This & That

The rapidly increasing food prices in Sweden may reduce the quality of the school meals - a meat dish may actually have to be partly substituted with leguminous plants. *Take a moment to imagine this ghastly prospect*

Oh my, can this shocking, embarrassing lack of perspective be anything than a belated April Fool's joke...?? Oh yes, it can - Stockholm, Sweden in all its beauty and glory sometimes I'm so consider emigrating.

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Remember the cruelty in wool post? There are some interesting comments to be found in that post. One might disagree on many things said in one of the comments, but it's at least an interesting read and if you want to read more about this issue from another angle, you can also do so here. There are also some interesting links to the Wikipedia-article on mulesing.

As I wrote in the above mentioned post I bought a merinowool sweater at the Christmas-sales, I would never have bought it if I'd known then what I know now and I just couldn't bear using it. So I e-mailed the company in question, asking what their animal welfare policies were and could I please return the sweater. I didn't get a reply, which was rather frustrating, so I e-mailed (a slightly impertinent mail) again and this time I got a speedy and pleasant reply.

The answer to my first e-mail had apparently disappeared in cyperspace - like so many other e-mails never to be seen again - they said they were working hard with different kinds of animal welfare programmes concerning the clothing industry and if I wasn't happy with the garment in question I was welcome to return it and get my money refunded. Now that's what I call good customer relationships!

The company in question - which I honestly don't buy a whole lot of clothes from, since it's not really my type of design in general and besides, I'm not a member of their target group (skinny, flatchested, miniature-babes) - was Swedish designer Filippa K.

The only fly in this particular customer relationships ointment was the treatment one got in the shop when asking for a refund (with flawless sweater and receipt). But hey, we can't all be bright and brainy and in the end I did at least get my money back.

Apparently there is merino wool produced that's organic and cruelty free, so go out there and get your voice as a concerned consumer heard!

Cruelty in Wool

I just couldn't watch the whole Swedish documentary about the completely vile, repulsive act of atrocious cruelty toward sheep in the (merino) wool industry. The practise of so called mulesing in mainly the Australian sheep industry. The pictures, and the absolutely heartbreaking screams of those poor lambs being scalped...

It makes me so unbelievably mad, I've had an angry despair-knot in my stomach all evening, I've cried and have been on the verge of crying ever since I catched those glimpses of this savage abuse. Ah, who cares if the human race extinguish themselves, good riddance for planet earth.

And those guys who have the audacity to claim innocence, who play all injured and wronged... P l e a s e, if you can find it in your vile heartless human heart to do it, then you should at least be *human* enough skip the whitewash and admit to your own actions!!

Why not simply admit that you just don't care about all the pain and suffering you're willfully causing innocent and helpless animals, that their life and suffering just is a part of you making money. I mean, it's not like you're alone in the world being a brutal barbar, there are plenty of you heartless abject bastards around. All you sad excuses for decent human beings, that put yourselves above the rest of nature's creatures. Oh there are a plethora (unfortunately) of you that can comfort you and pat your back when poor you are so completely misunderstood by the rest of us who actually do have a conscience, who care about something else than our own measly monetary profit.

Being a consumer it's so easy to live under the illusion that whenever you buy something that's made in nature materials it's also something very natural, made with thought and care for animals and the environment. Really, very different from those horrible synthetics, that feels absolutely nasty against your skin, makes the clothes all burled and your hair all wired.

And then you suddenly read something here, see something there that makes you realize that just because it's called nature materials that doesn't mean it's so very eco and animal friendly. That you have to look even further when you're buying clothes and accessories, that you have to be *quite* active in your pre-store-clothes/brands research if you want to continue to claim being a human with a conscience.

I didn't think I had any garments made of merino wool, turned out I was wrong. I did get something at the post-Christmas sales that states 100% merino wool. And now I feel *slightly* queazy about that. Me being a, however tiny, part of this reprehensible industry. Ah, it's so very easy to think of oneself being a bit better, a bit - or more - superior than the average sheeple, but I guess, sometimes you're simply a sheep like everyone else.