Hashtagivism

Hashtag Activism

You know what it is. We find something we are passionate about, or moved by or want to change. 

What can we do about it?

We can make sure the world knows how important it is to us. We can raise awareness. We can pop up a hashtag'ed statement on social media to let the world know that we are aware of the injustice and, dammit, we are gonna let someone else know about it too!

I recently heard that one of the founders of the "occupy" movement decried this type of hashtag activism as being one of the downfalls of the occupy movement. Many were wanting to make a change, so they did something about it. They tweeted, posted and voiced a quick blurb about how they were in the game. Since they felt like they'd made a difference, they went on with their lives, then wondered why the change they craved never came to fruition.

I am not a fan of the occupy movement, but I do wonder if I've ever fallen prey to thinking my hashtagivisim has at all changed the world. Have I tossed out a quick "I support you" post, and thought that would take the place of doing something real and making an impact in a meaningful way.

As for you occupiers make sure you hash tag it up. As far as I'm concerned, that's all we need out of you.

Doomed for want of an egg!

Alarming! Shocking! Controversial!

If you haven't heard, an expert panel at the FDA has recently issued a new set of dietary guidelines reversing the adamantly held previous guidelines regarding the so called dangers of eating foods with fat, cholesterol and other foods that, for years, the government has told us were bad for our health.

 For those of you that have always trusted the government and made sure your omelettes were egg white omelettes or tried to lose weight by eating a "healthy" high grain diet, this might be a big surprise.

 For those that have looked at the research, this is not really anything new.

Others will continue to throw up their hands in the face of this information and not what to do with it, other than to say, "Well, something is going to kill you, so why worry about what you eat?".

These are, perhaps, the same people that don't use car seat because, "These kids are gonna die one day anyway. May as well be from being ejected through the windshield in a minor traffic accident." 

Or they might say, "Well, I'm gonna die from something. so why bother disconnecting the electricity before I install my ceiling fan?".

Maybe they really don't care, or maybe they don't really think what they eat will kill them.

Reality is that diet strongly effects health and many have died from an improper diet. We can eat better and be better stewards of the body we have been given and maybe decrease the chances that our death will be because of how we treat ourselves.

I suppose we can start by looking at the new dietary guidelines, even if they are somewhat behind the times: 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines

Reefer Madness

Our lovely house in the Sacramento area, where we bought our last refrigerator.




Finding ourselves in need of a little more cooling and freezing space, we recently replaced our 17 year old refrigerator. In the midst of our looking and switching out and all that, Diane reminded me of this:

A few years ago (it was nearly 6 years ago now) a call came in to the local emergency services/911 dispatch. What was the big emergency? A refrigerator was left in an abandoned lot. Not only that, but the doors were still on it! With nothing to keep them closed.

When this was made known to my coworkers, many of them had no idea why this would be a problem. Apparently, this is only something we old timers know about.

Have you ever been warned of the dangers of a refrigerator in an abandoned lot?

In other news, we do have a fully functional Maytag for sale. Cheap.