New Yorker article, "Made in the U.S.A." by Patricia Marx

I'm posting a link to the "abstract" of the article, "Made in the U.S.A." by Patricia Marx (New Yorker, March 16, 2009) because apparently some things aren't free on the internet. The fine folks at the New Yorker have to make a buck here and there, of course, and with news media in the tank and sinking fast, who am I to quibble about an abstract or full-length article. There is a thing called the library and a lot of them have access to these articles (but make it quick, because the "library" is also in the tank).

Anyway, late last year I posted a rant on a Mother Jones screed, "O Say Can You Buy?" by Nicole McClelland (and I never mentioned the author's name in the original post and my apologies), where she tries for a week to buy nothing but products made in the U.S.A. and finds it unbearably difficult. It was cringingly laughable to read, because on some micro-level, people who are socially conscious try to do this on a daily basis, with similar results. My point was that she left out the fact that buying products doesn't necessarily have to be "made in" the U.S., but can be "of" the U.S. -- for instance, buying used clothing from Goodwill. It is a charitable, non-profit based in the U.S. and sells clothing that may have originated in Pakistan, but has already left the main market stream.

The point of the article was to point out that there are not many products actually produced in the U.S. any longer, but the thrust of the article (I think) was picked up more successfully by Marx in the New Yorker piece. Both are written in a breezy tongue-and-cheek style--the impulse is to think they are implying that no one can take seriously the notion that people in America actually "make" stuff anymore, but rather consume it, but maybe the style is more indicative of their collective exasperation at the task of tackling the underlying issues in dealing with a home country that no longer produces everyday goods but, instead, jet planes and microchips.

The Marx article had a lot of good facts, however, and she had obviously gone out of her way to explore all avenues of "locavore" life (which, she pointed out, was the New Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year for 2007), at least within her sphere of New York City. A little disheartening was that a lot of goods produced in the U.S. are quite expensive, like Shaker-inspired furniture. Or chocolates. The locally-produced Brooklyn Buzz mead (using N.Y. state honey) was actually kind of cheap at 13-dollars a bottle, however.

The one fact that jumped out: Marx states that 86-percent of the average American's clothing budget is spent on clothing made outside of the U.S. Not surprisingly, but still startling. And also, coincidentally, the total number of crates Thomas Jefferson hauled back to American after his sojourn as Ambassador to France. This, Marx says, is after making the statement, "I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every god citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foriegn manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may." Hoo boy.

Need-a-Bag? Project Update 03.14.09: Remote Viewing

Note: The Need-a-Bag? project was created to promote sustainable bagging at the Hwy 441 Alachua County Farmer's Market each Saturday morning. We supply reusable tote bags reclaimed from thrift stores and garage sales. The Need-a-Bag? project also utilizes old tank tops as tote bags by sewing up the bottoms (these are called t-totes). We invite you to read the other posts on the project by clicking the "Need-a-Bag? Project" label at the bottom of this post.

This was yet another week that I was sick (when will this blasted cold season end?!) and so DG once again shouldered the responsibilities. When I called this afternoon, her report was that things were pretty much the same, but she mentioned that she thought she had gotten a new bag but it looked like an old bag. She described it as a tote bag that had been "hand embellished" with sea urchins and I remembered that that was an old bag that we had put out months ago! I'll have to see said sea urchin bag to confirm, but I do believe this is the first case of getting a bag recycled back into the Need-a-Bag? project stream! Yes, you heard it here first, folks, the dream is still alive!

The goal was to put out new bags as they were taken down from the fence, and then collect the bags that come back to us in the drop box, wash them, and put them back out on the fence. This is a strong indicator that the third, most important, sequence in the Need-a-Bag? project is becoming a reality. People are starting to return the bags they've had piling up in a corner of their closet!

The next step is replacing the signs. After a year, they are pretty sorry-looking, and it is time to get some more professional-looking signs--I think the phrase DG used was something like "trailer trash signs" or something like that. DG is gung-ho to take this project on and cost is no object, apparently. I'm with her on that -- it's time we stepped up! Branding! Marketing! Totey!!!

Need-a-Bag? Project Update 03.08.09 Happy Daylight Savings Time!

Note: The Need-a-Bag? project was created to promote sustainable bagging at the Hwy 441 Alachua County Farmer's Market each Saturday morning. We supply reusable tote bags reclaimed from thrift stores and garage sales. The Need-a-Bag? project also utilizes old tank tops as tote bags by sewing up the bottoms (these are called t-totes). We invite you to read the other posts on the project by clicking the "Need-a-Bag? Project" label at the bottom of this post.

It was a beautiful day at the market yesterday and it seems like the crowds have picked up a bit. We changed our labels again -- DG pointed out that the last one was a sentence fragment! Ouch. Anyway, so we've got new labels, and you'll notice the old one next to the new one in one of the photos. The bedazzled label held up pretty well in the wash, but it's a little frayed, and the backing came off and got all gunked up in the dryer, so I had cut it out with scissors so it would lay flat. The bag next to it is a cool Lancome bag DG picked up and got snatched up almost immediately.

So, anyway, we're using iron-on labels instead of bedazzled labels. It was fun and silly and looked very dorky but it is hard to sit around and bedazzle labels all night. I got a craft iron for projects with DJ ("Dude Junior") and ended up using that to iron the cloth labels. It works a lot better than the big iron, and I can even iron on labels on the non-woven polypropylene Publix bags--bonus!

After tussling with a fellow over sharing the last two cartons of strawberries (DG stepped in to keep the peace and gave me one of her containers), I got some yummy salad greens. I've got some sweet potatoes that I bought weeks ago, and I think I'm going to throw those into a potroast today (the roast coming from good old IFAS). Also got some tasty citrus -- I've been trying to buy one bag a week to put in the staff break room at my place of employment, the idea being that we should work harder to prevent scurvy in our co-workers and show them we care about their health and well being.

Dawn dish detergent

"As my hand reached for the small bottle of unnaturally blue dish liquid, I had already made a deal with my self; I would only use the Dawn dish liquid for grease stains on clothing and the occasional, very greasy dish."

That's me, describing my experience in the Publix last night, buying my first bottle of Dawn detergent in over 6 months (kinda "meta," huh?). Our family of dishwashers have been using Seventh Generation dish liquid, but frankly, it is just not the same. When you come up with an exceptionally greasy piece of cookware, it's impossible to get it clean with the green stuff. Okay, maybe I'm not trying hard enough, but I'm lazy!

Also, for grease stains on clothes, there is nothing like Dawn to get them out. Grease stains will even come out of clothes that have already been through the dryer. I'm sorry, but the greenest of dish liquids just cannot compete with that track record.

Here are some other uses for Dawn that I discovered on Associated Content:
Dawn Dishwashing Detergent: It's Not Just for Dishes Anymore!
Many products have uses consumers have discovered other than their intended purposes. Dawn dishwasing detergent if well known for having many uses other than washing dishes. Read this article for 10 alternative uses for Dawn dishwashing detergent.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/76242/dawn_dishwashing_detergent_its_not.html

Why didn't I try Charlie's Soap? you might ask, and that's a good question. I have made forays into Charlie's soap's almost magical properties (and check out the comments for NomX3's incredible story about her grandmother's pillow cases). I will have to try that the next time I have a grease stain and oh, there will be a next time. You see, the upper half of my body forms a shelf and drip pan of sorts for all sorts of food items that slip from my gaping maw. So, yes, there will be an opportunity to try Charlie's Soap on a clothing grease stain very soon.

Got the pic from Seventh Generation's website

Cooking for Good and Foody Sites and Blogs: Kind of a Blog Roundup

Here is a cool website I found while looking at the Green Diary Rescue this morning on DailyKos, called Cooking for Good. The author of the website purports to have a cooking plan that will allow families to eat for cheap and eat for the good of the planet. Here is the DailyKos diary, which gives some background on the plan.

Like a lot of sites and organizations that give alternatives to convenience cooking, they all look towards the books of Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and, more recently, Good Calories, Bad Calories, for inspiration.

Slow Food International is the premier organization that asks people to take more time to cook and reintroduces the notion of food as the fundamental ritual that holds societies together.

The Ethicurean "Chew the Right Thing" is a great blog that considers all of the implications in eating locally and within ethical standards. Hat tip to Stace for sending that link my way!

More locally, Hogtown Homegrown is once again taking registrations for its 2009 Eat Local Challenge. For the month of May, local yokels race around eating everything as locally as they can, either from their own efforts or from the efforts of the local restaurants. DG did it last year and got a cool prize and an awesome tote bag. Hogtown Homegrown is just an awesome site all-around, where you can find lots of great recipes for all your farmers market fare.

Nom, nom, nom! is just getting started in the blogosphere but has a lot of great tips on not only eating locally, but also on just making the basic building blocks of all culinary yumminess, like tomato sauce.

Got a good green foody site I may have missed (and I'm sure I've missed many). Please post them in the comments!

Butt-hurt in the toilet paper discussion on DKos

I'm really glad Meteor Blades on DailyKos has been doing Green Diary Rescues. I subscribe to the Google Group for DailyKos Environmentalists -- It seems these worthy diaries would otherwise get buried in the abyss of the main focus of the site if it weren't for the Google Group. Maybe the green diaries need to be on a similar site to DKos, like KagroX has done by migrating to CongressMatters.

Anyway, I'm thankful to MB for the effort, and wanted to highlight two diaries that were highlighted in yesterday's rescue:

Don't Wipe Your Butt On My Forest...Thank You, by Detroit Mark is short on facts but long on anectdotal evidence -- I liked this diary because he talks about bidets, something I've goggled at once or twice but have absolutely no idea how to use. He talks about how to use them! Fascinating.

Wipe Your Tush And Save Trees At The Same Time, by BasharH is a lot more fact-y and goes over why using virgin paper products like Kleenex are so bad -- you destroy old growth forests in the process. Included is a link to a GreenPeace action letter you can send to Kimberly-Clark, entitled "Kimberly-Clark, Don't Blow Ancient Forests on Kleenex."

Here's a link to GreenPeace's Kleercut blog and action center which gives a lot of information (I also have a Kleercut link in the sidebar, as well, if you scroll down).