Please cover your mouth when you cough!

Swine flu, swine flu, swine flu! On every radio station, in every news paper, all over the net, and apparently all over the TV news (though at least I managed to miss that).

Two things are really bothering me about all this and have me all steamed up for a rant.

1. Why does the ho-hum, mega-profit-making Tamiflu get so much air time. While the amazing, highly effective, population protecting, basic health messages get so little mention, if any, on most reports.
Surely the most important message for our benevolent media to carry is: "Cover your mouth when you cough, wash your hands, and stay home if you are sick". And pity for you if you happen to actually contract the flu, and your only source of information was our media. You would think that Tamiflu is your only hope and would know nothing of the benefits of bed rest, fluids and paracetamol to reduce your fever.

2. The other thing making me cross and raising my skeptical hackles is that while people panic the pharmaceutical companies are making even bigger profits? Interestingly Tamiflu (by Roche, Switzerland) is the only brand name I have heard mentioned in NZ. I have not come across the name Relenza (by Biota, Australia, but under the GSK umbrella) even once in the mainstream media here. Roche's massive advertising/promotional budget is obviously paying off!

But there is still some good sense out there and this site made me chuckle! The well respected medical giant, the Mayo Clinic, advocates chicken soup as a remedy, and says it can really help by breaking up congestion. I love it! Though I don't think GSK and Roche need to worry about this simple advice effecting their profit from the current "crisis" too much. I wonder what the vegetarian equivalent is for chicken soup. My husband makes a to-die-for cream of mushroom soup, but somehow I don't think the cream content will allow it to pass as a health remedy.

Well, at least GSK and Roche are happy.

Oh, and please don't cough into your hand and then touch the door nob to my office, or anything else for that matter! If you are unsure of the correct cough etiquette please check this link.

The Story of Stuff

Have you seen this? If not you can download it here.

It's beauty lies in being a simple, succinct, introductory overview to a wide range of linked topics.

I think it would be a great idea to show it to all school students. Unfortunately one teacher who had this idea was soon having to defend herself to the school board. But hopefully not all school boards would be quite so narrow minded in their response.

Rantings against the "War on Drugs"

Prohibition is one of my pet peeves. While driving home today (after running the 12km City to Surf) I listened to a radio program about prohibition. And as usual the topic got me feeling very cross!

Prohibition does not work - that's a fact. The "War on drugs" is grounded in ignorance, racism, and political grandstanding.

While I certainly don't want to advocate for easy access to "hard" drugs, I do believe that a society that has legal access to alcohol and tobacco and yet criminalizes cannabis users is grossly hypocritical. We have decided that turning 18 years old makes one an adult with respect to alcohol, tobacco, voting and armed service, and you can get a license to drive a lethal weapon even younger than this. To me it seems enormously sensible to add recreational use of drugs to this list - particularly ones that, going by the vast evidence, are less detrimental to health than tobacco, and less detrimental socially than alcohol.

Instead of pouring insane amounts of money into enforcing irrational laws our governments could focus on education, harm minimization, health services, addictions counseling and research.

If your loved one (son, daughter, partner) was suffering negative consequences due to their drug use would you want them dealt with by the justice system with the possibility of a criminal record, gaol time, stigma and job loss, or dealt with by health professionals and educators that could help them get back on track?

We need some credible people, including politicians, law enforcers and health professionals, to push against our prohibition laws. I say "credible" because I think that we particularly need people who do not have a vested interest due to personal use to take up the cause. Of course I am not saying that recreational drug users are any less "credible" because of their use, but unfortunately anyone with any position or power who takes up this cause will be heavily scrutinized by our vulture-like main stream media.

Fortunately there does seem to be an increasing voice against prohibition in main stream media. The radio program I listened to this morning referenced a recent article in the The Economist. The subtitle of the article is: "Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution". Hopefully we will see more reporting like this.

It seems to me that the one of the main obstructions to law reform is that the people who have a responsibility to govern our country are more concerned about risking political suicide than advocating for what may be best for our society. But, considering that climate change finally made into onto the political agenda (perhaps 30 years too late!), perhaps prohibition law reform will eventually become politically attractive too.

New Shoes and 14Ks

This morning I ran 14kms with friends. Well, when I say ran "with", I mean more like "near" as I am the slowest of the bunch (yes call me tortoise). My pace is not great at the moment. Partly due to a lot of laziness in 2008 as far as running is concerned. And partly due to an over eager dog that knocked me off my feet 3 weeks ago resulting in an ankle injury that has limited my running. But I am happy to say the ankle is not 95% better, and just fine for running!

I was helped along this morning by:
:: seeing my friends red shirt up ahead pushing me to keep up my pace.
:: singing songs to myself (in my head of course, not enough breath to sing out loud). Note to self: take ipod even on group runs in case you are not with the pack and need a little help keeping motivated.
:: and thirdly by new shoes.

That's right. New shoes. So much for my "buy no clothes or shoes" year. But I decided not to apply the limit to running shoes. My chances of finding appropriate running shoes in a second hand charity shop are basically zero. And although I don't technically *need* new shoes. I do *need* them if I want to run longer distances without injury.

It seems Oxfam has recognised this problem and has a campaign to show sports brands that consumers do want ethically produced shoes. Click here for more info.
Mail us your receipts
Each time you buy sports shoes or sportswear, mail us a copy of the receipt with a note saying that you wish you could buy clothes and shoes made under decent conditions. We'll use this evidence of consumer concern to pressure the brands to respect workers' rights by delivering these receipts to sports brands.

So now to mail that receipt and enjoy the shoes.
:)

PS. My husband reading over my shoulder has kindly pointed out to me that perhaps I could find my running shoe second hand on line if I was really that concerned about the issue.

Ethics and the Environment

I am doing two "Community Education" courses at Canterbury Uni at the moment. They are both 5 week series of talks with no assessment, so no stress really. So far I am finding them both very interesting and thought provoking. Only thing is that, as with so many other areas of life, the more you learn the more questions there seem to be, and the less answers to feel sure of.

The first one is called "Ethics and the Environment". Click here if you want more info.

There is so much doom and gloom when we start to think about the future of the ecology that sustains us, and hard to find hope. Certainly I whole heartedly agree with the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle mantra and am aiming to keep improving in this area. But are the doomsayers right? Is it really too late for our current societies? And are all our "green" efforts pointless.

The idea of "Climate Refugees" and the proposition that we shift our focus to creating safe havens for those who will need them, is gaining momentum. I suspect that James Lovelock and Co are at least partly right (hopefully not totally correct) and that this may be necessary. However I hope that these theories do not distract us from still doing our best to preserve and protect what we can. Or, perhaps even worse, engender so much hopelessness that the ostrich-like "eat, drink and be merry" lifestyle seems the only option to the majority.

A Solitary Monarch Butterfly

We planted a few swan plants in our garden with the hope that we might attract some monarch butterflies. Well, we certainly got our wish! We were so excited when we noticed the little holes appearing in the leaves and the cute little caterpillars who were making them.

Unfortunately it soon became apparent that we had far too many hungry caterpillars for the few swan plants we had bought. Here are some photos of the poor things trying to nibble at the bare stems.

We had a bit of a stressful time trying to locate more swan plants. We managed to buy a few little and very overpriced plants. But each time we found a new plant the growing caterpillars would gobble through all the leaves by the next morning. There seemed to be a bit of a swan plant shortage in Christchurch and ours were not the only caterpillars feeling hungry. In desperation the poor things started to leave the swan plants and go in search of new food sources.

With a bit of internet searching we found that the large caterpillars can survive quite well on slices of pumpkin and cucumber. So we transferred some of them to a box with slices of their new food stuff. Unfortunately smaller caterpillars can eat this food, but not develop enough to form their chrysalis.

The diet high in pumpkin resulted in lots of very cute orange caterpillar poop!

Only 2 caterpillars managed to make a chrysalis. One unfortunately was devoured by ants, perhaps because he formed his chrysalis on the box. But the other sensible fellow formed his chrysalis up on the adjacent wall.And finally the butterfly emerged. It sat there for at least 36 hours drying it's wings. I didn't get to see it fly away but I am sure it looked beautiful.

More than 20 caterpillars, many swan plants, 2 chrysalides and finally one lovely monarch butterfly.

The efficiency of nature??


PS. No March challenge. I couldn't think of one. (Well at least not one that I want to commit to).