Category Archives: News

Don’t trust the USDA

Posted by Leaf on May 2, 2012 None comments

The recent exposure that a cow tested positive for Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in California came as not much of a surprise to me. When the beef industry is so powerful they can successfully lobby the USDA to do fewer tests for BSE, the USDA’s mission of protecting the public is compromised. Upton Sinclair would not approve!

Then when the news came out insisting this was an isolated case that was caught by sheer luck, I laughed. Hubris. So what’s a meat eater to do?

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

  • Cutting back my meat consumption.  One can get complete protein with soy and quinoa.  And I love eggs.
  • Buy organic/grass fed/free-range meat
  • Eat less meat when going out – since you don’t know where the meat comes from.

Tropical Fish World

Posted by Leaf on March 21, 2012 None comments

This used to be my favorite local aquarium shop. I knew people who drove hours to shop here because they had such a wide variety of fish stock and their tanks were healthy and clean. I say “used to” because they’ve closed. It was such a sad and stunning discovery for me last weekend after the disappointing run to Lancaster last weekend. TFW was my next stop and that’s when I discovered, it’s no more. They had by far the healthiest and probably most comprehensive fish stock. And no wonder. The owner was a marine biologist. I’m sad to say I was one of the disloyal customers who started ordering things online. Part of it was prices and part of it was convenience. I’m going to shop at our local aquarium stores from now on for stuff I need. It’s so important to keep these aquarium shops around here in business because how else do you get good livestock?? I’m so sad about losing Tropical Fish World.

Starting early on Spring Tossing

Posted by Leaf on February 17, 2012 None comments

It’s not Spring yet but now that I can step out of the office and still enjoy the last remnants of sunlight, it’s starting to feel like it. In honor of that great yearly tradition of throwing crap out, I’ve tossed all of my perfumes and lipsticks. All of it. Used. New. Why? Well, the perfume is because I’ve recently been reading about indoor air quality and ways to improve it. Perfumes and air fresheners release volatile organic compounds into the air which worsens air quality. Away they go.
As for the lipstick, the FDA recently released a list of 400 lipsticks that they found to have lead. Now, lead in lipstick isn’t a new revelation but I’d forgotten about it. Must’ve been all that lead I’ve licked off all these years. In all the excitement, I threw out that E.L.F. eyeshadow palette too. I’m liking it less and less when I compare it to the Estee Lauder’s and Lancome’s I have. The stuff just falls all over my face and has this tinge of white, probably from the talc. Oh well, for $5 it was worth a try.

Sprinklers

Posted by Leaf on January 13, 2012 2 comments

A little past midnight this morning, the fire alarm started blaring. I was in the middle of a nice dream so it felt like I dozed my way out of the building. I remember we briefly discussed bringing the chinchees but not seeing any sign of smoke anywhere, decided it would be too traumatic for them to be stuffed into a sack and hauled about for what appeared to be an ill-timed drill. Yes, we left them and Dirty Hairy to die in a fiery inferno. No, I didn’t bring anything of value out either. I just remember hauling my purse out with a box of tissues and for some reason, made sure to bring my metro card out. Where did I think I was going? To work?

Anyway, when we got out, we thought it was raining. But then when we looked up we saw water trickling down the building, it was the sprinklers. The fire trucks came and when they finally gave us the go ahead to go back in, we learned that our elderly neighbor’s unit had a sprinkler malfunction. Her unit totally flooded and for some reason was unable to get to her door to exit so the fire department had to break down her door and escort her out. Thank goodness no one got hurt, but the sprinklers really went crazy raining down in her unit. Water seeped out everywhere and even down to the unit below. By the time we got back to bed though I could hear people with wet-vacs already cleaning up the hallway. Our poor neighbor must have had quite a shock. She slept in another neighbor’s place for the night.

User Tax

Posted by Leaf on November 7, 2011 None comments

President Obama recently proposed an airline tax increase ($100 per airliner take off, and a TSA per-passenger increase to $5 per leg of the trip and $0.50 increases each year from 2013 to 2017) to help reduce the deficit. I think this is a great idea. As public services go, if a tax can be paid by the consumer of the good or service, it ought to be. Services like national defense benefits all, so I can see why it should be paid for by all, however, air travel is used by a subset of the population and this subset self-selects. They choose to use this service so they ought to pay for it.

Air travel is such a luxury anyway, if this precludes some people from traveling, it’s a disappointment sure, but nothing more than that. And for those who can afford to fly, yes, it’s a nuisance to have to pay more, but obviously it’s still affordable to many since the airplanes still fill up.

And frankly, I think he forgot to add another tax to flyers which the EPA ought to levy or increase – the clean air tax. Or how about a healthy lung tax, levied by NIH? There are many costs that everyone pays for the subset of travelers. This small airline ticket tax is a bargain.

Self-Help

Posted by Leaf on October 18, 2011 None comments

Recently, I got two very thoughtful books about how to interact with people. The first, The Five Love Languages. The second, How to Win Friends and Influence People. At first glance they seem like two very different books, one’s about love, and the other more general or friendship. There’s definitely a common thread though.

In short, the 5 Languages of Love are:

  1. Words of Affirmation
  2. Quality Time
  3. Receiving Gifts
  4. Acts of Service
  5. Physical Touch

The basic premise is that everyone speaks one or more of these love languages.  It is what we need to feel loved.  Under these five are more subcategories the author calls dialects.  More specific items.  Receiving gifts might be frequent notes or flowers or baubles or maybe less frequent or food or jewelry.  It all depends on the person you love.  In each of these, it just needs to be thoughful.  So if the person you want to demonstrate love to speaks “Quality Time” for example, buying gifts might be nice, but to really fill his/her “love tank” you have to spend time with that person by doing things together that s/he enjoys.  Going for a walk, seeing a show, sitting down for a conversation face-to-face.  It sounds easy but I think it takes a concerted effort to fill that tank!

In the second book, there are various principles he goes through but the first three seem to be very similar to the five love languages.  They are:

  1. Don’t criticize, complain, or condemn.
  2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
  3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

The common thread is to put yourself in the other’s shoes.

Anyway, I have a ways to go with this winning friends business.  Principle one alone is a toughie!  It’s hard not to complain.  For example today, I was on my way home and ran into someone I knew and we started talking about the DMV and of course I laid in on my experiences.  And then I felt all bad about it afterwards.  Ahh… this book is just going to give me a conniption. I’ll continue my rants and complaints but then I’ll just feel all guilty about it.  Bah.  See?  I just complained right there.  I’m going to need one of those shock collars to train me.

Nanny State

Posted by Leaf on October 11, 2011 None comments
Last week, Denmark passed a “fat tax” to curb obesity.  It’s yet another sin tax, only this time, instead of tobacco & alcohol, it’s saturated fat.  The sin is gluttony.  The argument is, it’s bad for peoples’ health so taxing it might discourage overindulgence.  Supporters go on to say that people who engage in things that are detrimental to their health ought to pay for those choices.  After all, society often winds up paying for them when they end up sick, obese.  My question is how much does it cost society to nurse 80 year olds into their death versus a 60 year old who dies of a heart attack?  People all die eventually, what makes one way more economical than another?  Have they really figured out that it’s more expensive to die from lung cancer or liver cirrhosis than say alzheimers?  People may be thinner if they ditch a bag or two of fries, but having them live longer or healthier isn’t necessarily less of a burden to society.  It sounds terribly morbid and insensitive but is it truly less costly to society to die one way versus another?  And if they want to tax things that are detrimental to health and costly to society, the first place I want to see it applied most is gas.

Dental Update

Posted by Leaf on September 22, 2011 None comments

So you remember back in February, I went to the Virginia Center for Cosmetic & General Dentistry right by the Clarendon Metro station and they were total quacks, trying to tell me I had like 8 cavities or something? Well 6 months later, in August, I went back to my old dentist and had him check my teeth, specifically asking him to check carefully for cavities. He checked using the pokey metal prod thing and also looking at x-rays and concluded that I had none. Confirmation that this Scott B. Dudley practice is totally a bunch of scammers! My dentist for that visit wasn’t Dudley (talk about an aptonym) but another female dentist working at this shady practice. At any rate, I would steer clear of this sketchball establishment. Oh and I told my dentist they were going to fill my 8 cavities for $2,000 and he said oh yeah? I’ll do it for $1,200. So there you go. They’re sleazebuckets through and through. I can’t say enough bad things about them, I really ought to just report them to the state licensing board. And I can’t believe they had the nerve to call me to make a 6 month appointment! When I said no thanks they asked me why. Hahaha. I haven’t the time to enumerate the whys.

How to unclog a toilet

Posted by Leaf on September 13, 2011 None comments

Pour kettles and kettles of boiling water into the toilet until it clears. This one took three kettles to clear. No need for plungers or any equipment.

The Great Earthquake of 2011

Posted by Leaf on August 27, 2011 None comments

On Tuesday, we were preparing for this big meeting. I was standing in the hallway with my coworker chatting about our weekend plans with the secretary before going into the meeting room. Yes we think about the weekend on Tuesdays.

Coworker: Oh weird, did you feel that?
Secretary: Uh…no, feel what?
Me: What, you mean this? *jump up and down as hard as I can*
Coworker: Hmm.. I guess it was just…
*5.9 earthquake ensues*
In my mind I was thinking ok, we don’t get strong earthquakes in the east coast, haha! This is fun. But part of me was like what the heck?! This is not that small. I was looking around for a table to duck underneath before it stopped.

Then our meeting continues like nothing happened.

That was about it. The biggest bit of impact was that it took me 2 hours to get home versus 1 because Metro slowed their trains down to chugga chugga choo choo speeds. 15 mph. Good thing I had a book.