News Roundup

The winner of the mystery won is Janelle. I will be sending her fabulous prize out early next week. Congratulations, my friend! Don't spend it all in one place.

In blog news, I am looking for a new name for 'Stories from Korea', since my stories are no longer from Korea. If you have any ideas, let me know! As soon as I get a new name, I am going to have to figure out a way to get a new header. My clever brother-in-law made my existing one, which I love, but he is very fancy and important and most likely has better things to do than draw cartoons for me. Hard to believe, I know. Then, when that's done, I'm going to set up an email subscription form like Helen did. If you haven't signed up for notifications from 'Tips from the Trenches', you totally should right now, because it's awesome.

In some random Seattle-ish news, there are like a bazillion bald eagles flying around here all the time, a rousing Endangered Species Act success. Super cool. Also, I am very pleasantly surprised with the driving situation around here. There is a noticeable improvement in the traffic flow, even during the busiest times. Lloyd thinks it's because no one has a job anymore but WHATEVER; it gets me to the thrift store way faster than ever before!

And speaking of the thrift store, here's the weird news of the day: thrifting seems to have partially lost its luster. Maybe it's because all those people without jobs are can't afford to drive their cars to the donation center? That must be it. GET WITH THE PROGRAM, PEOPLE! GET BACK ON THE ROAD AND DROP OFF ALL YOUR OLD CRAP RIGHT NOW! There, that should do it.

And finally, here is the last boil report ever: the gaping hole has turned into a handsome little scab. Now it looks exactly like a half healed-up wound from a glancing blow from a paring knife. On my hipbone. Not that I would know.

Have a happy weekend! I'm off to the thrift store to get Janelle her treats from America. Okay, FINE. Maybe I'll go to Target, too.

Giveaway: Win some won!

I find myself in possession of some leftover won, which is South Korean currency, for those of you not on the ROK. Since the thrift store won't take it, I haven't been able to figure out what to do with it, and it's been mocking me every time I open my top drawer. It's not so much that I want to go to the effort of finding a place to exchange it, but it's more than I'm willing to let go to waste.

So, I decided to give it away. If you are on a military base in South Korea and win the won, I'll even toss in a treat from America and make sure the package is big enough that you get a yellow slip in your mailbox when it arrives. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and make sure you leave your contact information if I don't already know who you are.

Oh, Boy

I try to honor all the important boycotts: I hate greedy, soul-sucking corporations just as much as the next guy. Maybe even more! But I'm starting to have trouble keeping up with which evil behemoths torture animals, which ones fund terrorists, which ones hate gay people, which ones are chopping down the rainforest with reckless abandon, and which ones enslave their workers and use sneaky tricks to make it look like their prices are the lowest (cough cough, Wal-Mart, cough cough).

I looked at the list of products that Nestle, that baby-killing exploiter of the poor, makes money from, and Cheerios are on the list, people! Cheerios! Most of the items on the list present me no trouble: I can easily buy Hershey's chocolate chips instead of Tollhouse, for example. And while I'm talking about chocolate, you simply must know that I just read a fascinating book called The Emperors of Chocolate, about the Hershey and Mars companies. Just so you know, you can feel reasonably good about buying Hershey: at least at the writing of the book, the stock was controlled by the Hershey Foundation, which does fabulous things for thousands of orphans, including giving them outstanding prep school educations. So most of the profits gained by hosing chocolate farmers in poor countries and spewing out toxins go to orphans in New England so they can grow up to proudly carry on the corporate tradition, despite their unfortunate beginnings. Mars, on the other hand, is family-owned, and those people are just nuts. Oh yeah, sorry about the Amazon link to the book. They discriminate against gay people, you know. And as soon as I move away from this place where yellow slips in my mail box tell me I have a box of the retail joy that makes my life tolerable, I'll never shop there again. Sorry, gay people; catch you on the flip side.

But back to the Cheerios. I'm not sure I can live without Cheerios. Not for us, so much; we go through some serious quantities, but they are not necessary to our survival, say. But they are my sole successful technique for placating our little 11-month old neighbor. She comes over every week with her sister and brother because I swap childcare with her mom, and she LOVES me. Never before have I been any too popular with babies that aren't mine, so I'm pretty sure it's because I'm her Cheerio connection. I just sort of dump some around her and she's happy for HOURS. She doesn't eat a lot of other things yet, so it's not like I can just replace them with something else. She does eat bananas, but even I can see the folly of placing piles of bananas around a baby sitting on the carpet.

So, see? This is a real dilemma. What's more important: personal comfort or the greater good? I swear, the only place I can shop in good conscience these days is Etsy. Oh, and the thrift store, of course. Sure, it sells Spiderman watches that don't work, and never has a deinonychus colored shirt when I need one, but it's a small price to pay, don't you think?

Irrational

Here in Korea, we are constantly threatened by a cruel dictatorship. You probably know what I'm talking about: the ration control system. If you're lucky enough to live in the land of Target and drive-throughs, you will probably not have encountered such a thing. Here on an American oasis in the not-quite-right desert, ration control is the law of the land. Everyone gets a ration card, and when you buy something at the BX (general purpose store, similar to a lousy Wal-Mart), commissary (grocery store) or shopette (convenience store, liquor store and video rental store), your ID card gets scanned. Every tub of oxi-clean, every roll of duct tape, every bottle of wine, every copy of 'Subversion for Dummies', and every pair of ever-bigger pants goes on your report. A person COULD shop off-base to avoid this, but the options are limited, and there are many normal American things we can't get off base, so most everyone hits one store or another multiple times a week. The cards have social security numbers on them, too, just for a little extra invasion of privacy.

Why on earth would they do this, you ask? What possibly could be the reason for such oppression? The BLACK MARKET! Ooh, sounds scary, doesn't it?? Yes, freedom and democracy depends on keeping an accurate account of my Dove Bar purchases. Apparently, goods bought on base are sometimes resold in town, throwing a wrench into the entire world economy. Oh, except the human trafficking trade, because that seems to be going strong; I don't see any ration cards being issued to juicy bar patrons. You know.... oh wait, where was I? Oh yeah, my ration card. I'm going to try to stick to the subject because I've decided my outrage, no matter how justified, doesn't get me anywhere, and it's just too, too exhausting.

So, the military tries to keep rationed goods off the local economy by tracking everything we buy. Well, except for goodies from the thrift store, and we can all be grateful for that. If you go over your dollar limit, buy too much beer, or make a suspicious purchase such as 40 pounds of beef, the bossman gets a notification and you have to go explain yourself. Fine, whatever. While I DEEPLY resent having the big blue machine looking at what I buy every month, I recognize that the military is rife with similar indignities and I have been beaten into submission. I can no longer whip myself up into a froth of indignation, because I only have a few more months to suffer. Soon, I will be able to buy an entire cart full of lentils and no one will bat an eyelash. Not that I would; those things are disgusting! Ration away, people, if it makes you feel powerful and efficient. But maybe you should take a closer look at your system. Today, I was looking at my card and guess what? It's been expired for weeks.

Savings

As you might recall, lately we've been living the frugal life, practicing for when we might need to eat dandelions and dried up worms off the sidewalk instead of the delicious recipes I've been making with goods purchased from the commissary. Of course, the savings come in handy; someday I might really need that extra $3 I made by depriving myself of the Kettle's Salt and Pepper potato chips that make my life tolerable, but mostly we have nothing better to do.

We have been trying new money-saving techniques every week. This week, I dumped the small bits of shampoo left in six different bottles together and shook it up into a homogenous mixture. Then I bought the conditioner that was on sale at the commissary for $0.69, saving me between $8 and $20, depending on which shampoo and conditioner I would have otherwise purchased. I have also been using cheap soap instead of facial wash, and frankly, my skin and hair are just as beautiful as they've ever been. I also use the cheap soap for Weston and Shane instead of the $4 bottles of baby wash and shampoo that they just dump out into the tub. They're just as clean, and when they throw hard soap at each other in the tub the bruises are free, because no soap is lost in the process. That saves about a quarter for each bathtub fight, which adds up to about a million dollars so far.

Even my morning coffee is not exempt from our ruthless cost-cutting measures. This morning, I switched to the french press instead of the coffee maker. The french press is smaller so it takes less coffee, and we don't need a filter. Those filters cost several cents apiece, you know. The only flaw I see so far is that right now is that it's not even 9 a.m. and I'm already making my third batch. But the potential extra coffee cost is more than offset by all the cost-saving ideas that are swirling around in my head. I swear, there are more with every sip! For example, one of the best ways to save money is to use the things you already have, instead of buying new things. Weston's birthday and the holidays are coming up, so I'm trying to think of great presents that are generated from items we don't have to buy. The things we have in ample supply are beans, dryer lint and fingernail clippings; ever since I cured my nail-biting habit with tapping, those those sharp little cuttings are coming out of my ears. At first I thought we could use them for toothpicks, but they're not quite long enough, so it was back to the drawing board on that one. I haven't quite worked all the kinks out of my gift-giving plan, but I'm pretty sure I just need a little more coffee; I'll keep you posted.

Cheap Labor

In honor of Labor Day, I read a new book called 'Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture' by Ellen Ruppel Shell. It's a good read, a little dry in places, but very interesting. The main point is that our obsession with cheap goods reaps all sorts of ill effects on culture, the world economy and the environment. Cheap initial costs hide the multitude of true costs. When consumers care about the lowest price to the exclusion of all other factors, retailers are forced to cut costs as much as possible in order to compete with one another. They cut wages for clerks, stockpersons and other employees. They force manufacturers to lower their wholesale costs, which forces manufacturers to seek cheaper and cheaper labor and supplies. This, of course, is what causes human rights violations in sweatshops and factories and environmental catastrophes. Manufacturers believe they can't afford to pay decent wages and comply with environmental regulations and still produce goods cheap enough to appeal to our insatiable desire for piles of inferior goods and therefore enrich themselves. Smaller producers are driven out of business, resulting in most of the world's goods being made by a handful of behemoth conglomerates. Let's face it: the unassailable fact is that it costs a lot more to make a table out of legally and sustainably harvested timber and fair wage labor than from an illegal clear cut in a third world country. A dress made out of clean harvest cotton by a reasonably-paid and a reasonably-treated labor force has to be more expensive than one made out of pesticide-contaminated fabric by abused and exploited sweatshop workers.

These giant corporations have the deep pockets necessary to spend lots of cash lobbying governments in order to keep environmental, consumer protection and workplace laws suppressed in their favor so their production costs are even lower, so the small number of executives at the top of the food chain can make even more money at the expense of the consumer and the workforce. Every day, companies fight efforts to require fair wages and benefits, fair labeling laws and regulations that require them to clean up their own hazardous waste and control dangerous emissions. And a lot of times, they win. Why? Because they have the money to pay the lawyers and lobbyists; money they get from you and me. There's no money in consumer and environmental protection, and therefore no one to fight them except for us.

Ruppel Shell uses a great example with milk: If a marketplace has two kinds of clearly labeled milk for sale, say pure milk for a dollar and watered down milk for fifty cents, consumers can purchase whichever they choose and both buyer and seller are happy. If the milk producers start watering down the milk and not labeling it, the sellers of pure milk will be screwed, because consumers will buy the watered down milk thinking it's pure and won't pay the additional cost for the real stuff. Sellers of real milk will sell less and less because consumers will think they're being cheated by the higher price. Pretty soon the sellers of real milk will either be forced to go along with the program and water down their milk, too, so they can compete or be driven out of business, The end result is that consumers will no longer have a choice; they can only buy crappy milk because that's all that's available. This is what has happened in every single industry on earth. Each and every television is made by one of three companies. Dozens of automobile manufacturers have been reduced to a handful, and all new cars look alike. Consumers have no real choice and goods are limitless but of low quality.

So, pretty depressing, huh? But there are things we can do. We're like the ants in The Bug's Life and we need to stand up to those dirty rat-finking grasshoppers. There's a lot more of us than them and if we band together we can mow them right over. Know the real cost of your consumer goods and be willing to pay the true price in cash up front, instead of in pain and suffering for people all over the world for years to come. Look for locally made goods and locally grown foods. Patronize your neighborhood stores instead of the big boxes. Pay attention to where things come from and ask the hard questions about how goods in America can have such a low initial cost, and where the true cost is being hidden. Shop at your local thrift store. Keep track of how your representatives vote on the important consumer and environmental issues, and let them know what you think. Go hiking on Labor Day instead of shopping the sale at the mall. Ants unite! Power to the people!

Happy Labor Day weekend!

New

After a long and distinguished career as an Air Force spouse, I will be retiring in the spring with the treadmarks from Uncle Sam's boots still on my ass everlasting gratitude of my country and a miniscule small barely adequate if I was a German Sheperd pension. We will be moving to the Puget Sound area, and Lloyd will have to find a job so we have food. Let's face it: no one ever got rich off the military. Except Dick Cheney, of course, and he only eats elderly nuns, crippled children and wide-eyed kittens. I hear he likes the kittens best because he loves to suck the juice out of their eyeballs and spit the skins at the crippled children just before he crunches their bones between his teeth. It's probably just one of those internet rumors, though. Like the one about my stripper pole. Sheesh, don't people have better things to do than make up ridiculous stories and spread them around the internet?

Anyway, Lloyd would like to work as a pilot, but we recently read a stories about these guys, so I'm not sure how well that's going to work out. I mean, only so many pilots can work the street corners in one town before they start having turf wars, right? I can just see them strutting down the sidewalks in their most enticing uniforms, pushing and shoving each other to get to the best prospective employers: 'Hey, Mister! Over here! I'll take you around the world! Satisfaction guaranteed!'

Major economic indicators at Osan (knockoff bag and pirated video sales) are strong and unchanged from the time of our arrival here. Back in Seattle, where the intellectual property theft that drives the economy is lost to the annals of history instead of parading itself on every street corner, apparently the conditions are not quite so rosy, and it might be a while before Lloyd finds a job. Before you get all huffy, yes, I could work and leave Lloyd home with the boys. We did talk about that but we agree that it's better if he works for money instead of me. Plus my main skills these days are tapping and producing milk, and there's not much of a market for those. But there totally SHOULD be. I have an awesome idea for building a human milk factory but I can't seem to find any investors.

In light of our upcoming reality, we are doing some things differently now. We're practicing for the days to come when we have to make Christmas presents out of empty beer cans and tape and play with boogers instead those spendy thrift store toys. We have stopped throwing away diapers after only one use, and for dessert we make the boys lick the old popsicle juice and applesauce spatters off the walls. And I only go to the thrift store on bag sale day. Oh, okay, that one's a lie. I would NEVER skip the thrift store just to save a little money.

But the big exciting change is meal planning. For every day in September, I have plans for both lunch and dinner. Some days I have complete meals figured out but I still have some holes to fill. People claim you can save tons of money on groceries by doing this because you buy just what you need to make your pre-planned meals instead of throwing things willy-nilly into the cart. I'm not sure who these 'people' are but maybe they're on to something here.

I'll keep you posted as September progresses. Tonight is lime cilantro chicken. I have no recipe, but I figure I'll just make one up and enter it in the Pillsbury bake-off contest and win the million dollars. Who knew meal planning could be so lucrative? I just need to incorporate some refrigerated dough of the appropriate brand and come up with a snazzy name. I think 'Island Chicken' has a nice ring to it. I could put it on sticks and bake it with the biscuit dough, sort of like a Cuban corn dog.

That's the news from the kitchen in Korea! And, Lloyd's your man if you're looking for a pilot to take you on a wild trip. In an airplane, I mean.