Can you believe it?

I was being very unproductive last week, so I banned myself from blogging--even reading other blogs--until I had completed a draft of my conference paper. I wrote the last sentence yesterday at lunchtime, but rather than blogging, it was time for election results to start coming in!

So I ran over to the uni club, where a big screen was set up with the local news (who was going back and forth between CNN and NBC coverage, with a little Aussie flavour thrown in every now and again). It was so cool to be surrounded by other Americans, Canadians, Australians, Jamaicans, Africans, and people from just about every corner of the globe. We all cheered every time a new state was announced for Obama. Then we sat in shock as Obama was announced president. We sat smugly as John McCain conceded defeat, and we shouted "Yes We Can" along with Barack Obama gave his deadly acceptance speech.

Up until now (well, yesterday) I refused to get my hopes up. To be honest, I didn't have enough faith in the American public to do the right thing. I would rather be cynical than crushed if Obama had lost. So when CNN showed footage of everyone screaming and cheering--no commentary, just excitement for about 2 minutes--I didn't quite know what to think. I pretty much couldn't believe it as I listened to Obama's speech. I really liked what he had to say. I am hopeful for America, and the world, for the next few years.

So now, paper done and Obama elected, I've finally got time to catch up on all your blogs, and then get down to posting some of the many photos I have sitting around on my camera! See you soon!

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Brisbane.

I’m back from my trip to Brisbane. I spent nearly 6 days in the state capital. The plan was to attend a big rally on Saturday, and then to go to the first few days of a trial on Monday and Tuesday. Some unexpected events came up... but I’ll get to them. First, though, I had a nice day off on Thursday and Friday (not that I needed a day off. I’d just taken a few days off to spend with Andy who had just come home from PNG). Thursday was my travel day, and after getting in to the house I was staying at, I did some grocery shopping and then went into West End for some chocolate cake from The Forest Café.

On Friday I walked to uni, did a little bit of stuff in the library there, and then took the ferry into the city. I strolled around South Bank, the super-landscaped space just across the river from the city centre. This is the place where they held the (much protested) Expo 88. Leftover from that event is this Nepalese Peace Pagoda.

In the background is a BIG ferris wheel. I’m pretty sure that’s not usually there. Maybe it’s to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Expo 88?

The pagoda is set in a mini rainforest walk with a creek. When I walked through here, I saw ducks and a big lizard. That’s pretty cool, considering how urban it is.

After settling down near the river with a book for a little while, I made my way through a few art galleries, and then slowly headed towards New Farm, via the Brunswick Street Mall which has a very Chinatown feel to it.

In New Farm, I was meeting Amy, Cam, and some other Brisbane vegans for dinner. The plan was for vegan pizza, but the bar was packed so we opted for yummy asian food instead. Good vegan food and good company... what more could you ask for?

That was the good part of my trip.

On Saturday morning I put my red, black and gold shirt on, made myself a sandwich and headed in to the rally nice and early. The rally was in support of Lex Wotton, charged with inciting a riot on Palm Island following a death in custody. He is on trial as we speak (I'll talk about the trial soon). I walked through Musgrave Park, then went for a coffee with some other rally-goers. When we came back to the park just before the start of the rally to find police taping off a crime scene. There had been a murder in the park. And the location of the murder was the same place where I'd passed some people sleeping (at least I thought they were sleeping) earlier that morning. So I ended up completely missing the rally because I spent the afternoon in the police station giving a statement about details that I only vaguely noticed in the first place.

That was the bad part of my trip.

The rest was mostly good, but tiring, and really productive. Monday was the first day of Lex's trial, so there was a fairly large group of outspoken people with banners and signs.

We showed our support for Lex, who seemed to appreciate our presence.

I stayed for the first two days of the trial. We chanted and held placards in the morning and at lunch time, and in between we snuck into the court room to listen to the case. The trial is expected to last 3 weeks (up to 17 witnesses!), and we're all holding our breath and crossing our fingers that all goes well.

So anyways, I'm back now. Still exhausted from the trip, and still digesting everything that happened while I was there! Which is why this post is far less succinct and logical than I would like! But I'm getting my head back together, slowly but surely...

Cherry Ripe Slice

I haven't been blogging much lately because I've been keeping pretty busy. A lot is happening in my neck of the woods. You may remember about a year ago when I was very busy with the Hurley trial--a police officer charged (for the first time ever in Australia) with manslaughter after an Aboriginal man died in police custody. Well, that officer is back in court, trying to appeal the decision that sent him to trial in the first place. It's all a bit ridiculous--less than an hour after his arrest, Mulrunji was dead. And this police officer is refusing to accept any responsibility.

Of course we couldn't let the issue pass with no media attention, much as Hurley would have liked it that way. And what is the best way to get the media's attention? A 10 metre banner is a good place to start. Add in some local Aboriginal elders who have a lot to say, and you have a surefire way to make the news.

(There were more people than this before this photo was taken. All up, there were about 10 or 20 protesters, and an equal amount of journalists, photographers and videographers. This picture was taken after they had all gone into the courthouse.)

I have not been too busy to eat, although I've been eating pretty junky food. Think toast, ice cream, and noodles. One very good thing (though not healthy) I've been eating is Cherry Ripe Slice. I saw the recipe posted by wantingkneading and knew I had to try it. I was going to wait until Andy came home to share with him, but then I decided to make them for an animal rights group meeting. But the meeting was postponed, so I had to share them with others and eat a bunch myself.

Overall the recipe was fantastic, and really quite easy. There are three steps, but each layer is quick to assemble and has very little hands-on time. My only complaint was that there was too much base for my pan-size, so I had to eat a bit of it before it went in the oven (what a shame). Next time I'll chop my cherries more finely, but otherwise this was a real winner! Three cheers for wantingkneading! Mine didn't photograph as nicely as hers, but they were so delicious I didn't really mind.

Musical activism and vegan health.

Last night Andy and I went along to the Townsville Cinema Group, which shows films at a local theatre every fortnight. The films they play are often foreign, documentaries, or otherwise unlikely to show in mainstream Townsville theatres. For the price of one ticket, you get to watch two films. Last night was 'activist musician documentary night', so we went along to watch The US vs. John Lennon, and Shut Up & Sing.

Both documentaries were very good, but my favourite of the two was the first one. Previously, I thought of John Lennon as a Beatle, of course, and then as a bit of a loopy hippy guy. But this film showed a very outspoken anti-war activist who used prefigurative means of protest. He sang about peace, love, revolution. He and his wife spent their honeymoon in a bed for a week in front of the media and talked about peace to their captive audience. He also had to fight a major battle against the Nixon administration, the FBI, and the INS--purely because he made friends with radical activists like Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale. I had goosebumps for most of the film; this is the sort of movie that I watched as an undergrad student that unleashed my inner activist (and made me want to study this stuff). I highly recommend watching this movie.

The second one was an interesting contrast. The similarities between the Vietnam era and the Iraq war are striking, but probably not quite as striking as are the differences. Shut Up & Sing is about the Dixie Chicks and their statement in England that they are "ashamed the president comes from Texas". I remember hearing about that, and hearing all the backlash--but I didn't realise quite how intense it was. Their sales plummeted, people burned their CDs and protested outside their shows, and there was even a death threat. But, while they were pretty strongly opinionated throughout the whole saga, they were a bit apologetic, I thought. Still, it was ridiculous that they were branded as traitors, 'Dixie Sluts', and un-American. I couldn't help but wonder how different things would have been if they were men...

----

In other news, someone has emailed me a link to an article you may find interesting. It's called 57 Health Benefits of Going Vegan. While I think that the best reason to go vegan is ethically rather than for health, there is no denying that veganism is good for the body as well as the soul. I'll definitely be printing this out to bring to public displays of the Townsville Animals Alliance, so that when people say veganism isn't healthy I don't even have to argue with them.

Labor Day long weekend.

As I said on May Day proper, the holiday is celebrated on the fifth of May in Queensland and NT. Townsville has historically been a very Labor-oriented place, and last year the May Day march saw 5,000 people turn up.

Photo from the Townsville Bulletin.

It wasn’t quite this big this year. There were still a buttload of people there, mainly union members. We marched along the beach, from one park to another. The march was fairly organised—each union stayed together, followed by the community groups like Amnesty. The Stolen Wages mob was in that section of the march. We carried placards and banners, we shouted till our throats were sore, and we got a whole lot of media attention. Once we reached the destination, two people from our group were amongst the speakers for the event. Listening to them speak gave me goose bumps; they were really deadly. Later on, the event organisers gave awards to the best represented union and community group—and we won!

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. But, there were plenty of photographers there, so I will get some pictures off them to jog my memory when I’m writing. Because I wasn’t preoccupied with taking photos, I was able to fully absorb everything I saw, have really good, in-depth conversations with young and old activists, and just generally have a great time. This was the kind of day that makes me love doing a PhD. I get paid (well, a scholarship) to go to this and have these conversations. Sure, there’s a lot of reading and eventually writing in addition to these days, but it’s totally worth it.

After spending several hours in the sun at May Day, I came home, wrote up pages and pages of notes about the day, and then got stuck into a cookie baking extravaganza.

I made cherry chocolate chip cookies.

And Vegan with a Vengeance ‘sparkled ginger cookies’.

I made Anzac biscuits, too, but they seriously didn’t work. The dough was really runny, but I’ve never made Anzac bikkies before so I tried baking them anyways, with disastrous results. They were thin, hard, and inedible. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all.

The cookies went into a box along with a few other things to sustain Andy between food barge visits up at Lizard Island. I don’t want to give away any surprises, since he reads my blog from the island, but here’s a peek.

During the cookie baking I managed to eat a lot of cookie dough. Like, seriously, too much. I had a headache from all the sugar I had ingested. To counteract some of the sugary effects, I made a very healthy dinner (which was also ridiculously easy to make). Step one, boil soba noodles and drain. Step two, boil water, add wakame flakes and chopped ginger and garlic. Step three, turn off heat and stir in a scoop of miso. Step four, pour broth over noodles. Ta. Da.

Miso soup. Delicious, and much better for you than cookie dough.

Variety is the spice of life.

To continue on my Andy-less breakfast binge I made muffins, an item that Andy does not like for breakfast. Since I had some carrots that needed using, I made Spicy Carrot Raisin Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. Instead of just raisins I used dried mixed fruit.

These muffins were tasty, but there was more carrot than batter—I think because my carrots were slightly larger than the ‘medium’ carrots the recipe called for. I hate that in recipes… I would much rather have measurements that I can choose not to follow than something so broad as ‘one small pumpkin’. Those are arbitrary. Anyways, the spices in the muffins were really good, but my silicon muffin cups mean I’ll never get big crunchy muffin tops.

For dinner that night I had a spicy southwest meal. I cooked up a batch of black eyed peas and turned them into ‘Spicy black eyed peas and rice’ from The Vegan Gourmet. This recipe was such a let down. It was just brown rice, black eyed peas, caramelised onions, and black pepper. It did, however, make a good base for some sautéed veggies smothered with ‘Mexican Chilli Gravy’ from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah.

Just spicy enough to make my nose run without leaving me too sweaty, this chilli is another winner from one of my favourite cookbooks. The Vegan Gourmet, however, has been a bit of a let down—though the appetiser section is really, really good.

Now, onto non-food things. The wonderful Alice (in Veganland) has passed along a blogger excellence award. Thanks, Alice! It's good to be appreciated! Now I get to pass along the award. There are so many excellent blogs out there, but I'm going to give the award to two deserving women...

• The Little One of The Potato Vine blog. Her political posts say exactly what I'm thinking but more, or they give me information I wanted to know. Her training posts are inspiring. And her vignettes about teaching confirm my future plans. No matter how busy I am, I check her blog regularly. Keep it up, The Little One!
• Amy from Iron Chef Vegan. In addition to posting photos of delicious looking food, both savoury and sweet, and in addition to being a lovely person who shared her favourite Chinese place with me, Amy's recent anti- anti-feminist rant was awesome!

And here's an infuriating article... Peta is negotiating with Australian wool farmers. If they phase out mulesing and breed bald-assed sheep in future, Peta will stop convincing people that wool is bad. Peta! Stop being so lame! Negotiating with the cruelty industry is not what we want! People need to stop using animals for our wants and desires (they're definitely not needs anymore!) and let animals exist for their own selves. Fuck.

But on a happier front, a really good new song has been released in Australia. It uses parts of Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations, and a few other big-deal speeches in recent Australian history. It's a remake of a 1992 song by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody, which is also very moving. Both versions give me goosebumps! Watch them, even if you're not Australian. They are good.

Rise up.

Warning: this post contains a whole lot of yeast. And then I’ll talk about May Day. The connection: rising up.

After looking at a post by Katie the other day I got a big craving for Mac & Yeast. But it was early in the week and I wanted to use some veggies while they were still fresh. Plus, I didn’t feel like using a zillion pans and a baking dish. This dinner was a delicious compromise. Spiral pasta and steamed broccoli smothered in ‘All American Cheez Sauce’ from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. This sauce was really yummy and creamy, and it contains a carrot so it’s extra healthy. I wanted to eat the whole pan in one go because it was that good, but I actually had enough for two filling meals.

Of course, I only used half of the yeasty sauce on my pasta, so I’ve been coming up with creative ways to use the rest.

On the weekend I made bagels. I love bagels, and when I lived in the US I ate a ridiculous amount of them. My parents used to buy me the bakery bagels that were super big and soft and I would have them for breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner. Unfortunately, Australians (or at least North Queenslanders) have no appreciation of a good bagel—there is exactly one pre-packed brand in the shops here, and that one brand is over-priced and under-good. So I have to make my own. I followed the recipe linked by Lori, and did lots of kneading, waiting (for the uprising, of course), shaping, boiling and baking to get 12 medium bagels. To keep them fresh, I stuck them into the freezer after they had cooled.

This morning I took one out for breakfast and spread it with vegemite and some leftover cheez sauce. Baker’s yeast in the bagels, brewer’s yeast in the ‘mite, and nutritional yeast in the sauce—holy yeasty!

Also! Today is May Day!! The international day of worker’s struggle. A lot of riots, demonstrations, and uprisings have happened on this day throughout history, starting with Chicago's Haymarket riot in 1886. To distance Labour Day from this history of radical protest action, the US switched to a September holiday, but there are still May Day marches in major US cities. In Australia, most states have a public holiday on May Day, but QLD and NT have the holiday on 5 May—Monday.

In Townsville, Monday will feature a May Day march which coincides with an indigenous day of action. The issue to focus on in Queensland this year is Stolen Wages. It is a very complex issue, but in a nutshell, here’s the story:

From the late 1800s through the 1970s, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people lived under various government acts which often moved them onto reserves and forced them to work. They were involuntarily hired out as stockmen, domestic servants, workers on farms and sugar cane plantations, and the equivalent of today’s council workers (building roads, etc). The entire indigenous population was deemed financially irresponsible, so the government ‘kindly’ took their money and deposited it into a trust fund. Indigenous workers had to apply for pocket money or special purchases, many of which were completely denied. The government used some of this money to cover food and housing expenses, but considering the poor living conditions on reserves, there was a fair chunk left over. And since it was in trust, it was gaining interest. After the dissolution of the controlling acts, the Queensland government just kept the money. Some of it was used to fund hospitals, roads, and other infrastructure around the state. We’re talking tens of millions of dollars.

A few years ago Peter Beattie, the then-premiere of Queensland, offered $58 million as reparation payments to workers who had their wages stolen. The reparation payments were not based on how much money one had actually earned during their years and decades of labour. If you were born before a certain date you were paid $4000, and after that date it was $2000. Of 16,000 to 20,000 eligible people, only 10,000 applied—many thought the offer was insulting. Of those 10,000 applicants, one third were ineligible, often because government records were destroyed during a particularly dark period of QLD government. Because there were so few applicants, there was $35 million dollars left in the reparation fund, so the government started a community consultation process to decide what to do with it. I went to the consultation meeting in Townsville, which had the same result as all the others across the state—give the money back! Loosen up the restrictions so people who deserve the money can get it. There was 100% consensus at the Townsville meeting. That’s a pretty strong message.

But, a few weeks ago the new QLD premiere announced that some of the leftover funds would be paid out to original claimaints, but the remaining $20 million-odd would go to a scholarship fund. Aboriginal elders agree that scholarships and education are vital, but they feel that should be funded by the government anyways. They want their freaking money back! There have been several protests and meetings around the state, but the big statements will be made on Monday.

Sorry, that was a really big nutshell… more like a coconut. Anyways, that’s what I’ll be doing on Monday: joining with other people who care and rising up. We’ll be like a tablespoon of yeast. I’m selling stolen wages tee-shirts. If you’re in Australia and you want one, send me an email and we’ll work something out. They’re $20, and the money goes towards the Townsville Indigenous Human Rights Group and funds things like Monday’s rally.

Happy May Day, everyone!

The last suppers

Andy left for his dive trip this morning—at 5.15 am, to be exact. That’s pretty early. Now I’ve got a month of cooking for one. I’m planning to eat lots of the stuff he doesn’t love, like corn bread, bagels, and muffins. It sounds very carb-y, and that’s okay, but I expect I’ll eat a lot of veggies as well. I haven’t cooked for one since I left the US two years ago, and I had a giant freezer for leftovers then, so it will be a bit of a challenge, but Andy has a few more trips over the next three years so I’d better get used to it!

Anyways, these are the last few meals-for-two that we had.

Monday night we made a last minute decision to have pizza. Luckily, I had a ball of dough in the freezer, so we thawed it out in a sink of hot water and then loosely followed a recipe from the newspaper. The original was called “Pumpkin, Spinach and Ricotta Pizza”. Ours was roasted rosemary pumpkin, baby spinach, green capsicum, a few capers and olives, and then whole fresh basil leaves on top. I sprayed the whole pizza with oil so the basil leaves semi-fried themselves in the oven and got all crispy. Yum.

Then, for the very last meal before going to an island with no grocery store, Andy wanted mushrooms. Every fortnight a barge delivers food from the mainland, but mushrooms don’t weather the trip so well. And luckily they were marked down at the shop yesterday afternoon, so he got three or four containers. When I came home, one container of portabellas was marinating in a mixture of soy sauce, orange juice, and garlic, to be baked later. Another container of pre-sliced mushrooms became part of a simple tofu scramble. We got a very cool white-skinned, purple-fleshed sweet potato from the market, so we tossed that with oil, cinnamon and brown sugar to make sweet potato fries. And to add in some more fresh veggies we had a salad of avocado, raw corn, and cherry tomatoes.

The sweet potato fries, pre-sugar’n’spice.

The whole meal. I couldn’t decide whether the flash photo or the no-flash was better, so I’m putting up both! Click for a bigger version.

PS—Remember this day in 2000 when upwards of 20,000 people protested and blockaded the spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF? Me either, I was in 10th grade and was more focused on my assignments than on global issues. But there were puppets, there was street theatre*, there was communal housing, there were bands and games and fun and protest, and, most importantly, there were 20,000 people! 20,000 people who gave a damn about the way the world was going. When I went to protest the spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF in 2005, there were probably 2000 or 3000 people there. What happened to everyone? The optimist in me would say they are off fighting where it really matters, on the local level. That's where I prefer to do my activism. But I am aware that a lot of people get burnt out and/or jaded--which reminds me: we all need to relax every now and then and just take some time for ourselves. So tonights plan: hot bath with essential oils and a non-uni related book!

*That's right, theatre, not theater. Although I'm from the US with our -er and -or endings, I have changed to -re and -our endings of the British and Australian spelling, as Alec astutely noticed last week. My reasoning is mostly practical, since my academic writing is viewed by other Australians and the local spelling is easier on their eyes. But I also sort of just like it better.

Veggies, please. Also, money and politics.

Today, I bring you two veggie-full meals, and also a rant.

First was an oven meal. I marinated some tofu in a combination of lemon and lime, turmeric, and lots of cumin. Then I baked it, and halfway through I added some broccoli. In another pan, radishes and green beans roasted away with garlic, salt and oil. And, still another pan had pumpkin roasting with fresh rosemary and black pepper. Roasted radishes are the bomb-diggity.

And this was a stove-top meal. Plain mashed potatoes topped with fresh parsley. Sautéed spinach with onion, grated carrot, sesame and soy. And a mixture of steamed veggies—carrot, zucchini, green beans and capsicum—toasted sunflower seeds, and raw sprouts—alfalfa, mung bean and snow pea—tossed with olive oil and lemon juice.

On the ABC last night there was a big story about political bribes and developers and MPs. They said that the 2007 Australian election was the most expensive ever. One person interviewed said that was because of things like TV ads which cost lots of money—so they source the money from developers and other interested parties. And I can only imagine how much money Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton have spent on slagging each other in the US.

The concept of money in politics is something that has always pissed me off. It removes any semblance of democracy from government. First of all, if campaigning costs lots of money (and it does, even at the local level) then only a select few people can run. That cuts off the political voice of a fair few people.

Then you add in ‘private contributions’, also known by some as bribes. Politicians cannot exist without these donations which fund their muy expensive campaigns. Thus, those who can afford to give money to politicians have more of a say in how the government is run than those who can’t.

It’s simple, but I think it’s wrong. I’ve been aware since high school that what America calls democracy is actually very far from democratic. Things like the electoral college just strike me as silly. But political donations is wrong on so many levels; unfortunately, those with the most to gain from said donations are the ones making the laws. And it's not a new issue, nor is it particularly controversial, so a lot of people would rather not think about it. But I think we should!

So what do we do about it? Well, ultimately I would like to see State governments as we know them to disappear. But I don’t really think that’s likely to happen very soon. Until then, how 'bout publicly funded elections? Sure, the initial costs might be a bit expensive, but we could always take that funding away from some useless pursuit, like military expenditure. That way, anyone could run for office, regardless of whether they are rich or poor. That would probably see a more representative body of elected officials, since most people can't even dream of the sort of money John McCain, Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama or Kevin Rudd make. It would also reduce the influence of small but well-funded special interest groups like the NRA. Hopefully, another effect would be that money we give to causes we support (AR, environment, etc) would go to practical solutions and mass education rather than being wasted on lobbying politicians.

Those are just my two cents--two cents which will never be donated to a political party, but will more likely be spent on tofu or cat food or second-hand clothing.

Random.

I’ve been tagged by Lori over at Pleasantly Plump Vegan to give five random facts about myself. I’ve tried to make them as random as possible, and things that most people don’t know about me.

1. I own exactly five pairs of shoes. One pair, hot pink, strappy high heels, hasn’t been worn in about two years. Two others, pregan clog-style Earth Shoes and hard plastic flat sandals I got for free from a clothing donation box, are worn very rarely. I have a pair of sneaker-like Payless shoes that I wear for biking. But, 40% of the time, I wear flip flops, and 50% of the time I’m barefoot.
2. I have spent 160 hours under the sea (not counting snorkelling or swimming). I became scuba certified just before heading over to PNG for two months or hard-core diving, so I had to catch on quickly. I also learned to identify corals to genus level (some to species level). I haven’t been diving in over a year, since that trip.
3. I have two tattoos. One is on my front right side, just on the inside of my hip. It is the symbol for my astrological sign, Scorpio. I got that one in December 2005, and it took about 20 minutes of pain. The other is a jasmine flower, on my upper left thigh. I got that one in January 2006, and it took nearly three hours. I gave the tattoo artist creative licence on that one, and it came out really, really great. I want more, but probably won’t get them any time soon.
4. As cute as they are, I really hate green tree frogs. They make the most annoying noises when its damp out, and for some reason they love to croak just outside the bedroom window at about 5 am.
5. I usually sleep on my side or my stomach. But every morning, between 5 and 7, Nacho stands on my pillow and stares at me with her purr on in a big way. She stays there until I roll on my back, and then she lays on my stomach for a pat. I usually like it, unless she kneads and uses claws. She usually only stays for 5 or 10 minutes, but sometimes she falls asleep there until the sun gets really bright.

Since I’m posting random things, I thought I would put up some random food photos.

Here is some tofu dill salad, from Vegan with a Vengeance. I thought this was really tasty on sandwiches and wraps, but it was quite dry. Unfortunately, I used the last of my tofu mayo when I mixed it up, so I couldn’t add any to the mix. I think it was so dry because I used frozen tofu and it sucked up liquid like a sponge.

And here is a fancy pasta dish, which I invented by combining two recipes from Vegan Planet. Fettucini is tossed with sautéed strips of capsicum and zucchini, and then covered in a cannellini-balsamic sauce. This was really easy to put together, and really very tasty.

A few weeks ago, we got a pressure cooker. I’m still playing with the timing for perfectly-cooked beans, but it comes in handy. Except for last time I cooked kidney beans. I think the pot was a bit too full, and I must have let the pressure off a bit too quickly, because I ended up with red liquid squirting out of the lid. Lovely. Still, it’s quick and relatively easy, so I like it.

Pressure cooker tips from experts would be much appreciated, though.

Now for some random links. Well, not really random.

I posted about this last week, but I think it's worth mentioning again. 400 kangaroos are set to be culled (read: murdered) by the Australian government. In protest, Aboriginal Australians are teaming up with animal rights activists and making a pretty big statement, even offering to take the lethal injection on behalf of the kangaroos. Said one Aboriginal member of the Tent Embassy, "If you could see the kangaroos through our eyes, you would see how important this is to me," he said. "This cull is genocide, because these kangaroos are my brothers, they're my sisters, they're my aunties, my uncles and my babies." Peter Garrett has said this is necessary--what a freakin' sellout. This article also quotes an AR activist: "I've heard the Government saying the cull is for conservation, but it's not, it's about development." That's the key, I think, it's all about development.

In addition to being bad for kangaroos, the Australian government isn't so good for sheep, either. After selectively breeding sheep with lots and lots of skin, sheep farmers have found that the excessive skin around a sheep's bum is a breeding ground for blowflies. They lay eggs in the moist wool and the maggots then burrow into the sheep's body and slowly kill it. It's pretty gruesome, so to avoid that fate the sheep farmers simply slice off the excess bum skin. It's called mulesing, and they do it without any pain relief or bandaging up afterwards. Peta has been pushing for a while to get this practice changed, and now a few European countries are banning Australian wool until the practice is made more humane. I think the focus should be less on making it more humane, and more on getting people to stop using wool. Ending one bad practice will make people think they've solved all sheeps' problems, but really, the methods of dipping and shearing don't look very nice from a sheep's perspective. Anyways, sheep are an introduced species which are really not so good for the Australian environment.

Prisoners and sexual violence.

I've been crazy busy the last few days, and I haven't had time to think about uploading photos or coming up with creative new blog posts. So today I'm posting a few things I've grabbed out of Women's Centre newsletters.

This post is inspired by some of my busy-ness. On Monday afternoon, I went to the Townsville Correctional Centre with the Women's Centre, to celebrate International Women's Day with a group of women who are often forgotten about. Currently living their lives behind razor wire, these women are often treated as less-than-human by the prison guards who work in the Women's Secure section. But, the majority of women are in prison for minor offenses, many of which are related to poverty--break and enters, centrelink (welfare) fraud, stealing. But they are still women, and they deserve to be a part of International Women's Day.

So a group of women went up to the prison to spread the IWD cheer. We brought with us a proper deadly Aboriginal poet (proper deadly means really good in local Murri slang). We were met at the prison by an Aboriginal women's dance group and Soroptomist International (a moderate group of older women)--the Soroptomists had funded a visitor from the Pacific, a UN delegate. There were the obligatory speeches, and then there was dancing. A vast majority of the prison population is indigenous, and many of the women got up to join in with the dancers. (I joined in for the freestyle dance at the end, dancing like a turtle.) We heard heart-wrenching stories of homeless women who were victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and poverty, and they don't know what to expect when they leave the prison--will the law protect them at all?

It was an incredibly moving experience, and words just really can't express how amazing and difficult it was. So I'll stop trying, and leave you with these statistics from the newsletters.

How much do we know about violence against women?

The best indicators available are from the ABS Personal Safety Survey 2005 which updates information about women’s experiences of violence collected in the 1996 ABS Women’s Safety Survey.

From the 2005 survey the ABS estimated that in the previous 12 months:
363 000 women (4.7 % of all women) experienced physical violence; and 126 100 women (1.6 %) experienced sexual violence.

The ABS further estimated that:
2.56 million (33 %of all women) have experienced physical violence since the age of 15; and 1.47 million (19 %) have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

From this it is possible to estimate that approximately one in five women (19 %) have experienced sexual violence at some stage in their lives since the age of 15 and one in three women (33 %) have experienced physical violence at some stage in their lives since the age of 15.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/SP/ViolenceAgainstWomen.htm

Statistics on Reporting Rape in Australia

“Though not exact, the consensus seems to be that only one in five rapes gets reported.
So, if 20 out of every 100 rapes are reported to police and 15 per cent of those reports lead to charges being laid, according to latest research, then only about three of the accused in every 100 assaults face trial. This suggests, based on the 25 per cent conviction rate at trial, that fewer than one of the original 100 assaults actually ends up in a conviction.”

Somewhere to help heal and fight back
Simon Mann
The Age
July14 2007

I think this is an important question to ask

If:

• 89% of women in prison have been sexually assaulted

• 70% of men in prison have been sexually assaulted

• one in 4 girls are sexually abused by 18

• one in 8 boys are sexually abused by 18

• On average in a classroom of 30 grade 12 students 5 of these have been affected by sexual assault

• one in 3 women are sexually assaulted

• only 10% of sexual assault is reported to the police

• only 10% of this reported crime results in a conviction and not always a prison sentence

Are there more victims of sexual abuse incarcerated into our ‘Correctional Centres’ than perpetrators of sexual assault?

Heather Bond

Happy birthday to...

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Today, the 21^st of February, is the 160^th anniversary of the first publication of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. I think it’s safe to say this has been one of the most influential books in the world we know today. Over the course of 16 decades, a lot has changed. But I think the basic argument of the Manifesto is still incredibly salient in the world today. This isn't the communism that we know from China or the USSR. This is a critique of capitalism, and a hope for a better world.

As is pointed out by Marx and Engels in the text as well as in prefaces to several editions, “the practical application of the principles will depend … on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II” (from the Preface to the German edition of 1872). So, if the idea of all workers of the world uniting in the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie sounds a bit far-fetched, fret not, the nuts and bolts of the revolution isn't the important part of the Manifesto.

Despite the change in conditions, much of the critique still remains pertinent. For example, the Manifesto argues that capitalism reduces humans to their monetary value [I would argue that it does the same to animals, as well]. It argues that capitalism is out of control, no longer led by the bourgeoisie--it's become an entity of its own volition.

One of the things that I find the most appealing about the Manifesto is that it doesn’t just critique; it also offers a vision for the future: Communism, that is, the abolition of bourgeois property (not property generally). Marx and Engels saw a world in which no one can make profit from the work of others. In fact, the whole notion of profit would be thrown out the window. Exploitation of men and women alike would become extinct, and likewise, “the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to.” As vegans, let's take that one step further and make exploitation of animals extinct.

The other great thing is that Marx and Engels wrote with the average joe as the target audience. The argument is clearly laid out, and though the critique is incredibly potent, it isn’t hidden amongst high-fallutin’ theoretical jargon. The point of the manifesto was to incite a revolution, and that won't happen if everyone is left scratching their heads and searching for a dictionary.

Sure, there are problems with Marx and Engels and the Manifesto. It is very andro- and euro-centric (though some of these issues are addressed through footnotes added later, mainly by Engels). Marx’s idea that every society must go through very specific stages is narrow and has been argued against by many, especially third world scholars. And the notion of violence and bloodshed doesn’t really appeal to me, nor to most people.

But still, the idea that there is a better way for the world breathes life into my inner idealist and revitalises my commitment to ending exploitation and injustice—to animals, to women, to black people, to poor people, to all people.

Happy birthday, Communist Manifesto. Whether you’ve ever read The Communist Manifesto or not, get thee to the nearest library and check out a copy today!

All of my quotes come from the version of the Manifesto which was printed in The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Robert C. Tucker (1978). I highly recommend this book.

Sorry.

Yesterday was a big deal for Australia. Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister, made a formal apology to the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Parliament. The 7.30 Report offered really good pre- and post-apology coverage which is worth a watch. This was a big step, but yet, a lot of people are still sadly misinformed about what, exactly, he was apologising for. Even fewer non-Australians have any clue what the Stolen Generations is. If you’re curious, check out this site, or read Kevin Rudd’s speech here. As a researcher studying Aboriginal activism, I had to go to all the celebrations around Townsville (in the name of duty, afterall) and was regaled by dancing and speeches. I’m glad I was in Australia to see this bit of history unfold.

On the theme of Indigenous Australians, I wrote a short article at the end of January which I'm thinking of submitting to Vegan Voice, Australia's premiere (only?) vegan periodical. Before I send it off, though, I'd like to get some feedback about it. So if you're interested, have a read through and let me know what you think--does it make sense, can you follow the argument, should I expand on anything, that sort of thing. I've tried to keep it short, because there are a whole lot of examples that could be brought in, but here it is...


Getting rid of the cages

On Saturday, 26 January, 2008 an Aboriginal father of five was arrested for drink driving. Since he was serving a suspended sentence for an earlier driving offence, he was remanded to the nearest jail—over 900 km away[1]. He was driven in the back of a paddy wagon which has been described as ‘in a parlous state’, with air conditioning that was very likely not working[2]. During that trip, he collapsed and later died in hospital[3]. The cause of death was a heart attack, and with daytime temperatures of 43 degrees it is hard to believe that transport conditions played no part in the death[4].

This Aboriginal man’s journey sounded strikingly similar to the transport of farm animals. A Canadian animal rights group reports that over 600 million Canadian farm animals are loaded into the backs of semi-trailers and transported for hours on end in the heat of summer and the cold of winter, with no concern for their health and welfare[5]. The Animal Freedom Foundation reports that pigs are transported to slaughterhouses in violent and stressful conditions; and laying hens are “pushed violently into crates for transport, risking fracture, and transported to the slaughterhouse in trucks under stressful conditions”.[6] The Fremantle group, People Against Cruelty in Animal Transport (PACAT) calls for an end to live animal exports from Australia because of stress, injuries, illness and disease which leads to the death of tens of thousands of sheep, cattle, buffalo, goats, deer and camels every year[7].

Stressful, unnecessary transportation in hot conditions leads not only to the death of animals, but also Ian Ward, the Aboriginal elder from Warburton.

This isn’t the only case of Australia’s Aboriginal population being treated like animals. Any history book (or current events, it seems) will indicate a similar disregard for both black people and animals. For example, a 16 year old boy was killed while in police custody in the 1980s; witnesses saw four police officers and one police aid hitting the boy and then they dragged him to a van and ‘threw him in like a dead kangaroo’[8]. No wonder average police officers think of Aboriginal people as animals; the Sydney District Police Commander, Executive Chief Superintendent Alf Peate, in 1990, was quoted: ‘normal surveillance activities can’t operate in a place like the black community . . . Where do you survey the activity of people when they are all the one breed’[9]?

This type of treatment is well represented since the start of colonisation. Monaghan describes some disturbing evidence of trade in Aboriginal body parts:

A deathbed memoir written by Korah H Wills—gold-rush immigrant who became mayor of Bowen in Queensland and a candidate for the colonial parliament—found five years ago in a Surrey attic, contains a confession about the killing of an Aborigine who was later dissected for display[10].

Evans et al. provide observations made in 1871 that clearly indicates the utter lack of disregard for Aboriginal life:

Another occasion, I was travelling on a road where for more than a quarter of a mile, the air was tainted with the putrefaction of corpses, which lay all along the ridges, just as they had fallen. It is true that the offence here was the murder of five shepherds, on one station, in a week, but such wholesale and indiscriminate vengeance seems rather disproportionate, to say the least[11].

This is just one example of large-scale massacres held all over Australia in the first century of white invasion. The imagery is reminiscent of descriptions of rotting bison carcasses in the plains states of the United States during the 19^th century, where bison were left to decay until the bones could be collected easily[12]. It is common to read of Aboriginal people being shuttled to reserves on cattle trucks[13], or having their food and water sources poisoned[14]—much like poisoned food left out for stray cats[15].

Point out these connections to Aboriginal people, and they’re not surprised. As Rintoul bluntly states in his recollections of the past, “That’s the kind of thing Aboriginals had to put up with. They treated us like animals”[16]. When I sat in the Human Battery Cage in Townsville last July, an Aboriginal friend came up and expressed his support, saying he feels for the chickens: ‘they live their whole lives in confinement, just like us blackfellas.’ He said we need to get rid of all the cages in the world, whether they are imprisoning animals, black people, or women.

It’s easy for vegans to become complacent; we think that we’re doing all we can simply by changing our consumption habits. It’s also easy to view problems like racism and speciesism in isolation (and sexism, classism, etc). But the issues are inextricably linked. The blatant disregard for the life and well-being of animals is mirrored in the structural injustices experienced by Aboriginal people in Australia. Ethical vegans need to be aware of these other injustices.

As Lorna Lippman says, “The whole Australian community is at fault for allowing monstrous injustice towards a small minority to continue for so long without stern measures for its amelioration”[17]. In my opinion, this statement can be applied to any number of injustices. Since ethical vegans are already aware of these injustices towards animals, we are ideally seated to bring attention to other injustices in the community and work towards the amelioration of all of them. How do we do it? Join email lists like Women for Wik[18] or WGAR[19] to keep up to date on national happenings. Most importantly, ask around in your local community; there is sure to be an Indigenous action group of some kind. Go to a meeting, or if that makes you uncomfortable, go to an event like Sorry Day or NAIDOC Day. Bring vegan treats to share. Listen to their problems and offer them support in any way you can.

Because really, if society can’t treat fellow human beings with respect and compassion, can we really expect compassion to animals?

__________

[1] http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23134420-421,00.html
[2] http://news.theage.com.au/wa-prisoner-transport-fleet-parlous/20080131-1pbv.html
[3] http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23123722-2,00.html
[4] http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/police-under-scrutiny-after-
aboriginal-custody-death/2008/02/01/1201801035358.html
[5] http://www.spca.bc.ca/farminfo/transportation/
[6] http://www.animalfreedom.org/english/information/5rights.html
[7] http://www.pacat.org/facts.htm
[8] Lippman, L. (1991), Generations of Resistance, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, p. 105.
[9] Lippman, L. (1991), Generations of Resistance, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, p. 117.
[10] Monaghan, D. (1991), “Angel of Black Death”, The Bulletin, 12 November, pp. 31-8.
[11] Evans, R., Suanders, K. and Cronin, K. (1979), “G Carrington 1871”, in Beyond the Act. Queensland Aborigines and Islanders: What do we want?, L. Malerzer, M. Foley and P. Richards, Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action Ltd, Brisbane.
[12] "Cherokee Outlet Cowboy--Recollections of Laban S. Records" by Laban Records b. 1856, d. 1941
[13] Reynolds, H. (1989), Dispossession: Black Australians and White Invaders, St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
[14] Reynolds, H. (1989), Dispossession: Black Australians and White Invaders, St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
[15] http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1429383.htm
[16] Rintoul, S. (1993), The Wailing: A National Black History, William Heinemann, Victoria.
[17] Lippman, L. (1991), Generations of Resistance, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, p. 132.
[18] http://www.nwjc.org.au/womenforwik.html
[19] wgar.news@gmail.com

A night out.

On Wednesday night Andy and I went to see the Townsville Choral Society’s production of Les Miserables. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, Les Mis is just full of social commentary. It questions the law, skewed notions of justice, and the prison system. It depicts the greed and corruption that is rife within capitalist systems. It features class struggles and insurrection—but set to music. The battle is a bit glum, but then, much of history isn’t happy. And for the romantics in the audience, there’s also a love story involved.

I must say, though, it was a bit weird sitting in a theatre full of Townsville’s bourgeoisie while watching this musical. During intermission—just after hearing the students’ tirade against the bourgeois who ignore the plight of every day people—everyone was sucking down champagne and wine. It was the same thing when we got free tickets to see a stage production of Animal Farm in November. For both plays, Andy had to wear proper shoes instead of his usual ratty black thongs. Neither of us feels very comfortable in those situations—we’re definitely not a closed-toe couple.

Despite feeling out of place, Les Mis has been my favourite musical since middle school, when I sang young Cosette’s solo for the high school chorus concert (yes, I was a music geek—I was in the choir and I was lead clarinet). I went to see it on Broadway with my mum in year 10. We watched the non-musical version starring Liam Neeson and Claire Danes in high school French class. Rather than limiting itself to a simple love story (like many musicals seem to do), Les Mis tackles issues like suffering, greed, and poverty all in 3 hours.

I can’t help but make comparisons with my other favourite musical, also about class conflict and insurrection—Newsies.

(Okay, so the ending of Newsies is pretty much the exact opposite of what happened in real life, but it is Disney.) Although this film was released when I was in 2^nd grade, I watched it for the first time in 2005. The songs are catchy and far more cheerful than those from Les Mis (again, it is Disney), and perfect to sing when facing down the police at a protest.

Like this one:

And our ranks will grow
And we’ll kick their rear
And the world will know
That we’ve been here!

Or this one:

Friends of the friendless, seize the day
Raise up the torch and light the way
Proud and defiant
We'll slay the giant
Let us seize the day

Maybe that’s the secret to a successful revolution—catchy song and choreography. So, creative vegans, get to work writing us some music we can sing and dance to as we turn the world herbivorous!

Since I’m a bit too busy with my PhD to write the score to the vegan revolution, here’s my contribution: anarchist pancakes.

More specifically, pancakes made with both white and (reduced to clear) wholemeal flours, coconut milk and nutmeg and topped with local mango slices and maple syrup made by my auntie in upstate NY.

Veganniversary

This month marks the fifth year of my meat-free diet, and the third that I’ve been strictly vegan. For me, veganism is one (important) facet of my commitment to a world which is free of exploitation. I don’t hide the fact that I’m staunchly anti-capitalist—and, thanks to social theorists like Karl Polanyi, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Etienne Balibar, I view capitalism as the root cause of things like racism, sexism, and speciesism.

How did I get here? Well, I’m not really sure. My undergrad supervisor asked me that one day and I had no easy answer. I grew up in a conservative little town in upstate NY where half the school population is missing on the first day of snowmobiling, hunting, and fishing seasons. My parents aren’t quite conservative, but seem to view over-consumption as an American right.

I wasn’t overly aware of political issues when I was growing up. I was concerned about gender inequalities and global warming during high school. I was an animal-lover, and sensitive to others’ troubles. In year 12 government class, we all took an online quiz that matched our values with the political party closest to us. From a class of 30 students, there were 25 republicans, 4 democrats, and one green—me.

In uni, I went through a post-modern feminist phase for a while, but was never really sold on that ideology. In my second semester of uni I became vegetarian and refused to eat or use any product that an animal had to die for (meat, gelatin, leather, cheese with rennet, etc). I was a half-hearted greenie for a while, but thought band-aid solutions were a waste of time.

To make up for excessive wordiness, how about some cat pictures?

Pop goes the Nacho!

I spent a semester in Australia without my po-mo then-supervisor’s influence and shook that attachment. When I returned to the US, I took theory-heavy classes with some great professors which revolutionised the way I thought about the system we live in. I went vegan and anarchist. I read Marx and thought his critique of capitalism was spot-on. I did an honours project on Rastafarians, the ultimate anti-systemic group. I moved back to Australia and now I’m studying Aboriginal activism.

Opposing the forces of racial, sexist, and speciesist exploitation can be a tiring pursuit. Oppression is all around, and it gets depressing to see it everywhere you turn. That’s why veganism is so appealing to me, because it is an incredibly simple way to remove one form of exploitation from my immediate life. And, hopefully we vegans—through our blogs and our good health and our tasty treats—encourage others to buy into the animal industries a little bit less.

That said, I don’t think that simply eating tasty vegan food is enough, and I’ve been feeling a bit stir-crazy lately, so expect some more political posts in the future.