Green Cleaners

Save money, protect your family and the environment by using safe, simple ingredients to clean your home.

Many commercial cleaning products use ingredients that can be harmful to people and the environment. Fortunately, there are less-toxic products—green cleaners that can protect your family and the environment. You can also save money by using some simple, safe ingredients to make your own non-toxic cleaners.

Click here to check out these cleaning recipes and tips to help you create a safer home.

Or click here for Spanish.

Last night, I was listening to Nightline while I was on the computer, and stopped to watch a segment on a lady who throws out one trash can of garbage in a year. You might find the segment here, but I don’t think it’s perma-linked. So watch it now. According to the EPA, Americans produced 254 million tons of garbage last year. What can we do to drastically reduce that? It’s simple, really.

I found EnviroMom’s website, and they are challenging us to reduce our garbage to one trash can a month by “pre-cycling” (choosing products with minimal packaging), reusing, recycling and composting. Click here for information on the “One Can A Month Challenge”. (And while you’re on the site, check out other pages.)

This was timely for me, because I try to be pretty conscious and conscientious about what I do with my garbage. On a typical week, I might have the equivalent of a grocery bag. This week I didn’t even have enough to fill a bread bag. So I decided not to put my cans out, thinking, interestingly, that at the rate of one bread bag a week, it would take many months to fill my big garbage can. Other than pet poop, I could probably not worry about the smell for long periods of time. So without knowing what would be on Nightline two nights later, I thought that maybe I would go through Lent without taking my cans to the curb. (I also have a large recycling can. But if I don’t put out the garbage, I don’t want to put out the recycling either, because that might cause both trucks to have to come down my street, and the garbage guy might accidentally trash my recyclables.)

Here’s a picture of my garbage from this week:

I was actually surprised how much the bread bag holds.

But this next garbage day will be different, because I have to clean up the house for Thanksgiving — including changing the litter box. So I might have to use a bigger bag.

Skinny Bitch author gives you five good reasons to go vegan:

How to be a Vegan: How to get Protein in a Vegan Diet:

Vegan Diets: Vegan Diet Grocery List:

Vegan Philosophy and Lifestyle (Moby):

Vegan Video (anatomy of herbivores & carnivores):

The philosophy of Vegan Values: The practice of non-violence:

I just found this video (from last June.) It’s worth watching:

It’s nice to see such a positive report.

I received an e-newsletter from Mercy for Animals today, and ended up visiting their site. Two things caught my attention: Another undercover investigation of abuse at a turkey facility in West Virginia, and MFA’s ad campaign on Chicago’s busses and subway.

From the e-newsletter:

Millions of bus riders in Boston are getting a new outlook on dinner, thanks to the launch of over 600 pro-vegetarian MFA ads.

The campaign, which features images of cows, pigs, and chickens crammed in tiny cages on factory farms, asks Bostonians, “How Much Cruelty Can You Swallow?”

The powerful ads will be viewed over 20 million times in the next month.

This summer MFA unveiled the same campaign on Chicago bus and rail transit lines.

Below are the posters:

Click here to watch a good video to hear what commuters had to say.

Click here to request, or to download a Vegetarian Starter Kit.

Click here to request a guide to veg or veg-friendly restaurants in the Chicago area.

I found this on Huffington Post. I feel the need to quote, instead of just adding the video.

Sarah Palin Turkey Incident: Does TV Interview While Turkeys Are Slaughtered In The Background (VIDEO)

Some videos you just have to see to believe. On Thursday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared in Wasilla in order to pardon a local turkey in anticipation of Thanksgiving. This proved to be a slightly absurd but ultimately unremarkable event. But what came next was positively surreal. After the pardon Palin proceeded to do an interview with a local TV station while the turkeys were being SLAUGHTERED in the background!! Seemingly oblivious to the gruesomeness going on over her shoulder, she carries on talking for over three minutes. Watch the video below to see for yourself. Be warned, it’s kind of gruesome.

Added 11/22/08:

On the topic of dead turkeys (and moose), here’s another video that I found here tonight, which I assume is meant to be pro-Palin, although it almost seems like a parody. Let me quote Huffington Post (in part) again:

From the department of awkward timing: Days after video of Sarah Palin’s interview in front of slaughtered turkeys became a web sensation, the conservative group Our Country Deserves Better releases a Thanksgiving-themed ad “thanking” Palin.

The opening of the spot features an announcer praising Palin…in front of images of roasted turkeys.

Take a look:

What’s up with Sarah Palin and dead turkeys? Is that the new symbol of the GOP?

The following church bulletins and sermons were found here. If you go to the site, you might be able to access the audio versions. The rationale for these sermons is in the first paragraph of the first week’s at the second link below. I agree. And I think preachers are missing the boat by not including animals in their sermons. (So if it’s “eccentric”, it’s only because not enough preachers have thought to do it, other than maybe at a Blessing of the Animals service.) I believe that animal stories make sermons more memorable. But in case they don’t, it’s nice to see the quotes, poems & prayers in the bulletins that people could take home. And of course, the Internet makes them “immortal”.

Order of Worship 4/27/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, I: THE OLDEST PROFESSION

Order of Worship 5/4/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, II: THE FIRST THEOLOGIAN

Order of Worship 5/18/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, III: ADRIFT ON A SHORELESS SEA

Order of Worship 5/25/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, IV: A HOARSE HORSE

Order of Worship 6/1/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, V: QUOTH THE RAVEN ‘EVERMORE!’

Order of Worship 6/8/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, PART VI: BARNYARD RELIGION

Order of Worship 6/22/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, VII: THE KING OF THE BEASTS

Order of Worship 6/29/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, VIII: THE CATTLE ON A THOUSAND HILLS

Order of Worship 7/6/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, PART IX: WHAT SHOULDER TWISTS LEVIATHAN’S SINEWS?

Order of Worship 7/13/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, X: FLOAT LIKE A DOVE, STING LIKE A SNAKE

Order of Worship 7/27/08
THE GOD OF ANIMALS, XI: GOD AND GOLDEN RETRIEVERS

I found the following (along with other things) in some of the church’s bulletins. I thought you might like them for what they are, and/or that they were included first thing in the bulletins under “In preparation for worship”….

IN PREPARATION FOR WORSHIP
“What about animals?” I asked finally.
“What about them?”
“It just seems like there should be someone, something out there that cares about
them, cares that they existed, that they suffered or didn’t. Something out there ought
to be watching over them.”
–Aryn Kyle, The God of Animals

IN PREPARATION FOR WORSHIP
Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice—it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances—but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.
–Mary Oliver, “Making the House Ready for the Lord”

I don’t know if it’s “nostalgia” (I’m too young), or because I just liked the cover, but I decided I wanted to buy this week’s issue of Time — maybe to frame.

Gates Supported Heifer International Increases Suffering

“It almost sounds like a joke. Set up dairy enterprises in rural African villages with no refrigeration, electricity, veterinary care or passable roads for a population that can’t drink milk because it’s 90% lactose intolerant.”

Read it all.

Sorry, that isn’t a live banner link — just a picture.

Click here to sign the White House Food Garden Petition.

It made sense then. It makes sense now….