Cute tape

Cute tape 

This lovely website sells Japanese washi paper tape. Its like decorative masking tape. Genki's mum made a really cute 'Thank you' note. She put a photo in an ordinary envelope, sealed with this washi tape and a personalised stamp of a picture of Genki. It was incredibly cute and delicious. Would I love to replicate that? She's a beautiful artist and crafter of sewing.

Why oh why? I love these crafty things. Tapes, pencils, twine, stamps, ribbons. All those things that now are used for scrapbooking. I buy them but I never do anything with them. I keep them all over the place looking pretty. When shall I start doing something? I hope soon! 

So I found some in Ikea this year! who hoo. and bought tons.

 

Tim tam crush

 

Kept in the fridge and eaten last. Sweet, Freshmint, delicious. 

Made by Joel

 

Toy bench made by Joel

The Case Against the West | Foreign Affairs

The Case Against the West | Foreign Affairs

Kishore Mahbubani

Alice

Dino

dino asleep.jpg
Originally uploaded by snchey

This is Dino in my favourite pose. He's fast asleep on our couch in Mallacoota.

Forest Adventure

This is a list of forest adventures around the world. Recently some friends have visited these places and it looks exciting.

1. Bali Safari Park in Bali. The main gripe about this place, explained very well here is the commercialisation of wild animals. We saw a lot of that in South Africa. South Africa has excelled in its breeding program. They are able to help procreate many types of wild animals to 'save them from extinction'. Unfortunately, they use the same process to commercialise wild animals. Its an industry to auction and buy animals for safari parks, even in Africa. More times than not, the safari lodge that you visit has 'bought' the animals on their lands at auctions. Where did they come from?
Also, they breed animals for lion parks and such so one could 'pay to pet a lion' or 'pay to hunt down a lion'. So you could chop their heads off for your dining room.

OK, so this one is not one to visit...

2. Tree tops Asia in Chiang Mai

3. Bedok Forest Adventure in Singapore

4. Forest Research Institute Malaysia

5. Not a forest, but in Perth they have a fantastic maze for children. If ever in Perth...

6.  The treetops course in Penang

7. There is one in New Zealand,

Garden and Cosmos Exhibition

We visited the Art Gallery NSW to see this exhibition. It was stunning. Indian Art is quite intricate and whatever the criticisms of technique is just washed away at the enjoyment of them.

This groundbreaking exhibition of newly discovered Indian paintings from the royal court collection of Marwar-Jodhpur (in the modern state of Rajasthan) has three sections devoted to the garden and cosmos leitmotifs, with an introductory gallery about the kingdom of Marwar-Jodhpur and the origins of its court painting traditions in the 17th century. Produced for the private enjoyment of the Marwar- Jodhpur maharajas, virtually none of the 60 works on view in “Garden and Cosmos” have ever been published or seen by scholars since their creation centuries ago. Strikingly innovative in their large scale, subject matter, and styles, they reveal both the conceptual sophistication of the royal atelier and the kingdom’s engagement with the changing political landscapes of early modern India.

Commentary by the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who lent many of the paintings, and Debra Diamond, the curator who organized the exhibition, is included on an audio guide available at the Garden and Cosmos entrance. [si]

Please click on each image to find references to the exhbition.

Obituary : manto Tshabalala Msimang

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang obituary

South African minister of health notorious for her stance on Aids

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has died aged 69 of complications arising from a liver transplant, was South Africa's most notorious cabinet minister since the apartheid era. "A drunkard and a thief" was how the Johannesburg Sunday Times described the former minister of health. The headline hardly did her justice, the "theft" having been a wristwatch taken from the arm of a comatose patient; the drunkenness being in anticipation of a transplant.

Under her leadership, life expectancy in South Africa fell to 49 years, thanks to Aids-related fatalities which – with 4.2 million infected by the virus – saw deaths nearly double between 1999 and 2005. The fury of Aids activists was compounded by her refusal to allow nevirapine to be administered to pregnant woman, although research proved it effective in preventing the transmission of the virus.

A disaster on strategic planning, Tshabalala-Msimang turned to her lifelong mentor, President Mbeki, and a never-ending procession of medical advisers abroad, whose views on treating HIV and Aids chimed with her own.

Feeble attempts were made to defend the government's position on Aids, with such arguments as the inability of South Africa to afford anti-retroviral drugs. But the lie was given to that in 2002, when Tshabalala-Msimang blocked US funding to assist in the distribution of anti-retrovirals in her homeland, KwaZulu-Natal. She owed her political survival to Mbeki, and only after his fall last year did she leave office. She was awaiting a second transplant when she died.

The Johannesburg Sunday Times gives a chilling epitaph on Tshabalala-Msimang: "Those who took the health minister at her word, died."

Mantombazana Edmie Tshabalala-Msimang, politician, born 9 October 1940; died 16 December 2009