The LatteGirl Word of the Day
Backwalker (bak wo-k&r) - a dog that likes to walk behind you, and often makes you trip over him.
LatteGirl coined this phase for our new Basset Hound that does in fact seem to like to trail behind… directly behind… whomever he at that moment he decides to follow. Being so low to the ground, you often aren’t aware that he is there (until you back up and trip over him).
Finding food close to home
I have spoken before about the benefits of supporting a sustainable culture when it comes to food. I am not talking (necessarily) about Organic. Because while yes, certainly buying organic has virtues also, they do not (necessarily) always translate well into sustainable.
As a matter of fact, if you check your area, you will probably find farmers that practice good sustainable (and “nearly” organic… the big problem being the the expense and paperwork involved in getting that seal which can be prohibitive to a small local farmer).
Now of course we all know that it benefits the planet if your fruits, vegetables, and so on do not need to be trucked or steam shipped thousands of miles to your grocer. Few will argue the benefits to the local economy of keeping those dollars closer to home that you spend.
But until it becomes news, few really pay attention all that closely to the fact that regulations and laws governing food, are lax or non-exitent in many of these countries that many big agri-business source from for cheap goods. And even then, most of it goes by the wayside.
I mean, most people are(were) aware of the e.coli outbreak as laid out in this SF Chronicle article, and I certainly hope everybody paid attention to the Peanut Butter recall, but how many people started thinking twice about where their bananas came from, even after Chiquita Bananas was fined $25 million dollars for paying known terrorists protection money to guard their farms in Columbia? And while, unless you have been living under a rock, you have no doubt at least heard about the recall of Pet Food, but how many paid enough attention to the story to stick around and hear that animal feed has caused a quarantine of at least one farm where melamine was found in the urine of animals meant for human consumption?
With the warm weather upon us, we are going to try and make an effort to not only shop locally and sustainably, but even hopefully visit a few farms, where not only can we get some great fresh food, but we can actually talk to the farmers, and hopefully teach a lesson or two to LatteGirl about where are food comes from (or should).
Want to find sustainable farmers in your area? Then check out the Eat Well Guide over at Sustainable Table. Visit your local Farmer’s Markets when and where available.
Ask questions. Build a better relationship with the food you eat, and your body just may thank you for it.
TVLNMC - Danger Zone
It is 1986, Tom Cruise is still thought of as a straight hunk, Val Kilmer isn’t thought of as some whack-o that is so out there that he is considered weird by Hollywood yet, the Russians are still the evil empire we need to worry about and every teenager with a car has his windows rolled down and is blasting Danger Zone, while imagining his hunk of junk car is an F-14 Tomcat. (nuh-uh… it wasn’t just me… was it?)
Friday Foccacia
I meant to mention this a while back, but anyway… I have to admit, I love Akismetfor the way it keeps most spam from actually reaching my comments field. I have had only a few false positives since I started using it, but those few have kept me “dumpster diving” through the spam to ensure that I didn’t lose any real comments, and anybody who follows this pattern knows, this can be a tedious process to constantly do as well. Enter Bad Behavior. Bad Behavior, actually compares comments against known spambots, and cuts them off at the source, avoiding (or at least greatly reducing) the hassle of having to wade through so much junk. There are releases for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and many others. I have to give this two thumbs up.
When I spotted the Newsweek Article on Clubbing for Kids, I have to admit, I loved it and at the same time wondered why nobody ever thought of this before. It gives the nightclubs business at a time, like a Saturday afternoon that they would generally be drawing zero revenue anyway. It gives the kids the open space to jump around and dance and have fun, which is a bit harder for all but the floor seat kids when you go to a concert, and parents can listen to bands like The Sippy Cups, without having to watch their IQ points drift out of their heads as can be witnessed at any Raffi concert.
I guess I will never understand how people who claim to defend the “Right to Life” and “preserving the sanctity of life” can then turn around a plant a bomb in the parking lot of a Texas Abortion Clinic.
People like Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, give all Christians a bad name. In a story about Pat Tillman, the man that walked away from a lucrative NFL contract to join the Army Rangers and was killed Afghanistan, he had this to say about Tillman’s parents, that have been fighting for the last two years to find out what really happened to their son(emphasis added):
Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family’s unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faithin their lives.
In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: “When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don’t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.”
Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans’ religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, “I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know.” (Full Story from ESPN)
First, I’d like to commend Kauzlarich for being the first person to admit that he died for nothing. But then, I’m lost. So the Tillman’s are what, a problem, because they are not “good little Christians” that didn’t accept the smoke screen and lies that were first given for his cause of death? Because the Military was caught in a Cover up? This just doesn’t make any sense.
Cutting to somewhat more light-heartedly and only metaphorically deadly… Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make an Ocean’s 13? Weren’t we punished enough with the first two installments of this atrocity?
If you are a Harry Potter fan, the trailers for the new movie are out. As a bonus The Leaky Cauldron has a different version than what’s on the official site. I haven’t seen a Potter film in the theater yet (through no fault of my own, other than bad timing), but I reaaaaaally want to see this one on the big screen. (OK Fine, I really want to see something in theaters that that doesn’t involve a Sloth, Ogre, or a Rat in Paris.
When we stopped in a local store last week on our way home from Bushkill falls, I found that this is already in stores. Now, I like Coke. I drink Coke Zero, and TheWife drinks DietCoke. But are we really going to trust Diet Coke to get our daily supply of vitamins and minerals?
Bottled water is coming under fire, according to the CNN/Money article which asks, Is bottled water no longer cool? They give a long list of things that should be obvious, such as “Bottled water is no safer than regular water” and “It is expensive.” I’m not sure where things got really out of hand, sure there have been “status waters” like Evian for quite some time, but every “Bob’s Brand” of water is now seemingly just as expensive. Maybe it is just time to get a decent refillable water bottle, and stop the insanity?
I’m going to be making some changes around here over the weekend (if things work out as planned), so if you are an “Feed Reader” you may wish to change me to “new posts only” for a few days, otherwise a lot of “re-org” might wind up in your reader.
Picture Perfect Thursday - Immigrant Nation
We are a nation of immigrants (with the exception of the Native Americans of course). The vast majority of us “hail” from another nation. We even try to hold ties to those nations, by hyphenating our nationalities, much like a woman that adds her husbands name onto her own. We are Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Irish-Americans and so on. So what is it that give people the right to complain about “foreigners?”
Now, I am not talking about illegal immigration here, that is a whole other topic, for another time. No, I am talking about plain old racism. And it burns me to no end, when people whine about the “PC Police.” Because these same whiners would be the ones up in arms if something derogatory was said about “their people.”
I have head people ask, do you teach your child how to not be a racist? This is of course, the silliest thing I have ever heard. Of course I don’t. I have no need to. Not because my child is special, or has some sort of difference than other kids. No, she is exactly the same as all kids in this world. Racism is not “baked in.” The seeds of racism are planted by adults, nurtured and cultivated, as the children learn from the actions of adults.
Now to be fair, it is not all the adults. There is enough blame to go around, since children can also be influenced by teachers, friends (who have racist parents), and even television. Not that I would ever condone a child watching Faux News Channel (or anybody else for that matter), but what kind of a world do we live in when you have “News” reporters saying thing like, the Iraqi people are knuckle dragging savages from the 10th century. You have many people who believe that Barack Obama can not be President. Not for any reason of his qualification, but because, “America isn’t ready for a BLACK President.”
Have we really progressed so little? Can’t we just learn from our children that we are all really the same and that the color of our skin, or the nation from which we claim our roots, really doesn’t matter? Is it really that hard? And if not, why haven’t we done it?
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