"BERLIN – Germany is determined to show the world how abandoning nuclear energy can be done.
The world's fourth-largest economy stands alone among leading industrialized nations in its decision to stop using nuclear energy because of its inherent risks. It is betting billions on expanding the use of renewable energy to meet power demands instead.
The transition was supposed to happen slowly over the next 25 years, but is now being accelerated in the wake of Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant disaster, which Chancellor Angela Merkel has called a "catastrophe of apocalyptic dimensions."
Friends, please. Please don't leave plastic water bottles in the car during summer months.
Please don't heat your plastics, please.
I don't care what the package says. I don't care if the green beans come in a special boil-in-bag. I don't care if they sell that chicken in a plastic wrapper that says, "Heat at home in the microwave." I don't care if the microwave supper is prepackaged in a microwavable plastic dish. Please disembark it to ceramic or a heavy paper plate.
All evidence leads to leaching of harmful chemicals of multiple sorts into our food, our air, our water.
I know you've heard this from me before, but I keep catching my own daughters heating plastic in the microwave. Ugh.
Recently some scientists went to stores we shop at - Walmart, Whole Foods, others - and bought 450 plastic items to stress test them for chemical release. They used two tests, a salt water soak and an alcohol soak. I'm not sure what they were trying to mimic. I would have liked it more if they had mimicked dishwasher action, microwaving, leaving things on sunny window ledges or for endless weeks in the hot back seats of summer cars. Regardless, leach happens.
Below is a quote from the article:
"The new study doesn't look at health risks. It simply asks whether common plastic products release estrogen-like chemicals other than BPA.
The researchers bought more than 450 plastic items from stores including Walmart and Whole Foods. They chose products designed to come in contact with food — things like baby bottles, deli packaging and flexible bags, says George Bittner, one of the study's authors and a professor of biology at the University of Texas, Austin.
Then CertiChem, a testing company founded by Bittner, chopped up pieces of each product and soaked them in either saltwater or alcohol to see what came out.
The testing showed that more than 70 percent of the products released chemicals that acted like estrogen. And that was before they exposed the stuff to real-world conditions: simulated sunlight, dishwashing and microwaving, Bittner says."
When you listen to it on NPR, they begin by telling you that there's no hard evidence yet about exactly how these chemicals can harm you, but that's only true if you limit yourself to FDA rulings. But if you look beyond the FDA and outside this country, there's been adequate information to raise serious concerns, even if the FDA is rediculously slow about it. Click here to read a Time Magazine report on some of these scientific findings.
I nearly missed Purim this year, since my hot date apparently does not doSynagogue. Purim: a festival celebrating the bravery of a single Jewish GIRL.
Esther lived in Persia, in the realm of King Ahashuarus. A-xha-shu-air-us. It is fun to try to pronounce this. The first "h" gets the gutteral throat-clearing sound we don't have in English.
Esther was selected from all the beautiful girls of the realm to replace the former Queen, Vashti.
To win a beauty pageant - a Jewish princess dream! But a mixed blessing: Vashti lost her head as well as her job for displeasing the King, so Queen Esther's bravery is all the more courageous.
The King's right-hand advisor, Haman, was really very evil. Haman convinced the King to have all the Jews in the kingdom put to death after one Jew refused to bow down to the advisor in the street. Judaism commands us not to bow to humans. We only bow to God. To do otherwise is idolatrous. However, to knowingly displease someone as evil as Haman also takes an act of high bravery. Or chutzpah. Or both.
Coincidentally, that Jew was Mordechai, Esther's cousin. But then again, is anything really a coincidence?
Esther hatched an elaborate plot to save her people. The plan involves Esther missing three days of meals, but I like to think she loses three pounds and fits into her favorite dress again. It might have been the sight of Esther in the dress that saved Esther's head and her people. You never know! Haman - of course - gets what he deserves. Mordechai gets to go horseback riding in the King's robe. Don't ask. I love this story because justice does win the day. And, this is one of the very few stories of my faith - along with the stories of Deborah the judge/warrior, and Miriam and Puah, Moses' sister and midwife respectively, each of whom had a hand in saving Moses' life - where a female emerges as the heroine.
# # #
But back to where we started. I almost missed Purim this year, since my hot date last night did not want to stop by the Synagogue. The conversation went something like this:
"What do you want to do this evening?" (him)
"Well, do you mind if we stop in at the synagogue? It's Purim and I want to see what's happening there." (me)
"THE SYNAGOGUE? NO! REALLY? I DON'T DO SYNAGOGUE." (panic)
"Yes. Really. It's Purim. I like Purim. People dress up in costumes. They put on funny plays. They drink a lot, at least at the adult party, and they eat funny little three-cornered cookies stuffed with prunes or apricots or chocolate or if I'm really lucky, cherries. I like doing Jewishy stuff."
"You were married to a non-Jew." (Are you imagining a whiney voice that sounds a lot like an accusation? If not, please do over.)
"Yes, and you notice, I'm now dating only Jews. This could be an issue for us. Did you know Purim is the only holiday we're commanded to drink until you can't tell the difference between Mordechai and Haman?"
"Really?" (easing on the panic somewhat)
I'll forgo the rest of the conversation, and simply say that we did NOT end up at the Synagogue - I don't believe in dragging people kicking or screaming into the abyss.
So I was really excited when I opened my email this morning and found a link to an animated version of the PurimShpiel (story) written and performed by one of my favorite young Jewish comedians, the Hebrew Mamita, Vanessa Hidary. If ever there is a brave Jewy princess, Vanessa is she. She speaks out about things - Jewish things, Feminist things - that others only mutter under their breath. She exemplifies my idea of a strong, young Jewess, and it is very fitting that she portrays Esther in the animation below.
So, date be damned, I did not miss the reading of the Megillah (scroll with the story in it) after all, albeit in English, highly censured kids' version.
I thought I'd share it with you here. I must confess, it's written for kids and it's not as funny as Vanessa usually is. SO... for your listening pleasure, I've embedded a few of her funnier ones just below.
Vanessa's signature piece:
Ph.D in "HIM"
God Bless You, Ma
You can find more on YouTube, or at http://www.hebrewmamita.com/
Today I use my blogspace to welcome new blogger and excellent friend John Sirota Martinson to the wild world of blogging. John, an accomplished businessman turned non-traditional student, launched EcoCanyon today. What a great name! His initial post, "How Green Is Your Lawn - via Teatown Thoughts," was stimulated by his reading of Paul Robbins and Julie Sharp's "Producing and consuming chemicals: The moral economy of the American Lawn.”
The grouping "moral," "economy" and "lawn" together in one sentence is the sort of mind challenge John loves.
I've placed a permanent link to John's blog along the right side of mine!
Welcome, John! Your thoughtful voice should have a wider audience, and I'm so glad you've chosen this path.
My daughter Jody recently sent me a link to a New York Times article entitled, "The New Humanism," laying out some of the latest scientific findings about humanity. In a nutshell, author David Brookes notes that science is finally providing evidence that we're not the rational individuals we think we are. Rather, we're emotional creatures, for whom rationality is not separate from our emotions, but rather shaped by them. And further, we are not individuals picking our way through the obstacle course of humanity, but interdependent creatures who emerge from society, shaped by it in nearly every way. Below are some concepts coming out of this research that explain some of the human capacities we are just beginning to get our scientific minds around:
Attunement: the ability to enter other minds and learn what they have to offer.
Equipoise: the ability to serenely monitor the movements of one’s own mind and correct for biases and shortcomings.
Metis: the ability to see patterns in the world and derive a gist from complex situations.
Sympathy: the ability to fall into a rhythm with those around you and thrive in groups.
Limerence: This isn’t a talent as much as a motivation. The conscious mind hungers for money and success, but the unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence when the skull line falls away and we are lost in love for another, the challenge of a task or the love of God. Some people seem to experience this drive more powerfully than others.
