October 2008 Archives

"Socialism" has been bandied about frequently in the late stages of this presidential election as a single-word rebuke of the idea of taxing the rich to pay the poor. The Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, however, has released a new report saying that 18 states tax the working poor deeper into poverty. As we move into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, are regressive taxes the answer?

Last year, the federal poverty line for a family of four was $21,203. More than half of the states in the union actually collected taxes from families of four with incomes just above that poverty line. Unfortunately, provisions designed to protect low-income families from taxation were not increased to keep up with inflation, so some states increased their income taxes on the poor last year. Measures must be put in place to make sure that this doesn't happen again as we move deeper into the financial crisis. From the report, titled "The Impact of State Income Taxes On Low income People in 2007":

Some states levy income tax on working families in severe poverty. Nine states -- Alabama, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and West Virginia -- tax the income of two-parent families of four earning less than three-quarters of the poverty line ($15,902). And six states -- Alabama, Hawaii, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, and West Virginia -- tax the income of one-parent families of three earning less than three-quarters of the poverty line ($12,398).

In some states, families living in poverty face income tax bills of several hundred dollars. A two-parent family of four in Alabama with income at the poverty line owes $423 in income tax, while such a family owes $409 in Hawaii, $325 in Oregon, and $258 in West Virginia. Such amounts can make a big difference to a family struggling to escape poverty.

A full PDF of the report is available here.

[Image: Heritage Foundation]

With all the news about the Middle East these days, it's easy to assume that nothing much is happening there beyond war, and the tense avoidance of even more war.

But life goes on in Iraq, Iran, and the rest of that troubled region of the globe. Take, for example, the thwarted effort among Iranians to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records by creating the world's longest sandwich.

At 1,500 meters, the super-mega-ultra hoagie was stuffed with 2,205 pounds of ostrich and chicken meat, ostensibly to promote a healthier diet among Iranians. Ostrich meat, in particular, has even less fat than chicken, no cholesterol, and is reportedly quite tasty. I've never had it, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't try it.

Apparently, though, many onlookers had the same idea, but a little prematurely: Before Guinness officials could measure the sub, the crowd dove in and started devouring it, polishing the sandwich off within minutes.

At any rate, it's nice to hear about something other than oil, bombs, and civil unrest for a change.

[Image: Christiaan Kooyman]

Yesterday was designated Write to Marry Day by the blog Mombian. It was a blog action day based on encouraging California voters to vote no on Proposition 8. Prop 8 would overturn the California State Supreme Court's ruling that same-sex couples have the right to marriage and the benefits marriage bestows.

In one day of hot blogging action, almost 400 posts were contributed. And the posts weren't just from the LGBT set. Straight, Not Narrow, a blog advocating for LGBT equality in the body of Christ from a Progressive Christian viewpoint wrote, "If my legal rights to marry, adopt children and avoid discrimination at work were subject to a vote (the infamous "will of the people") every so often, I would be confident that they would be upheld because, as a straight man, those rights are agreed upon by a clear majority of the people. Even then, however, I would have to wonder what kind of justice is really being done if my basic rights were subject to a referendum."

Dawn at This Woman's Work wrote simply, "I want to dance at my child's wedding knowing their rights will be fully respected no matter who they love."

I also participated, as did many of the moms at LA Moms Blog, including Susan who wrote today:

I was walking in the Marina the other day and I saw a bunch of young guys holding "No on Prop 8" signs. One handed me a flyer, a guarded smile on his face. "Can I ask for your support in voting no on Proposition 8?" he asked.

"Of course," I answered, and then, as if we knew each other, "I can't even believe you have to ask me that." But what I meant was that now, in 2008, after Stonewall and Harvey Milk and AIDS and just everything, in this city that I love so much, I simply cannot believe that a young man ten years my junior has to look at me and ask THAT question.

If you have time, scroll through the other posts, especially if you are wavering on which way to vote on Prop 8. Now to wait and see what the people say on Tuesday.

They're back, and they're unemployed, depressed, deployed, and injured.

The last we heard from these guys, the economy was on steroids, Bill Clinton was in the White House, and when you heard "Iraq" you probably thought of dates.

Eight years later, let's see what the "Waaaasssuuup!" Budweiser guys have to say now -- or rather, hear how their exuberant frat-boy greeting has devolved into a weak, pathetic whimper.

Now, just for fun, let's take a look at how the guys felt eight years ago.

This just in: One week from today, I will neglect to vote and thereby tip the scale in favor of Senator McCain. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I don't support McCain at all.

I don't yet know why I'll fail to vote -- I might forget, or not make it to the polls in time, or maybe I'll just decide my vote doesn't matter since I already live in such a deep-blue state.

But I know the outcome thanks to a CNNBC post-election story, broadcast back in time, about how millions of Americans -- and probably plenty of others around the globe -- want my head because I personally cost Obama the presidency.

You don't believe me? Check out this newscast from the near-future:

OK, you got me. It's a joke, played on my by a friend in Maryland. And it's a joke you can play on your friends, too. What better way to get out the vote than terrifying them into thinking they could individually ruin the whole election?

I took this shot while following the protests at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. The father carrying his daughter before the line of riot police is, at first glance, a juxtaposition of brutal power and protective love. Yet having been there, I know there is another interpretation: that the police presence allowed a father and daughter to move safely through the city. The girl is not frightened, and the father's expression is placid. What initially seems a terrible image of oppression and innocence becomes, upon reflection, a vignette of power restrained -- for the sake of that little girl and her father. In our American democracy, it is the latter in whom true power resides.

Exciting news today as we launch the Kenneth Cole Awearness/ VolunteerMatch partnership.

Several months back, when Kenneth's book, Awearness, started to take shape, we learned that one of the biggest obstacles to volunteering is linking potential volunteers with volunteer opportunities. Our research brought us to VolunteerMatch and their simple, unique approach to this challenge.

Scroll down this page and you will find a widget (Make a Difference!) whereby entering your zip code, dozens of opportunities are generated. Go to the website and you can further your experience by investigating opportunities in specific areas of interest.

We encourage you to check out the new site and take the first step in making a difference.

Twitter is a "micro-blogging" service whose popularity has exploded this year. What is it? According to Wikipedia,

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.

If you haven't used it, think of it as sort of like the "status update" in Facebook, but with all your friends' statuses showing up right alongside your own, creating a sort of low-grade chat environment. It's a great way to keep up with your favorite people and websites, and share interesting stuff. As a freelance writer, I use it as a stand-in for the over-the-cubicle banter that office-folk engage in all day.

It has also served as a potent check of the political barometer. So many people were tweeting about politics that Twitter created an Election 2008 channel where members' comments about the presidential campaign, the debates and other political issues are displayed on a constantly updating page.

So, we've joined the twittering masses. You can now follow AWEARNESS Blog on Twitter, too, so you'll get an alert when news posts appear -- and you can share your thoughts and interact with us in a new way. We look forward to hearing what you have to say!

It was the comment heard round the world. There was a time when every utterance of Alan Greenspan, who was the longest serving Federal Reserve Chairman in American history, could move markets. Young bankers hung on his every passing remark, his"Greenspeak." He was regarded as a "rock star of economics." Greenspan's book signings drew crowds and paparazzi.

But on Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Greenspan, the foremost champion of unregulated markets, shrugged. This week's exchange between Greenspan and Henry Waxman, a California Democrat Committee Chairman, is breathtaking:

Congressman Henry Waxman: Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?

Alan Greenspan: Well, remember that what an ideology is, is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to -- to exist, you need an ideology.

Waxman: The question is whether it is accurate or not.

Greenspan: And what I'm saying to you is, yes, I've found a flaw. I don't know how significant or permanent it is. But I've been very distressed by that fact. But if I may, may I just answer the question --

Waxman: You found a flaw in the reality --

Greenspan: Flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak."

Greenspan, to be sure, must be given kudos for his astonishing honesty. The politic thing for him to do would have been to obfuscate and spin. For a man of his advanced years to admit to so grave an error before the all the world in this moment of exigency should not be taken lightly. Still, as we move deeper into the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, it is bittersweet consolation that it might have been caused, in large part, by a philosophical mistake by a former economic rock star.

[Image: Biggerpockets]

If you've been trying to shield your kid from the election, I bet that it's a huge failure at this point. With candidate ads running almost non-stop here in Illinois for local candidates, it must be almost impossible for Toyota to run an ad in Ohio. So what's a parent or super cool aunt/uncle to tell the kid about the election?

First, you could whip out a few books. Cookie magazine gives us a nice starter list. There's also:

• Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote by Tanya Lee Stone


• Mama Went to Jail for the Vote, by Kathleen Karr and


• Vote! by Eileen Christelow

Then you can take your kid to the polls when you vote. Yes, yes, the campaign is focused on daughters, but just like Take Your Daughters to Work Day, evolve it to your sons, too. And again, super cool aunts and uncles can participate! Borrow the kid, give their parents a break while you two stand in line to cast your vote for president.

Some might ask why we should even talk to our kids about the election, especially as it turns super ugly. For one thing, kids are watching and forming their own opinions. Gender Public Advocacy Coalition released a study on what children think of candidates:

A new study has found that one in four children thought it was illegal for women and minorities to hold the office of president, while one in three attributed the lack of female, African-American and Latino presidents to voter's racial and gender bias.

Yes, you read that correctly. Kids think it is illegal for women and minorities to be president. So much for inspiring children to shoot for the stars.

That startling study should encourage us all to talk to the kids in our lives about the election, no matter who you are supporting. They are watching, listening and making their own decisions. Do you really want the little Latina girl in your life thinking it's illegal for her to be president?

[image: The White House Project]

How much medical history are we, as Americans, entitled to have on our leaders? It is a difficult question, one that straddles the line of privacy. Clearly, voters should know upfront if a prospective president or vice president has a serious medical issue that may affect his or her ability to govern. Would we have elected John F. Kennedy president if we had known that he suffered from Addison's Disease? Did Americans have a right to know about FDR's polio?

Senator Joe Biden, the running mate of Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama, released his medical records this week. Twenty years ago the Delaware senator was operated on for potentially life-threatening aneurysms . In the 49 pages of medical documents released on Monday, Biden was essentially given a clean bill of health. Of the four candidates running for national office in 2008, Biden has released the most detailed medical information.

The other candidates have not, in varying degrees, been nearly as forthcoming as Biden on the state of their medical health. Governor Palin, for example, has released no medical information and, further, will not be interviewed on the subject. Senator Obama, by contrast, released a one page letter -- 276 words -- from his personal doctor Dr. David L. Scheiner, saying, in part, that the candidate was in "excellent health." Is that enough information, though, for voters gearing for the most important election of our lives?

In an October 20th editorial, The New York Times wrote:

The big gaps in what the nominees have been willing to make public were described in The Times on Monday by Lawrence K. Altman, a medical reporter who is also a physician. Senator John McCain has put out far more information than his rival, but under such restricted conditions that it is impossible to nail down the truth about his past melanomas, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. Senator Barack Obama has put out such meager information that voters have to take it largely on his campaign's say-so that he is in good health.

McCain's medical history and future is perhaps the biggest question mark hanging over the question of the health of the candidates. In 1999, during his first run for the presidency, McCain released an astonishing 1,500 pages of medical documents. This time around, in May, McCain released 1,200 pages of medical information. And this time there were conditions for the press review. His doctors at the Mayo Clinic would only answer questions for 45 minutes by telephone. The records could not be photocopied. And the reporters allowed to view the documents were few. CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, one of the handful of journalists allowed to see the records, told The Huffington Post "It was very sort of cloak and dagger and I'm sure they had their reasons. Given that I had my medical training, I was able to hone in on what it thought was important more quickly. But the pages weren't numbered, so I had no way of knowing what was missing... As a reporter I can only comment on what I saw but I can't say by any means that this was complete."

Senator McCain, if elected, would be the oldest person ever inaugurated as President of the United States. In 2000 McCain underwent Stage IIa melanoma surgery. That was eight years ago, and the 10-year survival rate for Stage IIa melanoma is around 66 percent. Do voters have a right to have the full story with McCain, or, for that matter, with Senator Obama and Governor Palin?

[Image: MSNBC]

According to the Reverend Arnold Conrad, an evangelical preacher in Iowa, this election is a battle of the deities. "Your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November," Conrad said in a prayer he was leading at a McCain rally in Iowa. "Because there are millions of people around this world who are praying to their god -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that [McCain's] opponent wins for a variety of reasons."

What he said next is the kicker:

"And Lord, I pray that you will guard your reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in what happens before election day."

Does this mean that Conrad and his minions will foreswear Christianity if Obama does win? I'd like to see that.

The pundits have been writing for almost two years about the impact of race on this presidential election, but what about the impact of our view of racism on our fellow voters?

Tuesday morning on the Bill Press show, callers were discussing their reactions to the reaction of conservatives who claim that Colin Powell endorsed Obama because they are both black. While that line of thinking is certainly racist, one comment really made me stop and think.

I can't recall if it was Press or a caller, but someone said that "...hopefully America will do the right thing in a few weeks." What they meant by that, in the context of the conversation, was that by electing Obama we would be rejecting the racist messages coming from McCain's supporters.

As someone who will be voting for Obama in November, I can't help but stop and think that we are painting McCain's supporters with a very broad racist brush. I think someone with far more time on their hands needs to create a quick quiz for people to use to examine if they are voting for McCain or against Obama and if it is race-based.

• Are you firmly against abortion and it's your #1 election issue? Most likely not a racist voter (unless your stance on abortion is because there aren't enough white babies being born).


• Are you uneasy with the idea of "the Blacks taking over?" Go directly to Racism 101 class and do not pass Go.

Or is my reaction to this broad brush a sign that I do not want to have this conversation with certain members of my circle of friends? Those who I feel are "good people" but deep in my heart I know they are going to vote McCain and possibly not for the best reasons. There are people in my life whom I'm just not going to ask who they voted for, I just can't go there. But Natalie Portman thinks we should all sit down and have that talk.

[Image: Victor Juhasz for Rolling Stone]

There may be more truth in the movies about New York's financial world than we knew. Aside from the props and locations -- i.e., the fancy clothes, the exclusive restaurants, the big-ass cell phone of Gordon Gekko -- the actors themselves in films like Wall Street and American Psycho were cast perfectly.

And if researchers at Harvard University are right, it's got nothing to do with their acting skills, and their faces could tell us a lot about why we're in such a sour financial pickle right now.

According to a new study that was recently published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, there is a direct relationship between testosterone levels and a willingness to take risks. Moreover, testosterone directly affects a person's bone structure and density. The higher the testosterone, the stronger the jaw, and the lower the brow. In short, more "masculine."

Ergo, the choice to cast men like Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Christian Bale and Justin Theroux as shrewd, intense, daring stock brokers and investment bankers.

As Shannon Rupp writes on The Tyee, such machismo is a great "advantage when chasing woolly mammoths with wooden spears, but it's likely to cause problems in money management."

In the Harvard study, a group of 100 young men had their hormone levels tested using saliva samples. They were then given $250 and told they could keep it, or invest all or part of it in a coin toss. Winning the toss more than doubled the amount of money they invested; losing the toss lost the investment.

Men with very high testosterone levels invested 12 percent more money than average men, while those with low testosterone invested the least. But the saliva wasn't the only indicating factor, the study reports: Men with thin-lipped, iron-jawed, heavy-browed "Schwarzennegger faces" -- the result of high testosterone as teenagers -- also invested more heavily in the high-risk bet, supporting the theory that it is during adolescence when young men develop their future attitudes to independence and risk.

I always found it curious that in my college, it was always the so-called "dumb jocks" who were studying economics, while the "smart kids" were devoted to loftier pursuits -- philosophy, art history, English, musicology. It seemed counter-intuitive that rubberneck numbskulls would ever go into a field demanding a cunning intellect.

If this study is right, then maybe I was wrong -- not in my assessment of the guys studying econ, but in my presumptions about the intellectual demands of high finance.

[Image: Christian Bale in American Psycho]

If Sarah Palin seems unfazed by the overwhelming consensus in the media that her and John McCain's bid for the presidency is all but done for, it could be because she doesn't know much about it.

In a piece for the Washington Post's section devoted to all things Election 2008, "The Trail," Juliet Eilperin quoted Ms. Palin at length, from a speech she gave at a fundraiser last Thursday in Greensboro, North Carolina:

"So North Carolina, I appreciate you all so much, who are here who already get it. You know, maybe I'm preaching to the choir a little bit here, but being here encourages me because I know that I'm not alone and I'll send this message back to John McCain also. At those times on the campaign trail when sometimes it's easy to get a little bit discouraged, when, you know, when you happen to turn on the news when your campaign staffers will let you turn on the news," she said, prompting laughter from the group. "Usually they're like 'Oh my gosh, don't watch. You're going to, you know, you're going to get depressed.'"

Eilperin notes that Palin also said she doesn't always appreciate the way reporters portray the GOP ticket, but she's been bolstered by the prayers of many of the campaign's backers, continuing:

"But yeah, sometimes you do get depressed watching what it is that they're reporting and the spin and some of the distortion of what our message is and what we stand for. Sometimes that, that gets draining," she continued. "But it's at events like these and our rallies that we are so energized and inspired and we know that we are not alone. We feel your strength and we feel the power of prayer, so many of you tell us that you are praying for us and praying for our country and that's why we so appreciate you being here."

The rest of Palin's speech at the fundraiser, which earned about $800,000 for the campaign and was attended by 500 supporters, was devoted to standard fare, particularly the most famous man in America, Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. (How telling it is that Joe already has a Wikipedia entry.)

Apparently, though, Palin said she'd begged her speech writers to not include anything about Joe in her speech, admitting that even she is tired of talking about him. But then she went ahead and talked about him anyway, at great length, to illustrate how Barack Obama's tax plan will steal the hard-earned money of a good guy like Joe and give it to less deserving, lazier people.

According to Eilperin, Joe was the only mainstream media reference Palin made, as she opts now to discuss her politics with safer (i.e., more sympatico) outlets -- namely, small-town newspapers with a definite GOP bias.

I wonder if she'll wake up on November 5th assuming she's the vice president.

When people wonder why they should bother to vote it's likely because they have never lived somewhere that citizens have no voice. People before you fought and died so that you could make your voice heard. Yes, you. But suddenly you don't have an opinion? Get off that couch and make your opinion known in the voting booth. 

Others can explain this more eloquently than I can: "No-one made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do so little." (Edmund Burke) "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead)

It's pretty obvious that FOX News is biased. And The Nation has long veered to the Left, both in content and tone.

But what about all the other media sources, the ones we're meant to accept as objective? Or when the New York Times publishes a piece that seems too dry to be anything but factual? It can be pretty hard to discern spin from truth.

That's where Spin Spotter comes in. A new software program, designed specifically for Mozilla Firefox, Spin Spotter analyzes your media sources for potential red flags and alerts you to their intent. Much like FactCheck.org, it's a non-partisan attempt to cut through the muck of contemporary "journalism" to find where you might be getting sneakily tricked or manipulated by the news you consume.

As the company's chief creative officer, Todd Herman, told the New York Times: "Our mission is to make news media transparent."

Note: He did not say "entertaining."

Before we lament the sorry state our "news media" has devolved to, however, let's not forget that yellow journalism was the norm in this country's early years. Over the years, we've championed and celebrated other, equally biased forms of the trade -- namely, the New Journalism of the 1960s and '70s, defined by folks like Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey and, of course, Hunter S. Thompson.

But unlike those great writers, the current "spin doctors" of our national media are doing something far less artistic, and much more insidious: they're passing their work off as truth, unadulterated and essential.

Hopefully Spin Doctor will help the rest of us learn to spot the yellow again.

October is officially domestic violence awareness month, so it makes sense that we're hearing a lot about efforts to help educate and protect women across the country so they can avoid becoming statistics themselves. But one organization has the reverse idea: talk to the men.

Starting from the idea that violence against women stems from deeply ingrained concepts of masculinity, Men Can Stop Rape hopes to rewire the male psyche. As the organization's website states: "Men Can Stop Rape mobilizes male youth to prevent men's violence against women. We build young men's capacity to challenge harmful aspects of traditional masculinity, to value alternative visions of male strength, and to embrace their vital role as allies with women and girls in fostering healthy relationships and gender equity."

If you're free this morning, you can attend one of MCSR's events at John Jay College, whose mission is much clearer than its title: "Women and Men as Allies in Preventing Men's Violence Against Women."

Say that three times fast.

Nevertheless, the two-hour symposium will feature prominent policy makers and violence prevention advocates such as Cindy Dyer, director of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Violence Against Women; Yolanda B. Jimenez, commissioner of the New York City Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence; and Neil Irvin, vice president of programs at MCSR. In addition, teen members from the Men of Strength (MOST) Club, MCSR's primary high school violence prevention program, now in its second year in New York, will offer their thoughts on this pressing issue.

The event begins at 10:30 and ends at 12:30, in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, at 899 10th Avenue, in Manhattan.

If you can't make it -- and you probably can't at this late notice -- but would like to attend an MCSR event in the future -- yes, they're active in months other than October! -- visit the organization's calendar.

New York has a lot of great neighborhoods, from the genteel Upper West Side to the still-somewhat gritty Lower East. The outer boroughs, too, offer no shortage of options, fitting the lifestyles of bankers, hipsters, fifth-generation Italians, and every other kind of person that makes up this great urban experiment known as New York City.

But for my money, one stands far above the rest, and the reason for it is about as un-urban as you can get.

After stretches on the Lower East Side and in Boerum Hill, I migrated two years ago to what I've often thought -- happily -- will be where I will finally settle down: Park Slope.

But it's not the yoga studios, gourmet delis, or brigades of breast-feeding mothers at the local cafe that appeal to me about the Slope. It's the park.

I don't mind the rent because of the park. I don't mind the strollers clogging the door to my local Y in the mid-afternoon because of the park. And most of all, I don't mind the commute into Manhattan because of -- you got it -- the park.

If you live in Brooklyn, or even Manhattan or Staten Island, and make regular use of Prospect Park, as I did when I lived in "the city," you might want to join the effort on Saturday morning to help clean it up.

It's My Park! Fall Clean-up is a program sponsored by the Parks Commission to clear the paths, pick up debris, and generally make Prospect Park as much of a park as it can be. It also prepares the park for the annual Halloween Haunted Walk and Carnival.

The event begins at the base of Lookout Hill, located on Center Drive near the entrance at 16th Street/Prospect Park Southwest at 10am and lasts four hours.

Make Frederick Law Olmsted proud, why don't you.

[Image: Fallkill Falls, in Prospect Park]

Ah, fall...the crisp air, leaves turning colors, apply picking, and for those of us in old homes the annual ritual of sealing up windows with caulk or plastic. That means a stuffy home with the same stale air floating from room to room. What's a person to do? Spray some freshener!

But wait... What are you really spraying?

According to the EPA's children site (I find government children sites often give you the straightforward answer), "there are four basic ingredients in air fresheners: formaldehyde, petroleum distillates, p- dichlorobenzene, and aerosol propellants."

Is that what we really want in our homes, especially during the winter months with the windows closed? SafeMama has the same concerns and has her own suggestions. Seventh Generation has a list of alternatives and strategies for getting through the upcoming winter months without spraying toxins in your home:

• First, track down and eliminate the sources of any persistent bad odors in your home. Since many foul smells are the result of molds or microbial action, spraying or scrubbing trouble spots like trash cans and compost collectors with undiluted 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide will often remove the foul smells. Vinegar is another useful natural antifungal and antibacterial agent.




• Use natural mineral borax and/or baking soda to deodorize surfaces and other places in your home. Because baking soda removes acid odors and vinegar takes care of alkaline smells, a combination of the two is often all you'll need to deodorize as you clean. Lemon juice is another great deodorizer.




• Open windows and doors for a few moments now and then during winter to replace stale indoor air with a fresh supply from outside.

Switching to more natural ways of freshening the air may be tough for some of us. I do like the smell of all those air fresheners, especially the holiday scents. But reading the list of ingredients is quite eye-opening -- and then reading the very simple ways one can easily freshen one's home is even more astonishing. Good luck out there!

[Image: h-e-d.co.uk]

I don't care what your politics are or whom you're voting for in November. But please, have a sound argument if you're going to attempt entering the political debate.

Unless, of course, "Obama must be a terrorist -- I mean, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck, and that, to me, is Obama" seems like a rational thought to you.

These people, interviewed here by Casey Kauffman of Al Jezeera, are going to the polls in under three weeks just like the rest of us. And they're worried about the future of our country?

Come to think of it, I'm surprised they even talked to Mr. Kauffman. I mean, he works for Al Jazeera! He must be a terrorist, too.

Some say that Senator John McCain makes too much of his time as a POW. According to them, the Republican nominee has played the "war hero" card to its end, and may have stretched the truth to add to that persona, which has factored largely in his quest for the presidency. And it's not just the anti-McCain blogosphere, either: even Time magazine covered the issue.

But whether he's fibbing, dwelling, or making an important point about his past, one thing is certain: no one's going to hear him talk about it much until after the election.

That's because the senator's account was filmed as a special feature to be added to a new DVD release of the 1987 film Hanoi Hilton, which tells the story of the prison that held McCain, and that DVD won't be released until after November 4th.

And this is no coincidence. Warner Brothers, the studio that's releasing the DVD, says it doesn't want the project to become "embroiled in pre-election politics." In other words, the studio apparently doesn't want to provide the public any reasons to like John McCain, feel sorry for him, or God forbid, elect him because of how he might recount the horrors he suffered nearly four decades ago (or didn't, depending on whom you believe).

After all, film studios haven't exactly been shy during past election seasons -- and with the October release of W, Oliver Stone's biopic on our current president, they're not being shy during this one either.

It's no surprise that Hollywood leans left, but that only makes Warner Brothers' "reason" that much more transparent.

Besides, would seeing Senator McCain describe his POW experience on a DVD extra for an obscure, 21-year-old film really sway many voters?

[Image: Hoa Lo Prison, aka "Hilton Hanoi," from a brochure issued by the facility. Found on Wikimedia Commons, photographer unknown]

Specifically women in poverty. Why a focus on women? Here's why:

• Seven out of 10 of the world's hungry are women and girls, according to the UN World Food Program.
• Of the 37 million people living below the poverty line in the US, 21 million are women, according to US Census Bureau figures from 2006.
• More than two-thirds of the world's unpaid work is done by women -- the equivalent of $11 trillion or almost 50% of world GDP, according to a global UNDP study from 1995. The informal slogan of the Decade of Women was "women do two-thirds of the world's
• Women in the US earned only 77 cents for every $1 earned by a man in 2005, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research. In the developing world, the ratio is just 73 cents, according to World Bank estimates. For women of colour, the gap is even worse -- African American women earn 63 cents and Latinas 53 cents.
• Two-thirds of children denied primary education are girls and 75% of the world's 876 million illiterate adults are women, reports the Millennium Campaign in 2007.
• The UN Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women reported in 2001 that eliminating gender inequality in the labour market in Latin America would both increase women's wages by about 50% and increase national output by 5%.

-- womenfightpoverty.org

Education is the key to fighting poverty here in Chicago, the United States and around the globe. We could take the old adage and say that if you give a girl a loaf of bread her family eats for the day, but teach the girl to read you feed a family for life. Many organizations are working on educating girls around the world, including the World Wildlife Federation. Yeah, the panda people!

And we can't keep looking across the oceans to battle poverty either. It's right here in our country, on our block: according to the Pew Hispanic Center (PDF), "Hispanic women are twice as likely as non-Hispanic women to live in poverty; 20 percent of Hispanic women are poor compared with 11 percent of non-Hispanic women."

There are plenty of organizations we can get involved with or send money to in order to combat poverty. It won't be easy, but together we can do it.

As we prepare for the third and last Presidential debate, the debate over the debates is heating up. Specifically I've been hearing from the Green Party who wants Cynthia McKinney to be allowed on the stage. McKinney, Barr and Nader have taken their desire to debate McCain and Obama to VoterWatch, where they have posted responses to the Mississippi debate.

At the center of the debate is the last of the three "simple" rules that the Commission on Presidential Debates uses to determine who gets on the stage:

The CPD's third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recent publicly-reported results at the time of the determination.

I couldn't find evidence that any of the national polls even include third party candidates outside of "Other." Which begs the question, how are any third party candidate expected to get to 15 percent if no one knows they are running, including those who are being polled? But I admit that I didn't look at each poll, either. There sure are a heck of a lot of them!

On the other side of the podium is the moderators and their questions. Out of three debates we'll have three white men asking the questions. Of course, we saw Gwen Ifill ask questions at the vice presidential debate, but she didn't bring it in terms of women's issues as one might expect of the lone woman to ask any of the candidates questions. So why can't a woman or a man of color ask the questions to the big boys? At least there are a few ways for the people to get heard during the debates. For this last debate, the Women's Media Center asked people to submit questions for Bob Schieffer to use.

In the end, do the debates matter to you? Are they a spectator sport or do they serve a purpose in actually helping you decide who to vote for? As a highly partisan gal, it's all sport to me -- seeing who says what on which topic, etc. Do drinking games and bingo dilute the debates to merely entertainment? What would make the debates more informative for you as a voter?

[Image: Mark Abraham / Commission on Presidential Debates]

Last week, 300 absentee ballots were sent to the residents of Rensselaer County in Upstate New York with a vaguely threatening choice for President: Barack Osama.

Despite having "around 20 or so" people proofreading such materials before they go out, the typo leaked, causing no small amount of consternation in the community. And now that the story is out, it's a national concern, highlighting precisely what many believe is a direct reflection of how some Americans view the Democratic nominee: a would-be Muslim terrorist who might as well be called "Barack Osama," "Obama Bin Laden," or "Barack Saddam Hussein Obama."

The question, of course, is whether or not it was an honest mistake, or a sinister attempt to influence absentee voters.

Here's the story:

Fortunately, Obama has a pretty good sense of humor about mistakes like this -- at least he has in the past. But I suspect that his patience will wear thin if this keeps up, as well it should. In this clip, Obama shows remarkable grace towards Dean Singleton, the CEO of the MediaNews Group, after a similar flub at an AP event back in April. MediaNews is the fourth largest newspaper company in the United States, owning more than 50 major papers.

You don't have to be an American -- naturalized or born -- to vote for Barack Obama. You can live thousands of miles away, in fact, in another country altogether.

Specifically, Brazil, where six men who go by the same name as the US Democratic nominee are running for offices big and small in that country. Some coincidence, right?

Actually, no. It's very deliberate. Because of a quirk in Brazilian law, candidates running for office are allowed to legally change their names prior to the campaign in order to invoke certain feelings or associations by their adopted monikers. And with one of the largest -- and oldest -- black populations outside of Africa, Brazil is a nation with a case of Obama-mania that rivals our own.

Claudio Henrique dos Anjos (pictured), a 39-year-old man running for mayor in Belford Roxo, an impoverished city on the outskirts of Rio de Janiero, changed his name to "Barack Obama" because people thought he looked like the Illinois senator. They would call to him on the street by that name, so he figured he'd make it official.

Other adopted names in Brazil this year include Cattle Ana, Jeep Johnny, Big Charlie Knives, Jorge Bushi, Chico Bin Laden, DJ Saddam, King of the Cuckolds and Kung Fu Fatty.

We generally think of AIDS as a new disease, first appearing outside of Africa around 1977 and becoming an epidemic in the 1980s.

According to geneticists, however, the virus that causes AIDS has existed in human populations for more than 100 years. A recent biopsy of a sample in the Congo revealed that HIV first appeared in that region around 1900, the same year that Pablo Picasso drew Woman With Cat (right), years before Cubism was even on the artist's mind.

Puts it in perspective, doesn't it?

Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona led the study, which put to rest the previous theory that HIV first appeared around 1930. Chimpanzees did carry the disease before humans, which has been known for decades, but when the virus leaped from one species to another has been hard to determine.

The first recorded instance of a human with AIDS was in 1959, found in a man who was living in what was then the Belgian Congo, and HIV was reportedly found in the tissue of a dead teenager in 1969, in St. Louis. Full-blown AIDS, however, did not appear in the US until 1981. For a relatively complete history of the disease, visit Avert.org.

AIDS affects approximately 33 million people worldwide, the majority of whom live in third-world nations without adequate health care or prevention efforts, such as sex education.

In a related story, Mexican police recovered a stolen "condom mobile," a truck used to promote the government's HIV-AIDS awareness program. Thieves made off with the vehicle's sound system, 5,000 condoms, and a motor used to inflate a 23-foot-long condom balloon.

Think you can lampoon George W. Bush better than the rest? Give it a shot, and you might win a prize and recognition from Oliver Stone.

Stone, whose biopic of the younger Bush, W., comes out next week, has partnered with YouTube to offer a contest in which anyone can use footage of the president to create his or her own "mash-up" video trailer for Stone's film.

As you can probably guess, the film won't exactly take a sympathetic approach to its subject -- its tag line, after all, is "Anyone Can Grow Up To Be President." So laudatory, glowing portraits of our current Commander-in-Chief might not garner much praise from Stone.

As a veteran chronicler of famous politicians, namely John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, Oliver Stone never seems to disappoint. He's especially talented at making sense of nonsensical situations, and turning them into compelling, historically accurate narratives.

But this is the first time he's tackled a subject who hasn't even left the Oval Office yet.

Last weekend, the air in New York was decidedly crisper than the weekend before. There were more leaves on the sidewalk, and the rain didn't feel so much like it was watering the city's plant life -- as it does throughout the spring and summer -- and more like it was practicing for when it will metamorphosize into snow.

It's fall, and with fall, we're often inspired to think about nature again. We have to recapitulate our relationship with the elements -- we don heavier coats and start wearing sweaters again, we start eating differently, and we might start paying more attention to the few nice days we have left before winter.

Such was the case for me last weekend, during two long runs in Central and Prospect Parks. I relished the cool air and the smell of autumn rain. It not only helped my running; it made me appreciate trees.

But please, I'm not a hippie, I don't have a yoga mat rolled up in the corner, and I don't talk about nature as a force. I'm a bit too cynical for all that.

Nevertheless, these runs reminded me of how central trees are to our well-being, especially those of us who live in urban environments, where trees can be hard to find.

So when I came upon a group of workers from the MillionTreesNYC initiative being sponsored by American Express last week, I had to take a moment to learn more about it.

MillionTreesNYC plans to increase New York City's tree population by 20 percent over the next 10 years. This means one million trees by 2018 -- hence the project's name.

It's a massive undertaking, but very much in line with the city's increasingly "green" agenda. Indeed, the New York Times magazine this weekend was devoted to green issues, and the most recent MTA ads tout the organization's dedication to eco-friendly transportation dating back to 1960.

To learn more about MillionTreesNYC, click here. When you're done with that, I might suggest heading to your local park.

[Image: Jdforrester]

The Awearness Blog was in full effect at the National Service Summit held a few weeks ago in New York. Not only did Awearness bloggers cover the event, but the man behind the blog, Kenneth Cole, was part of it! I got to hear Cole at the "Partners in Service: The Role of the Private Sector" panel, where he was joined by Jean Case from the Case Foundation, James Quigley from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu; Laysha Ward from Target, David Eisner from CNCS and John Rice from GE. Cole highlighted his company's collaboration with the Innocence Project. Towards the end of the panel (see 1:07:00) a woman* asked a very interesting question about the way corporations can make sure they practice the values that they preach.

Laysha Ward replied with a frank, thoughtful response (see video at 1:07:38):

I think that's leadership you have to live you values and that definitely starts at the top. Target has been named one of the most ethical companies... And that's because we have standards and values and we all talk about those values... and you make sure that your words and actions align. And when they don't, you hold yourself accountable and ensure that you're making those... corrections in a way that's very honest and authentic. We're all human and when you are human there are certainly mistakes but they should be exception to the rule, not the rule... We have trainings and courses around it [ensuring ethical behavior]. We ask people if something unethical happens do you know how to report it? ... It's something you have to articulate, live and breath and make people pay the consequences when they're not doing what they're supposed to do.

Kenneth Cole followed up (1:09:01):

You can only do what you can do and you only know what you know and you put in place mechanisms to monitor that which you can. There's a lot of third party transactions and overseas subcontracting and sub sub contracting and you do what you can and you hope for the best because at the end of the day I don't think you can cover all bases.

But there's still hope. As Cole himself says minutes later (1:16:30), "We cannot heal the world alone, but together we can be an accessory."

*In the interest of full disclosure, that woman was me.

Thailand's political unrest has been in the news lately, but here's one story you probably haven't heard much about: Thailand's immigration issues. 

In recent years, thousands of people from Myanmar have crossed over the border into Thailand, and the "Land of Smiles" is now home to a large population of immigrants -- some legal, but most not -- struggling to make ends meet.

I traveled to southern Thailand this summer to report on some of these immigrants, and I produced "The Cost of Hope," a multimedia story about a family who escaped Myanmar to create new lives in Phang-Nga province.

What I discovered -- somewhat surprisingly -- was a family ready and willing to share its story. Just like illegal immigration in the U.S., the topic of undocumented workers in Thailand is touchy and fraught with political baggage. Many immigrants live in semi-secrecy, and it's difficult to ask them to share their narratives when so much is at risk.

This is what makes the brutal honesty portrayed by Ngern, the father in this video, that much more touching. His story is powerful and at times overwhelming. To me, his frankness can only point to one thing -- an intense desire for people to hear his story.

"The Cost of Hope" is just one video produced during a month-long trip to Thailand with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can see more stories about life in southern Thailand at AndamanRising.org.

This past weekend, Wall Street Journal reporter Michael M. Phillips published dispatches from the world of godless socialism. No, he didn't visit Cuba or attend one of Hugo Chavez's Yankee-baiting rallies. Staying closer to home, Phillips interviewed some Americans still keeping the Great Red Hope alive -- that is, altruistic kids like Seth Dellinger who've got degrees in music from Wesleyan and who diligently hand out flyers calling for the overthrow of capitalism. To Dellinger's credit, he actually took a job in meatpacking to earn proletarian cred; however, the young man and his Socialist Worker's Party bear about as much resemblance to Lenin and Trotsky as does an ABBA cover band to Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid -- the SWP is a nostalgia-driven, occasionally charming knockoff that evokes the original without ever quite being it.

The problem certainly isn't a lack of will on Dellinger's part, it's that there shall never be a Revolution, as he imagines it, because there's no recognizable working class -- not to mention a "self-conscious" one -- and not very many means of production worth seizing. In the land where industrial production actually is taking place, sometimes under wretched conditions, the personal savings rate of your average Chinese is is between 30 and 40 percent, proving that Marx's theory of the "immiseration of the working class" doesn't much hold in the Middle Kingdom. Things are getting better.

Here's a classic prison image: A bunch of guys playing poker in a group cell or the mess hall with a pile of cigarettes in the center of the table. Those cigarettes, of course, are the pot, and he who wins the hand will be rich.

Because it doesn't matter what the currency is; if a vendor will accept a cigarette in exchange for something else, it's as good as gold.

So what happens when prisons outlaw cigarettes? (Yes, even the Big Stone Mama has a developed green streak.) The guys find something else. After all, the poker game must go on. Not to mention the cell cleanings, the "prison hooch" market and all the other aspects of a prison economy.

How about mackerel -- oily, fatty, none-too-popular mackerel?

According to a fascinating article in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal by Justin Scheck, that is the new currency of choice in US prisons, shedding some unexpected light on our own economy.

Mackerel retails for around $1/pouch (cans aren't usually allowed by wardens because they can be turned into knives), which makes them an easy substitute for paper money.

But that's not the only similarity they share with hard, cold cash: like the greenback, pretty much no one actually wants to eat mackerel. This means the supply remains relatively constant and in circulation. If a bodybuilder craving protein comes along and scarfs down all the pouches, then the value of a pouch will increase -- that's right, inflation.

The funny thing is, mackerel actually does have more value than real money: it's edible. Money, on the other hand, is nothing. In small quantities, it's paper and metal, and in larger quantities it's just a number. But the comparison holds: both are relatively worthless in any practical sense, and are only valuable because the people who trade with them -- whether dollars or fillets -- agree to let them be valuable.

This article appeared just a few days after I wrote about the $700 billion bailout plan, analyzing just what $700 billion is. The article underscored for me my entire argument: that money is fake, and the entire system we've built around it is a gigantic house of cards.

Maybe I'll celebrate the absurdity of all this and take my girlfriend out for sushi tonight. We'll order what we want first, and then a whole bunch of mackerel, which we probably won't eat at all. Trading one currency for another, and then letting the buck stop there, as it were, might feel pretty empowering in this crazy financial meltdown we're all suffering through.

[Image: aleph1]

On Friday, the McCain campaign released this attack ad against Barack Obama, in which the Democratic nominee's ties to former Weatherman Bill Ayers is revisited after a nice two-month hiatus from this non-issue.

But you won't think it's a non-issue if you take the ad at face value.

You'll probably think it's serious business, a grave political matter, and a clear indication that Barack Obama is a terrorist himself. Why else would he cavort with someone as unsavory, unAmerican and heartless as Bill Ayers?

Here are a few reasons I can think of without even glancing at the Obama campaign's response to the ad or anything else:

One: Proximity. Although I didn't know them, I was also a neighbor of Bill Ayers, Barack Obama, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and even Louis Farrakhan for that matter -- first as a graduate student, and then as a member of the community. Am I a dangerous person? (I realize you can't answer that, but no, I'm not.)

This was in Hyde Park, on the South Side of Chicago, home to the University of Chicago, where Ayers and Obama both have homes. It's the kind of neighborhood where people bump into each other at the local produce stand, or a bookstore, and wind up chatting for an hour about Lacanian psychoanalysis or political theory.

It's the kind of place where world-famous theologians walk their dogs with people who work in the department where they first split the atom. It's the kind of neighborhood with only one dive bar and one upscale bar.

I once had a few beers at the dive bar with Bill Ayers' adopted son, whose own mother was sent to prison for her involvement with the Weathermen. She asked Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn (who teaches law at Northwestern, by the way), to raise him. Does this make me an accomplice, too?

In short, it's a university town. And in university towns, academics know other academics, especially if they might work in fields that are of interest to one another.

Two: Conversation. Bill Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and education has been among Obama's central issues since he announced his candidacy. Is it so far-fetched to think that when Obama and Ayers did stop for a chat on a leafy sidewalk in Hyde Park -- regardless of how frequently it happened -- they talked of education, not how to blow up another government building?

Three: Professional Respect. Let's think about Ayers for a minute. His talents and dedication to his profession were enough to get him a job teaching future educators at a school renowned for its education program. He is taken seriously in this role, and his integrity hasn't been an issue for 30 years. Sounds like someone I wouldn't mind having coffee with now and then -- why not Barack Obama?

According to the McCain campaign, Ayers is a dangerous radical, and Obama's association with him, however slight, means Obama has a hidden agenda.

I have a question for the McCain campaign: Shouldn't you also be worried about all the colleagues Ayers has at UIC, his students, his children, and anyone else that's come into contact with him? If you're really worried about Obama's integrity, isn't that just the tip of the iceberg? Aren't you afraid that throughout this country, there may be secret cells of domestic terrorists -- teachers, college administrators, dentists, lawyers and secretaries -- plotting to destroy this country from the inside out?

If you are, then maybe you ought to be launching attacks against them, too, for having known Bill Ayers at some point in their lives. And while you're at it, go after all the people his wife knows, too.

But if you aren't, give the allegations against Obama a rest. Not only are they preposterous, but they suggest that you don't care about all the other people Ayers knows, which frankly undermines your entire attack. Because if associating with him really does make someone a threat, we're already screwed.

Thich Nhat Hanh, who has been a Zen Buddhist monk since the age of 16, is one of the founding fathers of the "engaged Buddhism" movement. Many argue that in persuading Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak out against the Vietnam War, he changed the course of US history. Dr. King subsequently nominated the venerable man for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize.

The 82-year-old Zen Master was guest editing the Times of India's special Peace Edition when news of a terrorist attack broke. The attack, which occurred last week, killed 7, injured 82, and has forced the world's largest democracy to think inwardly about the growing threat of terrorism. This Zen moment brought forth the logical question: How should a journalist report such an event? Thich Nhat Hanh told the Times of India newsroom:

"Report in a way that invites readers to take a look at why such things continue to happen and that they have their roots in anger, fear, hate and wrong perceptions. Prevent anger from becoming a collective energy. The only antidote for anger and violence is compassion. Terrorists are also victims, who create other victims of misunderstanding.

"... Every reader has seeds of fear, anger, violence and despair, and also seeds of hope, compassion, love and forgiveness ...

"As journalists, you must not water the wrong seeds. The stories should touch the seeds of hope. As journalists, you have the job of selectively watering the right seeds. You must attempt to tell the truth and yet not water the seeds of hate. It's not what's in the story, but how you tell it that's important."

[Image: PlumVillage]

Kenneth Cole previewed the much-anticipated Vice-Presidential debate

David Alm commented several times on the election prospects of Sarah Palin, comparing her candidacy to a really bad Disney movie

Guest contributor Veronica wrote about the power of endorsements during the Presidential election season

Liza Sabater opined that sunlight is the best disinfectant -- especially when it comes to Congressional bailout plans, and offered a quick primer on Citizenship 101

Duncan McMillan uploaded a photo about a wind-powered sustainable forest

Heather Dumford, Media Marketing Manager at Kenneth Cole Productions, highlighted an interesting PBS special on the U.S. healthcare system

Guest contributor Ron Mwangaguhunga points out how U.S. schools can receive a green makeover

This is Annie. She lived with an elderly woman for the first two or three years of her life, then Annie found herself in a shelter where she was rescued by the Dachshund Rescue of North America and eventually found herself being fostered by a woman named Lois.

That's when my husband found Annie and we took a four hour drive after work to adopt this shoe-eating, squirrel-hating bundle of energy.

Owning a dog is serious business. While Annie is much loved, she has changed our routine significantly. But she is quite the relaxation device as the same time. Not the same moment though!

BUT... if you have it in your heart, have room in your home, and have thought about getting a dog, adopt. Dogster, the Facebook for dogs, has an adoption center that lets you put in all the qualities you want in a dog. There are more than 2,700 dogs available.

Big dogs, little dogs. Hairy dogs, short-haired ones. Cute dogs, ugly dogs. Healthy dogs and dogs that need extra care. Oh, I'd go in the database and point you to some of them, but I know I'd find one that I'd want to bring home.

The need for people to adopt dogs will only get greater with the foreclosure crisis, the holidays and a Disney movie about dogs just around the corner. Please consider adopting a dog instead of purchasing one. Especially during this month of adoption!

Animation & Design by Chris Weller
Directed by Max Joseph
Music: "Bad Mamma Jamma" by Alan Wilkis

The Vice President of the United States is an attack dog in campaign season, a tie-breaker in the Senate and, ultimately, the back-up Decider. McCain chose Sarah Palin, the folksy, first-term governor of Alaska. Obama chose Joe Biden, a 35-year veteran of the Senate with a reputation for speaking his mind (for better or worse). They're a heartbeat away from the presidency. Who's ready? An original GOOD Video.

Do you know of a school in San Francisco or Miami that is in need of a green makeover? On October 1 Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the current President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, announced the Green Schools Initiative. He was joined by environmental media company EcoMedia and the CBS Corporation (David Letterman's WorldWide Pants is also a media partner). Though this unique partnership between the public and private sectors is beginning in Miami and San Francisco, it promises to expand awarding green makeovers to schools around the country. One entry in either of these two cities will win a $250,000 greening overseen by a "professional green coach."

"Green schools are a powerful demonstration of our commitment to our children's future," said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chair of the U.S. Green Building Council, "and it's the best way to show the next generation how we can all make a difference in this world. We are excited about today's announcements of the EcoMedia and CBS Green Schools Initiative and the launch of the Mayor's Green Schools Alliance as important demonstrations of how we can leverage the creativity and influence of the media and mayoral leadership to deliver measurable, meaningful improvements for our environment and the students of our nation."

Since 2000 nearly 200 American schools have been certified by the U.S. Green Building Council Green schools, ideally, are more than just a laboratory for learning: they consume less energy and water and are thus cheaper to operate. So in addition to the learning experience, in an age of rising energy bills, green schools make financial sense to municipalities. What does "Being Green" mean to you? This is the question that the application for the Green Schools Initiative asks. The application here.

[Image: Goinggreenma]

It is no secret that many Americans do not know the basics of US history or of its government. One common misconception is that the US Congress is only one branch (the House of Representatives) when, in fact, it is comprised of both the the Senate and the House.

So you can imagine how tough it can be to know how to track all legislative activity through the Library of Congress' Thomas. It's why phones (and by extension faxes) are still the communications tool of choice for contacting our "employees" in Washington DC.

To my surprise, I found two videos over at Citizen Orange that are meant to help constituents call their representatives in Congress.

Here is how to contact your US House Representative:

And here is another video explaining what to do when contacting your US Senator(s):

These videos were put together by Aquifer Media and paid for by progressive pro-immigration organizations. It's part of an effort to rally people "on the ground" around a number of legislative initiatives meant to curb the onslaught of government attacks against foreign workers (and their families) living in the US without visas. Visit Orange Citizen for more information on the bills.

Last week, John LaBruzzo, a Republican state representative of Louisiana, proposed a solution to poverty and population control in a single move: pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.

Clearly, poverty, or what LaBruzzo specifically calls "generational poverty," is an epidemic. Poor people have children, and then guess what? The kids are poor, too.

Gee, how do we buck this trend? I know: we tell the poor people to stop having children. That way the poor people will simply grow old in their poor neighborhoods, and eventually they'll die. Then we can tear down their houses and build nice new ones for all the "generational well-off" -- you know, all the people who were born into wealthy families whom we can rely on to spawn future generations of wealthy people.

According to NOLA.com, LaBruzzo said he "worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government."

Sounds like he recently watched Mike Judge's 2006 movie Idiocracy, in which we flash-forward 500 years to a future populated entirely by idiots because back in the early 'Oughts, only the poor and moronic were having babies, while the upwardly mobile were focusing on their careers and "waiting for the right time" to bring new lives into the world. Except LaBruzzo seems to taken it for a documentary.

Here's the intro:

LaBruzzo is gathering statistics now, he told the press.

In the past week, LaBruzzo has revised the proposal to offer temporary birth control in lieu of permanent sterilization, but he's still talking about controlling the reproductive "rights" of citizens. And he maintains that his plan is not "racist," as many have stated.

"I don't know how it's eugenics if it's voluntary," he told the press. "And how can it be racist if the majority of people on welfare are white?"

The poor and copiously copulating couple at the beginning of Idiocracy are white, too, but that doesn't make their ilk any more desirable.

If all it takes to make a social engineering pogrom like this acceptable is proving that it isn't "racist" don't we run the risk of adopting other Fascist agendas under the auspices of social progress and improvement?

Let's stop talking about race for a while. Let's talk about class. Classism, after all, is the new racism.