Red Tape

Yesterday I took the time to write emails to both California senators and my local representatives, as well as the Metropolitan Water District regarding my concerns about water fluoridation. This was what I wrote:

Is the flouridation of our drinking water a permanent situation? I protest the addition of fluoride to our water supply (beginning October 2007) here in South Orange County on the basis of health issues. A new report by Reuters explains some of the health risks associated with water flouridation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS108377+02-Jan-2008+PRN20080102

I would like to know if these programs are scheduled to be terminated in the near future to make our drinking water safe again.

I plan to write to my elected officials on this matter as well. Thank you.

___________________________________________________________

Here is the only response I received so far, this from the Metropolitan Water District. Not a peep from the elected officials yet. I must say this was a very speedy and informative response, although it underscores the amount of bureaucracy involved in bringing about change:

I appreciate both your concern and interest in Metropolitan’s Drinking Water Fluoridation Program. Metropolitan’s decision to fluoridate it’s drinking water supplies was made by an official action of its Board of Directors; Metropolitan’s Board governs Staff activities (including fluoridation) and adopts all policy on its treatment and operations.
Any decision to stop or reverse Metropolitan’s Fluoridation Program must be initiated at this level. You therefore have two options to stop Metropolitan’s current fluoridation treatment option: 1.) convince its Board to reverse their 2004 decision or 2.) have the current law mandating drinking water fluoridation changed.

Sincerely,
Edgar G. Dymally
Water Quality Section
Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California

I love the way that’s worded – “convince the board” or “change the current law”. It’s as simple as that!!

Read this before your next sip of tap water…

Scientific American Has Second Thoughts About Fluoride

“Editors for Scientific American believe recent studies suggest that fluoride raises the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, and in general “scientific attitudes” about fluoridation may be shifting.

“Fluoride, the most consumed drug in the USA, is deliberately added to 2/3 of public water supplies theoretically to reduce tooth decay, but with no scientifically-valid evidence proving safety or effectiveness,” says lawyer Paul Beeber, president of the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation.

Meanwhile, according to environmental reporter and director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program Dan Fagin, “There is no universally accepted optimal level for daily intake of fluoride.”

After analyzing hundreds of fluoride studies, researchers found that fluoride:

• Alters endocrine function, especially in the thyroid
• Causes dental fluorosis in young children
• May lower IQ
• May increase the risk of bone fractures

Because scientific evidence suggests that water fluoridation is ineffective and dangerous to health, over 1,200 professional are now urging Congress to stop water fluoridation.”

Sources:

• Reuters January 2, 2008

World Clock

This is rather thought-provoking. A statistical picture of the planet’s events in real time…

http://www.peterrussell.dreamhosters.com/Odds/WorldClock.php

Short Circuit

Every night at 9 pm my mom calls me to let me know that she’s OK. I asked her to do this because I was worried about her being alone all the time. So the phone rings at 9 and knowing it’s her, I usually listen to the answering machine message, determine she’s OK, and go on with what I’m doing.

Why do I do this? Why don’t I just talk to her every night?

Because I hate talking for long periods on the telephone. My mom just doesn’t know when to stop talking. I realize she’s probably lonesome, but she goes on and on about her health down to the most minute detail and it drives me crazy. I do listen sympathetically for the first 5 minutes or so, and then some kind of overload switch gets flipped in me. She would keep me on the phone for an hour if she could.

I guess because I have health problems of my own, I get annoyed hearing about the health issues over and over. I feel some guilt about this, but I can’t help it. I want to keep a positive attitude and while I’m happy to commiserate with someone occasionally, I just can’t hang in as a regular, constant event. I don’t like to talk about my health challenges to others – I feel it’s a boring topic. I only wish the same courtesy was extended to me.

So what I do is take what she is saying and offer a positive spin on whatever the problem is. Then she says “sometimes it’s good to just complain and have someone listen without offering solutions”. I disagree, I don’t believe in complaining at length.

What’s a gal to do? The end result is that I pick up the phone about 3 days a week and try to listen to her “physical report card”. I consider that a compromise. I love my mom and I know she won’t be around forever.

Hey! Don’t throw that away!

This is not my own original work or research. I thought it so important however, that I present it from the website coopamerica.org . I hope this will help spread the word about recycling objects you may not have thought could be recycled. Cut and paste any links you are interested in into your browser.

21 Things You Didn’t
Know You Can Recycle

Garbage. Americans produce more and more of it every year, when we need to be producing less. Even the most waste-conscious among us can feel overwhelmed by the amount of household waste that goes beyond what municipal recyclers and compost bins can handle. That’s why our editors spent the summer of 2007 investigating the state of waste management in our country, putting this list togther for you, explaining how we can get serious about the three R’s – reducing, reusing, and recycling — and divert more waste away from landfills. (To download the entire recycling issue of the Quarterly, visit our archives page.)1. Appliances: Goodwill accepts working appliances, www.goodwill.org, or you can contact the Steel Recycling Institute to recycle them. 800/YES-1-CAN, www.recycle-steel.org.

2. Batteries: Rechargeables and single-use: Battery Solutions, 734/467-9110, www.batteryrecycling.com.

3. Cardboard boxes: Contact local nonprofits and women’s shelters to see if they can use them. Or, offer up used cardboard boxes at your local Freecycle.org listserv or on Craigslist.org for others who may need them for moving or storage. If your workplace collects at least 100 boxes or more each month, UsedCardboardBoxes.com accepts them for resale.

4. CDs/DVDs/Game Disks: Send scratched music or computer CDs, DVDs, and PlayStation or Nintendo video game disks to AuralTech for refinishing, and they’ll work like new: 888/454-3223, www.auraltech.com.

5. Clothes: Wearable clothes can go to your local Goodwill outlet or shelter. Donate wearable women’s business clothing to Dress for Success, which gives them to low-income women as they search for jobs, 212/532-1922, www.dressforsuccess.org. Offer unwearable clothes and towels to local animal boarding and shelter facilities, which often use them as pet bedding. Consider holding a clothes swap at your office, school, faith congregation or community center. Swap clothes with friends and colleagues, and save money on a new fall wardrobe and back-to-school clothes.

6. Compact fluorescent bulbs: Take them to your local IKEA store for recycling: www.ikea.com.

7. Compostable bio-plastics: You probably won’t be able to compost these in your home compost bin or pile. Find a municipal composter to take them to at www.findacomposter.com.

8. Computers and electronics: Find the most responsible recyclers, local and national, at www.ban.org/pledge/Locations.html.

9. Exercise videos: Swap them with others at www.videofitness.com.

10. Eyeglasses: Your local Lion’s Club or eye care chain may collect these. Lenses are reground and given to people in need.

11. Foam packing: Your local pack-and-ship store will likely accept foam peanuts for reuse. Or, call the Plastic Loose Fill Producers Council to find a drop-off site: 800/828-2214. For places to drop off foam blocks for recycling, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers, 410/451-8340, www.epspackaging.org/info.html

12. Ink/toner cartridges: Recycleplace.com pays $1/each.

13. Miscellaneous: Get your unwanted items into the hands of people who can use them. Offer them up on your local Freecycle.org or Craigslist.org listserv, or try giving them away at Throwplace.com or giving or selling them at iReuse.com. iReuse.com will also help you find a recycler, if possible, when your items have reached the end of their useful lifecycle.

14. Oil: Find Used Motor Oil Hotlines for each state: 202/682-8000, www.recycleoil.org.

15. Phones: Donate cell phones: Collective Good will refurbish your phone and sell it to someone in a developing country: 770/856-9021, www.collectivegood.com. Call to Protect reprograms cell phones to dial 911 and gives them to domestic violence victims: www.donateaphone.com. Recycle single-line phones: Reclamere, 814/386-2927, www.reclamere.com.

16. Sports equipment: Resell or trade it at your local Play It Again Sports outlet, 800/476-9249, www.playitagainsports.com.

17. “Technotrash”: Project KOPEG offers an e-waste recycling program that can help you raise funds for your organization. Use Project KOPEG to recycle iPods, MP3 players, cell phones and chargers, digital cameras, PDAs, palm pilots, and more. Also, easily recycle all of your CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes, pagers, rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk’s Technotrash program. For $30, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees. 800/305-GREENDISK, www.greendisk.com.

18. Tennis shoes: Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program turns old shoes into playground and athletic flooring. www.nikereuseashoe.com. One World Running will send still-wearable shoes to athletes in need in Africa, Latin America, and Haiti. www.oneworldrunning.com.

19. Toothbrushes and razors: Buy a recycled plastic toothbrush or razor from Recycline, and the company will take it back to be recycled again into plastic lumber. Recycline products are made from used Stonyfield Farms’ yogurt cups. 888/354-7296, www.recycline.com.

20. Tyvek envelopes: Quantities less than 25: Send to Shirley Cimburke, Tyvek Recycling Specialist, 5401 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Spot 197, Room 231, Richmond, VA 23234. Quantities larger than 25, call 866/33-TYVEK.

21. Stuff you just can’t recycle: When practical, send such items back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to manufacture products that close the waste loop responsibly.

Advice Not Taken

It’s a bird, it’s a plane…

it’s Kipper, a grey-cheeked parakeet owned by Angie Rebujio, bathing while doing his airplane impersonation…

December 2007 Reading List

Here are the books I have read for the month of December. There’s a legend that explains the rating system below the reviews. Looks like I hit 86% of my reading goal for the year.

1. Inherited Murder by Lee Martin ©1994 –This is one of my favorite mystery authors. She is known for the interesting twists and red herrings in her stories. This one, however, went on far too long. Plus, I read it last month and already forgot what it was about. ☻☻

 

2. Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison ©2007 – Musings of a dying man as he preserves his life story on paper for his family. ☻☻☻☻☻

 

3. Focus on the Good Stuff by Mike Robbins ©2007 – Everyone should read this book. It deals with appreciating the good things in your life and how appreciating others through praise and action makes life easier and more rewarding. I know, this sounds cliché and boring, but the book has some really useful insights on how people tick. ☻☻☻☻☻

 

4 Sage-ing While Age-ing by Shirley MacLaine ©2007 – Oh Shirley. You are such an open-minded person. I enjoy your takes on spirituality, creation, and other metaphysical issues. However, when you start to go on and on about extraterrestrials, you just lose me. I’m not denying that they exist (in fact I am quite sure we are not the only inhabited planet in the universe (notice I didn’t say “intelligent life”)). But the detail you go into on this topic, including the names of the aliens, etc. was just too much for me. I fought the urge to fall asleep through much of this book. ☻☻☻

 

5 Case Histories by Kate Atkinson ©2004 – My first time reading this British author. This is a wonderful “study” of an investigator who is simultaneously working on several cases at a time. First the crime and the people are introduced, then the narrative jumps back and forth from past to present. But it is very easy to read and follow. ☻☻☻☻☻

 

6 Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian ©1995 – One of my very favorite authors. This one is about a family of dowsers (people with the ability to find underground water with the aid of a tree branch or other stick-like object). Politics, ski lodges, ecology, and family relationships are explored and it’s a real treat if you are a thoughtful reader and enjoy a little metaphysics on the side.☻☻☻☻☻

 

7 I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – Fascinating story about the “last” man on earth after a plague, but I bought the paperback and discovered that only 161 pages of the book were actually “I Am Legend”. The rest of the book was short stories. I read a few of them and found them unexciting. So thumbs-up for the story and thumbs-down for the packaging averages to a 3 smileys rating (the story by itself is actually a 4 smiley).☻☻☻

 

 

LEGEND:

☻☻☻☻☻ Excellent. I highly recommend this book. Wonderfully plotted or chockful of insights.

☻☻☻☻ Very good. May have minor aspects of style or plot that prevented it from getting 5 smileys.

☻☻☻ Flawed, but of some entertainment or thought-provoking value.

☻☻ Read this book if you are stranded on a desert island and have nothing else handy to read.

☻ Don’t bother, it’s a waste of time. A suggested use is to light the fire for cooking your fish on the desert island.

 

 

Unburden Yourself

Read this when you are feeling down…borrowed from The Daily Om:

Many of us do not take the time to notice and acknowledge how beautiful we are as humans. We may be great lovers of beauty, seeing it in the people, places, and things around us, while completely missing it in ourselves. Some of us feel that it is vain to consider our appearance too much, or we may find that when we look at ourselves, all we see are imperfections. Often we come to the mirror with expectations and preconceived notions about beauty that blind us from seeing ourselves clearly. As a result, we miss the beauty that is closest to us, the beauty we are. Sometimes we see our beauty in a shallow way, noticing how well we are conforming to social norms, but failing to see the deeper beauty that shines out from within and that will continue to shine regardless of how we measure up to society’s ideal.If we can cut through all these obstacles and simply appreciate how beautiful we are, we free up so much energy. We also become less dependent upon the opinions and feedback of others since we become our own greatest admirers. Many of us know that after a great yoga practice or a long, deep meditation, we are more able to see how beautiful we are. This is because we have released some of our baggage, thus unburdening ourselves and summoning forth the spirit that dwells within us. It is the heady combination of the divine spirit and the human body that conveys beauty more accurately than anything else. To keep ourselves in touch with our own beauty, we can surround ourselves with images that reflect our beauty back to us—photos of a relative or child who has our eyes, images of teachers who embody spirit, or self-portraits that capture our essence in a way that allows us to see ourselves anew. The best way to keep ourselves in touch with our own beauty is to keep looking deeply into our own souls and opening our eyes to the human being we see in the mirror every day.

Spotlight on Our Aching Heads

Last year I wrote a post called “How Many Politicians Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb”, in which I complain about the pending possible legislation requiring Americans to buy only flourescent lights for their homes, with a phaseout of the incandescent bulbs. I am a migraine sufferer and have maintained for years that flourescent lighting helps cause migraine headaches.

Well, the good news is I was right. It was reported on the news this evening that a British research team has found my claim to be true (no big surprise to other migraine sufferers, I’m sure). Flourescent lighting does indeed aggravate these headaches. The news report also said that this light was found to cause some epileptics to have seizures. So we should be able to choose which lighting we use in our homes, right?

Wrong says the government. The bad news is that Congress just announced a phaseout of incandescent bulbs to be complete by the year 2012. That’s right. Incandescent bulbs will be ILLEGAL in the U.S. in the interests of saving energy.

Sure flourecents save energy. They also contain mercury and must be disposed of as toxic waste. What if you drop one and it breaks in your house…should you worry about mercury poisoning from the little drops of mercury that you missed after the cleanup…will the baby encounter the quicksilver as she crawls around on the floor? And anyone who has EVER had a migraine knows that they want to make their homes as healthy as possible to avoid getting one of these debilitating headaches.

If you want to use flourescent bulbs in your home you should. However I don’t. And I have no freedom of choice in the matter.