Wal-Mart is America(?)

I finally got around to reading this article that Brad linked about Wal-Mart selling organic food at low prices. Part of me is thrilled at the prospect of being able to feed my family better food. However, my excitement is tempered by the outcome described in the article. It's not unlike the feeling I have when I leave Wal-Mart with bags full of crazy-cheap goods. An avid bargain junky, I'm excited by the deals I got but I have that nagging guilt that I've contributed to something that is hurting society.
I justify my shopping there by insisting that it won't make a bit of difference if I do or don't support Wal-Mart. It is the capitalist machine, it's how America works and all we can really do is try and fight the inevitable troubles as they come.
Once organic is mainstreamed, Wal-Mart won't be the only market for it, as the article seems to suggest. There will suddenly be competition and competition means growth in these parts. Organic farms will have to increase production but so will other major chains have to provide the lower priced organics. The demand will grow and so will the farms.
Unfortunatly, the little guy could get trampled by the bigger companies being able to produce more. I recognize this but I'm not sure there's much to be done...it's the way things work here. I don't know what the answer is but it seems a little too easy to get mad at the big guys for it. They all started somewhere and succeeded by finding ways to give people what they want. If they do it unethically or even illegally, we call them out. It's been done before and Wal-Mart was forced to clean up their image as an employer.
How else can we respond?
Read the article, I'm really interested in what others have to say about this.

When's the Next Bus?!

The current view from our front porch.

Crazy Stroller Lady

Just your typical neighborhood bag lady. She talks to herself while looking for things to push around in her stroller. Pictured here, she has collected the Leap Frog fridge magnets, the spray bottle, her beloved turtle and, buried beneath the rest...mommy's Zoloft.
This is what we get for naming them after cities.

How Obvious Is It?

You'll have to forgive me, I haven't seen The Daily Show, except for snippets on you tube, in like two years. I've started taking Isabelle home three nights a week and waiting there until her mom gets home. They have satellite. I love my job.
So, that's why you're getting the second Daily Show post this month. I can't help it.
This is the segment from Tuesday night with Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee. The whole thing is amusing but when Jon asks him why they're so secretive, Ken just undoes his own pants to make the whole thing easier:

Ken: "There are things that every president, every administration, has this. Last one did, this one does. There are things when they have internal meetings that if everything is, 'Let's tell you what we met about,' then there's not gonna be serious internal discussion because people will think it'll be in the newspaper..."
Jon: "Right. It'd be like, like uh, OPEN GOVERNMENT!"

Stars and Stripes Forever...

...or else

Did you know that today is Flag Day? Yeah, me neither. Apparently, the senate is actually ridiculously close to passing the ban on flag-burning. Wha..?? You heard right, this is America where you have the right to speak out...unless it offends someone else. Really, what is the point of this ban? Are they starting with the little rights so they can sneak up to the bigger ones? I just don't get it, aren't there more important things to do?
Article at Donklephant (borrowed from Star Spangled Haggis...I swear I'm trying to cut down on the links I steal from you)

Jon Stewart, Master of The Stealth Depantsing

Bill Bennett on The Daily Show
A great example of Jon Stewart's ability to pull down someone's pants and still seem dignified and respectful

The Truth is Out There

My name is Sarah and I am an X-Files addict. I have been a fan since the very first episode aired during my junior year in high school...13 years ago. Having finished the Six Feet Under series (surprisingly good finale, I thought) I have moved on to The X-Files. It's been a really long time since I've seen these early episodes and I can't get enough. They have such a formulaic spookiness that it's funny. It's also great to watch the Dana Scully character develop, even over the first few episodes.
I know I'm revealing more geek than anyone wants to see but I will not apologize! I love aliens and all things related. Those of you who know the alien encounter story involving one of my college roomates might think that's where this obsession started, but no, it was long before that! I couldn't honestly say where it all began but when I was fourteen, I looked out my bedroom window one night and the horizon was glowing green. It was similar to the glow from a tv but all across the horizon where the field behind us turned into forest. I've always wondered what that could have been...maybe that's when it started.
Now that you know that about me, maybe you can understand my fascination with this story out of India:

Mysterious red cells might be aliens

(Click title for full Popular Science article on CNN.com)
By Jebediah Reed Popular Science

Friday, June 2, 2006
(PopSci.com) -- As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens.
In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space.
Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .)

European Ginger

At the Cincinnati Zoo