politics

Happy World Vegan Day! It starts the World Vegan Month, a perfect time to critically look at our eating habits and their effects on our health, our fellow earthlings as well as the environment. I will be cooking a great, vegan pumpkin soup tonight. Here's the recepie if you'd like to join me:

1 kg Hokkaido pumpkin
1 biggish onion
1-2 garlic cloves
4 biggish potatoes
A bit of oil (olive, raps... doesn't matter)
Ca. 1 liter water
Black pepper
A chili shoot (you can use less or more depending on how hot you want the soup to be)
Ground nutmeg
100 ml soy cream

The problem with living in Germany and being a patron to the local library, and blogging in English is that I get to read really interesting books - which are available only in German. I usually then just leave them be and blog about something else, but recently I've read two books which I really want to write a review about. Maybe they will one day be translated, or you will get interested in the theme and find some books on the issues in English / your own language.

The first book is called "Kinder auf dem Strich" by Cathrin Schauer. The title translates to "Children on the game" and it talks about child prostitution on the German-Czech border. The author has worked in the region as a social worker for years. The book discusses the views of the different parties involved - the children, the pimps, the adult prostitutes, the buyers, the police and the general public.

The Pencil cases for Sudan -KAL me and the Ravelry Darfur group have been moderating has now come to an end. We had a voting going for the most beautiful pencil case at Flickr , and I counted the votes some days ago. You can see the winners at Ravelry or at Flicr - so beautiful pencil cases!

HelpSudan seems happy with our efforts too. I've asked them if it's ok to keep sending cases, but haven't got an answer yet.

I'll be taking the pencil case pattern links off the side bar for now, and add them into a post under the category "Patterns". The side bar tends to get so long otherwise.

I hope you had a good time making pencil cases, and hopefully we'll get some more action going later on as well!

The talented crochet designer Donna Childs was nice enough to design a pencil case for the Sudan project I've been running with the Ravelry Darfur group and will be running for a few months still - so please participate

She doesn't have a blog herself, nor a Ravelry shop page, so I offered to post her pattern here. I've uploaded it and you can find it attached into this post, or as direct document in pdf here Please take a look, it's so lovely! The other patterns available you can find on the right hand side navigation.

For the KAL/CAL "Pencil Cases for Sudan" which the Ravelry Darfur Group is moderating I finally got my pencil case pattern done as well.

It's great to be able to participate alongside with other generous and talented designers like Wendy or Kieran - see the links to their patterns on the right side navigation bar!

You can get the .pdf version of my pattern here, plus it can be seen here (press "Read more") as a blog entry (and the pattern is even attached here - you should find it!) I wish you all happy knitting and please let me know if you see any mistakes or unclarities in the pattern!

And: don't forget to submit your finished ones to the Flickr group!

Another Friday, time to do another Darfur posting - I still have to do them, the bloody war is still going on, the President of Sudan is still on the loose.

This time I thought I'd link a site here in Germany, to any German readers I may have (please say hi at the comments!) Hilfe für Darfur is a humanitarian group which helps Darfurians with money and work. Currently they're working on a school project  - please read more at the site.

I was recently made moderator of the Ravelry group "Darfur - end the Genocide", which came as a surprise. But I'm up for a challenge, so I'll do it. It's a small group anyway, the problem is there's no real discussion or "life" in the group. So please if you have any interest (and a Ravelry account) please join the group!

Anyhow, the nomination made me think a bit more about Darfur again. So I thought I'd institute the "Darfur Fridays" at least for a while - to show people the genocide is not over, and we should't forget Darfur. So here's some links for you:

See satellite picture from Darfur - see the burned villages yourself. To think about being driven from your home to live in a refugee camp... brr! I am lucky.

As you know, I do not only knit and sell shirts, but also classify myself as an animal welfare activist. If anyone in my readership feels for animals as well, here's some quick actions for you:

First, the Irish fur farming scandal. No-one I know in Ireland wants to have the 6 fur farms that operate here, and thousands have signed a petition and it has been delivered to the Ministry of Agriculture. However, see what they respond in a letter:

Last year there were big riots in Burma, like in Tibet now, the Blogsphere created a project called "Free Burma". Since then nearly no blogger wrote about Burma and what's happening there. Only specific blogs still keep the information going. It was probably a sign of faith or destiny or both when I got "The Lizard Cage" a book written by Karen Conelly.

Nara are planning on starting a campaign against foie gras in Dublin. As I think foie gras (ducks/goose's pathological, fatty liver) is the most stupid and cruel thing one could eat, I searched the menupages.ie for restaurants that serve this shit in and around Dublin. You couldn't believe how many I found, and I didn't even go trough every menu! See the list after the jump.