Liberal Land

Oakland, CA. A certain blogger is learning that any notion that he is a liberal completely eclipses certain components of the possible elements of the full sense of the distinction. Now in a very different environment, I can share new items some perhaps familiar to the reader and some perhaps not. What follows is not meant to criticize, while some opinions are expressed. The following components of a new way of living have been introduced:

1. Shoes do not belong in the house. They are removed at the porch outdoors.
2. There are no paper towels. Cloth towels are used and washed with detergent meeting biodegradable standards.
3. Recycling consists not of one bin, but four, each for different types of materials.
4. I do not recognize most of the food, while it is quite good. Different colored chunks of tasty items are intermixed with what I think is rice, but sometimes other material that is not rice but similar to rice. I don’t think chickens or cows are involved. Cereal is consumed with yogurt.
5. Speaking of food, the residue left on the plate is not to be placed in the trash. Instead, one scrapes all remnants into a bucket full of a disgusting accumulation of plate residue, items discarded during meal preparation, and god knows what.
6. This bucket is emptied onto a compost pile in the back yard.
7. The toilet is only flushed under certain circumstances. On other circumstances, it is left to “mellow.” (disgusting)
8. One opens and closes the drapes in the living room in accordance with a particular schedule to properly “sun the rug.”
9. There is coffee, but there is more tea, lots of tea, and lots of ways of making tea, and lots of ways of drinking tea.
10. Repeat the above for juice.
11. People hug more often. When I look at people, they look back with actual eye contact that persists. People smile at me. I really like it.
12. There is no big screen tv (oh, the humanity!). The only tv is a very small one in the bedroom that is never watched.
13. People have musical instruments, but what really blew me away is that they actually play them.
14.The plants have names. The cat has a small stuffed pet, which it occasionally likes to bathe in the toilet, which may or may not be flushed, so one tries to kip the lid closed.
15. They have USborne books, Putumayo music, and asked if my coffee was Fair Trade.
16. They refer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in normal conversation.

Somehow I don't think Dick Cheney has ever read or even heard of a Universal Bill of Rights.