Socially Responsible Investing

I thought this was really cool article from The Buddhist Channel. It's always good to shed some light on the practices of the companies we're investing in.

Here's a snippet:

There’s now an index for Hindu and Buddhist investors, on the lines of the (Islamic) Shari’ah-based index which tracks stocks complying with Islamic rules. Global index provider Dow Jones indexes and Dharma Investments, a private investment company, today announced the launch of Dow Jones dharma index for measuring the performance of companies selected according to the value systems and principles of Dharmic religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism.

Soggy night

We had a mini-disaster tonight. I was replacing the inner parts of the downstairs toilet and was following the instructions, but the wrong thingy got unscrewed. You'd be amazed at the volume of water that can come shooting out of that little pipe sticking out of the wall behind the toilet. I know I was. Within seconds I was soaked and the bathroom started filling up with water. Jenny managed to figure out how to shut off the water to the house, but not before the water had flooded the laundry room, hall, master bedroom and master closet. The good news is that only the master room and closet are carpeted, the rest is tile. So we called in the troops (Jen's mom, step-dad and brother) and used every single towel in the house, as well as a couple baskets full of dirty clothes to soak up all the water and prevent it from spreading. So now the closet is emptied into the living room and half the bedroom is shoved up against the wall. The carpet is pulled up and we have one fan graciously donated by our good friend Jenny running.

Tomorrow a guy is coming to evaluate the damage and set up more high-powered fans to dry the carpet. When everything is dry, the padding will probably have to be replaced and the carpet put back down and re-seamed.

I'm off to open the futon upstairs and collapse into a (hopefully) deep sleep.

Good idea or really stupid fantasy?

While staring at bag after bag of crumpled wrapping paper that inevitably follows the xmas blitz, I began to wonder about the possibilities of recycling. What is the best use for all that stuff? Can I compost it? Will the glossyness prevent it from breaking down? What about all the chemicals used in the dyes and colors? Will the recycling company take it? Will they actually recycle it?

Along those lines, I started to think about what I could do to minimize my paper footprint over the coming year. I get an insane amount of junk mail. Mostly credit card applications, home mortgage offers and catalogs. I get a LOT of catalogs. Just before xmas I started piling them up and had to stop when the pile threatened to collapse and bury my kids alive. The thought of coming home to a missing child and having to call the disaster recovery crews to dig through the landslide of catalogs to find her chilled my heart.

I digress. My thought was that perhaps I could shred all those bills junk mail, and create my own paper. How hard could it be? Soak the shreds in water for a while, pulverize them, then pound the ensuing mush flat and let dry in the sun. Perhaps I could use the resulting paper to wrap all the gifts next xmas.

What do you think? Too ambitious? And then there's the question of catalogs. Will the above plan work for those slick publications? More research to follow.