You can help support Trees for the Future just by purchasing your favorite Celestial Seasonings teas. For every box of tea you buy between January 1 and March 31, Celestial Seasonings will sponsor the planting of trees all around the world—up to one million trees in all. You might say we’re planting trees one cup at a time!
You can also plant a tree in their virtual forest. For each virtual tree planted, Celestial Seasonings will sponsor the planting of a real one.
This is sheer nonsense: You can now buy Disney branded eggs. Not free-range, not organic, not anything interesting or relevant. Just stamped with Disney pictures and wrapped in Disney packaging, in the hopes that I will cave under pressure in the dairy aisle. Disney: quit. marketing. to. my. kids.
This is also sheer nonsense: Nature Words Dropped From Children’s Dictionary. This is an article I wrote for Eco Child’s Play; please hop on over and leave me a comment!
The full list of words dropped and added can be found here.
Inquiring minds want to know: Is Ikea green?
Back in the day, before Christmas, I mentioned that Tom’s shoes was attempting to raise 30,000 shoes for kids in need through their buy one, donate one program. I’m happy to report they exceeded their goal, donating 37,000 pairs in Ethiopia!
Good news: Obama lifts SCHIP restrictions:
Ending a two-year effort by Democrats, Obama signed legislation Wednesday that will enable about 7 million children to continue coverage through SCHIP and allow another 4 million to sign up. The president sees expansion of government health insurance to millions of lower-income children as a first step of several to come in providing coverage for all Americans.
More good news: One year stay on CSPIA mandatory testing regulations:
The decision by the Commission gives the staff more time to finalize four proposed rules which could relieve certain materials and products from lead testing and to issue more guidance on when testing is required and how it is to be conducted.
This disturbing story comes courtesy of my brother: A father driving his three kids home on a snowy road makes an illegal lane change and sees the flashing lights of a police car behind him. He then slowly pulls to the rightmost lane and looks for a safe place to stop. Decelerating to about 5 mph, he prepares to stop and is rammed by the police officer. He is then arrested at gunpoint and spends two nights in jail.
More details and video of the traffic stop here.
To me, this is a really scary story. I drive like a granny in the snow, and I can assure you I would not be quickly crossing all those lanes of traffic to pull over. And as my brother points out, we’ve often heard that we are supposed to look for safe places to stop, even waiting to find a public place if we are uncertain as to the authenticity of the police vehicle. To be rammed and face an officer’s gun, with small children in the car? Terrifying. Truly.
Finally, I’m sure you know all about the peanut butter recall (full list of recalled products here). Just a reminder to check and see if your pet’s foods and treats are on the recall list, and to take precautions with your backyard birds too.
High of 59 degrees in these parts today, hallelujah!
Pardon me while I head outside.
I missed your weekend reading! Even if I'm not reading it on the weekend. I forwarded the link about the tea to my mom; hopefully she'll buy me a box of tea from Celestial Seasonings! They've always been our favorite tea company.
About the words — I don't know enough nature words at all. If I bought an old dictionary from a used bookstore and looked up all those nature words, would there be illustrations and such to help me figure out what it is? I've been thinking about getting bird watching books and plant identification books for hobbyists, just to get more of an idea of what everything is. I feel so lost in the world of nature.