Recycling your reads

One major influence that my late mother had on my life was to develop my interest in reading.  When I was a young child, she, herself being an avid reader, took me to the bookmobile.  She was handicapped, so climbing the steps of the bus was a serious and painful effort.  She solved the problem of the squirming little one by setting her next to a bottom shelf full of books with pictures.  When we finally got a neighborhood library, our summers were wonderful, with weekly trips to that marvelous building of light and . . . books.  In those days, an adult patron could check out twelve books, a child six.  Mama traded with me, getting six and letting me have twelve!

One other influence from my mother came when I heard her say:  "I'd rather have a roomful of books than walls filled with art."  Some might think that that was a negative influence, but what's done is done.  I freaking love books.  Not just to read.  I love to touch them, hold them, see how they are made.  I love to look at them.  Take me to a party and park me next to the bookcase. I'm good for hours. I can read tables of contents and indices with great contentment.  My dream home will have wall to wall bookcases and a nice comfy chair.  Oh, and lots and lots of books.

In reality, I have too many books.  I didn't think that would ever be possible, but I just can't store all that I have.  A hoard of books, packed away, is not the same as a library of books with all of them accessible for reading and, OK, admiring. Gotta let go of some.  No doubt you do, too.

I'm thinking it's a good thing to keep books out of landfills.  Also good to make them available to others who have less access, either because of money or of mobility/transportation issues.  Before we think about turning our books into trash or even about Recycling them, let's think about ways to work with the other R's in the environment:  Reduce and Reuse.  The obvious places to let go of our treasured books are Half Price Books and Goodwill.  But these options involve getting a poor return on the original investment or, in the case of Goodwill, not everyone's favorite place to donate.

There are other options to consider.

• Schools.  Talk to the teachers you know and see if they need books for their classroom or their school's library.  Not all books will be appropriate there, but a few might just find the perfect place to inspire our community's future. Once you have an idea about what is needed, consider holding a book drive in your neighborhood.
• Senior facilities.  Senior residential facilities often have a library or reading room.  My experience is that the books there need constant replenishing.  As it happens, ESOA has a link to one such residential complex, Wildflower Terrace, so this might be an easy to send your treasures on to a new life.* There are surely other such facilities near you.  Adopt one.  Talk to the management about what is needed, and consider holding a book drive in your neighborhood.
• Recycled Reads.  This program of the Austin Public Library takes donations of used books.  The donated books then may be sold to the public: $2 for hardbacks, $1 for paperbacks.  Proceeds benefit Austin Public Libraries.
• Buy used.  If the book you want is popular enough or old enough, there may be used copies available from a variety of sources:  Half Price Books, eBay, Amazon, Goodwill, etc.  Before you buy a new book, think about whether it's likely to be something that you will want to keep in your library or get rid of after one reading.  Maybe used will do just as well?  While this option doesn't get royalties to authors and it doesn't reduce the actual number of books in print, it is a strategy for reducing your own personal contribution to the landfill.  It extends the life of the book itself when you buy used, moreso when you pass it on when you are through with it.
• Download.  A variety of reading options are available for you if you just download a book instead of buying the print version.  You can read books on your computer, cell phone, or dedicated reader.  You can buy them new at a (somewhat) reduced price and, in the case of your cell phone, carry them around in your pocket for as long as you want.  You can even get free books, if you're into classics and out-of-copyright works, from several sources, but especially from Project Gutenberg, which makes them available in a variety of formats to accommodate just about any type of reading device.  Search for author Felix Adler and see what comes up.  
• Read 'em again.  If a book is worth keeping, it should be worth re-reading. Take some time to reconsider your personal library holdings.  What have you not yet read?  What have you read and forgotten?  What have you read and really want to read again?  Hate to let go of that book?  Read it again!

Do you know of other places where we can donate used books?  Do you have a favorite place to buy used books?  What other ways might we reduce our consumption of printed books or reuse the ones we have?

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*Hat tip to Bob Warren for modeling this ethical action.

Make your ethics Smile!

By Smile, I am referring to Amazon.com's donation program for charitable organizations, called, you guessed it, Smile.  Not too long ago, the Ethical Society of Austin completed the rather tedious application (Amazon is careful about additions to the program) to participate in the Smile program as a donation recipient.  Now all we have to do is go to our account page on Amazon.com and change the settings to allow part of our purchases to be donated to ESOA.

The amount donated is small, of course:  0.5% of the total purchase price.  That's only $0.50 for every $100 spent, but it does mount up over time and with more shoppers.  That is, the more of us who sign up for this program--and shop--the more donations will come to ESOA.

This sort of passive giving is becoming more common with businesses that want to be--or appear to be--more ethical and involved in the community ("giving back").  If you choose to shop through Amazon.com, consider taking the active step of signing up for Amazon Smile and designating ESOA as your charity.  Depending on your shopping levels, you can make helpful--and needed--contribution to ESOA.

A caveat or two.  First, although one does not have to create a new account to sign up for Amazon Smile, it may be necessary to create a bookmark (or equivalent) on your own computer and actively use that bookmark for at least a while to make sure that you are actually shopping through the Smile program.  I am not clear that your donations will go to ESOA if you just go to Amazon.com and start shopping.  If you do go to smile.amazon.com, you will see a clear indication in the upper left just under the search bar that you are "Supporting:  Ethical Society of Austin."  If that notation is not there, chances are you are not supporting ESOA with your purchases.  Apparently, as I discovered after one largish purchase, the system is not foolproof. *sigh*

Second, well, moderation in all things, y'know?

Windy weather

As Central Texas approaches summer (any day now, I expect), we are getting all of the spring things taken care of as quickly as possible.  Wildflowers are in bloom.  Trees are budding.  Birds are building nests.  A little rain (although the predictions suggest a fairly dry summer).  A lot of sunshine (and the predictions suggest a warmer-than-average summer).  Glorious blue skies, which, of course, we can see in any season, but who wants to go outside in the summer?

Last night we had some wind.  Not much.  Maybe up to 12 mph?  We were supposed to have some rain, but, again, not much.  I could see some wet pavement this morning, but it was mostly drying off.

The wind blew over my new sun shelter.  I never expected the thing to last the summer, but we only just put it up a couple of days ago, and I was looking forward to having the mosquito free work space to continue sorting through the rubble of my life.  (OK, "rubble" is dramatic, but I'm in a flippant mood about said "rubble," so I'll let it stand.)  I was rather disappointed that the shelter didn't even last a week.  I guess I'll have to figure out something about tie downs and such if I'm ever going to get it back up.

In other news, I had a massive amount of recycling this week (rubble!).  Filled two large bins and borrowed another.  Getting that third bin meant hiking over to a neighbor's house, dragging the already-half-filled bin back to mine, filling it, and then dragging the fully loaded bin back to the neighbor's house.  Up an incline.  Well, it took a while, and, although the morning was pleasantly cool, I got rather warm.  I paused on the way back to my home to rest a moment and felt a lovely cooling breeze ruffle my hair.

Isn't wind a wonder?  We can harness it for power, transportation, recreation. We can manufacture it for cooling as well as the more practical uses.  We fight against its destructive powers, when too much wind can wipe out cities and kill.

The science of wind can be a little dry to some of us, but the wonder is available to all of us.  We might take a moment now and then to notice the wind and its effects on our lives--for good or ill--perhaps to acknowledge that so many things that we encounter in our lives may also affect us for good or ill, being neither good nor bad but just what they are.    Or perhaps we can take that moment to enjoy the simple pleasure of a cooling breeze.   Would that be spiritual?

Primary Highs and Lows

I went to vote in the Super Tuesday (makes me hear the Super Trooper chorus in my head) primary on March 1.  It's a thing for me.  If I can, I like to vote on an election day during a presidential year rather than taking advantage of early voting.  Voting is just a big deal for me.  I love the sense of community that comes from voting in person.  I also love the powerful feelings of unity and fellowship that come from attending the precinct caucus ("These are my people!").

Because I spent several years in another county, taking care of my late mother, I have missed this experience.  All of my voting during that period had to be by absentee ballot.  I was physically absent, but I also felt socially absent.  Issues that would have absorbed my attention and concern were far removed from my then reality.  Candidates were less familiar to me than I liked, since I like to know all I can find out about the views and records of those that I vote for.

This March primary was bittersweet for me in a number of ways.  The candidates, warts and all, reflect the frailties of humanity, the confluence of greed and opportunism, the irony of time in hurried flight--when good things come too late.  I walked in to vote with a smile and (almost) dancing feet.  It was good to be "present" again; it was wonderful to fulfill my duty as a citizen and enjoy the freedom to do so without harassment or obstacle.  I really had a gleeful time marking my ballot.  But I left with tears in my eyes.  I remembered past election days with such high hopes for the future, a future that is now and not a realization of those hopes.  I remembered past elections when loved ones no longer here shared the joy and responsibility of this civic duty, making it a family affair.

Lots of things are that way for me these days.  Important.  Difficult.  Full of memories as well as dreams of a better future.  One thing that does give me hope is that one of the eight commitments that we make in the Ethical Society of Austin is to democracy:  Democratic process is essential to our task.  We explain this:

The democratic process is essential to a humane social order because it respects the worth of persons and elicits and allows a greater expression of human capacities.  Democratic process also implies a commitment to shared responsibility and authority.

Many of the issues that drove my vote on Tuesday are expressed in that statement.  From a desire for a humane social order to shared responsibility. there were opportunities on the ballot to support them all.  And that, too, is part of our commitment in ESOA.  We look to the democratic process for the internal operations of the organization itself, we commit to participation in the democratic process in our civic lives, and we work toward preserving the best of our American democracy by supporting inclusion, transparency, and fairness in our public institutions.  Yeah, I'd call that super any old day.