Belated Earth Day Post! Save Money and Help the Environment

Reducing your impact on the environment isn't just some Hippy dream or agenda to turn us all into vegan bark-eaters. While I'm not denying a lot of Progressives seem focused entirely on the environment to the detriment of other important issues such as Human Rights and Social Equality, I would like to point out that some of their ideas and approaches can be beneficial to your budget, help the environment, and do damage to the heartless corporations and oligarchs which currently rule our country. As this blog is for Labor and other Human Rights issues, I've been slowly illustrating ways you can save money at home (benefit to the individual) and, in doing so deprive corporations of their life-blood -- your hard-earned cash (benefit to the country).

To that end, you can easily make your own laundry detergent in your own kitchen.  I made my own yesterday and it only took about 30 minutes (tops) to do -- and that was only because I was making my daughter lunch at the same time!  The recipe I used only has 4 ingredients:  Fels-Naptha® (Ivory soap can also be used), Borax, washing soda, and water.  With the exception of the water, all these ingredients are probably in the laundry isle of your local supermarket.  Combined, the ingredients cost me about $9 after tax.  "But that's not cheap!" you're probably shouting at your screen.  Hold on.  The recipe only uses ½ of the bar of Fels-Naptha®, 1 cup of Borax, and one cup of washing soda.  When these volumes are considered, the cost per batch is reduced to about $1.70!  Frugal eh?  Where are you going to find laundry detergent for that price? 

What would you do if I told you that it costs $1.70 to make not 1, not 3, but 5 GALLONS of laundry detergent!

Now are you interested?  Now, go out and get yourself a 5 gallon bucket (around $2 from a hardware store).

Here's the recipe:

1. In a saucepan or pot, grate ½ of the Fels-Naptha® bar and top off with water -- filling the saucepan.  Don't worry, you won't ruin your pot or poison your kids, this stuff is only soap and less harmful than the stuff you use to wash it normally.
2. Heat the water at medium-high and stir every so often to help melt the soap.  This will probably take about 15 minutes.
3. Fill up your 5 gallon bucket with hot water from the tap leaving some room for the melted soap mixture.  I did this in my bathtub.
4. To the water in the bucket, add 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of washing soda, and stir.
5. When the soap has completely melted in the saucepan, pour the mixture into the 5 gallon bucket and stir.
6. That's it.  You've made liquid laundry soap.  However, it does need to cool so wait overnight or so.  You'll find the liquid soap has congealed a bit.
7. Once cooled, mix up the liquid soap and pour into what ever smaller vessels you may have laying about.  I used my old laundry detergent container, gallon milk jugs, an empty shampoo bottle....

When you do your laundry, use ¾ a cup per load.  When you do the math, the cost of soap per load for your new, environmentally safer liquid laundry soap will be somewhere between 1 and 2¢!  Beat that!  The savings can go into your bank account and stay away from greedy corporations and their plutocratic overlords.  On top of that, your liquid laundry soap isn't being transported from some factory (reducing carbon emissions), adding phosphates to the environment, encouraging the abuse of petrochemicals (whether in the manufacture of the detergent or its container), and reducing landfill waste (you're reusing containers you would probably throw away).

There you have it:  good for your bottom dollar, good for the environment, and bad for greedy bastards.

The Right's War on Labor and Everyone Else

Ignorance must be blissful. Otherwise, I can not see how Conservatives live their lives. How else can one deliberately deny the evidence they can see with their own eyes? How else can they forget recent history? It does not matter if the issue is Global Climate Change, Human Rights, or Poverty, Conservatives will almost certainly vote against their best interest and for the interests of Big Business. Now, the nascent Astroturf (né “Tea Party”) movement gives a populist shine to the corporate turd which it conceals. This continues despite the evidence of the Koch brothers' direct orchestration in the movement and the continuing disparity between the moneyed oligarchs that run this country and the Citizenry.

Americans, it seems, go around believing they are going to become millionaires someday. Sorry to piss on your parade but the odds are very slim this will ever occur to most of us. Somehow deluded into this belief by billionaires, these people then vote as though they were greedy millionaires. See, I don't believe they view themselves as greedy. Of course they don't – they're voting “responsibly” (because that's what the Kochs and their ilk have told them). Lacking any sort of critical thinking skills and an inability to take into consideration their actual situation, these people vote to put more money into corporate coffers and less into their own pocketbooks.

These same people, for the most part, have shunned the Labor Movement in the private sector of the economy. They actually believe that Home Depot is an “employer of choice”. What the hell does that actually mean? Home Depot wants you to believe it means you don't need a Union to represent your interests and that they've got all your needs covered. Despite this fact, I personally know at least two Home Depot employees who continued to work with serious conditions when they should have been home recuperating. Additionally, I have exchanged stories with workers at one store where plantar fasciitis is a chronic epidemic. These people can barely stand on their feet – despite the fact their job requires they stay on their feet all day without appropriate measures to prevent this type of an injury. Why do they stay? Easy. They need the money. They live paycheck to paycheck. A work force that is underpaid is a workforce that is easily manipulated. These people, as a group, have not utilized their right to organize and be represented because it has been placed in their heads that the Labor Movement is “bad”. What are the results of this blind acceptance of the message put out by the wealthiest and corporations? The adjusted income for non-unionized private sector workers has decreased. For the first time in history, the standard of living of a child can be expected to be less than that of his or her parents!

In an effort to continue a concentration of their power, the oligarch and plutocrats that run this country have now set their sights on the last stronghold of Unionized Labor representation – public sector employees. Social workers and their kin have managed to hold on to their standard of living. While the private sector's income has decreased, the modest income of public sector workers has held and, in doing so, has become a source of envy and jealousy. Not being stupid, Astroturf founders have utilized these emotions to gain a foothold in public opinion. You see, they don't want people in the private sector realizing they can Unionize or worse, acting on it. You see, public employees are not paid too much – the private sector is paid too little.

The United States of America is a Corporatocracy. Pure and simple. If you doubt my position, just take a look into the money that is thrown into politics and where it comes from. Not only that, lobbyists often write laws that are then voted on completely unaltered. The concept of Democracy has been corrupted when corporations are writing our laws. Now, corporations are considered “people” when it comes to free speech thanks to a Supreme Court dominated by individuals beholden to the moneyed oligarchy operating our political system. In New York, we have Andrew Cuomo who was bought by the Kochs (they paid him more than Wisconsin's Governor Walker). His recently passed budget directly attacks things like public employees, public education, and MedicAid. All of these areas are ones where the Kochs of the world lust after in the hope of turning a profit. We also have other legislators who have been bought and paid for by their respective lobbies trying to pass laws to mess with our fully-funded pension plan, and undermine the Triborough Amendment.

Privatization was once hailed as the answer to all of Governments problems. In a society where the Poor and Middle Classes are under represented by their government, I say somethings should never be privatized. In the interest of representing everyone, the government must maintain control of certain areas. As I write, conservative Republicans are now suggesting the privatization of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This really is an attempt to drive more money and more profits to the ruling class. Corporations are salivating at the money in pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare-aid yet they can't get to it. They can't make a profit on that money and, in turn, reward their masters with enormous bonuses. Privatization is nothing more than an attempt to redistribute wealth from the poorest in society to the wealthiest. It has nothing to do with efficiency or savings. There is a class war going on but it isn't coming from the Left.

We have to stop this trend in centralizing power. Hell, the United States was founded by people dead-set against the centralization of power in an elite few. Yet, we, as a nation, are allowing it to happen. Fortunately, history is on our side. It is because of Progressive movements like Labor that women can vote, slavery was abolished, and people can expect to work in a safe environment. We can do it. We have done it in the past. Now is our time to take a stand and push back against the rich elitists and their faux-populist movement. Not just for ourselves as individuals but, rather, for everyone regardless of the amount of money they have.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

The Clash and Bread

I've got another post I'm formulating in my head about some bullshit legislation being introduced in the New York State Legislature but I'm going to ruminate upon it a little longer while I'm working out.  Hopefully, I'll get it out tonight or tomorrow.  Until then I present you with this tidbit:

I recognize the Unions are trying to get caught up with the tastes of their younger members.  However, "We're not Going to Take It" by Twisted Sister, while awesome, is getting a little old to this listener.  In an effort to improve the cool factor for the Unions, I'd like to suggest they investigate the Clash.

If there ever was a band tailor-fit to the Labor and Social Justice Movements, it would be the Clash.  As an illustration of their awesomeness, I simply present their take on the Southern story of Stagger Lee -- Wrong 'em Boy-o:

Stagger Lee met Billy and they go down to gambling
Stagger Lee throwed seven
Billy said that he throwed eight
So Billy said, hey Stagger! I'm gonna make my big attack
I'm gonna have to leave my knife in your back

Why do you try to cheat?
And trample people under your feet
Don't you know it is wrong?
To cheat the trying man
So you better stop, it is the wrong 'em boy-o

You lie, steal, cheat and deceit
In such a small, small game
Don't you know it is wrong

Billy Boy has been shot
And Stagger Lee's come out on top
Don't you know it is wrong
To cheat the trying man
To cheat Stagger man
You'd better stop
So you must start all over again-all over again
You got to play it, Billy, play, you got to play it, Billy, play
And you will find it is the right 'em boy-o

But if you must lie and deceit
And trample people under your feet
Don't you know it is wrong
It is the wrong 'em boy-o

If I heard

Why do you try to cheat?
And trample people under your feet
Don't you know it is wrong?
To cheat the trying man
So you better stop, it is the wrong 'em boy-o

at a rally, I'd be psyched -- as would a lot in my generation (Gen-X -- we're notoriously hard to pin down but we do like our music).

Attention Unions of the World: Get some Clash for your rallys!  They are profoundly intelligent and their music is kick-ass.

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The invention of bread was one of humanities greatest advancements in the manufacture and storage of food.  Why is it people now buy this nearly essential food stuff as though it is a commodity?  Shelved and packaged in a supermarket.  Over priced with the profits going to some corporation somewhere?  We really ought to be distancing ourselves from the over reliance on corporations for our means of survival.  It really is a shame that, as a society, we have fallen into the "convenience trap" when we don't need to.

Making bread at home is amazingly simple and it costs pennies (yes, pennies) on the dollar when you compare it to the cost of bread in the store.  Plus, it tastes a lot better and makes your house smell great!

If you're interested in baking your own bread but you don't want to deal with kneading and all that nonsense, you're in luck.  You don't need to buy some expensive bread machine!  You can make bread at home with a bowl that you can cover (I use my crock pot) and a dutch oven (or a pizza stone and a oven-safe pot)!

Here's my recipe for a no knead whole grain bread:
Dry ingredients

1. 2 cups white flour
2. 2 cups whole wheat flour (or 2 more cups white)
3. 1 cup quick oats (or rolled oats)
4. 2 - 2.5 teaspoons salt
5. .5 teaspoon bakers yeast
6. (optional) 4 teaspoons wheat glutin
7. (optional) 4 maybe 5 tablespoons milled flaxseed

Wet ingredient -- 2.5 (maybe a touch more) warm water

Directions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in your bowl.
2. Add the water and mix.  Your mixture should be a sticky mess but not runny.  Add small amounts of water until you get something that looks a similar to sticky oatmeal.
3. Cover the bowl and leave it alone for 8 to 24 hours.  It should, roughly double in size.  Don't worry about messing things up.  If you go too long, everything will be fine (assuming it's been covered the cat hasn't sat on it).
   
4. After the dough has risen, dust a surface with flour to prevent the dough from sticking and scoop the dough out on to that surface.
5. Spread the dough out a bit and dust the top.  Fold the dough over on to itself 1 or 2 times.
6. Let the dough rest for 15 to 30  minutes (again, don't worry about going long on time).
7. After the dough has rested, form it into a boule.  Oh yeah, this recipe is for an "artisan" bread -- that expensive stuff and it's cheaper than many brands of white bread!
8. Let the boule rise for about 2 hours (at 70F, longer if cooler).
9. Preheat your oven and dutch oven to 475F.  If you are using a pizza stone, heat that up.
10. After the boule has risen and the oven has preheated, open the dutch oven and place you boule in it.  Be careful not to burn your hands.  Place the top back on the dutch oven and return it.  If you are using the pizza stone, pull it out and place the boule on it.  Then, take your oven-save pot and fill it with water and place that in the oven as well.
11. Bake the boule for 30 minutes with the top on the dutch oven (or with the pot of water in the oven).
12. After the 30 minutes, take the top off (or remove the pot with water) and bake an additional 15 minutes to crisp up the crust.  Do this final step to taste.  Some people like really crispy crusts while others like softer crusts.
13. Remove your new loaf of bread and place it on a rack to cool.  Listen to it and it will "talk" to you as it cools.  This is the sound of the crust crackling.
    

There you have it!  A loaf of healthy artisan bread that costs about less than $1.00 (cheaper if you find deals) to make.

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Edit 4/10/11: Changed cost of bread from >$1.50 to >$1.00. The loaf of bread I just baked cost about 50¢!