Money Changes Things

Macy's Idiotic Return Policy, and a Victory

2012-01-08T12:07:00.000-05:00

My new purchase, a coat from Macy's by ACTUALLY GOING TO A STORE, turns out to be incredibly badly designed. The pockets have horizontal zippers and every time I reach in, they scrape my hands. It's going back.
Except, nowhere on the website do I see how to return this via UPS. A call to customer disservice explains that IF YOU BUY AN ITEM IN A STORE, YOU MUST RETURN IT TO A STORE. It is 2012. People are busy, and even if I had all the time in the world, why would I want to waste gas to travel to a store when I can simply put the coat in a box and have it shipped from my doorstep?
After several calls with Grace, the poor woman whose job it is to explain this idiotic policy, I have been given special permission to return it to the store where it was purchased, via UPS.
It would seem this policy is designed :

to discourage people from actually returning unwanted items
to discriminate against poor people, who need the money and will put up with stupid policy and
to encourage wasteful use of fossil fuel for people to drive to stores
and to make sure that customers like me will never, ever shop in a Macy's store again!

Wrapped Paper Cups in Hotel Rooms: Dumbest Idea Ever!

2012-01-01T15:27:00.000-05:00

There is war, famine, injustice - big things to protest. And then there are plastic-wrapped paper cups in hotel rooms. Small in comparison, but they are hugely wasteful, and drive me crazy. Especially the one I recently noticed, which is an ecotainer designer cup for Wolfgang Puck Coffee. Compostable, even. What kind of idiot has the idea to put it in a plastic bag?
The product page promotes this as a sterile option. Since when are unwrapped never-used paper cups not safe?

Love Those Candles - Actually LED Flameless Pillars

2011-12-27T16:47:00.000-05:00

This is a 9-piece LED Flamess set, three of which are lithium battery operated, and six of which are AA batteries

How long have these been around? I love candles but rarely buy or use them because:

1) they leave big waxy messes on tablecloths or tables
2) there is always a hazard of fire and
3) paraffin is a petroleum product, and inefficient at that

Recently our our hostess, Ann, was lighting lovely pillar candles on her buffet, by flipping a switch on the bottom. They flicker, they give off a nice vanilla fragrance, but since they are LEDs, no heat. No danger of fire. And they, like the Burning Bush, are never consumed. She did mention that they require expensive batteries.
An online search brought up some lovely ones which run on AA batteries. Above is a set which has 3 batteries which require lithium batteries (the expensive ones Ann was referencing), but six which run on AA batteries, readily available as rechargeables. Further research shows other varieties and features. These come with a hilarious remote. At first I thought this was ridiculous, but after turning nine candles off manually, I get it. Another set is available with a timer which automatically turns the candles off after 5 hours.

Lastly I found a set of a dozen tea-lights which come with their own recharger. These are all remarkably traditional looking - beautiful, flickery, gentle candle light. Our guests were surprised to learn they were not the real thing.
In a light-polluted world, are these a guilty pleasure? If they replace conventional candles, there is less waste. If they just add to the world's pile of cheap electronic junk, don't buy them. I have been using and enjoying mine - they are beautiful just to look at, and when illuminated cast a lovely glow at the dining room table, serving as an artful centerpiece.

Eco-Gear BackPack - It Doesn't Save the World, but a Good Choice

2011-12-25T18:17:00.001-05:00

Last time I needed a backpack, I joined Sierra Club and got one for free. It lasted maybe 10 years, but recently the bottom has been disintegrating, leaving little black flakes on everything . When I need something new, first I check to repurpose - maybe I have something comparable lying around? Nope, all back packs have been given away, are worn out, or are the wrong size. (Our kids each got through grades school through high school on about 2 LLBean book bags, so it pays to buy high quality ones.)
Sometimes I post on FreeCycle, but I actually wanted more say in the design and features of a backpack, since I use one several times a week, for running errands on foot, and when I travel. I researched eco-friendly options. The materials themselves do not seem like a big issue to me. Since the bag will be used for so many years, it will be well amortized, even if it is petroleum-based polyester. Back packs don't weigh that much and are not likely to be manufactured in ways which can be verifiably sustainable. And good luck finding one not manufactured in China.
That doesn't leave many eco-friendly aspects to the purchase, other than buying a bag from a site where some of the proceeds go to a green cause. Didn't see any.
By persisting a bit, I found a EcoGear, a low-priced bag readily available in nice colors, sizes, and options. Its green claim to fame is being made from RPET , recycled polyethylene terepthalate - recycled soda bottles, and free of PVC. Its products can be found at mainstream retailers, even Walmart. Helping drive demand for recycled materials is a definite eco-benefit. ANd they donate to 1% for the Planet, which fund lots of great initiatives; they list a few thousand approved ones which companies can choose among. Here is one from India which promotes natural dyes, for example. Nice to know $.15 of my purchase is going to their chosen cause. (Who knows how they calculate 1% - it probably is less than that per bag, but at least it's a micor-contribution to support eco-causes.)
The backpack is great, with loads of cleverly designed pockets, including one for a laptop. Score! The only thing I can't get excited about is their slogan, "Saving the world one bag at a time." We will not be saving the world by buying recycled backpacks any time soon. Sigh.
The Recycle Series is Ecogear’s testament to the functionality of recycling. Featuring the rugged and sleek Palila backpack, this bag has all the essential components for the modern individual, with the additional bonus of being made of RPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) water bottles.

Shame on Office Max!

2011-12-20T10:25:00.000-05:00

Just received a 4 lb unsolicited catalog from Office Max, probably because I ordered something from them online.
If you hate catalogs, go to Catalog Choice and start cancelling 'em. Even with extreme vigilance over these past few years, a lot of junk mail sneaks through. Culprits include nonprofits, some even environmental-missioned, and companies I order from online. Wish there was a way that when ordering you could tell them not to send you snail mail like you can elect not to get email.
And credit cards. For the last month I've called every credit card offer to get off their lists. It is surprisingly easy. Just press 0 "to apply for a credit card". If they think they've got you, they answer immediately. Then tell them to take you off the list. Takes a minute.

Upcycling Neck Ties - Here's How

2011-12-20T08:45:00.000-05:00

Four of my husbands ties have bit the dust. There are crafters that refashion ties into skirts and other arty creations, and I recently saw a woven-tie chair seat replacing a worn out wicker. A quick google of "repurposing neck ties" brought a cool solution: Ties With A Purpose. They employ homeless, low-income people and create beautiful pillows, bags, even hats. And they reuse every part of the ties, even the linings. Fabulous win-win-win!

They will help you throw a Toss Your TIe party!

Ship your old ties to:
Ties That Matter, LLC
PO Box 11914
Atlanta, GA 30355

My Keen Rice Bag Shoes

2011-12-08T23:06:00.003-05:00

My friend Mindy, also an artist and eco-activist, saw me in my funky shoes made of repurposed rice bags. She thought they were a hoot, and was surprised I hadn't posted them on my blog. Here, Min.
The reason I didn't is that while they are upcycled rice bags, they are made in China, and I wasn't able to really verify anything about their eco-biography. Hoping for the best, that they aren't made in a sweat shop, and that the rice bag collectors were paid fairly. Of course there is lots of rice in China.... Let's hope they didn't ship the rice bags in from somewhere else.
Should you be interested in a pair, note they run very large. Order a half size smaller than you would normally wear. Keen's description: the upper is crafted with reclaimed rice paper. Recycled polyurethane and cork create a naturally comfy footbed, rewarding your eco-friendly frame of mind. Please note, because of the unique nature of this product, each item is one of a kind.

Women's Clothing Giveaway 6 - January 29

2011-12-01T15:31:00.003-05:00

Seated at The High Point at Allens Lane, meeting over coffee to plan an event, my mini-backpack caught Sue Wasserkrug’s eye. “Funny, I once had backpack that looked just like that”, she commented, quizzically. “Well… did you donate it to the GJC Women’s Clothing Giveaway?” Having just met, we looked at each other and burst out laughing. Sue meeting up with her old backpack, one of my favorite Giveaway finds, totally captures the whimsy and heimishness of our annual happening.

Not only was this hilarious, it solved a challenge for me: what on earth to say, writing about the Giveaway for the sixth time? In truth, though, our Giveaway has grown and evolved in many new ways, due to the creativity, planning, and hard work of many devoted volunteers from Women’s Club and the Social Action Committee. Sue, by the way, is a neighbor who volunteers at the event, too.

Last year the Swap took a quantum leap, becoming the Giveaway. One of our challenges was the enormous surplus of donated clothes left at the end. Marcy Bacine reached out to day care centers and organizations that support low income women around the city, inviting them as guests to the event; many enthusiastically attended. Our beautiful marquee Lincoln Drive sign, featuring the stunning papercut by our own Mindy Shapiro, helped build excitement. As a result, we tripled our attendance, raising over $4500 to donate to Darfur refugees, and had way less clothing leftover. (The remainders are donated to Whosoever Gospel Mission in Germantown.) Our permanent website helps with social networking. Rivkah Walton has created lovely fliers and other PR materials. We have created something really exciting and impactful!

Genie Ravital has coordinated this event since she dreamed it up back in the day. She has developed systems that work beautifully, kept track of details like who can lend dress racks, where the signs are stored, how many tables we need. Our volunteers are seasoned as well, often pitching in as personal shoppers, with Connie Katz heading up food and details.

Last year there was some worry that there might be a riot when so many women showed up prior to the opening at 11:00 AM, but everyone managed to find clothing without pepper spraying other shoppers. Many happy women walked out with large designer shopping bags (donated, of course) full of gently used clothing. Throughout the day, additional garments were continually added to the tables, as women laid out donations before commencing their own hunting and gathering expeditions.

Women For Women International is this year’s beneficiary. Nicholas Kristof recommends its important work with women survivors of war and conflict. Of the dozens of wonderful organizations working globally to help lift up women, this one best expanded the Darfur Alert path we have taken, but also we love its name. Women For Women pretty much sums up what the day is all about.

To volunteer email Geniebud@gmail.com or to link us to more agencies serving low income women, contact Marcy Bacine, marcy49@me.com

Aha! It's My Own Credit Card Companies Flooding My Mailbox!

2011-11-16T17:26:00.000-05:00

Damn! I hate credit card offers. Especially when I dutifully went through the Opt-Out process to make them go away. Why are we still getting so many, especially from companies like AMEX, where I already have one? A little research reveals that your own credit card company is the source - they can send you offers and share your name. I have 3 credit cards, my husband has 1, my daughter has 1. You can see why we are still getting them.

Go to your credit card website and nose around for your security and privacy settings. Or call. Tell them you do not want any offers, nor may they share your information. I hope this helps! This is what Capital One sent me after a lengthy Robo conversation:

Linda: •If your name was previously selected for any of our upcoming mail promotions prior to this request, it is possible for you to receive information from us over the next several weeks.
Linda: •It may take up to 30 days for your do-not-call request to be removed from all offers. If you receive a Capital One telemarketing call during this 30-day period, please inform the caller that you have recently made a request not to receive telemarketing calls or ask the caller to submit a new do not call request
Linda: •If your name was previously selected for any of our upcoming email offers, it is possible for you to receive information from us over the next 10 business days.
Linda: It may take up to 6 weeks for your request to take effect with regard to not receiving further checks by mail.
Linda: It may take up to 12 weeks for your request to take effect with regard to not receiving further checks attached to your monthly statement
Linda: Your request to be excluded from the sharing of your personal, credit, or eligibility information with business partners or companies owned by Capital One will be honored within 30 days.
Linda: These choices do not include information we may send you in our regular communications, like your billing statement or when you call in to our Customer Service Center, about products and services that are directly related to your account, such as balance transfer or purchase check offers.
Linda: Your choices will apply to all of the Capital One accounts for which you are financially responsible

If this works, I will be delighted!

BookCycler: Books Be Gone!

2011-11-01T15:37:00.000-04:00

The last decade has seen a total disruption in book publishing and purchasing. Remember before the internet, when one bought books at stores, either new or used, or perhaps for a specialized book, through a mail order catalogue? Now single-click is a verb. We purchase books, cheaply, and two days later they arrive at our doorstep. If that’s not fast enough, we download the books on Kindles or Nooks in a few seconds.

The internet created a new opportunity for anyone with a connection to sell used books online. I was so gleeful when I first discovered this about 7 or 8 years ago - it was simple and intuitive. By under-pricing the bottom used offer, I nearly always unloaded my books, many of which I had bought used myself. I also reevaluated my library and sold books I didn’t use and realized were just sitting there taking up space. It was ecological – reusing – and economical. And it kept the bookcases neat!

Amazon Prime, which features free shipping on all orders for a $79 charge, has reshaped the used book market. Now new books are often cheaper than used, when one calculates the cost of shipping. (Amazon does not provide free shipping for used books coming from second party vendors.) The ease of listing used books has increased supply, further driving down prices. Entrepreneurs have grown significant niche businesses reselling books on Amazon, many of which are listed for $.01. Ever wonder why? It’s because the have large enough volume to get discount postage, so they can make a tiny profit on the $3.99 ship charge.

Amazon has also increased its commission on used book sales. These factors have all combined to cause used book prices to plummet. New hard cover books depreciate in value within weeks of publication; when the paperback comes out, they crash further. While digital books are eco-resource-light, they cannot be resold. If they ultimately replace hardcopy books, that has interesting implications.

Recently my son brought me a carton of high quality newish books, with an offer. If I would resell them, all profits could go to charity. A few books fetched decent prices, but most were not worth the time and hassle to sell. I discovered Better World Books, a social business with a free-shipping model, which makes it economical to buy and sell used books. Their supply is all donated (they pay the shipping), and while they are a for-profit, they donate a percentage of their profits to their five international and domestic literacy partners. They are a B Corp certified social venture.

This experience inspired me to launch a project, BookCycler, accepting people’s used books and cycling them forward, with any profits going to the Kibera School for Girls in Kenya, of which I am a board member. Most books will be shipped to Better World Books for them to resell. The hope is that amidst all the books with little resale value, I will find a few which will fetch more, and those dollars will help fund the school.

If you live in the Philadelphia area, here is the deal: I accept up to 15 books at a time. They must be in good condition and have ISBN numbers, so no advance reviewer copies. 21^st Century copyright is preferred, and the newer the better. The ideal would be to buy a new book and donate it as soon as you’ve read it, before its price plunges. Please email me for drop-off information:

Earth Creations' Creations Are Beautiful

2011-10-04T10:22:00.000-04:00

Earth Creations is an Alabama sustainable apparel company that's been around awhile, long enough for some of their brand to now be my old clothes. They have gradually become more savvy, but true to their organic cotton, mud-dyed aesthetic.
I just bought a few new 3/4 length tees and they really are beautiful. The texture is heavy weight and the color is rich and deep, not uniform, kind of like a very subtle sponge-painting. The fit is great, and they're not too long, one of my pet peeves. And, the design and cut are flattering. I am really going to enjoy these.
I try not to hawk products on my blog, but do enjoy sharing things that are special that readers might not know about.
Surprise! Since I ordered from their website, along with my tees came their funky "Green Tea Bag", a tank top stitched along the bottom opening to create a lightweight bag. I love this company. And the cinnabar and mosaic blue are spectacular colors.

Enter Amazon Trade-In

2011-09-11T15:03:00.005-04:00

Selling books on Amazon, title by title, is nothing new. By quickly entering the title, a book deacquisitioner (another name for someone cleaning out their library) can see if it's worth selling a book. Amazon has added a per book fee, plus their percentage, so it is no longer sensible to sell a book unless it's going for $5 or more, and then mostly just to get rid of the book.
A new program called Amazon Trade-In is available for books with decent resale value. If the book entered has a "Trade-In" button next to it, Amazon shows the standard trade-in value. It's much less than the online used prices, since the reseller is a 3rd party who needs to include a profit, but it's a quick way to pass along a lot of books at once. I am sending off 6 hardcovers, shipping is on them, and I will receive a $12 Amazon credit to my account. It is a sensible, quick way to move books along. Not a big money maker, but a good problem solver, and recirculates the books.
Their online forum suggests it is not working perfectly. Let's see what happens.
Update:
I just received online notification of my credits from shipping 7 books at their expense. One book was rejected, but according to my directions, they don't ship it back. While I don't know what they do with books that are not resalable, but at least this one is not sitting in my house. The books are worth very little, but it's great to send 6 books off for not a lot of work. I am pasting the list, not to encourage you to buy them, but as a demo.

Selected Return Option: Do not return the item. If the item is considered to be in a lower condition, you will receive an Amazon.com Gift Card for a lower amount.

Item	Quantity	Condition	Value	Status
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Huma... ISBN-13: 9780300078152, ISBN-10: 0300078153	1	Good	$6.10	Gift Card Deposited
Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers ISBN-13: 9780029227916, ISBN-10: 0029227917	1	Good	$2.58	Gift Card Deposited
Why Government Succeeds and Why It Fails ISBN-13: 9780674015890, ISBN-10: 0674015894	1	Good	$1.29	Gift Card Deposited
The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible ISBN-13: 9780300109368, ISBN-10: 0300109369	1	Good	$0.05	Gift Card Deposited
The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth ISBN-13: 9780865715967, ISBN-10: 0865715963	1	Good	$2.67	Gift Card Deposited
The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting, and ... ISBN-13: 9780807001295, ISBN-10: 0807001295	1	Good	$0.74	Gift Card Deposited
Total	6		$13.43

An Amazon.com Gift Card* worth $13.43 has been applied to your account

IKEA Funds a Refugee Camp - Not a Sports Stadium!

2011-09-01T09:58:00.000-04:00

We're all used to seeing Staples, Fedex, and Citizens - underwriting big arenas and stadiums. How cool is it for a company to support a refugee camp? Will it have a big IKEA sign on it? I hope so, because I'm sure they'll do a better job if the whole world is paying attention. ANd I also hope this starts a new competition in companies' philanthropy! Do you suppose IKEA designers will work on creating products that will improve life in refugee centers? That would be wonderful.

The IKEA Foundation has donated $62-million dollars to the world’s largest refugee camp, the Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya.
The United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR says this is the largest donation they have ever received from a private donor in their 60 year history and it is also the first time a private body has chosen to directly support a major refugee complex.

Revisiting Social Mission Investment

2011-08-14T13:25:00.003-04:00

The über quest which kicked off this blog, [how to use ]Money[ to ]Changes Things, was my search for information on how to invest our surplus. A late middle-aged couple with prudent financial habits and enormous good luck (parents who paid for our education, well-compensated work we each care deeply about, good health, good kids), the pat answers about asset allocation and index funds did not satisfy my sense of noblesse oblige. There had to be a way to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I felt uncomfortable so completely splitting our investment side from our philanthropic giving. Surely there were ways to invest our money [we adopted a goal of 1% of our networth to be allocated to community investment] which could achieve returns and some of our giving goals, chiefly helping people to improve their lives.

Many of the discoveries I made are listed in the links on this blog. I revisit them from time and time, and they still provide great resources for like-minded folks. Once I located socially responsible investments I felt great about, like the Equal Exchange CD which provided both modest interest and a credit line for coffee farmers, and microfinance notes through MicroPlace, my interests branched out. I wrote more about the consumption end, as more and more green products and strategies have blossomed.

Now necessity forces a return to that über quest, nearly 5 years into it. Pennsylvania's Blue Sky Law regulators have not reapproved Microplace's status to sell securities in our state. Wainwright Bank, the holder of the Equal Exchange CD's has been sold. Likewise, Calvert Fund's Community Investment Notes are not available to Pennsylvanians. The Reinvestment Fund, and Weavers Way Coop are locally based, and available to us, but we already have money invested with them and I like to diversify our impact.

It's is time to reinvest the Microplace funds which have just come due. With the obvious options blocked, and no social enterprise as having made enough money to go public, to my knowledge, it is a time to redefine my goals. An article in the New York Times this morning sums up the field well.

Shared value is an elaboration of the notion of corporate self-interest — greed, if you will. The idea that companies can do well by doing good is certainly not new. It is an appealing proposition that over the years has been called “triple bottom line” (people, planet, profit), “impact investing” and “sustainability” — all describing corporate initiatives that address social concerns including environmental pollution, natural-resource depletion, public health and the needs of the poor.The shared-value concept builds on those ideas, but it emphasizes profit-making not just as a possibility but as a priority. Shared value, Mr. Porter says, points toward “a more sophisticated form of capitalism,” in which “the ability to address societal issues is integral to profit maximization instead of treated as outside the profit model.”Social problems are looming market opportunities, according to Mr. Porter and Mr. Kramer. They note that while government programs and philanthropy have a place — beyond dimes, Mr. Rockefeller created a path-breaking foundation — so, increasingly, does capitalism.

My approach is idiosyncratic. My small amount of mission investing is the feel-good part of our portfolio. Mostly we have a ton of Pennsylvania municipal tax-free bonds. Hard to feel emotional about ALLEGHENY CNTY PA SAN AUTH SWR REV REF SER A B/E MBIA CPN 5.000% DUE12/01/21 DTD 05/18/05 FC 12/01/05 CALL 12/01/15 @ 100.000, though admittedly, helping Allegheny County's sanitation authority improve their sewer is a good thing to underwrite.

My personal answer at the moment is to invest in companies producing value, by my definition of value: products that will improve people's lives and add to, or at least not subtract from, quality of life on our planet. While I wish there were sewer-grid independent toilet companies to invest in, we're not there yet. However, Zipcar went public this year. It was on my original Fantasy Social Mission Index Fund. I bought some. When the stock goes up, I am cheering not just for the uptick, but for the concept. It seems like a great business concept, once people understand it and adapt their behavior. Enabling Zipcar to market its idea will benefit us all - fewer cars in the street, lowered emissions, more money in people's pockets, and more citizens exploring and expanding multi-modal transportation.

And how to invest the next chunk coming due? We attended a destination wedding and instead of renting upscale hotel rooms, we found a beautiful house to rent on VBRO. Amazingly, it was cheaper than the hotel and even nicer than we imagined. I was so impressed with VRBO that I booked a cottage on the Chesapeake for four nights. So much better than time-shares with their weird rules, bland decor, and random locations. Turns out that VBRO is owned by HomeAway and has recently gone public - AWAY. Essentially they are an Ebay for second home owners, conveniently helping them market their excess space and creating value for vacationers - and hopefully cutting into the construction of lots of crappy time shares and hotels. They don't have a socially responsible mission, but they help efficiently utilize a lot of beautiful under-used homes. I'd rather be investing in more direct ways of repairing the world, but as a stop-gap measure, AWAY will work, unless anyone out there has a better idea.

PS, in you belong to an Evangelical Lutheran Church, you can invest in their Mission Fund - they lend money to congregations to build churches. Anyone know of other denominations with programs like this?

Playing the Online Coupon Game - and Usually Winning

2011-06-29T13:22:00.001-04:00

I am a total sucker for discounts. Once I've established I am buying an item, for personal or business purposes, I am getting a huge kick out of finding online coupon codes to insert at checkout. I began to notice how many check out systems ask for a coupon or promotional code, so I opened a new window, googled the company name and "coupon" and all these sites popped up.
Just bought 25 shipping boxes. By googling the company + coupon, a code for 5% off popped up. In this case, that totaled 43¢, but why not? I've scored free shipping and numerous other discounts. All that it took was an extra minute to search coupons. Note, though, not all codes are valid. I just wasted about 20 minutes on a clothing site trying to insert code I found on line, none of which worked. But more often than not, they are valid. I treat it more like a sport than a strategy.
Presumably the coupon sites get a cut if you enter the company website through their site; they often have clickthroughs.

Bring Back the Clean Plate Club: LEFTOVERS!

2011-06-05T13:28:00.000-04:00

The Art of Leftovers

If you’re someone in the habit of stashing lots of leftovers in the freezer, assign a weekly No Cooking Night and eat them. My mom called this Review. The plan is to take all the little dribs and drabs and serve them. (This is in addition to a No Buy Week. You’ll really be on a roll.)

Store leftovers in clear containers. Weavers Way sells pyrex sets with matching covers. I know from experience that putting leftovers in random opaque containers effectively camouflages the food, guaranteeing it will spoil.

Try not to automatically deposit leftovers in the fridge. Instead, pack them up to take to work for lunch or put a label on them and freeze them. One of my pre-Passover adventures is thawing random unmarked containers. Labeling always seems like a lot of work at the time, but it beats the alternative of stocking your freezer with mystery items that you are very unlikely to find useful or appealing. Sometimes I need to thaw these packets just to identify them.

Of course there is no such thing as a zero waste house. Start composting, find a neighbor who composts, or hire a pick-up service like PhillyCompost.com. They you will truly being doing your part to close the waste loop, making the best use of both your dollars and the earth’s resources. Bon appétit!

Image from www.chicaandjo.com

Bring Back the Clean Plate Club: Shopping for Food

2011-06-05T13:23:00.000-04:00

When shopping for food:

It is the 21^st century. Thankfully we live in the USA. We are not experiencing famine, nor are there food shortages like in Soviet Russia. We don’t live in remote areas waiting for the Wells Fargo Wagon. Don’t shop as if you won’t have another opportunity. Buy what you need, not what you imagine it might be a good idea to have in your pantry. Those good idea purchases often sit so long they outlive their appeal.

Buy a smaller refrigerator and get rid of any older second refridge. They are inefficient, and the extra storage encourages you to accumulate more food than you can realistically consume. Likewise, limit yourself to a refrigerator freezer and skip the freestanding unit, unless you grow so much food it makes sense to store it frozen.

Schedule a No-Buy day or week. I attempt to consume all the food in our freezer and pantry before Passover. This is extreme, but makes me mindful of how much surplus I accumulate, even being careful. Try a week of no shopping and see what you learn about your habits. We have an ingrained fear of deprivation; learning to identify and ignore that voice is very helpful in cutting back on waste.

Plan meals that use what is actually in your refrigerator and pantry. Google is great for this. Once I wanted to use up a partial container of ricotta, along with a can of pumpkin. Voila! A wonderful ricotta pumpkin pudding.

If you are a parent, don’t permit children to heap food on their plates and not eat it. Serve very small portions and let them take more. I actually enforced this rule with our children’s guests as well as our own kids. They quickly learned that I expected them to eat an apple if they took one, or to finish the cereal if they poured it into the bowl.

Once my children moved out of the house, I discovered I never drank a quart of milk before it spoiled. Now I put half of it in the freezer as soon as I purchase it. It is fine for cooking and coffee. I keep powdered milk in the pantry as a backup, which eliminates special trips just to purchase milk.

Bringing Back The Clean Plate Club: Eating in Restaurants

2011-06-05T13:18:00.002-04:00

End-user waste: that’s a value neutral term denoting all the food we trash. Along with the food, we also waste all its embedded energy and the expense of growing, processing, marketing, buying, and transporting it. This is crazy, no?

Avoiding household food waste is a snap - all that is needed is planning, discipline, and commitment. Unfortunately, when it comes to food, we humans aren’t very good at any of those. Food is cheap, demands on our time are ever growing, good intentions fall by the wayside. Out the food goes.

In American Wasteland, Jonathan Bloom includes many practical suggestions for shrinking our waste “food-print”, like sticking to a prepared list when shopping.

When going to a restaurant:

Know restaurant strategy: labor is expensive, food is not. There is an arms race for portion size, so don’t be all surprised when gargantuan dishes come to the table. Expect it and plan for it. Order an appetizer instead of an entrée, or split an entrée. If by some chance you are still hungry (this has never actually happened to us, but it’s a possibility), order more food. Why do we care what the waitstaff thinks? They should care that we are upset by the idea of their providing so much food that it practically guarantees waste.

Typically restaurants will provide huge styrofoam clamshell containers to take home, no matter what size your leftover is. Plan ahead and bring ziplock bags with you. Or perhaps upgrade to a covered plate and tote designed for just this purpose. Don’t be shy about taking bread, since restaurants are not allowed to serve it to the next patrons, and as soon as you leave the venue, in the dumpster it will go.

Let’s all try to get past our embarrassment, worrying someone will think we are cheap. Why is it tacky to take home food, and OK to throw it out? It should be the reverse.

Lastly, eat what you order. If you don’t want to overeat, you need to under-order. There are much better ways of watching your caloric intake than throwing away uneaten food.

Visit a Public Garden for Free on Friday, 5/6

2011-05-04T13:23:00.001-04:00

In support of National Public Gardens Day, Better Homes and Gardens is offering magazine readers a free admission coupon for two to visit a public garden on National Public Gardens Day, May 6, 2011.

The coupons will be valid at all participating public gardens on that day only. Readers can obtain the coupon on the Better Homes and Gardens website at BHG.com. An ongoing list of participating gardens can be found here.

Go to bhg.com/freegarden for the coupon.

Feed People, Not Dumpsters: Food Recovery and Gleaning

2011-05-02T15:16:00.000-04:00

Review, Part II, of Jonathan Bloom’s American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of it Food

Okay, we Americans toss lots of food. Why is this a big deal? Jonathan Bloom’s thorough description of the issue, from field to landfill, in American Wasteland lays out a case that food waste is idiotic, avoidable, and squanders an astounding amount of resources, not just the food itself. Embedded in the food is water, fertilizer [ie petroleum], and labor for its growth, plus all the resources used in processing, packaging, and moving the resulting product. Last month I outlined some of the factors that result in wasting food; this column will explore efforts to capture quality food on its way to the dumpster and redistribute it.

Perhaps the most shocking statistic in the book is that 97% of food waste winds up in landfill. This includes food from farms, distribution venues (supermarkets, but NOT Weaver’s Way!), restaurants, institutions, public events, and homes. A huge amount of crops and prepared foods that never reach a final consumer can be rescued. This classic practice of gleaning goes back to biblical times. The book of Ruth vividly describes how the poor collected what was left after the fields were harvested; by biblical mandate, the corners of the fields were left for the poor to harvest, as well.

The problems with gleaning our modern American fields are that they are distant from hungry populations, and monoculture in nature. Even the rural poor would be hard-pressed to make good use of 40 acres of oversized sugar beets, an example in Bloom’s book. The Society of St. Andrew was founded in 1979 to address this problem – read more about them at endhunger.org. While their work has expanded to food recovery all along the production chain, they still gather volunteer crews to harvest the season’s leftovers, or even whole fields, if market forces have made itdiseconomic for a farmer to pay for harvesting.

The United States has an extensive system of food recovery, from harvest through end points like restaurants and supermarkets. Typically a manufacturer contacts a food recovery group, or maintains an ongoing relationship with it, and defective packaging, damaged pallets, and the like are routinely picked up and warehoused. This food is then shared with food pantries, food distribution programs at senior centers and homeless shelters, and soup kitchens. It is a complicated enterprise, since supply and demand are often not in synch. In our cheap, high carb food production system, empty calories far outweighs nourishing, healthy protein or perishable produce, for example. Funding is an obvious challenge for all such programs, since even with volunteer labor and donated food, they require enormous overhead.

In the Philadelphia region, Philabundance has specialized in large quantity pick-up and delivery, housing the food in two area warehouses. Their Share the Harvest program invites home gardeners to share their surplus (zucchini, anyone?) by dropping it off at their designated sites. While most produce is directly donated, a portion is utilized in Philabundance’s Community Kitchen (PCK) program, which trains low-income adults for jobs in the food-service industry. Their students prepare meals, which are provided to children and families in emergency shelters in Philadelphia. The local drop-off site is Laurel Hill Gardens, 8125 Germantown Avenue, on Saturday mornings from 10-12, July 9 through September 24^th.

What about end use food, the leftovers from events and parties, power outages, or other single time food surpluses? Philabundance doesn’t handle these types of individual requests anymore, but Weaver’s Way Chestnut Hill food recovery ace, Kim Spellman-Hall, put me in touch with Mr. Carl Boyd, a hero in our local war against food waste. A member of the St. Vincent’s team in Germantown, Mr. Boyd spends much of his time shuttling around the Northwest picking up edible food to be redistributed through St. Vincent’s soup kitchen, or delivered to shelters and senior centers.

Mr. Boyd bemoans that despite frequent offers to pick up the food, virtually none of the Northwest’s grocery stores donate their unsold products, including rotisserie chickens – they trash it all, despite the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act which removes donor liability questions. A shining local exception is our own Weavers Way, which has a zero waste policy and gives Mr. Boyd a call when there is leftover prepared food which cannot be sold. If you have leftover food to donate, call Mr. Boyd at 302 359-0662. Just be sure it is appropriately wrapped.

Check out Bloom’s book or site for a more in depth look at this whole issue. Of course, the ideal is to waste less at every step of the food chain, the focus of next month’s Part III column.

Muichic - Mucho Gorgeous and FairTrade, Too

2011-05-01T21:48:00.001-04:00

Much as I love craft fairs and handmade clothing and accessories, I do try not to collect too many trinkets. I've gotten good at admiring but not acquiring. Today at a Home & Garden outdoor fair, underneath gorgeous sunny skies, I hit the jackpot. This gorgeous necklace is made by Muichic in Colombia of natural materials, but let them tell you their story. It's fun and funky, helps people support themselves, and preserves rainforests. Trifecta!

muichic (moo·ee·sheek) is 100% natural, sustainable & organic jewelry ethically handmade in Colombia.
Tagua is our raw material. All of our pieces are made by hand from "tagua nut". The tagua nut, a botanical alternative to ivory (a.k.a. vegetable ivory), is a seed that comes from the ivory-nut palm which grows wild in the humid tropical forest of South America. Its use stimulates the local economies in the region providing an alternative to cutting down rainforests for farming.
Unique accessories that are environmentally friendly & gracefully chic make up our natural bijoux collection...bold, playful & colorful goodness for your body. All of our pieces come in different colors and like snowflakes they all differ from one another. Each tagua nut has its own distinctive grain and shape which gives a remarkably uncommon quality to each piece of jewelry. Quality & individual variation on each piece are guaranteed.

Check out this close up! The boldness of plastic color, but with the elegant aesthetic of hard polished natural material. I see why they liken it to ivory, with grains like wood.

Matzah Crack Toffee

2011-04-24T16:13:00.006-04:00

These are pretty much the best Passover treats I've ever made. A good way to use up matzah, and hey - this version is even vegan (since it uses dairy-free margarine). Thanks to my delightful daughter-in-law Becca from whom I learned these are called Matzah Crack, which gets to their addictive quality.
There are many versions of this, including one with saltines. [ As far as the Passover variety, check out Smitten Kitchen who references David Liebowitz who references Marcy Goldman - very Talmudic.] You can use butter, brown sugar, all kinds of interesting nuts (pistachios are pretty), but here is the basic, basic version. Double it for a jelly roll size pan. The online versions of this say to line the pan with tinfoil, but I found it cleaned up easily without and liner, and of course that's more resource frugal.

2 to 3 matzahs (whole wheat is fine, believe it or not)
1 stick margarine
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. chocolate chips
a few ounces grated nuts

Heat oven to 375°.

Lay sheets of matzah in a flat pan, breaking them so the fit.

In a small sauce pan, melt one stick of margarine and stir in one cup of sugar. It starts out as a paste and quickly becomes a syrup; stir continually. Bring to a boil and boil 3 minutes without stirring.
Pour the syrup over the matzahs. Use a spatula to make sure that all the surfaces are coated. Don't worry about it flowing under the cracks.

Bake for 5 minutes. [Goldman says bake it for 15, watching carefully it doesn't burn. I believe baking it longer results in better carmelizing.] When you take it out, the syrup will be bubbling. Pour the chocolate chips over the surfaces.
After about 5 minutes, take a few handfuls of grated nuts and sprinkle over the surface, as well. Use a flat spatula or the back of a spoon to spread the melted chocolate chips to cover. Sprinkle more grated nuts to the top.
Let it sit. Some people put it in the refrige or freezer til the chocolate hardens.
When the chocolate it set, just pry up the pieces and break them off, and voila! The best Passover dessert ever! If some of the chocolate breaks off (which it will if it's cold), the matzah pieces themselves are really good, so don't worry. And no one will mind eating the chocolate sans matzah, either.

Impact Investing: Doing Well by Doing Good

2011-04-21T11:26:00.000-04:00

Socially responsible investing by screen can yield some odd results, companies that don't contribute anything worthwhile to the world but are neutral or positive in their practices. Another approach is [Positive] Impact Investing, described here, so I'm putting this whole article up from AOL DailyFinance. Looking forward to the time when this is available for Plain Jane investors, not just the big guys.

Impact Investing: A Better Way to Do Well by Doing Good

ByCATHERINE NEWPosted 11:00AM 04/21/11

Putting your money where your heart is not a new concept. But making competitive profits in the process has proven to be a bit more complicated.

In the last 15 years,socially responsible investingor SRI, has become an increasingly visible option for investors who seek to blend social concerns such as environmental stewardship or human rights with their investing strategies. Those SRI funds are both feel-good and do-good by comparison to regular funds, but they've facedcriticismon two fronts: They have had lower returns, and their missions can be hard to define, which can lead to "greenwashing" -- the attempt to cover ordinary profit-seeking behavior with a thin patina of socially or environmentally positive PR.

However, top business schools -- along with a new breed of venture capitalists -- are trying to change that and prove that investing with the goal of creating a meaningful, positive social impact can generate financial returns equal to traditional methods. A new genre has evolved from SRI:impact investing, which proactively uses invested funds to solve social or environmental goals and achieve competitive financial returns at the same time.

Competing to Make the World Better

In early April, 12 teams of business-school students from top American and British schools gathered in New York City for the firstInternational Impact Investing Challenge.

Taking the podium in a wood-paneled conference room in J.P. Morgan's headquarters (formerly the Bear Sterns building), students presented ideas that showcased how those investing opportunities might look. The buzzwords bandied about included emerging markets, mobile platforms, micro health insurance, and clean energy.

The first-place portfolio, won byKellogg MBAstudents Sachpreet Chandhoke and Puneet Gupta, outlined theGrain Depot Fund, a plan to improve grain storage and distribution in India. They predict an initial investment of $17 million to build storage silos in India's bread belt could deliver a return rate of 19% for investors over a 15-year period, improve revenues for local farmers, generate new employment, and provide more grain for food. That's a lot of bread.

"The beauty of this is that it is simple," said Chandhoke. "We've gotten to the heart of what impact investing is all about."

Financial Innovation and Long-Term Strategies

Mark Milstein, director of theCenter for Sustainable Global Enterpriseat Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, says the recent financial crisis showed that traditional investment vehicles were fallible, and underscored the importance of the sort of long-term strategies that are central to impact investing. The sector is predicted to grow to $500 billion by 2014, according to the nonprofitGlobal Impact Investing Network.

"In the bad economy, greenwashing went out the window," Milstein said. "But long-term investments have continued to grow and have value."

David Chen of Equilibrium Capital Group, who was key in organizing the competition, says he's impressed with the passion for social change he sees in today's business-school students. "It's not just students coming from the nonprofit world anymore," he said. "It cuts across all students."

As the competition wrapped up, students mingled with the judges -- managing directors, fund managers and partners at top capital firms responsible for directing billions of dollars.

"Finance can be a source of innovation if we can harness creativity in the next generation," Chen said.

See full article from DailyFinance:http://srph.it/goqV3w

American Wasteland Review, Part I

2011-04-01T15:07:00.000-04:00

American Wasteland – How America Wastes Nearly Half of Its Food - Part I

Jonathan Bloom’s American Wasteland is an engaging book on a topic which is finally garnering some much-deserved attention: food waste. I’ve wanted to learn more about the back-story from field to my refrigerator, at which point waste is my personal responsibility, and Bloom is the perfect tour guide. Because of the declining cost of food relative to American incomes, food has become devalued. Hence food waste is no longer considered sinful or just plain stupid, but rather a problem solver of what to do with our excess.

Be warned, despite Bloom’s droll wit, amusing anecdotes, and endearing asides, his story is not pretty. From production to plate, Americans waste almost half of our food supply. He takes us through our country’s food system, from farm to restaurant or supermarket, and ultimately into the home of the consumer. Us. Much is wasted at each juncture, until in the end, we toss perfectly good food for reasons that might make sense at the time, but when analyzed, seem entirely avoidable.

Industrial farming is a high risk, low profit margin business. Imperfect produce is increasingly rejected by marketers in an attempt to match the elegant abundance of Whole Foods. The upscaling of expectation results in vast quantities of perfectly edible harvested food going straight to dumpsters. Some farms plow crops under rather than investing in harvesting them if they are subpar. Or sometimes, the migrant labor we depend on for harvesting is simply not available, and the crops rot.

Because such a large volume of our produce is grown in ginormous farms in Watsonville, California, it is hard to find enough local demand for so much food. Factory rejects overwhelm the local food recovery non-profits. While a small percentage is composted, most processing mistakes are junked. Produce is too perishable to be sold as factory seconds, and brand-consciousness would preclude companies from allowing “flawed” merchandise to be marketed, anyway. Bloom emphasizes that these flaws have nothing to do with food quality, just with appearance. Sad indeed.

Bloom is a storyteller at heart, and working undercover in a supermarket produce section provided him with vivid insider observations. I cheered for the subversive produce pro who, offended by instructions to toss perfectly good tomatoes, sorted the perfect from the imperfect, combining two dumpster-destined clamshell boxfuls into one attractive batch. Thus he only threw out bruised vegetables. If a supervisor knew, that employee could have been in big trouble, even though common sense would suggest that it’s good for the grocery store to sell more, right? The saddest of Bloom’s observations is how even he, a crusader against wanton food waste, eventually stopped perceiving the imperfect produce they threw out as food. Throwing it away became normal.

Supermarket food is marked with dates. If the Sell By date is approaching, some stores toss is before. These dates might also say “Best By” or “Eat By”, thoroughly confusing. No one knows what the hell these mean. Most consumers imagine something dangerous will happen if they don’t abide by these somewhat arbitrary dates. Hence food is discarded rather than upsetting the customers, even though its quality is still fine. No discounting of such product at chain groceries – same concern with degrading brand quality. And no letting employees take it. Nope, to the dumpster it goes.

Next time you eat in a chain restaurant you might want to repress Bloom’s reporting, since it’s mighty depressing. Eating establishments throw out immense amounts of prepared foods each night. Some restaurants discard them out more frequently than that. The worst wasters are buffet spreads, because their business model is based on extensive choice available the entire time the restaurant is open for business. Employees are not allowed to eat the leftovers, nor are customers allowed to take theirs home. Smaller locally-owned restaurants are more food frugal, often using leftover prepared foods in new, creative ways, just like home cooks. Waste, after all, represents the bottom line, and well-run restaurants attempt to minimize the amount of money they throw away.

Weavers Way [here in Philly], happily, gets exemplary marks for minimizing food waste. We sell or give away food with expiration dates close at hand. We have a discount produce bin which shoppers check out, inspiration for many a soup or banana bread, I’m sure. Kim Spellman-Hall, our Chestnut Hill manager, outlines our protocols:

· Items are marked down as they get close to the expiration date - bakery, dairy, meat, seafood, and prepared foods.

· Produce items are used in our prepared soups and salads.

· If the kitchen can't use some of the produce items we donate to several food banks which pick up seven days a week.

· Damaged items and unsold marked-down expired items also go to food banks.

· We compost all produce trimmings and rotten items and have a service that picks up animal fat from our meat department.

· The only items that get pitched are moldy things that can't be composted. We even have someone who will pick these up for their pig.

The food banks are so appreciative so it's a win-win for everyone!

This nearly zero-waste policy is something for Weavers Way shoppers take great pride and comfort in, knowing that our coop values food and makes every possible effort to avoid destroying it. I am thrilled to learn of this virtue-added benefit of membership.

One of the chief take-aways from Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff is how much waste occurs in the supply chain, something about which the end consumer is entirely (and happily) oblivious. Jonathan Bloom does a great job of spotlighting the food chain. He includes a lot of data, but it’s his stories which will stick with you.

This is one of a three-part review. Bloom also lays out encouraging examples of waste reduction and food recovery, which I will feature in Part II. The third installment will focus on our home-based waste along with strategies for avoiding all the accumulation with which we are all intimately familiar. Send me your stories!

Seeking a Strip Computer Calender from a Good Cause!

2011-03-31T10:58:00.000-04:00

Lots of us hate all the address labels we receive, unsolicited, in non-profit mailings. A few labels are useful, but when they get to be dozens upon dozens, they wind up in the recyclable trash, due to the backing and adhesive.
But here's a suggestion to nonprofits: send out computer strip calendars with your logo. I love them for my computer monitor - they are super useful. We once got one from Sierra Club and I used it all year long. I even asked for a new one from them.
These don't seem to be available individually anywhere, except as a download. What I do now is just cut up a calendar and tape it on my computer, but it doesn't work nearly as well as these vinyl guys. I don't like that they're vinyl, but the amount is better than all the labels, and the mailing would be lighter. Maybe there's a recyclable alternative, even?
Source, anyone?

No More Address Labels! That Means You, Amnesty International!

2011-03-28T13:00:00.001-04:00

Amnesty International is a great organization - so I can't figure out why they feel the need to send me 72 address labels at a pop. Even in the days when I wrote letters, that would have been an annual supply. Sent them off a plea to stop, but found form this online at Charity Navigator, which is a form to send back in their return envelope. Of course you need to put on the postage, but probably worth it just in saving your time. I am all about reuse, unless it's my name and address.

FUNDRAISING REDUCTION NOTICE
I am sending this note to reduce the waste and invasion of privacy caused by unwanted mail solicitations and telemarketing calls. If you would like me to consider contributing to your organization in the future, please agree to the following checked items:
___ Remove my name and address from your mailing list.
___ Do not sell, rent, exchange, or give my name or contribution history to any other organization or business without first receiving my approval.
___ Do not send me direct mail solicitations more than ___ times a year.
___ Do not telephone me to ask for money, or...
___ Phone me no more than ___ times a year, and only on the following day(s) and times:
Name and address labels from your solicitation(s) to me are enclosed.
Thank you for respecting a donor's wishes.

PS Used 2 of their labels - one for the return address on the envelope, the other on the page with my form.

My No-Disposable Vows

2011-03-23T23:06:00.000-04:00

About a year or two ago, I decided I would simply not use disposable cups, plates, or silverware. (So-called silverware, plastic forks et al) unless they could be washed and reused. When I go to meetings and conferences, I bring a mug, my own silverware, et al. Much of what I eat can just be consumed without utensils. If I forget to bring a mug, I just don't drink anything. I am able to stick to this personal practice pretty easily. I see it as more than just a eco-habit and entering into a spiritual practice.

There are some situations which have proven to be too awkward in which to observe this prohibition, though. When I am a guest at someone's house and they directly serve food to me on paper plates, I accept it. Who wants to be the one at the birthday party to throw sand? I have yet to have the nerve to directly confront someone and say, "Sorry, I don't eat on disposable plates. In my book, they aren't kosher." Maybe someday I'll get there, but not yet. I suppose I could also take my bamboo plate to people's homes just in case the dreaded disposables appear on the table, but that does seem a little holier-than-thou. And I would like to be invited back to people's houses!

Any one out there taken the pledge? Just found a group online, called - cleverly - Refuse, the Plastic Pollution Coalition. Sad enough, though - my google search for "pledge not to use disposables" also brought up Disposable Pledge wood polish. Yuck!

Image from oceanswavesbeaches.surfrider

Hemp Bathroom Rug - Child Labor Free!

2011-03-02T22:58:00.001-05:00

When we start shopping for an item I try to remember to search for the most sustainable option. Often such searches come up empty, but at least I have taken myself through the motions. We decided we needed bigger bathroom rugs - those tile floors get really cold in the winter. What is acrylic fiber? You guessed it - plastic, basically. As is nylon.
Cotton is a natural material often used for rugs, but unless it's organic cotton, it's not environmentally friendly since growing it consumes immense amounts of water and pesticides. Googling "natural material rugs" didn't glean much, but going more specific, there were a lot of hemp rugs. Hemp grows with very little water or inputs, so its eco-footprint is nicely petite. Safavieh has a whole line, Organica, which are hand-made hemp rugs in all different colors and sizes, so we went with those.
Can't say the rug much resembles the online pictures, but hey. It's for a bathroom floor and it's fine. What I did love was the label on the back. Child Labor Not Used. What a nice feeling to know that!

FreeCycle Goes Mainstream

2011-03-01T20:55:00.000-05:00

Technology excites some of us; others are technophobic. But technology is agnostic – it creates new ways of doing things, but how people deploy them is idiosyncratic. Freecycle.org is a perfect example of a tool born of technology. Created in 2003 in Tucson, AZ, Deron Beal started it to facilitate donations of used office equipment. At present, it has grown to 4,924 groups with 8,185,513 members around the world.

Popular items posted run from large items like sofas (“you’ll need two people and a flat bed truck”) to teensy things, like knickknacks, leftover formula, or magazine collections. Creative uses of our yahoo technology abound, like the “curb alert”. Suddenly folks who saw something left out on the street could report this to the larger community. Thinning your iris bed? Now it’s possible to find just the right new home for surplus plants.

Some posters want to tell a story – how it is that they are giving away 31 pounds of Gevalia decaf?

I have 13 pounds of Gevalia Chocolate Raspberry, 14 pounds of Gevalia Mocha Java, 2 pounds of Gevalia Select Vintner and 2 pounds of Select Vintner Spice. All decaf, all unopened, all unused. Most still in the box it was packed and shipped in. "Why so much?” you ask. Well, when I joined Gevalia I chose the auto-pay option thingy. Every month I'd get a case of coffee and think, "Coffee again? I really need to fix that!”, put it in the cabinet, and then promptly forget all about it. That's why. Happy now? *blush* [:">]
Here's the worst part: I don't even drink coffee.

Other posts are spare, like offering medical supplies no longer needed once a patient has passed, not referencing all the TLC that went into caring for that elderly loved one at home. Children’s toys, clothes, and equipment change hands, as happy parents clean-out and reclaim some of their living space. Sometimes people ask and offer simultaneously: “I just got a copy of my Grandmother (and I believe my great grandmother's) dill pickle recipe, and I want to put up some pickles. If you have any canning jars that you are not using, I would love to have them. In exchange, I will give you a copy of the recipe. All the best, Frank”.

Matches are sought: Cuisinart base looking for a processing unit. Kids needing books for their school reading. Old Verizon phone to replace the one dropped in the toilet. Households on the move list all the stuff they cannot take to their next destination, often with urgent requests for instant pickups; readers get the sense the moving van is in the driveway. Once folks are settled in their new places, packing boxes and styrofoam peanuts appear on the list for the next household packing up to move.

Perhaps we need a special category of Failed Intentions FreeCycling for all the Nordic tracks, fish tanks, and musical instruments which are offered. And a category for Things We Can’t Bear to Toss, with old calendars (the pictures are frame-worthy!), outdated technology (cassette tape recorder, anyone?) and Scrabble games with missing tiles. Not to mention the proverbial kitchen sinks folks offer when they redo kitchens. The magic is that generally there are folks out there who DO want said items.

Freecycle now actually has competition for giving away and acquiring free things, such as Craigs List, Facebook, clothing swaps, college Dump and Run programs, and smaller listserves which have adopted the strategy. I hit the jackpot last fall when a FreeForAll gardener donated an entire shoebox of seed packets.

For folks who are impatient, FreeCycle might not be your best bet. Ask around, and find a Frequent Freecycler to post your item and pass it on. Freecycle rules are simple. Items must be legal – no offering leftover prescription drugs, for example. And Freecycle has its etiquette to observe. Don’t supply too much information, like the woman offering 36DD bras, or that you’re collecting house goods for a woman whose ex has a domestic violence protection order. And above all, if you are the lucky recipient of another freecycler’s offer, make a plan to pick it up and follow through.

Three cheers for the technology which helps us to change the world, one Freecycle post at a time. How nice that freecycling has become a new norm in our neighborhoods. I sometimes wonder what we ever did without it. Despite the multitude of systems for passing things along, though, there doesn’t yet seem to be any shortage of clutter in our houses, does there?

Bah Humbug on Twinings Earl Grey! 40% of the Flavor?

2011-02-15T20:09:00.001-05:00

We love tea. Earl Grey has always been a favorite, so one year I was thrilled to see a whole big tin of it at Costco. Bad idea. By the second year, there was no flavor left in the tea. Lesson learned.
But I was willing to buy a box of 50 tea bags. These were oddly weak from the get-go, barely enough to brew one cup, let alone a pot.
Perhaps you will see the problem more quickly than I did. But eventually I did notice that these were marked as weak tea bags. Not my imagination. The very clever part, unless you like pissing off your loyal customers, is that the tea bags aren't 60% smaller, they are full size tea bags with 40% of the flavor.

Full Length Mirror Search Ends at Etsy

2011-02-14T20:39:00.000-05:00

When buying an item, I always like it to be the greenest it can be, but I couldn't figure out how to apply that to mirrors. Really, all we wanted was a plain old vanilla full-length mirror, slightly nicer than the inexpensive ones at Home Depot. Searching online, it became clear this was no simple quest. It turned into visiting dozens of mirror vendors, gaudy and gaudier, as well as pricey and pricier.

Eventually I found a site that would fabricate a mirror to our specs. Not cheap, but at least we'd get the damn mirror up on the wall, after a year in our new house. Then the light bulb went off - it we were doing a mirror from scratch, why not check Etsy and see if we could hire a craftsperson rather than a factory to create the piece?

Score!!

A quick Etsy search turned up Inspired by Nature, a couple in Tennessee who works with reclaimed wood, designing and creating all kinds of cool things. It was great fun to design the mirror with them, emailing back and forth, until the order was placed. About two weeks later, just as promised, a monster sized box arrived with our beautiful new full-length mirror made of reclaimed barn wood painted white. For the same price as buying from a factory! No kidding. Kent was a delight to work with, and how great is it to help people support themselves by doing beautiful work reclaiming old wood, and getting a piece yourself?

Moral of the story. Check out Etsy when you need something made to order. It may be cheaper, since you're paying the craftspeople directly, than going through a store or site. Such are the wonders of the internet - from a wood-shop in Tennessee to my bedroom in Philly.

(Tree not included.)

Support Shining Hope for Community!

2011-02-09T13:33:00.002-05:00

Here's a shameless plug for a terrific upstart school in Kibera, the slums of Nairobi. I'm on the board and blown away by what a bunch of young 20-somethings are helping to make happen, for little girls whose prospects were so bleak. Invest a minute to watch this very happy video.

Eco-Unfriendly Mailing Labels - "FREE"

2011-01-24T14:57:00.000-05:00

I'm getting really loaded down with mailing labels, seemingly each batch uglier than the last. This week they were pretty - but from an environmental organization. What are they doing sending out non-recyclable crap?
Here's what I told the Chesapeake Bay Foundation:

"I appreciate that non-profits need to raise money via junk mail. What I don’t like is to receive non-recyclable, unsolicited address labels from an environmental organization. Cut it out, guys!"

Clothing GiveAway

2011-01-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

We collect so many gently-used clothes that we've renamed this event the Women's Clothing GiveAway - you would not believe how many clothes are left at the end, so we're talking it up a lot this year in hopes we can find more homes for the donated clothes. Spread the word!

Switching Electricity Suppliers in Pennsylvania: Go Green!

2011-01-18T09:52:00.000-05:00

This post is by my friend Meenal Raval, and deals with the local challenge of picking a provider now that electricity is deregulated in PA.

It's Jan 1 and I finally decided to study electricity rates having heard for months about the PECO rate caps coming off. We've purchased PECOWind for years, choosing to pay an additional 2.54c per kWh for 100% wind, which ended up costing us about $86 per year. The plus to paying this
much more is that we got to take over 5000 lbs (or 2.3 tonnes) off our household's carbon footprint, which we'd still like to do in 2011.

On 12/27, Andrew Maykuth's article in the Inquirer titled Choosing Renewable Energy can now Save Money as well as Power, caught my attention. Highlights were:

Of the 19 electricity providers, only 7 offer a Renewable Energy Option
Of these 7, only 2 offer fixed 1-year pricing. One of them is The Energy Cooperative, a Philadelphia co-op since 1979

You can go to PAPowerswitch, a website by the PA Public Utility Commission, type in your zip code, and see all of the electricity suppliers for your region.

With the rate caps off, we need to compare not only the much-touted Generation & Transmission Charges but also the charges for Renewable Energy options.

PECO's price to compare, from dirty energy sources: coal and nuclear....9.92 cents per kWh
above plus 2.54 cents per kWh for PECOWind....12.46 cents per kWh
Viridian's "pure wind"....10.79 cents per kWh
The Energy Cooperative ("100% green; 87% hydro; 10% wind; 3% solar")....9.78 cents per kWh
BlueStar Energy Solutions "pure wind"....9.35 cents per kWh

Blue Star still comes out with the best rate for clean energy; it and the Energy Coop are still cheaper than PECO's "dirty" rate, so on a money-bottom line basis there is every reason for EVERY PECO user to switch to one of those two!

Reasons for choosing The Energy Cooperative = locally based; member owned.

Reasons for choosing Blue Star = even cheaper than The Energy Cooperative; no annual membership; fully wind (if you feel wind is cleaner than hydro, and more of an "additive" renewable resource). Note: "additive" means, that as more people buy into a particular renewable source, the Market will create MORE of that resource (more windmills erected, more solar panels installed, more hydro dams built, etc.) If it is non-additive, that means the supplier is simply yanking an already existing resource from somewhere else on the grid and appropriating it; no net shifting away from dirty sources is done.

I was asked... Is there a fee? Yes, The Energy Cooperative charges $15 to become a member.

And how guaranteed are the rates? Their rates are fixed for 1 year. After which, or actually, anytime during the year, one can always return to PECO's arms at no additional cost.

And what service area is covered? The electricity deregulation is for all of Pennsylvania, not just Philadelphia, so, yes, even Cheltenham township in Montgomery County.

Sorry if this is all confusing. This is the first time that renewable energy is actually cheaper than dirty energy. Bottom line, I think EITHER Energy Coop or Blue Star is a fine choice, and if you've made one of them don't work too hard to second-guess yourself.

I've just switched to the Energy Co-op's EcoChoice100, lowering my bill
by about 20%, still supporting 100% renewables. DO get one or two
neighbors/friends to switch over as well!

Cooking: Ecological, Economical, and Better for You...

2011-01-02T21:27:00.001-05:00

Cooking has never been one of my passions; it’s more a commitment which follows from liking to eat. This past year I find myself enjoying cooking more, and spending more time at it. There are a number of contributing, idiosyncratic factors like my new sunny kitchen and its wall-mounted radio, so NPR can keep me company when I’m slicing, stirring, or mixing. And my new IPad allowing me to easily download and listen to interesting podcasts and living near enough to Weavers Way Food Coop to shop daily. The fact that my children grew up means I both have more time and two fewer picky palates to please, also making the cooking process less stressful.

But there are some way simpler, replicable things which have contributed to making my cooking more efficient, and therefore more gratifying. I did a budget check and realized how much we were paying to eat in restaurants, often because I just didn’t have the energy to decide what to make for dinner at the end of a long day. Once I realized it would pay back, it justified my putting more time into meal planning. I created a simple data base of weeknight menu combinations which we both enjoy eating, including any unusual ingredients and advance prep that facilitates getting the meal to the table. By doing the thinking in advance and entering it in my google-doc, I can just refer to it, make a menu decision earlier in the day, and plan accordingly. If it will be chili, I know I need to get the rice started in advance, that sort of thing. Since I actually finding the menu decision more onerous than the cooking, this has made a huge difference!

A small investment in better cooking utensils has vastly improved the cooking experience. Better knives, larger frying pans, a sturdy long-handled spatula and new goodies like a roll-up cutting mat have been so much nicer to use. Purchasing a duplicate set of measuring spoons and measuring cups is an embarrassingly simple upgrade. If some are in the dishwasher, I don’t need to rummage around to find them. If I want to prepare two dishes in a row, I don’t need to stop and wash them. Duh! Why didn’t I think of this 35 years ago? The cost of this enhancement is paid for by one stay-at-home meal.

The internet has also livened up the cooking process. Recipes, techniques, cooking blogs, even unusual products – these are all available with one click. If you’re someone with a large cookbook collection, you might want to join EatYourCookbooks, a site which features tens of thousands of indexed cookbooks. Register the cookbooks you own and use, and when you search by recipe title or ingredient, it will find the recipe and ingredient list. Where’s that great recipe for pecan lemon pound cake? This site will locate it. It doesn’t bring up the recipe itself, but will tell you which cookbook it’s in. The first five cookbooks are free; after that there is an annual fee.

Eating at home is cheaper and healthier. Another motivator, on the environmental front: at-home food preparation has a much smaller eco-footprint. Unless you would walk to the restaurant, you save the round-trip drive. Restaurants themselves are extremely high consumers of water, electricity, fuel, chemical cleaners, and disposables. While the diner might focus on wasted food (portions which are ridiculously large, uneaten bread which can’t be reserved, Styrofoam clamshells to take home, double-wrapped in plastic bags) most of the waste is out of the diners’ sight. There are some greener restaurants which compost, but most generate huge volumes of trash and food waste, none of which is reused or recycled. Restaurants are not, by law, allowed to serve leftovers!

Tin Foil Upgrade for My Wifi - Thanks, Internet!

2010-12-22T11:30:00.001-05:00

The wonders of the internet continue to astound me. You gotta problem? The internet's got an answer.
Problem: my wifi connection often fades out when it drops to 2 bars. I'm fine at 3 bars, and it never gets to 4 bars from my location.
Using the directions on this video, I made a parabolic reflector out of a sheet of -- heavy weight tin foil, as per the directions below. Since my router/antennae are suspended, I just slit the tinfoil and rested it right on the wire to the router. And indeed now the reception varies between 3 and 4 bars, enough to avoid disruptions. Neither Comcast nor our electrician had any idea how to solve this, other than installing a hard connection....

Ectopic Heart Beat, Benign Palpitations, Cardio-Hiccups

2010-12-16T22:13:00.000-05:00

This is a completely off-topic post, written in hopes it may be of interest and help to people who have the same weird heartbeat thing which I have. Starting in my 20's I very occasionally had a moment where I felt like my heart stopped and then went thud, followed by a nano-second of breathlessness. But before I could focus on my imminent death, everything went back to normal. An EKG in a doctor's office assured me I was fine, nothing to worry about. Hah! Nothing to worry about, until the next time this happens!

In my mid-50's, I noticed it more, and once again had a physician check it out, same result. Nothing to worry about. Then a few months ago, around my 58th birthday, this started happening several times an hour. Usually in threes, a few minutes apart. I would be very conscious of my heart beating, a weird sensation. Each thud would be followed by a slight flutter in my chest and stomach. This began to drive my crazy, trying to figure out a pattern, what might be causing this uptick (pardon the pun!). And lots of anxiety, since it is an unpleasant sensation. The doctor reassured me it's harmless, and called an ectopic heart beat, as "in the wrong place". No known cause, no cure.

Eventually the frequency made me so nervous that I asked for a referral to a cardiologist. I just couldn't believe that something so scary-feeling could really be harmless. He did another EKG and an echo-cardiogram, neither of which is invasive or unpleasant. He pronounced me the healthiest lady he had seen all day, and described these as "benign palpitations". Benign is good, but it sounds very alarming, really. There is no known cause, this is just one of those things that happens; it's weird, but it's harmless.

I am slowly training myself to be less reactive to my benign palpitations; which at least will decrease my reactivity. The most useful thing I've come up with so far is to rename them heart hiccups, since that in effect is what they are. Somehow, hickup sounds more friendly and normal than benign palpitations.
I do hope they go away just like them came; some days I have very few. Other days I have a lot. Just sharing. By now I've discovered a few other people who have these too, and we're all alive and well.

My Pure & Co Sweater Wrap: The Back Story

2010-11-22T10:03:00.001-05:00

Shopping with my daughter this summer on our annual beach outing, a brightly colored stack of shawl/sweater wraps caught my eye, and I was talked into buying one. My daughter even managed to steer me to a bright color and not my standard black. It's a very clever design - wide, with three buttons placed so you can wear the shawl in several different funky ways. Since I'm not a fashion blog, why am I bothering to tell you this?

When I had a look-see to learn more about the company, Pure & CO HandKnit, I was smitten.

Their company's handknitters are in Chiang Mai, 4,300 women in Northern Thailand, who are supporting themselves through their knitting. And the company gives 1% of its profits to microcredit and other NGO's to help raise up the region and their workforce. Among the many details on their website, this captured my attention:

Sebastien Sirois / President and the Pure & Co team.

Who are we donating to?

We are helping organizations that we’ve visited and where we were impressed with the management team and the effectiveness of the program. When we visited the “Mirror Foundation” and “Cynthia’s Clinic”, we were amazed by the dedication of the staff and the amount of goodness produced with such a shoestring budget. It is amazing to see that ‘money spent on drinks with friends’ can really change someone’s life. We donate directly to the organizations, thus guaranteeing that 100% of the money reaches the people. We have formed alliances with various U.S, U.K and Canadian based Non Profit Organizations (NGOs) that issue tax receipts for donations to the projects. We also encourage you to come and visit the programs and experience with your own eyes the kindness of mankind. You will see volunteers and staff that unselfishly give their time to provide opportunities for others who are less fortunate.

Of course, the bottom line is that the design and craftsmanship of the shawl is delightful. But the added value of knowing that when I wear it, I am helping support a company that is not only providing income-generating activities for women in a very impoverished region, but is giving back in other ways, makes me enjoy it all the more.

The Ecology of Gifting

2010-11-16T09:17:00.000-05:00

Gifting is an area where the material/ecological and human nature/psychology are at odds.
It's good to give, it feels good. It's fun to receive gifts, and important for all kinds of symbolic reasons. Gifting is ritualized; messing with it leaves people confused and hurt. But! Most of us have way more than we need, and the occasions for gifting have been multiplied and grossly inflated by retail marketing and advertising. Choosing a gift that will truly please the recipient is a huge challenge.
There isn't a one size fits all answer, but here is a list of questions I am posing to a group where I will lead a discussion on this topic. Thinking for a few minutes about your answers will likely surprise you.

What was the best present you recall receiving?
What was the least appropriate gift you've received?
What strategies for ratcheting down the "Gifting Industrial Complex" have you or your family employed?
Do you resent or enjoy gift giving?
Calculate a quick estimate of the number of gifts you present in a calendar year.

What stood out for me is that there weren't many presents I could single out as having been terrific, despite all the wonderful and much-appreciated efforts people have made to please me over the years. From this I generalize that the odds of choosing an ideal gift are slim, unless I am unusually picky. That said, I would be very bummed if no one had ever made the effort.
This year I am actually including gifts in an expenditure spread sheet and it's amazing how much we lay out , even though I am highly evolved on this question and avoid material gifts as much as possible. How much more are people in the gift-giving mega-sphere laying out - birthday parties, bar/bat mitzvahs, weddings, hostess gifts, birthdays - endless!
My nomination, by the way, for the least appropriate gift I've received was a donation in honor of my Confirmation in 1968. I didn't mind that it was a donation, it's just that it was to The Cemetery Fund. For a sixteen year old. Creepy!! (However, if the goal of a gift giver is to be remembered, it worked. I still recall who it was from.)

AARP Roadside Service - Nicest Lady Ever

2010-11-11T13:06:00.001-05:00

Call this post giving credit where credit is due. I've lambasted many a company for super terrible customer service - or as my husband has dubbed it, customer disservice. A few years ago we dumped AAA because of their anti-global warming stance, and signed up with AARP Roadside service for half the price. The service has been comparable, though their maps aren't as nice. However you can buy a lot of maps at retail and still come out way ahead!
My car had a flat tire, so I called AARP Roadside Assistance. They answered immediately, and the woman's first question was "Are you safe?" I assured her my problem was just a flat tire in my driveway, not an actual emergency. She was solicitous and empathetic. "I'm so sorry that happened to you." She arranged for a 3rd party service to come and change the tire. I received two follow up calls from them while waiting for the guy to show up, and each time they updated me on how long it would take. Of course it took longer than their initial prediction, but it was rush hour and that was not surprising.
What a difference it makes when the person you're dealing with comes in with great roadside manner. I give an A+ to them for customer service. They deal with people in extremely stressful situations - much worse than flat tires when you're safely inside your own house - and they do it well.

EcoFleece: Pants from Soda Bottles

2010-11-04T20:24:00.000-04:00

Recently I talked to a local group about the ecology of clothing. We don't see the process of creating/growing fibers, manufacturing them into textiles, or the factories which make them into garments. We just see an endless supply of clothing marketed to us at all sides. Globalization has brought the cost of clothing so low that we have accumulated overflowing closets full of it, much of which ultimately is given away.
So what do we do about microfleece, a nice warm, cozy fabric made mysteriously from polyester? People are surprised to learn that's just a different word for fossil fuel. But no fabric is without eco-footprint. Cotton requires a great deal of water and pesticides and other fabrics have their downsides, too.
One obvious behavior is to purchase fewer clothes and wear them longer. Purchasing or swapping used clothes, of which there is a huge surplus, is an additional low-cost and fun strategy. But sometimes you do need something specific, like new black fleece pants to replace the ones I've been wearing for five years. And fleece, being warm, helps you to keep your thermostat down. But after that talk I couldn't bring myself to just go order more microfleece/plastic/fossil fuel pants!
A little research uncovered eco-fleece. This is a polartec product made from 85% recycled material, formerly pop bottles. On sale at Campmor at the moment. I don't especially like to hawk specific stores or products as a rule, but I i ordered these and they are very nicely made, warm, and they even come in a shorter length. Score for short people!
Here is the description of the fabric:
Recycled Polartec® Classic 200®
Polartec® Classic 200® mid-weight velour fleece is made of 100% polyester (85% recycled) with a durable water repellent (DWR) finish to provide protection against rain and snow. Polartec® Classic 200® fleece provides warmth without the weight and bulk of traditional insulating fabrics, is highly breathable to provide comfort in all activities, dries quickly to minimize heat loss, and is durable and machine washable.

Taking Local Seriously: Footprints' Bamboo Socks from Abington, PA!

2010-11-01T18:35:00.001-04:00

These really funky socks caught me eye and jumped into my basket at Weavers Way, our local coop. My first thought was how odd for eco-friendly bamboo socks to have such a wasteful plastic display hanger, but on closer examination, I was wowed. The hanger is made out of corn, and is designed to be reused as a chip clip. OK, it's not the greatest chip clip in the world, but it works. And it is really cute!
And this clever company is one town over from me. Most socks come from China, so to be made in the USA, let alone 7 miles from me, is quite impressive.
Here is why they named their company "Footprint".

We named our company Footprint to express our commitment to leaving a good impression on the earth and toward mankind. We build the best product and cause no unnecessary harm. That's our mission statement, and it takes many forms. As it applies to making products, we work hard to source sustainable materials and use processes that are less harmful to the Earth without compromising quality. Because to us, quality is not only how well a product performs and holds up, but also how it's made. As it applies toward mankind, we give back part of our proceeds as well as donate our socks and clothing to organizations that make a difference. When you wear the Footprint logo, you demonstrate that you are doing your part in leaving a good impression too.

Of course, all the eco-credentials - organic, renewable sources, panda safe (never saw that one before!), environmentally beneficial (bamboo grows fast and helps fight soil erosion) - wouldn't matter if the socks weren't comfortable. I am happy to report they are sturdy and wonderfully, deliciously soft. Worth the $10. Their only downside is that they take forever to dry, because, according to their creators, bamboo is super-absorbent. That's good when you're wearing them of course. If you put them in a dryer with cotton, they actually absorb some of the cotton's moisture, so dry separately. If you line dry, figure a day or two!

They've created another product from coconut which is faster drying. Made from coconut shells, it is really sustainable, since they would normally be waste. I'm looking forward to trying them out.

You can buy them online or at a store. Just reading their story is fascinating all by itself, actually.

Stop Mailing Me Credit Card Offers!!

2010-10-29T13:53:00.000-04:00

We've noticed a huge upswing in credit card offers, nearly daily, despite my having signed us for opt-out. It seems the culprit is our recent refinancing. The credit companies - Equifax, Transunion et al - charge you for their services and then RESELL YOUR NAMES as "pre-screened" credit card customers. Ugh Ugh Ugh. Here is what the Federal Trade Administration says about it.

Here is the drill for undoing the damage. Head over to OptOutPreScreen and follow their prompts. You can opt out electronically for 5 years to receive no credit card or insurance offers. Or you can print out a 2 page opt-out which requires your signature and mail it to:

Opt-Out Department
PO BOx 2033
Rock Island, IL 61204-2033.

Be sure to sign the form!

Kansans Embrace Energy Efficiency and Conservation, While Denying Climate Change

2010-10-19T14:08:00.000-04:00

Looks like I am becoming a tool of the New York Times.... A fascinating article today suggests decoupling climate change/global warming from smart energy use is VERY effective. Kansans get into frugal behaviors, conserving creation as a spiritual imperative, and sticking it to the Middle East by becoming energy independent. This translated into a 5% decrease in energy use in 5 communities which, it reported, is considered quite extraordinary. The fact that the communities competed helped fuel [ha ha] improvements, too! Since cap and trade looks tabled or dead, this is an important lesson in building a consensus. If people can do the right things, it doesn't really matter why they're doing them.

Privilege Studies: Money Does Change Things!

2010-10-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

I was fascinated to read about a new area of social science focus, Privilege Studies. According to these scholars, it's easier to study the poor - they have no power to hide. And no incentive.

Scrutinizing the Elite, Whether They Like It or Not

Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

Scholars including from left, Sudhir Venkatesh, Dorian Warren and Shamus Khan, attended the first Elites Research Network conference.

By PAUL SULLIVAN

Published: October 15, 2010THE rich are sitting firmly in the public cross hairs, especially as the economy continues to stumble. Reports that Wall Street bonuses will again be high, and the debate in Congress over tax increases for the wealthy, just add to the outrage.

Bucks Blog: Studying the Rich(October 15, 2010)

So it was a serendipitous time forColumbia University to convene the first Elites Research Network conference last week. The conference drew in scholars focused on inequality across academic disciplines, like economics, political science, sociology and history.

In the academic world, this was remarkable. As several of the scholars acknowledged, there has traditionally been some unease in talking about the elite, let alone researching them.

“When we study the poor, it’s relatively easy,” said Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor of sociology at Columbia and the author of “Gang Leader for a Day” (Penguin Press, 2008). “The poor don’t have the power to say no. Elites don’t grant us interviews. They don’t let us hang out at their country clubs.”

But Dorian Warren, an assistant professor of political science at Columbia, said the increasing concentration of wealth, moving from the top 10 percent of Americans to the top 1 percent, has made this the right time to look more closely at the group. “We have to understand what’s going on at the top,” Mr. Warren said.

The discussion quickly went beyond examining how those with more had traditionally exercised control over those with less. Many of the younger scholars said their goal was to do more than just look at tax returns and see who sat on boards. Instead, they said, they want to start looking at the relationships between the elite and the non-elite.

“If you look at the poor as a problem, you’ll be angry at elites or you’ll expect them to come up with a solution,” said Mr. Venkatesh, who took the most pragmatic line. “You have to come in accepting that there will always be poor people in society and there will always be wealthy people in society, and neither of the two reached that status by their own efforts.”

That’s not the usual description of this issue. But otherwise, you risk viewing the rich as rapacious thieves or seeing the poor as lazy freeloaders.

That said, there were other academics who hewed to an older model of power dynamics. Jeffrey Winters, associate professor of political science at Northwestern University, talked of the wealthy in America in terms of oligarchy. And he advanced an argument against what he called the “income defense industry.”

The term referred to the accountants, lawyers and financial advisers employed by the wealthy — and the merely affluent — to manage their financial affairs. Mr. Winters argued that this group was hurting the non-elite by minimizing tax collection. He estimated that $70 billion was lost yearly just from offshore accounts.

There is no denying that members of the elite have a lot of money and would like to hang on to as much of it as they can. But that’s true of most people.

Olivier Godechot, a French academic on the sociology panel, presented research that quantified just how skewed the increase in wealth at the very top has become. Mr. Godechot, a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, said that two professions — finance and business services — accounted for almost all of the increase in income inequality.

D. Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University, said his research showed that many of the people now considered elite in America did not start out that way. He is conducting what he described as the largest study ever of top leaders in America, having talked to over 500 so far across business, nonprofits and academia.

He said he had found that a privileged upbringing did not matter as much as generally thought. Nor, he said, did many of the top leaders inherit large sums of money. While many went to top colleges and a large number attended Harvard Business School, the biggest determining factor of whether someone moved into the elite was an early career opportunity.

Being able to look beyond their specialty early — as opposed to being highly specialized their entire career and then thrust into a leadership role — distinguished great leaders more than any inherent advantage in their upbringing, he said.

“These people had a chance to be a generalist early on, as opposed to being specialists their whole career,” Mr. Lindsay said. “They had that experience in their early 30s or 40s.”

Some of the conference presenters took note that they themselves were almost entirely from Ivy League and other elite universities — only one was from a state university.

“When we send our kids to the Brookline schools, we’re not making a judgment about the Boston schools,” said Michèle Lamont, a sociology professor at Harvard University. “There are unintended consequences to our actions.”

Mr. Warren put it more bluntly: “I did not come up as a child of privilege, but I got intoYale for graduate school. I’m going to want to do the same for my kids. It’s not a malicious intent to exclude others; it’s a rational impulse to maintain the advantage.”

Those at the conference defined the elite as people with power over others, and the debate was framed largely in economic terms. But professors at an Ivy League university are part of an elite, even if their salaries do not reflect it.

Shamus Rahman Khan, a conference organizer and assistant professor of sociology at Columbia, seemed to be most at ease with the conflict. The son of a Pakistani father and Irish mother who both emigrated to the United States, he said he came from a wealthy but not elite family. His father, a successful surgeon, paid his son’s way to the St. Paul’s School, a top boarding school.

Yet when Mr. Khan arrived there in the mid-1990s, he said he lived in the “minority students dorm.” He used that experience and a later teaching stint at St. Paul’s to write a book on the nature of advantage, “Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School,” which will be published by Princeton University Press in January.

“Is it morally responsible for you to get your kids into very expensive schools if it will advantage them?” Mr. Khan said. “It’s hard not to do it. But by doing it, you’re not explicitly squirting some other kid in the eye with pepper spray. It’s more subtle.”

His concern is what the concentration of wealth means for American society in the future. He said he wondered whether the post-World War II era in America — as defined by prosperity and rising income levels — was a historical anomaly and was coming to an end.

He cited data showing that the United States now had the second-lowest level of intergenerational income mobility in the world, after England.

“If we lose this truly American thing — that you can become anything if you just work at it — then you’re really going to lose what makes America America,” he said. “It already appears that it will take a tremendous amount of time for people to bring their families out of poverty and for the wealthy to fall from the advantages they have.”

A Surprise Call From Barack Obama

2010-09-24T14:47:00.000-04:00

A very heart-warming video and a reminder that behind the numbing statistics are very real people.

Shining Hope Bio-Center Slideshow

2010-09-20T21:36:00.000-04:00

Low VOC Paint Recommendations from Consumer Reports

2010-09-03T08:16:00.000-04:00

Not only are the noxious smells from new paint annoying - and sickening for some - but they release all kinds of bad chemicals to the environment. Fortunately there is a better alternative now. Here is an article from CS.

(This article is adapted from the the Home & Garden Blog and the June 2010 Consumer Reports Paint Buying Guide)

Paints that are better for the environment are earning top ratings in Consumer Reports’ tests. Many of the recently tested interior and exterior paints have very low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — chemicals that contribute to ozone, smog, and respiratory problems.

The interior low-VOC paints contain no more than 50 grams per liter (g/l), much less than the 380 grams per liter once common in the most-used low-luster paints. They're also within the tougher federal VOC limits that Consumer Reports called for in the past, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to propose this year, and they meet stricter regional limits in California.

The exterior low-VOC paints tested meet the expected federal limits of 100 to 250 grams per liter for paints, and 250 grams per liter for stains. Several exterior paints from Glidden and Sherwin-Williams also meet the more stringent, southern California VOC limit of 50 grams per liter.

Green Recommendations

Among the interior low-VOC paints tested, Behr Premium Plus Ultra Satin Enamel(available from Home Depot) was top-rated at $33 per gallon.

Among the exterior low-VOC paints tested, the California Fresh Coat Velvet Flat at $35 per gallon was best overall and is good for sunny locations. Despite its name, it's sold mainly east of the Mississippi and not in California.

Behr Premium Plus exterior flat paint (sold at Home Depot) is more widely available, and at $19 per gallon, it almost matched the $35 California Fresh Coat Velvet Flat at fending off cracking, dirt, and mildew.

The top performing Behr Premium Semigloss resisted a variety of conditions and looked notably better than other brands after the equivalent of nine years in the elements.

Behr also won out among deck and fence stains tested. Behr’s $26 Deck Plus Solid Color Deck, Fence & Siding topped the ratings for the second straight year.

But at just $21 per gallon, Sears Weatherbeater Solid Deck, Fence & Siding had much lower claimed VOCs and is a bargain if your home doesn't face intense weathering. Among the stains tested, the Sears Weatherbeater meets the 100-gram limit for parts of California.

Understanding green certification labels

Some paint brands promote their green credentials on their cans, highlighting certifications that are self-awarded or from independent groups. But those certifications don't guarantee top performance. We describe 5 different certifications below:Greenguard, GreenSure (Sherwin-Williams ), Green Promise (Benjamin Moore), Green Seal, and Green Wise.

Greenguard

This independent organization requires manufacturers to measure off-gassing from drying paint and allows only trace levels of VOCs, including formaldehyde and styrene. Companies pay Greenguard to have paint tested, along with at least $3,000 to use the Greenguard logo. Home Depot’s Freshaire Choice has the Greenguard certification and logo. But it scored at the bottom of Consumer Reports ratings of interior paint (available to subscribers) in two out of three categories.

GreenSure

GreenSure certification was created by Sherwin-Williams, is self-regulated, and covers only the company's products. Paints with the GreenSure logo must have VOCs of 50 grams per liter and be free of certain other chemical substances. The logo is on Sherwin-Williams Harmony and Duration lines, which generally rank low in Consumer Reports ratings of interior paint.

Green Promise

Green Promise was created by Benjamin Moore, covers only its products, and requires VOCs of 50 grams per liter or less. It also requires paints to use zero-VOC colorant, according to the company. It's on Aura and Natura paints, which were very good overall but were outscored by lower-priced paints.

Green Seal
This independent group requires limits on VOCs of 50 grams per liter for flat paint, 100 for nonflat; with colorant, 100 grams per liter for flat, 150 for nonflat). The Green Seal also prohibits certain other hazardous substances, and assesses performance. Companies payGreen Seal $2,500 to $10,000 to have paints evaluated and to use the Green Seal logo. VOC levels are from manufacturers; none of the paints tested by Consumer Reports currently have the logo.

Green Wise

The Green Wise( links to: www.greenwisepaints.com) certification standard for interior paints is similar to those for the other four. Green Wise limits VOCs to 50 grams per liter for flat finishes and 100 grams per liter for nonflat finishes. Green Wise certification also prohibits other hazardous substances, including formaldehyde and methylene chloride, and includes a test for washability.

Developed by the Coatings Research Group Inc. (or CRGI), manufacturers pay a $20,000 membership fee, which covers the cost of testing and licensing of the Green Wise logo. Two finishes in Consumer Reports latest ratings of interior paints (available to subscribers) have Green Wise certification, but they didn’t score highest.

Lowering Your Total Annual kWh Usage Number

2010-09-01T14:35:00.000-04:00

Just in case you don’t read every flier that PECO stuffs in your bill, be reminded that Pennsylvania electricity rates will be rising about 10% as part of a multi-year deregulation effort. This is a great time to implement enhanced energy conservation in your household, since it means you’ll save more for every measure you take. That’s good for the pocket and great for the planet.

First off, take note of the energy bottom line number on your bill, not just the dollar amount. Copy your “Total Annual kWh Usage” figure and post it prominently; it is your previous annual household electricity consumption. Since our houses have aggregate metering, most of us have no idea how much electricity we use. Imagine if each appliance and outlet had a mini-meter and you could actually see the cost – it would be a great motivator to lower the usage. The annual KWh (kilowatt hour) is a crude measure, but you will definitely be able to see it go down month to month. To give you perspective on your number, the average American household consumes 11,000 kWh annually. The average Pennsylvania household consumes 10,332 kWh. (Of course, Americans are energy hogs. The world average is way lower; consider that 2 billion people have no access to any electricity to consume.) This is a good chance to do better!

Once your number is prominently displayed on your [high efficiency] refrigerator, do a serious inventory of your home. You can lower your energy use in two ways.

The first is cultivating lower-use habits.
The second is utilizing higher efficiency electrical appliances which can perform more work per kWh of energy.

For energy conserving habits, think like your grandparents or even great-grandparents. Turn off lights. Hang and air dry your laundry. Air dry your hair, too! Chop your nuts by hand instead of taking out the food processor. Use a crock-pot. Unplug or turn off appliances which consume electricity even when not in use, like computers. Use fans instead of AC. Eliminate duplicate appliances – maybe you can get by with just one or two TVs. (Or eliminate the TV altogether and just watch shows online.) For those of you with old refrigerators in the garage or basement, be aware the older they are, the more power-guzzling. They are excellent targets for elimination, and PECO will even pay you to haul them away! (www.pecosmartideas.com)

Retrofitting appliances costs money, but you recoup it through lower bills. By now you certainly know about CFL or LED bulbs. If you hated the eerie light and delay of early CFL’s, give them another try, since they have vastly improved. It is amazing how infrequently they need to be changed. We have dozens around our home and have replaced only 1 or 2. Your oldest, highest consuming appliances should be the first on your replacement list. If you have an ancient dehumidifier running 24/7 in the basement, replace it with a new EnergyStar and that should lower you 10% right there.

A Year of No Money: A Self-Provisioning Pioneer?

2010-08-29T10:10:00.001-04:00

Recently I reviewed Plenitude, Juliet Schor's intriguing new book on ecological economics. ("Eco-economics" doesn't make sense, does it?) She predicts, and promotes, a new meld of working fewer hours with more sophisticated sharing and self-provisioning. This will yield a comparable or higher standard of living while consuming much less of the earth's resources. I am on the lookout for stories of people who represent this trend, though of course once you're looking for something, you find it - a bias error.
MBA Mark Boyle has gone cashless. Read about him. Is this a trend, or is he a stuntman?

Everything in Mark’s life takes a lot longer as part of his new moneyless routine. Washing his clothes takes a couple of hours of scrubbing with hand-made soap. Even a cup of tea takes half an hour to make! But Mark says, “It's all worth it in the end because the feeling of liberation and connection with nature it has afforded me more than compensates for the minor inconveniences."

Eco-Friendly Leftover Boxes - Hurrah!

2010-08-27T13:59:00.001-04:00

A big pet peeve of mine is styrofoam or clamshell leftover containers. Not only are they manufactured from non-renewable, non-recyclable materials - basically petroleum - but then they hand it to you in a plastic bag. Tin foil cases are no better. Adding green insult to eco-injury, how often do we forget to eat said leftovers, eventually tossing both the food and their excessive packaging? Ugh.
I try to always carry a zip lock plastic bag in my pocketbook - they take very little space and are perfect for a dry leftover. But they're not ideal for a saucy or runny dish....
Trolley Car Diner, our local hangout, has switched to a much greener solution. These fold-up boxes are made of 100% recycled materials and are compostable and recyclable themselves, though of course to recycle them, they would need to be cleaned, probably not a good use of water. This produce line has quite the pedigree! Kudos for the innovation, and for the diner for adopting it.

Bio-Pak #1 one of our most popular, is ideal for White Table Cloth Restaurant Leftovers and Deserts to Go

These Bio-Pak Plus 100% recycled to go recycled paper food containers are a green alternative that is good for environmentally conscious takeout operations that want at least 35% post consumer content. There is a green stamp on the bottom of these carryout containers that show these Bio Plus EARTH food take out containers are endorsed by the Green Restaurant Association dinegreen.com because they are made from 100% natural kraft recycled cardboard including a minimum of 35% post consumer recycled paper content.

The Earth's Carrying Capacity vs. Peoples' Consumption - Turning Lose/Lose to Win/Win

2010-08-27T08:34:00.001-04:00

Nothing in this sophisticated interactive online visual from Scientific American will be news to people who are informed about climate change and general overconsumption. This is the background which is ignored in all the discussions about buying our way out of global recession, and why that prescription's short-term prosperity is the road to long term disaster.
It does seem like there are ever more people who maintain denial as a political position. No more regulations! Wish we didn't have to spend so much time fighting and could work harder at innovating and preserving. Enjoy this awesome job of communicating and predicting.
What's Left?Powered by Ergo:Ux

Freecycle Storefront in NYC

2010-08-17T17:50:00.000-04:00

This from the NY Times
One quibble: the writer calls this recycling, but it's reusing - that's higher up the value chain than recycling, and environmentally superior. Some cities have give-away areas at the city dump, but this is way smarter.

In Brooklyn Store, Everything Is Always 100% Off

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Merchandise at the Brooklyn Free Store in Bedford-Stuyvesant might include a fur coat, cans of green beans and a book by Plato.

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

Published: August 15, 2010April Gariepy, 30, wheeled her bike beneath the white tent on Saturday afternoon looking for a wire basket she could attach to her handlebars. A moment later, Sharika Barrow, 17, approached, gazed at the shelves of books, clothing and other items displayed beneath the tent, then wondered aloud what sort of place she was visiting.

Enlarge This Image

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Myles Emery, one of the founders of the Free Store. Organizers say that it offers an alternative to mainstream capitalism.

“It’s a free store,” Ms. Gariepy replied, having made that determination herself just a few moments earlier.

After browsing, the two emerged from beneath the tent without selecting anything but both said they would probably return.

“I just came from the Brooklyn Flea,” Ms. Gariepy, said. “This is kind of like the same thing, but everything at the flea is higher priced.”

For six weeks, a group of people have been engaged in an unusual project in Bedford-Stuyvesant that they are calling the Brooklyn Free Store, where everything is available for the taking and nothing is for sale.

The name of the store is painted on a purple banner hanging from a chain link fence fronting a bare dirt lot on Walworth Street, near De Kalb Avenue. Behind the fence a blue plastic tarp is stretched over a white tent, covering an array of items stacked atop sheets of weathered plywood.

A handwritten sign reads “Take what you want. Share what you think others may enjoy (not limited to material items).”

There were cans of green beans and a pair of used brown wingtips beneath the tarp on Saturday, along with a used toaster oven, a flashlight and a galvanized metal bucket.

There were books by such disparate writers as Plato (“The Republic”) and Tina Brown(“The Diana Chronicles,” which details the life and times of the former Princess of Wales).

And there were dozens of items of clothing, including a brown fur coat and matching hat.

Organizers of the store said it was intended to demonstrate the feasibility of recycling and to offer an alternative to mainstream capitalism. It has no owners or customers, only participants, say the people who started it. Because everything there is free, the store has no official hours and it is never locked.

“New York is world renowned for having the best garbage," said Myles Emery, 34, an organizer of the store. “There could be free stores everywhere.”

Most of the items in the store are donated and a few of them are gleaned from a wealth of serviceable objects that are discarded on the streets each day. The number and nature of the items beneath the tarp vary, organizers said, adding that people have dropped off a digital camera, an electric stove and a TiVo with a recording capacity of 40 hours.

Some of those who started the Free Store in early July had also played a role in operatingan earlier incarnation, which was run out of a storefront in Williamsburg from 1999 until 2005. Both stores drew inspiration from the original Diggers, a group of agrarian utopians in 17th-century England, as well as from another group that adopted the same name more than 40 years ago and opened storefronts in San Francisco and in New York where items were dropped off and picked up without any money changing hands.

About two dozen people stopped by the Walworth Street store over the course of four hours on Saturday. Some merely looked. Krissa Henderson, 25, from Bushwick, took some gardening books. Gregory Coleman, 54, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, left with wool socks.

Others arrived to drop things off. Caryn Prescott, 41, donated some clothes and cosmetics, and Eddie Ballard, 34, from Crown Heights, who came across the store by chance, contributed a recyclable tote bag he happened to have with him, mainly out of a sense of admiration for the project.

“There is something about the communal aspect of this place that appeals to me,” Mr. Ballard said. “I felt like I wanted to give something just to be a part of it.”

The Self-Provisioning Resource Conserving Eco-Nut Next Door

2010-08-03T22:10:00.002-04:00

Amidst the landslide of greening and sustainability books constantly being marketed and touted (get the irony?), two jumped out at me. Reading them as a pair made it clear that Plenitude, by economist Juliet B. Schor, and The Cheapskate Next Door by journalist Jeff Yeager are describing the same contemporary trends using very different language. People can earn fewer dollars without their quality of life being diminished, IF they also experience an increase in free time. This free time can be invested in social capital, healthy lifestyle, creative self-provisioning, and ingenious thrift, aided by everything from social networking to asking grandma to teach canning techniques. Schor’s book is analytic; Yeager’s is a how-to-do-it manual.

Reading over and over again how we aren’t “over” this Great Recession because none of us are buying enough, hence the jobs producing all of it are lagging, has often made me wonder how that squares with the carrying load of the planet. The fact that personal savings have actually increased seems like good news, not bad. The fact that demand for fossil fuels has decreased – isn’t that the goal here? Schor, an economist with an emphasis on ecological concerns and the author of two other terrific books, The Overworked American and The Overspent American, reviews the basic theoretical underpinnings of modern economics and concludes that they don’t square. As developing world incomes rise, driving massive additional consumption, the world’s growth limits will be tested. We can’t just keep on extracting finite resources on the cheap and expect it will all end well. Likewise, she predicts there will never again be enough conventional jobs for all who seek work. We’re becoming too efficient and productive for that, through ever improving and disseminating technology.

Schor’s solution,, that we cut back on workers’ hours, thereby employing more people over all, is not original. This has been tried in many places and times, often to avoid laying workers off. Kelloggs of Battle Creek, Michigan, famously offered a six-hour day for decades which workers loved, along with all the others lucky enough to live there. Schor’s original synthesis is to combine this with the new realities of environmental as well as social stress, to define a life of Plenitude less dependent on material excess. By editing out the waste of American life, and utilizing the dividend of extra time, whole new micro-economies are evolving, allowing people to live healthier, happier lives that – paradoxically – are lower income. She effectively decouples standard of living from quality of life, as happiness studies have been confirming is correct, once people move past subsistence.

She cites examples of lowering overhead by resource sharing, plugging Freecycle, CraigsList, carsharing, Open Source internet software – much of which I have written about over the years. Local agriculture, from gardens to micro-farms, is a favorite example, written about glowingly throughout the book. She describes people once again learning to cook, preserve, sew, and build their own downsized homes. It all sounds very idyllic; I want to believe her, I really do. Except that what she is talking about as a trend looks more like an interesting trickle of outliers (Hi, Anna! How’s the honey going?). OK, I grow a few tomatoes. That doesn’t make me Ma Ingalls. But perhaps a generation from now her manifesto will prove true. If so, we will all be the better for it.

The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means is a charming hybrid of two terrific classics, The Millionaire Next Door and The Tightwad Gazette. Those books were all about resource conservation from a financial standpoint – why leave good money on the table? TheMND describes a value-oriented affluent population who eschews conspicuous consumption. TTG was more about people scrapping together a nest egg, even on a tiny salary. The secret of both is living beneath one’s means. However, they were written before the age of environmental awareness. All their strategies translate quite well to a new eco-age. The Cheapskate took himself on a national book tour – by bike, CouchSurfing his way across the country.

His book is a lot of fun. My main takeaway is that if you create good habits, these too are hard to break. One becomes a reflexively resource-conscious consumer [a description I prefer to “cheapskate”]. Case in point. Two friends and I were at the beach in search of 1% hydrocortisone cream for my friend, suffering from a bee sting. We grabbed the first brand we saw. But I couldn’t resist going back to look at the shelf, where I found a generic tube for half the price. Then I saw a generic tube half the SIZE. It is generally more economical, both financially and ecologically, to buy a larger quantity. But! Only if you will finish it all. Having just thrown out boxes of unused, expired OTC meds from my old house, I knew the smaller generic tube was a good choice. Time expended: 1 minute. Amount saved: ~ $6.00. Since I earn less than $6.00 a minute, it was a good use of my time. However, you can’t send a child to college or pay for health care –America’s two huge and ever escalating price tags - on small salaries supplemented by self-provisioning and judicious cheapskating.

If you’re following these authors’ advice, be sure to check these books out from your local library soon!

Donor Advised Fund? Watch the Fees!

2010-07-13T09:30:00.001-04:00

Donor Advised Funds are a wonderful tool, but like any financial product, they need to be monitored. They are super convenient when you have a block of money you want to put aside for charitable purposes but haven't yet designated. For a minimal annual fee, it's a way to set up your own mini-foundation. The tax deduction is taken when the money is put in the DAF; to donate the money, you simply find your preferred organization in their data base and click through a few menus. Voila! They are well-suited for intergenerational giving.
Fidelity and Vanguard offer them, as do many others. Some non-profits offer them as well.

Three things to watch out for, that I learned the hard way:

1. There is a minimum annual fee of $100. I disbursed most of my fund to some wonderful projects, leaving just $450 or so. This is the minimum administrative fee - unfortunately they've just deducted it, and now there's $350. So #1 rule is don't leave small amounts in your account!

2. The value of the fund goes down if the market tanks. This also had not occurred to me - that the value of the money I lovingly put aside would decrease just sitting there waiting to be donated. Of course if the market goes up (remember when that was typical?) the fund's value increases.

3. Since you can't take these funds back, and they're not part of your net worth spread sheet records, it's easy to simply lose track of them. Then they just sit around invested but accomplishing nothing of value in the world. (I'm not sure what happens to forgotten funds? Anyone out there know that?)

Fax from the Net for Free

2010-07-12T16:29:00.000-04:00

It's never come up before - I never needed to send myself a fax. However, this morning my fax reception disappeared. Turned out I had pressed a button that made it go away, but no amount of reading the manual explained anything that basic and simple. Once I figured it out I wanted to test the fax. In the past, I would have asked someone to fax me some random sheet as a favor but instead I looked up "send yourself a fax" and dozens of sites came up. I used GotFreeFax and it worked perfectly. Presumably you can fax a document that's on your computer, though I didn't experiment. I see people standing around at Staples to fax things. Maybe they could just do it this way.
Can't tell you what a kick I get out of finding all these new ways to use internet tech.

Philly Electric Bikes - How Cool Are They?

2010-07-07T18:12:00.000-04:00

Check out this story from my friends Meenal and Afshin! Talk about a hedge against gas prices going up.
Starting this September, the rent for Philly Electric Wheels, the only store in Philadelphia dedicated to electric bicycles, will be pegged to the price of light crude oil.
Store owner Afshin Kaighobady says sales increase when the cost of gasoline rises. For the store’s second year, he re-negotiated terms with his landlady based on their shared assumption that that trend will continue and we can all do our part to lower the carbon footprint.
It costs about penny a mile to ride an electric bicycle, he says, and you can go up to 20 mph and as far as 25 or more miles on a single full charge from an ordinary wall socket. Plus, it’s fun, an antidote to rising gasoline prices if there ever was one.
“My other car is an electric bicycle” is the favorite slogan in the store, called “Phew!” by its fans.
The corner store is located in the Green on Greene building, at the corner of Carpenter Lane and Greene Street, just west of Lincoln Drive. The monthly rent on the 550 sq. ft. storefront will be pegged to $80/barrel, starting in September. (In 2008, the average price was $91 per barrel with a high of $126. The average for 2009 was $53/barrel. It is currently $80 per barrel, the baseline for rent in the store.)

Whatever percent that rises (or falls), so goes the rent. If recent past is precedent, that rent would range from $625 to $1575. “But past isn’t precedent, building owner Pam Rogow says. “The cost of crude will continue to rise.”

Phew has gone crude!

---
Philly Electric Wheels | www.phillyew.com
550 Carpenter Lane, Philadelphia PA 19119
corner of Carpenter Lane & Greene Street, two blocks west of Lincoln Drive
215 821 9266

Reactivating Skype Credit - A Micro-Victory

2010-06-28T21:42:00.001-04:00

It's not winning the World Cup, but I am quite pleased to report I reactivated my expired skype credit. You may know that skype is a great way to make free calls from your computer to anywhere in the world, to someone who also has skype software downloaded. (It's free.) If you want to "skype-out", and call a landline or cell phone #, you can do it from your computer for a modest purchase of Skype credit.
For several months Skype emailed me my credit was about to expire, but since I didn't have anyone at the time who I needed to call, I just ignored it. Turns out that to prevent your credit from expiring, all you need to do is make a call - anywhere - even for one second. The remaining credit was $7.72. My daughter is abroad and now it would be perfect - I can send a text message to her cell. Before biting the bullet and purchasing more Skype credit - which I may never actually use - I googled "reactivate skype credit." Sure enough, all you need to do is go to your account and press a button -
5.3 Inactive Skype Credit: If you do not use your Skype Credit for a period of 180 days, we will place your Skype Credit on inactive status. You can reactivate the Skype Credit by following the reactivation link in My Account at http://www.skype.com/go/store.reactivate.credit. (I haven't hyperlinked it because it's going to MY account, which will likely not help you much.) Reactivated Skype Credit is not refundable.
This from my inbox:

Your full Skype Credit balance $7.72 is now active and ready for you to use.

Your account details:

Balance: $7.72

Talk soon,
The people at Skype

Cooking Coops featured in the NYTimes

2010-06-22T22:23:00.002-04:00

Cooking Coops, groups of people who swap meals, have been around for awhile - they're wonderful ways to eat better quality food while building social capital. You can read a lot of details about how they work in this article about them. This describes four families swapping meals, each cooking a large quantity to feed 8 adults. That way you're covered for 3 nights in addition to your own.
It requires people with fairly compatible tastes and diets, who actually like to cook. Not so easy to pull off, but worth trying, for sure.
In our crunchy community here in Mt. Airy, four households I know have a different version of this, Soup Group. They meet once a week; the host family provides a seasonally appropriate soup + bread + salad, a nice casual peasant-style meal. They now all have children, so the four families have become de facto extended family for one another. Don't know if baby boomers, with all our travels and dietary restrictions, are on board with this. Seems like more of a 30's phenomenon, when people settle in with mates and children.
Here is a book mentioned in the article, Dinner at Your Door.

Dill Seeds for Triscuiteers

2010-06-22T10:08:00.002-04:00

Growing Vegetables At Home With Triscuit

My husband, a loyal Triscuiteer, pointed out a very cool feature of the low-fat Triscuit box - dill seeds embedded as a premium. Better than coupons, action figures, or high-sugar latte packets, for sure! Triscuits has teamed up with UrbanFarming to disseminate over four million products with seeds, and is providing lots of useful and fun information on growing your own food. What was previously called gardening has been rebranded as "homefarming" - but whatever. It's a neat thing, and their site is full of accessible videos and even a forum for people to share their information. Hope my dill seeds germinate. To date, I have been a complete failure at homefarming, since my yard was full of shade trees. The new yard is sunny, so I'm into it.
You can read more about the Nabisco/Triscuit partnership with Urban Farming. Not clear to me if the $$$ are marketing/promotional or from some Nabisco philanthropy? In any event, this public/private collaboration can spawn a lot of positive energy, so hats off to Triscuit, and also to UF for pulling off this massive project!

Chunky Berry Soup

2010-06-20T22:51:00.001-04:00

This is a luscious summer soup, probably our favorite. I found the recipe in the Inqy. Eventually I realized that the strawberries were from Watsonville, CA and discovered that the PA strawberry season is short and precedes the blueberry season. Now I watch for the strawberries very closely, and with luck, like this year - you can snag strawberries at their end and blueberries at their beginning.

A perfect alternative is to substitute about 3 or 4 peeled, sliced ripe peaches. You get the same texture and the same spectacular color, and the peach and blueberry season are in tandem here in the mid-Atlantic. I often double this recipe, since leftovers are so good. It's important to make it early enough so that it can chill for 5-6 hours.

1 pint blueberries, washed and drained

1 pint strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered, if they're large

1 c. white grape juice

1/4 c. lemon juice

1/3 c. water

1 T + 2 t cornstarch

1/4 to 1/2 sugar

Place blueberries, strawberries, grape juice and lemon juice into a medium sauce pan, cover. Bring to a brisk boil over high heat. With a gas oven top, that takes awhile; with our new electric stove, it's really fast. The only thing that takes any real time in this recipe is slicing the strawberries.

Remove from heat. In a measuring cup, mix the water and cornstarch into a smooth paste and stir it into the berry mixture. Return to heat, and quickly bring to a boil, stirring constantly. This is the neat part - stir for one minute, and the liquid thickens and glistens. Sweeten to taste with sugar.

Chill thoroughly - for at least 5 to 6 hours. The color deepens.

Garnish with chopped fresh mint, sliced fresh fruit. This is a deep, gorgeous color so serve it in bowls which will show that off! It is refreshing, beautiful, and the lemon juice gives it a lovely tartness which tingles a bit on the tongue. MMMMM. But it's pretty sweet, as well - my niece Tasha dubbed it Fruit Roll Up Soup.

The Late, Lamented Molly Marx

2010-06-15T17:41:00.001-04:00

Go Sally!

Love, your sister! Congrats on being picked up by the Target Book Club!


	Small	Medium	Large	X-Large
Cinnabar
Mosaic Blue
Mud
Patina
Rose Quartz
Slate
Topaz

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Shame on Office Max!

Upcycling Neck Ties - Here's How

My Keen Rice Bag Shoes

Women's Clothing Giveaway 6 - January 29

Aha! It's My Own Credit Card Companies Flooding My Mailbox!

BookCycler: Books Be Gone!

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LADIES 3/4 SLEEVE TEE

$31.00

Please Enter Your Quantities Below:

Enter Amazon Trade-In

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Revisiting Social Mission Investment

Playing the Online Coupon Game - and Usually Winning

Bring Back the Clean Plate Club: LEFTOVERS!

Bring Back the Clean Plate Club: Shopping for Food

Bringing Back The Clean Plate Club: Eating in Restaurants

Visit a Public Garden for Free on Friday, 5/6

Feed People, Not Dumpsters: Food Recovery and Gleaning

Muichic - Mucho Gorgeous and FairTrade, Too

Matzah Crack Toffee

Impact Investing: Doing Well by Doing Good

Impact Investing: A Better Way to Do Well by Doing Good

American Wasteland Review, Part I

Seeking a Strip Computer Calender from a Good Cause!

No More Address Labels! That Means You, Amnesty International!

My No-Disposable Vows

Hemp Bathroom Rug - Child Labor Free!

FreeCycle Goes Mainstream

Bah Humbug on Twinings Earl Grey! 40% of the Flavor?

Full Length Mirror Search Ends at Etsy

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Eco-Unfriendly Mailing Labels - "FREE"

Clothing GiveAway

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Cooking: Ecological, Economical, and Better for You...

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Taking Local Seriously: Footprints' Bamboo Socks from Abington, PA!

Stop Mailing Me Credit Card Offers!!

Kansans Embrace Energy Efficiency and Conservation, While Denying Climate Change

Privilege Studies: Money Does Change Things!

Scrutinizing the Elite, Whether They Like It or Not

By PAUL SULLIVAN

Published: October 15, 2010THE rich are sitting firmly in the public cross hairs, especially as the economy continues to stumble. Reports that Wall Street bonuses will again be high, and the debate in Congress over tax increases for the wealthy, just add to the outrage.

Related

Bucks Blog: Studying the Rich(October 15, 2010)

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Lowering Your Total Annual kWh Usage Number

A Year of No Money: A Self-Provisioning Pioneer?

Eco-Friendly Leftover Boxes - Hurrah!

The Earth's Carrying Capacity vs. Peoples' Consumption - Turning Lose/Lose to Win/Win

Freecycle Storefront in NYC

In Brooklyn Store, Everything Is Always 100% Off

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

The Self-Provisioning Resource Conserving Eco-Nut Next Door

Donor Advised Fund? Watch the Fees!

Fax from the Net for Free

Philly Electric Bikes - How Cool Are They?

Reactivating Skype Credit - A Micro-Victory

Your account details:

Cooking Coops featured in the NYTimes

Dill Seeds for Triscuiteers

Chunky Berry Soup

The Late, Lamented Molly Marx