Happy Mother's Day to all those mums in detenton - we are thinking of you on this day.

Please copy this post to 

your Facebook, your Google+, Twitter - 

everywhere you can - 

so that mothers cruelly detained will know 

that there are Australian mothers, parents, grandparents, 

thinking of them and their children on this day.

Memories of Mellah and Chocolate Mousse

Over at Miscellaneous Mum, Karen is indulging herself with Chocolate Mousse.  For me, chocolate mousse always brings back memories from my long ago childhood in the 1950s of what may be one of Australia's first 'instant' desserts, Mellah.  You can pop down to the comments of Karen's post to see my comment.

I went searching the net for Mellah and there is barely a mention - but I did find this...

This week I was in Turner and Lane and discovered an idea that was new - at least to me.  It was one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments.  The idea was in T&L's children's room but the idea, IMHO, could be adapted in other ways.  A "My Kitchen" version could be natty and cute.

These boards come in two sizes.  These are the large size and there is a smaller one.  The "boards" are painters' ready stretched canvases.  They could be painted over in a range of pastel colours to suit and still be as sweet.  Across the top are narrow gros-grain ribbons and some light two-ply string to which is attached those little clothes pegs usually used for hanging cards.

The bottom left has little nic-nax like covered buttons glued on.  Clearly, the choice is the decorator's.  Bottom right has the names.  Now, my only query is how does one cut out fabric letters sharp and neat?  Will someone please tell me how?  Because I think if I am to replicate these cute items, this is the one place where my efforts would fall down.

Teaching a child to pray

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Enslaved by chocolate: addiction or exploitation?

OK, dear Reader, time to experiment with the old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword. Dust off those ethical thoughts. Chocolate and the child slaves who produce it is the issue. For more extensive information, please go here and here.

You might, dear Reader, like to start with the following:

Cadbury

Cadbury Consumer Services, PO Box 200, Ringwood VIC 3134

Feedback link is here.

Are you interested, dear Reader, in doing a factory tour with Miss Eagle during which we can ask the question on the premises about where Cadbury's cocoa comes from and what they are doing about the exploitation of children? Currently, it would appear that their website is concerned only with obesity in children. But there are children involved in the chocolate process who will never grow fat - even though they might never go out to play!

Nestle

Consumer Services Department, GPO Box 4320, Sydney NSW 2001

You can email Nestle from here.

As you would be aware, dear Reader, Nestle has been the focus in the past for the promotion of breast milk substitutes in Africa. You will find them expounding their corporate philosophy of Good Food, Good Life here. A portion of Nestle's website is devoted to a discussion about coffee. You might like, in your correspondence, to ask them about their attitude to Fair Trade coffee. There is no mention of that on their site.

Mars

Mars Australia, Wodonga (Australian Headquarters), Petcare Place, Wodonga Vic 3690

Snackfood/Mars, PO Box 633, Ballarat VIC 3353 - Ballarat Ring Rd 3350

You can email Mars from here.

On the Mars site, there is this section, The 5 Principles. Mmmm....

• Quality: this segment says : "The consumer is the boss". So, dear Reader, use your consumer power to tell Mars who is the boss and that you do not want your love of chocolate to hold other human beings to ransom.
• Responsibility: Mars said it recruits ethical people. Challenge them to put their ethics on show in relation to child labour and child slavery.
• Mutuality: Mars says its "actions should never be at the expense, economic or otherwise, of others with whom we work". Now Miss Eagle understands that the child slaves are not direct employees of Mars but they are stakeholders in the industry nonetheless. Without companies such as Mars there might not be a cocoa industry to be exploitative. So Mars needs to put its actions in the ethical framework of how do we expect all children to live and enjoy life.
• Efficiency: Here Mars talks about its pursuit of "the least possible cost". To the child slaves there is a very high cost - loss of childhood development, loss of education. The least possible financial cost should not require the exploitation of sentient beings or the despoliation of the planet.
• Freedom: Mars claims for itself "We need freedom to shape our future: we need profit to remain free." Well, guess what! So do African children. Enslavement - even if it is the only hope for survival in an environment of despairing poverty - does not provide freedom and does not bring any profit to the people so that they can remain free of exploitative practices. The Christian adage of doing unto others as you would have done unto you needs to be extended by Mars to the poverty stricken people caught up in the cocoa economy to provide luxury goods for those with great economic freedom.

And then there is the industry body to contact, too:

Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia

Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia,PO Box 1307 (Level 2, 689 Burke Rd),Camberwell VIC 3124

Email Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia (CMA) at cma@candy.net.au

When you have completed this task, dear Reader, you might like to keep Miss Eagle informed.

Shopping: therapy, festival, compulsion, illness, manipulation

Ramada - Mall of America

Shopping is better than sex.
If you're not satisfied after shopping you can make an exchange for something you really like.

Adrienne Gusoff

Shop Til You Drop Magazine

What is it about shopping? What is it about shopping and the female of the species? Can we live with it? Can we live without it?

We talk about retail therapy. There seems to be a word for shopping til you drop: oniomania. Melbourne - which has more than its fair share of bread and circuses - is contemplating, as Miss Eagle has mentioned before, a shopping festival. Dubai actually has one and so has Hong Kong.

It is lovely to walk through beautiful shops selling beautiful things - even if one doesn't spend. Miss Eagle can still dream about Prada and Bulgari even if she can't afford it. This is why, even though she has not spent a cent there, Miss E was thrilled by the refurbishment of the Ground Floor at David Jones' Burke Street Mall store.

Could there possibly be a down side?

There is the illness. The cultural distortion which sees Hot Cross Buns - an Easter tradition - on sale before Epiphany. Advertising manipulating our children. The sexualization of our children. And for more information on how, when we consume, we are consumed go here.

Then there is the economic impact. Some see the globalization of retail and commodities which it sells as a positive thing. This article - brief as it is - comes out on the positive size while mentioning social disruption and the loss of jobs in some sectors of the economy.

We need to remember that when we purchase all that stuff from China and India it is great for their economies. And they really do need jobs. But when we lose jobs in this nation, we also lose skills - skills that are not always readily replaced with new ones. We can also lose access to jobs and personal economic development for women and young people.

So what is the solution? Miss E has none except the caveat emptor (buyer beware) provisions. Be aware! Demand accountability - not just from individuals but from governments and corporations.

If we become aware and demand accountability, we will become smart, ethical shoppers.

And for increasing numbers of us, we will go this way to the opp shop.

Into the Everlasting Arms

Each morning, I look across from my sunroom to the Dandenong Ranges National Park.

Sadness has come to my heart since news broke yesterday afteroon that two young women (unknown to me) named Jodie Gater and Stephanie Gestier were found dead high up in the park.

Reports indicate that Jodie and Stephanie, who had been missing for a week, had taken their own lives.

The tragedy of young lives cut short and the overwhelming sadness that must have engulfed their families haunts me.

What a society, what a world have we built for our young that they cannot feel secure, creative, and hopeful within its bounds?

Ten years ago, this very month, a young woman came to my home who I had never met before. I only met her for an hour or so.

One month later she was dead by her own hand.

The poem below was written then.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of Jodie and Stephanie.

These young girls/women are now in The Everlasting Arms.

PERCEPTION

How did I not see
the troubled heart and spirit?
Did I only look at you
to see myself
reflected back?

And if I
thought you carefree
was that only the perception
of my own comfort?

Why could I not see
through your body frame
to the pain
of old time’s torment
in your soul?

Eyes to see
a heart to understand
are what I need
to see the wounded Christ
in your life

For help or information visit beyond blue.org.au, call Suicide Helpline Victoria on 1300 651 251 or Lifeline on 131 114.

The family that tables together.......

Throughout history, humans have tabled together to break bread.

The simple ritual of the shared meal reunites us with our families and brings balance to our lives.

These words are taken from the review of Art Smith's book, Back to the Table: The Reunion of Food and Family. Art is Oprah's personal chef.

Counterbalance this with the views of Australian educationists that more children than ever are present at school with language difficulties. And what do they think is to blame:

"Families aren't sitting around the dinner table any more every night talking about what's happened during the day and engaging with the children," Ms Trimper said.
"Children are sitting in front of televisions more and computers playing computer games. It's dinner in front of the television, video games after dinner, or parents both working and time poor — all those issues have to impact on children."

Back in 2005, Miss Eagle recalls hearing or reading that Kathy Letts, that well-known expatriate Australian, had rid her London house of the dining room table so that the room could become a home theatre. Miss E was horrified. Letts was reported as saying that, if the family wanted to eat together, they went out to eat. More horror!

What about privacy - what if something unforeseen invaded mealtime: argument and debate, outrageous laughter and hysteria, practical jokes. All of these Miss E knows can arise at family meal time and a good thing too. But what happens in a restaurant or some public eating place: a child’s terror of having to behave?

The failure to table together as a family shows no respect: no respect for the food, where it came from, the person who prepared it. It shows no respect for ourselves and what connects us to life and to each other. And now the kids are paying the price at that most basic form of human connection, language.

In Britain, there is now a movement called Back to the Table - because Mealtime is Realtime they say. There are some big names swinging behind the campaign - including celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay.

Miss Eagle would love to hear from you, dear Reader, on this subject: your projects involving food and kids; kids recipes; fun meal time stories etc. If you want to email me to include your contributions as a post complete with pictures, all the better. If you really have something to say about families, food, and connection you might also like to guest on Food from Oz. Please email me.

Lets put fun, families, and people into meals. Let's get rid of the pit stop mentality where food is just a refuelling of whatever is handy. Let's take time to think about our food, how it is produced, where it comes from. Then let's take time with its preparation. And above all, let's take time for one another.

Thank heaven for little girls!

Lazy Cow has the most beautiful celebration of The Girl's sixth birthday. It led Miss Eagle to recall something she wrote back in January 1970 about Herself who was then six weeks short of her sixth birthday. So she has dusted it off and, 36 and a half years later on that electronic whiz-bang thing called a blog, here it is.

~~~~~~~

VACATION IN RETROSPECT

Tomorrow, school will resume. Girlish hands will be pulled and pushed into gloves and unruly locks covered with the regulation hat. Feet that have run free for most of the summer will be reluctantly shod in brown lace-ups.

As I look back over the past summer, I wonder what will happen to the companions of vacation time.

It all started with the "fair damsel in distress". A passion for pretty ladies found an outlet in an old green skirt (garb for many a tropical fishing expedition) and the torn-off bottom of a large paper grocery sack to which was attached an old very worn lace curtain. All this added up to one lady, mediaeval.

Through this love of pretty things, we discovered two of the greatest artists of all time - Goya and Michaelangelo. Goya's paintings of beautiful women ran a little ahead of Michaelangelo's wonderful "David".

Now, a school opening looms closer, culture and prettiness have given way to an adapted version of an ancient pastime.

Matt Dillon strides around the homestead with his Marshal's badge made from an out-of-date Chronicle; an old, upturned straw hat to shade his eyes; and a popgun and cap gun slung in an old port strap around the hips. We are asked to "holler" for a Marshal.

Tomorrow can't come quickly enough, and being in Grade 1 is a grand thing. New events will take precedence, and I wonder what will remain.

I hope that the colour and wonder of beautiful things will not fade, but I pray that Matt Dillon will, as all good cowboys do, walk off into the sunset.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miss Eagle reports that the colour and wonder of beautiful things has never faded. Herself is a collector and a decorator and a stylist. A beautiful shop has come - and has just gone - but it is clear beauty will never fade from her life as she styles a corner here and a laundry there. Matt Dillon remains somewhere off in the sunset.

Nature v Nurture? Or kids being their own individual selves?

In response to my previous post, Denis talked about the nature v nurture situation in his experience in daughter-raising. Miss Eagle's own experience was her determination to steer her two sons away from a military mindset. Miss Eagle's sons did not join the Boy Scouts because of the Scouts' tendency to get involved with the army. Sons joined the Boys' Brigade instead. No guns were allowed in the house. Gun shaped water pistols were barely tolerated. But then what happened?

No. 2 Son while still in his high chair would chew his crusts of bread into a gun shape. When he was barely big enough to hold a hammer, he would get two scraps of wood and a nail and attempt to hammer them into a gun. But No. 2 Son is a pacifist. He grew up to be a very quiet and peaceful man interested in poetry and the environment. So nature v nurture. Horsefeathers! The cards go up in the air, in Miss Eagle's view, and land where they may. What are your experiences of nature v nurture?

The Golden Tapestry...some more

Zambia

Australia - Surf Beach

The Golden Tapestry....more

Australia - Lindfield Primary School

Uganda - Kaboija Junior School

The Golden Tapestry

Australia

Miss Eagle discovered something wonderful yesterday - a wonderful display of children's creativity under the title, The Golden Tapestry. You can find some of it at The City Library and more at the CAE Gallery, 96 Flinders Street facing Federation Square.

The Golden Tapestry has so far involved over 700 primary and special schools across the whole Commonwealth. Each school has made a metre square of textural embroidery contributing to a story covering a year in the life of the Commonwealth. The artworks describe what different aspects of their lives the children would most like to show Her Majesty the Queen, as Head of the Commonwealth, if she were to visit them. The briefs the children work on all reflect the principles that unite the Commonwealth, global citizenship and civic values, and conservation and the protection of the environment. The project is designed to help foster understanding and friendship between people and communities in all parts of the world and to reinforce social cohesion. This exhibition will include up to 360 tapestries with schools from every state and territory in Australia and every region of the Commonwealth represented.

The Caribbean

Miss Eagle hasn't photographed 360 tapestries but over the next few days will publish a few just to whet your appetite. There are a wide variety of techniques including the use of 3D people involved. There's the cute, the pretty, the stunning, the boastful in a wonderful exuberance. Miss Eagle felt that as a citizen of the Commonwealth she belonged to all of this and it was a wonderful feeling to experience when juxtaposed to the increasing Americanization of Australian culture. This is the special thing that the Commonwealth of nations has to bring to us. A host, a web of special international relationships. There is diversity but a basic commonality. This for the next eleven days is being celebrated in Melbourne with the Commonwealth Games.

We are saddened...

Stevie-Lee Weight, aged 15 (centre), Cassandra Manners, aged16 (right), Josephine Calvi aged 16 (left)

Read the beautiful article about Stevie-Lee here.

...because on Saturday night six young people in Mildura were killed. They were walking at the side of a country road, a car came around the corner, skidded in the gravel edges of the bitumen road. Five were killed instantly, the sixth died later in a hospital in Adelaide and two are in hospital seriously ill. Our Victorian government agonizes over its road toll. Victoria is a small but populous state but, even to me who comes from northern Australia, the toll seems horrendous. Although Queensland is so worried that it is at the moment in the middle of a summit with its community to try to find new ways to address the issue.

When young lives are taken, it is haunting for those left behind - particularly when young people are taken en masse instantly. Grief descends like a pall on the affected community. The grief of family and close friends - words are unable to describe. I think of their friends left behind. Grief is difficult for us all to articulate. How then do the young understand, work out, articulate their emotions? The funerals are yet to occur. I don't know these people or this community - but my love and concern and empathy go out to them. My heart aches for them.

My heart also aches for another family. An aboriginal family. A man who now carries a burden beyond comprehension and sits in a jail cell far away from his family and his community. I feel for his mother and his partner who don't understand how one they love is in this predicament. Above all, I am filled with love, compassion, and concern for two little children who are victims too. They were in the car with their father - a father who, perhaps, they may never know, at least in the way we understand fathers should be in relation to their children. What stories will they know about what happened last Saturday night? Will their father's burden become their burden as they grow to maturity?

Life is the ultimate creativity. The lives of all these children were fully of energy and promise - until Saturday night when the opposite of creativity - destruction - came upon them. Those who died will be remembered as ever young, ever beautiful. What happens with those who survive? Destruction leaves its scars - always. May our compassion for all of them be ongoing so that life can be creative and joyful for them once again.

Tell me another one....

The blogosphere has been joined by Melbourne storyteller, David Gloster. Read his charming and quirky children's stories here and here. Dave wouldn't mind hearing from illustrators of children's stories. And I would love to see the illustrations generated by Dave's stories. Would a Bunyip called Barbarino look anything like John Travolta!

I love old children's boooks...