green

I am really pleased to hear that you have finally chased this man away. He does sound like a destructive and spiteful individual and it is a good thing that he has another woman to play with. Unfortunately it does seem that you will be stuck with on-going hassles when it comes to him coming across with his share of the marital cash. You must discuss this aspect of your divorce with both your lawyer and the judge. As for your new name, and certainly you should have one, how about something along the line of FreeMom? or JustMe&2kids? Congratulations, grrl, and please keep us in the loop.

Well, sadly enough the six foot tall pink rabbit who is sitting in the room with us, the one which we are desparately trying to ignore because we are liberal folk and do want to show the same generosity to each and everyone of us, is the Islamic fanatic.... Now, let it be said that Green has street cred. I am an atheist. I live in Canada and approve of socialized medicine, the right of a woman to decide, and same sex marriage. Not only that, some of my closest friends are from Algeria and raised in the way of Islam. I also know what Savaronola did and I am none too happy with antics of those noisy politicized televangelist types. Nevertheless, the new face of Islam is not an attractive one. This was a religion which under the early caliphates supervised over a much more relaxed, creative, tolerant, and intellectually advanced civilization than that of Medieval Christian Europe. There were enormous advances made in the arts and sciences, particularly maths and astronomy, under the rule of the Caliphates at this time and, moreover, they were tolerant of the Jews and the Christians who lived under their rule. Today the situation in the Islamic countries looks dire. Intellectual and creative activities have become a no-go zone for the local intelligentsia and mob thought and violence seem to rule. The local Christian and Jewish minorities have been chased out. The general emotional response of the local folk is entirely reactionary, hate-filled, and thoughtless. A case in point: all those mass burnings of the Danish flag - what was that all about? Had these individuals troubled to do the rational thing, and that would be investigate the issue, they would have discovered that the most offensive cartoons were not part of the original material but were added later in order to stir up Muslims on this, a formerly dead in the water issue. They would also have remarked that even as they demand the right to freely criticize the west and other Judeo-Christian religions so must they accept that they will have to endure criticism; anything else is hypocrisy. Muslims would also have to acknowledge that there are many Muslims who are anxious to immigrate to the USA and to Canada but there are few people who are knocking themselves out to do the reverse. As for the folk who are on this side of the Atlantic, it is to be hoped that they will be well treated by the rest of us for they are our fellow citizens. It is also to be hoped that if they really don't feel comfortable they choose to resettle in an Islamic country, and not opt for blowing stuff up. Of course the only way that we can give anyone this option is by welcoming them into our communities as our equals and friends. But, nevertheless, it is certain Muslims who are behaving badly,...is it not?

Oh, but this is so true! One of the reasons I was so thrilled with my latest house, a renovated Edwardian 3-story house, was that this shack bristles with outlets. Though we only have one television that we actually use, we have two computers and are fond of lamps, stereophonic equipment, fans (in addition to A/C), and various gadgets and labour-saving devices. And in addition to all this my tenant has a couple of computers, an aquarium the size of a coffin with all the pumps and heating devices to make it work, and her own array of gadgets. I always remember that my mother used to hang her laundry in the furnace room in the winter and outside in the summer. I use the dryer all year round except for the few things which will not survive. Those garments I hang up in the bath and over the stair rails. During our hot summers this seems oh so stupid to me and yet I find myself doing it anyway. This all comes down to the tragedy of laziness for, you see, my laundry room is on the second floor and is convenient to all the sources of dirty laundry but pretty far away from my backyard. Now, I believe that a certain amount of laziness is likely inherent in most if not all of us; modern technology has made it easier for us to avail ourselves of short-cuts. These short-cuts were initially viewed as being a gift to those of us who could take advantage of them and some of them may well be. Working from home and cyber-commuting will certainly cut down on car travel, fossil fuel consumption, environmental pollution, and the loss of time which the wage-earners might be spending with their families and in their own communities. On the other hand, you have individuals who prefer to use the energy-guzzling dryer all year round. And the shower, an invention which was initially seen as having the benefit of being easier on water consumption than a bath, has, it seems, kinda backfired. It is so easy to hop into a shower that we clean-minded folks find themselves taking many more of them. It is always interesting to visit other parts of the world, ones which are productive but which lack the same easy and comparatively cheap access to energy sources which we have, in order to see how they deal with their energy needs. France and the U.K. have gas-fired hot water heaters; the holding tanks are much smaller and these are only heated when there is a demand for hot water. While I lived in France I never met anyone who had a clothes dryer. People had retractable clothes' lines in their bathrooms. And as you may know, most of France's electrical energy comes from nuclear plants. In Turkey, a country with no natural power sources, there are water cisterns and banks of solar panels on top of most apartment roofs. These feed into individual apartments and are heated by the solar panels. Often much older houses were built in such a way that they were able to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This is the sort of dwelling that we can find in the older parts of the world, in parts of Europe and in Mexico, too. But much of Canada and the United States has been built more recently, during the era where energy was cheap and seemed both limitless and benign and while we had a deep mistrust of anything which wasn't modern. I have a few personal examples to offer. I was in Mexico a week ago and I travelled up into the mountains behind Puerto Vallarta. I found myself in a little village and the sun was very, very hot. I went into someone's home and this house was cool and breezy. My second example has to do with my own street: one of the reasons I fell in love with my street was that it was lined with mature Norwegian Maples, a tree which grows to a height of 5 to 6 stories in height. The street was shady and quiet in the summer and in winter, after a snowfall, it was like walking down the nave of a gothic cathedral. Sadly, over the years that I have lived here many of these trees have reached the end of their lives and have had to be cut down. Now, the point which I would like to make is that those houses which no longer are sheltered by the shade of one of these trees are the ones who now have central A/C. My house is one of those which has A/C. I am aware that this has been an awfully long post and that my comments have been very random but I believe that the point that I wish to make is this: scientific progress and knowledge are always valuable but it is also valuable to examine traditional folkways in addition to other approaches as well. This question of energy consumption and its possible effect on global warming is an interesting one. Whether or not our behaviour is a cause of the current trend to the over-heating of this planet and whether we can now alter this state of affairs by reigning in our behaviour is moot. Certainly it is true that we can halt environmental pollution by amending our behaviour and this is a good idea. Afterall, this world is our sandbox and we do not want to turn it over to the next generation full of our shit, do we?

It actually is as tasteless as it would have been had the so-called crazed killers in the excercise been described as Islamic fanatics. We have, and rightfully so, decided that thoughtlessly attacking minorities is a hands-off issue. It seems to me that we must grant all groups the same respect if we are to ask from them that they show respect to others.

Green had been doing the compost thang for a long time before her city got into the game. The City of Toronto will accept used kitty litter, paper towels, paper tissue, diapers, sanitary napkin waste along with the usual stuff: coffee grains, used tea bags, left-over vegetable stuff, and animal bones, fat, etc. Needless to say, she wouldn't chuck a lot of this gross, vomit-making shit into her backyard. Who fucken would, eh?

I like hearing what you all have to say. It really touches me that we are all concerned with this business of thinking about what we might personally do to engage with respecting our environment and each other. Such efforts are important on ever so many levels, aren't they? Though I am (by temperament) one of those sour types, I must say that this has been a fine thread and one which has warmed the nasty Green on the deepest level.

I EAT STUFF.

Actually Carlene has made a number of excellent points. The issue of trying to live a green life is a complicated one. Our basic standards have risen and the lifestyles which were acceptable to our parents or grandparents are not acceptable to us. (This may be why it takes two working parents to maintain a family....) I live in Toronto, Canada. This is a city of 3 million and we have been having on-going problems with garbage disposal. This has forced the city to take a green approach to dealing with our crap. For over a decade we have been recycling our paper products, cans, plastics, and glass. Now we recycle our compostables and you would be both surprised and revolted by what the city considers to be compostable. But it seems that our recycling efforts are advanced compared to other municipalities! Nevertheless, there is a lot that is left over and we have been paying the state of Michigan to deal with our leavings. This was okay under the Republican majority; the Democrats, however, were appalled (and who could blame 'em).... Go figure, eh. And there were a few unpleasant tales of garbage trucks overturning on major highways, an ugh! situation for sure. Certainly this business of going green is complicated and one is inclined to wonder about it. I read an article about an environmentally conscious Canadian couple who had given up on their SUV, had chosen to ride bicycles, and to use an energy efficient vehicle when needed. They then realised that the fruits and vegetables which they were eating were creating a big energy footprint as these were brought locally from anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 km away. They determined that they would try to eat nothing which had originated from further than a 150 km radius; that they were able to do this was only because they live on Canada's left coast, the kind coast. They managed to make a meal that was heavy on potatoes, onions, dried herbs which they themselves had grown, local brie and butter, local salmon, local blueberries, and local wine. It seems that the meal wasn't bad - the guy was a good cook - but it cost around $130. And they were looking at eating more of the same until the Canadian growing season. "It ain't easy being green," as the song says but I personally see nothing wrong nor risible with doing a little personal assessment on energy usuage. It is always interesting to see what we can and can't live without. In my case my mate and I have switched to the curly light bulbs in a number of areas of the house. And although he drives we walk or use public transit whenever we are in the city. We have also worked hard to make our house, an older house, more impervious to winter. On the other hand, I won't sacrifice my excessive A/C use in the summer. That is my line in the sand. It is true that I suspect that the present trajectory which the earth is now on is unstoppable and yet I would like to see people in this part of the world paying more attention to their energy usuage patterns and to their overall lifestyles. I suspect that my reasoning is this: our careless, greedy and callous behaviour has resulted in a large scale alienation from nature, human history, and a sense of an ability to really engage with our environment - both the social and the natural. Added notes: going green can mean saving money, eh. I also remarked that one poster commented that she liked an electric blanket; well, a duvet would keep a grrl just as warm and save on power costs. Ghost power is another issue and another source of power loss. All those instant power-ons for the TV, computers, etc are because those machines are never switched off! They are switched into power saving mode but they are, in their ghostly fashion, hoovering up power. Alrighty, this has been an overly long post/rant. Bye.

Up here in Ontario we call electric power hydro; this is because we used to get all our hydroelectric power from the Niagara Falls and that power was cheap and green. That era disappeared a long, long time ago. We rely on coal burning and nuclear plants now, and we import energy from the States. Electric energy is now very expensive and we use a lot of it - particularly in the summer. Our summers are so hot and humid that we are A/C junkies and the provincial government will, on very hot days, issue warnings that we are using up pretty much all the power available. They tell us we might suffer brown-outs or even rolling black-outs. Of course these conditions coincide with those days when there are also smog advisories and folks are advised to stay indoors and to avoid driving! Driving (with your A/C blasting), you see, only adds to the toxic fumes trapped in this hot humid bowl of air which simply won't move! Summer in the city can really suck where I live!:phanvan

Those are interesting photos, Jack. I have often wondered why the office towers in my city are so lit up through out the night when no one much is using them other than the cleaning staff and yet my province has been pushing for their citizens to reduce our electric energy usuage. The additional tragedy is that a lot of birds are killed during the migration seasons; they crash into the windows, you see.

Hahahahahaha:heh:

Yah, I heard that his latest effort, mel gibson's Aztecoroma or whatever it was called, had plenty of gratuitous violence, too.

Has Gore responded to this inconvenient truth?

I very much appreciated reading your thoughtful answer to my rather flip comment, leatha. It is always a wonderful thing to hear another's point of view. Thank you for your reply. I still must admit to having an antipathy for Gibson as an individual and this has to do with his stated anti-Semitism of course. This is a sore point with me: my father's side of the family is Jewish and most of them perished in the Holocaust.

From what I have read that movie was in the way of being a religious snuff flick....

Mister P's new broad sounds like a real shark!

Green is my family name.

Green didn't see the movie because she already knows how the story ends. :rolleyes And Smell Gibson is a disgusting anti-Semite!:girl_hug:

Think outside the box. This is easy advice, I know, but I have a friend who has already completed a doctorat in chemistry and who is now working on one in philosophy and who is able to do this with great success. Let me explain: because his early training was in Islam he is - though not a theist - able to introduce, thanks to his early training, an approach to his studies that is not Euro-centricist and is able to spot and isolate certain questions which are ignored by the rest of his fellow tribe of philosophers. He is a gifted man and he has the added luck of being allowed to see outside the box which most folks working in his field would be constrained by. But I must confess, now that I have heard his story, that I would be inclined to cheat. I would want to rope a student who was dealing in a similar field that he have a look at my work with the trade-off that I would look at the work in his/her field. Of course the trade off would be that we, as scientists in neighbouring fields of research, would swap both knowledge and, well, hunches, and the point of the exercise would be to break outside of the boxes in which we find ourselves so reluctantly and carelessly trapped.

Hello Kitty says good bye. Goodbye Kitty.

Pink Issue

:hungry: She didn't realise that it was band-friendly low-fat protein.:heh: Silly grrl.........:tired

Well it is precisely for that reason that I terminated my comments by saying - and this was the bit that you had omitted from your quote - that 'I cannot put myself in the shoes of the opposition,' and that 'I really don't know how to view these problems.' Life in the city is certainly a whole lot easier for everyone. Folks who feel uncomfortable with aiding and abetting abortions or same sex marriages don't have to. Folks who want or feel that they need these services can go elsewhere and easily get 'em. I would venture to say that there may be no room for homosexuals or liberals or pregnant teenage girls in small town Canada even though choice and same sex civil marriage are legal rights in this country. As for where you live, BubbleButt, I gather that homosexuals are not entirely welcome, eh.:speechles

http://www.jcnot4me.com/Items/Misc%20Topics/atheists_in_america.htm http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/03/24/67686 Here are two sites. I couldn't find the one I was looking for and I had problems transcribing another one to this site (I am blonde, ya know!:faint: ) but I believe that you will find this info to be interesting reading.

I will try to find it. It was posted on an atheist site which I frequent and was a poll carried out by one of the major US newspapers, maybe the Chicago Times???? What it said was that more Americans trust Muslims than atheists. Atheists are viewed as the least trustworthy folks by Americans, it seems.