The unsightly film on our “clean” dishes had become a source of great frustration in our household.  Dish washing was the job of my daughter and she was evidently was really slacking off.  We worked with her on critical strategies like pre-washing, proper loading technique and the importance of rinse aids.  Still, we found that the dishes usually had to be washed at least twice and with increasing amounts of detergent.  In this lousy economy and runaway food and fuel inflation, I was using 50% more Cascade detergent and running twice as many loads.  This deal worked out great for the the water and electric utilities, and especially for P&G (Proctor and Gamble) but not so well for us.

As a conservative, I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to do just about anything from how to install toilet paper to what ingredients are key to a product.  That makes me a consummate label reader. So one day I noticed that Cascade was “phosphate free”.  That struck me as really odd because I dutifully inject that naturally occurring element into the ecosystem every time I use my Miracle Grow “Bloom-booster” plant food.  So how could something that is good for plants be evil for the environment?

I asked my friend Kat, who is a full time environmental activist and I challenged her. I am now using at least twice as much water and electricity, not to mention time as I spent before on clean dishes.  She toed the party line, that too much phosphates in sewer systems somehow creates too much algae which disrupts ecosystems.

So I explained my situation and the fact that a huge corporation about which she should be suspicious of before me, was making out like bandits. I asked her, “Do you realize you are working for the man?”  “What?” She asked. The irony was quite amusing.

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The Tea Party movement has been quiet since the September 12 massive rallies in Washington, Quincy, Dallas, and elsewhere.  Paul Krugman was so bold as to write on October 26, “the tea baggers have come and gone.”  On the same day, CBS News blogger Charles Cooper asked rhetorically, “Did the Tea Partiers Party Too Soon?”  The message from the White House talking points memo was clear:  that annoying fit of folksy patriotic crap is over, and we in the political class can get back to the business of tyranny.