Can I have a napkin, please?

Once or twice a year we go to the mall to see a first run movie on Jesse’s insistence. Though I protest publicly, I secretly think Jesse is correct that my miserly, hermit-like ways will deprive my kids of what little joy there is in Generamerica. If I had a show like this waiting for me, we’d go to the mall for more than just $9.50/person air conditioning and $7 popcorn.

Public displays like this, which Cassandra brought to my attention, may very well be the answer to our sluggish economy. Dinner and a show at the mall (Dinner in the sense of noon-day meals and not this “lunch” stuff, right my fellow Oklahomans?) might keep me around for a goo-gaw purchase as well. OH! Maybe the stores could stock stuff I’d feel good about buying then I’d get multiple goo-gaws. That would be totally awesome, for sure.

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Dirty Undies and Holy Water

I adore the Tree Hugger website. I like to read about people who know how to properly administer a hug to a tree. Sadly, huggers leap and bound in sustainably green fields beyond my fence until today.

Can you believe this? Bjorn Borg’s dirty undies for peace!

This is almost enough for me to buy expensive Swedish underpants. The website is hot too. I wonder if I could do that with my website at work….

Here’s another head turner. Spiritual Water!

From their website:
About Our Product:
Spiritual Water: Crisp, fresh purified bottled drinking water that will change your life.

Spiritual Water was born as bottled water with spirituality, positive thinking, prayers, God, and beliefs. You choose which bottle fits your needs and your feelings, read the prayer, drink the water, believe in God – and in yourself – and the sky’s the limit.

Spiritual Water feature beautifully rendered artistic labels that depict full-color images of holy person or symbols, with prayers in English and Spanish and/or inspirational words and messages. The Spiritual Water comes in 10 different versions – each with its own uniquely paired message and image. Each time you drink you benefit from the soothing, appropriate prayers, for added uplifting inspiration.

Okay, it makes me laugh. How many Jesus water bottles can you fit in a landfill? Is God not in my CAP water? Why is God filling these water bottles and not Lake Lanier? That Trinity! Always more questions than answers.

And Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue will host a prayer service next week to ask for relief from the drought gripping the Southeast. “The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power,” Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said.

That’s fine and good, but supposing God is playing bunco with the retired Greek and Roman gods who have tons of time. The game is just so darn fun and God is thinking, “They can help themselves for a while.” Wouldn’t it be a fine idea if we came up with plans that go just a itty bit beyond prayer? I say we shed this idea that God has given us “dominion” over the earth and instead found some gratitude for the beautiful blue globe he gave us, full of so many more gifts. If I were to spend a week meticulously creating a gift especially for someone, I’d get pissed to find it abused and discarded among the garbage – not to mention the fact that the garbage included images of my baby boy.

I think perhaps I could wash my “unsexy” undies in Jesus water and send it to warmongers (hmmm, to whom should I address the first pair?) and that would double my chances at a peaceable planet.

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Uses for Poo

The following is a list of uses for cow poo:

* Skeet shooting
* Fuel for cooking
* Heating greenhouses (Apparently cow poo is hot! Someone should tell Paris.)
* Mushroom cultivation (It’s my understanding, though, that mushrooms aren’t easily cultivated. It’s a fascinating niche of produce harvesting).
* Bio-gas
* AND FLOORING!

With a grant of just $5k, researchers at Michigan State created flooring made from the solid fiber in cow manure. The fiber would replace the sawdust currently used. Sad for sawdust, but good for the poo. It doesn’t stink, it doesn’t gush between your toes, and it’s equally lovely as cork flooring. Here’s a pic.

Such a much better idea than letting it fester in shit ponds and sink into aquifers.

We nurse at the teat, we feast at the shoulder, we sashay under the skin, and we live by the anus of our bovine buddies. I just read that we need less than one serving of red meat per week, but it didn’t mention RDA for dairy, leather, or bestiality. (My dad has a horrifyingly funny story about a pal who had a cow flop in his lowered pants.) Could anything be more blessed than a bovine?

Here’s the science-y part, you geeks. (From the Associated Press) Under pressure from regulators and the public, more large livestock operations are installing expensive manure treatment systems known as anaerobic digesters. The digesters use heat to deodorize and sterilize manure, while capturing and using the methane gas it produces to generate electricity. The systems also separate phosphorus-laden liquid fertilizer from semisolid plant residue. The solids have some known uses, including animal bedding and potting soil.

Scientists at Michigan State in East Lansing and at the USDA’s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., are conducting tests on various types of fiberboard made with the “digester solids.” As with the wood-based original, the manure-based product is made by combining fibers with a chemical resin, then subjecting the mixture to heat and pressure. So far, fiberboard made with digester solids seems to match or beat the quality of wood-based products.

Okay, but how about we get rid of the chemical resins to be way greener? Has anyone told Ed Begley, Jr. about this?

Aside: I was flapping my yaps to a gal pal about how cool it would be to live off the grid. She said, “Oh, I know a lot of people like that. They are called Africans.” LOL. Okay, out of context, that is HORRID. She works in an orphanage in Zambia and really does know people who live off the grid. She was pointing out how frivolous my thought process is and it was FUN-nay. It occurs to me that some people live in cow poo houses that never underwent a sterilization process.

Here’s something to think about, should people who live in poo houses throw stones?