posted
Now instead of handing out Jack Chick tracts this Halloween , I'd love to hand out a nice well designed flyer to every child that comes to my door about this subject. Is there anywhere you could obtain something like this?
But I don't think it is appealing enough. We need the chocolate makers illustrated in full color with pitchforks and horns to drive the point home and fully exploit the guilt complex.
posted
My remarks above were meant in a sarcastic humorous vein. However right they might be about child labor (and I think they are)I've got a problem with the organization calling for the "fair trade" campaign. The "Fair Trade" products they are advertising appear to be their own. I'm wondering if their particluar products are the only products authorized as "fair trade" and how actually "Fair" that is.
posted
Most of the chocolate that is going to readily available is stores won't be fair trade, to get fair trade chocolate you need to buy from places like Global exchange http://store.gxonlinestore.org/chocolate.html Divine http://www.divinechocolate.com/ and places like that, the local health stores around here do cary a few.
I think that the chocolate market should be run like the sugar market- There are 2 markets for sugar (in the US only) the US market and the World sugar market. Most sugar in the US is grown strictly in the US, we pay the farmers a lot more that anywhere else. The US Sugar market is usually double what the world market is. If a company wants to pay the world sugar price they must obtain points from the goverment, the points are based on how much the company exports. Those points are then traded in for World sugar contracts - the same sugar but for around half the price of the sugar for the US market. Unless you export a huge amount of product it usually means youonly get maybe 10-20 truckloads a year of world sugar product. That way our famers can afford to feed their families.
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posted
Interesting Arthur. You wouldn't happen to know if Trader Joe's carries much in the way of fair trade chocolate? Unfortunately I'm a long way from any good natural food stores.
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quote:Now instead of handing out Jack Chick tracts this Halloween, I'd love to hand out a nice well designed flyer to every child that comes to my door about this subject. Is there anywhere you could obtain something like this? ...We need the chocolate makers illustrated in full color with pitchforks and horns to drive the point home and fully exploit the guilt complex.
I was thinking more along the lines of parents discussing issues of substance with their children at the dinner table, if the parents think their children would be interested -- which was how I was raised.
But if the first thing that leaps to your mind is propaganda pamphlets instead of rational discussion, well, more power to you. I guess. *wink
quote:The "Fair Trade" products they are advertising appear to be their own. I'm wondering if their particluar products are the only products authorized as "fair trade" and how actually "Fair" that is.
They do advertise their own products, but they are a certified nonprofit organization in the States. They are a member of the Fair Trade Federation: "At the time of its founding, anyone interested in joining FTF could be a part of the organization. However, in 1996 the board defined and instituted the fair trade criteria by which we now operate. The criteria were instituted to preserve the integrity of the fair trade movement and so FTF businesses could promote themselves, telling the public that they could be assured that anything they bought from FTF members was a fairly traded product."
FTF is allied with other fair trade organizations, and the links to these organizations are provided. Additionally, FTF offers direct shopping online for its member companies.
There seems to be a great deal of information readily accessible through Google about the fair trade products movement. I think that there might be answers to further questions out there, waiting to be found.
[ October 22, 2004, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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posted
Banna, here is a list of wholesalers who are members of the Fair Trade Federation. You can find specific products or types of products by doing a search on the page.
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To answer your question about geckos and related illness, we do ask about exposure to geckos and other reptiles in our salmonella surveys, although I think we're really interested in turtles more than lizards.
Yes, it is hantavirus that is spread through dried rodent feces, but that is also very species specific - it's not just ANY mouse that transmits it. Murine typhus and plague, although associated mostly with the fleas from rodents, can also be spread through inhalation of aerosolized rodent feces.
Just to be safe, rather than sweeping dried feces of any kind, it is best to wet them down with a 10% bleach solution and squeegee, mop or wetvac them up.
And the gecko in the first picture you posted are what most of ours look like. I had one in my kitchen this morning that was maybe 4 inches long. I thought of taking a picture, but I don't know how to post them here, so I skipped it.
If I ever figure out how to post pictures, I have one of a 5 inch centipede that died on my front porch last week. Now those I HATE!!! Not least because they eat geckos, but that is certainly on the list.
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quote: I was thinking more along the lines of parents discussing issues of substance with their children at the dinner table, if the parents think their children would be interested -- which was how I was raised.
Fair Trade gets discussed a lot at our dinner table, as this is a big issue for me. I admit to not buying 100% Fair Trade and I feel bad about it- I keep striving to do better. I have started doing bulk orders for Equal Exchange coffe, tea, and cocoa with my friends. Folks who might not have gone out of their way to buy FT but will if I offer to deliver it to them. I do it through a Lutheran World Releif program at my church.
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posted
Noemon, From what I got from the buyer at Trader Joe's headquarters, they do carry a few kinds of free trade chocolate. It is only carried in some of their stores and you need to read the label to find it. Can you tell I'm not busy today?
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posted
I guess the fact that I dislike coffee and rarely eat chocolate helps alleviate some personal guilt on my part.
And I got a grandma letter last night complete with the usual literature though it wasn't quite as bad as Jack Chick, which probably led me to the propagandist mindset.
I think my family was unusual in many ways. We had our problems, but from the first moments I can remember, my parents both valued and sought out my opinions and ideas. We didn't just have opinons, though; we were clear on what they were, had researched other alternatives, and could justify what we said. I grew up certain that I was worth listening to and convinced that I had something worth saying, in large part because critical analysis was served right alongside the mashed potatoes.
That's something I would wish for all the children I know.
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posted
Sara, you made my day! I was just sitting here, thinking what a lame mom I was because my kids are glued to "Labyrinth" while I play on the computer instead of doing something constructive, educational and bonding. Rainy Fridays do that to me though.
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posted
Fair trade is still a relatively new concept in the American marketplace and there are still many problems with the concept. There are several organizations throughout the world that certify fair trade, however, they don't always have the same criteria.
Also, for most small producers, who stand to benefit the most from 'fair trade' and 'organic' iniatives, there's only been limited success. With coffee (which I'm most familiar with), most small farmers aren't able to produce enough quality beans for marketing.
However, I think as demand for these products grow and farmers gain more experience with the standards, things will improve.
And of course, now I want some fair trade organic chocolate.
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posted
I've been out looking at chocolate sites, and while I haven't had any luck yet finding Free Trade sites that my work doesn't block ( ). I have found a number of chocolate review sites, which have ranged from the really bad to the fairly good. Here is one of the better ones I've found.
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posted
That's a very neat site, Noemon. I was reading up on the Chocovic Guaranda. It is exactly like a wine review, isn't it? Did you find the following accurate when you ate yours?
quote:The initial taste is acid with iron notes and hints of chilli. Once the melt gets going the chocolate dissolves nicely on the tongue turning to citrus, balanced with a woodiness that has a little fire behind the flavour. Ends in coffee with light caramel and chocolate extending into the length. Lingers pleasantly and fades away gracefully.
dpr:
[And Risuena, thanks for the balanced viewpoint. That was cool.]
[ October 22, 2004, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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posted
There is actually a chocolate academy run by Barry Callebaut in Quebec that teaches you to taste chocolate and to be able to describe it like that. I think they do it 2 or 3 times a year for a week.
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posted
Next time I buy a bar I'll try to create description like that, and we'll see how closely they compare. I think that stuff like that is so subjective, though, that while there may be internal consistency within a single person's experience, it's pretty unlikely that two people will describe the flavor in the same way. There was a thread somewhere else--sakeriver, I thought, but now I can't find it--in which I talked about this and said some stuff that I don't know that I still think is right.
posted
I, of course, immediately thought of Bernard Callebaut, thinking the Barry Callebaut reference must be a little confused. Turns out Bernard Callabaut has no stores in Quebec, so it can't be them.
Ah well. They still have excellent chocolate. Yum!
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Boon
unregistered
posted
Last night, my cat caught a mouse. She kept letting it go, just to chase after it and catch it again. Then she'd look up at me and yowl. After about the tenth time, she let it go.
So tonight, she caught another (the same?) one. Again, she'd let it go, catch it again and yowl at me. So I went and got a glass out of the kitchen and sat down in the middle of the living room floor.
She immediately brought the mouse over and set it by my knee. Of course, it tried to run away...poor mouse. She's just too fast for that.
So, after about the third try, I got the mouse trapped under the glass. Then I slid a thin hard book under it so I could move it. Then the dilemma: What to do with this friking nasty vermin?
If I let it go outside, it'll just come back in. If I put it in a jar to relocate it, it'll invade someone else and waste a jar. If I give it back to the cat, she may very well just turn it loose again.
I'm cruel. I flushed it. Then I flushed again. And again. And again. And again.
I hate mice. That's why I got a cat: to eat the nasty little things. But my cat has decided she's too good to eat them, or else she's just trying to teach me (her kitten) to hunt and eat them myself. Goofball.
posted
I have read, but not sure if it's true, that the stalking/catching behavior is instinctive in cats but that the kill behavior is learned.
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posted
I've read that as well. I read a book on how animals learn, and there was story that was raised from a cub who could eat dead animals and chase them just fine, but never learned how to make the kill. He was learning how to be an adult from a sheep dog, and the sheep dog didn't do that.
Poor thing, wasn't even good at being a sheep dog. Scared the snot out of the sheep, and to no real purpose.
I hadn't thought of that - I'll bet that's it. Boon, did you get your cat as a kitten?
posted
No, she's about a year and a half old, and I just got her last month. So, do you think if I (descriptive murder scene removed) the next one, she'll start eating them?
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My cat learned to kill them. Cockroaches, not mice. On his own. But then, when he played with them, they'd wind up upside down and probably just died because they couldn't get anything to eat. That, or he just played with them to death. Huhn.
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But a week? Unless you sent it by courier, it'll probably take 3 to 6 months. Oh, unless you're talking strictly about it arriving in Sri Lanka, in which case you're probably correct. But then it has to go through customs, and then I'll have to go down and get it from customs, have them poke through it, hope they didn't open it before I got there so they can steal everything. Did I warn you beforehand that it might actually never arrive? I should have...
Welcome to Sri Lanka Post. Where absolutely nothing is guaranteed, and sleet and rain and hail and tornado and hurricane and monsoon and flooding WILL prevent us from delivering our mail.
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posted
Oh yeah! I'll definitely post when I get it and what's in it. No worries about that!
Did I mention that my sister mailed a package to my husband and I in May and it arrived a week before she did - in September? Only 3 1/2 months. Not bad.
Some people from church received a parcel in September that was mailed in March. And it didn't contain any of the candy that it was said to contain on the outside of the box. It was a care package from friends of theirs in Canada.
posted
Hmmm. Well, they gave me the choice of airmail at 7 - 9 days or by ship at 4 - 6 weeks, so it seemed an obvious choice. But the customs declaration just says chocolate, so if someone's feeling hungry you'll never get it.
Anyway, now I'm going to stop reading that silly game and go to sleep.... honest...
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Eljay - if it's by airmail - which costs a lot more, so thank you even more - it might actually be here in a week or so. Hmm. Probably two or three.
My sister's parcel had "sea freight" stamped on it, so I'm guessing that's why it took three months.
quote:I was thinking more along the lines of parents discussing issues of substance with their children at the dinner table, if the parents think their children would be interested -- which was how I was raised.
posted
Kwea, you obviously have not been listening to me. Traps are not reuseable. That would involve emptying them. *shudder*
But I haven't caught any more since those first five... not sure if they got smarter, or that was it and they all just ran out right away.
quidscribis, you're welcome. The difference between air and ship wasn't that much, and I figured ship had a higher chance of being exposed to extreme temperatures. If I'm sending you chocolate, it should get there in good condition.
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My sister's package, which contained a book, a stuffed moose, a kitty fur brush (rubber), and a foldable double six-pack holder, cost her $40 CDN to ship sea freight. That'd be about $25 US.
Maybe that's just because it's from Canada, though. Sigh.
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posted
I've found that with whatever method of trap I've used, the first few mice are caught pretty quickly, and then the rest wise up. Might now be a bad idea to rotate through a variety of trap designs--keep 'em on their toes.
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posted
Actually, I already switched trap designs, and I was wondering if that was why I wasn't getting any more. But Target stopped carrying my preferred traps. I'm going to try to find more somewhere else and go back to them and see if I get more mousies.
posted
Trevor, lemme clue you in on my OCD as regards to dead mice. First off, I have to use traps that cover as much of the mouse as possible. I do not wish to see the dead mouse.
Then, I put on my thickest leather gardening gloves.
Then I get a plastic bag, and pick up the trap with the plastic bag, like people with dogs pick up their leavings while on walks. Keep in mind that the trap is a box of plastic that completely surrounds the mouse except for its tail sticking out the little hole it scurried in through. Doesn't matter.
Then I tie off the bag, and take it directly outside to the trash. Oh, did I mention that I unlocked the back door and opened it before I put the gloves on, so I can just push through the screen and not have to touch anything?
Then, after I have disposed of the bag with the mouse in it, I come back inside, take off the gloves and wash my hands. Tell me how my hands could have gotten the slightest bit contaminated in this process. Go on, I dare ya.
So, what I'm saying here, is that while I'd have no problem taking bleached mouse skulls and mounting them around the house, if I thought that would help, there is no way that I'm skinning the mice and boiling the flesh off their bones.
Um, before y'all write me off as totally insane, please note that I function completely normally in society, and don't act this way about everything. Just dead rodents. Honest.
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, I'd love to hand out a nice well designed flyer to every child that comes to my door about this subject. Is there anywhere you could obtain something like this?
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). I have found a number of chocolate review sites, which have ranged from the really bad to the fairly good. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I should have...![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
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I'm going to try to find more somewhere else and go back to them and see if I get more mousies.![[Monkeys]](graemlins/monkeys.gif)
