X350: Xmas Decoration Purge

Everything about this holiday makes me angry this year. I have a full box of Christmas decorations I am taking to the communal area. I don't even want to take a photo or make a joke about it.

I don't participate in Christmas any more and it is time to simply hand over this stuff to those who do.

The last few weeks I have failed to write about the purge items. Toiletries (so very few left) and Wardrobe were omitted. The wardrobe purge is going to work like the jewelry purge. At the beginning of 2009 I am putting all of my clothes except the grey and brown items into boxes. The ultimate decisions are not going to be made for another year. I want to be wearing neutrals for 2009. This will be a kind of uniform. I haven't fully decided if I will include black yet.

I249: Ick Factor

You know the responses to the idea of composting with worms, discontinuing use of shampoo, using cloth wipes instead of toilet paper, using soap nuts instead of Tide, showering less often and other aggressive no impact sustainable living that is the shocked exclamation, “Eeeeuuuw.” That is so gross. Please, that’s too much information. Yuk, you will never get me to consider giving up toilet paper or shampoo.”

But, what gets me is that these same people are willfully unaware of the feces in the agri-business meat factories, the tumors and pustules on cows utters, the routine practice of removing chickens’ beaks in the factory set up. Anyone who can read can be exposed to countless horror stories in how Americans’ food is produced, packaged and distributed.

The brutal mistreatment of animals in factory farms is off the charts. The additives, pesticides, preservatives and unplanned people pathogens that our processed foods are chock full of now that EPA, FDA, OCEA and other government agencies have been co-opted by a totally corrupt federal executive administration. Yes, Bu$h & Co. have pissed in our food and water. This is not on corporate media infotainment programs, but it is well documented in books, progressive magazines like The Nation and across the watchdog websites of the blogosphere. From the book Kitchen Literacy by Ann Vileisis,

Today, however, beyond the supermarket, food derives not only from an obscured nature but also from behind-the-scenes tractors, gasoline, laser-leveled fields, fertilizers, irrigation ditches, pesticides, combines, migrant workers, laboratories, sanitized factories, stinking feedlots, semitrucks, and highways. In spite of this -- and perhaps because of this -- the cultural idea of nature (as opposed to the soil, sunlight, and water that make up the physical environment) has become an important, if confusing, category for how many of us think about our foods, and one worth examining more closely from a historical perspective.

I am going to touch on perception in a historic framework as it specifically relates to disgust and the manipulation of disgust in a moment. For now I simply call out the hypocrisy. See, I am an adult who can safely, hygienically contend with my own body functions including peeing, shitting, showering and taking my food scraps to my wormery outside my kitchen door. I don’t feel I should recoil and become emotionally scarred due to simple hygiene. This is particularly dumb as a subject to be grossed out when you have mothered children or cared for a sick loved one, beyond simply keeping your own shit in order (pun intended). I also know how to wash my hands, take care with dish washing, food handling, general cleanliness and other hygiene issues.

But the majority of Americans are clueless about the farm to fork safety, cleanliness standards and practices. Moreover, in my opinion, people in general want to remain unaware. What is truly disgusting is the idea of eating a burger where the meat was fed other cattle or dead pets. The idea of eating fecal matter that nobody knows where or how it got into the meat or vegetables is vile, but for me these can’t compete with the mental image of a cows utters covered in oozing pustules due to the synthetic hormones given dairy cattle. I will stop there because it is just too sickening.

This is a subject that is not one I should make light of or be too judgmental. A couple of writers
disgust may well be in our genes.

Is hygiene in our genes?
Dog shit, dirty nappies, vomit, bad breath, stained towels, lice, nasal mucus, half-eaten food, saliva, worms, rotten meat, maggots, sores, urine, rats and sweat. What do all these things have in common? The answer is that we find them disgusting. And surprisingly enough people everywhere seem to find them disgusting too. In Africa, India and Europe people say such things turn their stomach and make them recoil. Touching excreta or maggots is hard for most of us and we go to great lengths to remove the evidence of such revolting yucky stuff from our lives. [snip]

A protective device
Our work suggested that there might be another explanation for disgust. Our collections of what people found disgusting in six countries and an international airport showed common themes. These included bodily excretions and body parts, decay and spoilt food, and a number of living creatures, especially insects and worms. Whilst working on another project I flipped through the index of disease carriers in a textbook on infectious disease. To my surprise I noticed the same list: excreta (causing at least 25 diarrhoeal diseases) saliva and breath (carrying measles, colds, scarlet fever, flu and chicken pox), wounds and sores (sepsis, pneumonia, gonorrhoea), spoilt food (carrying food toxins and diarrhoeal diseases). Rats, lice, snails and worms were all there too, involved in causing over 20 known diseases. Could it be that humans have evolved a disgust of all these things as a way to keep us healthy?

It is readily accepted that humans evolved physical defences against infection. Our complex immune system, our gut with apertures at each end, and antibiotics in our tears clearly evolved to protect us from disease, which is caused by the bugs which are trying to break us down and use us for food. It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that we have also evolved behavioural defences to disease. Human ancestors with a heightened repulsion from faeces, saliva and parasites would have been healthier, and thus more likely to pass on their genes. As a result, the tendency to avoid such things would have spread, so that it is now common in humans everywhere. This behavioural drive is what we call the emotion of disgust.

[snip] We humans like to think we are logical, but we are driven more than we care to admit by a set of emotions that were shaped by the challenges faced by our ancestors, mammal and primate. Disgust is one of these drives. Disgust might turn out to be a prime candidate to help investigate the role that emotions and culture play in our lives.

That makes for some stimulating conversation, but pretty weak in the scientific method I would say. Today I feel up to my eyebrows in emotion and culture (seeing as the mighty Wurlitzer of advertising wants me stuck in a perpetual reception state of emotion and pop culture).

I must offer up a counter argument from academicians in the study of medieval waste.

The guru of waste studies seems to be David Inglis, a sociologist at the University of Aberdeen who coined the phrase "fecal habitus" and whose 2001 book, A Sociological History of Excretory Experience, argued that avoiding scatological topics in polite conversation is a repressive Western bourgeois hang-up. Inglis's theories fit right in with other concepts dear to the postmodernist heart of academia--"discourse," the "Other," matters "transgressive," "bodies" (in the world of postmodernism there are hardly any people, just "bodies"), etc.--so professors of literature, religious studies, and other branches of the humanities eagerly expropriated Inglis's ideas and applied them in their own endeavors. As one of the panelists, University of Oregon English professor Martha Bayless, put it with the opacity that is de rigueur in postmodernist theory, "The body is not a neutral site."

The one thing in which waste-studies scholars seem not to be interested is medieval history. The idea isn't so much how people disposed of waste as what they thought about it--or if you're a cultural-studies type, what "society" thought about it.

Without expanding on this point too far, I think that there is a real point here. We love revisionist history it seems, the truth is that agrarian cultures around the world did and do understand that shit was and is a fertilizer and fuel. It is the current culture of Myths America where have focused my annoyance here.

This occasional rant was brought out in the open in order to shout, “Snap out of it.” You clueless about farm to fork safety know who you are. The rest of us are getting impatient for you to get a clue about the realities of systemic, toxic decay and naturally balanced and valuable decay. And, I guess I should apologize for including such crap faux science in the post. But, this kind of manipulation is not new to our culture or time. And we are headed for mountains more as corporations start greenwashing.

Pivotal to my essay premise but really a complete subject unto itself is this ‘ick factor’ being an emotional charged response to deliberate manipulation. I live in a culture that treats my body with disgust. I’ll must quote a small portion of an essay that links this progression of body disgust to social disgust. In my optinion the cultural delivery system of choice for control and oppression is emotional disgust. Because emotional disgust can be planted inside someone like a self-monitoring device via self-loathing. To select just one area closest to me, woman’s self-disgust acts like a glue to hold patriarchy together.

Let me just provide the clunky (but apt) title and several excerpts to Dr. William Spriggs research on disgust.

Menstrual Odors, Dirty Diapers, and the Male Dominated Religious Quest For Purity: Giving Birth to Misogyny, Ethnic, and Racial Discriminations Originating in the Human Biological Emotion of Disgust.

There was a small, but very interesting article in the June 4th 2007 issue of Time magazine on page 51 that has given birth to this essay.

It was in the LIFE section under "Behavior" and its title is "The Ewww Factor," by Michael D. Lemonick. The article highlights two scientists, Andrea Morales and Gavan Fitzsimons who specialize in market psychology behind the emotion of disgust. I consider this as very important article because it allows the common person the opportunity to understand the evolutionary origins behind certain select discriminations - in particular against women and all humans considered to be "inferior."

Two important keywords in the article are: "touch transference". It's a fancy term for cooties," Time quotes one of the scientists. "If something repulsive touches something benign, the latter, even if it is physically unchanged, becomes 'infected.'"

[snip . . .] let's cite a few examples of human discriminations that are familiar to many. The German Nazi propaganda movies of the 1940s, Der Rothschilds, Jude Suss, and in particular, Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew), are the ones that quickly jump into my consciousness when they tell us about "the dirty Jews." [ . . .] notice the not-so subtle reference to rats as disease carriers and "as do the Jews." . .

He goes on to cite the framing last year in the knuckle-dragging radio air waves of Mexican 'illegal aliens' bringing leprosy. Lou Dobbs jumped on this “transferring cooties” hysteria.

I want to switch though to the universally practiced disgust for women, through centuries across all boundaries. We women of all ages, races, economic status, sexual orientation, ableness, country of birth, marital status, etc. need to be aware of the religious and cultural taboos that shackle us.

I remember vividly the first Earth Day in April of 1970. As I told a friend recently, I was a new mother with Angela being only two weeks old. That same day I gathered with my husband at the time’s big family for a funeral in a nearby city. As a 22 year old, newly converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church where my husband was planning on going to seminary to become a priest, I was so nervous. I was so afraid the priest at that church would refuse my entrance or make me leave the church. You see, according to church tradition I was “unclean” because of giving birth. My forty days had not passed and I had not undergone the ceremony of returning, of being “churched”. (I admit to ripping the ex from the photo. *sigh*)

Spriggs introduces this woman as “unclean” tradition and includes half a dozen studies as background for these pervasive traditions.

In many hunter-gatherer societies, studies have found that there are sometimes found myths, or stories that shift blame onto menstruating women in the hunting tribe for the failure of the male hunters to return with a prize of the day, week, or month.

He goes on to discuss this shifting of blame to women for when the men fail as hunters. He does a little tap dance here that careful not to give woman feminists any points. See, he puts the responsibility for changing this on the shoulders of women, saying that the female chooses the male. Historically woman chooses the aggressive male, ergo it is her job to pick another kind of man. Gah. This brought an instant gag-reflex from me, but that is not my thesis here. I’ll let Spriggs continue.

. . . I'm sticking my foot out here on a limb and merely basing my menstrual misogyny theory upon the science of disgust in our lead paragraphs by trying to image a temple in the same time period as the Old Testament. Somewhere located in the Middle East, a woman, into her menstrual cycle of the third day could be giving off what would be considered offensive odor. Did this female have available daily baths then? Were there sanitary napkins? Were there perfumes to disguise certain offensive odors and replace them with pleasant ones? If there were, I'm sure that they were the privilege of the wealthy and not for the common females.

And a thought just occurred to me: my wife was changing our grandson's diaper a few moments ago, and in occurred to me that "diaper" is also on the list above for "repugnant" items. And onto whom do most of the "duties" of changing the diapers usually occur? The female. So not only are sanitary napkins on the "ickiness" list because of the association with menstrual blood, so too, are diapers, which, of course, are associated with human feces and urine - both waste products - and a double whammy of "touch transference" attached to the "inferior" female who usually does the nurturing. Once again, my thoughts go to the temple where a poor female in her cycle is holding a defecating infant. Now, if you're a powerful local rabbi, would this set you in motion to exclude these "pollutants" out of "your holy place" by shifting blame to women by declaring some "law" because that you believe that God would not be present under such circumstances?

So, putting the blame for a poor hunt because of a female's menstrual scent is only child's play compared to the blame passed down upon women as growing populations developed organized religions -- with the overwhelming population of these organizations consisting of bachelor males. The rise of bachelor male enclaves has been directly related to the consensual social norm of "primogenitor" that emerged from the Middle Ages.

There is great detail and several centuries of witch hunts and partriarchal power shoring that are fascinating in themselves, but to return to the theme I'm focused on here. He tears apart the book, Handbook of Emotions, 2nd Edition, with Michael Lewis and Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, Guilford Press, New York, 2000. And after citing whole sections of their chapter on disgust he says,

It's all about resources, people. And discriminating against people by naming them "dirty," "smelly," "or they are just like animals" is just a JUSTIFCATION mechanism to keep one's goodies untouched by the cootie people. Following the mental "labeling" or "stereotyping" mechanisms then come the physical exclusions.

Spriggs chooses not follow the authors into the final framing of the authors, moral disgust. I am with him on this one. This is not something I care to touch in this post. It is the religious right’s reason for being and the prime mover in this week’s media orgy over the religious right’s ideal VP. There is a sort of twisted victimhood, shaming, justifying and titilation the base cherishes in the ‘sins’ of Palin’s daughter. I feel my own revulsion, so I dare not go there in this post.

I will leave Spriggs here to simply try and wrap up a post that starts: composting with worms, discontinuing use of shampoo, using cloth wipes instead of toilet paper, using soap nuts instead of Tide, showering less often and other aggressive no impact sustainable living that is the shocked exclamation, “Eeeeuuuw.” That is so gross. Please, that’s too much information. Yuk, you will never get me to consider giving up toilet paper or shampoo.” I then hurl you all into all kinds of shit like DNA, Eastern Orthodoxy, hunters, menstruation, witches and a bunch of misogyny to consider disgust. It comes back to the disgust and revulsion. The shunning, diminishing and shaming of another to control, to oppress.

I know how this can engender self-disgust and loathing. The feminist movement I was so thrilled to be a part of was reduced to not wearing bras or shaving your legs or (gasp) underarms. Sometime it was mild and laughable, but I know how disgust and revulsion can not only destroy a movement, destroy spirit and it can kill.

What I forgot to include were those dirty hippies. See, I was a weekend Hippy at the time of that photograph. I grew food for my husband and I, I nursed my daughter and taught myself to make bread. I joyously embraced life. I believed as a young feminist I could take control of my life, could live in a holistic way and protest and vote for anti-war, progressive leaders to bring peace around the world. But, we know how that story ended.

How systematic and choreographed was the back to the land, tune-in /drop out, make peace not war, mother jones, diet for a small planet and whole earth catalog reduced to two words DIRTY HIPPY? Because once every effort at saving the environment, living healthy, rejecting commercialism, eliminating chemicals and embracing simplicity got labeled DIRTY HIPPY, nobody wanted to be treated like that. Of course the Manson Family murder spree of '69 and trial production didn’t help. Nonetheless, the Ick Factor helped keep my generation right where the corporatists, the owners wanted us. And it continues . . .

witch burning image

Y167: Yesterday’s fashion

From Inhabitat, Goonj At this source there are more photos and background entitled, Not Just a Piece of Cloth from Global Oneness.



Like Crunchy Chicken’s Goods 4 Girls, the Indian edition.

W150: Waste Waste Basket

I’m not stuttering, that isn’t a typo – it just cracks me up to think of using waste to hold waste. I wrote last month about trash dummy. Well this waste basket is a project for later, but damn it, I want to blog about it now because I had a long encouraging chat with a neighbor last evening about waste. (More on that later).

Now I am in the middle of my challenge to begin my dawn and sunset routines, to get me out of procrastination. I am in my baby steps with this re-animation katecontinued make-a-(green)plan life challenge. There’s nothing new here folks. This is what we all do when we get off on side tangents, back roads, entropy or simply a seasonal fugue.

Well, I made a project planning outline for myself last month wherein I will do spring cleaning and complete current projects by the 4th of July. Following that phase that I think of as clearing the decks I have the last half of this year to completely purge. Along with that process I have a few new project ideas about making use of things I own.

I have lost the spot where I first viewed this last spring, but it led to the original craft site with crafter’s own how-to information via the frequently asked questions.

Thanks everyone! Glad you all like it. Now for a little FAQ...
How long did it take you?
A freakin' long time. I started it on Monday and worked on it for a couple of hours a day until last night. I'd say it took at least six to eight hours, probably more than that. I set up a little work space in the living room so I could watch crappy reality TV while I worked on it. I think that kept me from going insane.

Did you seal/protect it with anything?
I sealed the whole thing with Mod Podge. I still might give it a coat of polyurethane.

HOW DID YOU DO IT?! I LOOOVE IT!
It's easier than it looks! The base uses the same technique one would use to make a magazine bowl, only instead of shaping it into a bowl you leave it flat and coat the whole thing with Mod Podge. For the rings you cut magazine pages into thirds and, starting at one corner, roll the pieces around a bamboo skewer (or a pencil or other similar object). Brush a little dab of glue on the opposite corner and seal it up to make a thin paper straw. Then flatten out the straw and coil it around your finger to make a ring, gluing down the tail. Repeat about 399 times and hot glue them on top of each other in a shape you like, and seal with Mod Podge. Hope that makes sense.

How strong/durable is it?
It's sturdy enough to function as a trash can. It wouldn't take much to destroy it if you tried, but I wouldn't try if I were you, at least not in my house.
Have you tried doing it with just a few colors like a pattern or something?
I haven't but that might be cool, maybe with some patterned paper. I like the random, colorful look of the magazines though.

Well, I have stacks and stacks of design magazines to purge. I have scheduled purging all my books and magazine the last week of September. By then I hope I have become completely at ease with not being in front of a screen for hours and hours at a time. I also suspect I could sell these or give them as gifts if were able to produce more than one.

Now I will put it aside for a season and turn to the tasks at hand. The neighbor who came to my door last night needed me to throw her rotten vegetables from a half dozen plastic bags into the composter. She had ventured out of her little lavender home to the compost bin by the garden, but just couldn’t abide the idea of lifting the lid and having fruit flies around her face. *sigh*

I was happy to dump the slimy vegetables for her and commiserated about the guilt of letting food go off. When we talked of waste I shared my stories of no plastic bags from the grocery store due to taking my homemade produce / bulk food bags and laundry basket. She was intrigued, but she was adamant she had to have plastic liners. I explained I put all wet waste into a glass (or metal or plastic) container with a lid until dumping in my wormery. My paper, metal or glass recycle stuff didn’t need a liner though I think papers in bottom catch in water droplets from washing out cans, bottles. And, I told her about my Trash Dummy for all of the plastic that I think I am keeping out of my house. *sigh* I want to see how much it expands trash dummy rather than simply weighing or recording it.

We ended our conversation with my telling her to just observe herself and play around with ideas, confessing it took a year for me to figure out some of my basic strategies that now seem so simple. I reminded her that we have been habituated by advertisements to think we must have countless products that are just not necessary; e.g., paper towels, plastic bags and shampoo. Well, the shampoo reaction will wait. The woman was so intrigued. She came by not long after with bags of fresh vegetable to share with me.

Maybe I could make her a waste waste basket this fall? Oh, and did I mention I am not very fond of crafts or cutesy stuff? For some reason this waste waste basket is appealing to me.

T133: Trolls

The trash talk earlier this week made me think of trolls on the internet. Happily I haven’t encountered any troll comments on my blog or or many heinous troll comments the sustainability blogs I visit. This may just be because they are not big or are well monitored. But, I suspect it might be that this trollish element isn’t that interested (so many white women talking about home and children, a fundamentalist’s dream come true). It may also be they have not been recruited. Progressive blogs sometimes feel like swarms of trolls are directed towards certain topics or attitudes – gay marriage, feminism, etc.

The trolls I have spotted tend to be ‘concern’ trolls. The comment may have the wording of aggreement, but the intent is to negate or refute by being 'helpful'. I have seen and read various insights into trolls, their methods and how to deal with them. I'd planned to share several today. The Cox Internet technician came today for the second time and still will need to come again. It's a puzzle. Since my internet connection is on the fritz, I have to abbreviate what I’d planned. I might be able to come back later. We shall see.

This advice via Atrios struck me as true.

I cannot make anyone stop responding to pointless or nuisance comments. You have to want to restrain yourself, because you understand that the only way to get rid of them is to fail to give them the attention they want. A "troll" is not just someone whose comments you disagree with, or even just a nasty or badly-worded comment. A troll is someone who does not, under any possible set of circumstances, care what you think about him or his comments. He merely wants attention. Negative attention will do. The more you disagree with him, the more he is able to tell himself that he is persecuted and victimized or the only voice of reason or one of the elite few who has the God's-eye view of the world or whatever his current delusion is. If he isn't merely a narcissist who thrives on feeling attacked, he's just some putz who enjoys irritating other people. Therefore, you "feed" the troll by paying any attention to him at all. It does not matter what you say in response. Any response to a troll just encourages the troll.

Besides classic trolls, we have a few resident long-winded bores who believe that the rest of us have never been exposed to some trite, shallow, bombastic rant they just heard on the radio or read in Reader's Digest or saw in a vision, and feel compelled to share with the rest of us. These people lack any possible sense of context or audience; they are incapable of noticing that the bulk of our commenting community has been exposed to the world for a while now and is not interested in any comment that starts "there is one simple answer to this the rest of you aren't getting." It does you no good to respond to this type either; they'll just re-write the same comment again, at the same length, saying the same thing, until you "get it." They are bores with no self-awareness. The cool thing about the internet is that you can just scroll down to the next comment without being "rude." So take advantage of the medium.

Internet Troll Image

T131: Trashion

The thing is, I am not a consumer and I may only be guessing, but I believe there are many millions of people who don’t realize the limitless potential of re-purposing trash. So for those who are compelled to buy – during this time of transition – there is at least this refreshing alternative to using any more natural resources.

Re-purposing, local artists and millions upon millions of ideas, trash items and stuff. I snagged many of these images from Inhabitat a website rich in sustainable design ideas. I have referenced this website before and I am especially excited about their participation in international designs that function for the many, rather than simply for the wealthy few. The Hippo Bottle and Glasses for Global Poor were an examples of this.

I still believe that eliminating the consumer addiction is the ultimate direction. But it took a century to get us this brainwashed as a nation into this mess. It will need some real re-education to manipulate the sheeple away from destructive consumerism; euphemistically labeled progress. Speaking of labels, this designer jacket is exclusively labels.

For me, there is the delicious irony of glossy design magazine pages used to create three different products from three different designers. And an additional irony is trash basket made from trash.

Computer or typewriter keys have always captivated me as objects. And using phone card punch outs – or even credit cards could be a great protest jewelry in this transition time – revolutionary time.

And what about honoring books in our lives by using them as the designer has done here?

Not one of these ideas couldn’t be ‘borrowed’ for a Do It Yourself project for gift giving or barter or simply for oneself. Maybe the label jacket is a stretch for most of us, but the concept is a good one.
So, before you give away those clothes, check the label – it might be useful.

Mana Collections necklaces

Update:I want to bring a brilliant comment into the body of this post, because it shouldn't be overlooked. Commenter Rosa writes,

I have this half-thought-out theory that about 50 years of modern art and craft-as-art (say starting with Pop Art) have been about dealing with the overwhelming plenty of industrial consumerism, and we are starting to see the beginning of post-plenty art.

Just like cooking by looking at what is available and making something delicious out of it, this art of looking at what is there and transforming it through skill, instead of thinking of something and finding the resources to make it, isn't so much a technique as a world view.

But it's a really important shift.

If Rosa would develop this I would guest post it. This is indeed a shift in perspective.

T131: Trash Talk

trash talk

n.Disparaging, often insulting or vulgar speech about another person or group.

trash-talked, trash-talk·ing, trash-talks

intr.v. To speak disparagingly, often insultingly or abusively about a person or group.

What united millions after another lost (stolen?) election in 2004 was trash talking about George Bush. After the near worshipful and fear-based strictures against criticism of the pResident – the first mocking put downs were a wonderful relief. And with the monstrous disappointment of that election, fury was unleashed.

And indignation became addictive. We should have all been prepared for that after observing the decades of hate radio from the right. It is a sad and sorry thing to have this indignation addiction. I am katecontinued and I am indignant . . . perpetually.

But, it grows old. Randy Rhodes on Air America was the first trash talker posing as a progressive voice to piss me off. I simply stopped listening to her. But the list kept growing and growing. This last 5 months I am sick to death of the ugly misogynist slurs against Hilary Clinton and the racist, anti-Muslim hatred against Barack Obama. Melissa McEwan at Shakesville has been cataloging these hits. As of today there are 94 on the Hillary sexism watch .

These are a few highlights bulleted by Sadly No:

• Ariana giving Mickey Kaus’ brother space to accuse anyone who was upset about David Shuster’s “pimped out” comment of lacking a sense of humor.
• The LA Times trashes Hillary for “focusing on women’s and children’s issues.”
• Randi Rhodes calling Hillary “a big fucking whore.”
• “Blue dress day.”
• Maureen Dowd. No further explanation required.
• More Lewinsky nonsense.
• Roger Simon. Again, no further explanation required.
• And so on.

Melissa also writes:

I mean, how great has it worked out for conservatives that the reality-based community has failed utterly to perceive a comprehensive reality about either of its remaining candidates, not to mention cast aside all that rigorous adherence to fairness, accuracy, and cynicism about the media and rightwing frames on which the leftwing blogosphere was ostensibly built?

Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t have been so quick to stomp the shit out of her, or slay the golden calf for him—and hand to conservatives the perfect opportunity to make us look like we got it backwards, even if we didn’t.

We’re going to go into the general election with what looks to be a weak candidate either way, when we had the chance for the total opposite. And that won’t be Barack Obama’s fault, and it damn sure won’t be Hillary’s, no matter how many of the numbskulls who got us here try to blame her for their own idiocy.

I haven’t followed much of this horse race as I worked since last year to turn away from the political race to concentrate on the real life, grass roots work of living a sustainable life. But, I did read enough to know that Obama’s supporters became pretty crazed. I remember this group energy from the Daily Kos. This blog was another fauxgressive (Melissa McEwan’s word) site that has swarmed and attacked opposing opinions for some years now. But, lately I have been reading more of the attacks from the media, from Clinton supporters and GOP against Obama. Melissa’s survey of these attacks against Obama I noticed in April that she titled, Shakesville Doesn’t Cover Campaign Racism, where she lists almost 40 links “to get you started.”

Don’t get me wrong. I like snark and I read a couple sites with snarky humor. But, lately the misogyny and ugliness about women is getting too difficult to witness. This has been an ongoing struggle within my life. Laughter can be cruel and a weapon. I have been guilty of crossing lines. I am not proud of this. But the more conscious I become, the more difficult I find it to show disrespect in this way. And when I do, I am quicker to own up to this. It is not okay.

The number one weapon to shut women up is to say, “You have no sense of humor, I was just kidding.” Absolute bullshit, it’s talking trash. It all comes back to respect – or not.
Update: I just read something by Melissa McEwan that made me realize I hadn't differentiated between indignation and anger, directed anger. Let me quote from this short but but vital Feminism 101: On Anger post:

Progress is dependent on people who get angry, because anger—productive anger, motivating anger, directed anger, rational anger—is the root of all progress.

Feminists/womanists and their allies know that change comes by virtue of anger.

Progress ain't fueled by rainbows and gumdrops.

If you're not angry, you're probably not helping.

That is all.

T130: Trashed Food

A blog from the writers in Ithaca (home of my alma mater) is called Groovy Green. My theme of trash comes up in their piece today on food waste where they ask and answer:

How much food does the average American family waste in edible food each month?

122 lbs.

That’s how much enters the waste stream each month from the average American home (family of four). Ridiculous, sad, and incredible at the same time, isn’t it? A study conducted in 1995 estimated that 96.4 billion pounds of edible food was wasted each year — not to mention all of that probably went straight into the landfill. Imagine the recycled compost that could be generated from that!

The fascinating graphical representation of our monthly waste, as created by the NY Times, is shown below. Click on it to be taken to a much higher res, readable version.

T129: Trash Dummy

It is as though the raw materials are dug out of one hole in the ground--a mine or an oil well--only to be transferred to another hole in the ground--a landfill--with a very short stop at my house in between. Indeed, in 2006, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, some 28% of our municipal waste, by weight, was packaging and containers. No Impact Man

I just loved that succinct way of describing trash. This is really dumb. Today I felt inspired to follow through on an idea I had a while ago. As soon as it came to me I raced outside with scissors and chalk and pulled some black landscape cloth out of an outdoor pot where I’d stuck it months ago. I marked and cut and came inside where I pulled out the sewing machine and stitched my creation together. May I present my impetuous whimsy – Mr. Trash Dummy.

So I have been trying to reduce my trash for 4 ½ months, but I don’t have a good sense of how well I am doing. Here is one foot of trash (get it?) from the last 2 weeks. I really have no idea how long it will take to totally fill up my trash dummy. This isn't very scientific, but it is gratifying in a childishly simple way.

I compost my food scraps, I have almost no mail or junk mail and this goes to my worms too. I recycle, though that is pretty minimal too. The bits and bobs of plastic and foil, plastic from my restaurant take out containers. I recently bought a so-called earth friendly detergent. So I will have that big container at some point. I return my egg cartons to the farmer and often use yogurt containers. This should be interesting.

Seriously, I think there is something to having a visual. In Fake Plastic Fish, Beth Terry photographs her plastic trash and weighs it too. I am partial to the human shape. I think this will be my way of showing myself how well I am doing with eliminating trash. And possibly I can come up with a use for Mr. Trash Dummy.

Screen Beans in the Microsoft world are still my favorites.

Main Entry: dum•my

1. a: a person who is incapable of speaking b: a person who is habitually silent c: a stupid person
2. a: the exposed hand in bridge played by the declarer in addition to his own hand b: a bridge player whose hand is a dummy
3. an imitation, copy, or likeness of something used as a substitute: as a: mannequin b: a stuffed figure or cylindrical bag used by football players for tackling and blocking practice c: a large puppet usually having movable features (as mouth and arms) manipulated by a ventriloquist dchiefly British : pacifier 2
   
4. one seeming to act independently but in reality controlled by another
5. a: a mock-up of a proposed publication (as a book or magazine) b: a set of pages (as for a newspaper or magazine) with the position of text and artwork indicated for the printer

O98: Ocean –out of sight, out of mind

The element of water directs my attention to the Pacific Ocean. I have for some inexplicable reason been ignoring the ocean that lies less than a mile from my front door. Shameful. This week I rediscover the miracle at my doorstep that has been out of sight and out of mind for this plains-raised gal.

Last Friday I came across a Treehugger post and found a story that captivated me. I have heard about this problem of plastics becoming a monstrous floating mass in the ocean, but seeing these videos made it so much more profound.

I was enthralled by the nerdy, real life crew of this vessel. You’ll have to watch it to see what I mean. Thomas Morton, the correspondent for VBS.tv was a hoot.

Before this trip, I was never all that crazy about the ocean. I’ve always appreciated the fact that it generates the majority of the world’s oxygen and keeps us nice and far from places like Britain, but in terms of any sort of awe or “respect” it just never happened. I would say I looked at it less as the primeval womb of all terrestrial life than as an excessive amount of water you sometimes have to fly over.

Part and parcel with this was my attitude toward the Pacific Garbage Patch, or as we willfully misidentified it for the duration of our journey, the elusive Garbage Island. All the journalism I’d read about the patch had carefully danced around physical descriptions of the trash, leading myself and the rest of the shooting crew to fanciful visions of a solid, Texas-size barge of discarded Coke bottles and sporting goods. The idea that people had managed to fuck up a part of the world that nobody even visits, much less inhabits, and on such a monumental scale struck me as interesting and, to be honest, slightly awesome-sounding, but at the end of the day the impact of the mess on the rest of the world failed to register. I mean, sure, sea birds choking to death on deflated balloons and sea turtles whose shells have been completely deformed by soda can rings (click here for a picture of this if you want to completely ruin your day)—all this definitely sucks, but so do a lot of things, you know?

Needless to say this whole journey ended up overturning my expectations about the Garbage Patch, as well as just about every misconception I’ve ever held about the sea, environmentalism, consumption, barfing, knots, pollution, humanity, and myself. After absorbing the myriad dangers of our plastic-heavy lifestyles for three weeks, I’m now a proud, carbon-conscious “Earth Warrior” who yells at grocery clerks for double-bagging my produce and carries around one of those 70s gunnysacks to drink out of. Just kidding, although the trip did lead me to ferret out a group of non-hippie environmentalists who you can read about here. I also finally got into Earth Crisis. Pretty decent.

VBS CORRESPONDENT THOMAS MORTON

Thank to Treehugger for this reporting.