Global dog food sales in 1998 amounted to 9.237 million tonnes and cat food to 5.424 million tonnes, totalling 14.661 million tonnes.
Source, http://www.afma.co.za
Recommendation: with respect to consumption of resources, specifically meat, either start feeding your animal raw food, put it down, or don’t replace it when it dies. If you don’t already have a pet, don’t get one.
With the total value for the C&T market reaching new heights of US$228.9 billion in 2004, the list of products that fall under the personal care category are like wise incrementing in sales and variety. Brand developers are continuously launching new products that treat and pamper the consumer’s every real or perceived need.
Not quite sure what C&T stands for; I think it means cosmetics and therapy, source http://www.globalcosmetic.com/.
The amount quoted is interesting to me for several reasons. I don’t wear makeup largely because my mother doesn’t, and it didn’t stop her from ‘landing a good man’ and ‘having babies’, which after all, is all that women really want from life. I am being sarcastic, but anybody who really knows me, knows that I am not being VERY sarcastic, unless you’re gay, in which case I’m being an idiot stuck up on my heterosexist privilege, for which I humbly apologize; however, I am given to making broad sweeping statements, and this is just another one. Okay, I’m being more acidulous than vitriolic, if you want precision. And if I come on too strong about makeup, every tranny from here to NYC is going to threaten to kick my sorry ass.
ahem… where wuz I. It’s also interesting to me because the yearly aggregate dollar amount traded in the global cosmetics and pet food industries could put a) clean water in the mouth of every child on earth b) put birth control into the hands of every man and woman who wanted it and c) immunize every child on the planet against measles mumps pertussis and tetanus, with a side of fries.
Now since my dad makes Malthus look like a Dallas Cheerleader on crystal meth and he’s already going yeah, but, I have to interject at this point that YES I know that throwing money to third world countries on development projects is a mug’s game, we’ve all seen that on our TVs. I would add that small scale development projects controlled by locals using local resources work really well; unfortunately these are scarce and unevenly applied. The planet just doesn’t have a human distribution system that works without raping and killing the biosphere in the process of delivering goods and services. So supposing, just supposing that I DON’T want to throw up my hands and go, ya know, this problem is too big for one person. What would I do?
Well the first and most obvious thing is to sell the car. Paul and I are looking at our options about that, because the Soob, in every other respect a fabulous vehicle, is a complete frikkin gas hog. The next most obvious thing is to stop eating meat. The third most obvious thing is to support land and nature conservancy efforts, at least the ones that appear to be working. The fourth thing is to start growing as much of our own food as possible. Then there are a whole bunch of things that flow out of these things, but they are all really little. The big ones are gas and meat. Now I know that my consumption reductions, such as they have been, mean nothing. And I’m angry that private aviation and drag racing and muscle cars are going away, which means that I’m not really very grownup about all the changes that are facing us. But at least I’m past the point of feeling inert. I’m going to go around and be my true self. I’m going to be an unpleasant cow, and I will post the results here. Up next; letters to local politicians.
W
2005-04-02— Posted by: allegra
W, after work, on a Friday, in the golf course club house where we repair to suck back beer (and tequila shots) and eat nachos (and drink wine) means, not el Presidente, but work. Work this week has had a surreal, Gonzo quality that is hard to exactly describe. I just went back and read the terms of my employment, and with that sobering document seared into my cerebellum, I deleted the next two sentences. It’s not bad, it’s just… impolitic.
Tonight was amazing on So Many Counts. First, 3/4’s of the original lunch bunch, from the old days, reunited. Our 4th, the wonderful man, is currently in India wandering around by himself having epiphanies. I didn’t even think to raise a glass on his account, but that’s okay. Next count… I took my bra off without taking off my shirt. I love doing that. It’s so much easier to be that kind of extremophile than pay for tattoos – if you’re going to be extreme and bizarre. Count off the next thing…the twins were there. They aren’t twins, but they are dynamite together. And Jim drove me down and Jerome took me home. I FINALLY HAVE his nephew’s name, it’s Julian. All the Dunnett fans will snicker behind their hands, if they don’t pull a face, but before I knew about the House of Niccolo series, I thought Julian was a great name and I’m happy with it. And found out that Jim is thinking of girls’ names like Madeleine (or however he and his lady wife Carol wish to spell it).
Brief aside; I don’t think I ever explained, ma, what I mean by “your lady wife”. When I say that, in conversation or in print, I mean three very specific, linked things. I am saying “I respect your marriage”; I am saying “your wife/s.o./partner is worthy of respect” and I am saying “it appears to me that you treat her well”. So I am compressing many positive opinions into three words… but if I don’t explain what I mean by that, it’s hard to appreciate why I say it and why I never say it sarcastically, although I may say it with asperity. Ma, I know how you are about winkling the last shreds of meaning from the shell of every word, so I thought I’d be discursive.
What else was wonderful. The waitress. What a doll.
And there was other stuff – crikey, I missed the new gal, who is an engineer. She seems really nice, but a bit overwhelmed by how we are. I mean, all this talk about dancing with Lashkar, nautch style, and then having my bra explode – this is the best part of ten years ago now, and I’m by no means as wild as I useta be – and it didn’t really explode, it kinda disassembled itself – is enough to put a nice girl off. And she’s a woman, OF COURSE, when I call her a girl it’s a backhanded way of saying I feel super old. But right now, I’m thinking good thoughts about good people, and we hardly talked about W at all. And I’m thinking about watching one coworker creep up the stairs to fart in another’s sleeping face. Actually, his boss’s sleeping face. That happened at the first party with coworkers at this company that I ever attended, almost 8 years ago now. They were both sitting across from me tonight, and they still know how to laugh.
