I have a new cover story in the Pacific Sun. It’s about a group of moms starting an “EcoMom” movement–an attempt to get moms from all over to share tips on what they can do to help Global Warming. The group has EcoMom Parties, where they encourage moms to get together and talk about the environment, kind of like a Book Club or Tupperware Party. Here’s a snippet:

“When I saw Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, I lay awake all night worrying about it,” Katie Tuttle tells a group of Marin moms. “When I woke up the next morning, I had my first gray hair. Then my husband said that instead of complaining so much about it, I should do something.”

Tuttle is speaking at an EcoMom Alliance meeting. The group wants moms all over the country to become more environmentally aware and is working to give them the tools to live a greener lifestyle. The meeting is at founder Kimberly Danek Pinkson’s San Anselmo home—a small, rented bungalow. Sitting around her cozy living room are “EcoMom Leaders,” women who have volunteered to help with the burgeoning movement.

Also at the meeting is Peter Bick, a filmmaker who is making a documentary on global warming. Bick, whose films have won awards at festivals like South by Southwest in Austin, is part of a wave of interest in EcoMom Alliance. Since The New York Times wrote a piece on the organization in February, Pinkson has been contacted by everyone from The Today Show to 20/20.

More here.

Kyle was interviewed for an article published in Linux Insider. In it, Kyle talks about the next distribution of Ubuntu, which is coming out in the near future. After all, Kyle co-wrote Ubuntu Hacks.

Famous husband!

There are many wonderful artists out there. I discover at least two or three a week. They can be visual, literary, or musical. I especially love the musical one. I am finding new bands all. the. time.

Here are a few I like this week. It’s a pretty representative sample except they are all girls. That part is not on purpose.

Guitar virtuoso Kaki King:

Avant-garde indie musician St Vincent:

My wonderful, weird, Leslie Hall:

Ok! I know Leslie Hall is strange but I love her. She is just my kind of strange. She’s from Iowa. She came to Internet fame with her Gem Sweater Collection. The natural follow up to that? Record a hop-hop album of course. I don’t know why, but I love it. If you agree, here’s the remix.

We are still remodeling our house over here. It’s going slowly, but it’s going. The most exciting thing that happened lately is that Kyle put in our dishwasher!! I can’t tell you how wonderful dishwashers are. They are the best invention ever. I had the dishwasher and the Roomba (robot vacuum cleaner) and my clothes washer running all at once yesterday. I felt so luxurious. Go give your dishwasher a hug.

Putting in the dishwasher was an ordeal. Kyle had to cut a hole in the cabinet, wire a new outlet to plug it in, and plumb the whole thing. It was way more involved than I realized, and he did a great job. He probably saved us hundred by installing it himself.

The dishwasher when it was first installed. I will take a final picture of it once he does the cosmetic work and gets it all spiffed up. (It is not purple–this was taken before we removed the plastic shield from the front. It is stainless steel and black.)

Kyle also put in two security cameras. We aren’t worried about being robbed, but they are cool to have.

I, on the other hand, have been concentrating on landscaping. Kyle’s Dad gave us a lawnmower for Christmas, so we gave the yard its first mow a couple of weeks ago. It made a huge difference! I also pulled up the trash and ugly ground cover from the side and front of the house, cut down all the ivy in the backyard, and put in my vegetable garden:

I was pleased with the quality of the soil in my garden. It is swimming with worms, rich and loamy, and high in nutrients. It only needed some nitrogen and organic material, and it was ready to go. (At least as far as I could tell. I’m still a novice at this.) I wanted to use bricks as a border for the garden, but didn’t have the extra cash that would take, so we used the old baseboards from the house instead. This weekend, I planted the early spring crops: peas, beans, spinach, carrots, beets, radishes, and raspberries.

We also planted three fruit trees: a grafted cherry, an apricot, and a pomegranate. They seem to be doing well so far. I plan to plant a dwarf orange tree sometime this month, and that will be the end of the fruit trees for 2008. (In the future, though, I want to put in a fig, kumquat, and possibly an olive tree.)

Blossoms on our baby apricot tree

Still to come in the immediate future: remove some unwanted stumps, plant the citrus bushes, put in an herb garden, remove all signs of ivy from my backyard, and paint the hallway. That’s just me. Kyle is going to put in an irrigation system to save us water and keep me from having to water every day. Then we will focus on tiling the half-bath.

So there’s a remodeling update for you. Eventually the house will be at a place where I can have a house-warming party, but not quite yet.

Ladies and Gentlemen Writers (Writers and Writeresses?), introducing the Gender Guesser. (More from me about this application after the link.)

Since I bought a dishwasher this month (!), I ran out of re-modeling money–and what money I have left must be spent on plants for my garden–so I resorted to making the things that will decorate my house.

For example, I made another pillow. This time, it’s a tube pillow for my office chair. I didn’t really know how to make a tube pillow, so I kind of winged it, but it seems to have worked out:

The fabric is from some upholstery samples I have had lying around for awhile. (My chair is missing one of its buttons because it is a thrift store find and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it.)

I also made a clock for my living room. Well, Kyle helped a little. We drilled a hole in a plastic plate from Target and put the clock mechanism through it.

I am especially pleased with this one because I hated all the clocks I saw in the store. There are some ugly clocks out there, people.

All this information is from OpenSecrets.org

I predict Barack Obama will win the primaries. Why? He raised more money than Clinton, and in America, that’s what matters the most. Okay, I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek here, but still: Obama raised $138 million compared to $135 million for Clinton. McCain, who is in a much colder race, raised $54 million.

Where did they get their money from? This is an important question to ask. In the 2000 election, Bush received more donations from the oil industry than the last three presidents combined. And look what happened during his terms–gas prices tripled and we are in a war over oil. That is not a coincidence.

So I took a look at where our new candidates are getting their money from. I’m not that great with numbers, but what I learned was kind of interesting, so I’ll share. Obama got most of his money–74%–from Ideological/Single Issue, meaning individual donations, charities, etc. Another 26% is from Business, meaning corporate donations.

Clinton, on the other hand, received the majority of her donations–56%–from Business. About one-third of her money comes from Ideological/Single Issue.

Then I broke their contributions down by industry. Although I didn’t go through every industry, I discovered that Clinton led Obama in donations from every industry I looked at except for Computers/Internet and Education. Here are some samples of what I saw (keep in mind that while I’m including McCain in here, the comparisons are really apples to oranges because he ran on less money):

Industry: Tobacco
Clinton received $45,800
McCain received $17,000
Obama received $16,187

Industry: Oil/Gas
McCain received $283,285
Clinton received $276,150
Obama received $157,390
(This pales compared to Giuliani’s $649,608 from the Oil/Gas industry, btw)

Industry: Insurance
Clinton received $781,361
Obama received $594,760
McCain received $381,482

Industry: Real Estate (A big issue right now, obviously)
Clinton received $5,366,432
Obama received $3,038,325
McCain received $2,193,808

Industry: Commercial Banks
Clinton received $1,211,924
Obama received $1,175,885
McCain received $730,525

Industry: Casinos/Gambling
McCain received $102,200
Clinton received $91,125
Obama received $31,300

Lobbyists:
Clinton received $783,290
McCain received $453,365
Obama received $99,240
(Note that Clinton is the clear leader here–she has almost twice the donations of the second person on the list, McCain. Compare that to Obama’s modest $100,000.)

What does this say? It says, at the very least, that Clinton is friendlier with most industries than Obama is. Considering that most corruption in American government takes place in the dealings between businesses and politicians, these numbers further my distrust of Clinton considerably. They are, after all, on top of her voting us into Iraq and voting for the Patriot Act twice.