Thursday, July 29, 2010

A muscial Cornucopia

"Love with all the trimmings" from the movie "On a Clear Day"

My dearest love who existed in a dream till this evening
When a wave came and swept me out to sea,
None of the loves that you known could prepare you
For the love raging everywhere in me.
For all the arms that have covered you,
The hands that have touched you,
And the lips you have lingered on before,
Added together would be less than an Hors d'ouvre
In the banquet of love I have in store

Love seasoned to entice,
Love with all the trimmings
Filled with spice,
Love flavored to your whim
Served piping hot with all the trimmings. Mmmm…

For I'll decode every breath and every sigh
Till your every lover's wish is fulfilled before it's made,
Toss in some jealousy and doubt
Should it be required,
Not rest till there's nothing more desired,
Thus loving as I do
Never never will you ever be untrue,
Having love with all the trimmings
Waiting all for you.

Lyrics provided by metrolyrics

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Moon Names

The Names of the Moons

The names by which the Moon was called, as She appeared each month of the
year, varied with the significance of the seasonal month. In October &
November we see the need for preparing for Winter. In February the wolves
were drawing near to the villages looking for food. In March the sounds of
the Raven signaled the coming of Spring. April through June we see the sign
of growing things. In July the Moon marks the sign of horns and antlers upon
the young animals. In September, of course, we find that the time is marked
to reap the Harvest.

October Hunter's Moon
November Larder Moon
December Long Night Moon
January Winter Moon
February Wolf Moon
March Raven Moon
April Meadow Moon
May Flower Moon
June Rose Moon
July Horn Moon
August Piscary Moon
September Harvest Moon

--- from Moon Shadow v2 n2 p 37

Raven says there are 13 New or Full Moons in a year. When there are 13 Full
Moons, a calendar month will have two moons, and the second one is called
the Blue Moon.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Nontoxic cleaning recipes

Nontoxic cleaning recipes

All-purpose cleaner
- 2 cups white distilled vinegar
- 2 cups water
- 20-30 drops essential oil (optional)

Pour in a spray bottle. Shake before using. For really tough jobs, put in a glass container and warm until barely hot.

Creamy soft scrub
- 2 cups baking soda
- 1/2 cup liquid castile soap
- 4 tablespoons vegetable glycerin
- 5 drops anti-bacterial essential oil such as lavender, tea tree or rosemary.

Mix together and store in a sealed glass jar. Shelf life: two years.

Furniture polish
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar
- 20-30 drops lemon essential oil

Shake well. Dip a clean, dry cloth into polish and rub wood in direction of the grain.

Drain opener
- 1/2 cup baking soda
- 1/2 cup vinegar

Pour baking soda down drain and follow with vinegar. Cover and let sit for at least 30 minutes. Flush with boiling water.

Laundry detergent
- 1 cup soap flakes (see directions below)
- 1/2 cup washing soda
- 1/2 cup borax

Grate pure vegetable soap with a cheese grater to make soap flakes. Mix ingredients together and store in a glass container. Use 1 tablespoon per load in warm or cold water.

Women’s Voices for the Earth

Q&A about green cleaning

Q&A about green cleaning

What is borax?
Household borax is a powder or crystalline salt made from sodium borate.
It is often used as a water softener and disinfectant.

What is washing soda?
It is in the same family as baking soda but is more caustic. It cuts grease, removes wax or lipstick and neutralizes odors in the same way as baking soda does. It is found in most supermarkets.

Is vegetable glycerin necessary to use?
It is a preservative and byproduct of palm- and coconut-oil production.
It will significantly increase the shelf life of large batches of cleaners.

What are essential oils?
Liquids formed from the distillation of the leaves, stems or flowers of a plant. They add scent to the product and have anti-bacterial properties.

Where can soap flakes be purchased?
Some natural-food stores sell them. But it’s easiest to make them using any nonliquid castile soap that does not contain sodium lauryl sulfate or diethanolamine. Simply grate it with a cheese grater.

Women’s Voice for the Earth

Monday, July 12, 2010

Green Cleaning

Green cleaning is the Tupperware of 21st century
By JAN JARVIS - McClatchy Newspapers


It took Melody Graves just a few seconds to whip a pile of baking soda and liquid castile soap into a light and fluffy white cloud.

“You know it’s done when it looks like buttercream frosting,” she said.

The concoction looked good enough to eat, but it was never intended to be spread on anything other than the kitchen sink, or maybe the bathroom tub. The creamy soft scrub that Graves made was just one of the recipes presented during a recent green-cleaning party.

The parties, which are popping up in many neighborhoods, are the latest way to go green. They’re a twist on the Tupperware parties of the 1950s, only at these gatherings there are no plastic containers to buy. Instead of checking out the latest hot-dog keepers or plastic tumblers, guests learn to make nontoxic homemade cleaners.

Women’s Voices for the Earth, a national advocacy organization, came up with the idea of green-cleaning parties two years ago. Since then, there have been more than 1,500 held all over the world, most of them in the United States.

The parties go beyond turning vinegar and water into a nontoxic multipurpose cleaner. The gatherings also were created to educate participants about the harmful effects of chemicals on health. A lack of information about the toxic chemicals in many household products has led the group to get involved with politics. They recently took on a new mission to pass the Safe Chemicals Act, a bill introduced in April to help ensure that cleaning-product makers are not using chemicals that may be harmful to human health.

“There’s no reason to include toxic ingredients in products that consumers use on a daily basis when safe and equally effective alternatives exist,” said Alexandra Scranton, Women’s Voices for the Earth director of science and research.

The parties, which usually are made up of about 10 guests, are a way to deliver a serious message in a fun and relaxed way, says Graves, who lives in Mansfield, Texas.

“It’s lots of women in the kitchen making things together,” she said.

Henrietta Hill of Arlington, Texas, who co-hosted a party with Graves, said she wanted to start making her own cleaning products because she believes they’re better for her health and that of her family.

“I’ve had a couple of situations in the past when I was cleaning the bath with something that contained bleach, and if I didn’t have ventilation, I would get a really bad headache,” she said. “I think that was my body trying to tell me something.”

The nontoxic cleaners are a practical alternative to store cleaners.

“The recipes are really easy, quick and cost-effective,” Graves said.

“They just make sense.”

The homemade version of the all-purpose cleaner costs about 38 cents to make compared with $4 to $8 for store brands, according to a report by Women’s Voices for the Earth. The creamy soft scrub costs 78 cents to make from baking soda compared with $3.69 at the store.

But do they work?

Graves and others say they do. A little elbow grease helps, and the products might not work quite as fast as store-bought brands, but they get the job done.

Hill has found that the furniture polish keeps wood shining and the vinegar-based multipurpose cleaner works on her windows.

Several studies have shown that vinegar is as effective or nearly as effective as commercial cleaners in eliminating E. coli from surfaces.

Borax has been shown to remove mold from walls as effectively as commercial products.

Many of the homemade products have been used for generations because they do work so well, Graves said.

The products also last, with the help of vegetable glycerin and sealed containers. Lemon or lavender essential oil is used to hide the smell of vinegar in many of the products.

Like others who have started making their own cleaning products, Graves got involved out of her own health concerns. Several years ago, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by long-term bodywide pain and tender joints.

After she removed toxic substances in her home with the help of a building biologist, her health improved.

She became so committed to the idea of improving her environment that she became certified as a building biologist and helps people reduce electromagnetic contamination in homes.

To host a green-cleaning party, visit womenandenvironment.org.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

A good reason to get your hands dirty

Sage Colleges study points to possible beneficial psychological effects of bacteria found in soil

By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer
First published in print: Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Playing in the dirt is actually good for you, with brain-boosting effects caused by naturally occurring bacteria in soil, according to recent research from The Sage Colleges.



By studying how quickly mice negotiate a maze, associate biology professor Dorothy Matthews found that mice did better and showed less stress after eating snacks containing the bacteria, which earlier research shows can increase levels of serotonin, a brain chemical linked in humans with increased learning ability and mood.

Matthews presented her research, assisted by Sage associate psychology professor Susan Jenks, last week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Microbiology in San Diego.

"When we look at our evolutionary history, we spent a lot of time as hunter-gatherers, or even more recently in agriculture, where we had lots of contact with the soil," Matthews said. "It's only been the last 100 years or so that we've become more urbanized and are eating our foods in a different way."

Her research focused on Mycobacterium vaccae, a strain of bacteria that occurs naturally in soil, and that was first scientifically isolated in cow dung.

The Sage study involved 20 lab mice and a maze where eight turns had to be made to reach food. Peanut butter snacks fed to some of the mice contained the bacteria.

Mice that ate the bacteria snacks consistently finished the maze almost twice as fast as those that ate untreated food.

And the faster mice also showed less visible anxiety behaviors, like hugging against the wall, freezing in place, excessive grooming, peering cautiously around corners, and defecating.

Even after the mice stopped snacking on the live bacteria, they still outperformed the other mice. Three weeks later, the effect seemed to taper off.

The Sage research builds on a 2007 study in England, which found mice that received a dead version of the bacteria showed behavioral changes similar to that produced by antidepressant drugs.

Researchers began looking more closely at the bacteria after human cancer patients being treated with it unexpectedly reported positive changes in mood and outlook.

Later, it was found that the bacteria were activating a group of neurons in the brain that produces the chemical serotonin. A lack of serotonin in the brain is thought to cause depression in people.

Matthews said her research suggests that bacteria may play a role in reducing anxiety and enhancing learning.

If that is true, she said, spending time outdoors and interacting with nature -- taking walks in the woods or gardening or playing -- may play a role in the way people learn -- and help reduce their anxieties as well.

And being too clean by disinfecting everything a person comes in contact with could reduce or eliminate exposure to helpful bacteria and it might be actually making people feel worse, not better, Matthews said.

Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

New Orleans American City

In June I went to see an original play at Tulane's Shakespeare festival - The EverLasting Bonfire by Jim Fitzmorris - that commented on how "New Orleans with its French name and Spanish architecture" was a European city but also one of the most American of cities.

The next week I read the bit "From the Editor" in Gambit's Cue fashion pullout by Missy Wilkison with exactly the same sentiments. To quote Missy:
"It happens fairly often: A friend rhapsodizes about the merit of New Orleans and at the end of the soliliquy, he tacks on an addendum: 'New Orleans isn't really an American city."
This is flattering, at least ostensibly, and the friend intends it to be so. New Orleans is more urbane, multicultural, liberal, appreciative of the arts - all the things a certain type of person associates with being European. At the same time, though, this double-edged compliment prevents us from accepting that the United States can be - in fact is - all of these things.
New Orleans could only exist in the United States. The music, art and cuisine it has spawned could only come from a cultural miscegenation and history as winding, tragic and triumphant as this northern most Caribbean (or southern most North American) city's. New Orleans is perhaps the most quintessentially American of all cities. Taken that way, the intense love most of us feel (because what else is there to tether us here, smack dab in the middle of every kind of harms way, except love?) for New Orleans gets reconfigured into a different sort of patriotism, one that is less about flags and anthems and more about neighbors and community. Patriotism has come to signify different things to people at different positions on the political spectrum, especially over the course of the last decade, but ultimately love of country unites us against the disaster political consultant James Carville refers to as "the deadliest greed and government malfeasance." Patriotism can save us and the land we love. Happy Independence Day."

I've always felt the way these 2 writers describe and it was nice to see it in a play and in an editorial for a fashion rag. Goes to show just how odd we New Orleanians really are.