A little Kawaii Not-inspired silliness I just whipped up a bit slap-dashedly

From RedOrbit.com:

The following editorial appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday, June 29:

“Carbon dioxide: It’s what we breathe out and plants breathe in. They call it pollution; we call it life.”

That paradox expressed by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute is being used to counter former Vice President Al Gore’s scary global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

How could a life-giving gas be dangerous to our planet? What right does a president or Congress have to regulate it as if it were smog, acid rain or arsenic?

Those are the central questions the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to answer by hearing Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency next fall. It could be the most significant environmental case ever to come before the court. …

The Clean Air Act specifies some pollutants for regulation, but not carbon dioxide. The act does allow the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate any pollutant that affects the “welfare” of “soils, water, crops, vegetation, man-made materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility and climate, and damage to and deterioration of property.” Global warming, caused, in part, by carbon dioxide coming from vehicles, is having those negative effects.

EPA already regulates other naturally occurring substances. Phosphorus, for example, is a critical nutrient for plants, but it’s regulated because in excessive quantities, it kills life in lakes and streams. Likewise, carbon dioxide, in excessive quantity, is hurting the planet.

Yes, the Earth needs carbon dioxide, but only so much. When the supply begins to endanger public health, government should act.

I admit that when my wife came to me and suggested that I switch laundry detergents from our typical “toxic to everything but clothes and maybe still even then” brand to Seventh Generation that I was skeptical.

Yes, it is slightly more expensive and yes, if I was a Mexican wrestler my wrestling name would be El Cheapo. (P.S.: I’m half Mexican and LOVE Mexican wrestling.)

But I have to say that I continue to be amazed at how the scented and unscented Seventh Generation [vegetable-based, non-toxic, and biodegradable] detergent not only cleans laundry but keeps whites stunningly white. Where I used to resort to soaking clothes in toxic bleach—Seventh Generation makes a green version of that too—just to keep shirts from dinginess, the Seventh Generation detergent takes one look and says, “Yo, I got that.”

Since I am the dedicated launderer of clothes in the household, the comparison between regular detergent and Seventh Generation was easy to see. Living in muggy, humid New Jersey and working muggier, humidier New York City means a lot of dingy clothes that need extra care to scrub clean.

Since we have to rely on the local front-loading machines at the Laundromat, soaking whites in bleach is not always an option. (You’re actually supposed to stay there, hover until a light does or does not turn on, then add your bleach in a split second. Oh, and you can’t soak.)

The point of all this is the fact that after using Seventh Generation for about six months, I have just now actually read the label closely enough to realize their mission—based on a Native American tribe’s belief—is to protect the Earth for the seventh generation of your own family. Which I guess is a pretty good way to think about things.

Also, you can mix the whites and color clothes in together, wash on cold and dry on normal, and nothing runs at all. Which is more than I can say for other detergents, hands down.

A “socially conscious bourgeois hedonist” from The Nation penned a rather puzzling, if not outright ignorant, denouncement of fair-trade coffee’s quality and flavor. After trying all of one blend. Yes, one. Uno. That means “less than two or more” for the folks playing at home. (It’s been my experience that people who feel the need to prequalify their statements with “I’m very socially conscious …” tend to be fuller of horse hockey than a glue factory, but that’s a whole ‘nother post, entirely.) And as Siel previously noted, fair-trade coffee has been winning taste awards for the past few years.

Of course, anyone who lauds Starbucks’ cow-pus-laced swill as “delicious” and “a positive legacy” probably also believes (erroneously) that the company trades fairly, while being in the lamentable position of one completely devoid of both imagination and taste.

A simple recipe for “instantly smoother skin” from Care2.com recommends separating an egg white into two portions, washing your face with one half, and then patting the second half on your skin and letting it dry for about 10 minutes. As the water content of the egg white evaporates, the albumin pulls your skin taut, hardening almost like a clay-based facial mask. (Tho’ you canth thalk.) At first I thought those Care2 people were CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS, but washing off the egg white with warm water for the second time really does have a remarkably softening effect on your skin, likely due to the moisturizing and protein-rich content of the egg white. Cracking the top of a cage-free, free-range organic chicken egg¹ and following these no fuss, no muss directions is now something I incorporate into my skin-care regimen twice a week. I don’t have the wherewithal to painstakingly bubble and decant the 90 kinds of essential oils some natural skin-care recipes (insanely) require, but this one’s a cinch.

Slathering on the egg white on your face gets kind of goopy, but at least it’s sheer enough that you wouldn’t scare your brother into hightailing it in your opposite direction while shrieking something about the Phantom of the Opera. Not that I would know personally, of course.

So now you’re left with egg yolk—save it for the next time you wash your hair and massage it into your scalp like a conditioner. (You can also try pairing it with castor oil or one of these other suggestions.)

And don’t throw away the eggshell. Crushing the shell and sprinkling the shards around your more-precious foliage will deter hungry slugs and snails. Alternatively, you can grind up the eggshell, stir it with some cornmeal and scatter the mix around some bird feeders. The calcium from the eggshell will help nesting feathered types lay better eggs. If you crack the top of the egg just right and wash the shell out, you can even use it as a starting pot¹ for wee seedlings. How’s that for zero-waste pampering?

¹Mine are from a farm in New Jersey where the chickens are “free-roaming” and “fed an all-natural diet.” I want to rear two chickens when we move to a place with a yard, however. I’ve already decided to name them Miss Lucinda and Miss Henrietta. They will have bonnets. Okay maybe just on Easter.

²No need for the Fakey MacFakeysons. Display them in an open egg carton for ze tres-country-chic look.

From MacWorld: “The hard truth about iPods.”

Put your iPod on pause for a moment. There is something you should know: The Chinese factory workers who assembled your music player work long hours and do not earn a lot of money.

Many of these workers are employed by Hon Hai Precision Industry, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer known by its Foxconn brand, the Mail On Sunday, a U.K. newspaper, reported last weekend.

Low-paid workers toil long hours at Hon Hai’s Longhua, China, plant to produce Apple’s popular iPod nano music player, the newspaper said. It put the monthly salary of these workers at £27 (US$50). Workers at a different company that produces the iPod shuffle were paid £54 per month. These workers paid for their own room and board, which amounted to around half of their salary, it said.

Click here for Wired’s take on the news. Also, Apple’s lame, form-letter response.

Update: BusinessWeek weighs in with “High-tech’s ’sweatshop’ wake-up call.”

More reasons to make your own skin-care products than you can shake a honey-and-sugar-scrubbed fist at.

From Natural Beauty at Home: More Than 250 Easy to Use Recipes for Body,Bath, and Hair (Revised Edition) by Janice Cox:

Making your own beauty products is simple to do, cost-effective, and fun. Even though I occasionally purchase cosmetics, I find that my own recipes work just as well, if not better, than commercial brands because they are pure and undiluted. You control the ingredients used, and you know there is no cruel animal testing involved.

I have always focused on the enjoyment of making my own cosmetics, but I cannot ignore the cost savings. When you realize what you have been spending on commercial products and how much it costs to create you own homemade versions, you’ll be amazed and delighted. The cost of these ingredients is nothing compared to what companies spend on packaging and marketing their products, which is reflected in their retail prices. You can purchase a honey toner from a well-known natural cosmetics manufacturer for sixteen dollars, or you can make the Honey Toner recipe on page 51 for around eighty-five cents—quite a difference! I once met a lady in her seventies who had worked her whole life for a major cosmetics firm. She told me I could do just as well spreading vegetable shortening on my face as using their most expensive night cream. Many women spend sixty to seventy dollars for expensive night and eye creams when they could make their own products for a few dollars.

Today you can’t pass a cosmetics shop or display without seeing the world natural. All of a sudden, “back to basics” is a trend, and less is definitely better when it comes to beauty and beauty products. There are even natural beauty boutiques now where the products are so fresh you must rush home and pop them in the refrigerator and throw them out after a few days. Commercial companies cannot make cosmetics fresher than you can at home. Time works against them as they mass-produce their products and transport them to retail outlets. Commercial products are made to handle any possible problem that could arise before you purchase them. They are made to withstand a wide range of temperatures (from freezing to boiling) and have a very long shelf life.

Thanks to the yogurt-and-honey cleanser and apple cider vinegar toner I’ve mixed up for daily use, my sister and mother have both remarked that my erstwhile blotchy skin has noticeably improved. (Huzzah!) According to Care2.com, yogurt contains lactic acid, an alpha-hydroxy acid that exfoliates and nourishes while evening out skin tone. Honey heals skin and promote circulation; apple cider vinegar is a natural astringent that balances your skin’s pH at the same time.

Books I’ve placed on hold at my local library for further homemade skin-care machinations:

1. Natural Beauty at Home: More Than 250 Easy to Use Recipes for Body,Bath, and Hair (Revised Edition) by Janie Cox

2. Natural Beauty Basics: Create Your Own Cosmetics and Body Care Products by Dorie Byers

3. The Herbal Home Spa: Naturally Refreshing Wraps, Rubs, Lotions, Masks, Oils, and Scrubs by Greta Breedlove

Congratulations, Mark and Samantha!

(Part of my Green This House program.)

My dear friend Juanita kvetched to me about the cost of natural skin-care products—the kind that’s free of known and suspected carcinogenic, reproductive, and developmental toxins. “I’m not willing to sell my kidney just yet,” she muttered. Well I hear you and raise you a liver, girlfriend, because lordy, peace of mind doesn’t come without some serious kaching. But, being the smart alecky kid that I am, I told her she could save a tidy sum simply by raiding her kitchen cabinet and refrigerator, which works brilliantly for inexpensive and au naturale cleaning liquids, as well. Free yourself from the shackles of the capitalist consumerist machine, I whooped, only partly in jest.

When I found out that a tiny 8 oz. bottle of facial cleaner (with a very low hazard score of 0.3) ran for $15.48, I blanched. Instead, I made my bar of soap pull double duty in the shower for a while. (If it was good enough for our forebears, it’s good enough for me.) Then I came across a recipe for an exfoliating sugar scrub that was simply one-quarter cup brown sugar, one tablespoon of honey, and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. I’m not one to gush over skin care, but I did feel inordinately radiant and fresh after I gave it a shot one day.

Apple cider vinegar mixed with some water also works amazingly well as a skin toner. (You just have to get over the smell and tell your spouse to zip it.) It also conditions your tresses beautifully while ridding you of shampoo buildup.

Besides saving you money, homemade skin- and hair-care formulas also dispense with petroleum-based plastic packaging, which does add up, even for the most diligent of tree-huggers. (You might want to invest in a spray bottle or two in the beginning, however. Don’t reuse any containers that were filled with toxic chemicals before. In other words, chuck that used Windex bottle with the recyclables.) You also know exactly what you’re spreading across your skin without having to worry about synthetic additives or shelf-life-prolonging preservatives. And look, Ma, no extra food miles!

Peruse the cornucopia of skin-care recipes here and here. Or just Google “skin care recipes” or similar. Help save the planet, your health, and your pocketbook, while looking BEE-YOO-TI-FUL throughout.

(Read about the problems with conventional cotton here.)

Organic cotton is grown from seeds that have been untreated with pesticides or insecticides. And, as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, organic cotton cannot be genetically modified, which means that herbicide-tolerant cotton or megacorp-patented cotton plants that exude their own pesticides are a big no no.

One downside: Because farming without toxic chemicals is by nature more labor intensive and lower in yield, and the organic certification process both demanding and costly, the price of organic cotton fiber and textiles comes at a premium, at least before increasing demand for organic cotton reaches critical mass. At the risk of sounding completely hokey, however, the higher price of organic cotton cannot compare to the much higher environmental and social cost of conventional cotton farming, which is responsible for wanton habitat destruction, contamination of surface and ground water, wildlife loss, and at least 355,000 human deaths from accidental poisoning per year.

A directory of organic cotton textile and fiber companies (which will be continually updated) continues after the fold.

Click here for more »

Original model’s photo from American Apparel.

Have you ever faced an ecological or social-responsibility quandary and wondered, “Man, I wonder what Chekhov would do.” Or wished for a more visible cue to remind yourself to make better choices for yourself and your planet? You need a “What Would Chekhov Do?” T-shirt! But I’m not making or printing these shirts, YOU are, because both Chekhov and I believe in the power of the consumer. (We’re all about open-source love, baby, except when you use our work for commercial gain, in which case we will HUNT YOU DOWN.)

You can download a printable PDF of the WWCD logo here and have it printed up as a transfer you can iron onto a blank T-shirt. (If you’re extra super crafty, you could also use it to create a screen for screen-printing.)

So the next time you’re getting ready to go to the grocery store, and you’re wondering if you’ve forgotten anything, maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of yourself wearing this shirt in your hallway mirror. What would Chekhov do, you might end up asking yourself. A metaphorical lightbulb may suddenly pop up and inspire you to grab a couple of canvas shopping bags to take with you. Yeah, you won’t need no steenking plastic bags.

If you don’t already have a shirt all ready to go, His Fuzziness favors eco-friendly and sweatshop-free options like American Apparel’s Sustainable Edition and Good Hemp’s hemp/organic cotton tees.

If you do end up making a T-shirt (or a onesie or a little cape for your favorite feline … the options are endless), PLEASE send us a picture. Chekhov and I would both be tickled pink. And if you include a note about how one of Chekhov’s Eco Tips has helped you lead a more sustainable lifestyle, we’re just sayin’ there might be prizes¹!

¹Hub just read over my shoulder and went, “What kind of prizes?” “Err … organic, fair-trade hot chocolate?” He paused. “That’s a good prize,” he said.

More here. I wonder if I can find a Woodsy T-shirt in a thrift store. (Woodsy would NEVER approve of cotton/polyester, though.)

I’ve decided to make “Chekhov’s Eco Tip” a semi-regular feature, because conscientious consumption only needs to happen one small change at a time. (You can see it a tip in action here.) If you have a spectacular tip (or extra catnip) you’d like to share, email chekhov-at-worstedwitch-dot-com. Disclaimer: Management will not be held responsible if your email gets returned shredded, moistened, and reeking of tuna breath.

The real McCoy (fear him because death awaits you with sharp, pointy teeth!):

Psycho disco monkey Chekhov.

Just designed a new header for Green LA Girl’s blog, which you should definitely be reading if you’re interested in fair-trade issues, especially those relating to coffee and Starbucks. Check it out in situ here. Thanks Siel, for the fun opportunity and the fantastic organic, fair-trade coffee with the GROOVIEST logo. Everything’s better with monkeys!

I don’t believe in Valentine’s Day. I think that schmaltzy little fantasy about St. Valentine marrying lovers in secret is one huge fallacy propagated by a dark cabal of media and business moguls who worship some winged, arrow-stringing demon-child. Call me a party pooper, but I’m loathe to further grease the wheels of the consumer-capitalism machine in the name of TWOO WUV. In fact, if Cupid ever came a-calling with a lavish bouquet so bold and beautiful that its unspeakable splendor caused all floral arrangements within a 10-mile radius to shrivel back into their roots in shame, I’d probably rip it from his stubby, wormy fingers and bash him over the head with the decaying foliage.

(My scorn for this blessed event is in no way related to the fact that David Owyong didn’t ask me to be his valentine in 11th grade. Or 12th grade. Or to the PROM. WHY, DAVID, WHY?)

Prejudices aside: If you insist on throwing yourself at the well-manicured feet of Aphrodite, Venus, Hathor, Ishtar, or whoever-have-you, there are better offerings you can make at the altar of love than the purveyors of candy hearts would have you believe. Let’s tackle the two heavy hitters of the Valentine’s Day industry: chocolates and flowers.

Almost half of the chocolate consumed in this country, including those by Nestlé, Hershey’s, and M&M/Mars, is made from cocoa beans imported from Africa’s Ivory Coast, and largely harvested by child slaves as young as 9. Yup, that includes those cute little silver Hershey’s kisses that so perfectly and lovingly encapsulate your amore. Chocolate manufacturers have known about the proverbial mad wife in the attic for years, and they’ve admitted as much. The choices we make as consumers can change these heinous labor practices.

A better option would be to trade in those bonbons for some fair trade, organic sweets for your sweet. This witch particularly loves Green & Black’s Maya Gold dark chocolate with orange and spices, incidentally the first product to be awarded the UK fair-trade certification in 1994. (Green & Black’s has since been acquired by Cadbury Schweppes, but Maya Gold will continue to adhere to fair-trade standards.)

How do you tell if something is fair trade? Look for this label of certification on the packaging, which means that the product complies with the economic, social, and environmental criteria as laid out by Transfair USA.

As Green LA Girl points out, however, the certification covers only the product itself, not the entire company. For example, is Starbucks’ Cafe Estima blend fair trade? Yes, it is, indeedy. Is the rest of Starbucks’ coffee fair trade, as well? Not on your life.

Seventy percent of flowers sold in the US are imported, according to the US Dept. of Agriculture. Commercial flowers produced in countries such as Colombia and Ecuador are sprayed with highly toxic pesticides, fungicides, and fumigants—20 percent of which are banned in the US and Canada for being extremely carcinogenic—in order to maintain their fresh, unblemished appearances. Two-thirds of Columbian and Ecuadorian workers suffer from problems associated with pesticide exposure, including nausea, conjunctivitis, neurologic disease, reproductive problems, and birth defects. Let’s also not forget the environmental toll of producing those seemingly innocuous-looking posies, including the energy requirements of flying or trucking them across distances.

A 1995 study showed that workers on Colombian flower plantations are exposed to 127 different types of pesticides.

Say it, then, with organic and pesticide-free flowers. Support your local farms by locating an organic-flower grower near you.

If you still need to wax lyrical about the zinging of your heartstrings, consider buying an eco-friendly valentine that biodegrades back into the soil and sprouts seedlings. I personally think that’s a far sweeter sentiment than a bunch of dead plants, but your mileage may vary. Romance, shmomance, why not make buy some green tags and make your love 100 percent climate-neutral? Now that’s true devotion.

When you’ve lived in apartments all your life, gardening, like discovering a weathered piece of the Dead Sea Scrolls (or moving to Crete for that matter), is something that happens to other people. My thumb is nowhere close to green. Even if I miraculously discovered some latent aptitude for raising plant life, however, there still remains the matter of Chekhov, Destroyer of Worlds, Nipper of Ankles, and Expert Worrier of Furniture Upholstry. (Years ago, a former roommate mollycoddled a hapless pot of rosemary by our kitchen window, but greatly underestimated the tenacity and resolution of one small cat. Can you imagine the unspeakable carnage if I grew indoor tomatoes? GAH.)

Still, being vegetarian, I often wonder if I can keep my carrot-tops and assorted vegetable trimmings from landfill-entombment by composting my dinner scraps. This automatic, bug- and worm-free composter, which only needs 10 watts to power up, is pretty goshdarn sweet. I wasn’t exaggerating, however, when I said my kitchen was unbearably small. It is, as George Orwell, might say, doubleplusunbig. In other words: No. Room. At. The. Inn. Even. For. You. Baby. Jesus.

Researching composting for apartment dwellers also unearthed (hur, hur) something called vermicomposting, which doesn’t take up much space. One problem: it involves worms. Lots of tiny, slimy, wriggly, redworms. And (I say this in all earnestness) if you think I’m letting anything remotely spindly or squelchy sublease my apartment, you’ve got another thing coming. Suffice to say, I’m not the kind of girl who will KNIT WORMS FOR FUN AND FANTASY. (Dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into?)

I e-mailed my municipal recycling coordinator for information on community composting programs in my neighborhood, so we’ll see how that pans out. (I’m not holding my breath, so nebulous is my faith in humankind.) How I’ll go about applying any quantity of fertilizer is also uncharted here-be-dragons territory. Maybe I’ll end up, like Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, begging my landlord for “a bit of earth,” far from feline machinations. Or BETTER YET maybe I’ll just pelt clods of it at impatient drivers who don’t seem to care if they run me over. Yeah, how do you like them apples now, you jerks?

What the Internet doesn’t need is another blurry snapshot of someone in a cunningly knit Jayne hat, so here’s an illustration of Ma Cobb’s dear boy, as cunningly as I could capture him, instead.

I completely grok fandom. My older brother’s a fanboy, my husband’s a fanboy, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m a big ol’ fangirl (but anything you’ve heard about my high-school past with The X-Files are LIES ALL LIES). What I don’t understand is fandom knitting, a concept I find as difficult to grasp as slash fiction¹, Harry Potter fans, or … My God … cosplay).

When Jayne hats started popping online like gorram Tribbles, I feigned nonchalance (cleverly edged with boredom) and asked my Firefly-obsessed spouse if he wanted one—I didn’t necessarily want to knit one, but if he had to have it, then I GUESS I could. He said he could live without it. I asked him again over the course of a few weeks, bringing it up as if I were discussing the weather or ruminating on the taste-versus-health differential of low-fat salad dressing (”… blah blah raspberry vinaigrette … so, honey, you really don’t want a Jayne hat?”) To which he would respond, “I don’t know … I think I’d rather have a Harry Potter scarf instead.” (THE HELL?)

Thank Gort for the relative anonymity of the Internet so Heather didn’t see me beet-red with embarrassment as I ordered one of her ² kits, clutching my paper-thin excuse of a first-date anniversary.

In two evenings, the damned thing was done. I marched over to my husband and pulled it over his head.

“Here, I thought you might want a Jayne hat after all, and who am I to deprive you. HAPPY NOW?”

(Joss-Whedon-related postscript: Felicia’s³ Speed Demon sock yarn in the “Slayer” colorway? Totally had me at hello.)

¹Though I’m not above snarking the HoYay when my husband watches Smallville (I know).

² Total sweetheart who gave me entirely too much for so little; I highly recommend buying from her. She even includes a handmade pom-pom!

³ Felicia, I got it yesterday and I LOVE IT SO MUCH I want to hug it and squeeze it and NAME IT GEORGE!

On the way home from work, I stopped at the Starbucks on 29th St. and Park Ave. South, husband in tow. (He made me promise to do all the asking, and palmed me $10 for the cause.) I asked the male barista behind the counter for two tall fair-trade coffees. A brief look of bemusement flickered across his face. “We’re not brewing that today,” he said.

“But aren’t you supposed to brew it on demand?” I asked (very politely, in my least-confrontational voice). He shook his head but I pressed my case: “But it’s Starbucks policy, and it’s on your Web site.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You want us to brew it special for you.”

“Yes, please.” (If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being exasperatingly polite until I get what I want.)

He paused. “Hold on, let me check,” he said, ducking into a door at the side. A few moments later, the barista strode back to the cash register. “Um … okay … we had the fair-trade coffee last week, but we don’t have any more,” he said. A quick glance around the rather sizable store confirmed that it did not stock Cafe Estima, which is the fair-trade blend. It did, however, have for sale several gentleman bears dressed in argyle vests and grasping tulle roses—meant for, I assume, the nearby lady bears swathed in Pepto pink. (It was a very heterosexual display.)

I thanked the barista for looking, returned his sheepish smile, and left feeling somewhat disappointed by my wholly unremarkable experience. Truth be told, I had imagined writing about some huge scene with emotions running high on both sides¹, or fortuitously landing the best-case scenario and being able to laud my fellow Manhattanites for being so socially progressive.

In the end, I can only compare the episode to narrowly missing the train on your morning commute—it’s nothing to cry over, but you still wish it hadn’t turned out that way.

¹Once, in a fit of righteous indignation in second grade, I made a bully cry. You see a small Asian female, I see a loaded gun just waiting to be set off by the right circumstance.

Never start a blog right before the holidays. You’ll spend most of the winter break suspended 3,000 miles away from home, hearth, and computer, while the one or two readers you’ve picked up on the way write you off as a flaky no-show. When you do return, you’ll get so wrapped up in validating your XHTML that you lose track of time, much to the consternation of your husband and cat—alas, my desktop is in the master suite—who pad off peevishly into the living room for some peace and shut-eye. (I soon guiltily powered down and urged the somnolent duo into bed, however.)

Did you know that the “target” attribute is no longer standards-compliant? I sure didn’t, but then I’ve been stuck in HTML 4.01 Transitional for who knows how long, and I had to suppress my reflex to throw in a table or two to get things aligned. My style sheets could still do with some tidying up, but that’s a whole other marriage-threatening, after-hours project.