Fw: The amazing cucumber..

This information was in The New York Times several weeks ago as part of their "Spotlight on the Home" series that highlighted creative and fanciful ways to solve common problems.


1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber.  Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower?  Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds?  Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long.  The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool?  Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite.  Works great on wrinkles too!!!

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache?  Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explorers for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don't have enough time to polish your shoes?  Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge?  Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don't have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa?  Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown to reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

11. Just finished a business lunch and realize you don't have gum or mints?  Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a 'green' way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel?  Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but it won't leave streaks and won't harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake?  Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

Retire Ronald!

Retire Ronald!:

Erik Assadourian 2010-04-07

In nearly every talk I’ve given over the past few months, I’ve described how the fast food industry so effectively manipulated cultural norms over the past century–transforming the hamburger from a food that was dangerous and unappetizing in the early 1900s to the all-American meal today. In fact, half of all fast food restaurants are now burger joints in the US, and there are 10,000 McDonald’s restaurants alone, as this very disturbing map reveals:

Picture Courtesy of Stephen Von Worley

But it’s clear that advertising alone was not enough to drive this shift; as with other industries, fast-food companies effectively used a variety societal institutions to transform cultural norms. They influenced government policies, they used the media (not just ads, but embedded product placements, and even an entire movie–if you haven’t seen Mac and Me count yourself lucky), they created goodwill through charitable giving, and most importantly, they shaped our children’s tastes and preferences. McDonald’s, especially, has been very successful in getting children to love their meals: by offering children toys with their food (I’ve watched my nieces scramble for McDonald’s primarily so they could get a new toy–the food was secondary if that); by installing playgrounds at their restaurants; and of course by having a loving cast of characters promoting their fare–Grimace, the Hamburglar (my personal favorite as a child), Birdie, and others, all led by the infamous ringleader Ronald McDonald.

If only the individuals and organizations driving forward sustainability could create as personable characters as these, perhaps there wouldn’t be a sustainability crisis. (Sure, Captain Planet is fine, but we need a dozen more like him–targeting all different age groups and demographics.)

A Ronald Copycat helps launch the Retire Ronald Campaign

But at the same time that we need innovators to create new characters, we must battle against those that by their very presence, peddle toxic food and the consumer lifestyle to children. Already, society forcibly retired Joe Camel and now a coalition of organizations are working to “Retire Ronald” (and hopefully his partners in crime). Hopefully, this effort by Corporate Accountability International will help force regulators to ban Ronald (because I can envision few scenarios where McDonald’s will voluntarily give up Ronald–he’s too valuable as a brand ambassador as a McDonald’s spokesperson explained). But even if this campaign fails, it is one more push against the efforts to normalize consumerism, so that in itself is invaluable. We have to keep holding back the tide of the consumer culture, while others help spread a culture of sustainability, by transforming school menus, creating restaurants that sell healthy food (but still have clowns and playgrounds), and so on. That’s the only way we’ll move beyond a cultural system that undermines human health and planetary health so completely. And perhaps Ronald, while enjoying all his newfound free time in retirement, can volunteer to market organic vegetables–consider it penance for addicting two generations to burgers, fries, and Coke.

Pure Water On Tap | Water Filters, Water Chillers, Sales & Service - Niddrie & Vermont

Pure Water On Tap | Water Filters, Water Chillers, Sales & Service - Niddrie & Vermont: "Health Alert

'There is a clear pattern between consumption of chlorinated water and rectal and bladder cancer. It is projected that by the year 2015 the combined death rate from bladder, rectal and pancreatic cancer will exceed the lung cancer death rates, due to carcinogens in water and food.'

Not Fit For Human Consumption, New Scientist, 18 Sep 86"

patenting life and seeds could devastate the future of our culture

What ultimate paradox. You know and another one somewhat related to Monsanto I just learned about by watching Food, Inc. and I'm sure you've known but perhaps you can enlighten our listeners that Clarence Thomas who was an attorney for Monsanto prior to his being appointed and selected to the Supreme Court. My understanding is that his positioning and reasoning was instrumental at allowing Monsanto to make one of the most grievous or grant Monsanto one of the most grievous patents ever in the history of the U.S. which was to patent life and seeds which could devastate the future of our culture. Yeah, I got an email about five minutes ago. There is an organization that wants to create an email campaign, letter writing campaign to the Chief Justice asking him to force Clarence Thomas to recuse himself in the April Supreme Court consideration of genetically modified alfalfa. Monsanto is going to court to try and get their genetically modified alfalfa okayed for distribution and we're hoping that Clarence Thomas recluses himself because of that relationship. And yeah, I mean, we had other experiences. There was another judge that turned down a request for a class action on the price fixing. It turns out, he used to work for Monsanto and never mentioned that and did not recluse himself. That was not the Supreme Court but another judge. http://mercola.fileburst.com/PDF/ExpertInterviewTranscripts/InterviewJefferySmith.pdf http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/03/jeffrey-smith-interview.aspx the Austrian government did one of the very, very few long term feeding studies. They gave mice genetically modified corn which was a combination of BT and roundup ready and the more corn they fed to the mice the fewer the babies were born to those mice and the smaller those babies were. This raises the whole issue of reproductive problems which we're seeing a lot on the roundup ready soy side. In fact, I know this one senior researcher at the Russian National Academy of Sciences who fed genetically modified soy flour to female rats and more than half of the babies died within three weeks compared to only a 10% death rate among the controls that ate natural soy and the offspring of the GM fed group were smaller and could not reproduce. She also fed GM soy to male rats and the testicles changed from pink to blue and in Italy some Italian researchers fed male mice genetically modified soy and there were changes and damages to their testicles including damage to the young sperm cells. Then they looked at the embryos of offspring of parents that were fed genetically modified soy and the DNA functioned differently in the embryos compared to when the parents were fed regular soy. So this raises a huge specter of potential problems for the infant mortality and morbidity. In fact, as happens and has always happens when a scientist discovers adverse findings, they tend to be attacked and this Russian scientist, she was attacked and she was vilified and she told she couldn't do any more GM research. One of her colleagues tried to comfort her by saying well maybe the GM soy will solve the overpopulation problem on earth. She wasn't impressed. They've got bad science down to a science to hide the evidence of harm. To summarize and to cap off the health dangers, I think I'd like to quote the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. Now, this organization is like real detective work. They look at the cutting edge of what's going on and they were the first to identify Gulf War syndrome and food allergies and chemical sensitivity and a host of other issues and they came out in May of 2009 stating the all doctors should prescribe non-GMO diets to all patients. They said animal feeding studies have causally linked GMOs to things like infertility, immune system problems, accelerated aging, vital organ damage, gastrointestinal problems and disregulation of cholesterol and insulin. So, I'm suggesting that people take their advice. I know many, many doctors that prescribe non-GMO diets. They give out our non-GMO shopping guide which is a little pocket brochure or they suggest people to get our iPhone version which is called Shop no GMO. http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/SG/Home/index.cfm Instead, they embarked on a campaign to destroy his reputation. But because of an act of Parliament in February of 1999, his gag order was lifted and 750 articles were written within a month and the specter of concern of GMOs as a food safety issue had spread throughout Europe and that's why Europeans don't eat GMOs because the tipping point was achieved and Nestles and Unilever and McDonalds and Burger King, everyone that serves GMOs here, no longer serves GMOs over there because there people know about them. Here, most people don't even think they've ever eaten a GM food in their life. 85% of the corn in the United States is genetically engineered about 91% to 93% of the soybean crop is genetically engineered we're seeing an increase in autism, an increase in gastrointestinal problems, leaking gut. Each of these things, have a theoretical capacity to be created and produced or promoted through the problems of genetic engineering

Fw: The Story of Bottled Water

The Story of Bottled Water

Annie Leonard and The Story of Stuff Project, together with five sustainability advocacy organizations, have produced a new video, The Story of Bottled Water, scheduled for release on March 22nd, World Water Day.

The Story of Bottled Water is a short (7 minute) behind-the-scenes look at the bottled water business that examines how we have been duped into buying half a billion bottles a week of what is essentially tap water, but at a price that is approximately two thousand times higher. Worse yet, the mountains of plastic bottles generated as waste tower higher, though less majestically, than the snow-capped peaks on the water bottle labels.

Watch  The Story of Bottled Water free on the web. While you're at it, you can also watch The Story of Stuff and The Story of Cap and Trade. And if you want your own copy of either the DVD or the recently released print edition of The Story of Stuff, both are available through Hesperian. 

 

Have a beautiful day!

Ingrid Hawkinson
Hesperian
Ingrid@hesperian.org
(510) 845-1447

From: Hesperian [mailto:ingrid@hesperian.org]
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 2:13 PM
To: DeBaldo, Ann
Subject: The Story of Bottled Water


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Fw: Take advantage of your extra hour of sunlight ==> Highlight added ;-)

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Dear Friend, Did you know that America's kids spend only four to seven minutes outside per day?  In fact, by the time most children go to kindergarten, they have spent more than 5,000 hours in front of a television – enough time to earn a college degree! This weekend, you can help reverse these worrisome trends simply by using your extra hour of sunlight to go outside! Click here for a list of ways you and your kids can unplug this weekend. Then, be sure to take the Be Out There Pledge indicating that you will make outdoor play a healthy habit for your kids. It will take less than a minute—and you'll receive fun tips and interactive tools to inspire you and your family to Be Out There all year long! Sincerely, Rebecca Garland Executive Director, Be Out There National Wildlife Federation www.beoutthere.org     "Sixty minutes of daily unstructured free play is essential to children's physical and mental health." ~American Academy of Pediatrics, 2008     National Wildlife Federation's Be Out There™ movement is connecting American families to the outdoors to raise happier, healthier children with a life-long love of nature.         © 2010 National Wildlife Federation. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Unsubscribe | www.nwf.org

Fw: Kick YouTube

I just found the following instructions for using YouTube videos in classes even when YouTube is blocked.  Too bad I didn't have it last night.

 

You just select the video you want to save to your computer and add the word kick before the YouTube URL.  Please try it. If you have a problem, explain it on this list.

 

Detailed instructions follow.

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YouTube is a vast library of videos for all content areas. As a teacher, you can search YouTube to find multimedia clips that would be fabulous resources for your classroom. However, YouTube is most likely filtered or blocked in your school.

 

This week's tool offers an easy way to download (save) YouTube videos to your computer so that you can show them in your classroom - even if you aren't connected to the Internet!

 

(I can't remember for sure where I learned about this tool, but I think it was first shown to me by my colleague Glenn Wiebe.)

 

KickYouTube

 

Getting Ready:

1. 1.Go to: www.youtube.com

2. 2.Locate the desired video.

3.                3.Play a part of the video to make sure it is working.

 

Loading KickYouTube:

1. 1.Move your mouse into your browsers address (URL) window.

2.                2.Insert the word "kick" in front of "youtube" in the URL.

 

3. 3.Press the Enter key on your keyboard.

4. 4.When the page reloads you will see KickYouTube's menu bar at the top of the window.

Saving (Downloading) the Video:

1.                1.Click to select the desired format and then click the "Go" button at the right side of the bar.

Note - Experiment with a short video to see which format works best on your computer. I recommend starting with MP4 for Macintosh and FLV for Windows.

 

2.                2.KickYouTube will take a little time to process. When it is finished, the green "Go" button will change to a blue download button.

 

3. 3.Right-click (Win) or Control-click (Mac) the blue download button and choose "Save link as" or "Save Target as" or something similar.

4. 4.This will open a window that will allow you to save the video to the desired location on your computer.

5. 5.Once the video is saved, double-click to open it. It should open and play in QuickTime, FlashPlayer, Windows Media Player, or another media player application.