a new name, same ‘ol blog
- by ~summer~
- Filed Under: none
- Date: Tue, Apr 1, 2008
This will be my last post at this URL. I’ve ported my blog to my URL, taoofsummer.net, where I’ll be blogging under the banner The Tao of Summer. Hope to see you there!
Welcome to my new URL and new blog name, The Tao of Summer!
I have for quite some time been pondering a blog name change, but couldn’t come up with a blog name and URL that suited me well enough to bother. All I knew was that “jaded” seemed to describe an old me, a me that was still in the infancy of being distraught over a stolen presidency, the shame of Gitmo, and an Guiness and maryjane induced numbness that I’ve since knocked. I’ve stopped with the self medication, and I’ve long since knocked off on the use of the pseudonym.
Though I have not shed off all my cynicism and jadedness, I’ve certainly transitioned into a more centered and focused way of being. I think there is something to be said about how we define ourselves, and everyday seeing that I was defining myself as “jaded” seemed to be putting me into a place that no longer felt right. Then, a couple of nights ago as I was just going to sleep, this name, The Tao of Summer, popped into mind and so I ran with it. I went with .net ’cause I ain’t no commodity, and a one-woman show can’t quite be an .org. I spent some time yesterday setting up the new wordpress database and importing all my old posts and comments into this blog.
I anticipate that I’ll still be blogging about the same topics, (though maybe I can get myself out of this guarded place that I seem to communicate from)…it’ll just be under the new banner. Read the rest of this entry »
go fish! Sustainable Seafood Research Project
- by ~summer~
- Filed Under: none
- Date: Fri, Dec 7, 2007
Greenpeace is recruiting volunteers to collect data for its survey of fish offerings at local grocery stores.
Just swing by here to sign up and get access to the checklist.
All they’re asking is for you to take the list to your grocery store and survey the fish counter and frozen foods section and mark off whether or not several IUCN listed fishies are for sale. Among the fish on the list: chilean sea bass, flounder, grouper, red snapper, swordfish, tuna (bigeye, bluefin, skipjack, yellowfin), and about 15 more.
Greenpeace will be compiling the survey data for inclusion in a report about sustainable fisheries and the current market availability of known imperiled resources.
I’ve checked out Whole Foods a couple of times and there certainly at risk species for sale, often with nice labels like “wild caught!”. It’s pretty fun to ask the fishmonger, “is that Atlantic Halibut?”
image: Chilean sea bass, national geographic news
giving more
- by ~summer~
- Filed Under: none
- Date: Mon, Dec 3, 2007
Awhile back I babbled about the Friends of Burkina Faso Lambs Project, with which my coworker (a former peace corps volunteer) is affiliated. Donations to the project go toward the purchase of a lamb and school supplies for one girl aged 6-7. Each year, the girl’s parents sell the lamb and use the proceeds to buy another baby lamb, new school supplies, and a small donation back to the program. The program focuses on northern Burkina Faso, where just 15% of girls attend school.
A donation to the Lambs Project is on my Santa List for a couple of peeps, so to make that gift a little more special, after making my online donation, I whipped up this certificate and printed it on photo paper. It looks fantabulous. Starting with a standard Illustrator template, I included a couple of photos from the lambs project website, a map of Africa showing Burkina, and some text from the project background. It includes a box that says, “A donation was made in your honor to the Friends of Burkina Faso Lambs Project to support the primary education of one rural African girl for 10 years.”
download the pdf, download the illustrator file
If you’re gifting a donation to Friends of Burkina Faso, or some other type of donation gift, feel free to download the pdf or ai files and call it your own.
Lots of charitable giving options are out there. Siel over at Emerald City has dug up a few great ideas including some of the kind where you get a token of appreciation in return for a charitable donation. My niece-appropriate fave? The WWF adopt an animal option, in which 75 bucks gets you a flush stuffed animal, a photo, an adoption certif, and a panda ornament. For adoptions, choose from cuddly polar bears, stealthy anacondas, silly bonoboos, and 77 other endangered critters.
The Mexican Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (that’s their EPA and Fish and Wildlife Service all rolled into one) released a study entitled “A Barrier to Our Shared Environment: The Border Wall between Mexico and the United States”. According to the report, the border wall that is being constructed by U.S. government contractors could cause floods, the extirpation of 11 animal species with the interruption of their migration routes, and the fragmentation of flora and fauna populations. The jaguar, the Mexican gray wolf and the bison are among the species that would be adversely impacted.
h/t treehugger
see also, a Grist story from October on this same issue
reuse, regift
- by ~summer~
- Filed Under: none
- Date: Thu, Aug 30, 2007
here’s a couple of useful items that can be made from reused materials. cool.
