Chag Atzmaut Sameach!

(Happy Independence Day!)

My friend Aliza wrote a particularly good bit about Israel in honor of the day. I can't say I agree with her 100%, but I also doubt I'll put up anything nearly as worthwhile to read, so you should go read her stuff instead.

My 60-day Challenge

I've signed myself up for Round Two of Moxie's 60-Day Take Yourself Seriously Challenge. One of the challenges I've given myself is to post here at least three times per week, at least one of which must be substantial (defined as 100+ words). Because I'm a wuss, I'm counting this post as one of my three.

Rumble In the Darkness

Nope, not a really big substantive post here (yet). If I don't get this up now, I never will. With thanks to One Tired Ema for the tip, I direct you to The Great Virtual Breast Fest. I have no pictures of my own to contribute (and, even if I did, I'm not sure I'd put pictures of my children online without password protection), but I hope that by putting up a link I can do my own little part to desexualize and normalize attitudes toward breastfeeding in our culture.

Exploitation-Neutral

Tonight Julian and I were discussing Moxie's post on consumer consciousness in purchasing children's toys. I suggested striving to avoid the Made-in-China-type stuff, not only for our kids' safety, but also to do our part to minimize worker exploitation and bad manufacturing practices. Not missing a beat, Julian asked if there are companies that would follow the carbon-neutral model by becoming "exploitation-neutral" - "We'll keep on exploiting our own workers, but we'll pay for those people over there to have a better life."

Seriously, I want to do some kind of assessment of our global exploitation "footprint" and see what we can do to minimize it. I have no real chance of ever meeting my ideal - the cheap, cute clothes at Old Navy are just too tempting to pass up. And just two days ago I bought a couple of rubber duckies (from Target no less) that were made in China...and I didn't even bother to look at the packaging before tossing them into the stroller basket. Hell, we have half of the Tiny Love catalog sitting in our living room, thanks to their "buy one, get one free" program for parents of multiples. We certainly have our share of plastic toys, though we are trying to minimize the number of items that sing, vibrate, whistle, beep, flash, or otherwise contribute to auditory and visual pollution of the home. (I should note that we bought high chairs with big plastic toy attachments that flash and play music. Sue me, but sometimes the kids need to be in their high chairs without food, and I'm weak.)

Will have to chew this over. In the meantime, I am happy to note that DreamHost, which my husband went with to host online stuff for our synagogue, is both employee-owned and carbon-neutral/green. w00t!

(No, being carbon-neutral's not perfect, not when you accomplish it by paying for "carbon credits," but it's a step in the right direction, and DreamHost also goes to some length to reduce their negative environmental impact to begin with.)

Sing it!

I was going to write a post like this in honor of World Breastfeeding Week, but since One Tired Ema wrote it already, and probably better than I would have, go read hers.

musical midrash

...and while I'm linking to Jewish sites, I need to put in a plug for Shir-Yaacov's Musical Midrashim. I will be the first to say that you have to be in the right mindset to listen to these, and they're not for everyone, but I like them. Consider this my first music review.

He has a blog too, in case you're interested.

KosherBlog

It seems a fellow Brookline resident is running this site. Restaurant reviews, wine discussions, travel tips, but most importantly: "exotic" product finds! The sort of foods that the non-kosher world takes for granted--good cheese, decent balsamic vinegar, stuff like that--is fairly hard for us to find, and even harder to find at a decent price. Mr. Abbett, thank you. I look forward to bumping into you in shul one day.

blood for oil

Rabbi Josh Cypess's treatment of the murders in Gaza last weekend is quite insightful as well. It's the May 3 entry, in case you're reading this some time in the distant future.

all good things

That was fun. Then I came home and got updated on the news. Too angry to write anything on either topic right now, but for a treatment of today's Israel events, I suggest today's entry in The Land of Oz.