World Events

You have one more day to submit your video question and vote on your favorite questions at 10 Questions. Starting this Saturday, the US presidential candidates will begin answering the top ten questions. Several candidates on both sides of the aisle have committed to answer, including John Edwards and Ron Paul. Get votin'!

We just paid $3.23 a gallon for heating oil.

Sit with that for a minute: $3.23 a gallon for heating oil.

We're not wealthy people; if the survey results this summer are right, few of you out there are, either. We don't believe in credit card debt and we have a small emergency fund but not a huge one. We've been crushed by extreme medical bills, twice, and we've managed to claw out from under.

And now this.

We're lucky that we can do it--this time. But what about next time, when heating oil might be up over $4 a gallon? What about all the folks who can't afford it? This is going to be a long, cold winter for a lot of people.

A follow-up to yesterday's 10 Questions announcement:

I have my own ideas as to what the top political issues are for homemakers regardless of political identity, but I want to hear from you first before I start fulminating. What issues are important to you as a homemaker? What issues most affect your family, and what do you most want the next government to address?

I'm not looking for partisanship here and I don't want debate. I want to know what's on your minds. So I'm going to ask that people just allow commenters to put stuff out in this post and not respond or argue. Thanks.

I am THRILLED! to announce that The New Homemaker is co-sponsoring an important effort to engage the public in the political process: 10Questions.com.

Supported by the New York Times editorial board, MSNBC.com and a multi-partisan group of blogs, 10Questions.com is doing what the CNN/YouTube debate should have done. Not only are the public submitting video questions for candidates of both parties, but the public is voting on which questions get asked. In the CNN version, CNN chose the questions--which is how we ended up with a snowman asking a question in a presidential debate. *rolling eyes*

It's also against the spirit of what video sharing communities are about. At YouTube and other video sites, the users vote videos up or down, deciding on a video's popularity themselves rather than depending on a gatekeeper.

I HIGHLY encourage you to submit questions, and/or vote on which questions should be asked of the candidates. Remember, these questions are going to be asked of both Republican and Democratic candidates. You'll find a banner at the top of our home page for the next 28 days and at the bottom you'll see the current top video. Check in to 10Questions.com often to see what your fellow citizens are thinking.

The UPS guy arrived around 10:30, I started reading around noon, and I finished around 6:45. I'm a fast reader.

The verdict: Pretty good, certainly satisfying. I'm not going to publish spoilers and I ask that you not, either, but if you've read it feel free to chime in here with *your* verdicts!

For those of you waiting for Saturday, I present the Potter Puppet Pals:

*snorfle*

I read Hirschman's op-ed piece in the Washington Post today: You're Not Earning as Much--read more

Sugar Bunny Boulevard is spearheading a drive to knit garter stitch squares for Greensburg, KS, the town that was all but destroyed in a very bad tornado last week. The object is to gather enough squares to make a family in the area an afghan, and if more squares come in than are needed for a single one, the organizers will just keep assembling afghans until they run out.

Knitters is crazy. I know, because I have a blanket like this that was started for me when I was sick last year, and it means the world to me. So I know we can send a few squares that way from TNH knitters.

Organic food is so often, and so erroneously, thought of as something for elites. But it turns out that organic farming practices may actually help the poor as well as the planet:

A similar conversion to organic farming in sub-Saharan Africa could help the region's hungry because it could reduce their need to import food, Niels Halberg, a senior scientist at the Danish Research Center for Organic Food and Farming, told the U.N. conference on "Organic Agriculture and Food Security."

Farmers who go back to traditional agricultural methods would not have to spend money on expensive chemicals and would grow more diverse and sustainable crops, the report said. In addition, if their food is certified as organic, farmers could export any surpluses at premium prices. ...

Alexander Mueller, assistant director-general of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, praised the report and noted that projections indicate the number of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa was expected to grow.

Considering that the effects of climate change are expected to hurt the world's poorest, "a shift to organic agriculture could be beneficial," he said.

It gives me hope.

Buried at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website, says a new article in today's SF Chronicle, is this import alert, dated April 27th (emphasis added):

As of April 26, 2007, FDA had received over 17,000 consumer complaints relating to this outbreak, and those complaints included reports of approximately 1950 deaths of cats and 2200 deaths of dogs. [The FDA is still telling reporters the number is closer to 16-18 animal deaths, despite these reports.] The Agency is working with federal, state, and local governments, academia, and industry to assess the extent of the outbreak, better understand how melamine and melamine related compounds contributed to the pet deaths and illnesses, and to determine the underlying cause of the contamination.

As of April 26, 2007, FDA had collected approximately 750 samples of wheat gluten and products made with wheat gluten and, of those tested thus far, 330 were positive for melamine and/or melamine related compounds. FDA had also collected approximately 85 samples of rice protein concentrate and products made with rice protein concentrate and, of those tested thus far, 27 were positive for melamine and/or melamine related compounds. FDA's investigation has traced all of the positive samples as having been imported from China.

The FDA is now holding all imported vegetable proteins from China, "without inspection"--meaning they're not looking to see if they're contaminated, they're just assuming they are if they're from China. That's how bad the contamination is. And we still don't know how much of it has made its way into the human food chain.

So how's globalization of trade without environmental and labor protections working out for us so far?

Update: The FDA is now reporting it's in chicken feed. Currently it's known to be in feed given to chickens at 38 Indiana poultry farms; affected birds are known to have gotten into the human food supply and have probably already been eaten. Check this out:

"Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish feed," Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Company, which sells melamine, told the Times. "I don't know if there's a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says 'don't do it,' so everyone's doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no accident, there won't be any regulation."

I'm feeling the free trade love, aren't you?

Related:

• Dog Food Secrets (warning: shocking information)
• Healthy Food for Dogs
• Raw Food Diet for Dogs
• Eat Wild
• Community Supported Agriculture
• Keeping Chickens--I am SO GLAD we keep our own chickens!!!

...or if you don't know anyone who's been deployed to Iraq, you should read Jennmommy5's latest comment. Her husband is being deployed for the third time:

One day I found myself standing in an on-post post office cuddled up in my arms like a lover was a priority mail box covered in priority mail tape. I looked down and up the line and I saw myself repeated. Over a half dozen other women of various shapes and sizes and colours all standing in line cuddling thier boxes as if it were the man they were sending it too. Box sizes were different, we were different and yet we were the same. The woman beside me had completely wrapped her box in tape. She told me the last package hadn't faired well. I almost burst into tears at that moment. I could see it in all thier eyes. All these strangers and yet here we were all feeling just the same thing in our hearts. All of us trying to transfer the last bit of love we could into those boxes before we handed the to the postal clerks to be weighed and charges outrageous amounts of shipping. It was a longing we shared. This was how we felt close to the men we loved. This was our intamacy, our contact. We were touching the box and at some point not to be predicted he would touch the box. It was a solemn unity that held more sadness and yet more strength than I think I had ever felt in my life.

This war is costing military members and their families so much. And the rest of us? What is it costing us? Anything, other than tax dollars?

There was a spirit in this country after 9/11. We would have gladly given up anything to help--all of us. What were we told? To go shopping.

That's what the Japanese Health Minister says at any event. No wonder the Japanese population is declining, if this is the caliber of guy the women have to put up with.--read more

Dramatic to the end, James Brown has died at age 73 on Christmas morning. Damn. Rest well, James, you were indeed the hardest working man in show business.

I think we may be going to see Santa in a bit. Pray for me. *gulp* I hate malls.

• Stressed? Hold your husband's hand. Seriously. Neural scans show it literally lowers women's stress levels to hold their husband's hand, if they have a happy marriage. All together now: Awwwww!

• Daryl says why should an American care what happened in 1066? I say, because it's the year the English language changed forever, if nothing else.

• James Kim might still be alive, had the search for him been better coordinated. The take-away: Don't expect help if you get stuck in an emergency situation in southern Oregon. If you'd like to contribute to the fund for Kati and the girls, a bunch of crafters (including a lot of Portland gals) have contributed to an auction for the family, and there are instructions there for donations without bidding as well.

• Speaking of emergencies, for crying out loud, don't run generators in the house! If you don't have emergency preps in place, please, please, take these latest situations to heart and get moving. I think John and I may be doing a series on this soon. People, you just cannot depend on the authorities to help you. That's not libertarian cant; that's the truth.

• Libya has decided to lynch six health care workers, blaming them for a deliberate AIDS outbreak. Shameful.

• Over-the-counter probiotics are mostly dead by the time they reach you, says a new study. Big surprise. You don't have to buy probiotics; you're much better off making your own. Much, much, MUCH cheaper, too.

• And finally, Google has released the 2006 Zeitgeist, a list of the most popular searches of the year. What the hell is bebo?! How out of it am I? For that matter, how out of it are people who need to search for MySpace?!

Seventeen years ago today I watched, stunned and hardly believing my eyes, the news reports on TV pour in about The Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Second generation cold war kid that I was, I never thought I'd see the day. Just the year before East German officials stated that the wall would stand for a hundred years.--read more

If you don't vote, you can't bitch.

--Is the sexy costume thing for women driving you nuts this Halloween? If you don't mind four-letter words, this fake commercial for Girls's Costume Warehouse is hysterical. Again: THERE ARE FOUR LETTER WORDS IN THE COMMERCIAL. If this is a problem for you, or you're at work, don't click. And the whole costume thing makes me crazy. "Sexy pope! Sexy lobster!" [via]

--The ozone hole over the Antarctic is bigger than ever. Human-produced gases are destroying the ozone that protects us from the deadlier forms of solar radiation. yay team. [via]

--The Sierra Club reminds parents to watch out for lead in Halloween toys and props. Hat tip to Asha.

--And while we're on the subject of children's health, mumps is on the rise in the US, with nearly 6,000 cases reported this year. The average age was 22, and the majority of cases were in women. Calls for vaccinating against mumps more aggressively are out, which leads me to ask: do you vaccinate your kids?

I was reminded of my last big charity effort:

So I used to work for this huge, big, monolithic cable company that held a competition for homeless donations.

The rules were simple:

The workgroup (we had 14+2 Sup’s) that came up with the most donations, pound for pound for this homeless shelter won a pizza lunch. Of immediate need were trail mix (it was cold, and they wanted something to give to homeless folks that they couldn’t let into the overcrowded shelters.) Every pound of this trail mix or ingredients for trail mix gave folks 2 pounds for every one one donated in the scoring tally.--read more

Send them to Iraq. No, seriously. There's a gal stationed there with the US Army Corps of Engineers who gives out as much candy and stuffed toys as she can scrape together, usually ordered from Oriental Trading Company out of her own pocket. If you've got some stuffies you could send her, some little kids in Iraq would love you for it.

--It's not the obesity, it's the diabetes! Researchers have found that being overweight in itself isn't what does you in--it's that obesity tends to bring on diabetes, and the diabetes does you in.

--I'm so glad the Taliban have been driven from Afghanistan. Oh wait.

--Over at Get Rich Slowly, JD dissects your average unsolicited loan offer; how's 35% annual interest rate sound to you? Take his advice, folks: Get on the opt-out list--and throw offers like this right into the shredder.

--Read about the Tripoli Six and take action. Letters to the editor, phone calls, blogging, whatever you can do. It's almost too late to save these innocent people.

--It's Banned Book Week. Piss some jerk off, read a book you're not supposed to. via

--Sure, you've heard of using your car to cook stuff, but how about your dishwasher? via

I hate ads usually. Sometimes one grabs me, like this one:

The music in it has been running through my mind enough that I began looking for it. It turned out to be by a group I hadn't heard of called Hem, "Half Acre" is its name. I found the lyrics just a bit ago:

I am holding half an acre
Torn from the map of Michigan
And folded in this scrap of paper
Is the land I grew in

Think of every town you've lived in
Every room you lay your head
And what is it that you remember

Do you carry every sadness with you
Every hour your heart was broken
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with you

A man is walking on the highway
A woman stares out at the sea
And light is only now just breaking

So we carry every sadness with us
Every hour our hearts were broken
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with us

But I am holding half an acre
Torn from the map of Michigan
I am carrying this scrap of paper

That can crack the darkest sky wide open
Every burden taken from me
Every night my heart unfolding
My home

And now, I'm crying and I can't stop. I haven't found that scrap of paper yet, I guess, or I haven't found my trust in it yet.

Went to iTunes and bought the song, though.

Are you a hot mom?�the hottest mom in America? the hottest mom in DALLAS??

The could be your chance to get on national TV.

Felicity Huffman's former manager and a producer from Survivor are coming to Dallas to audition hot moms like you�for a TV show called �Hottest Mom in America'. --read more

This is what I wrote five years ago today:

There's not much to say on a day like today. We're all taking turns hugging the baby [at the time, Louisa]; I recommend it as a restorative. If you don't have a baby, find one, or hug the person closest to you and either remember when they were a baby or picture them as a baby. Seriously. Once upon a time we were all that small and pure, and the world was good.

I don't have much to add to it today.

Since we're on the subject, take the Local Food Challenge:

From September 12th through September 18th, check to see where the foods you eat are grown. Measure the amount of each food. Measuring by weight is best, but if you do not have scales, please feel free to measure in cups or by metric volume. As long as you stick with one measurement method for everything, you will be able to evaluate your information. ...

1. How much of your food is grown within walking distance (3 miles or less)?

2. Are there any food groups central to your diet that come from far away?

3. If you altered your shopping to get as much local as possible, how did this affect what you ate or the cost? Did you like the taste of any of the items more or less than usual?

4. What items from more than 3 miles away could be grown within the 3 miles? 50 miles?

5. Did you discover any local fresh or prepared foods or markets that you hadn't tried before?

6. How much of your food did you eat fresh/raw (without cooking)? (Note: For the sake of your intestines, don't try to change a mostly-cooked diet to an all-raw diet at one time.)

7. If you have a nutrition program, did the local foods meet your overall nutritional needs?

Anyone in its path?