Organic-Ally

I've been trying to write up an abstract for a conference paper on the need for (in)visibility of the business owner and the customer. So what do I see in the Saturday 'papers' (online)? " Tesco to monitor millions of consumers around the world ". It's all about how the Club Card tracks your buying habits. Bascially this one supermarket chain has more information on you than the Inland Revenue. I remember the day the Club Card started. I loved it. You had to spend more than £5 to gain a few points. Single and on a very low salary then I had often to compute mentally whether my shopping basket amounted to that minimum £5 limit. I also didn't have a car or freezer so could not benefit from bulk buying. Then I got married and had a child, and what became quite disturbing was that they kept sending us coupons for the items we often do need to buy, and with the tempting offers off other items we don't wish to buy. Clearly our shopping habits were being ...

O dear! It is happening. Riots because people cannot get their staple foods at prices they can afford: Starving Haitians riot as food prices soar The other global crisis: rush to biofuels is driving up price of food According to the latter report: "All across the world, cereals, meat, eggs and dairy products are becoming dearer. "Food prices are now rising at rates that few of us can ever have seen before in our lifetimes," said John Powell of the World Food Programme. Prices are likely to remain high for at least 10 years, the Food and Agriculture Organisation is projecting." ... "Government policies do not help: the rich world subsidises agriculture not to feed the world but to enrich its farmers." Environmentalists have long warned about food shortages when farms and resources are diverted to produce fuel, which is hardly carbon-neutral. Meanwhile in Singapore, we are told that there is enough rice. A government minister insists that for as long as Sin...

Is this the conclusion to this sad story? ============= I am still feeling low from yesterday's news that a boy from my son's Form has been diagnosed with leukaemia. I've known this young boy since he was a few weeks old. His mum and I were in the same ante-natal group. We had visited each other, the boys have played together, and it was after long discussions with me that they decided to move JD to our school. Then today we learn that a certain mother has been charged in court for neglecting her child and perverting the course of justice. Do I feel sorry for the mother or the child? I am not sure. A young woman of 32 with six plus one (according to her sister, she had forgotten she had seven) children with different fathers. How does this developed nation manage to breed families like this? By tweaking the 'survival of the fittest' principle seems to be a most likely answer. In a typical non-welfare state, young girls will look for mates that they can be sure wou...

I was very amused, tickled, chuffed when, over the weekend, I discovered that something I wrote about pl-st-c bags has become required course reading for a university writing course at a North American university. As I said to my friends at SOAg (Sociologists Outside Academia Group, we even have our own very stylish logo), it was painful not to be able to remain in academia. So I indulged in writing, as well as started this Organic-Ally business. Now I'm sort of more established and comfortable taking on my business-woman persona, and I find that an 'output' meant for industry has found its way back to academia. Irony? But I am not complaining. Back to Organic-Ally .

One of my most indelible memories of my Sociology Honours Class was a statement made by SH Heng. We talked about hairstyles and were possibly looking at magazines. Then she said, "When we asked the hairdresser to 'perm that hair-style', we really mean to 'perm that face'." Let me explain. Us Chinese girls in Singapore normally have straight, straight hair. We spend hideous amounts of money to have our hair 'permed' into all sorts of curly styles. Or we have a 'body perm' after which the hairdresser teases our hair into a shape similar to the picture we'd shown him/her. However, our hair never looks like the way we walked out of the hairdressing salon again. No amount of gooey hair product and hair-dryer would get it back to the shape at the hairdresser. SH hit the nail on the head though with her shrewd observation that we really want to have not just the hairstyle, but the face (and figure) of the model we were staring at. Fast forward to ...

There's been a lot in the news lately about the impact of pl-st-c bags on the environment. It's the bag's birthday it seems. Today's news was also about the rubbish thrown up on the island of Midway and the dangers they hold for the albatrosses which mistake the the likes of disposable pl-st-c cigarette lighters for food. Then we saw footage of some rubbish taken out of a chick and it turned out to be the plastic net-bags that supermarkets put their fruit in, still attached to a display 'hook'. Elsewhere in cyberspace I caught up with a recent story of how pl-st-c bags are not the cause of injury to marine life, that a report had been misquoted, and that it is fishing nets that cause these injuries, etc, etc. Perhaps. But we are against p. bags not only because of marine life, but that a massive amount is sent to landfill. Not just bags, but the rest of single-use pl-st-c packaging that drives us mad. People shopped and did OK before the invention of pl-st-c ...

Wednesday: a bit hectic. Had to wait for fruit delivery. Then went to check out storage facilities for my stock. Back home to prepare parcel for dispatch. Son had his school cross-country. Got to the recreation ground after the post office stop just in time for son's race (Forms I and II) to start. They had to do two laps of, I don't know, about 250m, perhaps. Not quite cross-country, but a resonable distance for seven and eight-year-olds. In this instance they were competing against the Form IIs (age eight-plus) some of whom were very nearly ten years old (if they turned nine early in the school year). Son came in 13th, a very pleasing result as far as I am concerned. Then it was off to local store to buy hot cross buns for our fellowship group this evening. The evening ended quite late but cloth is not presenting any problems. Back to Organic-Ally .

Tuesday: I am forgetting that I am using cloth. Changed pad and liner in the morning. Soaked other pad and liner while I went off to church to help run an Easter party. Washed the pad and liner with some bedding, son's swim towel, etc. Nothing to it. (Everything came up clean despite it being still 'stained' pre-wash.) Carried on pretty much as usual. Deadly boring. Am I converted? Back to Organic-Ally .

Monday: back at school, office, etc for all. Long liner feeling a bit bulky. Soaked it and swopped for a clean regular liner. School 'run' -- walk in my case. Waited around to check with the new chairman that she's OK with the Easter Egg Hunt tomorrow. Also handed over a special fruit bar for boy with severe food allergies. Back home to prepare address labels for all the parcels to go later this afternoon. Oops! time to move on to H's house. Prayer meeting with my ladies in the morning. So many health and homelessness issues to pray over. Back home for a few minutes. Printed the delivery orders. Oops! time to go meet Liz at the coffee place. It was her birthday yesterday and her day off today. Had a nice chinwag for about two hours! Discovered that I had suffered a big spurt while enjoying my chat. Pad had been stained. Back home. Filled orders. Post Office run (ie walk). Back home. School run (ie walk). After dinner, swopped a new pad and liner. No major issues with th...

Sunday: Liner was as I left it last night when I went to bed. Unusual as days two and three are often 'heavy' days. Some cloth users have noted that their periods get lighter. I cannot see the logic in this. I suspect -- and I could be wrong -- cloth-users take precautionary measures to prevent staining and go to the loo more often. We bleed directly into the bowl and so the pads seem less stained and the periods lighter. Any way decided that I will use the smaller 'regular' pad with the longer liner. I folded it in such a way -- I prefer to hide the edging in whatever way possible -- that I basically have about four layers of thickness. Looked a bit bulky. Wondered if it would show underneath the trousers. My boys tell me it's alright. ===================== 8.45pm: Bleeding had gone all quiet it seems. Tiny spotting. That's all. I cannot believe it. This is Day Three!! By the way I left the long liner and pad soaking while we were at church. Tried cleaning off ...

Saturday: Disaster struck in the middle of the night. I felt a spurt and knew I was 'flooding'. But I've also learned over the years that this was not a good time to get to the loo. I had to let the flow settle a little. When I did -- 2.45am -- the liner was amazingly not totally covered in blood as expected, but part of the pad was stained and blood had flowed onto the knickers down one side. I must have been lying on my (right) side when the spurt occurred. Drat! I thought. Does this mean that cloth is not for me? But as I examined the 'damage', I realised that this would have happened even if I was wearing a disposable maternity pad. When lying on one's side there is no way that any pad would absorb the flow quickly enough before it runs off the surface. Removed the 'regular' liner and let it soak in my new little bin (the one with feet). Re-arranged the bottom 'long liner' in clean underwear and went back to bed. Between then and dawn I fe...

Before bed I noticed I was spotting. Usually I would stick on a regular pad, knowing that the flow will not be heavy. So, took the pad out, and thought: hang on a minute, what about the cloth one? Retrieved a regular 'liner', folded it into four-layer thickness and inserted it into a 'long' pad. Took care to wrap my sarong round me in bed just in case there is a leak. Friday morning: liner was quite clean, surprised. Swopped the near-spotless pad onto new knickers. The Bridget Jones pants will do better. (Had a disposable pad been used, the near-spotless pad would not have stuck onto clean knickers. Yes, it would have been binned/landfilled.) Now I have a hectic morning. Do I really want to rely on cloth? Decided to stick at it, but put a disposable pad in my bag just in case I needed it and also found a little pl-st-c bag to store the used cloth liner. That was 6.30 in the morning. It's 1.45pm and my liner is spotted but still relatively clean. This is because I se...

So us women send more sanpro (sanitary protection) to landfills than babies do nappies. 17,000 in one life-time has been the oft-quoted figure. Hmm. Must do something about that. But I've had many excuses for not doing what seems eco-logical: My periods are very heavy since the birth of my child. Heavy periods means lots of washable pads and therefore lots of headache. I am nearly menopausal (the popular description these days is 'peri-menopausal') and do not have many more years of using disposables. At the same time there is one pressing reason to convert: even brand-name pads start to chafe after a while, so sensitive is my skin. Nosing around the internet once more on the subject it was clear that any inner protection is not my style, and our friends Hankettes in Canada produces a pad which they claim to be different. A few weeks ago something clicked. I felt I must give washable pads a go to see if they work. Hankettes sent some samples over for me to trial. If they ar...

Haven't we heard it somewhere before? Rising prices threaten millions with starvation, despite bumper crops Warnings over future food crisis Who knows there's a food crisis? Back to Organic-Ally .

Today I woke up to my old mates at RGS telling me about the rise in price of tauhu (soya bean curd, a staple food). I recalled what I wrote in a comment to the Straits Times report on 2nd June 2007. The PM pronounced " climate change as long-term security threat ". My response is reproduced here, copied from the ST 'Discussion Board': [8th March 2008: OOps! How embarrassing! I just realized that I had copied this onto an earlier post . Sorry for the repetition. Sign of ageing, I'm afraid.] ============= June 02, 2007 Saturday, 08:01 PM It is good to see that the Singapore government is at last (or is it?) waking up to the ramifications of climate change on our little red dot. For me, climate change is not only about the use or abuse of plastic bags, it is not only about burning fossil fuels, it is not only about the haze (for example). It is about food. It is about food security, and along with that access to water, and yes, many wars have been fought over food ...

I was in a flap. I had sent off my passport to a government agency for something to be done and had taken care to do so by special delivery. Because husband had done the actual registration I had assumed that he had arranged all payments and would have organized the passport to be returned by special delivery. No, he hadn't. There was nothing to pay, he said, so he could not pay for return postage, special delivery or not. So I fretted for the best part of a week. The passport was returned by ordinary post on Saturday. They required it again because something else was not sent. So, another trip down to post office to organize special delivery to and fro this time. I worked in Amsterdam where the trade of certain types of passports is good business. It is also going to be a real hassle if I did lose my passport. So I guess I "had the right" to be worried. Then I got a letter from husband's late cousins's partner. She is going blind slowly, and her daughter is only ...

Ash Wednesday today, which marks the beginning of Lent. I was very chuffed last week to receive a string bag order from a school where the PTA is encouraging parents to give up plastic bags for Lent. What a great idea! Here is my household, things are a bit awkward. Yesterday I had the privilege of 'inducting' some new mums into running the Pancake Race -- which is now a new-ish tradition -- at school. We probably raised more money than the last two or three pancake races put together. Brill. My son brought his Palm cross from last year back to school to be burned for Ash Wednesday. But Ash Wednesday this year is also the eve of Chinese New Year where typically we would have a reunion dinner with lots of good food. I remember often waiting up till late (especially when my sister was a nurse working shifts, or my father would wait for hours at the barber's to have his hair cut) till every one was home to have this dinner. The pictures we see of the millions of Chinese trying...

I chanced upon this article about the rising cost of food in Singapore. It caused me to search out a comment I left on the Straits Times Discussion Board some time ago. (For some reason this board does not let me log back in. ) ======================== DrLeeSiewPeng Posts: 4 June 02, 2007 Saturday, 08:01 PM It is good to see that the Singapore government is at last (or is it?) waking up to the ramifications of climate change on our little red dot. For me, climate change is not only about the use or abuse of plastic bags, it is not only about burning fossil fuels, it is not only about the haze (for example). It is about food. It is about food security, and along with that access to water, and yes, many wars have been fought over food and water (along with opium and tea, etc). Singapore has long worked on a trouble-shooting/fire-fighting mode of policy-making. Too many babies, make it difficult for some children to get to a school of their choice. Too few babies, offer cash/tax incentiv...

Wow! What a surprise this Saturday. My family in Singapore are having their Chinese New Year reunion dinner and I can't be there. And the Straits Times has published in the print section my letter in response to the banning of the Singapore Complaints Choir from public performances. I remember once in the Slovak Republic I told a bunch of university students from the Baltic states that if they wished to have their voices heard, they must write to the press. They must write and keep writing, and soon the editor would get so fed up, he/she would publish a letter. If only they had spelt my friend's name correctly. (Actually, I think I might have been the one who spelt 'Marjorie' wrong. Sorry, Marge.) So here is their edited version: =================== Feb 2, 2008 Why squash singing bird amid renaissance drive? THE prohibition against foreign members performing in the Complaints Choir just does not square with the current debate on renaissance and graciousness. Like ever...

For some reason I didn't have time to read the MM's message on (not) retiring till late last week. I drafted a response to his comments and sent it off to The Straits Times on Sunday. Today I received their unusually prompt reply that they are not running it. So this is it: a view from the social anthropologist who researched ageing for her PhD thesis. I also made reference to my stint as a factory worker when I was working on my Master's degree. Us social anthroplogists do a lot of 'participant observation'. =============== If we push the argument that ‘retirement means death, don’t stop working’ to the limit, a possible result would be people won’t start working in the first place. In my research I found that the happiest old people are those who are able to ‘age gracefully’. They accept that their bodies age, their eyes grow dim, their hearing deteriorates, and strength seeps away, little by little. They are always finding a new ‘equilibrium’ as they go through ...