I recently posted about helping out an Australian sheep farmer whose sheep were suffering in the drought. From that story I received a few emails from concerned readers about the practice of Mulesing in Australia and the current campaign by PETA boycotting the Australian wool industry. This issue is not as simple or cut and dried as stated on the PETA website, there is another side.

The other side of this issue is the Australian wool farmers, who are suffering through drought and hardship while trying to keep their livelihood. Who care about their animals, but who are battling the harsh Australian climate and the unique and very aggressive Australian blowfly (Lucilia cuprina). See this website which oulines the Australian wool farmers side of the cruelty to animals debate, and has a response to PETA and advocates a less extreme position.

This is a link to a video on the PETA website claiming to show mulesing - warning: this is a graphic video and is quite upsetting. Wool is best - a website which represents the Australian Wool farmer perspective on this issue, also has a video explaining the practice of mulesing in Australia.

If you celebrate Christmas, you are probably in the throes of gift-wrapping as we speak. It can get pretty tedious wrapping gift after gift in the traditional way (at least what *I* have always thought was the traditional way!) So this year, give these Japanese techniques a shot: envelope-style or the slightly more complicated-looking diagonal wrapping.

Better yet, use fabric to wrap your gifts to reduce waste (I always get slightly nauseated on Christmas morning watching all that gift wrap getting wadded up and tossed in the trash). The Japanese government even promotes the practice and offers this PDF chart detailing how to wrap a number of differently-shaped objects with fabric. (via Make)