Alongside sporadic thoughts, on occasions I am asked what led me to become vegan. I had narrowed it down to a handful of memories which I think planted seeds and laid foundations for later coalescences, intersections. These are memories stretching back to my youth. I consider my first to come from watching the Australian film Storm Boy, released in 1976 (I can’t recall when I first saw the film, though it was quite a few after its release). Storm boy also exposed me to what might be my first recollections of Aboriginal people, and the immense talent of David …

#intersectional #anthropocentrism #human chauvinism #veganism

Australia has quite a (recent) history with bushfires. Some of them very tragic, with significant loss of human life. Of note, the lives of animals rarely rate a mention, unless they are cute — pictures of a koala seeking/receiving water from a human — South Australia 2013; 2015; Victoria 2009 — or there is significant economic loss to a farmer — the death of untold numbers of ‘livestock’. The human impacts of fires, more‐so at this time of year, are very much a part of mainstream media and community discussions here. Responses are routinely anthropocentric, both obliv…

#anthropocentrism #class #human chauvinism #strategic ignorance

The rise in (commercial) popularity of mixed martial arts style (blood) sports has been a s sporadic and peripheral interest for around a decade. In particular as I interchanged living in North America and Australia. I watched debates in Canada in the context of attempts to hold events there, and more-recently Australia. My reflections on masculinity, in particular crises of masculinity, is where this interest is mostly situated. This post is not necessarily a coalescing of thoughts, rather prompted by a recent Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event in Melbourne recently. It received signi…

#masculinity #patriarchy

Over recent months I have reflected on the musings penned and shared here, the significant periods without words, and how life has intersected. These periods have reasons, and before I ponder these it is the content and approach-style of what I have shared—and how these have transformed over time—over the last ten years which have prompted some thoughts. Contrasting with a prescribed aim of my space here — reflecting on intersecting oppressions, life experiences and thoughts on appropriate-effective responses — I have noted in the collection of musings an array of contradictory elements. In pa…

#hegemonic masculinity #life #work