Sunday Soliloquy: Afrocity- An Accidental Study in Sustainable Design July 11, 2010

Only by the most elaborate maneuvers of denial could I pretend that I am not getting older.  Whether it is the cellulite that is taking up residence in my thighs or the pain in my left hand from ever so worsening arthritis,  Afrocity is no spring chicken.

Last Saturday, I went for sushi with a friend.  Proud of the eel and uni delectables I consumed over white rice,   I eagerly opened my fortune cookie and read something ghastly:

YOU ARE NOT OLD BUT YOU ARE NO LONGER YOUNG EITHER.

Great. Thanks for the losing lotto numbers too.

Forty-one year’s old I will be in just under a month.  I feel as though I have lived at least another twenty.  In my avoidance of aging, I have purchased a used bicycle,  bought lots and lots of creams for my face, ass, and thighs and invested in mega Omega-3 fatty acid supplements. Middle age is knocking tap, tap, tap.  I look out of my peep hole…Oh nobody’s home go away.  What mother’s death in 2007 taught me was that I needed her alive to feel young.  Now that she is gone, I am left behind with her memories and orange-peel prone hips.  “Fat Girl Slim” is the $47 cream, I purchased from Sephora to help with cellulite.  Every night I rub the caffeine laced concoction into my skin after a vigorous dry brushing.  Night time prep has gone from 5 minutes as an 18 year old, to now nearly 45 minutes.  The days of splashing cold water on my face and washing with Phisoderm are over.  My ritual is quite eventful. First wash with Perricone MD, Nutritive Cleanser,  then tone, then my eye serum to combat dark circles, then my pre-moisturizing night time treatment, followed my retinol A moisturizing treatment, and of course my vitamin C/Ester eye cream.  Pretty pathetic huh?  To end the night perfectly, I drink mint tea and soy milk. This should be the last thing that goes into my stomach at night but I am a cheater and keep a bag of Kettle chips underneath the bed.   In light of the prison which is my beauty regimen, I am actually pretty low key in other areas of my life well most areas unless you count politics.

Whereas most normal women can walk into a store and see tote bags as only tote bags, I look at the ones with 100% GREEN and SEXY plastered all over and want to barf.   I see government intrusion and crazy far left moon bat political agendas. Can’t a girl,  I mean middle aged woman just find a simple tote bag and carrying it to the market without advertising an agenda or Japanese anime sex symbols?   I get it, we all must embrace internationalism and green technology.  I see it everywhere when I shop for my make-up and “war on Afrocity aging products”  .   Green make-up had quite a different meaning when I was a teenager. Then it was that awful tacky mood lipstick. Green in the tube but changed to an irritating pink on your lips and the lips of your friends. Every friend!!! They lied, no matter what mood you where in, that mood lipstick was the same shade of pink on everyone’s lips.    Now “green cosmetics” make resounding claims to keep you looking young and beautiful while being healthy for the environment but not your pocket book.   Look, I am not an incorrigible conservative that hates anything pro-environment.  I actually care about trees and rain forests.  I have seen the IMax movies at the museum.   However, “in-your face”  propaganda and legislation just does not sit well with me.    Rushing from store to store, “going green”  is like a painful stalking form of lifestyle.  You either succumb or just die.

Walking to the fridge for a bottle of water one night, my cat was whining for a wet food refill.  I grabbed the $1.70 a can premium grain free can of food made with spring water (filtered).  As I dumped its contents into his bowl, I looked around at my laundry supplies which reside in the utility room where the cats whine and dine.  Tide liquid detergent, 100% GREEN formula.  Biodegradable fabric sheets by Arm and Hammer.  Hmmmmm. Arm and Hammer…back in the day, I used baking soda just for brushing my teeth and deodorant when mom and I were low on cash.

Now the famous muscular arm and rusty hammer are on my kitty litter, sanitary napkins and dryer sheets.    Continuing to the fridge, there was the box of baking soda sitting on the top shelf next to my green tea ginger ale .  I grabbed a bottle of spring water.  Something looked different; the bottle seemed thinner almost flimsy.

Picture of me taken on the Forth of July, last weekend. Knee length hemlines are in my future. No more short shorts or mini-skirts.

Still, I was somewhat groggy and could not really identify what it was.  That is until I tried to twist off the cap.  My right hand has trouble with small caps on aspirin bottles due to my arthritis.  Now I could add bottled water to the list.

From Bezinga.com

Pro Mach Receives 2010 Green Award for Sustainable Packaging Machinery Solutions

June 16, 2010

CINCINNATI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Pro Mach was awarded the first ever 2010 Manny Green Award from Cincy Magazine this month for manufacturing initiatives and product innovations that helped customers improve package sustainability.

Three examples were highlighted during the award process. In the first example, Pro Mach’s Fowler division, which manufactures capping equipment, collaborated with several major bottled water companies and multiple material vendors in a solution to package water using lightweight, thinner, smaller containers and caps. Fowler set up test packaging lines and engineered the capping machinery solution that allowed them to greatly reduce packaging material and maintain line speeds. One of these companies estimates they are using 1/3 less plastic, a reduction of more than 95 million pounds at a cost savings of more than $60 million. Comparable savings are also being achieved by the other producers.

In the second example, Pro Mach’s Roberts PolyPro division was noted for producing 100% recyclable single and multi-pack handles for the beverage industry that average 5 to 35 percent less resin than alternative processes. In the third example, Pro Mach’s Orion division developed a customized solution to help a fresh produce customer significantly reduce food product loss and damage during transit.

“We’re honored to receive this recognition from Cincy Magazine,” said Jack Aguero, Pro Mach Vice-President of Marketing and Business Development. “All of these sustainable initiatives have taken a team effort from customers, material suppliers, and our staff. Without the commitment of everyone involved we wouldn’t have been successful.”

Finally I took off the water bottle cap and looked at it.  It was hardly a cap at all.  The bottle label read “Our Caps are smaller that means less plastic for a greener you”….  But now my arthritic right hand was hurting and the city of Chicago taxed me a dollar for the case of water because bottle water is supposedly not green at all.  Can I get a refund?

I closed the door to my stainless steel , energy efficient refrigerator and walked across my bamboo engineered floor to my bed covered in organic cotton sheets.  My green life was not planned.  I did not orchestrate the environmentally friendly cat litter or the strange shaped light bulb in the lamp next to my bed.   It all sort of just happened over night without my permission.  Just like the cellulite on my thighs and no matter how many creams I use, it is here to stay whether I like it or not.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Barack Obama: There Could Be Mo’ Better Presidents June 8, 2010

From Gutter Politix

My central point against Barack Obama becoming President of the United States has always contended that he is an empty suit.   Like tofu,  whatever you flavor him with, he will comply and satisfy your hungry drooling for hope and change palate. He is not a leader, he is a game piece-  a strange brew of  FDR, John F. Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter mixed in with the arrogance of Napoleon and half as good oratory gifts of Dr.  Martin Luther King.   Still, Obama’s  presidency is more often contrasted with that of Abraham Lincoln’s.

Lincoln, who is widely known in American societal memory as “the guy who freed the slaves”,  deserves better comparisons than Barack Obama.

While one president  freed slaves, the other has become one by couching his words and actions to comply with any hint of criticism from the far left.  Moonbat protest groups, crazy pimp so-called black leaders such as Al Sharpton,  and of course the most important group to Obama of them all-  people who have sizable influence in the entertainment indsutry.  Actors, directors,  producers, fashion designers,best-selling authors, comedians, musical artists, key grips, mimes, Shrek, Lassie, and of course Spike Lee.

Now there’s someone our president should  listen to.  Go OFF Obama.  Get ghetto on BP.  Act like a brutha!!!! Tell those corporate hacks off black man style.  You are the first black president and we expected you to act….well black.  Everyone knows that as a black man, your brown skin coolness and macho mojo is more relevant when you get street on someone.  You are the HNIC (Head Nigga’ In Charge) and you are in a relative pin with this BP crap. The Vlasic Pickle Pelican is being posted all over the internet slathered in oil.

Man you better do somethin’ before we make the white liberal environmentalists who voted for you angry.  Yeah, yeah we know that caring about foliage, Dutch Elm disease,  falcons, the mating patterns  and predatory relationships of  the Rockey Mountain Timber Wolf  is not exactly a “black issue”  but you gotta at least look like you give a damn.  Word, black folk don’t even go camping but just look angry so we can get back to the important issues that blacks care about like government run healthcare and illegal immigration.  This BP oil spit thing here is a distraction.

Pelican covered in oil found on the Louisiana Coast June 3rd, 2010. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Being the black king playing piece on the liberal chess board, Obama moved to the strategic square that he was told to.

Wow.  Barry wants to know whose ass needs to be kick.  How fucking eloquent and presidential.  However, Spike Lee told Obama to “go off” and in his own wimpy way, Obama listened and not so explicitly delivered.  What a radical re-articulation of our nation’s highest office.  You mess up and Big Brutha Obama is gonna kick yo’ ass, and blame Bush later.

Why?  Because Spike Lee told him to.

A reoccurring theme in great visits to the White House are not those of foreign dignitaries.  Screw the British Prime Minister! He is small leg of mutton potatoes when you can have Jay-Z , George Clooney, and  Brad Pitt playing Grand Theft Auto with you in the Oval Office.  Put Scarlett Johansson in your  fav five.  Throw the Indian dude from the Harold and Kumar movies into your administration, maybe get a lifetime supply of White Castle Burgers for Sasha and Malia to go along with those late night serenades from the Jonas Brothers.  Now that is what I call effective networking.  America- One nation under 20th Century Fox, divisible, without liberty and legalized pot in every chicken for all.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY