progress on the prairie

portlyn. 1.29.10

Many of us in Oklahoma are iced-in this weekend and may be wondering, what is a girl (or boy) to do with all this indoor time? I mean after you’ve exhausted your inclination toward catching snowflakes on your tongue, cleaning (blugh!), snuggling, knitting, watching TV, painting your toenails, and doing 1000s of crunches; you may be longing for that feel-good, change-the-world type of task that can be accomplished while sitting in front of your computer. Well, here ya go:

1. Sign a petition! When fast-food giants like McDonald’s and KFC reject meat because it doesn’t meet their standards, do you know who buys it? The USDA. Then they use it for school lunch programs, and all that reject meat is fed to our school children. Grossed out? Think we can do better? Tell the USDA, “I find it unacceptable and shocking that USDA standards for school lunch meat purchases do not even match that of the fast food industry’s standards.” You can help by signing this petition to tell the USDA to adopt common-sense food safety standards, practices, and testing.

2. Support students who go to college! Whether you’re at the far left or the far right end of the political spectrum, surely we can all agree that education is a good thing. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, reforming the student loan programs will save tax payers $87 billion over ten years. That money would go to students instead of to banks as subsidies. Tell your Representatives to choose Students Over Banks!

3. Get caught up on the Indian mascot debate! The latest fiasco is set in nearby Stillwell, Oklahoma.

4. Meditate! Do something good for yourself, dangit! Be kind and patient with yourself. Just try to sit and pay attention to nothing but your breath for 2 whole minutes. It’s really not that easy, especially for me because I’m a bouncy, bouncy, emotional, and fidgety type. But I promise it’s not that weird, and you won’t hallucinate divine beings, as my meditation teacher/ Episcopal nun friend Sister Ellie has assured me.

5. Try cooking and eating VEGETARIAN! Okay, this one requires you to get off your ass, but eating is pretty important. If you are like me and you just can’t commit to a life without a delicious beef burger every now-and-then, it’s okay!  Still, eating vegetarian or vegan (if you are really hard-core) is good for our health, better for our beautiful Earth, and a good way to put meaningful thought into a sometimes mundane task. Also, it can be fun and exciting to try new vegetarian recipes like the ones at Meatless Monday.

It seems like this list should be longer, but I’m getting hungry Any other ideas?

Yours in attempting do-goodery,

Spring