Antibiotics when to dose up?

Film Sleeping Beauty

By Ruth Ostrow on 29 June 2011 in All Posts, My Daily Raves

Disappointed. i saw the film Sleeping Beauty last night. Controversial new Australian film by film novice, the novelist Julia Leigh that went all the way to Cannes. Great idea. Brave idea. A pretty Botticellian beauty is paid by a top escort agency to let lonely old men do things to her while she is drugged into a deep sleep. It got mixed reviews. People said it was largely because of the subject matter which is too confronting for many. It hints of paedophelia and necrophilia, and rape.

Being an eroticist I thought I’d love it but surprisingly I too was disappointed. I didn’t find it erotic. In the hands of a French or European director I suspect it would have been more revealing of the characters involved. In the end it is always the psychological development of the players that makes the eroticism actually “erotic”. I didn’t care about the characters therefore I never engaged as opposed to the tantalisingly provocative classics like Story of O; The Night Porter; Romance; or Last Tango- all compelling by the depth of the contradictions and complexities of the human interactions. Andrew L Urban in the SMH had much the same thoughts.

What’s your favourite film? What films or videos have disappointed you recently?

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By Ruth Ostrow on 28 June 2011 in All Posts, My Daily Raves

Taking drugs is always a pressing question this time of year.

It’s now been over two weeks I’ve been trying to fight off a chest infection, and there’s still no relief in sight. The thing is it isn’t getting worse either just a persistent cough and croaky voice and feeling sluggish. The box of antibiotics is sitting on the kitchen bench beckoning. I believe the body knows how to heal itself and should be given the opportunity to use its own immunity rather than rely on artificial prompts which ultimately do us no good.

But the main reason I don’t like taking them for every ailment is the resistance factor. There does come a day in everyone’s life where we seriously need antibiotics and if the body has built up resistance due to overuse it’s not a good thing.

Sleeping in a chair next to my daughter’s hospital bed years a few ago while she battled pneumonia is an experience i will never forget.

Given the severity of her case which went undiagnosed till her lung collapsed, it was only antibiotics that saved her. And because I am a Mum who administers them so rarely, the drug worked quickly and powerfully.

So here I sit with the question, to dose up or not to dose up? I’m giving my body one more day to get me on the mend and then Zapp!

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Help save our wildlife

By Ruth Ostrow on 24 June 2011 in All Posts, Animal Welfare, Weekend Magazine Columns

WIRES animal rescue group is struggling due to lack of donations.

A STRANGE and surreal story. I was woken last week by the screeching of birds. Such a cacophony that I had to put two pillows over my head. But it wouldn’t stop.

I glanced up to see that my cat, usually the cause, was asleep. Suddenly I heard my cleaning lady, Eva, cry: “Ruth, what is it?” She was shaken, standing on the veranda of my little Bondi house. “Ruth… it moved,” she said, nervously pointing at what looked to be a large, stuffed toy perched at my front door. She’s from Hungary and had not seen anything like it before.

It was a tawny frogmouth – a nocturnal bird often mistaken for an owl. Continue Reading →

Censorship How Dare They!

By Ruth Ostrow on 24 June 2011 in All Posts, My Daily Raves

Writing to you about something very unsexy. The move by Telstra & Optus to ban internet

The move by Telstra and Optus to voluntarily censor hundreds of internet sites which it deems unfit for us to view under the emotive pedophile argument is outrageous. It’s a story that has largely gone under the radar, and I’m not sure why. It is the biggest threat to civil liberties and free speech in this country we’ve ever experienced and we should be outraged. Within 2 weeks we’ll all be boiled frogs. Some of the sites banned include an anti-euthanasia site and other political sites unsavory to the Government. The service providers are voluntarily following the Government’s hugely unpopular recommended list which means half the country will have their legitimate adult content censored alongside other political sites; all to allegedly stop pedophiles who largely don’t operate out in the open anyway.

Here is a snippet of what ran in yesterday’s The Australian: MOST Australian internet users will have their web access censored next month after the country’s two largest internet providers agreed to voluntarily block more than 500 websites from view. Read also this Courier Mail newspaper’s commentator.

Who the are these two companies to dictate what I watch in the privacy of my bedroom? Change Servers!

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this one is really important.

All I want is a little RESPECT

By Ruth Ostrow on 22 June 2011 in All Posts, My Daily Raves

I hate that people don’t show each other respect. What ever happened to common courtesies like returning phone calls or even emails?

It’s not unusual in my profession to wait days for calls or emails to be returned or to have to ring and ring again. The reason is obvious, I am the journalist and i want something out of you the inerviewee. Therefore it is accepted that I am the groveller not the grovellee. I am naturally on the back foot. And if I do want to have your time then the onus is on me to get hold of you. Fair enough. But in daily interactions based on equality the groveller/ grovellee situation doesn’t work. I know friends who only ever wait for you to contact them, or people who are “too busy” to return calls – as if we aren’t all busy.

In my view it is courteous and respectful to drop someone a one-line email saying, too busy to write now, will get to you by the end of the week; or leave that message on the mobile. It is easy enough for the busiest of us to set time aside each day just to show respect. It is about acknowledging others and making them feel seen and heard even if we don’t want to deal with the issue they are contacting us about.

It makes people feel like they are invisible if we leave them dangling, This one really makes me mad. What about you?

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Activist blues

By Ruth Ostrow on 21 June 2011 in All Posts, My Daily Raves

Sitting here this morning at my computer, just read that they are to resume live exports to Indonesia within weeks. Industry lobbying against the move to ban exports is too strong. Both Governments and opposition are in favour of resuming trade. They have promised to closely monitor the Indonesians but the minister announced today that forcing Indonesia to use stunning is impossible. What has been achieved?

How do we as an apathetic or simply busy group of people get these archaic horrific practices stopped. I just feel so weak and powerless. Even with all my readers and media clout there is nothing much I can do. I’m at a total loss. I wonder how those incredible activists in the past who’ve won civil rights for so many minority groups around the world have found the time and passion to change their worlds?

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Plastic poison

By Ruth Ostrow on 17 June 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

I hate lights left on all night in city buildings, glossy junk mail, plastic bottles. Share your pet company waste hates here and let’s try to make a difference!

ONE of my readers made a disturbing comment on a blog I wrote which showed a distinctly defeatist view about taking a stand. It was in relation to the story about animal exports to Indonesia.

To paraphrase, he said: “If we don’t supply them someone else will. And then our farmers will be the only ones who get hurt.”

I replied that history is too often tragically shaped by silence. As philosopher Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” One person has to step forward and say: “No more!” Continue Reading →

Four Corners animal cruelty

By Ruth Ostrow on 4 June 2011 in All Posts, Animal Welfare

Help stop the horror of animal export. Please post comments for a protest letter to the Government.

The Government is cracking down on live exports to Asia after horrific footage shown on Four Corners taken by an animal rights activists, blew the lid on the unspeakable cruelty that is going on under our noses.

But farmers are already putting the heat on the Government hoping for a backdown, according to The Australian. We must remain vigilant in our efforts to ensure that such needless suffering is stopped. Please help by raising your voices.

Use this blog to express your feelings!

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