The "right" kind of ketchup

For a few months prior to the 2004 election, my daughter and her children lived with her inlaws. Her Navy husband had had to go on ahead, and Daughter and the kids followed once housing was available.

One day while she was still living here, Daughter and I were running errands. Among them was a trip to the commissary. In addition to the groceries she needed for herself and the kids, she had a little bit of cash from the inlaws and a short list of things they wanted her to pick up.

As we were driving, Daughter said, "Mom, FIL wants me to get ketchup."

"Ok."

"Mom," she said, "he said it has to be HUNT'S. Nothing but Hunt's. He said he wasn't giving any of his money to that liberal Kerry by buying Heinz ketchup. He was really mad about it."

We had a good laugh, and she bought the Hunt's; the Hunt's/Heinz thing has become something of a shorthand between us when we talk about her in-laws.

Last night Daughter and I had a long phone conversation. The in-laws had just finished a short visit at her house, and she was talking about something that had happened at dinner, but then she interrupted herself (as we often do -- I'll bet you do, too) to tell me about a special moment at the table. FIL picked up the ketchup -- the Heinz ketchup.

"He looked at it for a long time," Daughter said. "He didn't say anything but I could see he was thinking about it."

Because dinner with two little ones at the table is lively, she never really noticed whether FIL actually used the ketchup.

This conversation reminded me of the Buy Blue site. I hadn't been there in some time, but the last time I looked I was quite disheartened -- I concluded that to be politically and socially responsible I'd have to stop eating, drinking, and buying clothes, at the very least. However, the ketchup incident sent me back to look, and I was mostly pleasantly surprised. Many of the places I shop are either blue, neutral, or represented by rather small elephants. I can substitute "bluer" (or less red) businesses for some I currently use. (The directory can also be viewed according to category or ranking.) It pleased me to see that while Blockbuster is represented by a medium-sized red elephant (because it makes more donations to Rs than Ds), my new love Netflix has a small blue donkey, representing its contributions to mostly Ds. Amazon makes many more R donations than D, while Barnes & Noble's medium-sized blue donkey represents not only its Democratic donations, but also props for "employment equality" and "social responsibility." I love Amazon's site, but I can get books at B&N just fine, thank you, and thanks to Netflix I'll be buying very few movies anyway.

The funniest statistic, though, I've saved for last. While it might be true that the purchase of a bottle of Heinz ketchup puts a little change into the personal pocketbook of Teresa Heinz Kerry and her husband to do with as they will, the H. J. Heinz Corporation makes generous donations -- currently 71% of its donations -- to the REPUBLICAN party. (Con-Agra Foods, Inc., maker of Hunt's ketchup, isn't listed on the Buy Blue site at all.)

So FIL, keep on boycotting Heinz. It'll make you feel good, but it'll make me feel even better.

Friday cat blogging: Molly update

Molly has now been on antibiotics for several days, and her status is...inconclusive.

She is frisky (as frisky as a 14-year-old cat gets), she's sleeping (which she wasn't doing at all last weekend), she's walking with her tail up (again, she wasn't before the doctor visit), and she's asking for frequent petting sessions (again, normal). In fact, everything about her behavior is utterly normal except one thing.

She's not eating much. She ate a fair amount on Tuesday, a little bit more than a full can of Fancy Feast, but since then, she's just been picking. So I'm still worried.

Elizabeth Edwards

Add me to the list of people saying prayers for the most remarkable Elizabeth Edwards as she and her doctors work to control her incurable, but "manageable," cancer.

Not too long ago, I heard a blurb advertising an upcoming news story -- must have been on NPR -- that said cancer treatment was improving to the point that many cancers could be considered a "chronic" rather than terminal disease. I never got to hear the actual story. But we're about to watch one family publicly live with just that situation.

May Mrs. Edwards' cancer remain manageable for many, many, many years.

Pfc. LaVena Johnson

I'm way overdue posting on this, although I assume that most of the four people who visit my blog already know about this. Still -- it's worth mentioning if only one new person becomes informed and does...something. At least sign the petition to the Armed Services Committees.

Pfc. LaVena Johnson, 19 years old, died in Iraq. While she's not alone in that, the circumstances of her death -- and what happened afterwards -- deserves the attention and action of every person in this country, regardless of political affiliation, who claims to "support the troops." Other than to ask you to sign the petition and write your congresspersons (if you're in Florida like me, a lot of Floridians sit on the Armed Services Committees), I'll turn the rest over to Phil Barron, who has been tireless in his devotion to getting this story out and who spearheaded the Johnson petition (follow the link to get the links imbedded in this story, including the TV news report):

Once upon a time lived a young woman from a St. Louis suburb. She was an honor roll student, she played the violin, she donated blood and volunteered for American Heart Association walks. She elected to put off college for a while and joined the Army once out of school. At Fort Campbell, KY, she was assigned as a weapons supply manager to the 129th Corps Support Battalion.

She was LaVena Johnson, private first class, and she died near Balad, Iraq, on July 19, 2005, just eight days shy of her twentieth birthday. She was the first woman soldier from Missouri to die while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The tragedy of her story begins there.

An Army representative initially told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that his daughter died of "died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries," but initially added that it was not a suicide. The subsequent Army investigation reversed this finding and declared LaVena's death a suicide, a finding refuted by the soldier's family. In an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dr. Johnson pointed to indications that his daughter had endured a physical struggle before she died - two loose front teeth, a "busted lip" that had to be reconstructed by the funeral home - suggesting that "someone might have punched her in the mouth."

A promise by the office of Representative William Lacy Clay to look into the matter produced nothing. The military said that the matter was closed.

Little more on LaVena's death was said until St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV aired a story last night which disclosed troubling details not previously made public - details which belie the Army's assertion that the young Florissant native died by her own hand. The video of the report is available on the KMOV website.

Reporter Matt Sczesny spoke with LaVena's father and examined documents and photos sent by Army investigators. So far from supporting the claim that LaVena died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the documents provided elements of another scenario altogether:

Indications of physical abuse that went unremarked by the autopsy
The absence of psychological indicators of suicidal thoughts; indeed, testimony that LaVena was happy and healthy prior to her death
Indications, via residue tests, that LaVena may not even have handled the weapon that killed her
A blood trail outside the tent where Lavena's body was found
Indications that someone attenpted to set LaVena's body on fire
The Army has resisted calls by Dr. Johnson and by KMOV to reopen its investigation.

We have seen in other military deaths, most infamously that of Army Ranger and former professional football player Cpl. Pat Tillman, that the Army has engaged in an insulting game of deny and delay when it comes to uncovering embarrassing facts. Only when public and official attention is brought to bear on the matter - as happened, eventually and with great effort, with the case of Cpl. Tillman - do unpleasant truths come to light.

Astonishing as it seems, it takes that level of outrage to compel the Army to find the truth and tell it, to honor its own soldiers. No such groundswell has yet emerged in the case of LaVena; not enough voices have demanded that someone in the military, anyone, speak for her. At first glance, the contrast between the cases of Pat Tillman and LaVena Johnson seems vast, but at the core the situations are the same. In each case, the death of a young soldier in a dangerous place and time was not explained to the families they left behind, the families that gave them up so that they could serve us. An honest accounting of their passing is all the dead ask of us.

The mother of Pat Tillman put the matter in stark and honest terms:

"This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual," she said. "How are they treating others?"

In the case of Private First Class Johnson, we know the answer.

Put a loved one's mug on a free mug!

Publix, through Snapfish, is offering a free mug (must pay shipping costs of $5.99) until March 31. You must enter PUBLIXFREEMUG in the coupon code as you check out. Follow THIS link.

This is a real, dishwasher-safe ceramic mug, not a plastic thing with a paper insert.

It was hard to decide. The grandsons? Molly? Finally, I chose the last solo photo I took of Grammie.

Don't YOU need a new mug?

The mailbox is a happy place again!

Distracted by Molly's situation (see below), I completely forgot about my new Netflix membership and didn't go to the mailbox until very late in the day. Imagine my delight to find my first video, Prime Suspect, season 1, disk 1, especially since I truly hate going to the mailbox for what I see as the daily garbage run.

At the end of the day, I climbed into bed and watched most of the two-episode video. Less than an hour in, I realized that this show clearly inspired The Closer, which is more formulaic and less gritty, but, at least initially, addresses the same kind of sexism as Prime Suspect: resentment by the men of a woman in charge of the "murder room" (as well as disbelief by the public that the woman is in charge), led by one of the woman's subordinates in particular. As I await PS disk 2, I fully expect one of the junior men, probably Burkin, to warm up to Jane Tennison very soon, just as Sgt. Gabriel became the first to respect Brenda Johnson.

I think I'm gonna like Netflix, but did I really need another thing distracting me from getting things done?

The Power of Positive Thinking

Yesterday I took Molly to Dr. J, compassionate veterinarian and husband of friend Alanna. Molly, it seems, is an overachiever, having produced test results that show the highest white cell count the animal hospital has ever seen. It likely means one of two things: she has an infection or she has cancer. We could confirm the cancer (or not cancer) with a $350 ultrasound or we could treat her with antibiotics for infection and see what happens. Considering that we're going to know one way or another soon enough, I chose the antibiotics.

Dr. J gave her pain medication and her first dose of antibiotics yesterday. I swear she is some better today. Her fur looks a little less ragged, she spent some time stalking squirrels through the patio door, and, most importantly, I can tell from the condition of the food bowl that she at least tried to eat a little. I annoyed her greatly giving her antibiotics this morning (liquids -- I am no good with the pills and this is too important to mess up), but I'm willing to make her mad at me to keep her alive.

I'm going with positive thinking until I'm proven wrong. Feel free to join me with thoughts and prayers. I'm not ready to be a no-cat household.

What Makes God Laugh, Spring Break edition: When the good news is also the bad news

So it's Spring Break.

For me, that means plans: Get caught up on the grading. Get caught up on the house, which I have utterly torn apart so I can put it back together better. (At least that's how I justify its condition.) Get caught up with the yard work.

First day of Spring break...I break. I sat down to write out the bills and suddenly felt ill. Stayed in bed the rest of the day.

I've been playing catch-up ever since. Today was supposed to be full-tilt grading.

My cat is sick and I must seek medical care for her tomorrow. (No, she doesn't eat any of the tainted foods, but thanks for thinking of us.)

Today I learn my wonderful uncle and aunt, who have never visited my very humble home, are coming to visit...in 10 days.

I can't even decide which project to clear first.

Bitty becomes the last person in America to join Netflix!

I almost never watch movies. I really can't say why. I own DVDs I've never seen, for pity's sake.

But this $4.99 Netflix deal caught my eye a while back, and, after watching and enjoying an actual movie on TNT yesterday (The Pledge), followed by finding yet another "free trial" Netflix ad in my junk mail...I gave in.

Only a few movies in my queue so far, on purpose: the two disks of Season 1 of Prime Suspect (which are on the way), Sherrybaby, Quinceanera, and Mad Hot Ballroom. Because the $4.99 deal allows me only 2 films per month, if it turns out I actually WATCH the films, I'll probably upgrade to the $9.99 deal.

So...anyone have any suggestions? Interests, besides (obviously) independent films: smart thrillers/detective. Smart comedies. Smart romances.

I don't have time for foolishness.

Time and loss

My work office is a mess. I moved out of the old one and into the new in August, in media res: trying to pack, unpack, plan, and start a new semester all at once. However, the most immediate chores always win the Bitty's Time Sweepstakes, so the clutter just keeps cluttering.

Little by little I unpack and rearrange: a pile, a box, an envelope here and there. I recently came across an envelope of photos that were formerly taped to my old office's wall and in them was a particularly beloved one of Grammie and her lifelong friend Reeney (who deserves a post all of her own someday), taken in my kitchen on May 20, 1995. (I know this because once upon a time I properly labeled my photos...). At the time, Grammie was a robust 82; Reeney was a few years older. I propped the photo in front of the monitor.

Looking at it today, I realized that it really is a record of the past: Reeney died in 1998, Grammie last year. I threw away the miniblinds a few months ago, and the chairs the ladies are sitting in now wait in my living room for me to take them to the local women's shelter thrift store this weekend. The only tangible objects in the photo still in my life are the door handle that peeks out from behind the blinds, the coffee mug in front of Reeney, and the blouse Grammie is wearing. (I kept a suitcase full of her blouses, a time capsule that comforts me even though I haven't opened it once since I packed it over a year ago.)

The things and people that surround us seem so permanent because we see them day after day.

And then suddenly we look around and everything is different.

Time

I feel ever-constricted by time, but it's not time's fault: it's the way our social structure uses and abuses it. In his poem “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home,” Craig Raine catches this idea perfectly as the “Martian” tries to explain life on Earth:

… time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

Yesterday I sat down with a friend and colleague as he showed me a huge web project he has almost finished. Colleague Friend is not a computer expert and he taught himself Dreamweaver to do this. This man accomplishes more on his lunch hour than I do in a week.

How is this????

We both get 24 hours per day.

My current dilemma? It’s 6:00 a.m. I must be “up” by 7:30. I woke up, however, at 3:30 and have been trying to exhaust myself back to sleep ever since. Later I will drag myself through the day only to not be able to sleep tonight. I fully expect that before the day is over, Abe Lincoln and a beaver will give me a pep talk as a silent astronaut observes.

Of course, I’m not really sure I’ve been awake since 3:30.

When we rolled into this experimental Daylight Saving Time, my home computer and cell phone automatically adjusted for the change.

I changed the time on my stove, but I changed it wrong. It’s – somehow – 15 minutes early. To get to the real time, I’ll have to take the time to scroll forward 11 hours and 45 minutes. This is a bad system.

I changed the time in my car.

I changed the time on my alarm clock and bedroom VCR. I can’t change the time on my living room VCR because I lost my remote somewhere in my house and I’m waiting for the new used one that I ordered from eBay.

I don’t care whether my living room TV and stereo know what time it is.

I haven’t changed either of my hanging-on-the-wall clocks yet.

My work office phone adjusted for the change; my work computer didn’t.

I feel like I'm ticking with impatience.
And the boxes are as confused as I am.

Friday Cat Blogging: Teenage Molly Ninja Turtle

Nineteen ninety-three was a year of change in our cat population. First I found JJ along the side of the road and brought her home "temporarily." Then, Semmi, the most majestic-looking cat I ever hope to own, was murdered with a small-caliber gun, and in my grief, the next weekend I followed a "free kittens" sign to my most-beloved cat, Molly.

She had been with us only a few months and was still in her kittenhood, probably technically a cat-teen, when we discovered her amazing talent: like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Molly could defy gravity and fight foes in mid-air. Like a Honey Nut Cheerios mini-beach ball:



Back in the old days, toys sometimes actually came in cereal boxes and we didn't have to send away for them. The beach ball was one such toy. The kids were casually batting it around when Molly went into hyperdrive and leapt to the attack. Leapt, as in gravity-defying heights.

So the game was on. For some weeks, several times a day, the kids would post themselves at either end of the hall and bat the ball back and forth; Molly, between them, would leap and twist and contort in her efforts to attack the ball, and she would play this game until she was exhausted. We took a number of photos -- this is the best -- and some video (which is somewhere in this house...). After a few weeks, she lost interest in the beach ball, as teenagers do. They grow up, find new interests, and move on.

The old TV has been replaced twice over, the nasty carpet ripped out years ago, the son now property of the USMC, but Molly and I are still here keeping each other company, both a little too sluggish and creaky to chase after inflatable balls, but still here. And so are the memories.

Meet the Press for Idiots

If my pal F ever comes back here, she's really gonna love this one.

In the meantime, Alanna, this is what you miss by going to bed early.



Thanks goes out to Shakes.

An Education from Notre Dame? Priceless.

For those of us who never thought we could afford an education from MIT – or other prestigious universities – do I ever have good news.

As long as you’re not interested in a diploma, MIT, Notre Dame, and UC Irvine, among others, cordially invite you to sit in on class – from the comfort of your own computer chair, and for free.

Although this apparently has been going on for a while, it took NPR to bring it to my attention. Janet Babin of Marketplace Money reports:

Maybe where someone got their degree doesn't impress you. But who isn't curious about what makes some colleges so expensive, and so competitive?

Well now, a few of those elite institutions are pulling back the curtain on the secret formula, making top-notch courses available online for free.

MIT was one of the first. MIT lets you peruse its OpenCourseWare program, where you can see a class syllabus, review quizzes and answers, and even watch videos of class lectures.

A faculty committee created the program several years ago as it worried that the Internet might pass MIT by.

Online students can follow along, but they don't have access to professors, and they don't get any kind of course credit.

The OpenCourseWare Consortium includes universities from all over the world, and describes OpenCourseWare as follows:

a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 100 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware.

The Goals of the Consortium

-Extend the reach and impact of opencourseware by encouraging the adoption and adaptation of open educational materials around the world.
-Foster the development of additional opencourseware projects.
-Ensure the long-term sustainability of opencourseware projects by
identifying ways to improve effectiveness and reduce costs.

Not everyone is thrilled. Babin reports the reaction of one disgrunted UNC student:

[I]t's not just about the money. Student Denny Lyons says he'd be against it even if he were on a full scholarship.

DENNY LYONS: We're the ones asking the questions, directing classes. And I guess I have a huge problem with everyone else being able to get benefits off my own intelligence or my own ideas.

Some, but not all, classes are videotaped, so this is apparently what Lyons is referring to. As a teacher who uses active learning (at least partially student-driven discussion classes), I have to wonder: if it's not about the money, how does Mr. Lyons feel about his onsite classmates getting the benefits of his stunning intellect?

No one need worry about the online learners competing with the paying students in the marketplace. Again, the OCW courses offer no credit, so no diploma. "Self-learners," as the various OCW providers call them, clearly show up for the knowledge, which is vastly different from the goal of some (certainly not all) paying college students who come to college precisely to get the piece of paper that they expect to cash in for a lucrative job. For them, if education happens in the interim, that's a nice side benefit.

I look forward to filling a few gaps in my own education; I have my eye on Intro to Philosophy at Notre Dame. To be taken in my spare time, of course.

Notice to Tailgaters: A Physics Lesson

As much as you might like it to be otherwise, I can drive no faster than the car in front of me without engaging some of the nastier side effects of the laws of motion.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

I am Spartacus!

Following driftglass,

I am Spartacus.



Because I don't have time right now to compose my own thoughts, literally, I'll crib from two fine bloggers. First, the aforesaid driftglass:

Shakespeare’s Sister has announced that she is bowing out of the Edwards campaign.

Needless to say this is a very sad and sobering development.

And needless to say that she is doing it with orders of magnitude more grace and élan than either the rabid howler monkeys on the Right or the pudding-soft children within the Edwards campaign are capable of mustering on their best day.

And needless to say that the Right’s madness has manifested itself in threats of violence against my friend Shakes, because that is how the Right operates.

And then my #1 favorite blogger, Waveflux:

Melissa McEwan resigned today from her position as netroots coordinator for John Edwards' presidential campaign.

[...] Melissa's statement and her resignation demonstrates maturity and integrity, qualities starkly lacking in the bullying Bill Donohue and his Catholic League.

I don't worry about Melissa; she is tough and smart and will prosper. I do worry about the rest of us in a society where a pious demagogue can make cheap, unchallenged headlines by way of slander.

I said earlier that there was only one response to bullies like Donohue, and it doesn't matter whether they lurk at the margins of politics or at the center of civic discourse. Only one response, and needed from more than just the targets of their attacks, from more than one lone political campaign. The repsonse that's needed to counter the likes of Donohue, thugs who want nothing less than to silence you, is more speech, and better, and from all of us.

Though in a pinch, nailing bullies for violations of 501(c)(3) regulations will also do.

History here.

And here.

And here:

And here.

And here.

And death threats? That's just wrong.

Meet Kate

Or Clair. Or Audrey. Or even Kenneth.

My friend Alanna sent me an e-mail with a link to this Oddcast.com sample.

It's great fun to type in song lyrics or poems and listen to Audrey (so far my favorite) recite them with lifelike vocal inflection and facial expressions. Want to be particularly freaked out? Feed Audrey a paragraph from your own blog and have her read it back to you. Oh, and her eyes follow your cursor.

I tried removing some punctuation and she didn't do as well, but it still wasn't THAT bad. And it's against my religion to try to type in misspelled words, so someone else will have to try that experiment.

Fun.

Freaky.

Fabulous!

WARNING: Apparently there's a limit to the number of times they'll let you play with it. I've been thanked for playing and have now been directed to, essentially, the sales department.

Drat!

Dishin' on the Grammys

I don't know when the last time was that I watched the Grammy Awards. I 'aged out' of the demographic that record companies target a long time ago (ironic, in that I actually BUY the music I listen to), so I generally don't have any idea who any of the honorees are. But I got suckered into the Police reunion buzz, even though, frankly, it was Sting and two guys doing Roxanne. I mean, if my eyes had been closed, I wouldn't have known the difference between Sting with the Police and Sting with other guys.

So the Police were first and that's when I should have turned off the TV, since I had other things to do with that three and a half hours.

But I was pleasantly surprised.

It wasn't really an awards show; it was a music show with the very occasional award. Most awards were given pre-show. And most awards given during the show were some sort of lifetime achievement thing (frequently awarded to dead people), although they didn't call them that. So, some awards of my own:

Scariest (and saddest) Plastic Surgery: Smokey Robinson, who won't be needing a costume on Halloween...



Most (usually) wasted voice: Christina Aguilera. Why does she squander that phenomenal voice on the garbage she usually performs when she's capable of singing like she did last night? (This is not a new thought for me; I think this every time I hear Christina belt out an actual SONG.)

"Snap!" award: Dixie Chicks, those lib'ral traitors, win five awards. Dixie Chicks win for Country Album, then the camera slides over to Reba McIntyre (who has been a vocal shut-up-and-sing critic) for a reaction; she looks like she's sucking on a lemon. Then Reba has to do the next announcement. Sorry, Reba. Apparently not everyone wants the Chicks to shut up.


Moxie award: Robin Troup. Who? The "My Grammy Moment" winner. Grammy ran its own little American Idol; three unknowns -- who all looked about 17 -- vied for a performance with Justin Timberlake, as determined by America's vote. How one might decide between the three was unclear, since they looked and sounded alike (maybe more info -- longer performance samples -- was available on the Grammy site?). Troup prevailed, and in her performance (all three young women had practiced with Timberlake) held her own. But of course all I could think was: Timberlake, don't touch that girl's clothes.

Why I'm Glad I Watched Award: Gnarls Barkley. Had heard the name, had heard snippets of the song "Crazy." But live? Crazy.

The Virtual Refrigerator

I'm on a purging, reorganizing, and redecorating kick. I've been at it in fits and starts for a while, but still I'm spending a good part of every weekend getting SOMETHING done.

Standing in my kitchen, holding a piece of paper not nearly as important as a birth certificate, but something I knew I ought to keep -- a flyer full of info from my garbage collector -- my urge was to put it on the refrigerator.

But another of my goals is to stop loading up the fridge with paper. I saw a great idea on HGTV's Mission Organization a week or so ago: attaching thin metal magnet boards inside kitchen cabinets for this kind of stuff. I forget what the woman used, but I think a piece of flashing might do the job if it's made of the stuff that magnets love. But that's for another day.

Today my problem was the garbage flyer and I was stumped. To make matters worse, it sat outside for a few days and is weathered and dirty. If I put its dirty self in a file folder, I'd forget all about it, defeating the purpose of saving it.

And then I thought about putting it "on" the computer.

I created a folder for my desktop, labeled it "Virtual Refrigerator," scanned the flyer, put the scan in the folder, and threw the original away.

Problem solved. The folder will be in my face all the time, just like the front of the fridge is. Going forward I'll scan all those things that fall into that "refrigerator" category, and I'll look at the Virtual Refrigerator at least once a week to see if I still need the stuff that's in there. And I'll know where that kind of thing is.

Best part? I have a big hard drive. It'll never get too cluttered.

Why didn't I think of this sooner?

Waste

I've come to see my daily trip to the mailbox as the garbage run.

I go to the box, come inside, sort through that which should be shredded and that which should go straight to the recycling bin. When life is overly busy, this can pile up for a few weeks. This week I took note of how much actual necessary mail I received. It came to exactly two items: a bill (which can't be received online) and my W-2 (which actually can).

So --
we're cutting down trees
burning fuel to manufacture all this junk
burning fuel to deliver all this junk
burning a tiny bit of electricity each time I run the shredder
burning fuel to take the stuff to the landfill (where the recycling center is).

No wonder our environment is hurting.

People hate spam, but I don't. I use a Hotmail address for all my business transactions, and my spam accumulates there, where I deal with it at my leisure. I'll take spam over stuff that exists just for the purpose of going to the landfill.

What a waste.