Dolphin hunt, factory farming - is one worse than the other?

The papers have been filled recently with reports of the dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan. Like many others, I condemn the dolphin hunt, but no less do I condemn the factory farming of animals such as chickens, pigs and cattle here in Australia and around the world.

In fact, if reports are to be believed,  the hunting of the dolphins in Taiji is done for the support of a community which has no other way of making a living - and although this doesn't excuse what they do, I think the factory farming of animals here in Australia for no other reason than that it is convenient and cost-efficient to do so - simple economics, really - is far worse.

The worse-ness of what we do here in Australia is compounded by the fact that we could easily choose otherwise - alternatives to factory farmed animal products, and in fact animal products generally, are readily available and, by and large, affordable. But for the most part we choose not to take up these alternatives simply because we have a preference for the flavour of animal products. To put it baldly, we treat animals badly – animals who demonstrably feel stress and pain and fear – and kill them, just because we like to eat them and we like to do it cheaply.

Yet somehow the fresh horror and definable size of the dolphin slaughter makes more of an impact on us than what happens here at home, and as a result it produces more outcry. Maybe it’s because factory farming is, for us, like background noise – ongoing, so much a part of our culture that we don't think to question it or find it too hard to challenge it, or, because of the diffuseness of the decision-making and production involved in the process somehow seems to obliviate blame, guilt, responsibility. Maybe it’s because the animals targeted in the Japanese hunt are beautiful, often-eulogised dolphins rather than the less exotic and emotive cattle or chooks. Maybe it’s because condemnation of the Japanese hunt involves a feel-good, one-off burst of righteous indignation over something that happens somewhere else, affecting others, rather than here, and which doesn’t come with the twin perils of self-examination and its inevitable aftermath of ongoing sacrifice or the inconvenience of having to repeatedly excuse one’s behaviour to oneself or ignore one’s conscience.

Whatever the reason, does this mean, then, that I think we shouldn’t condemn the Japanese dolphin hunt? Of course not. But we should certainly do it with an awareness that we do far worse, and on a far greater scale, here in Australia, and that, through every purchasing choice we make at the supermarket, at restaurants, at take away shops, we can either choose to participate in it or we can choose to turn our minds, bodies, purchasing power, towards something better.

If you would like to learn more about factory farming, I recommend you visit the website of Voiceless, an independent, non-profit think tank focused on raising awareness of animals suffering in factory farming (and the kangaroo industry) in Australia.

Trash or treasure

It is once again that time of year when suburban residents are encouraged to place any rubbish too large for the Otto bins which are the repositories of weekly household refuse on the nature strips which run, in Sydney, betwixt footpath and street. The rubbish may only be put out in the week leading up to the date the local Council has scheduled as its cleanup day, and as the piles start to go out you see drivers in big, beat-up old station wagons and sometimes big, beat-up old trucks slowly driving the streets...

The reason for the drivers is because I like to think of this week's lead-up to the Council cleanup as a vast communal sharing, something of a giant swap-meet, as, between the broken plant pots on one side and the degraded leatherette sofa on the other, there is often treasure to be found for anyone who is not proud, has a little imagination and a vehicle large enough to cart off discovered treasures.

I have managed to furnish a good bit of my house with things I have on the side of the road, unwanted by someone who had obviously upgraded to something better or at least newer and was too impatient to be rid of the old even to wait for eBay to consume the things that, once loved, have been obliterated by the shine of New Stuff. There is the beautiful wooden crate which, topped by a large sheet of glass I found in another cleanup, makes a rustic coffee table; the small cupboard which, when I painted it and added wrought-iron handles, makes a beautiful DVD cabinet; the lovely wooden TV cabinet which I measured to make sure it would fit in my house and then, when I had wrestled it over to the back of my car found it wouldn't fit, and had to call for backup; and the chair I'm sitting in now, the one I always say I'm going to grow old in.

The thing I particularly like about Council cleanups is you never know what you might find - you have to view things with an eye of grace and to be quick and decisive - while many wait for night to fall to go back and claim things they've eyeballed during the day, individuals with less shame generally swoop in as soon as they find something.

What I've learnt from this is that it's better to claim something with potential immediately - if, by the time you get it home, it doesn't fit into the space you thought it would be perfect for, or, on closer examination or in better light it shows flaws which would be too difficult or disproportionally expensive to fix - you can just throw it back into the Council cleanup sea by putting it on your kerb (assuming, of course, that it is Council cleanup time in your area - be careful about this, many Sydney councils now impose heavy fines for illegally dumped rubbish).

In a really good Council cleanup, there is almost a festival air as people on morning walks stop to glance through the unwanted things of their neighbours, triumphantly carrying off unexpected treasures - and for the environmentally-aware, there is the added knowledge that you have saved something still in good condition from ending up in landfill while eliminating the need to buy that particular thing new from some shop, thus saving the production and transport costs associated with such purchase.

So, when you next start to see the piles of unwanted things appearing on nearby streets, take a walk, pocket your pride and venture into the land of opportunity.

Tim Tams, self control and the profit motive

If only they sold self control with the Tim Tams!

Of course at first glance this would seem to be a self-defeating, profit-cutting endeavour - surely with self-control people would eat less Tim Tams and thus buy less Tim Tams and thus reduce the profit margin of the Tim Tam makers? Not necessarily so. Because, you see, I and many I know, well aware of our weakness for the chocolate-y goodness which is this biscuit, avoid them entirely except for moments of extreme emotional duress when the sugar/caffeine hit of a packet's-worth is the only thing that will take the edge off the psychological squirm. Assuming that such a Tim Tam consumption pattern arises maybe three or four times a year, that is only three or four packets of Tim Tams sold to each of our households per annum.

If however we had sufficient self-control to limit ourselves to say a single Tim Tam as a daily treat with our afternoon cup of tea, you're looking at a consumption pattern of one packet of Tim Tams every 11 days, or roughly 33 packets a year. Even assuming that we only buy a packet of Tim Tams say once every month (allowing for the sampling of other goodies with our afternoon tea, just to keep things fresh), you're still looking at a level of consumption which is three to four times higher than that seen in individuals with no Tim Tam-related self control whatsoever.

Based on these calculations, it seems there may be a tangible benefit waiting to be reaped from the investment of funds into the research and development of a Tim Tam-related self control substance which would, in the manner of all good grocery chains everywhere, be featured in its beautifully product-erised (designed, branded, focus-group-tested) form on the shelf above or below or beside the Tim Tams to encourage co-purchasing of the two products and, by immediately doubling the number of products sold, still further increasing profit margins.

(Put this way, I'm rather surprised no one's thought of this already...)

In other random product-related news, I noted recently that CC's has brought out an energy corn chip. I can't remember the brand name (obviously their marketing wasn't directed towards my target group), but I do remember thinking, hmm, a corn chip with guarana, now there's an idea. When does the Valium-laden salsa dip to offset the unnatural hype produced by consumption of said corn chip come out?