Just Powers

Today is Blog Action Day 2009 and the topic is climate change. This is a post I have been wanting to write for a long time and today seems like the day to do it.

In February of 2008, I accidentally-but-also-out-of-some-morbid-curiosity clicked on a PETA link in my gmail window. It was a video, narrated by Alec Baldwin, about how animals are treated and ultimately slaughtered before they end up on our plate. I made it two minutes into the 10-minute video about chickens before I slammed my computer shut and started sobbing. Of course, it was too late; the horse was out of the barn, so to speak.

So Mike and I started discussing, again, whether we wanted to become vegetarian. Our discussion centered around whether we could give up the occasional steak we loved, or our local Peruvian rotisserie pollo that we ate on a regular basis. Of course with the images that were now in my head, I wasn’t so sure I could ever enjoy pollo again.

We were on the fence about it, until I saw a quote from an article on climate change. It said something to the effect that you can do more for the environment by not eating meat than you can by not driving your car for a year.

Wow. Seriously? This made me curious about the environmental impact, so I did some research and learned amazing little facts like this one:

An acre of prime land can produce 40,000 lbs. of potatoes, 30,000 lbs. of carrots, 50,000 lbs. of tomatoes, or 250 lbs. of beef.

And this one:

A 2006 United Nations report summarized the devastation caused by the meat industry by calling it “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”

Now we had two really compelling reasons - being nicer to our fellow creatures AND helping out the environment. Then we thought about how much healthier we would be without meat in our lives. Lower fat and cholesterol in our diet, less chance of food poisoning - what’s not to love about that?

So we decided to take the plunge and go vegetarian. We switched to soy milk and stopped buying and eating meat at home. We decided to continue eating eggs and cheese, but started buying eggs from free range chickens, from local farms whenever possible. Now I am obsessed with raising our own chickens - 2 or 3 would provide all the fresh eggs we would need.

From time to time we do miss our pollo, and I can’t say that we haven’t eaten ANY meat in the last year and a half. We joke that what we actually are is “freegan” - if someone else offers us meat, we are allowed to eat it. What we have found though, is that when we do eat meat now, we usually regret it. We miss it less and less and find that the good things about being vegetarian have outweighed the occasional cravings we might have.

Part of our hesitation in becoming vegetarian was considering it an all-or-nothing decision. What we have learned is that actually we are grown-ups and we can do whatever we want. Most of the time what we want is to not eat meat. We feel better physically and know we are making a contribution to the welfare of our world - and the world our children will inherit someday.

Here is a great blog post on going vegetarian in case you want to find out more about it, or if you have even considered it but just need a little push.

Liza Sabater just posted over on Personal Democracy Forum’s Tech President about Dear Senator Hillary Clinton, Please Step Down — a post written a few days ago by mommy blogger Erin Kotecki Vest, on her blog Queen of Spain.

My response to this is twofold - the letter to Senator Clinton is a heartfelt and well thought out argument for why the Democratic party and the country need Senator Clinton to end her run for President. Go read it. Right now. Seriously, go. Clearly I am an Obama supporter, but I have felt ambivalent/conflicted/sad that I am not more excited about the first viable woman candidate for President (even while I have been annoyed that so many think I should support her just because we have the same body parts). Erin’s letter puts into words how I have felt about Senator Clinton since she first got into the race.

Liza’s post at Tech President makes some great points about the power of mommy bloggers. The “Step Down Hillary” post has 146 comments and counting — many from mommy bloggers who are paying attention to the candidates but aren’t seeing that favor returned — and its popularity and the traffic it has generated on Digg has completely overwhelmed the Queen of Spain’s hosting company.

Blogher has been trying for months to get the Presidential candidates to sit down for interviews, to share their views with the 7.6 million women in the Blogher network. As far as I can tell, they still have not had any success. Which blows my mind. 7.6 million people. Voters. Right here, waiting for the candidates to come tell us why we should vote for them. Erin’s letter and Liza’s post make it clear why political campaigns and consultants need to start paying attention to mommy bloggers.

And now that there seems to be at least a burst of interest in us and what we have to say about this election, kudos to Erin for saying what so many of us have been thinking. We are a demographic that is paying attention, we are politically savvy, and we have a lot to say.

This week is the 11th Annual Freedom to Marry Week. In support, The Other Mother has asked bloggers to post on the themes something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue throughout the week. Today is something new. (Thanks to Doodaddy for letting me know about this, who heard about it from an amazing and powerful post by LesbianDad, who heard about it from The Other Mother.)

Today also happens to be Mike’s and my anniversary. Which is really quite ironic, as I will explain.

Mike and I almost didn’t get married. There were various reasons we weren’t interested in nuptials, but the biggest was that we were, and are, disgusted by the lack of equality in marriage in our society, and we felt strongly about not getting married until our gay friends could. We also felt strongly that our relationship was our business and a little piece of paper from the state wasn’t going to make it any more “legitimate”, and it sure wouldn’t protect us from the fate of just over 50% of all relationships the state labels “official”. So thanks but no thanks, not for us.

Then we bought a house together, and started talking about having kids, and we were suddenly faced with the same legal issues our partnered, and parenting, gay friends deal with all the time. At that point I didn’t even know that there are 1,138 legal rights accorded married couples that non-married couples do not enjoy. I just knew it didn’t make sense that as a non-married couple Mike and I, and all of our gay friends, had so many more hoops to jump through if we were even allowed to jump at all.

We talked about this issue with our friends, gay and straight, and several of our gay friends told us they thought we should get married. They told us if they could, they sure as hell would. Still we resisted. Finally, we decided three days before a business-trip-turned-vacation to the US Virgin Islands that we should just go ahead and do it. But, we told ourselves, we wouldn’t tell anyone. We didn’t want a big deal made of it and, frankly, we were a little ashamed. We felt completely guilty that it was so easy for us and so difficult for some. So even though it didn’t solve anything, we would just pretend it hadn’t happen.

So we got married on this day two years ago, on a beach in St. John. And it was very nice and we didn’t tell anyone. But then we got pregnant a few months later, and realized we hadn’t really thought our plan through to the end. We suspected that our families would be upset at the idea of us having a baby without being married, and we were right. Although they didn’t put it this way, they were upset for precisely for the same reasons we are upset that our gay friends can’t marry when they have kids. Because, like it or not, in our society, marriage affords a protection to the family unit that being unmarried does not.

So, long story short (too late!), we told them. And there was great rejoicing.

And so, it is ironic that the anniversary of our non-wedding is the same week as Freedom to Marry Week. Actually I don’t really know if it is ironic or appropriate or nothing at all or what. I do know that Mike and I still feel chagrined that our family is protected in ways that other families aren’t. Until they are, we will keep trying to make some change by voting for folks who can make a difference and supporting our gay friends and their families and making sure the issue doesn’t go away.

So for the something new theme today I give you a picture of Emma holding her first political sign. Here’s hoping that we are entering an era of new hope and new equality and that our politicians will do their job. Maybe by the time Emma decides to become someone’s partner and have a family of her own, everyone will have the chance for equal protection under the law.

To learn more about why equal rights are so important, especially in emergencies, go here, and to learn what you can do to help, go here.

So, uh, Christmas was a little more sick and dramatic than I was planning. Since Christmas is my favorite time of year and I am feeling a little sad about it being kind of a bust, I am just going to move on and start planning for next year.

Let me just mention, by way of a little bit of advice, that if your baby throws up for hours and hours, she is probably sick. And even when she stops throwing up you might not want to expose others to whatever it was that made her sick, even if it is Christmas Day. Because if you do, every. single. person. who comes into contact with her may end up throwing up for hours and hours, which would really be a downer at Christmas.

So, moving right along…what else is happening…oh yeah - the Iowa caucus is tomorrow! Four years ago I was doing field for the Dean campaign in Henry and Washington Counties. I was living and working in a tiny room in the home of a supporter in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and made more phone calls in a four week period than I ever thought possible. I attended a caucus in a little town whose name I have since blocked out, and I knew before that caucus was over that the outcome statewide was not going to be what I had worked and hoped for. I got ragingly drunk that night, then packed up and went to the U.P. of Michigan to continue working for Dean. Good times.

It is a little mind boggling to think about how much my life has changed in four years. But even with all the changes I am still riveted by what is happening tomorrow. I am afraid to hope for too much, the last campaign taught me that, but I am pulling for Barack Obama. When I ran screaming from left Iowa, I lost contact with all the folks I worked with while I was there, so I can’t even check in with them to see what they think is going to happen. I just hope my favorite precinct captain, Mary Ellen, is an Obama supporter. If she is, we have nothing to worry about.

Fired up? Ready to go!

I saw a segment on CNN yesterday morning about toxins in kids products, specifically bisphenol A and phthalates in baby bottles. At some point in his report Dr. Sanjay Gupta told the viewing audience that years ago we were told that 70 something-or-other-measurement of lead in our bodies was an acceptable amount and now we are being told that 70 is way too high and that 10 something-or-other-measurement is a much more acceptable level - which just goes to show you that sometimes it takes a bit of research before we know for sure what we are dealing with. At the end of the segment Kiran Chetry asked Dr. Gupta whether there was enough evidence of a problem with various toxins for people to switch to non-bisphenol bottles. The good Doctor got a deer in the headlights look and then…hedged, saying that people have to make whatever choice is right for them.

We have been struggling with this issue in our house, so we were watching the report with extra interest. We have made the decision to replace our old bottles with Born Free bottles (the glass ones are really cool.) We know the jury is still out on the whole issue, but we have this sneaking suspicion that years from now we will get information about bisphenol that is similar to the one we are now getting about lead. In the end, for us, why not just replace the bottles to be on the safe side? I fully expected a similar sentiment from Dr. Gupta when he was asked about it and was really disappointed that he seemed to take the I-can’t-risk-pissing-off-any-sponsors road.

Obviously bisphenol isn’t the only toxin parents have to deal with lately. Every week it seems like there is a new recall for some product that is covered in lead or puts kids into a coma or makes them act like George Bush.

So because we are coming up on the gift giving season I thought I would share some of my favorite links for non-toxic, natural and handmade products for kids.

• The Wooden Wagon
• Craftsbury Kids
• Natural Pod
• Tomat
• Thanks Mama
• Woobee

And of course, check out Cool Mom Picks, where I found all of these links in the first place.

Slowly but surely if we all start putting our money towards products that are safer for kids there will be a higher standard universally. Then baby bottle makers and others will be compelled by pure economics to offer products that are healthier for all of us and Dr. Gupta won’t have to worry about pissing off his sponsors. Happy gift-giving!

Update: Via Ewokmama’s, recent great post about toxins and recalls, comes another site for handmade products - Etsy.

Today is Blog Action Day and the focus is the environment. It is hard for me to imagine there is much I could add about the environment that hasn’t already been covered by the *15,000* other blogs participating, but here goes!

Mike and I have been thinking for a while that we would love to put solar panels on the house and drastically shift/reduce/change the way we use electricity. In the last couple of weeks we have just been turned on (get it? electricity? turned on? mwaahahaha) to a company that essentially rents solar power systems to consumers.

Citizenre’s Renu program “pays for, installs, owns and operates the solar installation.” For the cost of what you are paying for electricity now, plus a small deposit, (a tiny deposit really, in the grand scheme of solar power systems) you can have solar energy, and your monthly payment will stay the same for the term of the contract - up to 25 years.

When I used the Solar Savings Calculator to figure out how much money we would save and how much environment we would save, here is what I got:

If you were to invest all of the money that you saved over the term of a 25-year contract, and you received the investment grade bond yield average of 9.44%, then your decision to participate in the REnU Program would yield $39,818.42 by the end of your contract.

Additionally, over that same time period, your REnU will eliminate 416 tons of CO2, 2127 lbs of NOx, 6111 lbs of SO2, 267 lbs of PM, 15 lbs of VOC, and 93 lbs of CO. That is equivalent to taking approximately, 73 automobiles off of the road, or planting 1220 trees.

Almost $40,000 and over 1200 trees? That means we could send Emma to college for at least a year or so AND go camping after we drop her off. Doesn’t get much better than that.

We are going to keep researching it, but our friend Katie told us about it and Ed Begley, Jr. is on the website, so really, how many more awesome people need to tell us about it for us to know it is a good thing? If we do decide to take the plunge, I’ll report back on how it goes.