Homemade Laundry soap

It is easy to do this simple thing for the environment. Stop using detergent!
This is a quick and easy recipe for laundry soap which leaves your clothes cleaner and softer than the chemical kind and is so much better for the environment and you.All ingredients you can buy at Choices even soap flakes (so no grating is necessary).

1 quart Water (boiling)
2 cups Bar soap (grated)
2 cups Borax
2 cups Washing Soda
Add finely grated bar soap to the boiling water and stir until soap is melted. You can keep on low heat until soap is melted.
Pour the soap water into a large, clean pail and add the Borax and Washing Soda. Stir well until all is dissolved.
Add 2 gallons of water, stir until well mixed.
Cover pail and use 1/4 cup for each load of laundry. Stir the soap each time you use it (will gel).

Body Language

BODY LANGUAGE


A full on smile
Open body
Warm toast
Buttery
Comfort.
Friendship


Tight mouth
Averted torso
Lemon
Tart
Unease.
Hostility

And everything
In-between.

Relationships,
Like food
Are difficult
To evoke.

Impossible
To capture.

Impossible

Baby steps trained to avoid danger
and “No” is a word
often heard.

Barriers
Fences
Doors
Gates
All protect
but also Dissect
and Limit.

Growing up,
some challenge this
Safety
but others remain closeted in its reassuring hug

I have stayed too long
Inside.

Believing myself limited,
I was.

Now old and finally wise
I break from the hug
Shrug off the warnings
And am free
To be me.

FightHST canvassing

Social action is called for today. The people are hungry for justice and there is a sharp awareness of the erosion of fairness in society. As in the Roman Empire, the rich are becoming richer and are gradually pushing the ordinary people into subservience, dependence and yes, even slavery.

My experience canvassing for the "fight the Harmonized Sales Tax" campaign has allowed me insight into many lives. People have shared stories with me of a gradual loss of income. Many feel that they are sinking into poverty year by year. One young lady said, "We must stop them before they steal our children's future.". Another young man, "I have a good job working in steel. I earn $30 an hour but it is very hard work and I don't know how much longer I can do it." He was afraid of what his life would hold as an old man. Older adults are living on the edge unable to afford a coffee at a restaurant already, and wondering how much worse it will become. They told me they thought things would get better for their children, but inflation and taxes are so bad now that they see their children falling behind and finding it hard to get employment. They fear that they will never be able to buy their own homes. A young man who owns an export business did not want to sign the petition because he knew he would benefit from the new tax. He was however, honest enough to admit that he would pocket the extra money and buy a few more glasses of wine. He admitted he did not intend to hire more people or pass the gains down to his workers.

There is a lot of anger out there. We canvassers are hunted down by people eager to sign the petition against the new tax as they see this as a faint hope that they may still be able to make a difference. I am empowered by this hope and will work as hard as I can to make change.

Now is the time to reverse the tide of inequity. If this sounds like rhetoric, ask yourself if a fair share of tax is paid by the rich and powerful, the big business enterprises that seem to control our world. Some think we must pay taxes if we want social services like health care and schools. This is true, and there is little objection to the idea of fair taxation. This does not exist now and will exist even less with the HST which penalizes the poor.
So I ask our political masters, please give us a fair taxation system that we can all support and stop bashing the ordinary folk who are already struggling to make it.

Tiger

On seeing the movie "Up in the Air" I was struck by the hypocrisy of our North American society. The traveling salesmen and women in the film were all avoiding commitment and "playing around" on the road. I venture to suggest that most people in our Western society, who have a job that takes them away from home, have their affairs and one night stands on the way. This seems to have become an unspoken fact of our time and something that is kept "hush hush" even though most people do it.
The movie points out clearly how such a life erodes our happiness and destroys our value system. In short, it leaves us very lonely.
I think we all know that we cannot really have the "playing around" together with the committed relationship and a trusting marriage, so we hide the part of ourselves that we are afraid of. We try to pretend that we are "good" and "moral". This veneer must not be allowed to crack or our world will fall apart (or so we think).

Tiger Woods has done nothing that most others would not do in his position. He has tried to have a marriage and a sex life on the side. Like most of us, he had a respectable veneer which cracked rather badly when the story came out. However, we have crucified him for his sins. Like Christ, maybe, he has been allowed to suffer for our transgressions. Let us stop being hypocrites and accept the man with his weaknesses. After all, he is really just a man.