What Do a Home Soapmaker and Unilever Have in Common?

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Charity

A: Nothing.  Well, except that they both make a product commonly referred to as soap, but the similarities stop there.

About four years ago, I started making my own soap.  We switched all of our household products for cleaning and beauty to the natural variety.  Dish liquid and dish washer detergent, household cleaners, shampoo, deodorant, laundry soap, and bath soap.  The bath soap was so expensive, I started making it myself.  Soon after, I started making my own make-up.

As it turns out, there is a huge indie beauty industry out there.  Women (and men) like me who make homemade bath and body products that are safe and natural.  Do a search on the popular craft-selling website Etsy for soap and you will be blown away.

Well, it turns out that home soap makers are not the only folks who are concerned about the chemicals in cosmetics.  Congress also cares. So, they made a bill that would make products safer and require truthful labeling – H.R. 5786, the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010.

Side note: anyone who needs a law to make them tell the truth about what’s in their products needs to go back to kindergarten and learn the rules again.  Seriously.

The problem with Congress – wait, I mean one of the problems with Congress – is that it uses a one-size-fits-all approach that lumps small- and micro-businesses in the same category with multi-billion dollar, multi-national cosmetic companies.

In other words, the legislation before Congress now will put the same regulations on the mom making soap in her kitchen to sell on Etsy as it does on the world’s leading cosmetic manufacturers.

These regulations will require too much time and money to comply with for the small cosmetic maker, the one who started her business in order to get away from the products manufactured by the large cosmetic company.  She will no doubt have to shut down her business.

Worse still, so will many others.  That will lead to many of the supply companies for home soap and cosmetic making going out of business as well.

It might not even be possible to make your own products at home for your own home use after that.

I guess this legislation is a big win for big cosmetic, after all.  And a big loss for consumer choice and the freedom to build your own home beauty products business.

I can only hope that the people at the Indie Beauty Network and others can get through to Congress before it’s too late.

You can help.  Go here.  Sign the petition to stop the Safe Cosmetic Act of 2010 and encourage Congress to stop treating small, independent cosmetic businesses the same way they treat large manufacturers.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Life Without God, Eight Months Later

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Charity

It’s been more than a month since I last posted about my non-belief.  I have been spending a lot of time really thinking about things and it was important for me to not blog about it.  Usually, I find writing therapeutic, but sometimes, I actually benefit from keeping things inside my head (people who know me well will understand how unusual that is for me), where they can swirl around for a while, uninfluenced by the outside world.

I have finally made it through most, if not all, of the grieving process.  I think people who have always been non-believers have no idea what a sense of loss it is when you lose God.  It was really hard for a while.  Almost like losing a parent, in a sense.  But, I am not feeling that loss any more.  I am so much happier now.

I feel like I have grown so much in the past months.  I never realized how emotionally stunted I had become, but when you are a grown-up with grown-up responsibilities and you are still leaning on a parent (our Father in Heaven) for support for everything in your life, you cannot grow up.

It’s like I was that guy living in his parent’s basement.

Well, I moved out and have been on my own for more than 8 months.  I have encountered a lot of pitfalls, made some stupid decision (none with long-lasting consequences, thankfully), and learned so much about myself.

And I feel terrific.  Really, really terrific.

I have finally started to deal with the things that I was running from when I became a Christian.  Receiving forgiveness from God did nothing to heal the pain.  You can only move on from your past after you confront it.  By becoming a Christian, I was merely sweeping it under the rug.

I am so much healthier now, emotionally and physically.

There are a lot of things that I want to post about in more detail, but I wanted to give you a quick update on how things are going for me personally.

Thank you for reading and showing me your support.  I really appreciate all of you who have taken the time to write to me.

Posted in Religion & Atheism | Tagged | Comments Off

Taking a More Practical Approach

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Charity

I’ve been thinking a lot about my political views lately.  How they have changed.  It’s not that I don’t believe the same things I did before, it’s just that I have come to realize that my views were almost wholly philosophical in that they were not based on the way our world is actually set up.

There is little practical use for a political ideology like that, which is why I often found myself disillusioned.

To sort of sum up, since many of you were not readers of “She’s Right,” and others of you had me all wrong anyway, I was (am) basically a libertarian – less government restrictions on personal and business choices, more freedom; what government we do have should be locally controlled to the greatest extent possible; and the primary function of the federal government should be limited to those things that the states can’t do (ie defense, disaster relief, infrastructure, printing money, etc.).

There’s nothing wrong with that political philosophy.  I still believe that we need to always come down on the side of more personal freedoms and less government.

However, we do have a big government.  That is just reality.  I am not saying that we should resign ourselves to that fact, but we do need to operate within that framework in a sensible way.

For example, if we are talking about what to do about, say, welfare, it makes no sense to debate whether or not the federal government has a constitutional right to even have social programs, or to suggest that we get rid of government social programs and care for the poor through a network of private charities, or philosophize about the evils of forced benevolence – all things I have done in the past.  It makes no sense because that is not where we are.  The government does have social programs and the Supreme Court has not ruled them unconstitutional.  A network of private charities large enough to take over the government’s role in caring for the poor does not presently exist.

I’m not saying that we should not work to make changes to our bloated government.  I am not saying that we should not push back against any further expansion of government.  I am not saying that we should not err on the side of freedom when considering new legislation.  And I am certainly not saying that other libertarians should shut up.

We need all voices and perspectives on the table.

I am just saying that for me personally, I have started to take a more pragmatic view of government.  I find it less maddening, for one thing, because I am not fighting against the currents of reality.  For another, I can actually find candidates I support, rather than holding a fringe view that leaves me with no good choices on the ballot.

I will talk more about my evolving political views in the context of current issues in the coming weeks and months, as we head toward the fall elections.  As always, I hope you will join me in the comments for discussion.

Posted in Politics | Comments Off

Penn Jillette on the Tea Party, Bush and Obama

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Charity

Penn Jillette, of the famous magic/comedy duo Penn & Teller, was interviewed by Vanity Fair recently.

I have been meaning to post about it since the day I read it, but life has been hectic lately.  It takes some time to settle into the summer schedule.  Even though my kids are homeschooled, they are still very affected by the public school’s summer vacation, thereby dispelling the myths that homeschooled kids are not socialized enough, or so one can hope.

I found this article via an atheist blog (sorry, I forgot which one), but I found it fascinating for what Jillette says about politics.

Although, he did say this interesting thing about religion and stupid, crazy people:

I do believe that a belief in god is crazy, but that doesn’t mean that the people who believe in it are crazy. Those are two different things. Ideas can be stupid and crazy and the people who hold those ideas are not necessarily stupid and crazy.

I think that’s true.  I also think it is refreshing to hear someone who is as outspoken an atheist as Penn Jillette say so.

Now, on to the political.  First, you must know that Jillette is very liberal.  He is no friend of the Tea Party; he is no friend to the Republican Party or President Bush.

My only point was, when you’re arguing with someone, you shouldn’t pretend to know what’s going on in their heart. To say that the only reason the Tea Party is against the president is because they’re racist, I think that’s unfair. We know what racist people look like. They don’t deny it. They just don’t!

…

If the Tea Party isn’t publicly stating “We think people of other races should be treated differently,” then you don’t get to call them racist.

You just don’t hear people on the left making that statement.  I say this all of the time, but because I was an active member of the Republican Party and have libertarian tendencies, it is dismissed.  So, I thought it was great to hear that coming from someone on the left for a refreshing change.

When I disagree with Obama, people always say, “Well, you’re a big Bush guy then.” And I’m like no, I didn’t like Bush either. I disagree with Bush and Obama on all the stuff they agree on, which is pretty much everything. They both want to kill people, they both want the government to be bigger, and they both want less freedom for individuals.

Emphasis, mine.

We’re killing more people under Obama than we did under Bush, and where the fuck is the anti-war movement?

The only difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is killing more people. He’s about double the numbers now. Can you imagine if McCain had won and did precisely what Obama has done, with every speech and every political maneuver overseas? There’d be riots in the streets about the people we’re killing. And yet because it’s Obama, and he’s better looking and better at reading the teleprompter, we let him get away with it.

Again, emphasis mine because I have said that a million times.  In private, not in blog, but still.  It is so true and, again, refreshing to hear it being said.

Head on over and read the whole thing.  I highlighted the parts I most wanted to bring attention to, but really the entire interview is worth reading.

And if you like what he had to say, be sure to check out Penn Point, his vlog.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

New Look

Posted on June 19, 2010 by Charity

I installed WordPress 3.0 yesterday and, of course, I had to try out Twenty Ten, the new default theme, so I could fully utilize the new functions.

I liked my old theme, but I LOVE the custom menu function in WordPress 3.0, as demonstrated in the navigation bar across the top, below the header.  Hover over “Find Me on the Web” and you’ll see what I mean.  You can use pages, links, or categories to make your custom menu.  Very cool.

I did away with the separate “Politics Page” and will be including those posts on the main blog.  I decided that I don’t want to focus so much on atheism and religion, so I might as well just keep all topics on the front page.

While I was at it, I cleaned up the categories a bit.  When I first started this blog, I didn’t want a religion category, so I put religion posts under a “Thoughts & Reflections” category.  Once I added a Religion category, it became redundant.  Some posts were under one or the other and some were under both.

Now, all religion posts are filed under “Religion & Atheism.”  I added atheism to the category name because I don’t like to file atheism posts under “Religion.”

“Thoughts & Reflections” is now called “Random Thoughts” and includes random posts that don’t fit in any of the other categories.

While I miss my old theme, I am very happy with the new features in WordPress 3.0.  I did use the old header and change the links to orange, so it is still reminiscent of the old theme.  Overall, it is definitely a change for the better.

Posted in Admin Notes | Tagged , | Comments Off

Blogging Shop Talk

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Charity

I started a new writing project.  It’s a blog, but it’s the kind of thing that I don’t want to make public until a certain amount of writing has already been done on it.  I think it will be about 6 months before I make it public.

So, I started it on blogger because that is really easy to make a private blog on, I already have an account, and I’ve imported two blogs from blogger to wordpress with no problems (both She’s Right and All Things Hold Together started on blogger).

But, this morning as I was posting, I started thinking about all of the wordpress features I am not using, like categories.  My other blogs imported as “uncategorized” which made it clunky to try and use a cloud tag, unless I wanted to go back and categorize years of posts.

Plus, now that wordpress 3.0 is out, I am dying to use it!  Starting a new blog with it will allow me to utilize all of its features from the get go.

What I am wondering is whether or not I should just start the blog on wordpress and how I want to go about doing that.  The two biggest issues are how to make it private and where to put it.  When I finally make my blog public, it will be under my own domain name, which I do not have yet.  I want to be sure I love the title.  As it is, I just decided that I don’t like my working title.  In the meantime, I am not sure where to put the site.  I mean, obviously, I will put it on my server where I have all of my blogs.

I feel like I didn’t really think this through before I started writing, but I only have a handful of posts done, so I want to figure this out now.

Any suggestions?

Posted in Geeky Stuff | Comments Off

Not Happy About Happy Town

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Charity

I have been sick the past three days.  Really sick.  Can’t get out of bed sick.  And, it sucks.

I ran out of stuff to do while stuck in bed yesterday, so I looked online for something to watch on my laptop.  I found this show called Happy Town on ABC.  I watched the first 5 episodes.  (Not all at once.)  I got into it.  It was on again last night, so today I watched the 6th episode today.

Since every show I ever watch, ever, gets canceled, I decided to check the ratings.  I went to wikipedia and learned that on May 17, ABC announced the show was getting cut after it airs the remaining episodes.

The interesting thing – maddening thing – about that is that as of May 17, they had only aired 3 episodes.  Three episodes?!?  I can’t believe that the executives at ABC made the call to cancel a show after only 3 episodes.

After last night’s episode, there are only two left.  Now I will never get to find out who the Magic Man is, what Chloe’s deal is, or why Old Lady Haplin is so creepy.

Man, people have no patience these days.

Posted in Pop Culture | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Why I Left Christianity (Re-Explained)

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Charity

It’s hard to talk about why I don’t believe in the Christian god anymore without it sounding like I left because it was too hard or I was upset that God didn’t fix all my problems and make my life easy and wonderful.  It comes across that way because tied up with the story of my faith journey is the story of my life journey, including my struggles.

But, I didn’t leave because I thought it should have been easier.  If anything, Christianity at least gave my troubles in life a purpose and I could look forward to going to a place where my troubles would be gone.

I did leave because I wasn’t happy, but not because I thought I should have been happy all the time.

Think of it this way.  If you were unhappy with your spouse one day, you would not get a divorce over it.  If you were unhappy with your spouse for a week, you wouldn’t leave.  If you were unhappy with your spouse for a week every couple of months, or a month twice a year, or whatever, but the rest of the time was great, you probably wouldn’t leave.

But, if you were married for, say, five years and you looked back over the time and found that you were unhappy more than you were happy, you might start thinking about whether or not you should leave.  And while you were thinking about whether or not you should leave, you might come across some major compatibility issues or deal breakers that you couldn’t reconcile.

That’s what happened to me.  (With god, not my spouse!)  I realized that I was overall more miserable practicing Christianity.  So, I began to ask myself what would happen if there was no god, and I liked what I found.

I had a lot of doubts.  I was constantly suspending disbelief and forcing myself to overlook the inconsistencies.  It wasn’t too hard to realize that I didn’t really believe in God anymore, once I gave myself permission to think about it.

I get a lot of feedback from people here, in e-mail, and in other forums where the implication is that I either did something wrong in my practice or was following the wrong doctrine.

I really don’t want to spend my time blogging in defense of my own personal decision to leave Christianity.  My posts were done for my own benefit (I had a story that I needed to get out) and for those who enjoy reading the stories of others who left the faith.

I was not attempting to convert anyone or present a well-reasoned argument against god.

Honestly, I don’t care what other people believe, for the most part, unless it is directly hurting people.

I’m not saying that I no longer welcome discussions about faith.  I am totally open to discussion and I never delete comments that I disagree with.  I have always blogged with an open commenting policy (though I do hold first-time comments for moderation to cut down on spam).

What I am saying is that the burden is on you.

Don’t tell me what was wrong with my beliefs, understanding, or practice of Christianity.

Do tell me why you believe in god, what Christianity means to you, or how you practice it.

Treat me as a blank slate, someone who has never heard of Christianity.  Because right now, I fail to see the point in it.  So, telling me what I did wrong serves absolutely no purpose and wastes both our time.

This is not written with any one person in mind.  It has just been on my mind in general that I don’t want to spend time defending my own choice to leave a belief system that was harmful to me.

Posted in Religion & Atheism | Tagged | Comments Off

The Power of… Thinking You Are Talking to Someone

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Charity

The other day, I was having a really hard time with my oldest son.  On my way to an appointment (that he was supposed to be going to with me) I called my husband to rant.  I got his voicemail, so I left a long rambling rant about how frustrated I was with my son’s behavior lately.  Then, I reached the end of the time allotment and was prompted to save the message as is, start over, or delete it.  I realized that there wasn’t anything that my husband could do while at work and that hearing my message would no doubt stress him out, leaving him stuck at work stressed out, probably thinking things were worse than they actually were.  So, I deleted it.

As I continued driving, I realized that I felt so much better having vented.  But, it was weird because no one actually heard me venting.  At the time, though, I thought I was talking to someone who cared.

That got me thinking about all of the times I vented to God.  Even though I am pretty sure now that no one was listening, it always made me feel better to pray.

People always talk about the power of prayer.  I think there might be power in prayer, but I don’t think that power comes from any supernatural being.  I think that the act of getting our worries and frustrations out into the open is what helps.  Talking about our problems to someone who we think cares helps us put things in perspective and know we are not alone.

So, next time I find myself missing having a god to pray to, I think I will find someone who cares about me to talk to.  Or, I could always just talk to my husband’s voicemail and then delete it.

Posted in Religion & Atheism | Tagged | 3 Comments

Old School Video Games

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Charity

Mashable has a list of 10 Awesome Vintage Video Games You Can Play Online.  I thought this list was, well, awesome, but judging from the comments, its awesomeness might be age-specific.  Most of these games were popular right around my prime video gaming period.

Any list that has the original 2D side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. is great, in my book.  But even better is the fact that it has the original Legend of Zelda for NES.  I used to love that game when I was a kid.  I have a working SNES console with Super Mario, but Zelda is a game that I do not have.

I have a feeling I am about to waste a lot of time today.

Posted in Awesomeness on the Internet, Geeky Stuff | Tagged , , , | Comments Off