Talking turkey

This Christmas 10 million turkeys will be killed and eaten in the UK. Added to the 45 million that have just met the same fate in the US for Thanksgiving, this represents one of the largest death tolls in such a short time period for any creature.

According to animal welfare charity Viva!, turkeys have a zest for living and, treated with respect, they become very friendly. Wild turkeys live in North and Central America and, apparently, Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the national bird of the US instead of the Bald Eagle. They are striking and handsome, graceful and intelligent. They roost in trees and roam in woodlands, eating vegetation and insects. They live in harems – the mothers being very protective of their young. An adult bird can fly up to 50mph.

How sad then that they have become the food of choice for what is supposedly a Christian festival.

This is poet Benjamin Zephaniah’s plea for this cruelly abused and much maligned bird:

Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked
An every turkey has a Mum.
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,
Don’t eat it, keep it alive,
It could be yu mate, an not on your plate
Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side.
I got lots of friends who are turkeys
An all of dem fear christmas time,
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it
An humans are out of dere mind,
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys
Dey all hav a right to a life,
Not to be caged up an genetically made up
By any farmer an his wife.

Turkeys just wanna play reggae
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying,
‘I cannot wait for de chop’,
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain
In many ways like yu an me.

I once knew a turkey called…Turkey
He said “Benji explain to me please,
Who put de turkey in christmas
An what happens to christmas trees?”,
I said “I am not too sure turkey
But it’s nothing to do wid Christ Mass
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be
An business men mek loadsa cash’.

Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake
In a plate of organic grown beans,
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
An spare dem de cut of de knife,
Join Turkeys United an dey’ll be delighted
An yu will mek new friends ‘FOR LIFE’.

Increased profits from alcohol and drugs

An article in Saturday’s Guardian newspaper offers a sad reflection on 21st Century values.

Looking at what assets rose the most in value during the first nine years of the century (the ‘noughties’), they discovered that the big winners were fine wine and cigarettes.

A case of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982 which would have cost you £2,613 at the beginning of 2000 (already a disturbingly large amount of money for 12 bottles of wine), sold at the end of October this year for £25,500, an increase of 876%.

And shares in British American Tobacco, whose brands include Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall mall rose over the decade by 454% with Imperial Tobacco – makers of West, Gauloises and Rizla - not far behind with an increase of 400%.

Although this was the decade that saw smoking outlawed in public places in the UK such as cafes, bars and workplaces, these two made their vast profits partly by exploiting lucrative new markets such as Nigeria and Pakistan.

So it seems that producing wine for the obscenely rich or peddling a proven cancer-producing drug to poor people in developing countries is the best way to increase your wealth.

How very, very sad.

HFC’s – a threat to the planet, not a football club

Want to know the truth about HFC’s?

What? Exactly… who knows what HFC’s are apart from a few scientists and Greenpeace?

Well, you should; it’s important… so take a look at this video (in which a guy takes his clothes off to convince you to take some action!)

Animal welfare in the frame

The University of Nottingham website reports on the 40th anniversary of the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME).

FRAME was established to carry out research to find ways to reduce, and eventually phase out completely, the use of animals in medical experiments. Their long-term aim is the total elimination of the need for any laboratory animal procedures, through the development, validation and acceptance of replacement alternative methods. The charity has had a laboratory at the University for 25 years.

On 19th November, speakers from the US Food and Drug Administration, the Universities of Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool, Imperial and Nottingham gathered at the Royal Society for a symposium marking this important milestone in the charity’s history.

Speaking about the latest developments in the search for alternatives to using animals, Professor Dave Kendall, of the University’s School of Biomedical Sciences said: “These developments have highlighted the sometimes subtle, but often crucial, differences between human and animal responses to pharmacological intervention, and make the requirement for drug testing based on human systems an increasing necessity.”

Apart from the fact that these new techniques offer the chance of better results in the development of new drugs and medical techniques, they will also reduce the number of animals that suffer and die in the cause of medical research – currently around three million every year in the UK. In a world that is increasingly hostile to animals (with global meat consumption rising and many species on the edge of extinction), it should be a source of some pride for Nottingham that one of its universities is supporting such a worthwhile and forward-looking charity.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste…

Desiderata (Max Ehrmann c.1920) may evoke memories of the flower power and optimism of the 60’s for many but, amidst the cynicism and pessimism of the 21st Century, it now seems more relevant than ever.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Plea for peace in Africa

The World March for Peace and Non-violence reached Mozambique at the beginning of November…

Heroes or villains?

The allegation by a former British army corporal, that he witnessed an officer abuse prisoners and that most of his colleagues hit or kicked Iraqis during the six years that UK forces operated in Iraq, contrasts sharply with the general mood of the British people following a spate of recent deaths of soldiers on active service in Afghanistan.

Despite public opinion turning against the ‘war’, the troops are generally characterised as heroes, regardless of their conduct or military record in Afghanistan and the bodies of those killed there have arrived back in the UK to eulogies from media, government and families that portray each and every one of them as examples of the highest standards of the British army and as defenders of the weak and innocent.

But the testimony today of the only soldier convicted in connection with the death of Iraqi Baha Mousa suggests a very different attitude amongst soldiers in Iraq (and, by implication, those in Afghanistan). Casual violence against civilians, abuse of basic rights and actions verging on torture seem to have been common occurrences during a brutal campaign to subdue the Iraqi insurgency.

Coming so soon after new allegations against British troops of abusing Iraqi civilians (which UK Armed Forces Minister, Bill Rammell, says do not warrant a public enquiry), these revelations are sure to anger many in the Middle East and to raise questions again about the credibility of the claim by allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan that they are there to protect the civilian population and that they represent a coalition of countries that value democracy, accountability and human rights.

10,000 Lucena students in call for world peace

Waving orange mini-flags while swaying to the reggae beat of “Kapayapaan” by the Tropical Depression band, some 10,000 high school students formed a human peace symbol during a mammoth rally held yesterday in the Phillipines in support of the call for world peace and non-violence.

Photo: Phillipine Daily Inquirer

“We are the next generation. We want to inherit a peaceful world where violence is a thing of the past. This may sound illusory for skeptics but we have to dream and act towards its reality before it’s too late for us,” Robert Mendoza, a sophomore student at the Quezon National High School, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The formation of the human peace symbol lasted for about 30 minutes, after which Quezon Representative Proceso Alcala and members of international organization “World Without Wars” (WWW) lit a symbolical peace urn and released several peace doves.

Isabelle Bourgeois, a Swiss member of the WWW, was likewise surprised by the huge crowd of young people declaring their peace commitment in human symbol.

“This is unbelievable!” she told the crowd over the public address system while holding back what she said were tears of joy.

Plea for peace from India

Young people from India say: “Are you listening…?”

Well, are you?

Native American blessing for World March

Charlie Toledo of the Towa peoples Suscol Intertribal Council, California offered a native American perspective on the World March for Peace and Non-violence which begins its historic global journey on Friday, 2nd October.

Saying: “I really wish I could be there but I can be in two or three places at once really so my spirit will walk with you! As will the spirit of all our collective ancestors and creator”, he offered the following blessing:

Grandfather, Grandmother of all things! Please we give thanks for another day on this beautiful earth! We give thanks for the gift of life our ancestors… those that came before us blessed us with. Please bless these souls who walk with clear intention and open hearts every step a step for peace. Bless the spoken and unspoken need of all these people who walk and those who gather to support them.

Please we beseech as many have beseeched before us to bring peace to this earthly plane, bring harmony and balance to all life’s creation… that the winged ones, the four leggeds the two leggeds, the creatures of the deep seas and rivers and those creepy crawlers below the earth live again in harmony as we did once long ago.

Help guide us all to this place remembered now only in dreams. A place of beauty and mutual respect for all life and all of your beautiful creation. For all these things we ask once again in the most humble of ways bless our collective dream, guide it back to this earthly place Yaweh (Pomo for thank you) sincere wishes, Charlie Toledo.