Dharamsala

One of the commenters on an earlier post about the Dalai Lama kindly sent me a photograph of the place where I shall be going for my trip. Here it is: (Edit: If I can find this picture, I’ll post them. Otherwise, use your imagination.) He said he’s got about a dozen passports, all full of stamps from different places he’s traveled, and still he has yet to see a lovelier place. That sounds inviting, doesn’t it?

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There’s a pinkish beanbag chair thing in my apartment…

… but not for much longer. If anyone wants it, let me know. In a few days it goes back unto the outer world whence in came. I’m serious. But I’m not sending it out of country. Sorry… … oh, and if any would like my old ironing board, it’s still okay, it has legs even! But the legs are only a few inches long, which is why I had to finally break down and get a new one. They were driving me crazy, those tiny legs. Still, free is free, so if you want it… let me know.

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Not Thanksgiving for me but anyway…

This time the Friday Five is the fault of my alter-blogmate Marvin Long, of the Electric Smack Shack. This is Thanksgiving week in the US of A, the holiday on which immigrant Americans celebrate the poor foresight of the Native Americans who kept their Puritan forebears from starving to death. Which normally means that I could cop out and ask a question like, “Name five things you’re thankful for.” However, several people on this list are within driving distance of my home and are rumored to have poor impulse control, not to mention the alleged secret stockpiles of explosives and …

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Stolen Harvest

Well, last night I finished reading a very interesting book by Vandana Shiva called Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. While I’m usually quite pro-technology, pro-science, and pro-“development”, Shiva’s book is a reminder of how deeply codependent science has become with business interests. And what businesses they are: I have always been deeply distrustful of agribusinesses like Monsanto and Cargill, and now I’m even moreso. The picture Shiva paints is quite shocking, and provokes a great deal of discomfort with the kind of strategies that companies like those I mentioned use to take control of something absolutely …

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