Category: The Life of Lara

It’s all here. Adventures in extreme knitting, the house of poop, and suburban permaculture. You may also find rants about politics, ecology, humanitarianism, responsible living, toe floss, and other topics not covered here. Expect profanity and irreverence. You have been warned.

Family Values

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If I read that phrase one more time before I get on the plane, there may be real danger of my head exploding.

One of the local candidates (Robyn Peebles) has a red corflute, with her picture, and the words “Family Values“. And frankly, I am insulted that this woman thinks that she can represent the values of my family.

My family may not be representative of most families, but it’s still a family, and we have values.

We think that marriage has value, whether or not it produces children. We believe that there should be equal access to marriage rites and formalities, equal access regardless of colour, gender, religion, or ethnicity. We believe that the common denominator should be love alone, and that love in all its forms should be celebrated, revered, and cherished.

I value life as I value love. I believe that non human animals should be treated with respect, and that animal rights are the next frontier of humanity.

We value the earth, and believe that if we don’t take care of it NOW, we won’t have to worry about the future.

We value science, and an intelligent examination of our earth, and our history. We believe in learning from history, and using thoughtful analysis of fact to make decisions about the world, and our part in it.

We value diversity in our community, in our restaurants, in our entertainment, in our natural environment, and in the values and opinions of others. You don’t have to agree with someone to value their opinion, but you need to value their opinions to represent them.

So this is why I am a big Greenie. My experience of the Greens has been overwhelmingly positive. A Green may disagree with you, but she is likely to let you have your say. He may think you need an education, but he’s more likely to try to help educate you than berate you. And she’ll never claim to understand your point of view unless she really thinks she gets it.

Duck, duck, frog. Difference is inherent in humanity, and claiming that my values are universal is as insulting as John Howard claiming to represent “ordinary Australians”.

Sorry, another rant tonight, but at least this one comes with a cure picture :).

Why I love Murray, NZ

Murray may just be the answer to my prayers. He might be the man who can make all my work on the weekend worthwhile.

After getting the final corrections from my boss on monday morning, I made the final changes, and emailed the final .pdf to work, so that it could be sent to the printer for the 9am deadline.

At around 3pm tuesday, I found out that the printer didn’t get the artwork, and that the deadline would pass without our brochure being printed. I had some Awake Disordered Breathing.

The receptionist found Murray, another NZ printer, who reckons he might be able to get the printing done on time. It was a very tense afternoon, and things will continue to be tense until I hear that the brochures have been delivered to the conference within the deadline. Argh.

A message from Lee Rhiannon

A lot of media has focussed in the last few weeks on the Greens drug policy.  If you read the mainstream media, you’d probably be thinking that the Greens are a bunch of pot smoking hippies that want to feed your kids heroin.  I won’t stoop to refuting that rubbish – the facts are there to be seen – all Green policies are on the website for all to see.  Read them and make up your own mind (like I did a few years ago after inspecting the Green animal welfare policy).  I will say that I don’t smoke pot, and that I am keeping all the (prescribed) opiates for myself.

And if you can’t be bothered reading all that – read this message from Lee, sent to me by email because I am on the Greens media alert mailing list.  I like to stay informed.

BTW – recently a lot of people have asked me (well, more than three) if I know who the Green candidate is in their electorate.  Usually, the answer is no, but if you check out this list, you can look up your local Green candidate in your area.  I will have met some of them and though it’s likely that I will have had a favourable impression, I will gladly share it with you if you are interested.

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HEALTH PROFESSIONALS BACK GREENS DRUGS POLICY

Please consider forwarding this message to your email address list and help correct the misleading information about the Greens drugs policy.

Dear Friend

We write to you to set the record straight about the Greens NSW policy on drugs and harm minimisation and correct the usual pre-election media inaccuracies.

The Greens do not encourage drug use. In particular, our policy aims to eradicate the use of methamphetamines including  ‘ice’. We support tough penalties for importers, manufacturers and suppliers.  See http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/policies/drugs-and-harm-minimisation.

Prohibition has failed to protect the lives of young people and it has failed to make society safer. The major parties’ policies based on criminal penalties for users have not prevented the growth in ‘ice’ use, dependency and addiction. There are now more than 37,000 regular methamphetamine users and 28,000 dependent users in NSW and the number is growing rapidly.

The Greens want to eradicate ‘ice’. We believe the best way to do this is with significant increases in education to strengthen the resistance of young people to the drug, and new treatment and rehabilitation programs.

Heavy criminal sanctions on users have failed to control the epidemic. And they keep ‘ice’ addicts away from counselling services and treatment programs.

The choice is this: do we want to gaol addicts or do we want to cure them.

The Greens believe that police resources are better focused on the importers, manufacturers and suppliers of ice. We want to destroy the supply chain.

The Greens policy breaks with the bipartisan ‘law and order ‘ approach but it enjoys broad support from public health professionals, with specialist experience with drugs. See below.

The full story on the Greens drugs and harm minimisation policy is available here:

http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/campaigns/the-facts-on-the-greens-drugs-policy

Please pass this email on to interested friends, colleagues and family.

Regards

Lee Rhiannon

Greens MP

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Health professionals on the Greens drugs policy

Dr Alex Wodak, Director of Drug and Alcohol Services at St Vincent’s Hospital, on ABC 702

VIRGINIA TRIOLI (ABC 702 presenter): Do you think the Greens are on the right track here with their [drug] policy?

DR WODAK: Yes, I do. Yes I do…the plain fact is that, whether we like it or not, the war on drugs has failed, and failed miserably.……..[ABC 702 Mornings 15 March 2007]

Dr Fares Samara, MD, FAChAM (Fellow of the Australasian Chapter of Addictions Medicine): “As a specialist in this field, I wholeheartedly support the Green Party’s policy on drugs and congratulate them for their courage and honesty…And also urge the other parties to have the same courage and adopt harm minimisation policies without hesitation.”

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Other professionals who back a health approach to drug taking

Professor Gordian Fulde from St Vincent’s Hospital supports the Greens policy: “I’d worry if there was anything done by law that would deter people coming to an emergency department in trouble because they thought they might get arrested or put in jail,” he said. [Seven News: http://au.news.yahoo.com/070314/23/12qry.html%5D

Don Stewart, Retired Judge and Royal Commissioner says about ice: “We’ve got to think more instead of the criminalisation of it, and the criminal approach and trying to stamp it out by penalty and criminal law action, we’ve got to think seriously about a medical approach, more seriously about how we can change things for the better.” [ABC Radio National Law Report 13 March 2007]

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Media comment on The Greens’ policy

Peter FitzSimons, Sun Herald: “Saying our drug laws are in urgent need of reform doesn’t make the Greens soft on drugs. It simply means they recognise the truth: the system we have is a hopeless joke and only remains in place because we haven’t had politicians of sufficient courage to do anything to change it.” [The Sun-Herald, p2, 18 March 2007]

How to Vote

In Melbourne, but I am pretty sure this applies in other sates too…

From the Anonymous Lefty.

“If you are a religious conservative who wants Australia run according to the dictates of the leaders of the Assemblies of God (because you reckon Jesus cared more about the things he didn’t actually ever talk about – gays, abortion etc – than the things he did repeatedly – helping the poor etc), please vote for Fundamentalists First. (“Bring Australia into the 14th Century!”, as they say.)”

I think he is a tiny bit mean to the poor Democrats, the Dem candidate for Ryde got into the papers after he was accosted at a train station by one of the Rev. Fred’s mob, brandishing a leaflet proposing to keep Muslims out of Australia.  Our Dem was on his way to a Harmony rally, and didn’t take it well.  Made the local papers :).

And he neglects to mention the Shooters/Outdoor Recreation Party, too – vote for them if you want to turn our national parks into dirtbike trails, shoot anything that moves in the state forests, and eat all the sensitive fish species from our oceans and rivers.

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure

Apparently, sleep is important. And apparently, over 800,000 Australians have some kind of sleep disorder. The majority of these have Sleep Disordered Breathing (SDB), most commonly sleep Apnoea (or apnea if you’re a septic). Apnoea comes in two flavours, Central Apnoea, or Obstructive Apnoea.

Still following? Well, central Apnoea is the scary (scarier?) type, with the brain not sending signals for breathing to occur. This appears to be a leading cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but since I can’t sell a machine to help the problem, I didn’t learn a lot about it. Obstructive apnoea is caused by (der..) an obstruction of the airway. Most prevalent in overweight men, its incidence is not only massively under diagnosed, it is also on the rise.

So, my point is, if you apply a mask connected to a pressure device (like the opposite of a vacuum cleaner), the obstruction is forced open, and breathing can occur “normally”.

Doesn’t sound very exciting until you see someone stop breathing for more than 10 seconds at a time. The airway closes, but the chest continues to try to suck in air. The heart races, and the patient is “aroused” (and that isn’t a good thing when you talk about sleep).

Sleep comprises of Non-REM and REM sleep. All sleep is good for us, but REM sleep is really important. And arousals limit REM sleep – every time we are aroused (whether we wake or not), and put us back to the earlier stages – resetting the cycle. What this means is that patients never get enough REM sleep, and wake up feeling like they have been run over by a truck. Very often these people also snore, so their sleep partners often don’t sleep well either. The consequences range from low performance and irritability, to psychosis and death. Sleep deprivation due to SDB is thought to be responsible for about 5% of fatal motor vehicle accidents.

So if you or someone you love don’t sleep well, or score high on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, talk to your GP about having a sleep study – it might change your life. Or save it.

Here endeth the lesson.

See – I did learn something today, despite REALLY wanting to fall asleep during the presentation. Oh, and one really interesting thing. Apparently, obesity is an indicator of SDB – the extra tissue around the airway complicates things. But, SDB can also contribute to obesity. A lack of sleep messes with your endocrine system, and disrupts secretion of leptin/grehlin. It also keeps you tired and without enough energy to maintain a good activity level. Two more days of cramming facts into my poor complaining brain, and then one day of normal work before I jet off to the land of the long white cloud. And I got to knit. I asked the presenter if he minded. Luckily he was an American, and he had read the study about keeping hands active during learning. I am now more more than half way through the main body, and well on my way to scary border town.

And the picture? Just a small thank you to the Chaser team, for bringing the budgie smugglers back into politics.

Saturday, Sunday, some knitting, some relaxing, some stress

Haremold

Blue Mountains trip – no pictures except this chocolate mould at the Paragon Cafe. Unfortunately there were no hare chocolates on sale.

The yarn shop was lovely, the owner was gorgeous, and the Tofu, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich from Niche Nosh down the road was superb. Worth the trip on its own. Yum!

Since I’ll be in NZ for the election, I took the opportunity to vote in Katoomba. We ran into Lee Rhiannnon, and I introduced the knitters to her. I was impressed by the voting system, the officials had a palm with the electoral roll on it and they were able to check my enrolment and give me the right voting card. Unfortunately, I made a mistake with my vote. In the upper house, I marked 1 above the line, knowing that my preferences would be distributed. I assumed that the system worked the same way in the in the lower house, but not so. Apparenlty, you have to mark every box in the lower house for your preferences to be distibuted (in the NSW state election that is). If you don’t number each box, and your first choice doesn’t get in (like mine won’t), then your vote expires. Bah.

We arrived late at the meeting, and missed all the “business” part of the meeting, but as soon as I walked in, Kate handed me a small envelope with the words “Limited Edition” printed on the front. Inside was something so intensely amazingly thoughtful and cute, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Pictures to come – and words can’t describe….

We had dinner with my friends Jane and Jim. Jane is from Brazil, and despite being here for over ten years, she is still waiting for an opportunity to become a citizen. She would have been eligible in April (it took her AGES to get permanent residency – I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that English isn’t her first language?), but last month the rules changed and now she won’t be eligible for another two years. Poop.

I’ve spent far too much time this weekend doing a brochure for next weeks NZ trip (which has to be at the printers in NZ by 9am tomorrow), and I’ve been turning myself inside out with stress. Not much fun to be around on sunday. I even snapped at someone just for suggesting that shooting rabbits was a good idea. Imagine!

Had dinner with the parents at Adam & Sarah’s today. Saw TBA, who is doing brilliantly.

And today I found out that I can get extra bits for the Knit Picks Options from here. Hooray!