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I live in a neighborhood of older homes and many, many mature trees. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons Golden Boy and I bought our house — we wanted an older home surrounded by lots of big trees for both environmental and aesthetic reasons. I can’t stand most newly constructed homes, which feel like they’re built out of cardboard and have little scrubby treelings held up with wire adorning the front yards.
Everyday now when I walk my dog, I pass by an empty lot on my block where someone plans to build a new home. And everyday I lament this scene:
As you can see from the multitude of orange tape, they plan to cut down virtually every tree on the lot — over 40 trees by my estimation. Okay, I understand that they need to clear the lot in order to get a house in there, but they don’t have to take down all the trees!
Why, why build a house in this neighborhood if you aren’t interested in having some trees? Surely that is part of the appeal — that it’s such a cool, shady, established neighborhood?
Oh, humanity, when will you learn?
It’s that time of year, when thoughts turn to the frantic question of “what the hell am I going to do about xmas gifts??” I am a notorious scrooge when it comes to the xmas holidays. I’ve lobbied many times to have my family either forgo gift giving or to ignore the holidays altogether. I dream of travelling to a non-Christian, non-western country in late December, the kind of place where people treat Dec. 25 like any other day.
But, I live in the US and my family and friends — even the non-Christian ones, even the Jewish ones! — celebrate xmas and expect me to do so as well. So, I cave in to the gift-giving pressure but I also make an effort to shop well and give thoughtfully.
In my opinion, the best holiday gifts meet the following criteria:
• Cost very little. I strive to break the cycle of consumerism by not buying into (heh heh) the idea that the best gifts are the ones that cost more.
• Involve very little material expense or waste. In other words, very little natural resources or artificial materials had to go into either the production, distribution, or packaging of the item.
• Can be purchased from the maker directly or at least purchased from an independent store owner. I will do just about anything to avoid buying gifts at the big box stores or from any corporate entity.
• Are made from organic, natural, non-toxic, or locally produced materials. I put this one last because it’s the hardest criteria to satisfy — especially if you are also trying to spend less money.
My holiday gift to you, my devoted readers, is the following TOP TEN HOLIDAY GIFT IDEAS. (Eat your heart out, Oprah.) I hope that you will share your own gift ideas, especially those that fit the above criteria, either in the comments or on your own blogs. (Please link to this post so I can see what you have to say!) I should add that most of the ideas are for adults; I don’t really have a clue what to give children — especially since it seems that kids these days (insert grumpy shaking of fist here) only want gadgets with lots of lights and sound effects.
1. The gift of activity. This is my favorite gift to give and to receive. Rather than give an object — another thing to own or dispose of — give the gift of an experience: movie tickets, tickets to a concert or play, membership at a museum or arboretum, a few yoga classes, music lessons, a massage, a reservation at the handball court, etc. Now, this gift can certainly be costly — depending on the event or location — but it also involves the least waste of material goods and the highest likelihood of enjoyment.
2. Restocking the spice rack. Everyone knows that you are supposed to replace your dried herbs and spices every year but, yeah right, who does that? I tend to hold onto dried herbs and ground spices for years, until they lose all semblance of flavor. So, how about giving a selection of standard cooking herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme) and spices (cinnamon, coriander, curry)? If you buy in bulk at your local Whole Foods (or equivalent) or at the farmer’s market (if you are so lucky), you can package the herbs/spices yourself in nice — and recyclable! — packaging.
3. Magazine subscription. The gift that keeps giving throughout the year. Every month your friend/family member will be reminded how wonderful you are. A nice and easily recyclable gift.
4. Going green gift. Almost all of us are in the process of going more green but the shift over from conventional ways to more environmentally friendly ones can be expensive. So, give basic green items to help. For example, we all know that we’re supposed to stop using plastic containers for storing food (you knew that right?) and start using glass. Give the gift of some pretty glass food containers like these at the Container Store or these by Pyrex. Or give a bottle of Dr. Bonner’s Liquid Soap and an empty spray bottle for mixing a safe home cleaner. (For more ideas of “green gifts,” check out TreeHugger’s Holiday Gift Idea List.)
5. Books from Persphone Books. This independent press in London reprints popular “middle-brow” fiction from the early 20th C, mostly by women. The books are exquisitely made with reproductions of fabric patterns on the endpages. Not only are they beautiful objects, the novels themselves are a revelation — strange, quirky, and incredibly fun.
6. Textiles. There is just about nothing better than a soft, sensuous scarf or hat made from a fine (or even organic!) textile. If you are not crafty yourself, visit your local yarn shop where you might find items for sale. You can also do some online shopping at Redneck Mother’s Crafty Mother’s Corner.
7. Cookbooks. Talk about a gift with almost endless happiness attached. For a small expense, you can guarantee many days of good eating (if the recipient is willing, of course). My suggestion: Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, pretty much an indispensable contribution to any kitchen.
8. The best book you’ve read this year — something that really meant something to you. And, you should be prepared to explain why, either in your xmas card, a note in the opening of the book, or verbally — a significant part of the gift is the story of its meaning to you. For me, it would be Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which is a stellar piece of storytelling and continues Chabon’s record of being the guy whose novels I am least interested in upon first description (imaginary Jewish settlement in Alaska? No thanks) and yet who always transports and enraptures me.
9. Gifts for pets. If you know anyone who dotes on their pets, speaks about them as their children and to them as if they were children (“aren’t yu da cootiest wittle puppy”), give them a gift for their pet. Speaking as a person who is guilty of telling people at length about my cats’ special diet or my dog’s gastrointestinal issues (yes, I’m one of those), I would take a gift for my pet as a sign that the gift-giver recognized the importance my pets have to me — not to mention the fun I would derive from seeing my animal’s fun. I don’t think any dog can resist the charms of a grunting stuffed hedgehog (like this one). I don’t have any specific recommendations for cats because, of course, they will hate whatever you give them — they’re cats after all.
10. Charitable donation. It takes a special person to receive a charitable donation made in their name as a gift, and not feel slighted about not getting a “real” gift. (Trust me, I’ve given charitable donations to family members who were distinctly cranky about not getting some cheap piece of crap instead.) So, choose wisely. But, if you’ve got a selfless and generous soul in your family/circle of friends, there’s nothing better than giving in their name. If you don’t know them already, Heifer International has made holiday charity easy and appealing. But, there are an infinite number of causes: your local animal shelter, the homeless shelter(s) in your town, Doctors Without Borders, Planned Parenthood, you name it.
While I am at it, let me just add that one of the most distressing thing to me about the holidays is the amount of waste not only in the gifts themselves but in the wrapping paper, bows, cards, and etc. It breaks my heart when I walk through my neighborhood on the trash day after xmas and see piles of garbage bags filled with xmas wrapping — a few minutes of unwrapping pleasure followed by a lifetime in a landfill. So, please: re-usable gift bags (don’t throw them out! save them for next year!), recycled xmas wrapping, no more useless, unnecessary tissue paper (I’m on a personal campaign against the stupidity of tissue paper), creative wrapping like brown paper grocery sacks or left over cereal boxes, or wrap everything in a new kitchen towel that becomes part of the gift. It’s not the wrapping, stupid, it’s the gift that matters.
As the Bittersweet Girl, I have been known to use this blog to make sweeping pronouncements. That’s one of the things I enjoy about blogging – you can make claims, generalizations, and suppositions without having to provide any supporting evidence, acknowledge counter-arguments, or give a damn what anyone else thinks.
One of my pronouncements is that COSMETICS ARE EVIL. A recent search term leading to my blog was “bitter sweet cosmetics evil,” so apparently I am known by at least one reader for this bold statement.
I thought that, maybe just this once, I would make an attempt to support my argument, if not with actual evidence, than a more elaborate statement of my opinion.
Let’s review the case against cosmetics.
The accused, “the cosmetics industry,” encompasses all varieties of makeup, including lotions, creams, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, hair styling products, and every other unguent we are encouraged to spread on our bodies in the interest of preserving our youth, achieving our optimal health, and looking “beautiful.” And, yes, it includes hair dye, one of the worst offenders.
The sins of cosmetics industry are the following:
1. The use of natural and artificial resources that could more properly be used for socially necessary or beneficial ends. This includes the energy resources that cosmetics companies use to produce, package, and ship their products, as well as to create in laboratories the various hyphenated chemical compounds that constitute most cosmetics. Also, the plastics and other materials that go into the packaging, most of which are not recyclable.
2. The inclusion of many chemicals that are harmful to the health and well being of cosmetics users, and to the environment overall. Since the FDA is a weak federal regulatory organization and deep in the pockets of corporate America, the cosmetics industry continues to use chemicals that are dangerous to our health, including parabens and phthalates. Not only do these chemicals threaten to harm individuals’ health when they repeatedly spread cosmetics on their skin, but they also threaten to further damage the environment when such products are washed into the water system (as when your hairdresser washes your hair dye down the drain) or are deposited in landfills (after you throw that half-empty bottle of nail polish in the garbage).
3. The use of animal testing. While it is necessary for cosmetics industry to verify that the latest brand of fashionable eye liner won’t cause a suburban housewife to break out in hives, it is insupportable that the means of doing so is the confinement, suffering, and death of animals.
4. The complicity of the cosmetics industry with the fashion and beauty industries overall in promoting the idea that women should be judged primarily by their appearance rather than their intellect, character, or abilities. Moreover, fostering the idea that women should be dissatisfied with they way they appear naturally – and must rely upon external applications or adornments to look “better” or even to look “right.” I hardly need to review the feminist condemnation of the beauty industry for the ways it has entrenched the idea that there is a single standard for beauty, or the consequences for women’s self-esteem – do I?
To elaborate:
I simply don’t see how anyone can argue against the first point. Could anyone rationally claim that the energy, materials, and technological resources that are employed by the multi-million-dollar-a-year cosmetics industry are better spent making eye shadow and anti-wrinkle creams than in feeding the hungry or improving the environment?
But, it’s not just the cosmetics industry that has its balance sheet out of whack. Every time that we spend our money on makeup, we perpetuate a culture of consumption that places the individual superficiality over substance – and affirm that we’d rather make ourselves look nice than to use our individual resources to do something meaningful like, say, give to a charity, or buy slightly more expensive organic produce or grass-fed free-range beef, or even to save our money and stay out of debt!
Sure, it is true that not every kind of cosmetics employs dangerous chemical components. It has become popular lately for cosmetics to trumpet themselves as “all natural,” “100% organic,” etc. We all know that most of these claims are unregulated by the FDA and essentially meaningless. However, there are cosmetics companies that are known for being more environmentally and health conscious than others.
Treehugger recommends Avalon Organics, Dr. Bronners, and The Organic Pharmacy, among a host of others. I used to be a big fan of Bert’s Bees until I learned it was owned by Clorox and I have had serious skin reactions to Aveda products – so I have a hard time endorsing either of those eco-organo-cosmetic powerhouses. But, the point is, that careful shoppers can identify cosmetics that don’t sin in their contents.
There are also companies that refuse to use animal testing. PETA’s Caring Consumer site provides a list of anti-animal testing cosmetics companies. If you join PETA you’ll get a wallet-sized card identifying animal-friendly companies for convenient reference. There is also a handy “leaping bunny” logo identifying the companies that comply with the Humane Cosmetics Standard that you can find on the products themselves.
Again, however, it depends upon the consumer to shop carefully and responsibly to regulate the cosmetics industry – to regulate with your dollars where they won’t regulate themselves – and that takes time and effort that many aren’t willing to sacrifice. The search for the Holy Grail of cosmetics that unites all the good characteristics – organic, chemical-free, non-animal-tested, minimally packaged in recyclable materials, and still effective – is a challenging one, not to mention that that such products tend to cost far more. In a million little ways, corporate America conspires to make it easier for us to just buy what’s at hand and to willfully ignore the consequences.
I know that many will argue that wearing makeup, using hairspray, painting ones toenails, getting highlights, spending money on anti-wrinkle medications and treatments, and so forth does not necessarily mean that a woman is demeaned. “Fun feminists” would say that they do it for themselves, that it makes them feel better about themselves – more empowered, more in control, more secure. I find this argument specious to the extreme. The whole “I’m doing it for myself” claim assumes that you live in a vacuum or never leave your house – that you’ve somehow magically slipped the bonds of patriarchy.
In a recent screed against burlesque sexuality, the brilliant Twisty Faster condensed the problems with the “I do it for myself” argument: Quote: “The idea that women’s public sexuality can so precisely mirror traditional male fantasy while simultaneously existing in a kind of pro-woman, I-do-it-for-myself alternate universe is the cornerstone of funfeminist ‘thought.’ The flaw in this reasoning is that all women must participate in patriarchy regardless of what they say motivates their participation; patriarchy is the dominant culture, and there is no opting out. Which means there is no opting in, either. Do it for me, do it for you, whatever; the primary beneficiaries of women’s participation — willing or unwilling, ironic or sincere — in patriarchy, are men.”
To paraphrase Twisty: The idea that you can wear makeup or style your hair in a way that meets dominant ideals of women’s beauty but somehow simultaneously escape from the patriarchal constructs of the beauty industry is, well, a nice fantasy, but that’s about it.
I wish I could say that I have successfully escaped the grip of the evil cosmetics industry but, of course, I still use many cosmetic products. In my efforts to become a more ethical and environmental consumer, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest answer for me to the cosmetics conundrum is to eliminate all unnecessary products. What I have concluded as unnecessary (for me) includes makeup, hair dye, nail polish, etc. These items seem to be designed purely to make me fit into some externally and artificially derived concept of “beauty.” But, I still consider necessary items like shampoo/condition, hair gel, lotion, etc. that seem (to me) to be more about cleanliness or neatness than about being “beautiful.” It’s a daily struggle but I am working on redefining beauty for myself as centered around spirit, good works, love, and compassion – and not physical appearance.
While I am discussing consumer products that are marketed to and used almost exclusively (or, in this case, entirely) by women, that present health hazards to their users, as well as environmental hazards through their disposability, I think it’s fair to say that FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS ARE EVIL. May I delicately point you in the direction of the Diva Cup?
Want to know more? TreeHugger has an amazing resource page on How to Green Your Personal Care.
Near my house is large, run-down mall. Once upon a time it may have been a nice mall but it’s hit hard times: lots of empty stores, very few customers, a general air of decay and neglect. Basically, it doesn’t have much to offer by way of shopping.
But, it does have a great big empty parking lot. A couple times a year the parking lot gets taken over by traveling fairs — you know, the kind that seem to have Death Trap spelled out in neon lights? I’m always amazed that there are still such fairs and that people still go to them — at least enough to keep them in business.
Also, there is a yearly circus that unfolds its tents in the mall parking lot.
I know that the circus is in town because, as I drive on the highway right by the mall, I look over and there, standing in the parking lot, are two elephants. They are underneath a small tent but it’s open on all sides so the elephants are plainly viewable.
I can’t even express the heart-pain it gives me to see these creatures in this environment. The image is burned into the retinas of my eyes: the small space of the tent, the way they just stand there, their heads bent, the blue plastic tarp over their heads, the asphalt beneath their feet.
The absolute wrongness of their location is maddening to me — and, I suspect, to them.
Animal rights activists are always accused of over sentimentalizing animals — so I won’t talk about the fact that elephants are incredibly intelligent creatures, that they have demonstrated a capacity for deep emotion and memory. I won’t mention that their ability to implement their circus “routines” might be further evidence of their ability to not just learn but to think and feel.
No matter what, they don’t deserve to be standing in the mall parking lot. Surely we can all agree?
My heart is broken for them.
Elephants as they should be.
I am annoyed:
• By the fact that disposable razors are so much cheaper than reusable ones, because the replaceable razor blades cost a fortune.
• By this woman’s warm, cultured voice and smart pantsuit, intended to reassure me that the oil crisis is in capable hands.
• That the little green plastic baskets that cherry tomatoes come in are not recyclable!!
• That e-greetings cards seem so uncaring or lazy, so I feel obligated to send paper cards instead.
• About the grey hairs on my head, visible because hair dye is evil.
• About my unpainted toenails, because nail polish is evil. Oh, yeah, as are almost all cosmetics.
• That I never remember to take my vast collection of reusable grocery bags with me to the grocery store.
• That my credit card company keeps sending me monthly bills in the mail, even though I’ve repeatedly clicked the “Go Paperless” icon and asked them not to.
• By anything in hard plastic clamshell packaging that is not only difficult and dangerous to open but is a waste of natural resources — and cannot be recycled.
• Because it’s so difficult to be an environmentally ethical consumer.
I’ve finally worked up the moral fortitude to read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. As I’ve said before, I admire Mr. Pollan and think he may be one of galvanizing forces in shaping a new awareness of environmental issues in our nation. That’s pretty grandiose: I also think he’s a great writer, able to be engaging when writing about really technical (read: boooorrring) matters.
But, boy, is he depressing. I am so depressed reading Ominovore’s Dilemma, I have to parse it out in little bits so I don’t sink into a catatonic state.
Here’s what’s got me depressed: when you read OD, it becomes clear that there’s practically nothing that you can eat that’s not compromised in some way. I consider myself a relatively savvy consumer of food stuffs: I buy as much local produce as I can at a locally-owned market. I buy organic as often as I can. I rarely eat meat but when I do, I try to eat only “good” meat (farm-raised, grass-fed, etc.). I never eat fast food unless I’m travelling and stuck in the middle of nowhere or in a crummy airport terminal, which is to say: rarely. So, while I am not lucky enough to have my own vegetable garden (how I envy Redneck Mother’s Victory Garden!), I do what I can to stay out of the evil, corporate food chain.
Or, at least I though I was doing so. But, what Pollan has revealed to me is how much I remain absolutely stuck inside of it. Pollan’s account of how Big Corn has infiltrated every aspect of our lives — basically, how almost every food product on our shelves is somehow composed of genetically modified corn (in sometimes frightening franken-corn forms) — is chilling to me. Even my favorite cereal, purported to be whole grain and organic, is made (in part) out of corn. Oh, and the unremitting pervasiveness of High Fructose Corn Syrup!
If you need to know why Big Corn is so evil, you’ll have to read the book. To summarize: bad for environment, bad for animals, bad for humans. Very, very bad.
So, what’s an ethical eater to do? I’m considering an all oatmeal, salad, and water diet.
To hell with Big Corn.
It’s so hard not to be sucked into the vortex of consumption that is the Christmas holidays. Every year I vow: minimal gifts, handmade or locally produced, organic/earth-friendly products, things useful or beautiful to the soul. And every year I get tired, busy, and desperate and I buy whatever crap that I can find. Usually it’s purchased from a big-box, corporate store, made out of mysterious and likely toxic materials, packaged in unnecessary layers of plastic, and costs far too much. This year I’m travelling down the familiar road of excess so it’s a good time to revisit the evils of consumer culture.
The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonord is an invaluable reminder this time of year of why it’s important to get off the consumption train, and should be required reading before anyone goes to the mall. Try not to scream when you hear about the philosophy of “perceived obsolescence.” (Thanks to Redneck Mother for the reference.)
No Impact Man is a testament to the fact that is possible to mindfully cease to be a consumer. If you haven’t read about the dramatic year-long experiment in living low impact (which just ended), start at the beginning because it’s very inspirational.
And, if you need a less guilt-inducing reason to consume less, how about motivation of the cute and fuzzy variety? Daily Coyote is a breathtakingly beautiful blog and if you don’t feel moved to protect the earth and all its creatures after reading it, check to make sure your soul’s intact. (Again, I recommend scrolling to the beginning and following the story straight through.)
How do you keep your green vows during the holidays?
