Asha Anujeeva

I was reading an article on Yahoo news about a man, who lives in a tent on a tiny Shetland Island named Forvik has filed for “independence” from the British Crown.  Apparently the chain of Shetland Islands fall under the British government, and this man (Stuart Hill) has decided to make his island a “crown dependency” out of the 2.5 square mile island that he owns.  He says he will make his own currency and collect no taxes.  What is so very funny about this story is that he is the ONLY resident of the island!  I just can’t even imagine that! 

In this economy, most of the people that I know are trying to save money everywhere they can.  For quite a long time now, I’ve been hearing about being able to buy eyeglasses for as low as $6.95 a pair at the Zenni Optical website. 

My biggest concern about buying glasses over the Internet is getting them to fit on my face once they arrive.  I have a very short temple, for one thing.  I don’t know how that issue (if it even IS an issue!) would be taken care of in the case of buying glasses over the Internet.

I’ve been hearing that they have been discussed on popular radio shows, and that they were mentioned in an article that was discussing ways to save money on eye care in the New York Times newspaper as a good place to get cheap back-up glasses. I checked out their website and found that they had over 200 pairs of glasses for $6.95! And I actually did see a couple of good looking pairs of $6.95 glasses that I would consider buying. I like the shape and the color; they are very much like what I already wear. Pretty soon it will be time for me to get a new pair of glasses, so I will be checking them out for sure!

i was reading an article in the BBC news that China has been given permission by the The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to import “legal” elephant ivory.  According to the article, there are several countries where the government legally owns stockpiles of elephant ivory, and that ivory was obtained legally.  Considering the decreasing elephant population, and the poaching problems for illegal ivory it made me wonder exactly how does a country obtain “legal” ivory?  Do they wait for elephants to die of old age and then go to the elephant graveyards to get it?  Or do they hunt the elephants?  This story disturbed me; I thought that all ivory was illegal everywhere.

I was reading an article on the New York Times Website that was talking about the probability of many consumers disconnecting their landline phones in favor of using only their cell phones.  I understand that IS probably going to happen, but I don’t plan on doing it myself.  Here’s why:

If we lose electricity in our house for more than a few hours, our cell phones will be useless because their charges don’t last very long.  Landline phones are usually good for the duration of an electrical outage.

Our house is a complete dead zone for cell phones, so we can’t use cell phones in our house.  That is also the case for our cell phones from our house to town, and back again.  In fact, our cell phones are pretty useless to us.  We are thinking about having them disconnected altogether this coming week, as our two week contract has just expired.

So, for this telephone consumer, we will stick with the landlines for a while to come yet!

I was delighted to read on the health.msn.com website that researchers now say that full fat chees is good for you!  They say that it does NOT raise cholesterol levels, and actually helps dieters to lose weight!  That is really good news because I love cheese!  I have tried the low-fat stuff and I don’t like it – it has no flavor (except for cream chees, which is yummy!)  So I will no longer avoid cheese (I HAVE been avoiding cheese!) and can start buying it (and snacking on it!) on a regular basis again!