animal cruelty, famine and other current events

Something seriously needs to change in this world. First, humans should just freaking leave things alone! This little kid I know turned to me the other day, after experimenting drowning this poor bug in the water, and said "but humans experiment on animals. That's just how it is."
Well, it shouldn't be. We shouldn't do to animals what we wouldn't do to fellow humans. When we go messing around with other species, that's what really irritates me. Children shouldn't be taught that the situation re animal rights, or human rights for that matter, is AT ALL ok right now, because it is SO not.

This of course brings up the question of animal cruelty in conjunction with science and medical schools. We wouldn't know a lot of what we know today if it weren't for all those mice and dogs and cats and pigs injected with vaccines, cancers, etc, etc. More people would be dying if it weren't for those experiments. So, maybe humans have always picked on lesser beings. I don't know. It's just amazing to me that our so highly evolved society is partly founded on such cruel practices. But I suppose we are in the food chain after all. In nature everybody seems to be killing everybody. Are we born as good beings?

Do criminals have bad strains in there blood that incline them to do evil deeds? Is it their surroundings that influence them, or internal choices?

Reading over this I see that I've called what we have a "highly evolved society." Yes, we have technology, we have lots of smart people, we have billions and billions of wonderful ideas. But for some reason, after thousands of years, we still maim and kill each other: we still have wars, we still have starvation, we're still ruining the planet, slowly but surely. There have to be, and in fact I know that there are, people out there who care and are trying to stop this from going on. They have been for a long time. For every war there have been people protesting, somewhere. But for some reason it doesn't prevent bad things from happening. Is it because there aren't enough good people? Or that everyone else just doesn't know about them?

The most recent National Geographic issue (Sep.2011) was very interesting. First of all: The previous issue had had an article about the people in Bangladesh, and how flooding is affecting their lives there: floating schools are being built, and the focus is very much on food crops that can grow on plant rafts.

However, the general attitude does not seem to be one of happiness or hope. Thousands of Bangladesh citizens are fleeing the flooding, crossing the border into India. What really caught my attention were the letters to the magazine by American citizens (and a few of them native to India). Some were cheering the Bangladeshis on, but others were irritating, and made me very angry.

One person states that "Like Bangladesh, India has much to worry about with rising sea levels. The threat is not only to megatropolises like Mumbai" (granted, this is probably true. I haven't looked into it yet.) The person goes on to say that "India has been the catch basin for Bangladeshi refugees. Already estimates have up to 20 million Bangladeshis living in India.....Not only has this caused strains on [India's] already poor infrastructures, it has also masked the successes of India's family planning efforts-and enhanced Bangladesh's." Later: "the world would do well to recall the backlash seen in the US to similar numbers of Spanish-speaking migrants."

The reason that this made me so angry is because I was asking myself the question "what are they supposed to do, then?" If I were in that country, I would be one of the citizens fleeing to India. And I would feel no guilt about it. These people shouldn't be looked at like rats trying to gain higher ground-they should be treated as what they are: yet another race on earth trying to survive.

Should we, when fellow humans are struggling, point fingers and whine about things like this? Ask for repayments from broken countries that have nothing? Absolutely not. The same thing goes for "illegal aliens" coming from Mexico, Honduras and other places in South and Central America. Why would we punish them? I just don't get it. Don't misunderstand-I'm not trying to make out these people as poor defenseless things, but I don't think we should treat them like scum, either. The biggest question, in my mind, anyway, is: how do we adapt to all this change?

Second of all: Another thing I've been trying to figure out lately is the question of where you should draw the line while making a living. For example, poaching and poppy-growing. Poachers in Africa, China, etc., are trying to make money, and opium-farmers in the Middle East are too. If these things are to be completely eradicated, there have to be jobs to replace them. Elementary thinking, but it doesn't seem to happen. Anyway. back to reading NG! There is good stuff in there too, my eye just always latches on the bad.

In the Sep. issue there are pictures of Lake Eyre in Australia (the biggest lake there, although it only floods once every 100 years!) The photographer's work may have been featured in last year's Banff film festival as well, I'm not sure if it's the same guy.

books

Here are some books that I just finished reading and recommend (although most people seem to have read them already):
The Hound of the Baskervilles (as well as all the short stories and the other three novels!)
The Lord God Made Them All (this is from the James Herriot series. The television series is also funny.)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (lots of confusing philosophical stuff, with a cute story thrown in there, too.)
The Hunger Games Trilogy
I'll think of some more later.

The Chanters of Tremaris Trilogy (I liked the first two books the best, but really worth the read! Kate Constable is surprisingly good at writing about winter, even though she lives in Australia! Ok, so I just found out that they do have winter there, but only in the south. And apparently they don't actually get snow, just cold, rainy weather.)

North and South (I've just started it, but judging by the BBC's version it's going to be amazing, so I'll just save myself the time of adding it to the list later.)

All of Jane Austen's books, of course. Emma was (blasphemy!) a little tedious, but only because it was almost too amazing. Each line on its own was really clever, but page after page was a little hard. Still good. Haven't found a movie version that I like yet.

Watersmeet (a bit like Chanters of Tremaris, so its pretty cool.)

Cats

My cats enjoy it when I act like a complete fool to please them.

This morning the boy cat was wearing a little neckscarf and beret (picture to follow). The girl cat (perfect little flower) would never stand for such rediculousness (she has lots of hidden thorns XD) I'd hoped this blog wouldn't turn into one of those "this is my daily life, here are pictures and funny things that happened," sites, but Oh well. Maybe it will provide some relief from the monotonous complains I put here. Incidentally, "blog" is probably the most unattractive word in the English dictionary (and it actually is in the dictionary. What a disgrace!) It belongs in with words like "hurl," "chunks" and "spew."

a little rant about evil shampoos

Hey, I could totally do a whole series of these!

I was in the store the other day, and out of curiosity I went around to the extremely aromatic beauty/bath section, where I proceeded to inspect each and every container of shampoo in the aisle. Not a single one of them said "no animal testing." I was horrified!
Chicken farms are also terrible (I know it's a way for people to make money, but, goodness knows we need some better jobs). I'm sure there is tons of research about that (beak snipping, crowded conditions, etc.) so I'll save it for a separate post (yippee <.<).

a little rant about pricey watches

I don't understand what's so great about expensive watches. It's like carrying tons of money around with you. I wonder if people insure them. But seriously, it keeps time, people! All you have to do is buy a cheap little watch and set it accordingly. It might not look as great, but it's better than having something on your wrist that costs $16o,000, money that would do much better preserving land or promoting health or something. While I'm on the subject, I saw a watch recently that had a calculator on it. It looked really cool. Maybe they can start building cellphones and little movie flip-screens into them, too!

random thoughts

I've been getting to the conclusion that becoming a doctor is probably the most kind, honorable, and logical thing to do in this day and age. Too bad I feel kind of sick when I see massive amounts of blood and guts, and that I'm bad under pressure...

Another thing: I just heard (haven't researched this yet, but will later) that the reason that there is so much off-shore drilling in Alaska is because that way the oil companies don't have to pay land taxes! Makes sense.

Also, here is a cool article from NG about acclimating your brain to change: okay, scratch that, I have to go. I'll find it later. I never realized how massive NG's online archives are!

I've been hearing lots about the right whales lately. This article is kind of old, but tell me what you think (making an effort to be positive here!): http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/10/right-whales/chadwick-text

And everyone (ehe, everyone, funny), please know that I'm not trying to force opinions on you. There's so much going on in the world, and most of it is many-layered and incredibly confusing, it's so impossible to know what to think. Maybe if we were actually in the countries where everything is taking place (well, we are in one, aren't we, and it's still confusing) we'd be able to form better ideas of what's going on. Everything I post is someone's opinion. Where would we be in the world if no one had opinions? Could we debate? No.

I heard this random philosophical talk by Alan Watts recently, saying that you can't have good without evil. It was kind of odd, but it made perfect sense. here's some info on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts

I also just found an Alan Watts quote on Determinism (the philosophical belief in fate and that our lives are pre-determined) that I think is clever:

“There was a young man who said ‘damn.

It certainly seems that I am

a creature who moves in determinate grooves.

I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram.'”

Russia Today: Reaping Africa

Interesting perspectives on the situation in Africa: economy, trading, foreign aid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm_2Av3mxIk#