My first 100% organic shopping trip

I’ve been doing a bunch of chores this morning, as I can’t get into the state database I need to do the work I had planned today. I ran down to the local grocery store (Bayview Thriftway in Olympia, in case you’re wondering), and did a quick shopping run. Only after I got home did I realize that I had bought nearly 100% organic products - without even thinking about it, other than the usual attempts I make to generally buy organic. This has to be some kind of important milestone, that it’s even possible.

Here’s what I bought, all organic:

Apples and strawberries (west coast, carefully avoiding South American produce)
Colby jack cheese and parmesan
Three varieties of cereal
Two cartons of milk
Three kinds of yogurt
Kettle corn for snacking
Four frozen dinners (various organic brands)
Two frozen veggie packs (from Oregon, in little recycled paper bags!)
Four kinds of chocolate (small stuff) for Mother’s Day
Bread (local)
Toilet paper
a latte

There is one thing I bought that isn’t organic - Mother’s Day cards for my Mom and Grandma. If I had been thinking about it, it’s even possible those could have been at least recycled. But when it comes to Moms, it’s more important that the message be right :)

And then I had a fairly long conversation with the produce manager about whether it would be possible to separate out and make a little section for local organic produce apart from the stuff that comes from all over the world (using up lots of petroleum and generating carbon emissions in the process). He was actually receptive and said that in the summer and fall, they do that, and they actually take surplus from local farms. Not many big grocery stores are willing to go to those lengths.

I did tell him that, from the shopper’s point of view, winter is the hardest time to get local produce so it would be the most important time to highlight any they do have, for those of us purists who just won’t buy it if it had to come on an airplane (yes, I eat a lot of apples in the winter). He agreed that maybe increasing the size of their “grown in Washington” price labels would at least help us find what there is.

Anyway, good stuff :)

Obama’s speech on race

OK - I finally got to listen to the whole thing in its entirety. I have never heard a better speech from a politician in my lifetime, or one more appropriate to our time. Please don’t limit yourself to what you’ve heard on the news - go listen to it. It is now the most downloaded ever video on YouTube. It is 37 minutes long - and he wrote the entire thing himself.

You can find it here. Go listen, for the future of the country. We need this type of honesty, intelligence, personal fearlessness, and character in office.

Here’s another video from Portland that’s pretty interesting - it’s Obama’s comments on getting endorsed by Bill Richardson. Listening to what Obama says about Gov. Richardson, I wonder if we’re seeing a possible vice-presidential candidate… He’d be a very good one, far better than most people had any idea of during the election.

Obama - the Mediator’s Candidate

I received this from a fellow mediator, Ron Kelly. I agree with him 100% and just wanted to pass these ideas along. For those of you Dems reading this in Washington State - please make this your year to go to the caucuses, it’s the only way your vote will count!
________________________________________________

Obama - A Mediator’s Candidate?

I remember early on in the campaign, before I had formed a preference, I heard an experienced Washington reporter discussing the candidates. He found Obama puzzling. He claimed that if you were in a disagreement with Obama, he would summarize your arguments even better than you could yourself. This got my attention.

Then, in an early debate, Obama was asked if he would negotiate directly with the leaders of countries with whom we have strong differences. He said yes. He was attacked by many who said this just proved how naive he was. He didn’t back down. He pointed out that we negotiated with Stalin and we negotiated with Mao. He asserted that you do not need to give away anything to enter negotiations with people with whom you strongly disagree.

In speeches, he consistently advocated sitting down to negotiate with, and respectfully listening to, the heads of oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, and health care companies. He was roundly attacked as “wanting to bring Kumbaya to a knife fight”. He responded that he could afford to listen respectfully to the other side, especially if he was able to reach across the aisle to enlist even a few opposition Senators to his efforts.

I was skeptical. I read one of his books, “The Audacity of Hope”. I went back to read an article he wrote twenty years ago on why he was a community organizer. I concluded he had been consistent his entire adult life about reaching out to those with whom you disagree to build effective working coalitions.

I listened to his January 3 Iowa speech. He said he understood 9/11 not as a way to scare up votes, but as “a challenge to unite America and the world against our common threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease.” His speech moved me deeply.

The next morning I woke up realizing that Obama inspired me like no other major presidential candidate has in decades. I have not heard any other politician currently on the national center stage asserting these core beliefs as consistently and effectively as Barack Obama.

Then, yesterday, I saw the letter that finally prompted me to send you this. It was signed by eighty lawyers working to preserve our rights to habeas corpus. It says: “When others stood back, Senator Obama helped lead the fight in the Senate against the Administration’s efforts in the Fall of 2006 to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and when we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the Administration’s bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us. Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo.”

If you have decided to support Senator Clinton, please know I will be working enthusiastically for your candidate in November if she is the Democratic nominee. As a mediator, I have felt inspired and uplifted since deciding the morning after Iowa that I would put in some work for Obama every day until my state’s primary. If you want to help him, I urge you to go now to http://www.barackobama.com and to contribute as much of your time, money, letter writing, etc. as you can.

Enthusiastically yours,
Ron Kelly

Obama vs. McCain

Being that it’s Super Tuesday, I am putting out my positive energies for these two candidates. Since I live in Washington State, I unfortunately have no vote in the primary. The parties here have chosen to ignore our preferences and hold caucuses instead. Like many other Washingtonians, I am an independent, registered with neither party, voting for any candidate as I see fit. Therefore, I am unable to participate in the caucuses. So, instead, I am adding my energy to the universal air-waves, to have what influence it can. And in the independent spirit, I am endorsing one candidate from each side, to form the match-up I would most like to see in November.

Both candidates share some things in common - they are independent, smart, thinking men. They take issues as they come, and are willing to work with anyone to meet their goals. I believe they would be ones who truly would and could reach out to both parties and make progress. They do not represent old-style partisan politics, of the type that is paralyzing our government. Selection of these candidates to vote on in November would send a strong message to the party elite that we don’t want what we’ve been getting.

Why I like Obama - OK, here I have to admit that who I really liked originally was Edwards. My dream ticket was an Edwards-Obama ticket. That may still be possible, but with Obama on top. Edwards seems to admire Obama and dislike Hillary, which pretty much fits my views.

But Obama has his own positives, that even Edwards didn’t have. An almost iconic ability to make people believe in a better future, coupled with a vision of the future that fits my dreams. A way of uniting people and transcending past injustices without playing the race card. A civility that is desperately needed in government, and one of the only candidates that actually has a clue what poverty is like. Steadfast opposition to the war. Someone I believe would reflect well on Americans and who could be an ambassador to help repair some of the damage done in the last 8 years. A desire to reach out to everyone in creating solutions.

And yes, he’s not Hillary, and he doesn’t come with Bill. Half of Congress won’t instantly hate him, like they would Hillary. Just how likely do you think it is that she would be able to get her policies approved or keep Bill from trying to run things? Don’t get me wrong, I actually like Bill. But I’m not sure I want him in the White House again.

(Aside: does anyone else think it’s exciting that universal health care is being discussed seriously by all the candidates?)

Why I like McCain - This part may surprise more of you. But here goes - He has a long, long record of working both sides of the aisle and opposing his own party when necessary. That kind of independence is what I believe we need a lot more of in Washington, and bodes well for being a president that could work with a Democratic Congress (or evenly split Congress). He makes up his own mind on issues. He helped build the bipartisan coalition that prevented Congress from melting down over the judge confirmation issue.

He supported reconciliation with Vietnam, even thought they held him prisoner and tortured him. That says good things to me about his ability to work without holding grudges and to be a positive force in our relations with other countries. He has been one of the strongest voices in Congress for fiscal restraint AND environmental issues. Even as a Republican he was one of the strongest advocates of dealing with global warming, something I don’t really see any of the Democratic candidates really talking about. He holds more moderate views on social issues like abortion and gay rights than most Republicans and is unlikely to make it a litmus test for anything. Yes, he supported the war, though disagreed with how it was fought. But at least he’s earned the right to an opinion, unlike the current President.

Seeing these two candidates go up against each other would be one of the most exciting contests of my lifetime. For once, I might feel like if my candidate loses it won’t be a disaster. So good luck Barack Obama and John McCain!

Random carbon-reducing thought

Someday I’m going to collect all of these somewhere… This one goes back to our food again, a continuing theme this year. We’ve talked about all kinds of ways to reduce the carbon footprint from food consumption, including eating low on the food chain, eating local foods, using cloth grocery bags, and limiting bottled water consumption. Here’s an even simpler one:

Don’t waste food.

That’s all - simple to say, simple in concept, harder to do. Every bit of food and drink that we buy costs energy to grow, process, package, ship, and sell. Even if we eat a steak, at least we’ve eaten it - and gotten some value for that energy that’s been used. When we don’t even eat it or drink it, all that energy is wasted and garbage is created for nothing at all. Only in this western world of over-consumption could such a thing really even be possible, not to mention done every day without a second thought.

When you’re not starving or lacking for money to buy food, and there is a massive abundance of food all around you, there is a tendency to forget how important this is or to take the extra time to make sure that whatever you buy will be used. Example - at a recent staff meeting that would go through lunch, most of us brought our own lunches. One group showed up with donuts and pastries to share - a nice gesture, right? But we all eat pretty healthy and a lot of them didn’t get eaten, and no-one wanted to take them home because we all knew we’d eat them if we did. They were thrown out, since the meeting room had to be clean when we left. It probably would have been better not to bring them and to let staff buy their own in the cafeteria if they wanted them.

Our busy schedules contribute also. I don’t know how often I’ve bought groceries that I didn’t get around to using, and had to throw out because they went bad. This is especially true since I started buying more vegetables. It’s harder for single people to use up all that comes in a package (a loaf of bread for example). My horribly busy work schedule has resulted in a lot of food getting thrown out, which is really sad and wasteful. So now I am really focusing on learning how to freeze things (yes, if you’ve never done it you have to learn what works and what doesn’t). In this situation it is really important to be careful what and how much you buy in the first place. Which takes recipe planning and careful shopping, which takes time. Knowing that it’s contributing to global warming to throw stuff out may actually give me an incentive to work on this more.

Make it a challenge to look around your kitchen and see what odds and ends of things can be used up. You know all those sauce bottles in your refrigerator door? How many of those stay there forever and then get thrown out because when you want to use it, you’re not certain it’s still good? A little bit of planning might help there too. Each of those little bottles takes a lot of energy to create.

So as your parents always said - “clean your plate” and don’t put too much on it to start with :) Learn to make casseroles with odd bits and ends, freeze leftovers and portions of raw foods before they spoil, buy in smaller quantities that you will actually use, plan your meals, and if you really have to throw something out - compost it!

Small victories of the environmental kind

If you’d like to read some good news for a change :) check out the Environmental Defense Fund’s list of Twelve Environmental Victories in 2007. We all need a little reminder of the things we’re working for, and hope that we can make a difference now and then.

You go, Al!

Woohoo!! Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize for doing an incredible job of publicizing the issue of climate change and having a real impact. What just adds spice to the cake is that the Nobel committee also named the UN IPCC, the group which publishes and has been publishing for many years reports on the science of global climate change. It’s not everyday that a bunch of hard-working scientists from around the world are recognized at this level. Along with Al Gore’s work, their most recent report did a lot to galvanize public and politicians alike in realizing the true dangers caused by global warming and finally putting to rest the naysayers.

Now all we can do is hope that the Nobel committee wasn’t overly optimistic in recognizing the possibility that these very real threats could help bring the world together to peacefully work on a solution. I wish I could say I see some evidence of that, but I don’t :(

In the meantime, though - congratulations, Al. This may have been an even more important contribution than becoming President, though I whole-heartedly wish you had.