You might enjoy reading 10 Reasons Why I Ditched My Car, which describes how the life of a single mom changed with the decision to give up her car.

Via Treehugger

First of all, Robert Waldrop has the coolest beard I’ve ever seen. Let’s get my shallow observation out of the way.

Second of all, he did the coolest thing: he founded the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, which brings sustainably harvested, local food to Oklahoma folks. You might be interested in finding a food coop near you.

And third, he has taken a vow of poverty and founded the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House to study and practice Catholic social justice.

And I am way into Catholic social justice, particularly the liberation theology variety.

Via Plenty Magazine

Here’s a list of objections to the No China Diet as well as some (mostly) excerpted responses:

Won’t a boycott hurt Chinese people?

On the face of it, it would appear that boycotting Chinese products would only hurt the ordinary Chinese worker. However, if you look more closely, you will see that it is the Chinese government that benefits most from increased exports. Take Walmart, for example. There is a notional minimum wage in China of around 30 cents an hour, which is barely enough to subsist on. However Walmart only pays around 13 cents an hour. The Chinese government deliberately turns a blind eye to such low wages. Money is power, and the last thing the Chinese government wants is an empowered workforce; hence the vicious repression of independent trade unions.

It follows that while companies like Walmart pay taxes to the Chinese government, the ordinary Chinese people do not receive any of the benefit. The Chinese government operates a slave-wage economy, and calls it economic growth!

excerpted from Buy Hard

Won’t this hurt the move toward democracy?

Optimistic reports of slow but steady progress towards democratic governance in China are, in the main, based on self-serving analysis or outright wishful thinking. One “proof” usually offered of China’s democratization is the decision in 2002 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to include businessmen into its ranks. What that has accomplished ccording to a New York Times report on the 16th Party Congress in Beijing by Joseph Kahn has been “to transform the world’s last major left-wing dictatorship into the world’s last major right-wing dictatorship.”1 Furthermore, what many reports failed to point out was that nearly all the leading financial, business and industrial figures in China were invariably the close relatives, sons, daughters, nephews, wives, etc., of China’s highest-ranking Communist Party officials.

excerpted from Boycott Made in China

Doesn’t the US do far more egregious things?

In the end, it probably comes down to a question of degree, and China’s human rights record is certainly an extreme one. No country in the world could be indicted with such a wide variety of horrendous and bizarre human rights abuses as China.

excerpted from Boycott Made in China

How the hell are you going to do this? Isn’t everything Made in China?

I’m going to make a list of the things that we buy: groceries, clothes, drugstore items (shampoo, cleanser, makeup), gifts (for ourselves and others), gas. And then I’m going to figure out alternatives to Made in China.

excerpted from my own brain

Isn’t this some sort of further deprivation (other than the vegetarianism) that leads to an entire mentality of deprivation rather than abundance? Aren’t you screwing ourselves out of the good life? You are affluent and first world, after all, bring on the bounty!

Hmm.

I think that with enough careful shopping and research, this will not be about deprivation, but about choice, and human, animal, and environmental rights.

also excerpted from my own brain

If you have other questions, you can post them in comments, and I’ll try to find an answer for you.

Jordan asked if I could write more about the No China Diet, which I planned too, so I’ve very quickly penned a post on the motivation behind it. I’ll write more later.

I’ve noticed that many of us in the United States, including myself, function much more as consumers than as citizens. And we are encouraged to be this way.

Sure, I vote when it’s convenient (though I vote absentee).

Sure, I write my congressfolks at least once a month, if not more.

Sure, I go to public meetings at least a couple times a year, if not more.

Sure, I stopped eating meat twenty years ago out of a belief that I couldn’t contribute to a system that commodified animals.

But other than vegetarianism, which to me is political, the other experiences are exceptions in a larger life in which I produce products and consume products. Over and over again.

And most, if not all, of the things I consume are from China, a country with an abominable record of human rights, animal torture, environmental issues of all sorts, and intellectual property theft.

The motivation for the No China diet is to move beyond my current level of citizenry to a place where I have politicized what I buy. And on a very basic level, as someone who is self-employed, who often has to nag and cajole people to pay her, I know that my dollars matter to me, and I can’t support the regime in China. I just can’t.

I almost died laughing at the Onion’s Mother’s Day issue:

ecards,
household tips, and
a timeline of women.

For a while, my husband, Jim, hasn’t been purchasing anything made in China. It started with our food, which he began to check every time we went to Trader Joe’s (and some of it (all forms of edamame) was from China). Sort of scary when you’re talking about a vegetable and travel time). So we didn’t buy it.*

And now, we’re extending the No China Diet into the rest of our lives. As you probably know, just about everything has parts made in China. Most of my clothes are made in China. The desk lamp I bought at Target is. My computer most definitely is. My office supplies are. The list goes on and on.

Jim’s reasoning is that that humans and (other) animals are being terribly abused in China, perhaps more there than anywhere else in the world, and that purchasing products Made in China supports the regime, and not the people.

It’s not just that American companies pay starvation wages to Chinese while the Chinese government turns a blind eye, that pesticides used on crops in China (and sold here) are carcinogens, that dogs are routinely bludgeoned (!) to death to stop the spread of rabies, that coal-fired plants belch pollution or even the egregious theft of technology. Actually, one of those would be enough for a boycott, but with some digging, it’s clear how absolutely abominable China’s regime is, even much more oppressive than its closest rivals. Here are some other additional abuses:

wholesale and indiscriminate use of the death penalty
commercial harvesting of transplant organs of executed prisoners
denial of basic rights to Chinese workers and farmers
nationwide forced abortions and sterilizations
sweeping and brutal repression of all religions
criminal psychiatric abuse of political prisoners
routine torture of prisoners
military occupation and genocide in Tibet
draconian repression in East Turkestan
military expansion and aggression
world’s tightest Internet censorship (and)
the largest dealer of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to rogue states

None of these policies is a practice that we want our hard-earned dollars to support. So we’re stopping all Made in China purchases that are labeled as such, and investigating others. I realize when it’s time to buy a new laptop, we may have to concede temporarily, but, in the meantime, we’re sticking with it.

Read more:

How One Family Came to Boycott China

Won’t a boycott hurt ordinary Chinese people?

IDA Pleads to Stop Brutal Dog Culls

Sources of Non-Chinese Products

Some Very Good Questions about a Boycott China campaign

Sign the Boycott China Action Form

*This is a general introduction to a series of posts on the No China Diet, which I think my husband invented.

Aerial gunning of wolves in Alaska is harsh and unnecessary, not to mention morally wrong. It’s certainly not applying the Golden Rule, unless you’d like to be run to exhaustion, shot by someone in a small plane, and then left to die. And then there’s the planned massacre of wolves in the Northern Rockies by the elimination of the Endangered Species Act by the Bush Administration.

You don’t often hear about applying the Golden Rule to the other animals (I mean, animals other than humans) in the animal kingdom, but I think it’s an important place to start when considering animal welfare. Animals are, after all, sentient creatures with thoughts and feelings that aren’t so different than our own.

In this country, if you look at a particular cause that’s to blame for our attitudes that denigrate all parts of the environment, I fear in many cases it’s the word “subdue” and phrase “have dominion over” (Gen 1:28) which are misconstrued to mean “destroy” and “kill, eat, burn, or plunder.” It’s not just misconstrued during Bible study, but it has become so much a part of our attitudes when we consider any part of the natural world. The intent of those words, according to many theologians, was to be understood as “be caretakers of.” Take care of the animals. Take care of the natural world.

Consider taking action through Defenders of Wildlife to send a letter to your congressperson.

One of the elements in our workplace culture, or our culture in general, that seems to have just about disappeared is the idea of rest and relaxation. We seem just about convinced that “productivity” is all that matters. Think of how often you hear people talk about needing to be “productive members of society” or about how they “need to go do something productive.” I certainly hear this a lot, and even remember hearing it back in college as something people would say as they broke away early from a dinner conversation. Because conversation was not perceived as productive.

Often spirituality is linked to productivity as a means to the end: go and be spiritual, so it increases your productivity. I’m wondering if some of this language that likens our bodies to machines is from the Industrial Revolution. Because as absolutely brilliant as our bodies are, I’m not sure that likening them to machines with constant capacities for work is a helpful idea.

I’m not usually on the computer on Saturdays, because away time allows me to recharge, but I felt compelled to write this in terms of how people recharge. One way people recharge is by doing nothing; another way they recharge is by doing a different kind of work; and another way is by doing somethin that is pure fun. These, of course, overlap.

The idea I’ve come in contact with recent is that of the Artist’s Date, though I think that semantics may be getting in the way. Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way intends that artist’s dates are for everyone, not just those who perceive themselves as artists. The important idea that if our energy and ideas are really drawn from a well, we cannot continue to draw from the well without allowing it to recharge. And hence the idea of doing something that is fun, or a different kind of work, or nothing at all. That allows the well to recharge.

So how do you recharge? What do you do that is nothing, or a different kind of work, or complete fun?

Dear Ms Theologian,

Coworkerphobic

Dear Coworkerphobic,

What are the obligations of a manager? Ms. Theologian thinks this is the key question.

Your obligations are essentially to manage people, processes, and things. In order to be good at this, you do need to know your employees as human beings in terms of how they work, what they find fun (and not fun), what motivates them, what shames them, etc. This is where the bowling party comes in. For example, if you found out that five of your employees hated bowling and were hiding in the bathroom, this might be useful information to you. If you found out that Julie was quitting, also useful information to you. Perhaps you find out about corporate restructuring, new parking places, or even get to gab with your boss about subsidizing public commuting costs. This is all useful stuff that is often conducted in an informal environment.

Yes, you are not obligated to hang out with them for extended periods of time. But when you’re at the bowling party, you are still a manager during work hours, still observing the dynamics among employees, still talking to others about things that are important and not exactly taking off your shirt and dancing on the table. Of course, that’s an assumption on Ms. Theologian’s part.

Regardless of your hatred of bowling, you should go, not as a moral obligation, but as smart managing. And smart managing has nothing to do with getting ahead in the organization, but being a good manager in the here and now. Ms. Theologian thinks it’s perfectly fair to leave early. You do have dinner obligations, after all. And if not, make some.

-Ms. Theologian

P.S. If you’d like to write to Ms. Theologian, send an email to ms dot theologian at gmail dot com.

As part of the Artist’s Way and Vein of Gold, you are supposed to take a weekly artist’s date in which you do something fun, something child-like, something that brings you pleasure. And it has to be done alone. I have a lot of trouble coming up with artist’s date ideas, mainly because I tend to do that sort of activity with my husband. I don’t mean that in a smug or sexual way. But if I’m going to drive to a museum or a garden or a concert, I’m probably going to go with him, or another friend, but not alone. So I’m working on this.

The Artist’s Date is one of three spiritual tools for use in your work life including morning free writing in a journal and daily twenty-minute walks. I mention this because these are nurturing practices of spirituality for all of us, in all our work, not just formal artists, that allow us to connect with ourselves and the world around us.

So, yesterday for my artist’s date, I went to a nearby park to take some landscape photographs during my lunch hour. But it was sunny and the photos seemed washed out. A better photographer would have enjoyed the challenge of adjusting meters and such, but I decided to change the idea and to take photographs involving the ground rather than the sky and rocks. Despite their purdiness.

So I started to look for interesting juxtapositions of trash on the ground and the natural world. Now, there is a lot of trash in the desert. The Desert is, in fact, where many people dump their trash, including pets, unfortunately. For a long time, I wanted to start a nonprofit that would combat attitudes about poisoning the desert with trash, but after exhaustive research into what it would take to run a nonprofit in Los Angeles County, I decided that I didn’t want all of my energy to go in that direction. Also, there would have been sucking up to celebrities to get them to endorse you or come to your benefit. I just can’t go there.

So I learned yesterday that the trash isn’t even distributed in the park. Some of it rolls or is blown downhill and stays in the low lying areas. And some of it catches in the bushes as this plastic bag did. Plastic bags, of course, break down when exposed to sunlight and turn into a million little pieces of plastic. A plastic bag can take a thousand years to breakdown in a landfill, but out here a few days in the sun will decompose it. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

Much of the trash seems related to drinking. Not just beer, though there is a lot of beer-related items, but also water. And then there’s trash that clearly came from some event that didn’t get properly cleaned up, like the Keep This Coupon and the raven feather. Clearly someone didn’t keep this coupon. I wonder if it’s from a nearby church raffle or even from the Easter services conducted in the park. If so, I wonder what they were raffling off?

Eventually, I thought that it would be neat (yes, I did use the word neat) to photograph trash in situe in such a way that it was disguised. This photograph of a yucca demonstrates the challenge of that. Do you see the trash? Hint: It’s something that probably hasn’t been around since the 1970s. A pull tab. Seriously, when were they last used? And how long has it been tucked at the base of the yucca? Decades.

If you’d like to join the Vein of Gold group, we are in the beginning stages. You can visit the group blog.

for a spirituality-related quiz!

This is an especially short one about your spiritual orientation:

Do you try to live an ethical and fulfilling life without religious belief?

Do you think science and reason lead to more reliable knowledge than faith?

Do you support secular government and an open society that guarantees human rights for all?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, you might be one of the millions of humanists on Earth — people who live meaningful, fulfilling lives based on reason and compassion.

Post your answers here! (no, no, yes) I’m not a humanist. I used to be though. My husband and father are.

Read more about humanism at the source of the quiz at The Institute for Humanist Studies.

Dear Ms. Theologian,

I work at a day care facility that has a Christian religious affiliation. Most of my coworkers are evangelical, and think that I am one of them. (I’m a Christian, but I’m a liberal Christian.) As such, I agree with many of our shared principles (kindness, love, compassion), but often am taken aback by their assumptions. My coworkers have decorated the break room with many right to life posters, stickers, and slogans, including those of the abstinence only movement. The last election was absolutely hell for me, as they were all loyal bushies. I feel increasingly alienated at work. However, I love working in the nursery and with the babies, but I don’t seem to be able to be myself at work. Do you think I should look for a new job? I do love my work.

–Sometimes I think I’m the Only Liberal at Work

Dear Only Liberal,

First of all, that sounds like a lovely welcoming break room where you can kick off your shoes and let down your hair.

Here’s the short answer to your spirituality and the workplace conundrum: ignore the coworkers and find community elsewhere, find a new job with more compatible coworkers, or make it your goal in life to change your workplace culture. Three options.

Oh, I don’t see you! I don’t see you! Ignoring the coworkers’ behavior may be hard, but you could start by staying out of the break room. Ms. Theologian hopes that you find community at your church and in friends and family, all of whom may be more compatible with you.

Monster.com If you can’t ignore the coworkers, you might look for a new job. One of the wisest pieces of career advice Ms. Theologian has heard of late is when evaluating a job, always look at who your coworkers will be. And remember the No Asshole Rule. Because, of course, coworkers can make or break the job regardless of the actual work involved.

This advice resonated with Ms. Theologian because it seems to her that many of the questions people ask her (and much of the unhappiness at work) is a result of a bad fit with workplace culture and coworkers. Whether it’s a competitive work environment or a culture of shallowness or a culture that offends, many people will be unhappy if they do not generally agree with the principles and behavior in their workplace culture. And you often see those principles represented in your coworkers (and their posters, stickers, and slogans). Yet, people get very preoccupied by the actual skills they need to do the job, and not the people. Go figure.

An Aside about Religious Accomodation But what about religious accommodation here? Aren’t you being forced out because you’re not the same kind of Christian? Aren’t these people evangelizing at work? Isn’t some of this illegal? Not really. Religious accommodation is pretty much summed up here:

What does federal law require of an employer? Federal law requires an employer
to “reasonably accommodate” an employee’s religious observances, practices and
beliefs. However, an employer need not “reasonably accommodate” if the employer
can show that accommodation would cause an “undue hardship” on business.

Ms. Theologian doesn’t think this entirely applies to you. If your church required that you pray twice a day, your employer might have to accommodate this, if it didn’t mean hiring a replacement for you (undue hardship). If your religious beliefs required that you didn’t eat pork, your employer could not force you to eat pork, and might, possibly, have to provide something else for you to eat depending on whether your employer was a decent human being, the cost involved, and your willingness to sue.

However, just because religious accommodation doesn’t seem to apply doesn’t mean that it’s a good management practice to allow (or encourage?) employees to decorate with fetus imagery. Many workplaces suffer when management makes assumptions about how “Everyone supports Bush” or “Everyone loves oak trees, so let’s protect it” or “Everyone owns a gun.” Because you know what assuming does….

Changing Workplace Culture Ms. Theologian didn’t recommend this for you, because you didn’t seem particularly moved in this direction. But it’s an option. Sometimes Ms. Theologian wonders where we would be without visionaries who change culture by introducing tolerance, fairness, and equity into the discussion, such as Martin Luther King or Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Bishop Spong. So, if this is the direction you feel pulled in, write back and we’ll brainstorm on how to make this happen.

-Ms. Theologian

P.S. If you’d like to write to Ms. Theologian, send an email to ms dot theologian at Gmail dot com.

As you might notice, I’m collecting work poems, which no one seems to comment on, but I will continue. I’m reading Strike Sparks, a dazzling collection by Sharon Olds of poems from 1980-2002. I can’t find any poems specifically about work, so I’ve turned to theologically-related poems. I read this poem last night to my husband, and it was very well received.

The Pope’s Penis

It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hair
swaying in the dimness and the heat—and at night,
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.

-Sharon Olds

There’s some innocence left,
and these are the last hours of an empty afternoon
at the office, and there’s the clock
on the wall, and my friend Frank
in the adjacent cubicle selling himelf on the phone

I’m twenty-five, on the shaky
ladder up, my father’s son, corporate,
clean-shaven, and I know only what I don’t want,
which is almost everything I have.

A meeting ends.
Men in serious suits, intelligent men
who’ve been thinking hard about marketing snacks
move back to their window offices, worried
or proud. The big boss, Horace,
had called them in to approve this, reject that—
the big boss, a first-name, how’s your family
kind of assassin, who likes me.

It’s 1964
The sixties haven’t begun yet. Cuba is a larger name
than Vietnam. The Soviets are behind
everything that could be wrong. Where I sit
it’s exactly nineteen minutes to five. My phone rings.
Horace would like me to stop in
before I leave. Stop in. Code words,
leisurely words, that mean now.

Would I be willing
to take on this? Would X’s office, who by the way
is no longer with us, be satisfactory?
About money, will this be enough?
I smile, I say yes and yes and yes,
but—I don’t know from what calm place this comes—I’m translating his beneficience into a lifetime, a life
of selling snacks, talking snack strategy,
thinking snack thoughts.

On the elevator down
it’s a small knot, I’d like to say, of joy.
That’s how I tell it now, here in the future,
the fear long gone
By the time I reach the subway it’s grown
it’s outsized, an attitude finally come round,
and I say it quietly to myself, I quit,
and keep saying it, knowing I will say it, sure
of nothing else but.

-Stephen Dunn (from Different Hours for which he won the Pulitzer Prize)

Dear Ms. Theologian,

I started at a new company that has a lot of company-sponsored meals and events. I’m a vegan, but the choices are always chicken or beef, as if the chicken is for the vegetarians. So do I disclose that I’m vegan ahead of time? In another job, I did this and the event planner freaked out, and when it was time for the meal I had a cold syrupy fruit salad, and couldn’t even get the salad and bread that other meals came with. What would you do?

-Veganlicious

Dear Veganlicious,

Was your event at the Westborough Marriot? Ms. Theologian has also had a cold syrupy fruit salad as a meat-alternative, but it was at a wedding and accompanied by a scoop of rancid cottage cheese. She did not eat any of it after the rancidity was determined. She actually sent it back.

Vegetarians and vegans have a few tricks for workplace food functions:

1. Eat ahead of time This sounds like a cop-out, but it actually the finest in self-care strategies. If you eat ahead of time, even mixed nuts or a salad, you will make better food choices for yourself and be a civil human being regardless of what is served. (As an aside, Ms. Theologian thinks that often we slip into a college-mentality at the mention of free food at work functions, and gorge ourselves. Not a good idea for any number of reasons.)

2. Kindly inform Ms. Theologian has always made sure that she has told event planners in the workplace about both her vegetarianism and her willingness to help plan events, choose caterers, cook, bring her own food, and eat only salad. The fact that she did not sound like a “flakey vegetarian” or a “demanding employee” helped a lot.

3. Network with the other vegs There may be others out there. You may be able to figure out who they are by studying their food choices. (Do this surreptitiously.) Then see how they handle things. You may be able to band together to negotiate “chicken or beef” into “chicken, beef, or lentil.”

4. Move to the coasts Ms. Theologian is only partially kidding. The food choices on the East and West Coast are far more vegetarian and vegan friendly than the area in between.

5. Consider not disclosing Yes, this strategy actually contradicts the second one. Here is what occasionally happens when Ms. Theologian discloses her vegetarianism: she gets a plate of cheese. But Ms. Theologian is also lactose intolerant, but chose not to disclose this as it made her sound like a neurotic mess. And much like your syrup salad, sometimes the “alternative” presented isn’t much of an alternative. Ms. Theologian has found that sometimes it is easier to negotiate around the chicken or beef by just not mentioning vegetarianism ahead of time. This might be the passive way out, but it’s also an option. Sure, you didn’t have an entree or you ate around the chicken, but sometimes these battles aren’t won on the battlefield (they’re won in the planning stages).

Hungrily,

Ms. Theologian

P.S. If you’d like to write to Ms. Theologian, send an email to ms dot theologian at gmail dot com.

I’ve begun to like wearing makeup at work. This is a totally new thing for me at age 34. (I know my profile says I’m 250. That’s a joke.)

The only other times I’ve worn make up are for meetings with big business executives or leaders of nonprofits, and I thought of it as war paint or at least protective armor. I’m thinking that “war paint” possibly an outdated racist phrase, but I suppose anyone can wear makeup and go to war. Ahem.

What has led to my makeup-wearing is that rather than hearing, “You look tired. Are you sleeping enough?” or “Have you been ill?” I’ve heard statements like, “Gosh, don’t you look pretty!” over and over. And, frankly, let’s be honest here, you can get me to do anything if you call me pretty.

However, it concerns me that most makeup contains gross things that you don’t really want in your body. Like pthalates, which disrupt the endocrine system, and consequently reproductive functions. And like parabens, which are traced to breast cancer. Most makeup ends up being ingested, like lipstick, which is swallowed, or coverup, which is absorbed in your skin. Interestingly (shockingly?) the FDA does not require that makeup is tested for safety, so it can contain anything.

Femminista della Casa has tips on how to be personally less toxic. She makes her own beauty products. You can also look up your current brand of makeup on Skin Deep. My brand (Burt’s Bees) didn’t do so well. So I’ll be poking around for something else soon. If you feel like sharing the rating of your brand or product, feel free to post in comments. I’m always curious.

I started this post to link to a great column by Beth Ditto about coming out at work. I’ve written a bit about coming out before, but others have done it better in Coming Out at Work, which includes a great list of pros and cons. Basically, whether or not you come out is an individual decision that depends on you and your workplace.

Then I got sort of sidetracked by this figure: In 33 states, it’s legal to fire someone based on sexual orientation. What the hell is this about? I thought. That would certainly explain why people don’t come out. Self-protection is a powerful and necessary reflex.

And then I found a new bill in Congress to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace, so consider taking a look at the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It sounds like the right thing to write your congress person about. I never have much luck with my representative, but you might.

Since Shutdown Day, I am always up for cutting down on my time on-line. I’m going on a decade of 8-10 hours a day, almost always for work of some kind.

Recently, I cut out Saturday computer time. I found that although I jonesed for the Internet, and email access, much like for a cigarette, I didn’t actually miss anything while I was gone. Nothing happened.

Stephen Elliot has some suggestions for how to cut down on time in Surviving a Month Without Internet:

I suggest this as a routine for people who must spend their days in front of a computer and want to accomplish more: Divide your day into online and offline. Studies have consistently shown that people with more screens open get less done. Multitasking slows down productivity. As long as you read your e-mail and respond once every twenty-four hours, nobody is likely to notice. Dedicate at least half of your day to handling non-Internet tasks exclusively. Write a list of things you need to do when you do get online so your Internet time will be more productive.

Excellent ideas. I’ve already partitioned my morning into my breakfast-hike-write time, which is non-Internet time until 9 a.m. I think I should probably bump it up an hour or two later. Any other ideas?

Read the whole article at Poets and Writers via the venerable Maud Newton

Lots of folks love Miracle-Gro. Possibly because it seems healthy because it sounds like the word “grow” is in it. Of course, lots of nasty things can also “grow” or (gro). Like tumors. And plumes of pollution in the groundwater.

Anyway, I was amused by this website, Sued by Scotts, in which Terracycle describes how it has been sued by Scotts Miracle-Gro, which claims consumers will confuse their products.

Oh, of course. I can barely tell the creepy chemical liquid from Scotts Miracle Gro (left) from the worm poop compost tea made by Terracycle (right).

You might look for Terracycle next time you’re at the nursery looking for plant food. And their web site has tons of cool sustainable-gardening tips and ideas. It’s really a cool company.