the futility of it all...

i've been interested in the thalidomide class action that played out in the victorian supreme court this week and was elated for lynette rowe, the lead plaintiff, born with no arms or legs after her mother was prescribed thalidomide to combat morning sickness and anxiety during her pregnancy… a multi-million dollar settlement – although 50 years down the track hardly makes up for a lifetime of hardship, nor does it give her the physical independence most of us know - but she will get compensation and be provided with care for the rest of her life - with ageing parents that must be comforting knowledge… i watched lynette cry on the television, and shed tears with her…

but i couldn’t help thinking – ‘doesn't this yet again prove the futility of animal experimentation? thalidomide was tested on animals wasn't it' so i did some research and of course, the answer is yes...

“The most famous example of the dangers of animal testing is the Thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s and 1970s. Thalidomide, which came out on the German market late in the 1950s, had previously been safety tested on thousands of animals. It was marketed as a wonderful sedative for pregnant or breastfeeding mothers and it supposedly caused no harm to either mother or child. Despite this "safety testing", at least 10,000 children whose mothers had taken Thalidomide were born throughout the world with severe deformities.” from against animal testing from a medical and scientific perspective

and this from does animal testing really help human medicine?...

“Here are just a handful of drugs that were extensively tested on animals and after being approved for human use, were found to have dangerous and deadly side affects. Some were pulled from the market.:

Clioquinol, Eraldin/Practocol, Tequin, TGN 1412, Thalidomide, Zyprexa/Olanzapine. Phenactin, E-Ferol, Oraflex, Rexar, Suprofen, Zomax, Suprol, Rezulin, Selacryn, and Vioxx have been pulled from the market after killing or harming thousands and thousands of people.

Side effects of prescription medicines kill over 100,000 people a year in the US and almost as many in the UK. That is more than all illegal drugs combined!

The great breakthroughs in science that have given us all the medical advances we enjoy today have actually come from ethical, human-based research - most notably astute clinical observation, epidemiology (population studies), autopsies and in- vitro research, including the use of human tissue. Anaesthetics, antibiotics, aspirin, beta-blockers, pacemakers and many other great discoveries owe nothing to animals and everything to human ingenuity.

Another issue is the fact that drugs can injure animals but display no adverse reactions in humans. These are equally significant in revealing the inaccuracy of animal data because these tests keep potentially useful medications out of our reach."

more proof of the futility of experimentation on non-human animals…

maurice beddow bayly wrote the book ‘the futility of experiments on living animals’ way back in 1956 stating “In a universe which embraces all types of life and consciousness and all material forms through which these manifest, nothing which is ethically wrong can ever be scientifically right; ...in an integrated cosmos of spirit and matter one law must pervade all levels and all planes. This is the basic principle upon which the whole case against vivisection rests. Cicero summed it up in the four words: "No cruelty is useful".

cancer researchers have been using animals for decades, with no 'cure' on the horizon… “With billions of dollars, countless animals, and well over 30 years spent on the war on cancer, concrete results should have been seen if animal research was actually working. On the contrary, the incidence of cancer continues to rise.” this, again from against animal testing from a medical and scientific perspective and also borne out in the human cost of animal experiments from the animal liberation front website "the inability to validate carcinogenicity in animals kept cancer-causing agents legal for a much longer time."...

one of the most potent realities of all also comes from the animal liberation front website: "The real bottom line is stark: no animal experiment has ever saved a human life. But animal experiments have led to many human deaths."

frighteningly "increasingly animals are being genetically modified in attempts to model human illnesses. Even when these GM animals have an identical defective gene they do not always develop the same disease as humans, or indeed any disease at all." from what's wrong with animal experiments

surely non-human animal experimentation has been proven futile over and over again and needs to stop - if humans want ‘cures’, test them on human cells, tissues and cultures, not non-human animals who are not less than human, but equal to - they are not 'ours' to use and abuse - we need to end this brutality!!

“Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals and the answer is: 
'Because animals are like us.'
 

“Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 

'Because the animals are not like us.'

“Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.”

... charles r magel, professor of philosophy...

settlin' in slowly...

it’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 2 months since i wrote my last blog post… but having decided not to blog and just concentrate on moving and settling in i have to admit it has been nice not having that self-imposed pressure we sometimes put ourselves under to get a post 'up'…

so moving and settling in is exactly what i’ve been doing - well, when i haven't been working… i'm certainly enjoying the house with it’s space and peace and quiet (internal noise aside that is - 'part and parcel' of shared space) compared to the flat… no hearing other doors opening and slamming, nobody walking overhead wearing jack boots (that’s what the womon upstairs sounded like), no hearing other peoples toilets flush, no hearing their loud televisions or their other noises…. i hate flats, have never been a willing flat dweller…

shadow had the hardest move and settling in time of the household… there are only a few cats in the street, and no-one had lived here for a while according to a neighbour, so the two boys from down the road had made this their territory too… so my boy had to learn where his territory started and ended and stake a claim on his backyard – which of course entailed a lot of mewling and stand-offs with the two local boys – rags, a beautiful ragdoll cat (albeit without a tail due to an accident) and felix, a manx boy (born with no tail – a genetic mutation associated with the manx breed)...

after all of that sorting themselves out, the boy has the run of the place now as the ‘neighbours’ moved out a couple of weeks ago – they were moving from south yarra to st kilda, and here we’d moved from st kilda to south yarra – somewhat ironic, hey - and they'll be going through their own territorial disputes finding their place with their new neighbours now…

there are cute possums around, but shadow doesn't pose a threat to them - well, not at night time anyway - he has a curfew - he's an inside cat once darkness descends... it's seems only fair for the wildlife who come out to forage during the night hours, and who have lost so much of their habitat to our encroachment - they can do without having to dodge one of the most efficient hunters in their search for food too... sadly for the night critters not all feline guardians feel this way...

shadow is definitely enjoying his backyard – fences and trees to climb, a backyard shed to sun himself on top of, garden beds that we’re in the process of extending so we can get some vegie seedlings in – it must be like paradise to him after having to make do with the small courtyard at the flat…

i thought i’d share some photos - the boy, the camellia, the beautiful skylight in the funny little nook in the loungeroom, which happens to be the perfect reading space - and guess i’ll slowly get back into the swing of blogging over the next few weeks…

a mother's love...

the move is on this coming sunday, so i'm busy sorting, packing and discarding, etc. etc... i thought i'd just 'do' a quick post and share this article on a mother's love - as 'mother's day' was celebrated yesterday i think this is fitting...

"A Bovine Sophie's Choice by Holly Cheever, DVM and vice president of New York State Humane Association.

I would like to tell you a story that is as true as it is heartbreaking. When I first graduated from Cornell’s School of Veterinary Medicine, I went into a busy dairy practice in Cortland County. I became a very popular practitioner due to my gentle handling of the dairy cows. One of my clients called me one day with a puzzling mystery: his Brown Swiss cow, having delivered her fifth calf naturally on pasture the night before, brought the new baby to the barn and was put into the milking line, while her calf was once again removed from her. Her udder, though, was completely empty, and remained so for several days. 

As a new mother, she would normally be producing close to one hundred pounds (12.5 gallons) of milk daily; yet, despite the fact that she was glowing with health, her udder remained empty. She went out to pasture every morning after the first milking, returned for milking in the evening, and again was let out to pasture for the night — this was back in the days when cattle were permitted a modicum of pleasure and natural behaviors in their lives — but never was her udder swollen with the large quantities of milk that are the hallmark of a recently-calved cow.

I was called to check this mystery cow two times during the first week after her delivery and could find no solution to this puzzle. Finally, on the eleventh day post calving, the farmer called me with the solution: he had followed the cow out to her pasture after her morning milking, and discovered the cause: she had delivered twins, and in a bovine’s “Sophie’s Choice,” she had brought one to the farmer and kept one hidden in the woods at the edge of her pasture, so that every day and every night, she stayed with her baby — the first she had been able to nurture FINALLY—and her calf nursed her dry with gusto. Though I pleaded for the farmer to keep her and her bull calf together, she lost this baby, too—off to the hell of the veal crate.

Think for a moment of the complex reasoning this mama exhibited: first, she had memory — memory of her four previous losses, in which bringing her new calf to the barn resulted in her never seeing him/her again (heartbreaking for any mammalian mother). Second, she could formulate and then execute a plan: if bringing a calf to the farmer meant that she would inevitably lose him/her, then she would keep her calf hidden, as deer do, by keeping her baby in the woods lying still till she returned. Third — and I do not know what to make of this myself — instead of hiding both, which would have aroused the farmer’s suspicion (pregnant cow leaves the barn in the evening, unpregnant cow comes back the next morning without offspring), she gave him one and kept one herself. I cannot tell you how she knew to do this—it would seem more likely that a desperate mother would hide both.

All I know is this: there is a lot more going on behind those beautiful eyes than we humans have ever given them credit for, and as a mother who was able to nurse all four of my babies and did not have to suffer the agonies of losing my beloved offspring, I feel her pain." from all-creatures.org

another article well worth a read from the same site is "On Mother's Day, Remember The Cows On Dairy Farms"

or there's this video from evolve campaigns - "The Dairy Cow: The Most Overworked Mother On The Planet" (the video doesn't contain live graphic brutality that is the 'dairy industry' - just plain old facts and truths!!!)

 

i've linked to vegan feminist agitator's post "the universal mother" previously and find it still worth recommending if you haven't read it before...

okay, it's time to get back to work, and by the time i post again i hope to be settled in and enjoying the new house...

ch-ch-ch-changes....

ooooh, blogger's changed its look and feel... takes a while to get used to the new layout etc.... it looks a lot more like google+ now - that makes sense though seeing as how it's a google product... but i was soooo familiar with the way it looked previously when i opened it up - guess i'll get used to it soon enough...

that's when i'm able to get into it! i'm having a helluva time with my internet at the moment... it's dropping out soooo very often, it's driving me crazy - has been for the last couple of months and i find myself abusing telstra more often than normal... but then there has been a lot of new comings and old goings from the flats i live in so maybe there's something new interfering with my signal... hopefully that will change when i move - i may even go with a different provider!!!!

a move? yes, i'll get to that, but... it was my birthday on saturday - turned 57 - and being up early i decided i'd go along for a tram ride into the city with brann while he collected something from his work - what possessed me? i haaaate the city, so many people!! and on my birthday to boot!!! but while there we had a lovely birthday breakfast... then it was off to prahran market to visit mister nice guy cupcakes to get some birthday treats - they make the most incredible cakes, so moist, so delicious - everything is vegan and we bought 18 mini cupcakes in 9 different flavours...

later in the day - and after much self-discipline refraining from getting too stoned and eating too many munchies in the form of cupcakes - it was off to soul mama's in st kilda for dinner - it's a place i can go as a vegan and know i don't have to worry about 'cross-contamination' with rancid, decaying flesh from brutally slaughtered animals - now their food can be pretty bland if you don't know how flavours work with each other, and you do need to get a few things and share, rather than be bored by one dish... so we had japanese gyoza dumplings with a mirin, soy & ginger dipping sauce, thai green laksa noodles with asian vegetables and fried tempeh, and spicy marinated tofu on beautifully cooked asian greens... deeeeeeeelicious - everything just balanced each other perfectly!!! and of course, then it was off home to enjoy some cupcakes - what can i say, between two of us we polished all of them off over 2 days (and didn't even feel sick afterwards)!!!!!

it was a lazy day on sunday... i finished a wonderful book, "the ghost of lily painter" by caitlin davies, which i'll review some other time... on monday, just out of curiosity, i decided to check online and see what houses were available for lease at a price we may be able to afford... i'd noticed one open for inspection on saturday but with all we had to do we didn't get to the property in time to view... it was still showing as available on monday so i decided it was worth a phone call to see if there had been any applications and was pleasantly surprised that i could collect the key and go and view it... fortuitously as it turned out, brann had gone to work on a rostered day off and had rung to see if there was anything he could pick up on his way home - that meant we could both go and view it with no expectation that we would apply... but on viewing it we decided we had nothing to lose by putting in an application...

it's a quaint little 2 bedroom victorian cottage with a wonderful open plan kitchen and dining area with double doors leading out to a great little backyard and we were 'sold' - it would suit 2 adults and 1 cat perfectly, with room for a small rescued dog in the near future (yay, i can feel that dog-shaped hole in my heart getting closer to being filled!!!)

so after working out if we could come up with the money for bond, rent and the move, while paying the next months rent here and giving notice (that would take us up until the end of the lease - what timing!!) we decided to go for it, we had nothing to lose... so the applications went in late monday evening, and we got the phone call on tuesday afternoon - it was ours!!!!!! everything just fell into place...

so my blogging will probably be a tad erratic for the next few weeks while we do the 'hard yakka' now - packing, cleaning, organising utilities, the physical moving.... i'm looking forward to the end result, but not the lead up to getting there...

it's a public holiday here in australia today, being the 25th april - 'anzac day' - so i'll acknowledge all those killed, maimed, mutilated, tortured, abused, injured, psychologically damaged and displaced in wars everywhere - innocent human & non-human animals alike - but if you're at all interested in my views on the day itself, you can read my previous post 'the making of a myth'...

i think that's it for now folks... but how could i call a post 'ch-ch-ch-changes' without leaving you with a clip of david bowie performing it...

 

when work interferes with life...

it's been a busy time at work these last few weeks - busy - huh,  it's actually been quite manic!!!

we've been implementing self-check-out 'kiosks' - yes, even my library is going the way of 'self-serve' - which means new processes and a different way of interacting with patrons... we've also 'gone live' with our new website - finally - it's been a long time in the planning, but we finally got it approved and that's been the bulk of my work, getting the content uploaded and making sure it all works fine, links go where they should, etc. etc...

there's been a lot more front-desk to cover with the inevitable workplace illnesses (of which few have been immune)... stress has taken it's toll too with all the change happening, and we're all physically and mentally drained!... i've been trying to keep the library's kids book club blog updated as well - so i haven't had much inclination to blog when i've been home - i've been content to read other's writings but couldn't be bothered thinking or writing myself... 

i will get back to blogging in earnest soon - pentecostal 'jesus camps' and 'crush videos' are two topics that i intend to write about in detail - but not today... for now i thought i would just share a cute video of edgar's mission farm sanctuary resident polly the pig celebrating her birthday a few days ago...

if you're interested you can meet the residents of edgar's mission here...