Weekly Green Challenge (triple dose)

Last week’s challenge was to give your car some loving, and below I’ve given couple of simple and obvious suggestions.  Check out the honor roll for more ideas.

With the time change and checking your smoke detectors’ batteries, you should also think about getting the car a tune up.  In addition to saving gas money, routine maintenance will either help you over the 200,000 mile threshold or help you get a better trade-in credit.  Of course keeping the air filter and oil changed is important, but also be sure to have the tires rotated and their pressure checked.  Proper tire inflation helps with their wear and your gas mileage.

Our household is into our sixty-second week of being a one car household!  With our one year milestone and our return from walking hilly San Francisco, we decided to park the car one day a week.  If you have public transit, use it!  Not only will it reduce your footprint, but you are also providing a good job to someone in your community and decreasing the congestion for someone else.

This week’s challenge to have zero food waste is second nature for me, thanks to my mom’s super frugal habits.  Dinners’ leftovers became either lunch or a late night snack, and I carry on the tradition in our home.  If I don’t eat it, my husband will most likely throw it in a burrito wrapper with cheese to finish it off.  My biggest problem with food waste are those ingredients I buy to make special recipes then fail to incorporate into our weekly meal plans.  This week I have a portion of cream cheese left over from the super awesome peanut butter chocolate cake I made for our wedding anniversary, but other recipes include my favorite golden sesame tofu that leaves me with pineapple juice or the plethora of recipes that call for just egg whites or egg yolks.

Regarding the reclaimed or recycled challenge, I did go for Marcal’s Small Steps because it was half the cost of the Seventh Generation pack, and I don’t mind it (and my honey hasn’t complained yet either).  Thanks for your thoughts!

Big Three Bailout?

While I cannot imagine anyone who would argue that failure from the Big Three US auto makers would be devastating to our slumping economy, I am enraged that anyone is even suggesting that Detroit deserves a bailout.  The financial industry has been overly greedy, and no, I don’t believe they deserved a bail out; however, Detroit has been in jeopardy since the eighties.  I watched Roger and Me over ten years ago.  Since the Big Three seem to blame all of their financial woes on their pensions and the credit crunch, it seems to me that they should’ve gotten behind universal healthcare years ago.  However, I think we should be realistic and place the blame where it truly belongs: greedy short sightedness.  Detroit should not have stood in the way of producing higher fuel efficiency vehicles for the past twenty years; they should have gotten behind universal healthcare.  Research and development money should have been spent on more fuel options not more cup holders and DVD players. 

It is outrageous that this bailout was passed in the first place, and who is going to be brave enough to stand up and say enough is enough?

I am not an economist, but I want the bailout to stop going to corporations that have been exacerbating the gap between the classes in this country; I am angry that although the banks have been given the cash injection, they still don’t want to lend.  It disgusts me that Congress has no problem writing checks to major corporations with huge accounting departments that should know better, but there is never enough money for healthcare.  There is never enough money for a public transportation initiative, and even after the August 2007 bridge collapse which followed the 2005 levy failure, there isn’t enough money to maintain the existing infrastructure of this country.

Enough with excessive and reckless corporate welfare; help the unemployment and underemployment problem by putting people to work on both our aging infrastructure and the infrastructure of new energy.  Follow Senator Clinton’s plan to give funds to cities and local governments so they can purchase foreclosed homes, and help homeowner’s get their stupid and reckless loans refinanced; if taxpayers have to help out people that made bad decisions and should have known better, I would rather help out those that don’t have finance degrees over those that do.  Assistance should go to actual citizens not corporations.

Not that I do not enjoy a lump sum payment from out of nowhere, but I think it would be pandering and ill advised to dole out another economic stimulus payment to the general public.  I don’t recall exactly where I heard this, but someone said that a repeat of the recent payments would be a nice boon to China and Mall Wart as everyone would rush to buy another big ticket television or maybe just more cheap, plastic crap.  Besides, spending too much is part of what created this nasty mess.

Sacrifice and conservation are on the menu for the foreseeable future, and I hope we can take this opportunity to improve our country and economy.

President Barack Hussein Obama

Whoo-hoo!  After waking up at 5:20am on Election Day to spend most of fifteen hours handing out ballots, my trepidation and hope carried me through until I heard that Senator Obama had won the election by a good healthy margin that cannot be stolen.  After I tried to watch my local races, I passed out and had to helped into bed sometime after eleven.  

When I arrived at work the reality of the world hit me and deflated my elation.  I work with two ultra conservatives (in a three person office), and they seem to be looking forward to a failed Obama presidency.  However, I will not be cowed, and I am still joyous and proud of this country.  I am thankful that I was able to finally vote for a candidate who was not the lesser of two evils.  I truly believe that President-elect Obama will be a fearless leader who will give this country his all to raise us out of the mess we are in.  He will remind our elected officials that they work for the people not the lobbyists, and he will remind us, the people, that prosperity and happiness have to be earned with hard work not purchased on credit.

I hope to see a major transition from old school energy to new renewable and safe energy.  I can’t wait to see increased public transportation options; I want everything from bike lanes, sidewalks, bus stops, more buses, and light rail for longer travels.  

I look forward to living in a country where health care is a right not a privilege.  I am excited to think that prevention will take precedence over reactive surgery and drug abuse.  I cannot wait for the boom in the health care industry due to the new insureds as they will be even more stable, well paying jobs.

The thought of the wealth being spread not to major, multinational, multi-billion dollar corporations, but to hard-working families and small businesses is so energizing, and I cannot wait to do my part in stopping corporate welfare.

I love my country, and its ideals.  I am genuinely proud to be an American today, and I think is the first time I have been so proud.  I say this because I love this country, but it is the love of a parent for a child.  I am not blind to the blunders, and I think I help the future more by being critical rather than fawning.

Although the road is long and seemingly never-ending, YES WE CAN!