Mixing up my own non-toxic shampoo and conditioner

The perky woman on this Grist video ("Umbra") has convinced me to make my own shampoo and conditioner. Not only will this save me money, but it will put end my practice of covering my scalp with numerous chemicals that contain known-harmful ingredients--many shampoos and conditions are laden with harmful and potentially harmful ingredients (I found this video at Huffpo). I should also mention that I have become extra-motivated to try this experiment based on this recent post by Brynn Jacobs. First, the fast-paced video featuring "Umbra": Now a short detour to the Environmental Working Group website, where you can determine all of the nasty chemicals in your shampoos, conditioners and other products. The EWG "Cosmetics" database is here. I went to straight to my bathroom and dug out various bottles each of shampoo and conditioner. My Pantene "Full and Thick" shampoo contains all of the following (among other chemicals): METHYLCHLOROISOTHIAZOLINONE, ETHYLENE OXIDE, 1,4-DIOXANE, ETHYLENE OXIDE, 1,4-DIOXANE) NITROSAMINES) COCAMIDE MEA, METHYLISOTHIAZOLINONE, SODIUM LAURETH SULFATE. Various of these chemicals are associated with the following things: Neurotoxicity, Allergies/immunotoxicity, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive) Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs). I checked out a bottle of Suave Professionals Sleek Shampoo and it contained a comparably ominous list. The Revlon Aqua Marine Moisturizing Shampoo was even worse in that it contained four chemicals associated with cancer. Then I looked up two bottles of hair conditioner. The Garnier Fructis Fortifying Conditioner - Sleek & Shine has a comparably nasty list of chemicals --Umbra urges that these chemicals are totally unnecessary for washing one's hair. I couldn't find the Citre Shine Daily Revitalize Conditioner with Shine-Infusing Citrus Extracts on the EWG website, but I carefully read the fine print on the back label and plugged four of those chemicals into the EWG site; they all came up as bad, despite the front label's suggestion that this product contains "healthy" ingredients. I suppose the theory is to balance out each industrial chemical with a whiff of something healthy-sounding like "citrus extract." BTW, isn't it ironic to read all of those the benign-sounding names of these products and then compare those names to the long lists of chemicals within? What is Umbra's solution to this apparently unhealthy situation? She is encouraging us to make our own shampoo and conditioner (this is the same advice offered by Colin Beavan). For shampoo, she recommends that we mix a tablespoon of baking soda with each cup of water. Shake it each time before using it. For conditioner, mix 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar with each cup of water. She says that the vinegar smell goes away after you rinse. As soon as I publish this post, I'm going to the kitchen to mix up a batch of each. I'm appearing in court tomorrow, and my hair and scalp, for the first time ever, will not be drenched in potentially harmful chemicals. I promise to report on the experience after I use these home-made hair products for a few days.

Continue ReadingMixing up my own non-toxic shampoo and conditioner

Senate votes 96-0 to audit the Fed

This momentum to audit the Federal Reserve is long-overdue, after months of debate. If our election system involved public financing, the debate would have lasted five minutes. Now it's time to reconcile the House and Senate bills, then let the sun shine in. It's time to shine an especially bright light on the recipients of the the Fed's largess, and this will information must be produced pursuant to the Senate bill. Let's just hope that the audit is meaningful and thorough. Speaking of which, it's time to turn a sharp eye to the roll the Wall Street bond rating companies played in the meltdown. After all, how could it be that so many sub-prime mortgage-backed securities were so highly rated, despite strong evidence to the contrary? We're now seeing good momentum to reform the practices of these bond raters too:

A critical amendment to the Wall Street reform bill being debated in the Senate this week picked up a key Republican backer Tuesday. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), would end the practice of banks choosing which credit rating agency they hire to rate a particular offering. Often, banks will ask raters for a preliminary review, allowing them to pick the rater most likely to look favorably on whatever bundle of products the bank wants to sell to investors.

Continue ReadingSenate votes 96-0 to audit the Fed

How are Humans Better?

A new comment thread on an old post discusses the precept that humans are somehow "better" than all other creatures. Sure, as a member of our team, I'd like to think that we are Number One. We've even written books attributed to deities that prove that we are the reason for creation, that the octillions of stars in the universe were all put there just for our amusement. Therefore, the book and its believers maintain, we must be the best thing ever. But as an educated human raised by scientists to find first sources and question suppositions, I wonder: "How are we better?" I have posted before on some of the ways in which our Creator (to use that paradigm) has short changed us. Name any characteristic of which we are proud, and it is easy to find another creature that exceeds our ability. I can only think of one exception: Communicating in persistent symbols. Unlike cetaceans, birds, fellow primates, and others who communicate fairly precisely with sounds, gestures, or chemical signals, we can detach communication from ourselves and transport or even delay it via layers of uncomprehending media (paper, wires, illiterate couriers, etc). We can create physical objects that abstract ideas from one individual and allow the idea to be absorbed by another individual at a later time. It also allows widely separated groups to share a single culture, at least in part. This learned behavior is based on our apparently unique ability to abstract in multiple layers and to abstract to a time well beyond the immediate future. We can take an idea to a series of sounds to a series of static symbols, and back again. Our relatively modern ability to reason abstractly (math, science) evolved from our ability to abstract communications. Even Einstein couldn't hold the proof of E=MC2 in his head. But is this unique ability really sufficient to declare ourselves overall inherently "better"?

Continue ReadingHow are Humans Better?

How you own the Red Roof Inn and why we need to audit the Federal Reserve

Representative Alan Grayson explains how it is that the American public now owns the Red Roof Inn and why we desperately need to audit the Federal Reserve. These are closely related questions, as Grayson dramatically details. The Federal Reserve Bank needs to be audited because it excels at magically "make money out of nothing," just by making notations on its books. We have no way of knowing how it is that the Federal Reserve assumed liability for other large chains of hotels too. The Fed has also put up half a trillion dollars in mortgage-backed securities. Therefore, we, the People, are "owners" of massive amounts of real estate, which means that the Fed owns our homes when the mortgages go bad. This is "stealth" socialism, says Grayson, because we don't audit the Federal Reserve. Grayson, a progressive, is thus calling on conservatives to join in the call to audit the Fed "before it all comes crashing down on us." Every time the Fed creates money out of thin air, "they're taking that dollar that's in your pocket and they're making it cheaper--worth less."

Continue ReadingHow you own the Red Roof Inn and why we need to audit the Federal Reserve

Steven Pinker on the American culture war

Marilyn Westfall of the Humanist Network News recently had an engaging chat with cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. The conversation first focused on why the north and the south differ so strongly on thing such as textbooks:

HNN: You've written a great deal on the impact of the political left and right in the United States. How does the political division figure into the debate over textbooks and especially the teaching of evolution? SP: Partly it really is a culture war. The country does have two cultures: the European Enlightenment and the Culture of Honor. The Scots-Irish settled into a lot of the South and West. What came of this was two different paths to civilization. One path was civilized by the law and government and the king, and the other by self-help justice, avenging wrongs and insults with the help of your own manly honor. They co-exist in one country, but they are different cultures. The civilizing force in the West came first from the church. A lot of the Western cowboy towns were first civilized by the women and the church--in cahoots. Churches have the talismanic role as the source of morals and decency and civilization. But part of the division is just sheer oppositionalism: if the liberals say x, we'll say y. Part of it is also an emotional affiliation with the church, and some of it is a disengagement from the wider world.
The conversation eventually turned to atheism. Why do so many people despise "atheists"?
[Atheism evokes] a very primitive emotional reaction in the minds of many people. Many people simply equate it with immorality, which is why I think they tell pollsters that atheists are people they distrust the most. Often when there is a disliked word--a word with a negative connotation--people find a euphemism, that's why what used to [be called] garbage then became sanitation and now its environmental services. And likewise atheism is constantly reaching for the untainted euphemism. Secularist, freethinker, humanist, bright and so on. I think each one is going to get infected in turn until the societal attitude changes. Atheism is merely absence of belief.

Continue ReadingSteven Pinker on the American culture war