Swine flu: hype and hidden agendas?

So the news here in Oz has been concentrating a lot on Swine Flu. After being somewhat isolated from this latest global crisis, there are now about 200 people with swine flu here - 3 of them are ONC'ers.

Now while I think its very sad that some people have died from this virus, I have to say I'm quite at a loss as to why there's so much fuss about it.

"Regular" flu kills hundreds of thousands of people every year (the World Health Organisation (WHO) puts the figure between 250,00 to 500,00). The WHO's report re: Swine Flu as at yesterday is as follows:

Image from http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/history_map/InfluenzaAH1N1_maps.html

For those who can't quite see the figures, the total number of laboratory confirmed deaths globally as a result of swine flu is 95 (as at 27 May 09). While it may be more (ie not yet confirmed via laboratory tests) the reality is that swine flu deaths are still nowhere near the rate of normal flu deaths.


So what's all the fuss about?

The difference it seems is age. 90% of people who die as a result of regular flu are elderly (source: "Influenza Virology: current topics" by By Yoshihiro Kawaoka, 2006). Swine flu, however, affects the young - in Mexico, 26 of the 58 deaths were aged between 20 to 39.

To me the intense media focus on this issue is a clear comment on our global values. That we value youth over the elderly. That we care to hear more about the "strange" (ie that young healthy people can die of the flu) rather than focusing on what we can do to lessen the pain of our norms.

However, in my journey to become more consumer and media literate, I have learned that hype is almost always driven by more than just mass curiousity and anxiety - I've learned that it is often helped along by those who benefit from it.

So who is benefitting from the Swine Flu hype?

Crikey and International Business Times have all reported that the share prices of pharmaceutical companies involved in vaccines and anti-viral medicines (in particular Healthcare, Roche and CSL), as well as health insurance companies have all been increasing since April 2009. (The US Government recently placed a A$232 million (some US$180 million) order with CSL for swine flu vaccine.) *

While there will always be winners in any situation (I don't advocate conspiracy hype), we do need to be mindful that certain media organisations are owned by companies who also own biotech companies. Eg. General Electric owns the NBC network (and many pay tv channels) and GE Healthcare.

So what am I doing after learning all of this?

I guess for now I'm just trying to keep things in perspective and not get carried away by the hype. I'm still going out and about and I am enjoying this wonderful time of the year (autumn has always been my favourite season!)

And to be honest I'm not really doing anything different from what I always do at this time of the year. I have stocked up on echinacea and my hankies are at the ready.

Oh and on that note - I might as well share my thoughts on the hanky Vs tissue argument.

Viruses don't last that long outside the human body. Hankies do not carry viruses!

Bacteria thrive in damp environments - so there's just as much bacteria chance of bacteria living in used tissues as there is in used hankies. Some people put used tissues in the bin where it then goes to the tip and add to the risk of making tip workers ill. I put used hankies in the dirty clothes bin and they get washed and line-dried with my normal laundry. Washing machine washes away most of the bacteria and sunlight kills the rest of it. No tip workers becoming ill and a lot less environmental footprint for me. Yes we go through a lot of hankies when we're sick but honestly, even 50 hankies don't make that much of a difference in the laundry - it always fits in the one load with all the other clothes. Plus, we have the added bonus of never getting "nose rash" with hankies!

My son ironing hankies.

Anyway, once again I've rambled on enough. I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

*Note at the same time, the US also blocked CSL's merger with another biotech company saying that the merger would mean lessen competition and therefore drive prices even further up. Oh well, at least the vaccine order has softened this blow to CSL.

Stitching up the NGA!!

My friend C sent me this via email and I thought it was such a great project that I'd blog about it here.

The National Gallery of Australia wants to transform its front entrance and foyer by covering it with knitting pieces!! Here's the excerpt:

From Tuesday 7 to Sunday 12 July, Knitta Please founder Magda Sayeg and Sydney artist Denise Litchfield, with a team of volunteers, will transform the front entrance and foyer of the National Gallery of Australia. Knitta Please is a tag crew of knitters who turned their frustration with their half-finished knitting projects into a phenomenon sweeping across the world.

Knitters are invited to help create pieces that measure 10–20 cm wide and 140 cm long, which will be stitched together to create coverings for 6 large concrete poles at the front of the National Gallery of Australia. Any colour, yarn and technique is accepted—the brighter and wackier, the better!

So you send in your knitting piece before 7 July to:

Knitta Project
Public Programs
National Gallery of Australia
GPO Box 1150
Canberra ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA

OR drop it off at the front security desk of the NGA.

Make sure you include with your knitting piece a small note stating your name, location and age (optional) because each knitted strip will have a small label stating the maker’s details.

Knitta Please covered an entire bus in wool at Plaza Luis in Cabrera in Mexico City in 2008.
Photo by Magda Sayeg, founder of Knitta Please

This is such a cool project that I think I might have to just take out those knitting needles again and make a strip! I'll see too if my daughter may be interested in putting in a strip with her finger knitting.

The project website is: http://nga.gov.au/WhatsOn/highlights/default.cfm

To see other Knitta Festival events, visit: http://nga.gov.au/EXHIBITION/SOFTSCULPTURE/Default.cfm?MnuID=9#knitta

Can't wait!

Simple home, lemonade and Spock

Its been a cloudy few days here at the ONC. Days like these keep me hoping it would rain but, as usual, it doesn't. Normally days like these get me down but I'm finding that this time round its not getting to me like it used to.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am really loving sitting in my home at the moment. As I'm nearing the end of my "house to home" project, I'm finding myself feeling truly content in my home. I have a home with no clutter. Everything I own, I use - and I use most of it regularly. For the first time in my life I have no items in the house gathering dust year after year because I'm not using it.

Its not perfect. I don't have certain "standard" things one would find in many other homes - but I'm finding that I am able to make do with what I do have. I know its an unusual home. Almost everything I have I acquired second-hand. But I love the fact that every piece in my home has a story.

Flowers from the garden, vase a gift from a friend, found the doily at the side of the road all scrunched up and dirty - hand-washed, ironed and discovered how beautiful it was, table given to me by a friend - I sanded and stained it and its like new again.

Speaking of the weather and my home, there has been a remarkable change in my garden. One of the effects of *my* climate change and its resulting water restrictions is that many of the plants in my garden have died. But something amazing has happened. The lemon tree that used to bear one or two little lemons a year suddenly has a *huge* amount of lemons!

View of my lemon tree from a 2nd story window

I've already given a whole bag away at work, another large bag to my neighbours and family but as you can see I still have a whole heap left.

Today, I made lemonade for the first time using the following recipe:

Homemade Lemonade

7 heaped tablespoons of honey
100mls of water
Juice from 4 lemons - about 200 mls
soda water



Heat honey and water until honey is all melted into the water. Leave to cool. Pour lemon juice into jug, top up with soda water, add honey water. Chill in fridge.

So now I'm sitting here in my living room, drinking my lemonade and reading Star Trek its apt that I would come across this quote from Spock:

It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.

As so true Mr Spock, but I'm glad that this time round, I have managed to obtain what I *do* want.

Dif-tor heh smusma - Live long and prosper.

Saying "No"

Now that the kids are getting better, they are getting back to their normal active selves. We are at that in-between stage - they are well enough to want to do lots of things but they are not well enough to actually do them.

So the last couple of days I am increasingly hearing myself saying "no". There's something almost taboo about saying "no" - no one wants to be a party pooper. I find myself instead cajoling them, offering (less-active) alternatives, trying to avoid situations where I know it will lead me to say "no". Invariably at the end of the day, I find myself tired from all these supposedly positive alternatives to saying 'no' and I end up snapping at the kids and just saying "NO, BECAUSE I SAID SO!".

This makes me feel guilty because...well, they're still sick AND those tears welling up in their eyes never fails to make me feel like The Meanest Mum In The Entire World.

(Image from cover of book, "My Monster Mama Loves Me So" by Laura Leuck)

So last night I read this article on the ABC and suddenly I gained a whole new perspective in the "don't say no" issue.

Dr Rachel Skinner from Sydney University studied young teenage girls and their sexual experiences and found that while these girls knew about the dangers of STD, teen pregnancy etc they are still unable to say "no".

"It was clear that these young people knew about the risks of unprotected sex. That was not the issue," Dr Skinner said.

"The issue is more about the pressures within their peer group. The pressures from their partner, their male partner.

Now I know that this issue is very different to the one I'm facing now, but what I do know is that my kids (at 4 and 6 years) are learning the foundations of their emotional skills *now*. I believe that the ability to negotiate and create boundaries in relationships is essentially an emotional skill. Standing up against people you like is so much harder than standing up against people you don't like.

So am I teaching my kids on how to say "no"? I'm not sure.

I can see that I am modelling for them how to negotiate and offer alternatives. I can also see that there are times when I say "no" for them. (Not so much in the last few days, but more for those times when I jump in at an overheard conversation and basically say "no" to their friends as opposed to finding out if my children would negotiate a "no").

I think too that its a matter of finding a balance between setting our family's boundaries and allowing the kids to be assertive back and disagreeing with what I want to do.

I would love to hear what others do. How do you teach your children to say "no"?

Frugal decor - my cherry tree room :)

I've finally finished my bedroom! Now its been really hard to take pics of this room because:

a) its a small room so I can't get a good shot with everything in it

b) both of my kids are sick at the moment and both have made my room their "sick room" - which means that since I've finished the room, there is at least one child napping in there at any one point in time.

Anyway, so I decided I couldn't wait to show it off any longer and while the kids were eating dinner, I dashed in and quickly took some pics. (Apologies for the flash photography.) So here it is:



All items in the above photo were found at St Vinnies. And it must've been karma because I have been wanting to make "Cherry Tree" as the theme to my room.



The gorgeous lamp I found at Trash and Treasure. Doily on top of bedside table was from Salvos. Linen on bed, including pillows were from Salvos and my mother. :) (And before my extended family gets all worried - don't worry! Pillows were still in their packaging! It was a bargain to get 4 great quality Aussie pillows for $10.)

My mum gave me the top bedspread, here's a close up of the embroidery:



Isn't it cool?!

And finally, my latest crafting attempt:



Fabric wall decal! The cherry tree trunk and branches is op-shopped dark denim fabric. And flowers are from fabric scraps gifted to me by Button Beauty. I stuck the fabric on using homemade starch (so about 1/4 cornflour to every 1 cup of water). The denim being a thicker fabric needed a good starch soak (and I ended up adding an extra large spoonful of cornflour) before it finally stuck up on the wall.

Oh and I should say that the little white table you see there is from Aussie Junk, which I sanded back and painted white. The vintage tray and the bronze lamp are from Trash 'n Treasure.

Total cost of deocorating my bedroom - including all linen, blankets, pillows etc = $135. I should mention that $65 of that is the antique lamp that you can see on the 2nd picture. (I pretty much splurged on my room.)

Total cost furnishing and decorating my entire house to date (with 2 bedrooms to go) = $662. I don't think I'm doing too badly considering that includes the purchase of all my white goods, and kitchenware.

I'm hoping to keep this entire project under $1,000. Wish me luck!

(oh and I need ideas for the spare bedroom - I want to make it my family's peace/meditation room so if you have any decor ideas for it, I'd love to hear them!)

Spending to make up for parenting

Now that I'm on leave from work (2nd full day at home!), I've looked around my home and noticed... that my kids have gotten a hell of a lot of toys from me the last few weeks.

Its amazing how when I'm under pressure, I revert back to my old consumerist ways and use spending as a way to make up for what I see as shortfalls in my parenting. See, I know that all my kids want really want is my time and attention.. and when I fail to give it to them, then I feel that the only way I can make up for it is by spending on them.

...and the thing is I didn't even know I was doing it!! Times like these when I realise how far I have to go in this journey to be an empowered and rational consumer - one who joyfully consumes rather than one who consumes to assuage feelings of guilt and anxiety.

The thing is... I don't even know why I should feel so guilty! I know that I can't do it all (unlike Rosie the Riveter below) and that I am doing my best. But that's the rational side of me talking and as I said, my recent spending spree was not rational.

(image from edupics.com)

Funny enough, when I look back I can also see that I was also doing some positive things during those hectic times. I juggled my workload so I can be home to put the children to bed, I made sure we still had breakfast together and for the 2 nights when I ended up working all night, the children went to their grandparents and got plenty of attention there. And despite that I disregarded the value of the positive things and still fell back on using money as my way of showing my children I love them.

So this weekend, I'll be spending some time on myself and letting go of my feelings of guilt... to accept that hectic times will occur and that I do not need to spend in order to make up for my lessened time with the children.

(Image from Tsheko's photostream - displayed here under a General Attribution Licence)

So here's to a quiet and reflective weekend. I wish you the same. :)

Outside the square

Pretty cool, huh! Thanks T for giving me this link!

Families Week

I'm back to blog land! It feels good to be back. Mainly because this means that work is once again getting back down to manageable levels.

The big thing about working like this is that I really do miss my time with my children. While I have spent as much time with them - making sure I see them at lunch times, having brekkie with them and playing our usual , its really not the same. Probably because at times like these, I am not *with* them mentally. My mind is often racing ahead planning things, mentally organising other household chores etc.

While I do try to stop it, its hard and I have to admit I didn't really succeed. Having said that, the times when I've been mentally and physically present for the children have been the most rewarding of times.

Today at work, I noticed paraphernalia raising awareness that this week is Families week. So I've now decided to spend that time WITH my family and will be taking the next few days off at work concentrating on just them. No plans and I'll just follow their cues.

Hope everyone had a great start to the week!

Taking a week off blogging and showing an oldie but a goodie

Hello everyone!

Remember how I said I've been extremely busy at work? Well, I still am and after a bit of mental re-prioritising, I've decided to take a week off blogging. I'll most likely be back on Monday 11 May.

In the meantime, I thought I'd re-show this video that I'd always found inspiring. For me, this video seems to teach me something new everytime I watch it. At this very busy time of my life, the video reinforces for me the power of mentally shifting your focus and truly listening to the truths of that focus.

I hope you get something out of watching this video too!

Pimp my swine flu mask

This made me laugh so I thought I'd share... (hmmmm... this 5 min craft would make great pressies at work! hehe)...

From Guanbee: