Fair Trade

From a handy list I was given the other week - thought others might be interested. No idea which ones sell coffee that tastes nice. If you know more, please comment.

Cafes:

• Cafe Cinnamon, 196 Tuam St
• Circa, Colombo St
• Contemporary Lounge, Cnr Lichfield & Colombo
• Empire Cafe, PWC building, Armagh St
• Food 4 Thought, 6 Dalgety St, Blenheim Rd
• Good Taste, 196 Tuam St
• La Bonne Taste, Shop 20, Barrington Mall
• Lotus Heart, 595 Colombo St
• Mondo Cafe, 183 High St
• Mokka Espresso Bar, Cnr Moorhouse & Durham
• Mulberry, 818 Colombo St
• Pause, 89 Victoria St
• Reds, Riccarton
• Rialto Cinema, Moorhouse Ave
• Sublime, 84 Gloucester St
• The Herb Centre Cafe, Kilmore St
• Trattorie Cafe, 376 Ilam Rd
• Underground Coffee, Colombo St

Where to buy fair trade coffee beans:

• C1, Cnr High & Tuam
• Nature's Abundance, 5/300 Colombo
• Piko Wholefoods, 229 Kilmore
• Pro Cope, Victoria St
• Trade Aid, Cashel Mall, Northlands
• Vivace, Cnr Stanmore & Tuam
• Fresh Choice Merivale
• New World St Martins, South City
• SuperValue Fendalton

A disaster

Our flat is reeling today from the loss of one of our members, whose unexplained disappearance has left the rest of us rather shell-shocked. Personally I'm feeling rather bewildered, wondering if there was anything I could have done, and how this could have happened, and I'm sure the others are feeling the same way. Having been dimly aware of our friend's gradual withdrawal from flat life, I think none of us suspected how serious the problem really was until last night, when we discovered the disappearance. The missing party, known to friends as A Somewhat Significant Portion of the Contents of our Crockery Cupboard, had great sentimental value for all of us, as well as obvious practical functions, and was beloved by all frequenters of our flat.

We are prepared to offer an amnesty guarantee for anyone who may have had anything to do with this lamentable course of events. We're down to our last four dinner plates, which means doing dishes every single day until the missing items are restored - an unenviable plight in anyone's books. Thus our primary concern is not revenge, but simply to see the family of our flat made whole again. No rewards offered - we are certain that our gracious forgiveness will be seen as reward enough.

[On a more serious note, some of that stuff was AJ's dad's and he's pretty anxious to get it back. Funny joke but yeah.]

Discussion for next Monday

My thoughts for topic for discussion:

How do the ideals and practice of Christianity interact with today's ecological movement?

• What are our obligations generally regarding the treatment of nature, within a Christian framework?
• Do the two ideologies conflict in any ways? (e.g. the over-population problem: how much human happiness can the earth support? Are the efforts of well-meaning Christians trying to feed the poor actually making things worse, or not? Does the earth exist for the use of humanity, or not? ...)
• If there is a conflict, which side should we come down on?
• What are we all going to do about it?

Save your actual opinions on the topic for Monday, but please comment on whether you think the topic is going to work (too broad? too narrow?), any questions, suggested modifications etc.

[NB: I'm somewhat assuming people agree there is a genuine ecological crisis either going on or at least pending; I wouldn't imagine we'd have time to debate that too. Correct me if I'm wrong.]