#1806 Cleanliness and Godliness

#1806

Cleanliness and Godliness

 People who are trying to do good for their families and the planet by living a simple life based on traditional skills are facing yet another assault. Artisanal soap makers say new regulations, proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), will put them out of business.

The view of Sen. Feinstein and her corporate backers (listed below) is that the Personal Care Products Safety Act (Senate Bill S.1014) will make the world a safer place by scrutinizing “everything from shampoo and hair dye to deodorant and lotion.” She says the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act should be more progressive like laws in Europe rather than antiquated US regulations in effect since the 1930s.

If the industries that back this law are really so concerned about safety, why don’t they voluntarily make healthy products, like the small time producers already do?

Feinstein does not propose to ban these dangerous ingredients from soaps and cosmetics, just regulate them with tests and warning labels, fees, and recall authority. She thinks some of these products, though harmful to health, magically become “safe when used by professionals in a salon or spa setting.”

Companies and brands that support the bill:

• Johnson & Johnson, brands include Neutrogena, Aveeno, Clean & Clear, Lubriderm, Johnson’s baby products.
• Procter & Gamble, including Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Clairol, Herbal Essences, Secret, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Ivory, CoverGirl, Olay, Sebastian Professional, Vidal Sassoon.
• Revlon, brands include Revlon, Almay, Mitchum
• Esteee Lauder, brands include Esteee Lauder, Clinique, Origins, Tommy Hilfiger, MAC, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Donna Karan, Aveda, Michael Kors.
• Unilever, brands include Dove, Tresemme, Lever, St. Ives, Noxzema, Nexxus, Pond’s, Suave, Sunsilk, Vaseline, Degree.
• L’Oreeal, brands include L’Oreeal Paris, Lancome, Giorgio Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, Kiehl’s, Essie, Garnier, Maybelline-New York, Vichy, La Roche-Posay, The Body Shop, Redken.

  Sighted people learned long ago that society does not care and can not improvise with them, and so it is with poor people, poverty stricken cultures, those who know nothing about there life, there methods of survival cannot appreciate there struggles.

All those sightless," a blind veteran" god wanted me to sense the world and I have been a world traveler most of my life.  I was often invited to embassies and wealthy homes. But, my main interest was in seeing what the common folks where doing.  I had come from the common people, born on a dirt road, no power, phone or water lines.

   The heart of any people in Africa or Asia is the village market. 50 years ago when I began my round the world exploits, like the home in which I was raised. These village people did not have the technology of power lines, refrigeration or any of the convinces of modern living.

 They, like early America, depended on there own "common since skills for survival". Cleanliness and sanitation was as important to the poverty stricken people just as it was the wealthy. There was just home made methods for gaining it.

  I still remember 80 years ago, my mother and grandmothers making soap in a large black wash pot in the "wash house" or over a fire in the backyard.  My folks were land owners and in addition to our home was a smoke house, milk house and a wash house "a place where laundry was done". This was long before the washing machine "It was the time of the washtub and scrub board".  The lye soap which my ancestors formulated and made was used for laundry and everything else...this was before the time of Soap Operas on T.V. and radio. They knew nothing of laundry detergents. Rather, owned a washtub, scrub board and a large piece of lye soap that they used for washing clothing and bedding.  Such was hung on lines in the fresh air and sunshine. Today's youth resent using a machine, with many cycles doing all the work and a heat dryer doing everything but hanging their  clothing in there closets. It would do the worlds youth (especially spoiled Americans) so much good to live like my primitive ancestors, at least for a few weeks. So they could appreciate what has been handed to them at such a great cost

  My grandmother referred to store bought soap as sweet soap. I remember, only to well, the first piece of sweet soap I ever saw. One of my mothers friends (a school teacher) gave me a small piece of ivory soap that a promoter had given to her to give to her students.

  Often, remote corners of the world among really poor people, me, staying in a nice hotel, I would take the hotel soap and give to the women in the village markets. These mothers were almost as happy with a piece of soap as their children were with a piece of candy.

  Africa, Asia, even in eastern NC when I was a child, water was a very valuable gift. Water was the one uniting substance that met the needs of our blessed lord and a sinful woman at a well. Weather buried with Christ in baptism, "raised to walk in newness of life" nothing in life is more important than water. This old Army Doctor would lecture to the troops  "Your water canteen is more important than your weapon". The two female U.S. Senators have probably never wanted for anything and have never known anything accept the aroma of expensive cleansing agents. "Don't expect those who have never wanted anything to understand the problems of those who have had little or nothing".