eye-opening website: betterworldshopper.org

I stumbled across this website yesterday and it's very eye-opening!

www.betterworldshopper.org

It is devoted to making public the records of major corporations in 5 areas: human rights, the environment, animal protection, community involvement, and social justice. (the website further defines these and how they ranked the corporations)

What is fun, and revealing, and sometimes disheartening, is looking at "The Rankings" by product category. All kinds of products, services, and companies are listed - everything from ice cream to banks and credit card companies - just click for an analysis of the best and worst.

Some examples of products we have bought, and how they stack up -

Toyota: A
Chevrolet: F
Apple computer: B+
Acer computer: D-
Chapstick: F
Huggies: B-
Nabisco: F
Kraft: F
Chipotle (restaurant): A
Subway: C
McDonald's: D-
Gas stations: Sunoco = A-, Costco = C, Exxon, Mobil = F
Patagonia: A
Costco: D
Walmart/Sam's Club: F
Stride Rite: D+ (too bad, they're the only ones that fit Sam's feet!)

While this is entertaining, and thought-provoking, I admit I don't know anything about the quality of this "research data" or how it got its funding. (perhaps from animal-rights activists or environmental non-profits??? not to be too cynical, but...you know.)

Before I swear off of Kraft macaroni and cheese forever (which I should anyway) does anyone know how this information can be validated?

Things Done Changed - The Notorious BIG

¡Qué barbaridad!

Pocas cosas más potentes y con más rabia se pueden oír.


Nacido en 1972 en Brooklyn, NY, y asesinado a los 24 años en 1997 cuando estaba de viaje en L.A. promocionando su segundo disco "Life After Death" que nunca llegó a ver publicado en vida.
Christopher George Latore Wallace, también conocido como Notorious B.I.G. le dió empuje a la escena de la costa Este equilibrando las cosas con la costa Oeste que estaba dominada por Raperos de la talla de 2Pac, Dre o Snoop Dog.

Traficante de crack desde los 12 años, pasó algún tiempo en prisión por posesión de arma de fuego y venta de crack y al salir sacó su primera maqueta sin grandes esperanzas de ser oído hasta que ésta calló en las manos de Puff Daddy. El resto es historia.

Le han sacado una película autobiográfica hace poco que no es ninguna maravilla pero se puede ver.
Ahí va el trailer:

Pocas cosas más potentes y con más rabia se pueden oír.

Inspiring Action

Escucho muchas opiniones sobre organizaciones como Greenpeace, Intermon Oxfam, Médicos sin Fronteras y demás.
Que si se quedan el dinero, que si son controladas por fascistas, que si no sirven para nada... Está claro que no tienen porqué ser perfectas. ¿Lo es la compañía para la que trabajas?
A mi me suena a cinismo. Está claro que si te convences de que no hacen nada interesante por nadie y que es mejor no ayudar te quedarás más tranquilo al ver que eres tú quien no hace nada por nadie. Mucho más fácil y cómodo, ¿verdad?

Bueno basta de críticas, espero que os guste el vídeo y elegid algo para hacer, ya sea por el medio ambiente, ayudando a gente enferma, a niños abandonados, gente mayor, animales en peligro de extinción o al menos haciendo que alguien vea estas cosas. Sino dedicate a buscarles fallos a los que hacen algo.

Ale

Hong Kong, un lugar acojonante...

Venir a Hong Kong por primera vez es una experiencia brutal, vale, no es mi caso ya que he venido 3 veces, pero comento lo que sentí la primera vez y lo que veo en la gente que acaba de llegar. Éste es un paisaje urbano y no natural, pero de una dimensión aterradora. Los edificios te hacen sentir lo que buscan, una mierdecilla. Han logrado que las grandes corporaciones consigan lo que el despotismo de los reyes consiguió en Europa, abrumar y asustar. Es ahora el despotismo de las grandes compañías, mucho más poderosas que los anteriores, las que se rigen ante tí en forma de desmesuradas contrucciones que desafían a las nubes.



No por eso deja de ser un lugar espectacular, divertido y variopinto. Solo la llegada a su, posiblemente mejor aeropuerto del mundo situado en una isla artificial ya te hace ver que llegas a un lugar especial. La mezcla entre lo moderno y lo tradicional, tan presente en Japón también se aprecia aquí, aunque en menor medida.

No dejo de echar de menos algo más auténtico, me explico, salir de marcha o de compras no va más allá de lo que ves en cualquier otra zona pija de cualquier ciudad occidental, con la diferencia de que en estas últimas existe un movimiento algo más "underground" que aquí aun no he visto aunque presupongo que en semejante megaurbe lo habrá. Aquí la gente joven tiene que ir hecha un pincel, con sus zapatillas de marca, sus vaqueros o minifaldas perfectos, peinados igualmente a la moda y demás complementos que no desentonen tod@s con un toque extravagante, importado del Japón más materialista. Aun así en Japón veo movimientos alternativos que espero ver aquí antes de irme. No dejo de echar de menos la despreocupación que puedo ver en lugares como por ejemplo Malasaña en Madrid y algunas zonas de Inglaterra por nombrar algo.

Siempre te puedes escapar hacia la zona más tradicional como hicimos ayer por la noche, donde pese a la hora que era seguía habiendo gente en la calle, cenando y hablando en voz alta sin miedo de herir los oídos sensibles de algún petardo. Hong Kong sabe premiar a quien se atreve a meterse en un lugar donde sabes que nadie te va a entender, la gente es agradable y curiosa y te hacen sentir como en restaurante de tu barrio al poco de dar el primer y más dificil paso. ¿Y al terminar? pues como en metro estaba cerrado buscamos un bus nocturno y no tardamos en encontrarlo, el mismo conductor nos avisó cuando llegamos a nuestra parada.
Una maravilla.

Mi experiencia con ciudades asiáticas es que la seguridad es muy superior a lo que estamos acostumbrados, somo nosotros los que damos miedo andando solos por la noche :P

Besos y abrazos desde la ciudad de Ghost in the Shell.

word for the day - perendinate

I get a daily subscription of A Word A Day - and especially liked today's entry. I never knew the literal meaning of "procrastinate," and now I have another option when procrastinating is just not enough. :-)

perendinate
PRONUNCIATION:
(puh-REN-di-nayt)
MEANING:
verb tr. : To put off until the day after tomorrow.
verb intr.: To stay at a college for an extended time.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin perendinare (to defer until the day after tomorrow), from perendie (on the day after tomorrow), from dies (day).
NOTES:
The word procrastinate is from Latin cras (tomorrow). So when you procrastinate, literally speaking, you are putting something off till tomorrow. Mark Twain once said, "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow." In other words, why procrastinate when you can perendinate?

Sam's birthday

My baby boy is three. He is sleeping extra long today, which gives me a chance to post pictures. I included a couple other photos just for fun: bathtime bubbles, and Alex and Sam in their Easter duds.

spiderman poem

Last night we had people over for Sam's birthday party. I will need to post pictures when I get a chance. Lately everything seems like it takes more time than I have. We had fun - it was so nice to hang out with everyone. Sam was very happy with all the loud, noisy toys he got from grandma. I am tolerating them, for now. As one friend said, "It's just too bad - batteries CAN'T be replaced." ;-)

He got a Spiderman card, and I found a spiderman shirt and shorts set at a used clothing sale today. He doesn't really know who Spiderman is but I guess he soon will. The spiderman nostalgia got me thinking about this poem that I remember reading in college and I found it online:

Maybe Dats Youwr Pwoblem Too
by Jim Hall

All my pwoblems
who knows, maybe evwybody's pwoblems
is due to da fact, due to da awful twuth
dat I am SPIDERMAN.
I know. I know. All da dumb jokes:
No flies on you, ha ha,
and da ones about what do I do wit all
doze extwa legs in bed. Well, dat's funny yeah.
But you twy being
SPIDERMAN for a month or two. Go ahead.
You get doze cwazy calls fwom da
Gubbener askin you to twap some booglar who's
only twying to wip off color T.V. sets.
Now, what do I cawre about T.V. sets?
But I pull on da suit, da stinkin suit,
wit da sucker cups on da fingers,
and get my wopes and wittle bundle of
equipment and den I go flying like cwazy
acwoss da town fwom woof top to woof top.
Till der he is. Some poor dumb color T.V. slob
and I fall on him and we westle a widdle
until I get him all woped. So big deal.
You tink when you SPIDERMAN
der's sometin big going to happen to you.
Well, I tell you what. It don't happen dat way.
Nuttin happens. Gubbener calls, I go.
Bwing him to powice, Gubbener calls again,
like dat over and over.
I tink I twy sometin diffunt. I tink I twy
sometin excitin like wacing cawrs. Sometin to make
my heart beat at a difwent wate.
But den you just can't quit being sometin like
SPIDERMAN.
You SPIDERMAN for life. Fowever. I can't even
buin my suit. It won't buin. It's fwame wesistent.
So maybe dat's youwr pwoblem too, who knows.
Maybe dat's da whole pwoblem wif evwytin.
Nobody can buin der suits, dey all fwame wesistent.
Who knows?

a springtime poem

I heard a radio show the other night about people who memorize and recite poetry by heart. It was kind of cool. It inspired me to look up this poem by Robert Browning, of which I remembered only the last 2 lines.

It's a good poem for spring, even though today we are having snow...

The year's at the spring,
The day's at the morn,
Morning's at seven,
The hillside's dew-pearled.
The lark's on the wing,
The snail's on the thorn,
God's in his heaven,
All's right with the world.

-Robert Browning

Happy springtime, everyone!

Katmandú, Nepal, nochevieja y Hong Kong

Pues sí, estoy en Kathmandú, capital de Nepal.

Precisamente ayer era el día en que se celebra la nochevieja en Nepal. Y la celebramos como debe ser. Eso sí, sin uvas...

Y hemos pasado al año 2066, como lo oís. Estoy en el futuro.

Aquí se usa el calendario establecido por el emperador Indio Vikramaditya usado en India y Nepal.
Para calcular el año en comparación con nuestro calendario hay que añadirle, al nuestro, 56 años, 8 meses y 15 días.


Pasado mañana vuelo a Hong Kong, hace al menos dos años que no voy a HK y estoy encantado, me flipa esa megaurbe.


Saludos

4-year-old's shopping list, dumb kid jokes

Alex made up her first grocery list the other day. She asked how to spell things, I told her, and she attempted to write them down. The result, with backward/upside down letters and all, was:

hot dogs
crispy cereal
cookies
candy
4T pajamas
Alex cup
sausage
oranges
milk

I have been limiting the amount of hot dogs and sausage we eat, as it isn't really very good for us, and I guess she misses those. I tried to get her to add more fruits and vegetables, but to no avail. :-) But isn't that a cute window into her little mind?

The "Alex cup" refers to a red mug with her name spelled in bright colors. It's been through the dishwasher so much it is fading; thus she wants another one.

She and Sam are on a knock-knock joke kick now. They have the format down, mostly, but they don't really get the hang of the punch line. Here are some samples:

Sam: "Knock knock!"
Me: "Who's there?"
Sam: "Banana"
Me: "Banana who?"
Sam: "Orange! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Alex: "Knock knock!"
Me: "Who's there?"
Alex: "Stinky socks!"
Me: "Stinky socks who?"
Alex: "Stinky socks wants to eat your cheese! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Yes, this is my life these days.

Oh yes, one more I thought was cute. When we were on the plane coming back from Disneyland, Alex got a seat where she could see the wing of the plane. She said, "Hey, there's the wing!" and looked at it for a while. We took off and were flying for a few minutes when she asked me, "Mom, why the wings don't flap?"

I thought that was a pretty good question. It would be cool if airplanes' wings did flap like a bird's, I think. Can any engineer-types tell me if that's possible?

The Wackness cine en Nepal

Como much@s sabéis me encanta el cine, por estos lugares, Nepal, la única manera de ver cine es comprarte DVDs piratillas por un tercio de Euro y verlos en el ordenador. O eso o irte al cine a ver una “película” local con mucha sangre, drama, y cosas parecidas, pero además en Nepalí o Hindi. Nada me apetece menos la verdad.
Pues eso, que me hincho a ver pelis de estas piratillas.

Hace unos días vi “The Wackness”, una maravilla maravillosa, no para todos los públicos, ya que está ambientada en Nueva York en 1994 y trata sobre un adolescente que trafica con marihuana y cambie su género por sesiones con un psiquiatra al que le falta un hervor. La banda sonora es de orgasmo, básicamente toda la basura deliciosa que escuchaba cuando rondaban los 90. La historia y los personajes son bastante creíbles y complejos. Podréis disfrutar de la presencia de Ben Kingsley (Ghandi), Famke Janssen (la mujer más espectacular del cine a nivel mundial, una diosa), el prota que se llama Josh Peck e incluso del mismísimo Method Man, posiblemente de los mejores cantantes de Hip Hop de la escena y con uno delos directos más potentes que he oído en mi vida. Una delicia de película para amantes del género o para melancólicos treintañeros…



En cuanto llegue a Kathmandú en unos días me voy de cabeza al cine a ver Watchmen que sé que allí sí la echan, no puedo esperar más…

Cremaciones en Varanasi y el Ganges

Ahí van algunas de las fotitos que prometí de las cremaciones de cadáveres en Varanasi.



Como dije,dependiendo de la pasta o la casta te dan un tipo de madera u otro, dependiendo
del tipo de madera y la cantidad el cuerpo se quema mejor o peor, por supuesto,
para controlar todo esto hay un par de personas trabajando en la hoguera para
encargarse de que todo prenda y de que las partes más difíciles, piernas, tórax
y cabeza, se quemen lo suficiente.






Es por esto que se arman con unos palos de bambú con los que golpean sin piedad las partes
rebeldes hasta doblegarlas, quiero decir partirlas…






Si es tu primera vez viendo una cremación es un poco durillo, no solo ver como le dan de palos a
un cuerpo carbonizado, o como parten las piernas para volverlas a echar en
medio de la hoguera, ni el sonido a cartón piedra que resuena cuando le atizan
al tórax o a la cabeza con el bambú, sino el olor y el sonidillo a grasa
quemándose.




¿Y qué se hace con los restos cuando están quemados? Pues al Ganges, ¿dónde sino?

Desde luego que lo último que te apetece comer nada más ver esto es una barbacoa.

Ale.

kid sayings

Alex is saying a lot of funny things these days, but alas, I seem to be forgetting to write them down. Anyway, I do remember two things from this week and wanted to document them before I forgot:

"Your mouth has a special finger in it called - a tongue!"

(see picture above, in the Disney teacups, where she is using her tongue to retrieve every last bit of cotton candy from her face. She was quite happy with her first cotton candy - exclaimed "It melts in your mouth!")

The other one was in the car, while talking about robots:

"Robots can help people without any brains do their ABC's."

She also told me "rojo" means "red" and likes to remember or make up "Spanish" words. Somewhere she got the impression that the word "moose" means "almost" in Spanish. When we are in the car she asks, "Are we moose there?" or "Are we moose home?" Sam picked up on it and now he says it too.

Sam is talking, talking, talking. It's fun to hear him babbling away in pretend games with his toys. His latest phrase is "almost forgot." Every time we put him to bed, just as we leave the room he thinks of something we "almost forgot."

Tomorrow I leave for San Diego for some "mom time" with online friends. Am looking forward to the 60 degree temps after 2 more snowstorms here since Disneyland.

Disney magic

It was a joyful and wonder-filled day at Disneyland. The pictures aren't the best, but they do bring back fun memories - and isn't that the point?

Pokhara, Nepal al fin

Llevamos una semanita en Pokhara, Nepal.
Después de la caçotica India, esto es un oasis. Solo las aceras ya nos han dado una grata alegría, no tener que tener tu mente dedicada todo el tiempo a evitar vehículos es un relax. Pese a que no hay mucho tráfico.

Estamos viendo todos los días a mi amiguete Nabaraj, que tiene una tienda de trekking y es guia de montaña. En unos días nos iremos de trekking a ver el Himalaya unos cuantos días.

Hoy me he dado un viajecito en parapente subiendo hasta unos 3000 metros de altura. Desde arriba he podido ver, entre otros, el monte Annapurna, uno de los famosos 8000.  Una vista impresionante.

No hacemos más el zoquete porque no se puede. Queremos descansar y pillar fuerzas para seguir nuestro viaje y ver si pasamos a Tibet desde Kathmandu para desde allí pillar un tren a Guanzhou y de ahí un bus a Hong Kong o volar a HK directo desde Kathmandu si hay algún problema para entrar a Lhasa.

Os trendré informad@s.

Beso

Match Day

Today my brother John matched for his residency in Kansas City, MO (his first choice - woohoo!). I managed to be there for the occasion, which was fun - brought back memories of my own match day 11 years ago (hard to believe that - I had to double check the number!). It was a nicer occasion for Buzz, with a nice brunch for all the students and their families and even a ribbon-cutting ceremony. When I matched, we just went to a hospital classroom, got our envelopes and stood around in the hallways talking and taking pictures. The energy was the same though - lots of excitement and anticipation.

I'm genuinely happy for BuzzmeovanaXX (Buzz, Cameo, kids and mystery baby!) but bummed for us personally. Our family has been so lucky and blessed to live near these guys for the past almost 4 years. When I think of my sweet nieces growing up without me there, I start to cry...not to mention not having Buzzmeo around to play games with, stay up too late with, trade babysitting overnights, and hang out with. I've been tearing up on and off today. But I know it is the best place for them to be, and am glad they will have Tim and Tammy there, especially to ease the transition with a new baby coming. Good thing for facebook - I think it will help us all stay connected.

poem for the day

Recently I've been reading some of Rainer Maria Rilke's poems from his Book of Hours. I first read Rilke in a German class in college, but hadn't revisited him until recently, after reading Etty Hillesum's Diaries and Letters from Westerbork (another highly recommended read). Here is one I like (title is in German, the rest is translated by Barrows and Macy):

Du bist die Zukunft, grosses Morgenrot

You are the future,
the red sky before sunrise
over the fields of time.

You are the cock's crow when night is done,
you are the dew and the bells of matins,
maiden, stranger, mother, death.

You create yourself in ever-changing shapes
that rise from the stuff of our days--
unsung, unmourned, undescribed,
like a forest we never knew.

You are the deep innerness of all things,
the last word that can never be spoken.
To each of us you reveal yourself differently:
to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.

____________________________________________________


If anyone knows of a really good English-German edition of the Book of Hours, with both languages present, by a really good translator, I would love to own one. I've read some reviews on Amazon of this translation and they're mixed. I'd like to see what else is out there.

industrial agribusiness rant

OK, this isn't really going to be a rant. However, I've been taking a course through our church entitled "Menu for the Future" which is very thought-provoking. We've been discussing a collection of articles and book excerpts that deal with the issues surrounding our agricultural practices, food production and distribution, ecology, sustainability, and health. I got interested in this after reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Taking an in-depth tour of our food supply business is a little like taking "the red pill" in the movie The Matrix. You can take the blue pill and go on enjoying your food in blissful ignorance, or take the red pill and see what is truly going on but your food innocence is then ruined. I love all kinds of food, and it saddens me to find out that often I am enjoying it at the expense of all kinds of wrongs being done - to other human beings, to animals, to the planet, to my own health. At the same time, without our current system, would we be able to feed our growing population at all? I've heard it argued that if we only practiced organic, non-genetically modified, sustainable etc. agriculture, much of the world's population would starve. Not convinced this is true, because the counterargument is that we are using some 50-80% of the world's farmland to feed livestock, not people. Who knows what to think? Anyway...

So in today's New York Times I saw this article pointing out the practice of routine antibiotic administration to animals - and the results of that. He points out that 70% of all antibiotics in the US go to healthy livestock.

"Yet the central problem here isn’t pigs, it’s humans. Unlike Europe and even South Korea, the United States still bows to agribusiness interests by permitting the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed. That’s unconscionable.

The peer-reviewed Medical Clinics of North America concluded last year that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise in antibiotic resistance. The article said that more antibiotics were fed to animals in North Carolina alone than were administered to the nation’s entire human population."

The article goes on to describe the rise of MRSA, not only in our hospitals but now in our food supply. Sheesh. I know the issues are complex here - and this is just one issue among many - but I hope that articles like this will continue to raise awareness and public support to press our leaders to make some positive changes. I have hope that Obama's administration will be more open to changes like this, but the business interests at stake are large and powerful. We'll see.

And now let's go off to eat some healthy fruits, grains, and vegetables! (The above article kinda makes you lose your appetite for pork, doesn't it?)