Blog Action Day 2008

Today is Blog Action Day 2008, an international call to action for bloggers to raise awareness on issues of poverty:

"Poverty is not only a pressing issue, it is a complex one. It's easy to think that there isn’t much an individual can do. Fortunately this isn’t the case at all. With activities ranging from advocacy and professional contribution to charity and financing, there is in fact many ways that we can act."

The idea is that bloggers sign up to blog about poverty reduction today.

This year's Blog Action Day has dozens of organizational sponsors and supporters, including the United Nations Millenium Campaign.

For more information:

Wikipedia article on Poverty in Canada

Canadian Council on Social Development's Urban Poverty Project

National Anti-Poverty Organization

Child poverty in Canada at same level as 1989: Oct 9 2008 - CTV report

"Vision is not enough, it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs." ~Vaclav Havel

Natural Air Freshening Strategies from 7th Gen

Indoor Air Clean-Up

Via: Seventh Generation

There's perhaps no month as filled with ritual as October. As we make our annual journey across the weeks between summer and winter, there are gardens to put to bed, leaves to leap in, pumpkins to carve, and homes to ready for the coming cold.

For many of us that means sealing windows, adding weatherstripping to doors, and adopting other strategies that tighten our dwellings to better hold their precious warmth. That's a good thing where energy conservation is concerned, but a well-sealed home traps more than heat ― it can trap odors, stale air, and other olfactory nuisances, too.

To mask the smelliness, we often turn to air fresheners. From aerosols and plug-in units to potpourris and scented candles, fragrance products are a $9 billion a year industry. Yet researchers sniffing out the truth about them have found that such products frequently contain more than a pleasant scent.

According to the Children's Health Environmental Coalition, the fragrance products industry relies on over 3,000 different chemical compounds to create its olfactory wonders. These include flammable propellants like butane and propane; terpenes, xylene, benzene, and other volatile organic compounds; petroleum distillates like naphthalene; and chemicals like phenol, cresol, and paradichlorobenzene. Recently, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigation of air fresheners found that nearly a third of the samples tested contained phthalates.

These and other ingredients are combined in air freshener formulas to create products intentionally designed to fill our homes with invisible airborne fumes that linger in the air where they can be repeatedly inhaled. And manufacturers aren't required to tell us exactly what's in the air fresheners we buy. Instead, most hide their ingredients behind generic label terms like "fragrance" and "scent agent." When we use these products, we have no way of knowing what we're really breathing, and in winter's sealed-up homes, our exposure to them can be nearly constant.

For a safer choice, stick to natural air freshening strategies. Here's a list of our favorite ways to deodorize your domicile:

• First, track down and eliminate the sources of any persistent bad odors in your home. Since many foul smells are the result of molds or microbial action, spraying or scrubbing trouble spots like trash cans and compost collectors with undiluted 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide will often remove the foul smells. Vinegar is another useful natural antifungal and antibacterial agent.
• Use natural mineral borax and/or baking soda to deodorize surfaces and other places in your home. Because baking soda removes acid odors and vinegar takes care of alkaline smells, a combination of the two is often all you'll need to deodorize as you clean. Lemon juice is another great deodorizer.
• Open windows and doors for a few moments now and then during winter to replace stale indoor air with a fresh supply from outside.
• If odors persist, make your own air freshening spray by combining 5-10 drops of an essential oil like lavender, lemon, peppermint, bergamot, balsam, eucalyptus, tea tree, or sweet orange in a spray bottle with two cups of water.
• To scent indoor air, place a drop of your favorite essential oil on a light bulb prior to turning it on or add a dozen drops to a bowl of water placed on a radiator. Fragrant dried herbs, cinnamon sticks, or cloves boiled in a pot of water will also release a fresh smell.
• Place a couple of drops of essential oil on your vacuum cleaner's exhaust filter to freshen exiting air. A few drops of lemon juice on your vacuum cleaner bag will do the same trick.
• If you burn candles to scent air make sure yours are made from beeswax or other natural waxes like soy rather than petroleum-based paraffin wax. Choose candles with lead-free wicks and naturally-derived scents. And use them sparingly ― natural candles may be safer but they're still filling your air with small amounts of combustion byproducts.
• Problem situations can sometimes be helped by an air purifier that contains an activated charcoal filter. Don't use devices that generate ozone, which is a hazardous pollutant.

This has got to be the cutest thing I've ever seen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEWcfiMYA4A

The Sound of - Jann Arden

No I will not lay down
I will not live my life like a ghost in this town
I am not lonely swear to God Im just alone
Im back on my feet
I can just close my eyes and forget everything
My house is empty every memory blown away

Oh the sound of the wind throught my bones makes me laugh
At all the bodies I kissed and never knew
Oh the soung of a lovers sympathy falling down to the floor
Just barely out of reach from me

No I will not go back
Every word thats been hiding inside of my head is running blindly
Look behind me nothings left
I can sit in a room
I can hear myself breathing and be quite amused
Life is simple like the wrinkles on my skin

Oh the sound of the wind through my heart makes me glad
For all the ones that never knew my name
Oh the sound of a lovers sympathy
I had to go could not stay here
They were always out of reach from me

Last Saturday morning as I drove up to Wakefield I heard a CBC program about Google and how the innocuous sounding company is looking to control everything digital : identities, music, books ... everything and everywhere. A library of life on earth as it can be recorded.

My reaction ? Cool ! That would make me part of a place in time, part of history of mankind possibly at its greatest in a long time. I use mail, documents, spreadsheets, this blog, iGoogle, and of course, search. If I hadn't given up on Google reader I probably would have been using that too.

Security issues ? Yeah, but Meh, I'm a speck in the white space and a really small speck at that. Besides, I know people. ;) I just think it would be nice to imagine, 200 years from now, someone 'discovering' me or this time and place through my eyes. And hopefully looks back on a time that was troubled but passed.

I was just using Picasa, yet another Google product - Wow I really am 'Google-fied' LOL

Hiding my Heart - Brandi Carlile

So this is how the story went
I met someone by accident
That blew me away
That blew me away

It was in the darkest of my days
When you took my sorrow and you took my pain
And buried them away, you buried them away

And I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face under the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
I'm sure you'll go one day
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away
And I can't spend my whole life hiding my heart away

I dropped you off at the train station
And put a kiss on top of your head
I watched you wave
I watched you wave
Then I went on home to my skyscrapers
Neon lights and waiting papers
That I call home
I call it home

And I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
I'm sure you'll go one day
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away
And I can't spend my whole life hiding my heart away

I woke up feeling heavy hearted
I'm going back to where I started
The morning rain
The morning rain
And you know I wish that you were here
But that same old road that brought me here
Is calling me home
Is calling me home

And I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
You'll disappear someday
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away
And I can't spend my whole life hiding my heart away