Misc Ramblings – Page 57 – a hippie with a minivan

My little coconut purse…

I found this at a little artisan stand today…

but first a bit of history of it…

The woman that had the stand co-founded a company called eco-coco… and they import fair trade coconut products… the shell of the coconut is usually thrown away but they realized that sanding it down actually makes them gorgeous and now they make products out of that and pay the workers 2X the minimum wage…

http://www.ecococo.org/ is their site (in french only)

So here is my new little treasure…

little update….

The construction here started last week and besides for last Friday, there was someone here every day last week… first to take the walls out that were damaged and then replace them and then the plaster…
Over the weekend Simon took all of the furniture out of the guest room and the Office and put it all in the Play room… and then yesterday a guy came and ripped out all of the floors in those two rooms… Today, they are putting the new floors in and then we can start transferring things back… then they are going to paint the walls where they need to, put new tiles in the little corner in the laundry room and then disinfect the floors… hopefully being done by the end of the week….
Though it is a real pain and I wish it would not have happened there are some good things that will come out of it….
First, the old owners didn’t do a great job of putting the floors and they used the cheapest possible… the new floors will be better quality and will be professionally installed and I was able to choose the colour so it will fit with our furniture.
Another good thing is that I am going to be very careful about goes back into those rooms. There was WAY too much clutter there. My sewing space was in the Office along with the computer desk, Simon’s Computer, all of our bookshelves and books and really my sewing space was overrunning the rest.
The guest room was also a sore spot. Too much furniture and too much stuff in there that didn’t have a space… It is also where Simon keeps his dresser and clothes and with all of the stuff in there we had to make room for people if they came over… really not ideal. So… I got rid of the excess furniture by giving it away 2 weeks ago and I would like to put Simon’s dresser in the Closet… that way I could have my sewing space in there.
So hopefully by the end, we will have two rooms that function well and that we can really use to their full potential without extra clutter. They will hopefully be easier to keep clean also..

Montreal Ecofest

On Saturday Aug 25th from 11am-12pm “Le Groupe MAMAN” will be doing a presentation on UP/UC at the Montreal Ecofest. The VP of the group, Catherine and I will be the ones doing the presention so if there are any readers here that are in the Montreal area and want to come and see us please do!

When you think that they can’t go further….

No reincarnating w/o government permission

Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue – In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.” But beyond the irony lies China’s true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region’s Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

I’m speechless…

I am usually not that paranoid….

but…

China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 07” At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

I usually don’t talk about news here on my blog that doesn’t have to do with parenting but this is just a bit scary to me…