Posts from — February 2008

If I could change any one thing, I would…

Spur the economy with public works projects. These rebate checks won’t do a thing.

So what will you be doing with your rebate checks? According to an AP poll - Leaving Iraq Will Help Economy - most people will use it for bills. As a financial analyst with Bankrate.com says: “Issuing rebate checks to give a boost to consumer spending amounts to a Band-Aid over the much bigger problem of consumer debt burdens.”

Tell me about it.

Look, I’ll take the check when it comes, I’ve got a pile of bills just waiting. It’ll be like throwing a sponge at the Pacific but what the heck.

Still, let’s face it, working families have been surviving the last “prosperity” by running up credit cards or taking out equity loans for years. A few extra bucks is really not going to do much in terms of “stimulating the economy.”

The real issue is that as housing prices tumble, so goes the ability for families like mine to spend - or just get by at all, since there aren’t rising house prices to supplement ever-shrinking incomes (check out Falling Behind for a compelling - and thoroughly depressing - picture of the American Middle Class, for instance). This is especially tough for families who try to get by on a single income, with a parent who’s actually around to raise their kids. I know, how audacious.

In other words, these rebate checks – while helpful in the short term - aren’t going to make a dent in the recession. There are bigger problems at work here, problems that go back 25 years when Reaganism finished off the New Deal and turned the government into a tool for top income earners. (Check out Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill) for an enlightening take on this concept; Democratic Underground’s Time For Changes Journal has a must-read discussion of this point as well).

The thing is, if the middle class can’t afford basic needs then you have a very troubled economy indeed. Give it some time and you might get a “Shouting Up” theory to rival the Trickle Down one. On one hand this isn’t such a bad thing, and might be the reason all this “change” is in the political wind.

Still, no one wants a recession. So what to do? The progressive economic model calls for massive infusion of dollars into public works programs, which can kickstart a stalled economy. Instead of rebate checks, what about a “New” New Deal, or an Apollo program for clean, alternative energy? What about a public transportation system that rivals - or bests - any other country’s? Investing money into badly needed public infrastructure would boost the economy better than any Walmart shopping spree ever could.

I admit it: I really don’t enjoy lawncare. But while I do like to have a nice-looking lawn, I certainly won’t use poisons just to grow something that rivals Augusta National. My neighbors seem to try, usually by piling on a mishmosh of pesticides and insect-repellant so they can have a “killer” lawn, so to speak. Once in a while I see those trucks dumping gallons of the stuff – you know, that company which has transformed themselves - in true “Clear Sky Initiative” fashion that’d make Dick Cheney blush - from “ChemLawn” into “TruGreen”.

But the frightening thing is that those pesticides have a devastating impact on our health and planetary welfare. You don’t have to read Silent Spring;just Google “pesticide lawn care danger” and see for yourself. Alternative Lawn Care has a nice, frightening summary, or check out Safelawns, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting natural lawn care, which has some great resources.

Anyway, since I’m always pushing organic, sustainable, green approaches to modern living, I figure I have a responsibility to prove it with a green, healthy weed-free lawn. And I’ve been able to do this with alternative, non-toxic, organic fertizers. They’re pretty cheap, very easy to use, and really do the trick. You just put the stuff down a few times in spring and summer, and that’s it.

Now, I’m a busy guy, fulltime job, two kids; finding an hour just to mow the lawn is challenging enough. Pulling weeds is not going to happen. What’s beautiful about organic weed control is that these products (I’ve provided links below) follow a preemergence model; this means that you put it on before weeds sprout. You use these as a replacement for “weed and feed” products that traditional garden centers sell.

The magical thing about this – and it is truly magical, if you ask me – is that corn gluten meal, a by-product of cornstarch manufacturing, inhibits seed growth naturally. I don’t know if you’d want to eat the stuff, but it’s totally safe to have around yourself, your kids, your pets and the planet. And it makes a beautiful green lawn to boot.

There’s a nice overview of the science behind corn gluten meal here; the only warning I’ve seen is for folks with corn allergies.

There are several ways to use these products, and the manufactures often suggest alternating treatments between their weed preventer and their natural fertilizers. But I’ve had very good success just using the weed preventer by itself, because it also includes lawn food (the “feed” side of weed and feed). I start early in spring, just before the forsythia bloom (I’m in central New Jersey, which is zone 7), and before the crabgrass starts (this will be the last you see of that stuff too, trust me). For me, this is around the second or third week of March; I’ve also waited until early April with success.

To put it down you use a standard fertilizer spreader; the weed control manufactures often suggest which settings to use according to your spreader type. You can’t use too much of the stuff; it’s so mild there’s no chance of “burning” your lawn. It’s best to do this on a day it may rain, but in truth I’ve never worried too much about this. The stuff starts breaking down in a few days, and you’ll know because it smells, well, none too appetizing, let’s say. To me, this is the only drawback. A minor inconvenience.

Then you wait about five weeks and do it again. I usually do three applications per season.

And that’s it; the only other lawn maintenance I do in early spring is to aerate the yard with those funky spiked shoes (just do a Google search for Lawn Aerator Shoes). True, the neighbors may think you’re nuts as you walk across your lawn but it does start conversations. So think of it as community building.

Now I’m just waiting for a neighbor to drop a complement, at which point I can whip out my stash of Cockadoodle Doo, or Wow! Plus and tell ‘em they could eat their lunch off the lawn, if they wanted to. And their dog won’t drop dead from walking through the backyard, either.

Resources

There are many places to find corn gluten meal on the web; two sources I like very much are:

• Corn Gluten Meal from Amazon
• Wow! Plus from Gardens Alive
• Cockadoodle DOO from Purebarnyard

There are pros and cons to each of these companies; Amazon’s probably the cheapest; Cockadoodle DOO has the advantage of being available in stores; check their site for a store locater.

On the other hand, Gardens Alive has a terrific “Gardens Solution” program - sort of like a frequent-flyer program - which you can use to buy any of their excellent organic gardening products at a discount.

Good luck and healthy gardening!

This post was submitted by Eric.

Let’s get one thing straight: No Democrat is going to satisfy the many concerns – and alarms - felt by progressives. Show me the legitimate candidate with a chance of winning who has even mentioned:

• A single-payer health care system that covers EVERY person
• Instant runoff elections
• The runaway Industrial/Military Complex
• Millions of full-time workers who live in poverty (or just in great financial despair)
• The massive shift in wealth towards the top percent
• Desperately needed prison reform
• The shame and shock of factory farms

And so many others. (Google’s got 3,440,000, for starters. So go nuts.)

But still. I voted for Obama in the NJ primary and will support him for the nomination. And I’m a Green at heart. But the alternatives are too creepy to think about. I mean, we’ve seen the difference between neoliberalism and neoconservatism. The first is disheartening. The other, frightening.

So I am supporting Obama because even beyond his progressive, often hard-believe rhetoric, Hillary Clinton can’t win a national election anyway. Why? Because a Hillary campaign takes the biggest foreign policy disaster in our history OFF THE TABLE. It’ll be John Kerry all over again. We’ll have a President McCain.

I guess it’s possible that Hillary - if she should end up grabbing the nomination - could slip by McCain if some right-wing third-party independent candidate wins over the AM radio folks and splits the right. But what would that get us? A center-right democratic hawk that “triangulates” and caves in at every turn.

But beyond the petty political “horse race” there’s the undeniable fact that Hillary Clinton supported this disastrous, horrific, illegal war. This makes her unsupportable for me. Period.

So I’m with Obama, because he can win over moderates and he can win over progressives. I don’t know how sincere he really is, but he can sure spin phrases to warm the heart of this progressive. Consider these nuggets:

This is good stuff. Are they just words? Maybe. Even probably. But words lead to ideas, and ideas can change into movements. At the very least this seems like a better place to start than another round of Billary.

…posted by Eric Heller….

Looks like the “forces that be” (hm…and just to whom might I refer?) are working hard to kick out a true-blue progressive from Congress in November. The Largest Majority has the story, a video and a rather chilling word-to-the-wise:

The guy’s progressive stripes are undeniable, and he’s the coolest vegan I know in Congress. You can contribute to his re-election campaign here.