It’s Time For Mike Huckabee to Retire

So have you seen this story yet? Mike Huckabee gets philosophical about gay marriage. I’m impressed with the profundity of his comments: Children aren’t puppies. Wow. Impressive Mike. Let’s all think about that one for a minute… Yeah I know, it’s a ridiculous statement and doesn’t need much reflection at all. So lets move on to other statements he made. Last week he was in Ewing N.J. at The College of New Jersey, speaking to the Student Government Association. He also gave an interview to campus news magazine The Perspective, for a Friday article. So this isn’t new news, and further, his opinions aren’t news – he’s been saying this stuff for a while. What that tells me is that Huckabee has had time to attempt to apply a little spin to his comments, but I’m not seeing any backpedaling: Huckabee really is just a genuine bigot I’m afraid. He labeled the gay lifestyle “outside the ideal” and compared it to incest, polygamy and even bestiality! Wow am I offended! And the jaw-dropping ignorance doesn’t end there…

“I don’t have to prove that marriage is a man and a woman in a relationship for life,” he said. “They have to prove that two men can have an equally definable relationship called marriage, and somehow that that can mean the same thing.”

I can’t believe he thinks homosexual couples haven’t already proved the success of their relationships! I can tell you this: homo and hetero are not so different at all! The “committed relationships” we enter into can be just as successful between two men or two women who are equally committed to that relationship. Further, having worked in the club scene for many many years, I can tell you the heterosexual dating scene has just as much promiscuity and desperation as any other. There are successful and failed relationships on both sides. I think it’s time to stop making sides and start celebrating our common humanity!
Toward the end of the article I’ve linked to at the top, there is a Huckabee quote regarding AIDS patients and I’m not going to repeat the fear filled hateful comments he made but let me just say it brought WWII concentration camps to my mind and I nearly cried. I’m horrified this man is thinking he should run for President in 2012 and I hope you all know the kind of man he really is.

Some things I found online about Huckabee and his political platform:
He does NOT support gay marriage obviously
He doe NOT support a woman’s right to choose abortion
He does NOT support the Kyoto protocol (environmental treaty)
He does NOT support an assault weapons ban
He supports the Patriot Act
He supports an immigration border fence on the US/Mexican border
He supports the war in Iraq

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Resource Consumption

Reading some of the comments on the recent recycling post made us think more about consuming resources and our habits as a society.

It scares me a little the way we consume resources and generate waste. … Science is telling us we’re facing dwindling resources, especially if we continue to consume at the rate we are. Not a pretty picture it paints of the future…

Currently the United States makes up approximately 4.5% of the world population but consumes nearly a quarter of all energy resources. And China with their 1.3 billion people make up almost 20% of the worlds population. China puts a half million new cars on the road every day. They want the consumer lifestyle of cars and toys and things. So now lets do some very rough math. If China consumes at the rate we Americans seem to think is acceptable, this will require we use 110% of the worlds resources to maintain that. It’s pretty staggering when you think about it. Now consider this. India wants the live that same consumer lifestyle as their country progresses too! Why not? And their population is around 1.15 billion or another 16%. Very roughly, that is a need of near 200% of the worlds resources! Now I know that with politics and budget spending the way it is these days, we might think consuming 200% is a viable option. But let me remind you we’re not talking about paper money and deficits here, we’re talking about real, physical, finite resources. When they’re gone, they’re gone – there’s no option for us to just go into debt. And because we’re happy to go on doing what we’ve always done and we refuse to see what gasoline engines are doing to our environment, we’re killing the planet. Plain and simple. And at the very least we’re facing the gas lines of the 70’s all over again. I don’t want a hybrid, I want a solar/wind powered car! Or one that runs on saltwater! Develop an engine that runs on saltwater! That would be awesome. It’s time to stop thinking like we did 100 years ago. We know so many things we had no idea of 100 years ago and it’s time to take those things into consideration and pull our heads out of the sand!
-Flora

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Organic Coffee Getting Scarce?

We came across an article today that made us a little sad. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of organic coffee are sitting in warehouses in Latin America, waiting silently and no one is coming. Growers all over Latin America are taking losses in sales because they can’t fetch the higher price needed to cover the costs of natural pesticide use and smaller yields from non-chemical fertilizers, and they’re ultimately switching back to chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Approximately 10% of organic growers have defected back to regular coffee growing, and 75% of the worlds organic coffee is coming from Latin America – Mexico to Costa Rica.
On the other side of the coin, Starbucks says they were only able to purchase organic beans about 3% of the time last year. And in response to questions as to why this was the case, Starbucks stated: “Our purchases of certified organic coffee are limited due to the limited quantities available worldwide and the constraints of the organic certification system for farmers.” These constraints of organic farming include farmers absorbing the cost of organic farming for a minimum of three years before becoming certified, since agencies determined the soil must remain pesticide free for 3 years. Further, organic farms trap more carbon than their chemically managed counterparts and are thus better for the environment.
We need to decide if a healthier, safer product is worth the increased cost. And if it is, we should be demonstrating our commitment to a responsible product with our purchases, and urging organizations like Starbucks to do the same.
-Flora

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Remember?

Today is garbage day here at Coffee and Controversy. Both garbage and recycling pick up on Fridays and as I look out my window, I see two recycle cans and seven garbage cans. There are eight houses in this circle and two that appear to use their recycle cans at all. Interestingly, those two houses probably put trash out only about every other week. This week mine is out and my neighbors is not, but as I said before, we’re once again the only two people with our recycle cans out.
I remember when I was a kid we had to request a curbside bin and pay for pick-up. It was tiny and they only picked up every other week. Now my recycle can is the same size as my garbage can, it picks up every week, it’s included in my waste utility bill and they’ll take almost anything. Really, there’s no guess work on plastic – they take every number, one through seven. The only thing I can’t recycle curbside is glass. So with how easy it is, are there really 6 houses in my tiny circle that don’t recycle at all? I mean, okay, don’t be the zealot I am about it, saving every paper gum-wrapper for when I get home so I can put it in the recycling. But you can’t toss in your milk jugs, egg cartons, 2 liter bottles, cereal boxes, newspapers… These are kind of no-brainers people! According to EPA statistics, nearly 14% of landfill waste is recyclable newspaper. And they further estimate that nearly one third of household waste is paper. Wow. That is a lot of paper unnecessarily going into our landfills. Is it laziness? Is it obliviousness? Is it willful rejection of any green habits? I’d really like to know. Because the 2 out of 8 scenario really amazes me.
-Flora

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Snow Day???

How do we feel about wasting $100M each day to pay government employees for sitting at home in the snow? Well not great. Especially when President Obama advised all government offices, last year, to implement strategies for teleworking in these exact situations, and an alarmingly low percentage have complied. The president is working right now despite the snow. Most of his staff are also working, from home. Reportedly the resistance to telecommuting comes from management in most cases. Managers feel they can’t keep a handle on their staff when they can’t see what they’re doing. But with all the advances in technology, wide spread workforces and environmental responsibilities, public agencies as well as private corporations really need to recognize the benefits of telecommuting. eBay was originally a pioneer in telecommuting programs but recently shocked us by permanently pulling their entire remote customer service workforce back into regional offices. The program was a small percentage of their full workforce but was comprised of several hundred employees who were able to work without driving 9 out of every ten work days. This sort of step backward confuses us and makes us wonder what they’ll do next. What do our readers see are the advantages and disadvantages of having a remote workforce? We’d love to hear your opinions.

-Flora

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