Recommendation: Catalog Choice

A few years ago, when I was feeling overwhelmed by the stacks and stacks of unwanted catalogs that arrived in the mail, a friend recommended that I try www.catalogchoice.org.  

Like most people, I had ordered a few things from catalogs, which opened a floodgate of junk mail. Each year, the stack grew taller, especially as the December holidays approached. I hated to think of the resources that were being wasted. Within 4 weeks of signing up with Catalog Choice, there was a noticeable drop in mailings, which has continued. If you aren't already familiar with Catalog Choice, I strongly recommend that you check it out.

The steps are easy: first, assemble that huge stack of unwanted catalogs, then sign up at www.catalogchoice.org and begin declining. The website makes it easy to search by vendor name. You'll be asked to provide your name and address, as well as a bit of information from each catalog's mailing label. Even if the label doesn't contain requested information such as customer number and source code, you can decline it. 

That's your part of the process. Catalog Choice then contacts the vendor and requests that the mailings stop. Unfortunately, a few companies ("Woman Within," you know who you are) ignore your request, but the majority honor it fairly quickly. Be aware that if you place another order with vendors who sell their customer lists, a new flood of catalogs may result. However, renewing your requests through Catalog Choice is easy.

There is no cost for Catalog Choice's service, but they do appreciate donations. 

After you've signed up and declined catalogs, the website provides data on how your choices have benefited the environment. Environmental impacts are calculated using the EDF Paper Calculator.

Here's an example from my latest visit to the website:

TOGETHER WE'VE SAVED 634,601 fully grown trees

     YOU SAVED 6

TOGETHER WE'VE SAVED 264,283,734 lbs. of greenhouse gas

     YOU SAVED 2,129

TOGETHER WE'VE SAVED 636,485,603 lbs. of solid waste

     YOU SAVED 5,126

TOGETHER WE'VE SAVED 93,685,243 gallons of water

     YOU SAVED 755

Here's some additional information from Catalog Choice's website:  

"Catalog Choice's mission is to help people reduce unwanted mail, save natural resources, reduce clutter and take control of their mailbox. Since launching our free service in 2007, Catalog Choice has grown to serve more than a million people and thousands of companies.

We've expanded our service to help people control not only what arrives in their mailbox, but also to protect their privacy and personal information. Many companies work with us to make the opt-out process efficient and effective. Participating companies include catalog mailers, nonprofits, phone book publishers and other advertisers who use Catalog Choice to demonstrate best marketing practices and to honor consumer choice and privacy.

Catalog Choice is a nonprofit corporation based in Berkeley, California. We have a small, dedicated team and we use technology to maximize what we can accomplish for our members and participating companies.

We have worked in collaboration with The Ecology Center, National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council. We are funded through tax-deductible donations, grants from the Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, Kendeda Fund, Goldman Fund, Weeden Foundation, Mead Foundation, and Johnson Family Foundation. We supplement this funding with services for members and companies that help further reduce unwanted mail, protect personal information and certify best practices in the direct marketing industry."

Embarrassed for Them

These women are embarrassing me! Naturally, I want to see more women in positions of political responsibility, but how are we ever going to be taken seriously with displays of ignorance such as these? 

The post below comes from the PFAW website, but a longer video of the debate may be found at:

http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk-elections/article/christine-odonnell-first-amendment-question-floors-audience-video/19680390

When Sarah Palin took to the airwaves to spread her dangerously flawed understanding of freedom of speech, tens of thousands of activists joined PFAW in sending her copies of the First Amendment to help her get it. Now it seems that her protege, Christine O'Donnell -- the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Delaware -- needs help understanding the separation of church and state.

In a debate with her Democratic opponent Chris Coons (at a law school of all places), she challenged him to tell her where church-state separation was in the Constitution, and seemed absolutely baffled when he informed her that it was right there, clear as day, in the First Amendment. Even the audience gasped -- and laughed -- in shock.

Clearly, O'Donnell needs to read the First Amendment again.

Sign our petition now and we'll send Christine O'Donnell a copy of the First Amendment on your behalf!

Our goal is to send tens of thousands... or even hundreds of thousands of copies of the First Amendment to Chirstine O'Donnell. If she reads it over and over again, maybe the words will sink in and she'll finally start to get the concept of separation of church and state.

It was remarkable... Christine O'Donnell was chiding Chris Coons about his knowledge of the Constitution as she defended her assertion that "evolution is a myth" and her support for allowing the teaching of creationism in public schools. Coons rightly felt she needed to be reminded about the constitutional foundations for the principle of separation of church and state, at which point her extremism... or stunning lack of knowledge... or both became evident.

Christine O'Donnell's denialism extending from evolution to one of the bedrock constitutional principles on which our country was founded -- the separation of church and state -- is unacceptable.
-- Ben Betz, Online Communications Manager
P.S. You can hear her in her own words and then add your name to the petition here >

Dear Ms. O'Donnell,
As a candidate for U.S. Senate, you should display at least a basic knowledge of our Constitution and its First Amendment, which reads:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Chilean Miners: Heroes or Victims?

This article appeared in In These Times, on Thursday, October 10, 2010.

Chilean miner Carlos Barrios leaves the Fenix rescue capsule. Barrios was the 13th miner brought to the surface on Oct. 13.  (Photo by RODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP/Getty Images)

Thursday
14 Oct 10
3:49 pm

By Mike Elk

They are being viewed as heros, but some disagree with this characterization. The 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days have been treated like heroes since their rescue this week. They were invited to the country's Presidential Palace for a special soccer game. A Greek mining executive offered to pay for themto take an all-expense paid trip to Greece to just relax for a few weeks at beaches. Many other companies have made huge donations to their families.

"The miners are not 'heroes,' as they have been called around the world for surviving underground for over two months," Néstor Jorquera, president of the Chilean mineworkers union, CONFEMIN, told the Inter Press Service. "They are victims." Many in the international labor movement have complained that news accounts have ignored the poor treatment of workers by the mining company, which intially refused to pay their wages after the miners were trapped underground on August 5.

San Esteban, the company that operates the mine, claimed they had no money to pay the workers who were trapped under the mine. In fact, the company was apparently so broke that it couldn't even pay the costs of the recovery. The government of Chile was forced to pay for a rescue that some say could cost anywhere between $10- $20 million.

As a result, the president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, vowed to make major changes to the way workers are treated in Chile. "Never again in our country will we permit people to work in conditions so unsafe and inhuman as they worked in the San Jose Mine, and in many other places in our country," he said. 

It's important to note that working conditions in Chile are notriously unsafe. There were more than 191,000 workplace accidents, including 443 deaths, in a country with only a population of 17 million people in 2009, an astronomical rate for such a small country.

President Pinera set up a commission in August to write a report on workplace safety, which is due to be delivered on November 22. The president also announced the creation of a new mining agency to more strictly enforce mining safety laws and increase funding for safety programs.

But Jorquera, president of CONFEMIN, says this is not enough. He called for Chile to agree to the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines, like most industrialized countries around the world have done.

Whether or not Chile signs on to that convention will make clear how serious the country's leaders are about reforming mine safety laws. It won't be much of a surprise if the media, which often neglects workplace safety issues, quickly moves on after the rescue and ignores mining safety issues in Chile and elsewhere. But let's hope Pinera, and the rest of Chile's leaders in government, act now to ensure we never have to watch another harrowing subterranean story like this unfold.

Turn Off FOX in Public

FOX's extreme rhetoric inspired Byron Williams' mass-murder  plot. If you've ever seen Glenn Beck's show, you know how paranoid, mis- leading and hateful his rants can be. But it's even worse than that. The extreme rhetoric espoused by Beck and others on FOX News is  scary because it's easy to see how this rhetoric could inspire violent  acts against progressives. Unfortunately, a new report makes clear  that's exactly what happened in at least one near-tragic case.1 Three months ago, a heavily armed man named Byron Williams  was on his way to kill people at two non-profit organizations in  San Francisco when he got into a gun battle with police. Luckily,  they arrested him before he could carry out his plot. Now, in an  interview from jail, the "progressive hunter" has revealed that in  fact Fox News' Glenn Beck was a major inspiration: "Beck will never say anything about a conspiracy, will never  advocate violence ... But he'll give you every ounce of  evidence that you could possibly need."2 Byron Williams is just one example of the very real and growing  danger of political violence from the far-right — and FOX's  continued promotion of hatemongers like Glenn Beck only fans  the flames. That's why we've partnered with Color of Change to launch a  campaign to reduce FOX's poisonous, dangerous influence on  our nation. More than 200,000 people have signed the petition  asking businesses and public places to stop playing FOX News.  Will you add your voice? Watch the video and sign the petition to Turn Off FOX on  public TV's in your neighborhood. This story is personal. Byron Williams came frighteningly close to  killing our friends at the offices of the Tides Foundation and the  ACLU — which is less than one block from CREDO. While many Americans are aware of the ACLU, the Tides  Foundation is an organization that most people had never  heard of — until Glenn Beck started demonizing and spreading  false information about them. Since Beck's show premiered,  he has pushed conspiracy theories involving Tides on nearly  30 episodes. During the same time period, Tides was never  mentioned on other news channels.3,4 According to the interview with Williams just released by  Media Matters, he was driven by a bizarre and false  conspiracy theory involving the Tides Foundation that  Glenn Beck pushed multiple times on his television show.5 It's stunningly irresponsible for FOX to continue legitimizing this  baseless and incendiary nonsense under their "news" banner.  Will you join us in asking businesses to Turn Off FOX on their  TVs, and stop promoting this dangerous rhetoric in our  communities? Watch the video and ask local businesses to Turn Off FOX's  dangerous rhetoric. Williams is the clearest example we have of someone who  was motivated by FOX News to engage in political violence  — but he's part of a consistent pattern of violence from  far-right extremists that underscores the danger of the hateful  rhetoric and misinformation that's commonplace on FOX  News and the right-wing noise machine.6,7 Beck's program in particular is so extreme that 296 organizations  have asked FOX to pull their advertisements from his show.  (Beck's show is known as "empty calories" because it draws few  advertising dollars but substantial ratings.)8 Yet despite this  significant pressure from advertisers, and clear evidence that  FOX News broadcasts have lead to real-world violence, FOX  continues promoting hate and fear, packaged as news. This rhetoric is amplified every time it's played on a TV in a  bar, restaurant or other public business. We can send a  strong message to FOX, and reduce the reach of FOX's  dangerous messaging, by encouraging businesses near us to  turn it off. Thankfully, police were able to stop Byron Williams before he  committed a massacre. But it can happen again — let's do  everything we can to stop it. Thanks, Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets 1. Media Matters, 10-11-10 2. Ibid. 3. Media Matters, 10-11-10  4. Media Matters, 7-23-10  5. See reference 1. 6. Anti-Defamation League, 4-8-09  7. Salon, 5-31-09  8. New York Times Magazine, 9-29-09