veganarky

My friend Sherbs time came to an end today, after living with breast cancer for a few years. This has struck me in myriad ways, some quite unexpected and at times a little overwhelming —irrespective that it was expected any day, after her move into hospice care a week or so ago. I am struggling a little with words, and some feel just wrong. For example, in trying to describe Sherbs’ wonderful smile — which light up rooms, what comes to mind is ‘infectious’… In part, an awareness of how I need to work on processing aspects of life (and death) has come to the fore a…

My title here conflates two things, whereas my thoughts are about these as quite distinct — coming out of attending a well funded and institutionally supported conference (following on from a more grass roots one without any funding or institutional support beyond the participants themselves). I am reflecting on two different people speaking early on. One being an organiser of the event, another a keynote speaker. The former felt a need to talk about themselves, how many of these conferences they have attended, how they had been involved, what they had done in being so involved, what they had …

I recently went to/participated in two (activist/academic and academic) conferences, and had some interesting conversations early on at the first of these reflecting on the state of activism around the animal question. There was a pre‐conference public lecture/pre‐book launch for the former which had a recurring theme that a focus on the ‘production’ of animals as commodities was far more important‐interesting than on consumption practices. This theme came up in a conversation I had the today (during the first day of the activist/academic conference), with someone I&nb…

I recently watched the ABC (Australia) produced two-part TV series The Secret River, based on Kate Genville’s 2005 ‘historical novel about an early 19th-century Englishman transported to Australia for theft. The story explores what may have happened when Europeans colonised land already inhabited by Aboriginal people’ [Wikipedia]. However I wanted the outcome to be different — be it white guilt, romanticising less atrocious and brutal settler-colonial attitudes (even just hoping form a different portrayal, however inaccurate) — what it portrays is pretty accurate. In short, aside form the ove…