Reduce. Reuse. Rethink.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Tuesday is recycling day in my neck of the woods.
Every household puts out a blue bin for recycling and therein lie a million stories.
If my neighbors knew what can be gleaned from their recycling bins:
Where they shop. What they eat. How they spend.
They'd stop. Dead men tell no tales but recycling bins speak volumes.
Here's the family that drinks non-BgH milk from plastic bottles.
The couple who eat organic beans from cans lined with BPA.
The beer drinkers.
The drinker who stopped.
The self-proclaimed sustainable eater whose bin overflows with packaging from processed foods.
The health-minded young family whose bin sits next to their "Warning. Chemically treated" yard sign.
Who still gets a newspaper. Or two.
Who contributes to the Jewish home for the elderly.
Who clips "Boxtops for education". Who doesn't.
Most remarkable, how the new Trader Joe's has colonized our neighborhood.
From now on, my junk mail is going into a brown paper bag before it hits the bin. The rest of my recyclables -- frankly, I feel smug, although to someone else, no doubt, its a whole different story.

Now they tell us

Image via Wikipedia

In 1998, I wrote:
Kids & Pesticides = 700% more leukemia

We can't print this," said my editor at the Star Tribune, "There are jobs at stake in the lawn care industry."

There were lives at stake.
How many have been hurt in the last 12 years? How many lost? The article ran in CityPages. And the pesticides went on.
Pesticides are just one of tens of thousands of toxic chemicals doing us harm. Poisoning us.
Tomorrow the President's Cancer Panel ("The Mount Everest of medical mainstream" releases a report singing that same tune.
Who will listen? Will anything change?
Of course, industry and their mouthpieces like the American Council on Science and Health will throw everything they've got at this.
But the evidence is in.
Babies are polluted in the womb.

Not enough privacy settings

Image via CrunchBase

Not to keep your info away from Facebook.

Why I don’t like Facebook ‘Likes’ — Global Neighbourhoods

So give something a "thumbs up" on Facebook and you've given away valuable info about yourself.
So if you like this, don't tell Facebook. Doesn't matter how many privacy settings you choose. If you are on Facebook, they own you.

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Not snarky

Image by bsryan via Flickr

Scarey. Read this:
Appleseed - Why Should I Come?
I get the appeal of shooting a rifle. My kid shoots clay pigeons.
But these folks want to "save America".
To be with "real Americans".
To "defend their liberties" and "take back their country."
From whom?
We live in a nation of laws; not a single law, the second amendment.
That in itself is an "amendment"; an addition to a body of laws, and is only one of many amendments. You don't get to worship at the altar of your favorite law, forsaking all others. You don't get to "reload" and "take out" those you don't agree with, Sarah Palin.
This is democracy where the majority rules. The majority elected this government, Michelle Bachman. Legally. According to the constitution you claim to love so dearly.
I may loathe what you say and do. But I don't shoot you. Any of you.
You threaten those with whom you disagree. And you kill them; flying planes into IRS offices, bombing reproductive health centers, murdering physicians.
There is a word for that, and it's not liberty.
It's terrorism.

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Locavore's Seder

Monday at sundown marks the start of the Jewish festival of Passover, when Jews the world over celebrate the exodus from Egypt. The centerpiece of the celebration is a ceremonial meal know as Seder, during which the Passover story is told.
While food customs vary regionally, the ceremonial foods on the central Seder plate are the same. Traditionally, four questions are asked at the Seder meal. I'm adding a fifth: How can we localize this meal?

On the Seder plate:
Zeroah, a lamb's shankbone symbolizing the ancient Passover sacrifice. Easy. Minnesota growers like Blue Gentian Farm raise lamb.
Beitzah, a roasted egg symbolizing the temple sacrifice and the continuing cycle of life. Also easy, via local farms like Sleeping Cat Farm and Bar 5.
Haroset, a paste of fruit and nuts symbolizing the mortar used to build the pyramid of the pharaohs. If you preserved any Minnesota apples last fall, easy. The nuts -- not so easy. Sweetened with Ames Farm honey, delicious.
Mar'or, a bitter herb (like horseradish) to represent the bitterness of slavery. Sara Rice, who writes the Noshin' column at TCJewFolk, reminds us that while horseradish is the most potent, any bitter herb will do. Dehn's Garden Arugula, perhaps?
Karpas, a green vegetable (usually parsley) representing spring. Any green vegetable will do. Romaine, endive, asparagus; or watercress from Dehn's Garden
A bowl of salt water. With 10,000 lakes, water we've got.

Four cups of wine are drunk through the meal, and while Minnesota does have wineries, none produce wine that is Kosher for Passover. And as for matzo, the unleavened bread eaten during the entire week of Passover, you could make your own using Minnesota flour.

So tell us. What are you doing to localize your Seder?

Cloak of Invisibility

More is less

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I'm a long-time subscriber to More magazine, which tells me it is "for women of style & substance"

So why is Dana Delany on the cover, shirt unbuttoned, bra showing, kneeling on what looks to be a bed?
That's style and substance?
It's bad enough that every issue tells me to reinvent myself. Apparently I'm not ok as I am.
But everyone in every issue is now indistinguishable from everyone in every other women's magazine.
More is supposed to be for women over 40. Who are 50, even. Or -- dare I say it -- 60.
In fact, the More website says they celebrate women over 40. So why do they all look 30? Smooth brows. Unwrinkled cheeks. Botox, restylane, whatever it takes not to look 40. That's what's celebrated in these pages

I'm not renewing, my face or my subscription.