Burt's Bee S?

Well, didn't this just ruin my night:

My first introduction to natural, organic and eco-friendly products stems back to the early '90s,  when I stumbled upon Burt’s Bees lip balm at an independently owned health food store in the heart of Westport, Kansas City, Mo.

Before the eyesore invasion of ’98, when Starbucks frothed its way into the neighborhood, leading to its ultimate demise, Westport was the kind of  'hood I still yearn for. It was saturated with historically preserved, hip and funky, mom-and-pop-type establishments, delivering their goods people to people.

I was surprised more recently when I saw Burt's Bees products everywhere -- in grocery stores, drug stores, corner bodegas and big-box stores like Target and Wal-Mart. I thought to myself, fantastic; the marketplace is working, and good for Burt. He has made his mark, and the demand for his products is on the rise.

Needless to say, I was shocked when I recently found out that Burt's Bees is now owned by Clorox, a massive corporate company that has historically cared very little about the environment, but whose main industry is directly associated with harmful chemicals, some of which require warning labels for legal sale.

Clorox; yes, that's right -- the bleach company with an estimated revenue of $ 4.8 billion that employs nearly 7,600 workers (now bees) and sells products like Liquid-Plumr, Pine-Sol and Armor All, a far cry from the origins of Burt.

I now understood. The reason Burt's Bees products were everywhere was precisely because they now had a powerful corporation in the driver's seat, with big marketing budgets and existing distribution systems.

Burt's Bees is not the only you-thought-it-was-green product to have gone corporate lately.

Tom's of Maine is owned by Colgate-Palmolive, a massive, tanklike company with an estimated 36,000 employees and revenue of approximately $11.4 billion. Its big products include: Ajax, Anbesol and Speedstick.

And:

Over in the breakfast aisle, my friend was a bit apoplectic when we learned that the "super healthy" Kashi cereals, the favorites of millions of healthy breakfast eaters, was bought in July 2000 for an "undisclosed sum" by Kellogg's, the 12th-largest company in North American food sales, according to Food Processing. I picked up a box of Kashi's "Go Lean Crunch" and searched every word; not one mention of the fact that Kellogg's owns them. That change was rally below the radar. In 2004, Kraft Foods, known for processed cheeses and Kool-Aid, bought the natural cereal maker Back to Nature. Kraft is a subsidiary of Altria, which also owns Philip Morris USA, one of the world's largest producers of cigarettes.

According to the New York Times, "Many of the alternative cereal brands are owned by larger companies, including Kellogg and General Mills."

And:

I didn't have to go any further than the organic chocolate aisle of my favorite deli to find Green and Black's organic chocolate was taken over in 2005 by Schweppes, the 10th-largest company in North American packaged-food sales.

And on it goes.

Now I'm not surprised that the corporate giants are getting into the supposedly sustainable foods game since there is huge market demand for it. Which, as Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle and other writers on the subject of food politics have emphasized, defeats the purpose of this new movement which is all about getting away from the evils of mass production, long distance transportation and factory organic farming and producing healthy food in ways that don't rape the environment or exploit people.

I regularly buy both Green & Black's, Kashi and Burt's Bees products, thinking I am doing a good thing. And maybe I am. I mean, it's better than buying totally non-green products.

But i am shocked to discover that I could be supporting many of the same corporations that got us in this mess in the first place.

A breed apart

The great Chris Hedges: We are breeding ourselves to extinction.

The overpopulated regions of the globe will ravage their local environments, cutting down rainforests and the few remaining wilderness areas, in a desperate bid to grow food. And the depletion and destruction of resources will eventually create an overpopulation problem in industrialized nations as well. The resources that industrialized nations consider their birthright will become harder and more expensive to obtain. Rising water levels on coastlines, which may submerge coastal nations such as Bangladesh, will disrupt agriculture and displace millions, who will attempt to flee to areas on the planet where life is still possible. The rising temperatures and droughts have already begun to destroy crop lands in Africa, Australia, Texas and California. The effects of this devastation will first be felt in places like Bangladesh, but will soon spread within our borders. Footprint data suggests that, based on current lifestyles, the sustainable population of the United Kingdom—the number of people the country could feed, fuel and support from its own biological capacity—is about 18 million. This means that in an age of extreme scarcity, some 43 million people in Great Britain would not be able to survive. Overpopulation will become a serious threat to the viability of many industrialized states the instant the cheap consumption of the world’s resources can no longer be maintained. This moment may be closer than we think.

A world where 8 billion to 10 billion people are competing for diminishing resources will not be peaceful. The industrialized nations will, as we have done in Iraq, turn to their militaries to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuels, minerals and other nonrenewable resources in the vain effort to sustain a lifestyle that will, in the end, be unsustainable. The collapse of industrial farming, which is made possible only with cheap oil, will lead to an increase in famine, disease and starvation. And the reaction of those on the bottom will be the low-tech tactic of terrorism and war. Perhaps the chaos and bloodshed will be so massive that overpopulation will be solved through violence, but this is hardly a comfort.

Give women reproductive choices, education and equal rights and the world will change ... for the better.

I don't get all those religious fundamentalists -- and I don't care what god they worship -- who think their faith is going to save them and their children.

It just makes no sense at all.

Through the wringer

Back to the con job Federal Budget 2009.

If you missed yesterday's post, please have a look: It's about how the Cons really don't care about the increasing number of unemployed in Canada. They would even deny them EI because the maximum $447 a week anybody can get -- and that's a relatively small percentage of those who need EI -- is tantamount to living high off the hog. Whoopeeee!

The good news is, not all Liberal MPs are falling into line behind their fearless probation officer. That despite the media rah-rah approval of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's nakedly political stand. Well, the media have been on the wrong side of the voters before. I remember the Charlottetown Accord.

So kudos to the two MPs who have spoken up so far.

A second Liberal MP said Friday he is prepared to vote against the Conservative budget if it is not amended to resolve what is seen as punitive measures against Newfoundland and Labrador.

Avalon MP Scott Andrews told CBC News he will "absolutely not" vote for the federal budget unless it is changed to prevent Newfoundland and Labrador from losing $1.6 billion in the next three years.

Andrews follows Judy Foote, who represents the southern Newfoundland riding of Random-Burin-St. George's, in deciding to risk a possible reprimand from their caucus, if Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff decides to endorse the budget as it is.

Andrews said, however, that Liberals from Newfoundland and Labrador are trying to persuade Ignatieff to support their cause.

Foote told constituents in an email that enough people have contacted her office about the budget that she has sufficient "hard evidence" about the feelings of constituents.

Newfoundland and Labrador's six Liberal MPs are being pressured to vote against the budget, should it not be amended to delete language that could see the provincial government lose about $1.6 billion in offset payments over the next three years.

Meanwhile, there's a movement afoot in the fem-o-sphere to alert Liberal MPs that they're screwing the majority of the population by approving this budget. This is just the thin edge:

If women are a constituency, then it makes sense that Canadian women contact the Liberal critic responsible for the status of women, Anita Neville, because the budget fails women in a huge way:

- continues the attack on pay equity in the civil service

- provides no support to the working poor or those living in poverty

- does nothing to provide desperately-needed childcare supports

- provides stimulus to male-dominated areas of the economy, further ghettoizing the “pink ghetto''

Head over to the Regina Mom for info on who and how to write.

Today's treeware column also took on the budget, but from an environmental perspective. It shows how everybody is getting burned.

My dishwasher is 16 years old.

I bought my fridge 18 years ago.

My solid steel washer and dryer just turned 31.

As for my stove, well, it was in the house when I moved in – and the Quebec manufacturer went out of business in the 1980s.

All work great, thanks to the superior construction of yesteryear, my local Greek repairman, and the fact that I have been on my own since 1991.

A couple of loads a week for the washer and drer, maybe one weekly load of dishes if I haven't had guests, and no kids to scrounge for snacks and open, close, open, close the fridge.

None of these appliances is energy-efficient by today's standards. The fridge probably consumes twice as much electricity as it needs to.

I am pretty sure the washer, which I usually run on cold, which means I need tougher and more polluting detergents, could be replaced by a newer one that requires less water.

I could spend some $3,000 to $4,000 on made-in-Canada appliances and, if not stimulate the economy, certainly tickle it, while greening my home. Everybody would win: Canadian workers, the environment and my delicates which will no longer get agitated in that old washer.

I'd do it in a heartbeat if only that joke of a Conservative budget had included appliances in its maximum $1,350 Home Renovation Tax Credit which will apply to projects like repaving the driveway or laying sod, neither of which contributes much to the environment.

So it looks as if I'll paint instead. I'll deduct the cost of the paint while paying some students to do the work – and you can bet that they won't pay taxes on the cash they get.

But hey, at least I still have my home.

As for the 60 per cent of unemployed Canadians who don't get EI, the majority of them women who have worked at minimum wage, well, I guess they can clean houses or help contractors finish basements for money under the table.

I sure hope they can find decent child care because, no matter how much retraining money the budget has allocated, it's useless to people who can't access it.

As the Progressive Economics Forum points out, the budget has "nothing to strengthen public pensions, no funding for a national anti-poverty plan, and no significant increased investments in social needs such as early learning and childcare, social services or health care.''

Way to go Stephen Harper, and your probation officer, Michael Ignatieff.

Not only did you abandon most Canadians with your tax-credits-for-the-rich-and-corporations budget – and we saw how well those worked out for Americans – but you also sold out Mother Earth as well as our children, who will inherit the deficit and pay for your political ambitions.

Sorry but I can't be had for 317 pieces of silver, or whatever my tax cut works out to be.

What's more, you did this at a time when we are looking south with leadership genius-envy. We can see U.S. President Barack Obama's economic plan, one that puts the environment and a sustainable economy at the forefront.

Especially infuriating in all of this is the Liberal response.

Watching Ignatieff bluster about holding the government to account with regular report cards yada-yada all-hat-no-cattle bluster, I couldn't help but yell at my old not-eligible-for-a-tax-credit-but-that's-okay TV, "Hello? You're the leader of the opposition! You're supposed to hold the government to account!''

Not a single concession, not one, did Ignatieff extract.

When you go to the government's budget website, the little icon up by the URL is that traditional finance ministerial shoe.

Would it be unladylike of me to suggest that I'd love to use it to kick these guys in their stimulus package?

A couple of readers, including one from the United Steelworkers of Canada, wrote to me to say that my sentiments are all very nice but there is no more appliance industry in Canada. I quote from one of the emails:

I read your column this afternoon and you hit the nail on the head but FYI there are no more White Goods Industries left in Canada they are all made in the US now. The last one to make those products was in Hamilton called CAMCO or GE but they closed a number of years ago. Most of the White Goods Industries were affected by the Free Trade agreement in the late 80s or earlier 90s and I'm not surprised that your machines are still working. We took great pride in Canadian made when Inglis was producing Washers and Dryers for the Canadian market. Too bad those great jobs disappeared.

Indeed.

But, if you look on GE Canada's website, and go through their product lines, you'll see a a little maple leaf symbol which denotes that model is ''Made in Canada.'' It's not all good though. Here are the dryers...which appear to be for coin laundries only. The dishwashers are made for Canadian homes. But none of the fridges are made in Canada. And it appears to be the same sad story with the ranges.

Okay, my bad -- although a couple of companies still seem to be at it, albeit with branch plants in the US and Mexico.

And now my mad. This was the picture 10 years ago. And now?

No wonder we're in such crummy shape!

Bring back manufacturing jobs.

One more thing: Ontario used to have tax rebates for energy-efficient appliance purchases. No longer. But still, if the feds allow us to deduct for made-in-China carpets, why can't we deduct for Energy Star appliances?

Why do the Conservatives hate the environment?

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Beijing York weighs in. Here's some of her letter to Anita Neville, Liberal party critic for Status of Women.

The budget presented by Harper's Conservative government is a failed attempt at addressing the severe recession we are entering. Mr. Ignatieff seems to recognize this but still insists on supporting it with the proviso of periodic report cards. This is a meaningless gesture that does nothing to protect the most vulnerable, which includes many women across Canada. This budget provides little of no relief for low income, single income, unemployed and working women.

Those who are fortunate enough to still have jobs need meaningful childcare supports, something former PM Martin recognized but didn't act upon fast enough. Those without jobs or earning low incomes need refundable tax credit mechanisms to supplement household income and not increases in income exemptions and bracketing that fail to provide women with non-taxable incomes little relief. Many of the women who will lose their jobs will not qualify for EI benefits based on the current system. And lose their jobs they will since most women are employed in the retail and services sectors (including health care) and the taxation and economic stimulus measures will not create very many opportunities or protect jobs in these sectors.

But what really galls me is that the Liberals have failed to demand a reversal of the government's attack on pay equity.

If you're interested in doing something, and i hope you are, here are the deets:

Hon. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre):

Parliament Hill Office

House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: (613) 992-9475
Fax: (613) 992-9586
EMail: Neville.A@parl.gc.ca
Web Site: www.anitaneville.ca/
Preferred Language: English

Constituency Offices

Unit D - 729 Corydon Avenue,
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3M 0W4
Telephone: (204) 983-1355
Fax: (204) 984-3979

Send Anita an Email: Neville.A@parl.gc.ca

If you're feeling lazy, just send a link to this blog post!

From gags to riches

Not much to add to today's treeware column about US President Barack Obama's repeal of the ''global gag rule'' except for some linky goodness and a repost (below) of a video from a blog entry last year:

Barely a week in the Oval Office, U.S. President Barack Obama announced some long-awaited measures that will make for a better country, if not planet.

The shutdown of the Guantanamo prison camp, new energy and environmental policies, initial passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act ... the list goes on.

But nothing he did was as world-changing as the repeal of the so-called "global gag rule,'' which made non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, certify that they "will not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning" if they wanted funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

This Obama did last Friday, even as pro-forced-pregnancy types were in Washington protesting the 36th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave women the right to control their bodies and destinies.

First enacted under Ronald Regan, who dropped it on the world in 1984 at a United Nations conference in Mexico City, and then briefly rescinded by Bill Clinton, the gag rule was re-enacted by George W. Bush on his very first day in office in 2001.

Since then, the UN, NGOs and international health experts estimate that this religion-fuelled act of censorship has, each and every year, contributed to the deaths of 70,000 women who have sought out back-alley abortions. What's more, it has resulted in the births of maybe millions of babies into disease, starvation and war.

They never had much of a chance at life anyway.

Many were the product of rape by marauding militants whose attacks on women left them incapable of caring for themselves, let alone their children.

Others were born to child brides, married or sold off to older men, and impregnated before their bodies were fully developed. As a result of this physical brutalization, these girls end up with horrible genital fistulas, which leave them completely – and I mean completely – incontinent. And so their husbands abandon them to their misery, and move on to other young wives.

According to World Vision, as many as one in four infants doesn't make it anyway. And, as other organizations, including the UN, report, every minute of every day, a woman dies in childbirth.

That's more than 500,000 a year.

What made the global gag rule especially cruel, not to mention unethical, was that it used American tax dollars – including those paid by proponents of reproductive rights – to dictate how foreign NGOs spent their own money.

If they wanted USAID funding, they could not even counsel a woman to get an abortion to save her own life. They could not refer a woman to a place where she might get such counselling – even if abortion was legal in her country.

Needless to say, this put health practitioners in ethical quandaries, restricting their medical options and rendering them unable to give patients the best treatment.

But who in the God-fearing, let's-bomb-children-in-Iraq Republican sphere cared about the lives of two-legged baby incubators?

Imagine the difference Obama's move will make to Mother Earth.

Because women around the world will now have access to better family planning, they will have fewer and healthier babies. This could lead, eventually, to less conflict over resources and land.

The planet will be less strained by overpopulation.

As for the women themselves, they may now have a chance for independence and education.

Half the world's brains and talent will not be sacrificed on the altar of anti-choice dogma. If women are not incapacitated by painful pregnancies, deadly deliveries and the unimaginable suffering in trying to protect and feed the children that do make it, they might move on to build businesses, schools, hospitals, orphanages – and a better world.

So when Obama promised hope and change, he made good in far more ways than most of us can ever imagine.

Oh wait, what am I talking about? Of course there's much to add, like reaction from the pro-forced pregnancy promoters who think life is all about having girls die. 

Anti-abortion groups were up in arms and vowed to fight the move.

"We were prepared for this and we will work very hard in Congress to see what we can do to get this overturned," Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, told AFP.

"I think it's a horrible tactic to take toward third world countries if the best we can do for them is provide organizations with the money needed to perform abortions on their children," she said.

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said lifting the gag rule was tantamount to "exporting a culture of death," and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor said he was "saddened by this decision and the lives that will be lost because of it."

Oh and let's not forget what the woman-loving Vatican had to say:

“This deals a harsh blow not only to us Catholics but to all the people across the world who fight against the slaughter of innocents that is carried out with the abortion," Msgr. Sgreccia, told the ANSA news agency, according to the Associated Press. "Among the many good things that he could have done, Barack Obama instead chose the worst.”

Yeah. Gagging. The word is appropriate.

Coin Toss

Well, the Conservatives' long-awaited budget has been tabled and, as my Star colleague Chantal Hebert pointed out on CBC Newsworld just now, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority players have thrown darts all over the board wit their $35 billion plan to give even more tax cuts to the rich.

Sure the middle class got a bone but there's no guarantee it will use the extra couple of hun or so anything that would benefit the Canadian economy. After all, how much is there for Canadians when you go to a U.S.-owned big box store to buy a made-in-China TV?

This budget has a jobs! jobs! jobs! patina too it but what good is it to get a 15 per cent tax credit for home renovations when you don't have the cash to do them in the first place or, worse, you're losing your home?

As for the environment, fuhgeddaboutit because they sure did.

More to the point, the budget doesn't redress the wrongs set out in Finance Minister's James Flaherty's ill-fated statement of last November, the one that triggered all the talk of a coalition government between the Liberals and NDP, with the Bloc's support.

Pay equity and employment insurance problems are still there -- and we all know that those directly impact women. As for childcare, you're dreaming.

Which is why both the NDP and the BQ are already talking about voting the budget down. Here's part of the NDP statement just put out:

OTTAWA – Today’s Conservative budget will not protect Canada’s most vulnerable or adequately save and create jobs, said New Democrat Leader Jack Layton.

“This budget fails to restore confidence in Mr. Harper’s ability to protect the vulnerable in Canada,” said Layton.

“In today’s budget, he prioritized $60 billion in corporate tax cuts and only $1.15 billion for the unemployed,” said Layton. He also noted Harper’s failure to reform Employment Insurance by freezing payments, maintaining the two-week waiting period and not improving eligibility requirements.

The budget also contains no mention of childcare spaces and maintains the attack on women’s ability to pursue pay equity complaints.

Here's some indie analysis from the folks at Progressive Economics Forum:

Unfortunately, the budget doesn’t include any measures to increase access to Employment Insurance (which only 40% of the unemployed now receive) or EI benefit levels, nothing to strengthen public pensions, no funding for a national anti-poverty plan, and no significant increased investments in social needs such as early learning and childcare, social services or health care.

At the same time, ignoring the advice of virtually every economist in the country, the Harper government is charging ahead with broad-based personal income tax cuts that will cost about $2 billion a year and provide the greatest benefit to those with the highest incomes.

Hidden, but still included in this budget are the cuts to transfers, controls on program spending, weakening pay equity for federal employees and the privatization plans announced in Harper’s disastrous November Economic and Fiscal Update. 

So now the question, will Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff buy this?

The only reason that the Liberals can use to dismiss the budget is that it contains permanent tax reductions for the middle and upper classes that will ensure that the nation’s recovery will be a long and rocky road.

Tax reduction is Stephen Harper’s, the Fraser Institute’s, and the Calgary School of Neo-Conservative Economic’s mantra. The neo-cons believe in this so fervently that it is second to only the Rapture in their hearts.

<SNIP>

It is for this reason, because of the covert meanness underlying the inclusion of yet another permanent tax reduction, that the aristocratic Michael Ignatieff should oppose the budget of January 2009, and replace Stephen Harper’s Conservatives with a coalition government that will help all Canadians equally through this difficult time.

The likelihood, though, is that he won’t.

Should be an interesting few days.

UPPITY WOMEN DATE: This just in from the YWCA:

YWCA Canada recognizes the confidence placed in us by the government targeting $15 million in youth internship spending to YWCA and YMCA. 

 “The government has set up some very inclusive spending with this budget for First Nations, seniors and people with disabilities, but we don’t see an awareness that Canadian women are very vulnerable in hard times,” says YWCA Canada CEO Paulette Senior. “Two-thirds of Canadians working for minimum wage are women, many taking any work they can find to hold family and community together.  Government stimulus spending must take this into account.”

<SNIP>

 "The hole in this budget is child care services. For Canadian women and their families, child care is missing, and it is vital,” says Senior. “Everything we know about building strong families says child care services are essential. And that goes double for women needing to leave violent situations. They need affordable, quality care for their children so they can go out and work. Childcare not only creates jobs but it supports women and their families. Now is the time.”   The budget announced $200 million for social housing in the north, a much needed investment.

 Unlike the November economic update there was no mention of pay equity in the budget.  “We are very sorry to hear a resounding silence from the government on this issue,” says Paulette Senior. “Especially as job stimulus spending is concentrated in employment sectors heavily dominated by men. The government needs to rethink its position on this equality issue and take the advice of its own task force.”

“Today’s budget announcement recognizes the urgent need for spending across sectors,” says Senior.  “With this promise now on the horizon, we look forward to working with the government to help implement a gender focus in the rolling out of new programs and services that will truly support Canada’s most vulnerable women and their families”. 

UP YOURS DATE: More from the Progressive Economics Forum:

The more I read Budget 2009, the less stimulus I see.

Starting to look like an EPIC FAIL ...

UP WITH THE PEOPLE DATE: Here's the budget from the point-of-view of the two low-income ladies at Challenging the Commonplace.

The new federal budget has nothing for the working poor of this country. Yet we are precisely the people who would be most likely to spend, rather than save, any money given us to bolster our starved budgets.

Go read their whole post.

I've written to Michael Ignatieff and told him how this budget blows off the environment and working women, 2/3rds of whom make minimum wage. Here's his email address, and if you write, please copy Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe.

To: 'Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca'
Cc: 'layton.j@parl.gc.ca'; 'duceppe.g@parl.gc.ca'

Ignatieff is said to be making his decision on this tonight.

The Fundamental Value of a Good Book

Earlier this week, The Star's Kristin Rushowy reported that the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) was reviewing the inclusion of Margaret Atwood's multi-award-winning dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale on its Grade 12 reading list. That's because, as she wrote in a follow-up today, one parent complained:

Robert Edwards says if students repeated some of the words from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in the school halls, they'd be suspended, so he questions why it is okay in the classroom.

And what about the foul language, the anti-Christian overtones, the violence and sexual degradation, asks the parent who launched a formal complaint about the Canadian novel. Don't they violate the Toronto board's policies of respect and tolerance?

<SNIP>

Edwards filed a formal compliant with the Toronto District School Board before the Christmas holidays, arguing that while the futuristic theme of the book is acceptable, its focus on "sex, brutal situations, murder, prostitution" is not.

The book "is rife with brutality towards and mistreatment of women (and men at times), sexual scenes, and bleak depression," Edwards said in a letter to the school's principal. "I can't really understand what it is my son is supposed to be learning from this fictional drivel.

"I have a major problem with a curriculum book that cannot be fully read out loud in class, in front of an assembly, directly to a teacher, a parent, or, for that matter, contains attitudes and words that cannot be used by students in class discussion or hallway conversation. Let alone a description of situations that must be embarrassing and uncomfortable to any young woman in that class – and probably the young men, too."

<SNIP>

After Edwards complained, his son was assigned another book, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and will step out of class during any discussions on The Handmaid's Tale.

Way to make your kid feel like a weirdo. But that's a parent's right, I suppose.

Nothing wrong with Huxley, whose Brave New World is still relevant. But in this world, The Handmaid's Tale, so successful it's been both a movie and an opera, is practically prognostication, and it relates to not only what is happening in some quarters of Western society but also all over the less developed and even parts of the Muslim world where women are nothing more than chattel and breeders.

Which leads to today's treeware column, reprinted here in full, with some links for readers who want more details:

The wonder is that Margaret Atwood's multi-award- winning 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale ever made it on any public school reading lists.

Not because of its sexual content, which is as titillating as test tube fertilization. But because of its lacerating look at the let's-get-back-to-that-old-timey-religion and way-of-life-when-father-knew-best-and-women-sat-in-the- corner-doing-needlework fundamentalist undercurrent running, still, in society.

It isn't slipping beneath the radar, as we saw during Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's mercifully brief run at the high priestess-ship of this cult, er, culture.

The question is, is it growing or is it just getting better organized, thanks, or not thanks, to the Internet?

The Handmaid's Tale, which has been challenged in school districts from Washington to Florida, Texas to Pennsylvania, and now, as the Star reported this week, in Toronto, is a deeply depressing and disturbing mystery set in an environmentally devastated future where, like P.D. James' 1992 Children of Men, mass infertility and fascism reign.

The difference is that, in Atwood's version, most women, rather than all men, have been rendered sterile, and those that can still reproduce are drafted as baby incubators/reproduction slaves to the ruling elite.

And, hah, they are covered in robes not unlike burkas.

There's a lot of religious and ritualistic mumbo-jumbo thrown in, not to mention the sort of sexual hypocrisy we see in clandestine Jerusalem strip clubs frequented by ultra-Orthodox Jews, in Muslim clerics seen cavorting with their mistresses on the Internet in Iran and in Bible-thumping U.S. senators and televangelists pursuing underage boys.

It's a great book and, like George Orwell's Animal Farm, required reading for my Cold War generation, and Aldous Huxley's timeless Brave New World, is exactly the kind of literature needed to stimulate thoughtful discussion amongst adolescents who might not otherwise debate much more than who should win American Idol.

Especially in times like these.

For despite the inauguration of hope and change next week on Washington's Pennsylvania Ave., the social tectonic plates have far from settled where women may rest assured that their human rights supersede those of zygotes.

Consider: U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has chosen pro-forced pregnancy pastor Rick Warren to preside. This is a very influential religious leader who has compared the number of abortions since the Roe-vs.-Wade decision in the United States, to the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, at the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel a few blocks away, the American Life League will be gearing up for its "Personhood Conference," which is all about giving a half-dozen cells of human tissue supremacy over the woman in whose body they were created.

Oh but that's not all. The so-called "patriarchy movement'' is gaining momentum, with thousands signing on to ancient Christian ideas of women's submission and cloistering.

Not in Canada you say?

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper can barely keep the lid on his forward-to-the-past party in which members demand legislation to protect "the unborn child'' and MPs head up the anonymous "pro-life caucus.''

His previous minority government silenced women's rights advocacy groups while "think tanks'' such as the Ottawa-based Institute of Marriage and Family Canada enjoy access to Parliament Hill and to newspaper opinion pages to pitch an anti-choice, anti-national-child-care, anti-gay-rights and anti-divorce agenda.

This while the Vatican blames women on the Pill who use the toilet, as it said this month, for the decrease in male fertility all over the world, which scientists have attributed, among other things, to the dumping of chemicals in the environment and the growth hormones used in the meat industry.

So is it any wonder that some people find The Handmaid's Tale – which is also about censorship – too threatening to have on Grade 12 reading lists?

God knows, it might give kids the ability to look critically at what's happening out there.

It's worth going to the Star's website for Kristin and my originals because there's a heck of a huge debate raging in the comments, especially on Kristin's story.

One note regarding the sexual content: It's straight out of the Bible, as in Rachel, Leah and Jacob.

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, Give me children or I shall die! […] Then she said, Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees, and even I may have children through her.

In fact, a whole lot of the novel is based on the Bible.

Figures.

Being green, seeing red

Okay, I hardly eat any meat for environmental (and humanitarian) reasons. My water footprint is one-third that of the average Canadian. My fuel-efficient car, bought new in 2003, doesn't even have 35,000 klicks on it, most of them racked up driving to Montreal, not in town. I walk everywhere. I use biodegradable poop bags for the dog. I only run the dishwasher when full, use CFLs, unplug appliances and turn off computers when not in use. I repair, reduce, reuse, recycle and eject. So I'm green as one can be green in Toronto.

But I will never be this green.

There are 85 million women of menstruating age in North America. Conservative estimates are that the average woman disposes of between 10,000 and 15,000 tampons, pads and applicators in her lifetime1. That’s about 250 to 300 pounds of waste per woman.

In 1999, about 2.5 million tampons, 1.4 million pads, and 700,000 pantiliners were flushed away daily.

Waste consultant Franklin Associates reports that 13.5 billion pads and 6.5 billion tampons, plus their packaging, ended up in landfills or sewage systems in 19983. In the United States and Canada alone, more than 12 billion pads and tampons are tossed annually.

Disposable pads are made with polyethylene plastic. Producing polyethylene contributes to global warming and depletes the ozone, while emitting sulfur and nitrogen oxides, which add to acidification.

According to the Center for Marine Conservation, more than 170,000 tampon applicators were collected along U.S. coastal areas between 1998 and 19996. The Ocean Conservancy collected and cataloged debris along U.S. coastlines between 2001 and 2006, finding that tampon applicators made up 2.2 percent of the total debris field, more than syringes, condoms and plastic six-pack rings combined.

Most women are not aware that safe, ecologically sound, lower-priced alternatives exist. We have been conditioned since childhood by slick commercials for disposable products. The companies that make reusable products don’t have the revenue from massive repeat sales, like tampon and pad companies do, to advertise on television and in major print outlets. Word of mouth is vital.

Most obvious among “green” alternatives are washable cloth pads and pantiliners.

I don't think so.

Listen, women have enough to worry about without having to resort to this. We have enough to deal with in the office without schlepping around rags and emptying cups. I am still traumatized by leakage I experienced on a pleated white skirt back in Grade 6.

You want to get rid of something? How about pantyhose? That takes up a lot more landfill -- while being completely unnecessary -- than tampons.

And how about men doing their share? How many of those cars backed up at the Tim's drive-thrus are filled with guys? Most of them, I'll bet, because, from what I can see in my own travels, it's mostly women (and students)  taking the TTC.

So no. I'll stick with my super-absorbent with wings whatever and hope that the industry comes up with products that are disposable but not so toxic to the environment.

And by the way, why is there GST, still, on these products?

UPPITY DATE: I've been thinking. Maybe I'd consider a switch, if men stopped using disposable razors and aerosol shaving foam and went back to straight razors and shaving brushes. Why should women bear the burden of saving the environment?

THAT TIME OF THE MONTH DATE: Okay, okay. With so many readers telling me that they use and endorse these products, I'll check them out. But, if anything goes wrong, I have your email addresses and I am sending you the cleaning bills.

Booby Trap

Yesterday, I blogged about how the Catholic Church is blaming The Pill for male infertility. Something about how women taking contraception are polluting the water supply by flushing away all that estrogen into the world's water supply.

Blame the fornicating females, as usual.

Coincidentally, today comes this news from the Canadian Women's Health Network. No, it's not your imagination. Little girls are turning into big girls a lot sooner than they used to. They're developing breasts and getting their periods at younger ages than, say, 40 years ago and that apparently puts them at greater risk for breast cancer.

That girls are hitting puberty earlier comes as no surprise to me. I can remember very well when my friends and I all got their periods back in the day, because it was pretty much all we talked about. I also can recall that few of us filled more than a ''training bra'' in Grade 7. 

As I type this, I am watching the kids from the middle school not far away head home for the day and, although they are now bundled up, I know that those girls have women's bodies underneath their puffy jackets.

For years now, I have observed class after class of girls with boobs and hips while the boys lag way behind developmentally. T'was always thus of course but now the difference seems much more pronounced. What's more, thanks to media, fashion and other socio-cultural shifts, girls are dressing and behaving much more sexually. I imagine it must be very different to be a ''tween'' nowadays.

But I digress.

According to research, all kinds of factors may be behind this earlier onset of puberty, including better nutrition. Perhaps. But, growing up in an affluent neighbourhood as I did, I didn't notice anybody starving.

So there must be other reasons for this, as the Canadian Women's Health Network piece points out:

In The Falling Age of Puberty in US Girls (2007), Sandra Steingraber, who is probably best known for her groundbreaking work on the links between environmental health contaminants and cancer, undertakes a thorough meta-analysis of the existing data on early puberty in girls. She carefully traces the complex and interlocking relationships between puberty, which includes the advent of breast buds, pubic hair and menarche (first menstruation), with physiological, psychological and environmental (nutritional, chemical) conditions, and the consequences for the maturation process of our young women.

<SNIP>

Steingraber argues that more recently, particularly in the last several decades, trends in the decline of the onset of puberty in the United States (which are similar with other affluent countries or countries with similar ethnic heritage) seem to be responding to stimuli beyond nutrition and general health.

Her report highlights numerous studies which have linked exposure to chemicals in our environment, particularly endocrine-disrupting chemicals (which can mimic hormones in the body), to a plethora of health concerns, such as shortened gestational periods in fetal development, low birth weight babies, higher rates of obesity and poor insulin regulation in the body, which are all risk factors for early puberty. This should make us sit up and take notice, since as Steingraber says, “children are exposed continuously to low-level endocrine disruptors in their diets, drinking water and air supply.” 

Chemical flame retardants, for example, polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) have been linked to earlier menstruation in girls and with earlier pubarche. Similarly, high levels of dioxin exposure have been associated with elevated risks for breast cancer and early menarche.

Also, hormonally active components, which have been linked to earlier pubertal development, can be found in a wide array of consumer products, including hair tonics, pesticides, packaging and building materials.

As a result, studies have shown hormonally active agents in the urine of US girls and traces of such known human contaminants as phthalates and bisphenol A (which was originally developed as a synthetic hormone, but is now used in all polycarbonate plastics and the linings of food and beverage cans, among other uses; it has been recently been banned in Canada for use in baby bottles). Rat studies on bisphenol A indicate that prenatal and early-life exposure can induce earlier sexual maturity.

The use of natural and synthetic hormones to promote growth in US livestock and stimulate milk production in dairy cattle (a practice banned in European countries) has also raised concern; critics of the practice believe this may contribute to early puberty onset, but again, more research is necessary.

Steingraber concludes that, in combination, this chemical cocktail may be a significant factor in causing the “new normal” rates of pubertal development in US girls, but we don’t have enough research to say for certain—only enough research to raise red flags and caution.

If women are becoming more womanly because of pollution, then it stands to reason that men are becoming less like men -- at least in fertility terms.

I don't know about you but I am finding more and more reasons to avoid eating meat and to go completely organic. This I believe will develop into one of the biggest issues of the next few years, especially as we look for ways to slow down climate change. If more people cut back on animal products, we'll cut back on environmental degradation.

Do you suppose the Pope will get down with that?

Nah. Thaty's because early puberty = early pregnancy and the more babies, the better.

Mellow Yellow

Talk about a piss-off.

The Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano now blames The Pill for the decline in male fertility.

The pill "has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature" through female urine, said Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in the report.

"We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill," he said, without elaborating further.

Well, of course the Vatican would say such a stupid thing because the Vatican is anti-contraception...and anti-science.

The research shows that many other factors are responsible for low sperm counts, including:

estrogen-like chemicals widely used in agriculture and industry. These substances are found in places ranging from drinking water to household products. Other environmental toxins that might affect male fertility are growth hormones used in livestock.

Have another look at that burger or steak sandwich Mister because it could be causing your man-boobs.

But the Pope et al. zeroes in on one thing, and one thing only. (The boldface is mine.)

The newspaper article said that, with such clear evidence of the adverse impact the pill's use has on the environment, manufacturers should offer more information about the ecological effects of the use of these synthetic hormones.

The article was based on a 100-page document published by the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations to commemorate last year's 40th anniversary of the encyclical "Humanae Vitae" ("Of Human Life").

Titled "Forty Years of Humanae Vitae From a Medical Perspective," the document examines the consequences of men and women distancing themselves "from the fundamental concept of the encyclical and choosing to favor artificial contraception."

Much of the public is unaware that the contraceptive pill also acts as an abortifacient because it affects an embryo's ability to implant successfully, the article said.

The pill's function is usually described as suppressing ovulation, but in many cases, it said, the synthetic hormones in the pill create conditions that impede implantation and, therefore, are "abortive since they expel the small human embryo."

Sooner or later, the real agenda had to emerge.

Anyway, haha. Turns out that taking the pill might actually reduce cancer risk in women -- as well as reduce the excretion of hormones in their urine. So, even if it were true -- which it's not -- that the Pill is the direct cause of the ''feminization'' in men, in the long run, taking the Pill reduces the chance of that happening.

Nice try but you can't blame Eve for turning Adam into Madam.

UPPITY DATE: Dammit Janet and Alison @ Creekside flush out the Vatican's agenda.

 

Pawsitively dogged

So, two hours, three pet stores, $50.84 and 86 cookies later ...