December 2007
Some of the things I did this year
Some of the things I did this year:
- Wrote a 50,000 word (~170 pages) novel
- Rode my bike 160km in two days, from Geraldine (near Timaru) to Christchurch via Rakaia Gorge.
- Rode up the Port Hills, past Sign of the Kiwi and on to the summit, then took trails down. More than once.
- Got rid of my car. Temporarily at first, then completely.
- Ditched some of my unnecessary stuff. It still piles up, but I think I’m gaining ground on it.
- Fell off my skateboard on two of the three occasions I used it. I still have scraped knuckles and a scratched ipod to show for it.
Our Decrepit Food Factories, or, Diseased Pigs
Our Decrepit Food Factories, or, Diseased Pigs:
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that at least 70 percent of the antibiotics used in America are fed to animals living on factory farms. Raising vast numbers of pigs or chickens or cattle in close and filthy confinement simply would not be possible without the routine feeding of antibiotics to keep the animals from dying of infectious diseases. That the antibiotics speed up the animals’ growth also commends their use to industrial agriculture, but the crucial fact is that without these pharmaceuticals, meat production practiced on the scale and with the intensity we practice it could not be sustained for months, let alone decades.
The problem, of course, being that – as the article describes – use of antibiotics leads to super-bugs immune to antibiotics; these bugs already infect a huge number of pigs and appear to be killing large numbers of humans.
Poor, or patronised?
Poor, or patronised? I’m not sure what to make of this article about ‘charity presents’.
On the mismatch between the expectations of NGOs, and what the recipients of NGO help actually want:
The Ghanaians interviewed in WORLDwrite’s film dream of living in concrete houses instead of mud huts; of owning washing machines instead of having to trek to a bore hole several times a day to fetch water. They want motor-powered fishing boats instead of wooden canoes, which have to be dragged to the shore by hand. They want university education, not lessons in how to use a condom; and they prefer having regular work in factories to the hand-to-mouth existence offered by NGOs’ micro-credit schemes. They do not, as the charity Water Aid argues, think that extracting water by rope pumps from hand-dug wells constitutes ‘appropriate technology’.
It seems that those in the third world just want to be living like us:
In truth, the kind of things that the Ghanaians interviewed in Keeping Africa Small really want – houses, cars, 9-to-5 jobs – are entirely ‘unrelated’ to anything that appears in the Oxfam Unwrapped catalogue: alpacas, condoms, dung.
It does seem pretty patronising:
Surely an organisation with such a big budget can come up with more inspiring and fun Christmas gifts than goats and dung? Or are the poor not allowed to have fun?
Or how about at least acknowledging that people in developing countries should have the right to get their hands on the kind of consumption goods we in the West enjoy and take for granted? Oxfam and others claim to be working towards ‘global equality’ – but campaigns that offer only small-scale solutions to Third World problems, and which do not put the case for everyone’s right to aspire to, and reach, the living standards we have in the West, are not championing anything like genuine equality. They are championing coping mechanisms, and an attitude of make-do-and-mend.
The bigger question raised, I think, is whether (as we claim) we do actually know what they need better than they do. It’s also worth asking how much of it is vicarious; maybe we think that subsistence would be a better, more satisfying life, so we do our best to keep the third world away from what we see as pointless consumerism?
This, of course, raises other questions, especially if the things they desire are things we know are ultimately unsustainable and destructive – cars and consumerism and McD’s and plenty of toys for everyone. How do we help the poor when the poor want things that will do even more damage to their environments? Do we (the rich west) have any right to try and stop them, considering our part in both their poverty and in the destruction already done to the planet?
UPDATE: See also the BBC with do goats make great gifts?
“None of the Above”
“None of the Above”: Malcom Gladwell looks at IQ measures and abstract thinking.
… they took a basket of food, tools, containers, and clothing and asked the tribesmen to sort them into appropriate categories. To the frustration of the researchers, the Kpelle chose functional pairings. They put a potato and a knife together because a knife is used to cut a potato. “A wise man could only do such-and-such,” they explained. Finally, the researchers asked, “How would a fool do it?” The tribesmen immediately re-sorted the items into the “right” categories.
(As a followup to the James Watson controversy.)
I thought Jesus was poor?
I thought Jesus was poor?
Tim points out a horrible video of televangelists preaching about money. I have one question: why is it still considered okay for churches everywhere to play Hillsongs’ music? Surely they should be the last place getting our tithe money?
If that has you down, here is a video of baby pandas wrestling.
“I can eat glass, it does not hurt me”
“I can eat glass, it does not hurt me”. (see also.) Did I mention that I love the internet?
I hate swimming
I hate swimming.
When people ask me “what do you want to do with your life?” the question always sounds like “are you going to come play in the deep end with the big kids, or are you going to stay mucking around at the shallow end?” My answer is “I’m sick of swimming; I never liked it much anyway. And the chlorine is making my eyes water and my nose run. I’m getting out of the pool.”
Trouble is, most people don’t seem to realise there’s something outside of the pool. To them, you’re in the pool or you’re dead. By definition.
I want to tell them that there are other pools. There’s a tribe down south who let their pool freeze over so they could ice skate on it. A tribe out west drained their pool, and they use it for skateboarding.
And I’ve heard rumours of a tribe far to the north, up on the edge of the tropics, who abandoned their pool altogether. They let it grow green and scummy, full of weeds, and they went to live by the sea.
That sounds like my style.
Everything I own
Everything I own:
back in my apartment we zip into my computer my ipod my stereo my cell phone my camera my camcorder my clock radio through sweat shops and factories and over ships and planes through smoke and fire and dirty water dead forests belching smokestacks tired people enslaved and alone and abused and sick and getting sicker we dive into my lotions my sunscreen my bug repellent my toothpaste into my cleaning supplies my pesticides my pharmaceuticals my shampoo my clothes my pillow zipping around the planet from forests to rivers to mountains to lakes to the bodies of animals stuck in cages we dive into my walls my floors my ceilings my furniture my rugs my windows my kitchen sink we dive and zip and explore and see and hear and smell and tast everything I own everything I have everything I use has a dead body at the other end a dead piece of land a dead lake a dead baby a soul in slavery and pain
— Tim Bennett, The Trials of Todd, Part 1 (emphasis mine.)
I also found myself quite affected by I Don’t Know.
