Thank you Howard Zinn!

Our nation lost an amazing teacher yesterday when Howard Zinn suffered a fatal heart attack. I drew this picture on July 17th, 2001 when I was fortunate enough to have Howard Zinn as a professor for the day during a graduate school practicum in Boston.

My whole morning has been hijacked by my need to reflect, opening my old journal - rereading, rediscovering, and finding a renewed sense of encouragement to be the change I want to see in this world.

In case you don't know who Zinn is, or only know about him through People's History of the United States, click here to go to an article where there are three different videos of him speaking.

I think I am pleased to make one discovery today - that Zinn just wrote an article called "Obama at One" in the February 1, 2010 edition of The Nation. In it Zinn says,
"I' ve been searching hard for a highlight. The only thing that comes close is some of Obama's rhetoric; I don't see any kind of a highlight in his actions and policies....

I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president--which means, in our time, a dangerous president--unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction."

So thank you Mr. Zinn.

I think I will start pushing.

Garbage Free Lunches

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi

I am re-posting this today because as Baby enters preschool next week, I need to buy a new lunchbox. Lunchopolis is fantastic, but there has been changes in where you can buy it. So, after much research and an unsuccessful trip to Whole Foods, we have discovered two websites where you can buy these wonderful lunchboxes, but unfortunately lime green is no longer available. So if you are interested, please go to one of these two websites:

Your Guide To Green

Home Green Solutions

At the end of the 2007-2008 school year, I vowed to myself that I would take a stand against all the garbage I produced in my children's lunch boxes. I sadly realized that the school encouraged zero recycling in the lunch room and knew I had to stop contributing. From yogurt cups to boxes of sandwich bags,3.5 billion (yes Billion) pounds of garbage is created each year just from lunch boxes.

I began my search for lunch boxes and the appropriate containers that fit snugly into the lunch box, I was quickly frustrated, and increasingly concerned about the plastics I was using to store my children's food. I was beginning to fret when I found my perfect solution!

Lunchopolis has created the garbage free lunch box. Lunchopolis was designed with everything you need to pack a healthy, planet-friendly lunch. This means no more sandwich bags, tinfoil, juice boxes or other unnecessary waster. Lunchopolis includes a lead-free, insulated lunchbox, four brightly tinted containers and a drinking bottle so you can pack a fresh, healthy, planet-friendly lunch with lots of variety. I bought the pink polka dots for my daughter H2, and the water for my son Puckstopper. Next year I will buy the Lime when My Baby starts preschool. And when I open my home business, this will be a product I hopefully will be retailing.