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ARTS & CULTURE
KANSAN.COM | THURSDAY, SEPT. 17, 2015
HOROSCOPES »
WHAT'S YOUR SIGN?
Aries (March 21-April 19)
Review your game, with
Marcus.
Leo for the next three weeks. Repair equipment vehicles and tools. Look for where you can make improvements. Plan your moves, especially with love, romance and passion projects. Watch for mirrors.
Taurus (April 20-May 20) Clean, sort and organize at home over the next three weeks, with
Mercury retrograde.
Back up computers and files, Revise and refine household infrastructure
too good to be true, it probably is.
Misunderstandings require patience. If it looks too good to be true, it
Gemini (May 21-June 20) Traveling flows today and tomorrow. Review data to find the truth over the next three weeks, with Mercury's retrograde. Guard against communication breakdowns. Revisit creative ideas from the past and revise future plans. Patiently consider.
Tread carefully.
Cancer (June 21-July22)
Review statements and account activity for
account activity for errors. Double-check
GROUND Duck checks financial data over the next few weeks, with Mer cury retrograde. Pay off bills. Secure what you've earned.
gained.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) Check your figures again. Get into a three-week revision phase, with Mercury retrograde in your sign. Secure what you've achieved. Reaffirm commitments. Figure out what worked and what
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) You're learning quickly. Monitor changes and revise long-term plans.
Here are analyst analysis required over the next three weeks, with Mercury retrograde. Allow extra
time for transportation and care with communications. Check data for errors, and ignore rumors.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Misunderstandings at work could slow the action. Be prepared with
tools and time for the next several weeks, with Mercury retrograde, and make repairs immediately. Rethink your core values. Refine the message, and re-establish old bonds.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov.21)
Make plans and itineraries over the next three.
weeks with Mercury retrograde, for travel after direct. Disagreements
direct. Disagreements come easily. Communicate carefully. Keep confidences and secrets. Organize, sort and file papers, especially regarding academics.
Sagittarius(Nov.22-Dec.21)
Sort, file and organize paperwork, with Mercury retrograde over the next three weeks. Allow extra time for travel, transport,
invoices and collections, and double-check numbers. Listen and step carefully.
Capricorn(Dec. 22-Jan.19)
[Dec. 22-Jan19]
Remain patient with miscommunications and disagreements. Reaffirm old bonds, and renegotiate partnership terms
over the next three weeks
with Mercury retrograde.
Ask for what you want.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb.18) Develop team goals. Remain patient with your partner over the next three weeks with Mercury retrograde. Support
each other through breakdowns. Finish up old business. Check your accounting for errors.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
For the next three, weeks with Mercury retrograde, reminisce, review and put in corrections at work.
Listen carefully and stay respectful. Revise strategies and plans. Edit your work carefully for errors
before submitting.
Where does your coffee come from?
CASSIDY RITTER @CassidyRitter
The strong aroma of coffee hits the air at Aimee's Coffeehouse. Baristas shuffle from register to steamer and serve a piping cup of coffee to their next customers. The rippling milk in a hot silver jug assures customers their cup is almost done.
A barista makes a latte at Aimee's Coffeehouse on Massachusetts St. Aimee's goes through 50 pounds of coffee per week and uses beans from PT's Coffee in Topeka.
College students rush in to grab their cup, while professors grade papers under dim lamps and others sink into the vinyl armchairs - coffee in hand - to chat with one another.
ALEX ROBINSON/KANSAN
On average, 64 percent of American adults drink at least one cup of coffee per day, according to a 2015 Gallup poll. In Lawrence, Aimee's Coffeehouse uses 50 pounds of coffee per week, said Cary Strong, owner of Aimee's.
study at the University.
Aimee's coffee comes from PT's Coffee Roasting Company in Topeka, a company that works directly with farmers in Central and South America, Indonesia, Africa, Guatemala and Big Island of Hawaii.
The high demand has created harsh economic consequences for coffee farmers in poorer nations like Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras, according to a recent graduate
Another Lawrence coffee shop, 1900 Barker, purchases its coffee beans through direct trade and importing companies. Reagan Petrehn, co-owner of 1900 Barker, said most of the coffee beans are not purchased through fair trade because it's "honestly not that good of a deal for farmers." Petrehn said 1900 Barker finds the best coffee they can and work with companies who care about their farmers and pay a fair price for coffee.
"Buying coffees that are awesome means you have to take care of farmers," Petrehn said. To meet this increased demand farmers made the shift to "technified production," said Alexander Myers, graduate student who wrote the study.
"Coffee is kind of like a bush that gets up to six or maybe eight feet tall, but it's not a tree," Myers said. "It's grown, traditionally, in this shaded plantations where you have the coffee kind of bushes and above them there's a big tree canopy."
In technified production, the coffee is grown faster in full sun. Myers said consumers and local coffee shops can help reduce economic consequences
by buying coffee beans through fair trade or direct trade. He also said to be aware of where coffee comes from.
"Until I started doing this research, I kind of just took [coffee] for granted," said Myers. "I didn't really think about how it connects me to somewhere in Rwanda or Vietnam or Colombia."
International Exchange is an electronic trading platform and one more way for retailers to purchase coffee beans. Fair trade sets a bottom line price for coffee farmers and helps provide farmers with a level of stability regardless of the market price on coffee. Direct trade is when buyers work directly with farmers.
Coffee bean suppliers can purchase coffee through the sea market, fair trade or direct trade. Sea market, or Intercontinental Exchange, is for large coffee roaster like Folgers.
PT's Coffee direct trade from farmers
(Coffee direct trade from farmers
(Parts of Central and South America, Indonesia, Africa, Guatemala, Hawaii)
Jeff Taylor, president and co-owner of PT's Coffee, said price in the sea market is $1.15 per pound, but the coffee costs $1.20 to produce.
"So the sea market is so low right now that it's actually going to lead," Taylor said. "If it continues at the rate it is going, it will lead to a coffee crisis at some point."
Myers said to help reduce the problem of under paid farmers in poorer nations local businesses can buy fair trade or direct trade.
With fair trade, coffee farmers get paid $1.40 per pound, according to Fair Trade Resource
Network. With direct trade, coffee bean buyers pay more than the sea market price.
"If you look into everything that goes into coffee, you know the production of the bean, to when it gets to the roaster, what the roaster does to it, it's pretty amazing we pay what we pay as it is." Strong said.
PT's Coffee typically pays farmers double or triple what they normally get, Taylor said.
He said he was aware of the farming conditions and helps reduce it by purchasing coffee beans from PT's Coffee.
Aimee's has bought its coffee beans from PT's Coffee for 16 years because Strong wanted something as local as possible, and PT's deals directly with farmers.
"They care very much about the community they are getting the coffee from," Strong said. "They have an extremely humanitarian viewpoint towards that. And that's one of the reasons why I'm very loyal to them."
- Edited by Maddie Farber
In this image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment, Johnny Depp, left, and Rory Cochrane appear in a scene from, "Black Mass."
Johnny Depp is scary good in 'Black Mass.' but the story lacks momentum
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ALEX LAMB
@lambcannon
Welcome back johnny Depp.
We've missed your serious side.
With "Black Mass," Depp steps out of the shadow he has sunk into during recent years, where he's taken on so many eccentric and ridiculous roles, he's become a parody of himself. As the notorious Boston kingpin James "Whitey" Bulger, Depp continues his penchant for heavy makeup but this time performs with searing intensity and intimidating ruthlessness.
The whole ensemble cast is impressive as well, with great actors playing on both sides of the law to intriguing effect, often with amusing dynamics.
Different members of Bulger's crew (primarily the youngest one, played by Jesse Plemons) frame the story while being interrogated by the feds, beginning in 1975 when Bulger's Winter Hill Gang is running South Boston but are coming closer to a war with the Mafia, who control the rest of the city.
And while the true story of how the FBI protected a crime boss as he grew in power and did whatever he wanted is certainly attention-grabbing, the narrative can't quite maintain momentum with its weak central conflict.
Bulger's brother, Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch), is the most powerful senator in the state, and when their childhood friend John Connolly (Joel Edgerton)
comes to Bulger proposing "an alliance" with the FBI. Bulger begins his rise as the most powerful criminal in the state. In exchange for very little intel from their special informant, the FBI takes down the Mafia and protects Bulger from any sort of prosecution, which quickly evolves into Connolly's full corruption and covering up his gangster buddy's murders.
There's not much drama tied to whether Bulger will get caught for his crimes and Connolly charged for allowing them. Instead, director Scott Cooper wrings tension out of regular conversations where Bulger seems to be scheming how he'll kill someone while he tells that person everything is fine. Sometimes there's a visceral burst of violence
that follows, and other times a funny or chilling display of Bulger's power over the person.
Depp exercises a tight grip on viewers throughout, and with the piercing blue contacts he wears, he emanates the calculating coldness of a vampire and white hot fury of a dangerous killer with no bounds. That makes scenes such as playing cards with his cute old mom and explaining an important lesson to his young son — "you didn't get caught because you hit the kid. You got caught because you hit him in front of everyone else" quite entertaining. And once the first act ends with a personal tragedy for Bulger, that's when Depp really starts getting scary.
Unfortunately, the script
starts losing some fluidity at this point. Time jumps around more and vignettes of new characters doing something wrong to Bulger then paying the price for it are shoved in, without enough time for those characters to matter much to viewers. But at least they give Depp the opportunity to further illustrate his surprisingly effective menace.
"Black Mass" is worth seeing for what amounts to Depp's best performance in years. For a criminal as legendary as Whitey Bulger, it's too bad the movie about him doesn't quite live up to his name, but at least Depp's portrayal does.
- Edited by Abby Stuke
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