmoil that is too common in the Third World.
I thought I would drive off the road when you described the McDonald’s coffee recipe you tasted in NYC as using “socks” or maybe “diapers.” Yes, it was that bad!
The best fair trade coffee I’ve found: http://www.saintbasilcoffee.com. Excellent blend and fairly priced.
From their web site:
“Saint Basil Coffee is a non-profit coffee company whose proceeds provides help for impoverished people in Latin America. The company was started by a group of Catholic lay people working with priests of The Congregation of Saint Basil in response to Pope John Paul II’s appeal for social justice.”
Here’s a good link: http://www.saintbasilcoffee.com