Here You Are...Wondering...About Neckties (not an actual line in Here You Are)

Meet Mat

Matt looks like a happy guy. He is a college student who writes a blog about...neckties! Every post is about neckties - one way or another. It's pretty funny and entertaining. He asked me to let my readers know about his blog, so, here you are! Father's Day is just around the corner - you may need a necktie and can buy one from him, too.

I liked the post showing the many ways one can alternatively make a necktie cake for those Dads who don't need any more ties for Father's Day, or the post about what your necktie color choice may communicate about you - whether you planned it or not. Check it out. There may be a few colors missing in your rainbow!

And, Matt - don't forget to tell all your readers about Here You Are :-). If you wrote: "Thanks for being my Dad. I wouldn't be here without you" in the front of the book, it, too, would make a great Father's Day Present. Maybe Amazon can still get it delivered by Sunday.

GoodGuide

Finally...here it is!!! TADAAAA....the company I have often dreamt of starting in my wildest fantasies, while folding the laundry. 

A Berkeley Professor beat me to it! Those PhDs have the edge. He and his team did an amazing job - while I was sorting underwear and cooking brown rice... hey, I could'a been a contender! 


Well, having written a children's book isn't so bad either. The laundry definitely did NOT get done that year.

About Dara O'Rourke

Dr. Dara O'Rourke is a professor in the Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, and formerly a professor at MIT. He studies the environmental, social, and health impacts of global supply chains.

About GoodGuide


GoodGuide helps you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet.

I was ahead of the curve thirty years ago, carrying a little booklet with "good" and "bad" product lists everywhere I went.  I think it was from PETA and I kept adding my own extensive lists to it. Even then, shopping for my household full of babies and toddlers was akin to wild mushroom hunting, potentially lethal to my offspring as well as the planet. Overdramatic thinking? Not really, as it turns out.

But now, we can go to the "GoodGuide" and be a highly knowledgeable consumer - with PhD powers, really - rather than the "gullible moron", preferred by the big corporations, who believes everything he or she sees advertised (or omitted) on a box. 

No doubt, the consumer product corporations must be getting a little nervous by now, and may just hop to it in a great big hurry, if they haven't already started in that direction. I have been quite impressed recently with, for example, Target's selection of certified organic food items in spite of that label's watered down meaning. Now, pleasing the consumer will mean passing - not the FDA - but the GoodGuide ratings and whatever else one reads about on other such sites and clever blogs. Corporations - if they are smart - will increasingly need companies like BuzzLogic just to figure out who is saying what about them in order to manage all this enlightened consumer chatter. The buzzword of today is accountability. Everyone can still run, but can no longer hide.

While big battles are being fought at the government level about HOW to properly and legally lie to consumers about the ingredients in our products - we can now be our own FDA - by just checking our GoodGuide and similar sites. What makes the GoodGuide so outstanding is its logical and easy to understand rating system. To get even more involved, read the GoodGuide Blog for up to date topics in this field, affecting all of us every day. The Internet is flushing everybody out.

We used to have to rely on word of mouth - "snail mouth" - to spread the truth about what was going on regarding food production, animal abuse and carcinogenic chemicals in our direct surroundings. Usually there was one of us "odd" canaries in a family, sounding the alarm, yet easily brushed of as an impractical dreamer who would grow out of it. Now, defenders of monkeys, bunnies, farm animals, the earth, and babies,  jump for joy when all that information lives in colorful images and researchable facts on the Internet, and "word of mouth" means having your own blog read by thousands. The Internet deserves the Nobel Prize! You thought I was kidding :-)

What is presently happening to the Catholic Church - to name another massive entity - is going to happen to ALL large organizations that have benefited from, and have abusively exploited trusting souls - be that animals, children or unsuspecting adult populations. The food industry will be no exception, and the pharmaceutical industry is right in line. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free" - no doubt Jesus meant higher truths than this, yet the truth in general in all areas has a way to set us free - us from deceitful organizations, and them from having to live with such shameful secrets, that cannot even be talked about for decades, or listed on a box. Most of us today are in a fierce mood to throw out the good with the bad - since the bad has gotten way too bad. It's high time to reboot.

Destroying the planet, its animals, children and each other is easy when all our interactions are based on lies, not so easy when everyone knows what is going on. And - to be fair to the "evil" corporations - consumers need to own their part in all of this, as well. Constantly screaming for "more" and "cheaper", feeds this insane frenzy of lies, over-consumption and waste. 

The GoodGuide promises to become very powerful and may be in danger of getting corrupted over the next thirty years just like the FDA or the "organic" food label, but for now it seems independent and trustworthy.

In this jungle of questionable consumer items and the information gathering it requires, I am finding that, just like Michael Pollan in the Omnivore's Dilemma is encouraging us to have a relationship with the local farmer who is growing our food, I want to "know" the corporation I am buying from. I find myself "loyal" to "Bronner's Soap", for example, "Burt's Bee" products, and "Dr. Hauschka's" cosmetics,  because they pass my test and I don't feel lied to. I am starting to question "my thirty year relationship with Whole Foods" for all the less than ideal products showing up in their stores, but still love them for carrying Macrobiotic foods and many other high quality products that pass the toughest green tests. It is all about relationships, be it people, farmers, corporations or grocery stores.  GoodGuide has a lot of information about all the various corporations and businesses who make our products, so consumers can get to know the corporations they want to patronize.

As regular stores are adding the good stuff, and Whole Foods is adding some not so good - shopping is once again a lot of work in both places and the GoodGuide is a huge help. It used to be that you could relax and buy everything at Whole Foods, but that is no longer the case. Even though it is still my favorite store, the Super Target down the road with all its high quality products like Eden Foods and certified organic produce, is getting a good part of my Whole Foods dollars these days. Who would have thought? And - I am always on the lookout for the little guys - today's versions of Erewhon and Bread and Circus.

I could go on and on - for now let me just say - "Thank You" Dr. O'Rourke! I look forward to watching the GoodGuide grow ever more helpful and valuable. It's a powerful tool we have needed for a long time.

Frugal Dad

Here is a useful new blog I found called Frugal Dad. Lots of good advice on how not to get caught up in the "shop 'till you drop" way of life, or how to get out of it, if you are already addicted. There is a lot of creativity about how to approach anything from gardening to financial investing all while keeping informed and fun frugality in mind.

Frugality is not supposed to be a puritan attitude against pleasure, but a way of life that reduces the dullness of our over saturated senses so we can once again enjoy the more subtle, and higher pleasures. This kind of "poverty" leaves us in abundance, and is available to everyone. No need to save the planet or reach higher religious heights. It is simply pure pleasure to be free from the unnecessary.

I can attest to the wealth available to the poorest and "unfortunate" families who have welcomed me into their homes all over the world. There are definitely two kinds of poverty. One is what I call true wealth. True wealth is when one has enough. People with that attitude create magic out of nothing - a bowl of rice, soup, or a cup of tea, which take on a quality that is far beyond their physical reality.

Not that the rich and well off cannot reach this same inner wealth. The advantage for the rich is that they have first hand experience that money cannot buy that kind of peace and happiness, while the poor might still hope that that is the case. Neither wealth nor poverty can guarantee the realization of inner wealth, but both can be used to get there.

In the spirit of less is more, maybe I'll keep this post short, and end it right here :-)

Stuck Or Amused?

I spend time each day reading other people's blogs. Here are two blogs I enjoy a lot -two very different ones. One is Ted.com and the other is DailyDroool. Ted.com is by smart people getting together discussing anything from computer technology to science and enlightenment - with fascinating lectures about ways and wishes to change the world for the better. The problems of the world are defined, and interesting solution presented.

Daily Droool on the other hand, is by one smart Mom in Seattle, who is stuck at home with her baby. She has a funny, self-deprecating, honest way of writing about it all. Her blog is to the point, and not cluttered with product reviews for the "shop untill you feel better" crowd. It's about the husband who is a vegetarian, the dog who is well, a dog, and the baby, who is endlessly fascinating, frustrating, adorable, and inspiring unique insight, with Mom on the emotional roller coaster. There are the useful restaurant reviews and the funny video clips about sex while "married with children".

This young Mom's blog is interesting because it is a great peek into how difficult this spiritual path of motherhood is - especially in the beginning, ... middle and end. What end? It is the ultimate heart versus brain battle. The smarter you are the harder the battle. It's hard to admit you feel stuck at home, and bored and frustrated with your child when you are, and there truly is an art to writing about it. There are very specific antidotes to feelings. The antidote to feeling stuck is to feel amused. Maybe this is why this Mom's blog works so well - she does on some level always end up being amused by it all.This blogger gets it off her chest in a way that lets you know how much she loves her husband, baby and dog. As the posts accumulate and you read them in a row it is great to watch how things get resolved - sometimes seemingly by themselves.

The grass grows by itself.

Dr Laura Schlessinger

Dr Laura Schlessinger, for those of you who don't know, is a radio talk show host who gives advice to parents, couples and other odd ducks, on the air from noon until three in the afternoon - where I live. She is what you would call an ultra conservative, fighting for the life of unborn children, or any other scenario that would be best for children. She tells adults to shut up and grow up, get with the program, and do what it takes to raise those kids they have put on the planet. Even if you aren't an ultra conservative - you find yourself agreeing with her advice most of the time. It is practical, and often helps to confirm to the callers "what the right thing" to do is. They often just call to get the proverbial kick in the butt they know they need. Even when you don't agree with her advice, her take is often an intelligent challenge to your own thinking to help you sharpen your own reasoning on any issue.

I have listened to her for over 13 years now during my daily half hour trip of picking up my children from school. I have "watched" her grow through her irritable pre-menopause years to the more grounded days we are blessed with in our fifties and sixties. She gives me hope :-). Her patience with some of the callers is impressive. Her authenticity alone is inspiring, regardless of your own political, moral or religious views. She lives her talk and is open and frank about her own challenges which include an estranged mother now dead, and a son serving in Iraq, which required her to grow up before her listeners eyes - or better - ears. To give him, her only child, the freedom to live this level of a dangerous life, by mastering her worry, being proud of him and cheering him on with her daily "hoohaaa" - which can break your heart and quickly send a prayer upstairs to keep her son safe - did not come easy or overnight for her - or her listeners. She does not ask any level of growing up from her callers she isn't willing to do herself, which ultimately is the power of her program, or any human being for that matter, who wants to inspire people.

As far as ultra conservative, moral people go, what makes her so likable even to people on the other side of the isle, is her lack of self-righteousness, her flexibility in her advice without giving up her core principles - quite an art - and her "what's best for the kids is what's right" approach. We can't ever have enough people to remind us of that.

What makes her unlikable or annoying to many is her certainty of her world view, which is of course the very same reason people who like her, call her for advice.

Since she has such a large audience of especially mothers, there are a lot of interesting, useful, funny, or deeply touching posts on her blog you might enjoy.