An observation from Michael Gorey on journalism.
READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE AT GOREY.COM.AU | digg story
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Post #51 Google Knol Primary Impressions
Here are the impressions on Google Knol. Why it is not worthwhile to build links through it? Why links hold no weight? What to do first on Google Knol, and almost everything you need to know when you start Knolling...From CuteWriting by Lenin Nair
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Thursday, 24 July 2008
Post #50 Google Knol Finally Out for Wikipedia?
Yesterday, Google announced its Knol project publicly. Its a Wikipedia-ish content system, in which authors can contribute about anything and get a share of revenue generated by their articles. In this way, it can be compared to Adsense...
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read more | digg story
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Post #48 Hire a Hall/Everything (Won't get fooled again?)
I've just read Rough Justice, by Robin Bowles which reviews some controversial cases in Australian criminal law. Among the cases referred to is the disappearance of Peter Falconio in connection with which Bradley Murdoch is currently imprisoned, after being convicted of his murder. This struck me most amongst the contents because I had been utterly convinced of Murdoch's guilt. Of course I'd also previously been prepared to accept the guilt of Andrew Mallard (at least at the time of his prosecution) and I'd almost been convinced of the guilt of Lindy Chamberlain, just before the dam burst on the truth. I'd never really taken much notice of the cases of John Button or Darryl Beamish; they popped up occasionally in the media and I'd never really formed a strong view one way or the other, but I certainly wasn't convinced of their innocence until Estelle Blackburn's work, Broken Lives, appeared.
Reading Rough Justice I became exasperated. The DNA evidence against Murdoch, which had been presented by the media as absolutely damning, is probably somewhat dubious. There were aspects of Joanne Lees' mutating testimony that were also perplexing. The general picture was a familiar one...familiar from all of the other episodes where a reasonable book had shown up the superficiality and omissions of media coverage of a major criminal investigation and consequent trial. Now, I don't tend to believe whoever last "got" at me, and I surely don't accept what the media pumps out as highly credible. So why do I keep being surprised by revelations in the works of (usually female) authors who seem to have a better grasp of the facts than I do? Probably because I keep behaving as if I do accept what the media pumps out.I suspect that this is because, in the very serious matters of which I'm thinking, there is some as-yet-unextinguished faith that "They" won't allow gross misreporting of the proceedings. This probably has a deep foundation in my childhood when the authority of journalism as a profession was not as prolifically disparaged as it is now. It also relies on that youthful faith in the forces of law and order that served John Button so well (for those who don't know his story; he was fitted up). I've learned a lot better, including from my own work in the field. And yet, the things one learns earliest in life (I should say: is taught) are the most enduring. So the tendency to believe persists. It persists in the realm of heinous crimes; where one expects that the gravity of the matters will impose a constraint of care and honesty which it doesn't occur to one to expect in political blathering or celebrity gossip.
Now, do I take the work of Estelle Blackburn, Robin Bowles, and Colleen Egan as authoritative? To the extent that they have a track record of reliability and proven results, yes. John Bryson's 1985 work, Evil Angels, was the first work of this kind which I read that dealt with an Australian case, (although there appear to be plenty of predecessors). It examines the Chamberlain "dingo" case and was the beginning of my loss of credulity for the media's treatment of high-profile criminal investigations and trials. I remember being amazed at the depth of the material which I and millions of others had not been provided with by the apparently intense and detailed coverage of the case.
So, where's all this leave me with regard to Brad Murdoch? I can't say I believe in his innocence but the seed of doubt has been planted. From it grow a multitude of optional other scenarios to explain the events of that case. One fact is certain: Peter Falconio is not to be found by the world at large. If we take that as a starting point, the possibilities cover a spectrum from the simple explanation that all is as Lees has said, except for the identity of the offender, to Falconio having used Lees as a dupe in a complex scheme to fake his own death.
And what does it say for the continuing dilemma of how to respond to the often-wrong published accounts of investigations and trials? I wrote above that I'd expected that "They" would not allow such schlamperie. Of course the authorities represented in the archetype "They" are often up to their necks in scamming the public, so it's not remarkable that no governmental thunderbolts fall upon the misreporters. One approach would be to not believe any of it, but that doesn't seem very practical. You'd have to believe that everyone convicted was innocent and either live complacently with it or start throwing bombs. Nor can every citizen battle through the labyrinth of process to check transcripts of trials, police files, etc. Not that you'd be allowed to anyway. The only thing I can think of is some kind of oversight by an Official Witness Agency that would be established to provide a neutral and comprehensive summary of the transactions. That expression "Official Witness" came to me as a bit of "cryptomnesia", but I finally remembered where I'd seen it: in one of Robert Heinlein's works, Stranger in a Strange Land. One of the characters performs such a function and provides a demonstration of her technique at the behest of Jubal Harshaw, one of the protagonists. He asks her to tell him what the colour of a building on a nearby hill is. She replies, "It's white on this side."
I'd like to see such an agency, perhaps established through the State Constitution as a branch of the judiciary, which would provide an overview of court proceedings in the same manner: just the irrefutable facts about what happened in a hearing, sans any tinting whatsoever. They could be fed through a website for any matter before the courts which had a minimum penalty of more than one year's imprisonment. That should give pause for thought to some of the more reckless fabulists in the media. Now all that's needed is for someone to persuade the governments of Australia to do it.
Don't hang by 'em.
Post #47 The Chinese Diet Could Solve The West's Obesity Crisis
Chinese food has a bad reputation in the UK. The rice-heavy meals and fatty meat dishes are thought to lead straight to obesity and heart disease. But properly prepared, says Chinese food expert Lorraine Clissold, the very opposite is true: the Chinese way of eating is healthy and fulfilling, fights illness and prolongs life. She also insists...
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Post #46 APOD: The Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 27
I have heard that these galactic collisions are on such a vast scale that the stars miss each other and that galaxies pass through each other. It seems unlikely that there are no collisions at all...
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Post #45 Dream déjà vu
A dream from Michael Gorey...the sort of thing that keeps skeptics in work; but can so many people who have these experiences be wrong?
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read more | digg story
Monday, 21 July 2008
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Post #43 A ride with the panzers
I found an interesting website a while ago, called Achtung Panzer! It gives a fascinating amount of detail about German armoured vehicles and opens with this disclaimer:
No, it doesn't glorify war, it just glorifies the implements of war...but that's okay by me, so let's get to the heavy metal!! The site contains videos showing original footage from WWII and pictures of all sorts of obscure war-wagons you've never heard of. I spent a couple of hours delving into the fascinating corners of what is obviously a labour of love. One interesting thing about these contraptions is the extent to which they were often improvised from captured enemy kit or put together from bits and pieces of other designs which had failed to reach full production. As a research tool or just an interesting read, I recommend it.
It is important to understand that this website is not dedicated and does NOT support any Revisionist or Neo-Nazi beliefs and does NOT glorify war. This website is dedicated to the history of tanks and people of the Panzertruppe during World War II. It describes most of the armored fighting vehicles used by the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS Panzer Divisions from September of 1939 to May of 1945. It also describes some of the Panzer Generals and Aces along with other information and additional articles related to the Panzertruppe and/or World War II in general.
No, it doesn't glorify war, it just glorifies the implements of war...but that's okay by me, so let's get to the heavy metal!! The site contains videos showing original footage from WWII and pictures of all sorts of obscure war-wagons you've never heard of. I spent a couple of hours delving into the fascinating corners of what is obviously a labour of love. One interesting thing about these contraptions is the extent to which they were often improvised from captured enemy kit or put together from bits and pieces of other designs which had failed to reach full production. As a research tool or just an interesting read, I recommend it.
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Post #42 17 Electric Cars You Should Know About from 2005 to 2008
Electric Cars: You Want 'Em? We've Got 'Em!Over the past 3 years, we've written about many electric cars here onTreeHugger. We think it's time to look in the rearview mirror, so here's an overview.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Post #41 An opinion piece from Crikey.com on banking.
Why government intervention in the banking sector may not be a bad idea after all.(When the government is a player in the field it can do something direct to influence the interest rates charged in the market place. It can also effect the "service" fees charged.)
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Post #39 The Moon Rocket Project NASA Doesn't Want You to Know
By day, the engineers work on NASA's new Ares moon rockets. By night, some go undercover to work on a competing design. These dissenting scientists and their backers insist they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Post #38 Tesla Roadsters now rolling off production line
The wait for the much-anticipated all-electric sports car is almost over, as manufacturing begins this summer with anticipated ramping up later this year.(But US$100,000 !!?? - Retarius)
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, 14 July 2008
Post #36 The New Face of our Galaxy
The good people working with the Spitzer space telescope have made a huge discovery...An article by James Savik.
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read more | digg story
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Post #35 Why "Wikiblogs" (probably) won't be coming to a site near you.
PART ONE
The project I referred to in the previous post was twofold; initially it was simply to write a biographical article for Wikipedia about the journalist and author, Estelle Blackburn, whose main claim to fame lay in the writing of the book Broken Lives. In the course of doing this, I noticed recurring messages appearing at the top of my screen from the Wikimedia Foundation, asking for donations to fund their projects. I knew that there had been recurring suggestions about placing advertising on Wikipedia and I felt as uneasy about them as I do about advertising on Australia's SBS broadcasting network. An idea occurred to me which seemed to provide a compromise:
The Wikimedia Foundation could support a firewalled fee-free blogging platform which would have the benefits of the flexibility of the Wikipedia editing system and be superior to the systems being offered by most other blogging servers. By "firewalled" I mean that the Foundation would take the same approach as Google and other providers by laying down certain basic prohibitions but otherwise allow the bloggers to get on with it. As for the content, as long as it stayed within the basic rules, the Foundation could, as the Mission Impossible cliche goes, "disavow any knowledge of you and your actions". Along one side of the blog page would be discreet Google-style ads that would produce revenue that would go entirely to the Foundation.
Now, in principle, that seemed a good idea and was a potential source of massive revenues. I also thought, as I told one Wikipedia administrator, that it was a good riposte to the Google/Microsoft/Yahoo cabal who were feeling the edges of the rug that Wikipedia was standing on with ideas such as "knol". I also know enough about "great ideas" to see that it's best to subject them to a thorough test before taking them to The Boss. I've conducted that test and, when I take up the story later, I'll tell you how the whole thing seems to have crashed and burned...
PART TWO
The most obvious danger to the Foundation from hosting blogs (apart from the strictly illegal material that would be proscribed) is the opinion content of those blogs. That's what blogs mostly are; opinion pieces. I needed to find a stimulus to test the response to an opinion; an opinion that would provoke a hostile response. By chance, that turned out to be rather easy to find.
The post about Estelle Blackburn, Carmen Lawrence and Teddy Kennedy was a response test to see how Wikipedia could/would cope with an editor expressing a provocative opinion on a blog in the context of contributing on a related topic on the Wikipedia site. It occurred to me to choose that matter because it was readily to hand; being a controversial issue related to a couple of people I was writing about. I first created a link from my Wikipedia user page to this blog, then a couple of days later, posted the test material. Apart from a literary conceit of joining some characters together by pointing up similarities in circumstances it was basically a replay of criticisms that were prolific in the Australian media some years ago. I was careful to limit my comments to those matters which would be protected in the United States, where the blog server is located, by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and in the Commonwealth of Australia by the ruling of the High Court of Australia pertaining to comment about public figures.
To this end my criticisms of the main subject, Carmen Lawrence, had to focus on her time as an MP and avoid any reference to past or later activities of a type that were pejorative of her, or went beyond her role as a public office-holder. I also had to avoid any accusation of guilt in the context of a charge of which she had been acquitted in court. It's a fine line, but the original scandal which led to a Royal Commission and a perjury trial is one thing; the issue of testimony at the Commission and perjury before it is a complex forensic issue and must be treated completely separately. I kept my commentary well away from that.
PART THREE
Sorry...The rest of this yarn is at a private blog where those I've invited can read it.
The project I referred to in the previous post was twofold; initially it was simply to write a biographical article for Wikipedia about the journalist and author, Estelle Blackburn, whose main claim to fame lay in the writing of the book Broken Lives. In the course of doing this, I noticed recurring messages appearing at the top of my screen from the Wikimedia Foundation, asking for donations to fund their projects. I knew that there had been recurring suggestions about placing advertising on Wikipedia and I felt as uneasy about them as I do about advertising on Australia's SBS broadcasting network. An idea occurred to me which seemed to provide a compromise:
The Wikimedia Foundation could support a firewalled fee-free blogging platform which would have the benefits of the flexibility of the Wikipedia editing system and be superior to the systems being offered by most other blogging servers. By "firewalled" I mean that the Foundation would take the same approach as Google and other providers by laying down certain basic prohibitions but otherwise allow the bloggers to get on with it. As for the content, as long as it stayed within the basic rules, the Foundation could, as the Mission Impossible cliche goes, "disavow any knowledge of you and your actions". Along one side of the blog page would be discreet Google-style ads that would produce revenue that would go entirely to the Foundation.
Now, in principle, that seemed a good idea and was a potential source of massive revenues. I also thought, as I told one Wikipedia administrator, that it was a good riposte to the Google/Microsoft/Yahoo cabal who were feeling the edges of the rug that Wikipedia was standing on with ideas such as "knol". I also know enough about "great ideas" to see that it's best to subject them to a thorough test before taking them to The Boss. I've conducted that test and, when I take up the story later, I'll tell you how the whole thing seems to have crashed and burned...
PART TWO
The most obvious danger to the Foundation from hosting blogs (apart from the strictly illegal material that would be proscribed) is the opinion content of those blogs. That's what blogs mostly are; opinion pieces. I needed to find a stimulus to test the response to an opinion; an opinion that would provoke a hostile response. By chance, that turned out to be rather easy to find.
The post about Estelle Blackburn, Carmen Lawrence and Teddy Kennedy was a response test to see how Wikipedia could/would cope with an editor expressing a provocative opinion on a blog in the context of contributing on a related topic on the Wikipedia site. It occurred to me to choose that matter because it was readily to hand; being a controversial issue related to a couple of people I was writing about. I first created a link from my Wikipedia user page to this blog, then a couple of days later, posted the test material. Apart from a literary conceit of joining some characters together by pointing up similarities in circumstances it was basically a replay of criticisms that were prolific in the Australian media some years ago. I was careful to limit my comments to those matters which would be protected in the United States, where the blog server is located, by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and in the Commonwealth of Australia by the ruling of the High Court of Australia pertaining to comment about public figures.
To this end my criticisms of the main subject, Carmen Lawrence, had to focus on her time as an MP and avoid any reference to past or later activities of a type that were pejorative of her, or went beyond her role as a public office-holder. I also had to avoid any accusation of guilt in the context of a charge of which she had been acquitted in court. It's a fine line, but the original scandal which led to a Royal Commission and a perjury trial is one thing; the issue of testimony at the Commission and perjury before it is a complex forensic issue and must be treated completely separately. I kept my commentary well away from that.
PART THREE
Sorry...The rest of this yarn is at a private blog where those I've invited can read it.
Post #34 The case of the missing mistress...a deletion explained...
I refer to Wikipedia in my blog posts but I usually refrain from blogging about Wikipedia and those who contribute to it. I'll make an exception here for a moment, in a moment.
First off: The whip-wielding lady in the latex suit who has been prominent on the sidebar has gone. She's gone because I felt that there was a certain type of traffic being attracted to this site by her presence. I have several traffic meters on this blog. The Feejit ones are visible, the others aren't. Feejit, although quite good, seems to miss a proportion of the traffic detected by other systems. For some reason, Google sites, of all things, seem to occasionally fail to register on Feejit. A lot of people seem to be finding their way here by way of Google images - a lot more than Feejit shows. I have a feeling they're not coming to look at the gladiators, Daleks, plastic soldiers, etc. Maybe I'm wrong. If they keep coming, great.
So why did I put her there if I felt uncomfortable with it? Here's where Wikipedia comes in. A couple of months ago some friends got into Wikipedia editing and I helped them with some intermittent advice and let them copy my formats from my user pages. I didn't discover until a few days had passed that they were doing some indiscreet things. One wanted to explore her interest in a certain type of sexuality... she created a name and user page that drew a block. After a further false start and some negotiating I persuaded her to take a lower profile on the site and give up the attention-drawing approach. Another friend wanted to be rather cheeky about certain matters involving ethnicity and also left a raunchy coded message on my talk page. Not only that, she wanted to do a project on a rather dangerous topic that you wouldn't want tracked back to you in real life. I also persuaded her to go for a "silent running" approach. I promised, in the course of our discussions, to give both of them some kudos on my blog to pay them off for going quietly. Well, I wasn't going to blog about bondage sex, but I kept my word by finding a comparatively tame picture for the sidebar. After a while, it just didn't look right to me or fit the general tone of what I wanted to say. I also noticed those visits from Google.images that might be on her account. My friend has kindly consented to the lady's departure. As for the other part of the deal, it involved taking time to bash certain rights-abusing governments and that's fine by me; that's what we're here for.
All this happened after an episode in which a couple of other people did some edits to a Wikipedia article and one of them left some messages on talk pages (including mine) that had the same effect as a stick down a bull-ant nest. It drew a wide-ranging block that affected several public sites which I and my friends like to edit from. I was able to defuse that situation and talk the party concerned into dropping it, but only after some unpleasant disputation with another Wikipedian.
Some of the Wikipedia crew believe that I created all of the user ID's involved as some kind of role-play and that the four entities are my "sockpuppets" as the Wikislang goes. I've heard of people creating imaginary friends, but never imaginary obstacles to their own plans. Their appearance and the affects thereof were just a coincidence with a project I was advancing. Also, the occasions when you need peace and focus are when the gods decide to vex you. Everybody knows that the best way to provoke rain and hail or dust-storms or the arrival of flocks of enthusiastically-defaecating birds is to hang out a large quantity of laundry that you've busted a gut to clean. So it was in this case. They broke the surface for their own reasons; they submerged and went away because I asked them nicely. As to what I was up to - you can read about that in the next post.
First off: The whip-wielding lady in the latex suit who has been prominent on the sidebar has gone. She's gone because I felt that there was a certain type of traffic being attracted to this site by her presence. I have several traffic meters on this blog. The Feejit ones are visible, the others aren't. Feejit, although quite good, seems to miss a proportion of the traffic detected by other systems. For some reason, Google sites, of all things, seem to occasionally fail to register on Feejit. A lot of people seem to be finding their way here by way of Google images - a lot more than Feejit shows. I have a feeling they're not coming to look at the gladiators, Daleks, plastic soldiers, etc. Maybe I'm wrong. If they keep coming, great.
So why did I put her there if I felt uncomfortable with it? Here's where Wikipedia comes in. A couple of months ago some friends got into Wikipedia editing and I helped them with some intermittent advice and let them copy my formats from my user pages. I didn't discover until a few days had passed that they were doing some indiscreet things. One wanted to explore her interest in a certain type of sexuality... she created a name and user page that drew a block. After a further false start and some negotiating I persuaded her to take a lower profile on the site and give up the attention-drawing approach. Another friend wanted to be rather cheeky about certain matters involving ethnicity and also left a raunchy coded message on my talk page. Not only that, she wanted to do a project on a rather dangerous topic that you wouldn't want tracked back to you in real life. I also persuaded her to go for a "silent running" approach. I promised, in the course of our discussions, to give both of them some kudos on my blog to pay them off for going quietly. Well, I wasn't going to blog about bondage sex, but I kept my word by finding a comparatively tame picture for the sidebar. After a while, it just didn't look right to me or fit the general tone of what I wanted to say. I also noticed those visits from Google.images that might be on her account. My friend has kindly consented to the lady's departure. As for the other part of the deal, it involved taking time to bash certain rights-abusing governments and that's fine by me; that's what we're here for.
All this happened after an episode in which a couple of other people did some edits to a Wikipedia article and one of them left some messages on talk pages (including mine) that had the same effect as a stick down a bull-ant nest. It drew a wide-ranging block that affected several public sites which I and my friends like to edit from. I was able to defuse that situation and talk the party concerned into dropping it, but only after some unpleasant disputation with another Wikipedian.
Some of the Wikipedia crew believe that I created all of the user ID's involved as some kind of role-play and that the four entities are my "sockpuppets" as the Wikislang goes. I've heard of people creating imaginary friends, but never imaginary obstacles to their own plans. Their appearance and the affects thereof were just a coincidence with a project I was advancing. Also, the occasions when you need peace and focus are when the gods decide to vex you. Everybody knows that the best way to provoke rain and hail or dust-storms or the arrival of flocks of enthusiastically-defaecating birds is to hang out a large quantity of laundry that you've busted a gut to clean. So it was in this case. They broke the surface for their own reasons; they submerged and went away because I asked them nicely. As to what I was up to - you can read about that in the next post.
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Post #33 Hire a Hall/Everything (Psychics and sidekicks)
I was prompted recently to think about the paranormal by various weird coincidences (that I won't digress on here) and I came to the conclusion that there's a real chasm between the fictional perception of clairvoyance and such things and the effect they would have in real life. One very obvious clanger is the response that the world at large would have to a successful soothsayer. I first noticed this in the movie of Stephen King 's book, The Dead Zone. In a scene which isn't actually in the book, Christopher Walken who plays the psychic, Johnny Smith, throws open a closet filled to the brim with the parcels and letters sent by people seeking his help. He's greatly distressed by the pleas for help he's being buried with. In the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood a man reliving his life over and over again, has a nasty experience when he and a female companion (who's having the same experience) try to explore what's happening to them by using their knowledge of coming events to attract the attention of the world with stunningly-accurate predictions. They are put under house arrest by the US government. Their predictions, based on a certain sequence of events, become useless as the effects of state intervention take matters further and further from the familiar pattern. By the time they "die" to start another cycle, they have brought that alternate reality to the brink of nuclear war.
I wonder what would happen to these would-be crime-solving psychics in my own town if they got "lucky". There are some famous disappearances which attract the efforts of these types. Here is a link to a skeptics' website which covers the impact they've had in the case of Sarah Spiers, a missing, possibly murdered, resident of Perth, Western Australia. There are some other interesting cases referred to there. But, apart from the grief that incompetent would-be's cause, what would the consequences of success be? Now, the "coppers" have been known to humour psychics, just in case. But they don't really believe in them. Let's say someone found the remains of a missing person in some obscure place. If they could also point to a killer and there was substantiating evidence, they might be heroes. What if there's just a body? It wouldn't take a cynical police officer long to think that a person who knows where a dead body is hidden is more likely to know from putting or helping to put it there than by some psychic insight. And what would a jury make of it? One day, one of these characters might find a body...then we'll see.
I wonder what would happen to these would-be crime-solving psychics in my own town if they got "lucky". There are some famous disappearances which attract the efforts of these types. Here is a link to a skeptics' website which covers the impact they've had in the case of Sarah Spiers, a missing, possibly murdered, resident of Perth, Western Australia. There are some other interesting cases referred to there. But, apart from the grief that incompetent would-be's cause, what would the consequences of success be? Now, the "coppers" have been known to humour psychics, just in case. But they don't really believe in them. Let's say someone found the remains of a missing person in some obscure place. If they could also point to a killer and there was substantiating evidence, they might be heroes. What if there's just a body? It wouldn't take a cynical police officer long to think that a person who knows where a dead body is hidden is more likely to know from putting or helping to put it there than by some psychic insight. And what would a jury make of it? One day, one of these characters might find a body...then we'll see.
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Post #32 Hire a Hall/Nothing (Naked hypocrisy)
A few years ago a public health advocacy group attempted to hire some advertising space in The West Australian to advise men who didn't identify themselves as homosexual, while still having the occasional dalliance, of the dangers they faced from STD's, particularly AIDS. The advertisement was to be full-page and include a large photograph of two naked men embracing; posed in such a way that their genitals would be obscured. The West, which reaps a profitable revenue from advertising whorehouses, telphone sex lines, "adult product" vendors and so on, felt that this was beyond reason and wouldn't allow it.
Yesterday we Western Australians were treated to a photograph of a naked man and woman embracing (from waist up) in a small box next to the West's masthead title. Inside, on the front page of the Weekend Magazine liftout, was the full-page, full-size photograph in which the two rather unphotogenic parties are grinning at the camera. The woman, posed right of picture, is holding, with her left hand, the lead of a terrier dog who sits at the bottom of the photo, also grinning at the camera. Her hand, holding the lead, is placed in front of the man's groin. It doesn't completely obscure his penis, a small section of which is peeking from behind.
And the pretext for this image? The story contained in the liftout about the decline of nudism in Western Australia. The story is further illustrated with nude pictures of the two front-page models and with photos of other nudists in a hot-tub (some penis-shapes distinguishable through the water) and out and about enjoying their pastime.
I'm not in the least interested in rubbishing the nudists. Couldn't care less. Just one, admittedly obvious point to make...in fact it's made, isn't it?
Yesterday we Western Australians were treated to a photograph of a naked man and woman embracing (from waist up) in a small box next to the West's masthead title. Inside, on the front page of the Weekend Magazine liftout, was the full-page, full-size photograph in which the two rather unphotogenic parties are grinning at the camera. The woman, posed right of picture, is holding, with her left hand, the lead of a terrier dog who sits at the bottom of the photo, also grinning at the camera. Her hand, holding the lead, is placed in front of the man's groin. It doesn't completely obscure his penis, a small section of which is peeking from behind.
And the pretext for this image? The story contained in the liftout about the decline of nudism in Western Australia. The story is further illustrated with nude pictures of the two front-page models and with photos of other nudists in a hot-tub (some penis-shapes distinguishable through the water) and out and about enjoying their pastime.
I'm not in the least interested in rubbishing the nudists. Couldn't care less. Just one, admittedly obvious point to make...in fact it's made, isn't it?
Friday, 13 June 2008
Post #31 Hire a Hall/Everything (1001 things to make and do..)
I usually don't agree with much that's generated by the columnists at The Australian, but I have to say that the recent observations by Messrs Megalogenis and Sheridan are persuasive on the subject of Kevin Rudd's scattergun policy output. I said to Anastasia a while back that we in Australia were celebrating the overthrow of the former corrupt regime (Howard) and that we could now settle down in peace to enjoy the new corrupt regime (Rudd). I only half-meant it as a joke. The other half now appears to be acquiring some substantiation.
The most recent projects; to restart the nuclear disarmament process and to create a Pacific Union, have eroded my hopes that Kevin Rudd might be at least half as good as he seemed. Nothing unworthy in the essence of either, of course, but the approach being taken is like a scrapbooking project or some such - cutting out and gluing together a cardboard rocket and calling it a space programme. I'm also reminded of a documentary I saw years ago in which Mussolini was shown inspecting a great fleet of aircraft parked in a field as the voice-over commented, "Many of the planes he inspected that day had no engines..."
What beats me is that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that Australia can only make one substantial contribution to ending nuclear proliferation: halt all mining and export of uranium. If that's not an option on the table, there's no point in going further. The nuclear technology is out of the bottle, it's only the essential raw materials which are controllable in the long term. And that surely isn't on the table. The ALP's three mines "policy" was never really a policy. It was a transitional phase while the factions struggled to determine whether the policy would be for or against uranium mining. It looked like a policy because the struggle lasted so long and the holding position became a de facto platform plank. No-one in the ALP thought it was a final position, although the Coalition liked to call it such to give them something to mock. Well, the struggle's over now. The miners have won. That can be said with certainty when even that veteran of the Nuclear Disarmament Party, Peter Garrett has kept a straight face as the ALP has gone down the nuclear road.
As for a Pacific Union, it might have had some hope if it had been defined within reasonable limits in private and then canvassed in private with the governments of potential member nations. The way this has been done must look to a foreigner like posturing for the domestic audience. Surely a serious effort would be advanced discreetly and with a solid proposition being developed before the negotiating began?
Sheridan is right in saying that Rudd will squander his reserves of credibility and goodwill if he keeps on in this way.
The most recent projects; to restart the nuclear disarmament process and to create a Pacific Union, have eroded my hopes that Kevin Rudd might be at least half as good as he seemed. Nothing unworthy in the essence of either, of course, but the approach being taken is like a scrapbooking project or some such - cutting out and gluing together a cardboard rocket and calling it a space programme. I'm also reminded of a documentary I saw years ago in which Mussolini was shown inspecting a great fleet of aircraft parked in a field as the voice-over commented, "Many of the planes he inspected that day had no engines..."
What beats me is that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that Australia can only make one substantial contribution to ending nuclear proliferation: halt all mining and export of uranium. If that's not an option on the table, there's no point in going further. The nuclear technology is out of the bottle, it's only the essential raw materials which are controllable in the long term. And that surely isn't on the table. The ALP's three mines "policy" was never really a policy. It was a transitional phase while the factions struggled to determine whether the policy would be for or against uranium mining. It looked like a policy because the struggle lasted so long and the holding position became a de facto platform plank. No-one in the ALP thought it was a final position, although the Coalition liked to call it such to give them something to mock. Well, the struggle's over now. The miners have won. That can be said with certainty when even that veteran of the Nuclear Disarmament Party, Peter Garrett has kept a straight face as the ALP has gone down the nuclear road.
As for a Pacific Union, it might have had some hope if it had been defined within reasonable limits in private and then canvassed in private with the governments of potential member nations. The way this has been done must look to a foreigner like posturing for the domestic audience. Surely a serious effort would be advanced discreetly and with a solid proposition being developed before the negotiating began?
Sheridan is right in saying that Rudd will squander his reserves of credibility and goodwill if he keeps on in this way.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Post #30 Hire a hall/Everything (Inert and just a Lama)
The Dalai Lama is now visiting Australia. The usual ructions are being made over whether various marks of esteem should or not be paid to him, in the currency of meetings with Government ministers. The thing that puzzles me is why, leaving aside those to whom he is a religious mentor, anyone would bother to meet him. If you are supportive of or indifferent to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, you wouldn't cross your own tracks by giving him house-room. That makes sense enough - but if you support the independence of Tibet there's no point in knowing him either.
Since fleeing Tibet, in 1959, the Dalai lama has achieved... absolutely nothing! The gradual obliteration of the indigenous Tibetan culture and the creeping genocide by importation of Han Chinese has progressed unstinted. If one analyses the policy he espouses in the context of similar historical events, there's a tendency which I think is quite unusual. Consider, for example, the behaviour of de Gaulle and the light in which it places the Dalai Lama. What sort of "exiled leader" preaches accommodation and submission to the occupier and oppressor of his homeland? The Dalai Lama 's ability to provoke Chinese hostility is utterly at variance with and out of proportion to his actual impact on the course of events. In fact, it's caused me to develop a certain suspicion: What if the Dalai Lama is actually a sidetracking decoy who is operating under the direction of Beijing? Sounds crazy? Well, it wouldn't be this first time in the history of the world that a scam like that was played: The Soviets had a fine line in similar activities; the Soviet-era Russian Orthodox Church was KGB from top to bottom.
How and why would this work? Simple; it attracts all the media attention and political heat towards a person who really isn't a threat to Chinese control of Tibet. Like the bogus "global warming" debate that keeps the real heat off the carbon fuel industries, the Dalai Lama's hotly-disputed peregrinations provide a sponge-issue that soaks up energy that might otherwise go towards actually doing something. Like a trade embargo. Like supporting an effective armed insurgency (unlike the old ineffective one). Like an honest-to-God armed intervention on the model of the Korean Police Action. Perhaps the perennial choleric outbursts from Beijing are method-acting which allows the concerned foreigners to think that they are being very activist by "defying" Beijing and meeting the Dalai Lama.
The fundamental truth about the Dalai Lama is that, if he isn't a plant by Beijing, he's doing nothing to distinguish himself from one. He is utterly impotent and insignificant. That's the best reason to eschew meeting him. He makes Quisling look like Arminius.
Since fleeing Tibet, in 1959, the Dalai lama has achieved... absolutely nothing! The gradual obliteration of the indigenous Tibetan culture and the creeping genocide by importation of Han Chinese has progressed unstinted. If one analyses the policy he espouses in the context of similar historical events, there's a tendency which I think is quite unusual. Consider, for example, the behaviour of de Gaulle and the light in which it places the Dalai Lama. What sort of "exiled leader" preaches accommodation and submission to the occupier and oppressor of his homeland? The Dalai Lama 's ability to provoke Chinese hostility is utterly at variance with and out of proportion to his actual impact on the course of events. In fact, it's caused me to develop a certain suspicion: What if the Dalai Lama is actually a sidetracking decoy who is operating under the direction of Beijing? Sounds crazy? Well, it wouldn't be this first time in the history of the world that a scam like that was played: The Soviets had a fine line in similar activities; the Soviet-era Russian Orthodox Church was KGB from top to bottom.
How and why would this work? Simple; it attracts all the media attention and political heat towards a person who really isn't a threat to Chinese control of Tibet. Like the bogus "global warming" debate that keeps the real heat off the carbon fuel industries, the Dalai Lama's hotly-disputed peregrinations provide a sponge-issue that soaks up energy that might otherwise go towards actually doing something. Like a trade embargo. Like supporting an effective armed insurgency (unlike the old ineffective one). Like an honest-to-God armed intervention on the model of the Korean Police Action. Perhaps the perennial choleric outbursts from Beijing are method-acting which allows the concerned foreigners to think that they are being very activist by "defying" Beijing and meeting the Dalai Lama.
The fundamental truth about the Dalai Lama is that, if he isn't a plant by Beijing, he's doing nothing to distinguish himself from one. He is utterly impotent and insignificant. That's the best reason to eschew meeting him. He makes Quisling look like Arminius.
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Post #29 A cartoon history of gasoline consumption in the USA
This link says it all. (If you get stuck at the Salon sign-in page, just click their bypass link in the top right corner.)
Monday, 9 June 2008
Post #28 Gasoline thieves adopt a new drill
"With gas prices at record highs and service stations thwarting drive-offs with pay-before-you-pump policies, gas thieves are becoming more creative."
A story from Digg. I wonder how long before it happens here, if not already.
read more | digg story
A story from Digg. I wonder how long before it happens here, if not already.
read more | digg story
Sunday, 8 June 2008
Post #27 Hire a Hall/Everything (All gassed up.)
Yep, we got us a gas explosion on Varanus Island. I'd never heard of the place until something blew up there on Tuesday, 3 June 2008 and apparently cut the supply of natural gas to W.A. by one third. At least it's taken Fran Logan's mind off "the threesome"!
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Post #26 Estelle Blackburn, Carmen Lawrence and...Teddy Kennedy.
The post which was here has been deleted by the author for reasons explained in the post, "Why 'Wikiblogs' (probably) wont be coming to a site near you." which was first published on 8 July 2008.
Post #25 An interesting speculation about a prominent case
A contributor to a talk page lays out some suspicions about a serial killer.
NOTE: Scroll down to where "chrisj" posts, at the bottom of the thread.
read more | digg story
NOTE: Scroll down to where "chrisj" posts, at the bottom of the thread.
read more | digg story
Post #24 Unethical Scam Associated Content
"Associated Content, the people's media company, is a highly unethical business practice. It is a website that can scam you, writers! beware. You should not be backed by such to get published anywhere. Do your work, and get published for it. That's it."
From a post by Lenin Nair.
read more | digg story
From a post by Lenin Nair.
read more | digg story
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Post #23 APOD: A Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence
"Ten Earths could easily fit in the "claw" of this seemingly solar monster. The monster, though, visible on the lower left, is a huge eruptive prominence seen moving out from our Sun. The above dramatic image taken early in the year 2000 by the Sun-orbiting SOHO satellite."
read more | digg story
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Post #22 Hire a Hall/Everything (...drew their plans against us)
In the opening paragraph of the War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells tells of the complacency of humanity as the alien enemy prepares to attack: "...intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us."
I feel that we are replicating the complacency of Wells' imaginary earthlings in the real world. There is a hostile and far-thinking power which is gradually establishing a strategic advantage against this planet. That power is not to be found on Mars, but in the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the despotic government which is engaging in a space programme that appears to be replicating the first phase of the US-Soviet "space race" of the 1960's. The standard view of this "race" is that the US won and the Soviets, disheartened, turned their attention to Earth-orbit activities. In truth, although the US succeeded in landing six expeditions on the Moon, the prize in the race was not truly claimed. The Moon has no permanent human settlement and is as much in contention as it ever was.
The Chinese government has announced its intention to carry out Moon landings. It seems unlikely that they will content themselves with a tip-and-run effort. They have made their decision to advance a space programme without the impetus of a foreign competitor that is challenging them in the field. So, is it plausible that they will content themselves with a gesture which merely repeats the American effort? This is no knee-jerk plan and it must have a pragmatic purpose and an intended outcome to their advantage.
I've read Robert Heinlein's work The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and been impressed by the case he made for the Moon as a base for military operations. I recommend it as a source of insight into the potential danger of allowing uncontested control of the Moon to fall into the hands of a government which has repeatedly demonstrated that it places no value on treaties or human life. As Heinlein shows, the Moon is a great place from which to throw rocks..
And how do we respond? So far, publicly, only with benign curiosity. We observe the state which is celebrating five thousand years of despotism as it lays the ground for a lunar base and we watch with mild interest, not the alarm which it should cause. Compared to this threat, the provocations of Al-Qaeda are small fry indeed.
I feel that we are replicating the complacency of Wells' imaginary earthlings in the real world. There is a hostile and far-thinking power which is gradually establishing a strategic advantage against this planet. That power is not to be found on Mars, but in the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the despotic government which is engaging in a space programme that appears to be replicating the first phase of the US-Soviet "space race" of the 1960's. The standard view of this "race" is that the US won and the Soviets, disheartened, turned their attention to Earth-orbit activities. In truth, although the US succeeded in landing six expeditions on the Moon, the prize in the race was not truly claimed. The Moon has no permanent human settlement and is as much in contention as it ever was.
The Chinese government has announced its intention to carry out Moon landings. It seems unlikely that they will content themselves with a tip-and-run effort. They have made their decision to advance a space programme without the impetus of a foreign competitor that is challenging them in the field. So, is it plausible that they will content themselves with a gesture which merely repeats the American effort? This is no knee-jerk plan and it must have a pragmatic purpose and an intended outcome to their advantage.
I've read Robert Heinlein's work The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and been impressed by the case he made for the Moon as a base for military operations. I recommend it as a source of insight into the potential danger of allowing uncontested control of the Moon to fall into the hands of a government which has repeatedly demonstrated that it places no value on treaties or human life. As Heinlein shows, the Moon is a great place from which to throw rocks..
And how do we respond? So far, publicly, only with benign curiosity. We observe the state which is celebrating five thousand years of despotism as it lays the ground for a lunar base and we watch with mild interest, not the alarm which it should cause. Compared to this threat, the provocations of Al-Qaeda are small fry indeed.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Post #21 Hire a Hall / Everything (This very tired brown land)
The big shock last month was the announcement by the Australian government of an immigration quota increase. If ever there was something this country didn't need, there it is.
I've read a book by Mark O'Connor, a while ago now, which I found a very moderate and reasonable treatment of Australia's role as an immigration recipient. It's called This Tired Brown Land (1998) and it's essential reading for everyone who wants to be informed on the topic. The scholarly studies by demographers are impenetrable to the layperson, the diatribes of the bigots are tiresome and offer no substantiation. This little book covers the topic in a calm and friendly manner that persuades with common sense.
After reading it I wondered why Australians have any difficulty in seeing the weirdness and folly of our current population "policy". In fact it goes a long way to prove that we have no such policy.
In light of our worsening water supply, our degrading arable land, the stress on our power supply systems, public hospitals, transport infrastructure and anything else you can shake a stick at that's going down the gurgler - why the hell are we loading the boat further?
What I find most striking in this work is the explanation of the role played by the interest groups who promote immigration. Their interest doesn't seem to coincide with the long-term welfare of the nation. I detect the presence of the same people who are the "usual suspects" in the cause of multiculturalism. These are the (usually self-appointed) "ethnic community representatives" who start squawking about racism whenever anyone tries to take a sensible look at the population issue. Keeping up a constant flow of "clients" for their "ethnic" organisations is a motivating force behind this behaviour. Then there are the industry groups who would rather import ready-made labour than train current Australian citizens. The fact that they like to obtain them from countries where labour organisation is a scarce commodity is also an indicator of a motive.
The current Australian immigration policy is a good model of a pyramid scheme. The point will come where it blows out and the last ones aboard will be up the proverbial waterway without means of propulsion. And the rest of us will be right there with them.
I've read a book by Mark O'Connor, a while ago now, which I found a very moderate and reasonable treatment of Australia's role as an immigration recipient. It's called This Tired Brown Land (1998) and it's essential reading for everyone who wants to be informed on the topic. The scholarly studies by demographers are impenetrable to the layperson, the diatribes of the bigots are tiresome and offer no substantiation. This little book covers the topic in a calm and friendly manner that persuades with common sense.
After reading it I wondered why Australians have any difficulty in seeing the weirdness and folly of our current population "policy". In fact it goes a long way to prove that we have no such policy.
In light of our worsening water supply, our degrading arable land, the stress on our power supply systems, public hospitals, transport infrastructure and anything else you can shake a stick at that's going down the gurgler - why the hell are we loading the boat further?
What I find most striking in this work is the explanation of the role played by the interest groups who promote immigration. Their interest doesn't seem to coincide with the long-term welfare of the nation. I detect the presence of the same people who are the "usual suspects" in the cause of multiculturalism. These are the (usually self-appointed) "ethnic community representatives" who start squawking about racism whenever anyone tries to take a sensible look at the population issue. Keeping up a constant flow of "clients" for their "ethnic" organisations is a motivating force behind this behaviour. Then there are the industry groups who would rather import ready-made labour than train current Australian citizens. The fact that they like to obtain them from countries where labour organisation is a scarce commodity is also an indicator of a motive.
The current Australian immigration policy is a good model of a pyramid scheme. The point will come where it blows out and the last ones aboard will be up the proverbial waterway without means of propulsion. And the rest of us will be right there with them.
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Post #20 Hire a Hall / Everything (A shocking development!!)
Yesterday I heard an announcer on ABC NewsRadio say something like"...breaking story. New corruption allegations coming out of New South Wales..."
I thought, "This is supposed to be news?" Here's what would be news:
I thought, "This is supposed to be news?" Here's what would be news:
And now a shocking development from New South Wales. News tracking services have confirmed that seven days have passed since a corruption story broke in New South Wales! Premier Morris Iemma has announced at a press conference just held here at Parliament House, Sydney, that the Government will convene an urgent inquiry into the scandal-deficit and has urged the people of the State to remain calm: "We have no reason to believe that the situation will not self-correct in the near future", Iemma stated, to a hostile media pack, "However the government is not being complacent." Informed government sources, however, state that vicious argument broke out at an emergency Cabinet meeting called to discuss the crisis. Ministers are believed to have walked out in fury because of accusations of corruption-negligence from a Cabinet Secretary. The State Opposition Leader, Whatsisname, accused the government of "a gross abrogation of public duty" and promised that a Coalition government would restore corruption to normal levels within six months of taking office: "With particular emphasis on sexual impropriety and contractor kickbacks." A government media spokesperson dismissed this as "further evidence of the Coalition's lack of innovative policy".If only. This is part of the "Sydney Broadcasting Corporation" syndrome which believes that the whole nation is breathlessly awaiting the next word from Emerald City. There was a time when I wouldn't want to miss The 7:30 Report but, after the efforts of the renowned Howard saboteur, Jonathan Shier, which resulted in the abolition of the State-based format of the programme, I couldn't be bothered with it. In fact, Lateline went to Hell after Kerry O'Brien left and the 7:30 report went to Hell after he took it over. I've got two items at the top of my wishlist where the Rudd government and broadcasting policy are concerned: A restoration of the State-based 7:30 report (sorry, Kerry, but you can do the Sydney version) and abolition of the execrable commercial advertising on SBS. And if, as Christopher Pearson alleges, that would require the government to "stump up" thirty million dollars, so be it. Money more than well spent.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Post #19 How the other half may not live: APOD: A Dangerous Sunrise on Planet Gliese 876d
"On planet Gliese 876d, sunrises might be dangerous. Although nobody really knows what conditions are like on this close-in planet orbiting variable red dwarf star Gliese 876, the above artistic illustration gives one impression."
An interesting scene from a Nasa website, found at Digg.
read more | digg story
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Post #18 An editorial comment
I've spent the past few days working on the technical aspects of blogging; practicing HTML, Javascript and so on. I've found some anomalies in the way the page element system works.
Among other things, the editing box for HTML/Javascript appears to accept some edits, then deletes them in the saving process, leaving you at square one. The other bug I've noticed is that the space for a page element which is as wide as the page and just below the title box seems to have stopped working on my blog. I don't know if this is particular to me and due to something I've done or is systemic. I'll ask Google Help about it and see what transpires.
I've come to this conclusion from trying different browsers: Mozilla Firefox beats the hell out of Internet Explorer. Maybe there's a catch I can't see, but I don't know why anybody's using IE if they have a choice.
Among other things, the editing box for HTML/Javascript appears to accept some edits, then deletes them in the saving process, leaving you at square one. The other bug I've noticed is that the space for a page element which is as wide as the page and just below the title box seems to have stopped working on my blog. I don't know if this is particular to me and due to something I've done or is systemic. I'll ask Google Help about it and see what transpires.
I've come to this conclusion from trying different browsers: Mozilla Firefox beats the hell out of Internet Explorer. Maybe there's a catch I can't see, but I don't know why anybody's using IE if they have a choice.
Friday, 16 May 2008
Post #17 Hire a Hall/Everything (The fat girl shop)
In one of the shopping centres I frequent there was, until recently, a shop that specialised in providing office and evening wear to the larger sizes of women. The shop was equipped with appropriately-sized store dummies and came complete with a sturdy young proprietress who could easily fill the clothes she sold.
Along the arcade to each side were other women's clothing businesses. One had previously been a lingerie store which had lissome torso dummies in its windows which would have been passable facsimiles of the bodies of girls in their early teens. Around these were stretched the typical pieces of scanty fabric that dominate the selections of modern female underwear. It flourished in this incarnation for several years then was transformed into a general clothing store, under new management, but with the same scrawny type of window-mannequins. Walking past, along the winding arcade, I'm confronted directly by its window display and when I see the dimensions of the blouses, skirts, dresses, etc. that are offered, I wonder what regiments of twelve and thirteen-year-old girls are swarming in there to buy the stuff and keep them in business. Maybe they just put the most svelte stuff in the windows and the racks are covertly holding the larger sizes. I won't conduct field research to find out!
Another store along the arcade two doors from what I took to thinking of (I regret to admit) as "The Fat Girls' Shop" was also a conventional type; slender dummies standing in the windows with permanently-fitted pink page-boy wigs, showing off a regularly-changing array of the usual gear for the emaciated. Elsewhere in the centre there's a less overtly "thinist" place that caters for more mature women, but the dummies standing sentry in the windows are relentlessly lithe.
A couple of weeks ago the fat girl shop closed. I couldn't figure it at first. I walk along the streets of this city seeing plenty of potential customers. Let's be clear, it's not really "fat" in most cases; there are many women who just have robust skeletons. You can tell from the size of their heads that they couldn't trim down beyond a certain point that would still make the stuff in those window displays unwearable. So why does a shop touting "plus sizes" pass away? Well, the owner may have found greener pastures, but I suspect she just couldn't cop enough revenue to keep going.
Now, Kingsize Menswear is a brand that has no trouble making a mint. Although it caters to the naturally broad and tall (and broad and short) it's also been covering the fat "guts" of Australian men since 1972 and goes stronger every year. The only thing I can see is that "fatness" is such a taboo in female culture that, apart from covert purchase through the Internet or mail-order catalogues, women just won't be associated with such a place. As in, won't be caught dead calling themselves a name by walking through the door.
There was another thing that I felt uneasy about: the clothing itself was striking what I thought was an "off" note. It was enlarged to fit the bodies of the big girls, but it was the same fabric, embroidery and so on, that characterised the clothes for the skinnies. I'd walk past the big dummy at the door when it was wearing a translucent evening gown or a torsolette and it just didn't look right. A frilly G-string stretched across a metre-wide derriere ain't the same as when it's on a pert, narrow one. I think that's really where the problem is: that stuff isn't attractive or sexy wear for women. It's purpose-made to emphasise the form of a very narrow part of the spectrum of women. Making it in a large size doesn't make it any more natural. The answer to the question,"How can flattering, impressive clothing be made for larger women?" is not to be found in making larger sizes of the same gear made for the smaller ones. The real challenge for designers is to wipe the preconceptions away and begin with fabrics, designs and colours that will make a natural compliment to the woman they're meant to fit, not a misguided distortion of someone else's style. Then nobody will need to fret over walking through the door of a "plus size" shop.
Along the arcade to each side were other women's clothing businesses. One had previously been a lingerie store which had lissome torso dummies in its windows which would have been passable facsimiles of the bodies of girls in their early teens. Around these were stretched the typical pieces of scanty fabric that dominate the selections of modern female underwear. It flourished in this incarnation for several years then was transformed into a general clothing store, under new management, but with the same scrawny type of window-mannequins. Walking past, along the winding arcade, I'm confronted directly by its window display and when I see the dimensions of the blouses, skirts, dresses, etc. that are offered, I wonder what regiments of twelve and thirteen-year-old girls are swarming in there to buy the stuff and keep them in business. Maybe they just put the most svelte stuff in the windows and the racks are covertly holding the larger sizes. I won't conduct field research to find out!
Another store along the arcade two doors from what I took to thinking of (I regret to admit) as "The Fat Girls' Shop" was also a conventional type; slender dummies standing in the windows with permanently-fitted pink page-boy wigs, showing off a regularly-changing array of the usual gear for the emaciated. Elsewhere in the centre there's a less overtly "thinist" place that caters for more mature women, but the dummies standing sentry in the windows are relentlessly lithe.
A couple of weeks ago the fat girl shop closed. I couldn't figure it at first. I walk along the streets of this city seeing plenty of potential customers. Let's be clear, it's not really "fat" in most cases; there are many women who just have robust skeletons. You can tell from the size of their heads that they couldn't trim down beyond a certain point that would still make the stuff in those window displays unwearable. So why does a shop touting "plus sizes" pass away? Well, the owner may have found greener pastures, but I suspect she just couldn't cop enough revenue to keep going.
Now, Kingsize Menswear is a brand that has no trouble making a mint. Although it caters to the naturally broad and tall (and broad and short) it's also been covering the fat "guts" of Australian men since 1972 and goes stronger every year. The only thing I can see is that "fatness" is such a taboo in female culture that, apart from covert purchase through the Internet or mail-order catalogues, women just won't be associated with such a place. As in, won't be caught dead calling themselves a name by walking through the door.
There was another thing that I felt uneasy about: the clothing itself was striking what I thought was an "off" note. It was enlarged to fit the bodies of the big girls, but it was the same fabric, embroidery and so on, that characterised the clothes for the skinnies. I'd walk past the big dummy at the door when it was wearing a translucent evening gown or a torsolette and it just didn't look right. A frilly G-string stretched across a metre-wide derriere ain't the same as when it's on a pert, narrow one. I think that's really where the problem is: that stuff isn't attractive or sexy wear for women. It's purpose-made to emphasise the form of a very narrow part of the spectrum of women. Making it in a large size doesn't make it any more natural. The answer to the question,"How can flattering, impressive clothing be made for larger women?" is not to be found in making larger sizes of the same gear made for the smaller ones. The real challenge for designers is to wipe the preconceptions away and begin with fabrics, designs and colours that will make a natural compliment to the woman they're meant to fit, not a misguided distortion of someone else's style. Then nobody will need to fret over walking through the door of a "plus size" shop.
Monday, 5 May 2008
Post #16 Hire a Hall/Nothing and Everything (...for a game of plastic soldiers.)
A friend was taking art classes and had been advised by the instructor to buy one of those little wooden mannequins that are supposed to allow you to practice drawing the postures and proportions of the human body. She was complaining that the prices are exorbitant; "They're only wood, they've got no features and they range up to fifty dollars!" It was obvious to me that there was a simple and even superior alternative. I laughed and said, "Why buy a special artist's doll? All you need are some cheap plastic toys with articulated joints. As long as the proportions are fairly realistic and the joints bend, you'll be able to do the same poses with them. They'll probably be smaller than the wooden ones, but I don't think that matters." Sure enough, she was able to obtain some suitable figures from the toy-graveyards of her girlfriends' kids. Since then I found this page on the web that shows I'm not the only one to think of it.
I've got some el cheapo plastic soldiers which I bought for the same purpose and others that I've been using to make dioramas. These plastic figures fascinate me for a lot of reasons. The consistency of the themes and designs over decades is intriguing. Apart from the larger, poseable ones there are the moulded figures cranked out by the million. The peculiar thing is that the actual poses of many of the fixed figures have come in perennially-repeated stereotypical forms. There's the "grenade-thrower", one arm behind, clutching the bomb, the other extended up into the air; the "observer", standing erect with binoculars to his face; the "bayoneter", charging with outstretched rifle; the "machine-gunner" kneeling on one knee behind his tripod-mounted weapon; the "officer", waving a pistol in the air with one arm and waving 'come-on' with the other; the "tommy-gunner" standing with legs braced, pointing his gun from the hip. If you've ever played with or just seen toy soldiers you'll recognise the types. They're frozen in time, wearing and bearing equipment of the Second World War. They look American, going by the helmets - the old style of the 1940's, of course. There are sets that show newer, Kevlar helmets in coal-scuttle form, but among the newer-equipped figures are still some of the old style. The ones I see are all made in China, probably cranked out in the fevered industrial frenzy of Guangdong Province. The older ones from the 50's, 60's and so on were probably from Hong Kong. Perhaps many of them still are.
So did some Chinese entrepreneur decide in the 1950's on a set of figures for plastic soldier sets and have moulds made which are still in service today? Are new moulds made on the old pattern? I wonder if it's possible to find out. Maybe, just for the hell of it, I'll try.
And today, Wednesday, 21 May 2008, here they are. As is becoming usual, the answer came from Wikipedia. The article Army men contains a few answers, although it says these guys were made in the USA by Louis Marx and Co. and in Britain by Airfix and Matchbox before a decline in sales of military toys sent the business to China. I'm sure they were coming from Hong Kong and Taiwan back in the 1950's and 60's, so I can only assume that the Chinese disregard for intellectual property rights didn't begin in the People's Republic or very recently!
I've got some el cheapo plastic soldiers which I bought for the same purpose and others that I've been using to make dioramas. These plastic figures fascinate me for a lot of reasons. The consistency of the themes and designs over decades is intriguing. Apart from the larger, poseable ones there are the moulded figures cranked out by the million. The peculiar thing is that the actual poses of many of the fixed figures have come in perennially-repeated stereotypical forms. There's the "grenade-thrower", one arm behind, clutching the bomb, the other extended up into the air; the "observer", standing erect with binoculars to his face; the "bayoneter", charging with outstretched rifle; the "machine-gunner" kneeling on one knee behind his tripod-mounted weapon; the "officer", waving a pistol in the air with one arm and waving 'come-on' with the other; the "tommy-gunner" standing with legs braced, pointing his gun from the hip. If you've ever played with or just seen toy soldiers you'll recognise the types. They're frozen in time, wearing and bearing equipment of the Second World War. They look American, going by the helmets - the old style of the 1940's, of course. There are sets that show newer, Kevlar helmets in coal-scuttle form, but among the newer-equipped figures are still some of the old style. The ones I see are all made in China, probably cranked out in the fevered industrial frenzy of Guangdong Province. The older ones from the 50's, 60's and so on were probably from Hong Kong. Perhaps many of them still are.
So did some Chinese entrepreneur decide in the 1950's on a set of figures for plastic soldier sets and have moulds made which are still in service today? Are new moulds made on the old pattern? I wonder if it's possible to find out. Maybe, just for the hell of it, I'll try.
And today, Wednesday, 21 May 2008, here they are. As is becoming usual, the answer came from Wikipedia. The article Army men contains a few answers, although it says these guys were made in the USA by Louis Marx and Co. and in Britain by Airfix and Matchbox before a decline in sales of military toys sent the business to China. I'm sure they were coming from Hong Kong and Taiwan back in the 1950's and 60's, so I can only assume that the Chinese disregard for intellectual property rights didn't begin in the People's Republic or very recently!
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Post #15 Hire a Hall/Everything (Run out of town..all the way to London.)
I haven't got a clue about Boris Johnson, newly-elected mayor of London. I liked "Red Ken" from a distance because...well... he was called "Red Ken". Good luck to London and Boris. For all I know he's a lovely bloke and will make a good fist of it.
Now to what is pertinent to an Australian: Boris' victory is a lifeline for Australian spin-doctors, Crosby Textor. Now there's a subject I have a clear view on. Among many other sins, C/T introduced "push-polling" to Australia. That's where you contact an elector and, under the guise of "surveying", say something like: "Would it affect your opinion if you discovered that Candidate X is a wife-beating, animal-torturing, high-taxing scumbag? Just asking out of idle curiosity, of course! Well, would it?"
Now that the Liberal Party, C/T's preferred clients in these islands, have been driven from office in all jurisdictions, they've headed offshore to find greener pastures. I don't know what they got up to over there, or whether their interventions made a damn bit of difference. They'll take as much of the credit as they can grab, of course; having
provided their services to Boris and scored a win, they'll be reinvigorated, instead of dying in the gutter where they belong. Just like the Daleks; whenever you think they're finally obliterated, they stage a comeback. Well not quite; the Daleks have provided me and millions of other fans with many hours of good, clean, homicidal fun. Mmm...I wonder if they know where Crosby Textor are.
Now to what is pertinent to an Australian: Boris' victory is a lifeline for Australian spin-doctors, Crosby Textor. Now there's a subject I have a clear view on. Among many other sins, C/T introduced "push-polling" to Australia. That's where you contact an elector and, under the guise of "surveying", say something like: "Would it affect your opinion if you discovered that Candidate X is a wife-beating, animal-torturing, high-taxing scumbag? Just asking out of idle curiosity, of course! Well, would it?"
Now that the Liberal Party, C/T's preferred clients in these islands, have been driven from office in all jurisdictions, they've headed offshore to find greener pastures. I don't know what they got up to over there, or whether their interventions made a damn bit of difference. They'll take as much of the credit as they can grab, of course; having
provided their services to Boris and scored a win, they'll be reinvigorated, instead of dying in the gutter where they belong. Just like the Daleks; whenever you think they're finally obliterated, they stage a comeback. Well not quite; the Daleks have provided me and millions of other fans with many hours of good, clean, homicidal fun. Mmm...I wonder if they know where Crosby Textor are.
Saturday, 3 May 2008
Post #14 Hire a Hall/Everything (...to some of us)
I've got to be quick posting this or I may miss the opportunity to add to Troy Buswell's wounds. (I think of those Senators who wanted a piece of Julius Caesar and discovered that he was dead by the time they got to the front of the crowd.)
What is going on with these people? I haven't a speck of interest in seeing the Liberal Party return to government anywhere, ever again, but somebody has to be there to keep the governing party from becoming too power-drunk. Paul Keating said it best when he attacked the federal parliamentary Liberal party some years ago, in these terms: "Mister Speaker, they are not only unfit to be in government; they're not even fit to be in opposition!"
Those words are perfectly apt to the mess the WA Liberals have made in the past few years. They had a dill (Colin Barnett), they replaced him with another dill (Matt Birney), replaced him with a sensible, honest plodder (Paul Omodei) and then they stabbed him to replace him with...a dill. The only topics worth taking bets on are: how long before Buswell goes (if he hasn't while I've been writing this) and how long can the Labor party govern in WA?
Worst of all the Liberals are now contemplating going back to the first dill, Barnett. This is the guy who wanted to build a canal, without due diligence, (no, he was using dilligence) to bring water to Perth, WA, from the northern parts of the State. This came as news to his colleagues who found out about it in the first few minutes of his policy speech for the 2005 election. The slogan for his campaign? "Decisions not delays." Now, I know lemmings don't really, mindlessly run over cliffs, as one sees in the cartoons. But, after all, they aren't being led by the likes of Barnett and Buswell!
What is going on with these people? I haven't a speck of interest in seeing the Liberal Party return to government anywhere, ever again, but somebody has to be there to keep the governing party from becoming too power-drunk. Paul Keating said it best when he attacked the federal parliamentary Liberal party some years ago, in these terms: "Mister Speaker, they are not only unfit to be in government; they're not even fit to be in opposition!"
Those words are perfectly apt to the mess the WA Liberals have made in the past few years. They had a dill (Colin Barnett), they replaced him with another dill (Matt Birney), replaced him with a sensible, honest plodder (Paul Omodei) and then they stabbed him to replace him with...a dill. The only topics worth taking bets on are: how long before Buswell goes (if he hasn't while I've been writing this) and how long can the Labor party govern in WA?
Worst of all the Liberals are now contemplating going back to the first dill, Barnett. This is the guy who wanted to build a canal, without due diligence, (no, he was using dilligence) to bring water to Perth, WA, from the northern parts of the State. This came as news to his colleagues who found out about it in the first few minutes of his policy speech for the 2005 election. The slogan for his campaign? "Decisions not delays." Now, I know lemmings don't really, mindlessly run over cliffs, as one sees in the cartoons. But, after all, they aren't being led by the likes of Barnett and Buswell!
Friday, 2 May 2008
Post #13 Welcome to Anastasia!!!
I welcome to the arena a noble lady of distinction, Anastasia Fitzgerald. A quick sword and a resurgent shield are the hallmarks of this gladiatrix. Already renowned for her martial feats on other grounds, she enters to the acclaim of plebeians, equestrians and patricians.
The lanistae are also delighted by the arrival of this champion. You can bet they are.
Salve Anastasia!!! Let the games begin.
The lanistae are also delighted by the arrival of this champion. You can bet they are.
Salve Anastasia!!! Let the games begin.
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Post #12 Hire a Hall/Nothing (Fugitive Possessions)
Yesterday, I locked a set of keys inside my home. It was the set that included my keys to my home. And I locked them inside from outside. I didn't discover this until I arrived at another premises and realised that they weren't in the pocket of my jacket. I figured out, by racking my memory, that I must have dropped them as I was packing my briefcase. I've always been wary of leaving keys hidden in yards and so forth. I've relied on making a routine of being absolutely sure of having those keys before I leave the premises. On this occasion, I'd been rushed...yeah, the same old story. Plans for war don't survive the first shock of battle and routines with keys don't survive being hassled.
After the mandated period of cursing my folly (Why didn't I bury a jar in the garden with a key in it? Why didn't I stick to my checking routine? What gods did I offend?) I got to the main point: How do I get in? I was contemplating how to break in while doing minimal damage when the good old subconscious mind did its trick: I saw an unbidden mental picture of a key in a zippered compartment in my briefcase.
I checked it out and, sure enough, the aliens had put a key there!
No, just kidding. I'd put it there, a week before. It had worked its way off the slip-ring in the key-holder pack and I'd put it in the case until I could get around to reattaching it. It was the key to a door which I usually don't use, so there was no apparent urgency. Well, that was a brilliant piece of procrastination. When I arrived home I tried the key with confidence - and the bastard wouldn't turn. After some jiggling, I hit the sweet spot and a lock which hadn't been key-operated for more than 10 years clicked open! Then I remembered/discovered that I'd put on the chain-lock and the door would only open about 15 sems. Fortunately, I have various gadgets in what I call a JIC bag, carried in my briefcase. (That's Just-In-Case). I found a screwdriver, squeezed my hand through the aperture with the driver pointing backwards and took out the two screws holding the base-plate for the chain to the door-frame. Then I was in. My first task was to head for the room where I'd packed my case. Sure enough, there were the missing keys on the floor next to my desk. As I was reattaching the chain to the door-frame, I played "That's good! That's bad!": If the key hadn't come loose, (which I thought was bad) and I hadn't put it in the briefcase (which I thought was slack) I would have been stuffed. The key would have been with the others, trapped on the other side of locked doors. Was this some kind of weird Providence at work? It was lucky I'd put that key in the very case I took out the door that day. But the whole thing would have been obviated if I'd just taken 2 seconds to do my normal check. Is it a last warning from some deity of keys, complete with eye-catching coincidence? (I shall take measures o god! Believe me!)
Anyway, all this got me thinking about concentration, methodicalness and the like. I started thinking about a pattern of behaviour I've observed in supermarkets. Women's behaviour.
I'm often made impatient as women who are ahead of me at a checkout go through a studious ritual of checking their wallets/purses to make sure their plastic cards are all in their proper places, then carefully place the wallet/purse in their bag/trolley/whatever and check the bags in their trolley before they proceed on their way. They block me from getting to the place where my purchases are piling up, waiting to be bagged (self-serve here, boy!) and I wonder at their complacent indifference. "These (epithet) women", I think. Well, maybe those women are right. Hell, they are right. They won't lose keys/cards, forget bags of shopping they've paid for and all the other dopey things that I and heaps of other men keep doing.
Now that's strange. Men are supposed to be the aggressive, assertive types, according to the old stereotypes. Why do we feel pressed to get moving quickly in those situations? Are we afraid of being considered obstructors/ditherers? I know, on one rare occasion, I waited behind a fussy man who did that "Check it carefully" routine and became really exasperated. When he finally moved off, I snarled to the checkout chick, "I thought he was going to crochet a doily." Perhaps that's it. Real men grab it and go. Wimps hesitate.
It's the same with "reading the instructions". Any real man does that as a last resort. I've made many tasks harder for myself with that approach. And I keep using it. There's something there. Part enculturation, part genetic predisposition. It would make a good subject for a scientific study. Perhaps someone's already done it. I can't be bothered looking for it. I'm too impatient.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Post #11 Hire a Hall/Everything (Bashing the Bishop [of Rome]* - Why Benedict 16 (Ratzinger) Is Unfit To Be Pope) )
World Youth Day is, apparently, a misnamed six-day event, beginning on the 15th of July, 2008 and continuing until the 20th, in Sydney, Australia. This is how the event's website describes the projected proceedings:
And, presiding over the event, Pope Benedict XVI, aka Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, former apprentice of the Nazi regime. I won't revisit the issue of whether Ratzinger was a Nazi or exactly what his connections to Nazi youth movements was. To make a serious dent in those issues takes more scholarship than I have time or resources for. I'll confine myself to what Ratzinger himself stipulates: membership of the Hitlerjugend and service as a Luftwaffe auxiliary in an anti-aircraft capacity.
I can't condemn any junior teenager for not having the nerve to tell Hitler to go to Hell. I know that in such circumstances I wouldn't have had the nerve and my "resistance" efforts would at most have been covert disobedience. And, after all, there were tens of millions of legal adults who, from fear more than enthusiasm, went along with the programmes of despotic regimes in Europe through the 1920's, 30's and 40's.
What I shall dispute is whether an unremarkable conformist is fit to be the lieutenant of Jesus of Nazareth. Such a person should be an extraordinary moral exemplar, not a sheep. You don't have to be a Roman Catholic, you don't have to be religious at all, to see something wrong in this picture.
And what topics will the catechistic studies of World Youth Day, conducted under Ratzinger's auspices, focus upon? I'll wager with confidence that the teachings pursuant to family life and procreation will receive a good airing. The old enemy, masturbation, will be subjected to pejorative analysis in working groups, as will the perils of extra-marital sex, the sacredness of the sexual act in marriage, the repulsiveness of homosexuality and the abominableness of contraception and abortion.
I doubt that urging young people to become conscientious objectors to war will be a major feature of proceedings. The Popes know better than Jesus; they preach that there are just wars. They sanction clergymen acting as mentors and comforters to warriors. They won't argue for a just system of taxation or for the thwarting of big business in its despoliation of the environment.
Well, here's a quick theological quiz that won't be featured in this event:
Question 1. Which of these is the greatest anathema?
A. Bending your arm to play with your genitalia.
OR
B. Stiffening your arm to do homage to Adolf Hitler.
Question 2. Which is the greater injustice?
A. Using contraception to prevent the joining together of non-sentient zygotes and the transmission of disease.
OR
B. Creating unwanted children and spreading disease.
Question 3. Which is the greatest abuse of human rights?
A. Allowing the progeny of rape/incest to be aborted.
OR
B. Forcing a victim of rape/incest to carry and give birth to a rapist's spawn.
I know this much: Benny Sixteen will tick the "A" on all of them. And the last one in particular? Well, you'd have to be a sick bastard indeed to "support" abortion. I call it a form of homicide, without hesitation. I also allow that there are justifiable homicides. Benny thinks so, too, or he'd tell people to refuse to be police officers or to join the military. And discretionary abortion for "lifestyle" reasons and so forth? I detest it, but it is, ultimately, on the consciences of the procurers and performers of the deed. If there is a God, let them answer to Him for it; the state should not coerce women to give birth to children they don't want. The possible consequences to those children should be considered; there are worse fates than a quick trip to Paradise directly from the womb. The newspapers are full of them every day. For example, I saw a horrific report on the failings of child welfare in New South Wales which purported that one fifth of children there are in some degree of domestic peril.
One thing is manifest to me. A man of such ordinary moral fibre as Ratzinger should be more selfconscious of his limitations. The laying down of hard and cruel rules to others is arrogant enough without having the added provocation of hearing it from a veteran of the Hitler Youth. When the College of Cardinals offered the Papacy, he should have let that cup pass.
(* "Bashing the Bishop" is apparently British slang for male masturbation. The "bishop" reference is derived from the shape of the corona of the penis being similar to that of a bishop's mitre. I am indebted for this fine piece of etymology to the works of "Andy McNab" of Bravo Two Zero fame. )
Organised by the Catholic Church, World Youth Day brings together young people from around the globe to celebrate and learn about their faith on a more regular basis.
And, presiding over the event, Pope Benedict XVI, aka Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, former apprentice of the Nazi regime. I won't revisit the issue of whether Ratzinger was a Nazi or exactly what his connections to Nazi youth movements was. To make a serious dent in those issues takes more scholarship than I have time or resources for. I'll confine myself to what Ratzinger himself stipulates: membership of the Hitlerjugend and service as a Luftwaffe auxiliary in an anti-aircraft capacity.
I can't condemn any junior teenager for not having the nerve to tell Hitler to go to Hell. I know that in such circumstances I wouldn't have had the nerve and my "resistance" efforts would at most have been covert disobedience. And, after all, there were tens of millions of legal adults who, from fear more than enthusiasm, went along with the programmes of despotic regimes in Europe through the 1920's, 30's and 40's.
What I shall dispute is whether an unremarkable conformist is fit to be the lieutenant of Jesus of Nazareth. Such a person should be an extraordinary moral exemplar, not a sheep. You don't have to be a Roman Catholic, you don't have to be religious at all, to see something wrong in this picture.
And what topics will the catechistic studies of World Youth Day, conducted under Ratzinger's auspices, focus upon? I'll wager with confidence that the teachings pursuant to family life and procreation will receive a good airing. The old enemy, masturbation, will be subjected to pejorative analysis in working groups, as will the perils of extra-marital sex, the sacredness of the sexual act in marriage, the repulsiveness of homosexuality and the abominableness of contraception and abortion.
I doubt that urging young people to become conscientious objectors to war will be a major feature of proceedings. The Popes know better than Jesus; they preach that there are just wars. They sanction clergymen acting as mentors and comforters to warriors. They won't argue for a just system of taxation or for the thwarting of big business in its despoliation of the environment.
Well, here's a quick theological quiz that won't be featured in this event:
Question 1. Which of these is the greatest anathema?
A. Bending your arm to play with your genitalia.
OR
B. Stiffening your arm to do homage to Adolf Hitler.
Question 2. Which is the greater injustice?
A. Using contraception to prevent the joining together of non-sentient zygotes and the transmission of disease.
OR
B. Creating unwanted children and spreading disease.
Question 3. Which is the greatest abuse of human rights?
A. Allowing the progeny of rape/incest to be aborted.
OR
B. Forcing a victim of rape/incest to carry and give birth to a rapist's spawn.
I know this much: Benny Sixteen will tick the "A" on all of them. And the last one in particular? Well, you'd have to be a sick bastard indeed to "support" abortion. I call it a form of homicide, without hesitation. I also allow that there are justifiable homicides. Benny thinks so, too, or he'd tell people to refuse to be police officers or to join the military. And discretionary abortion for "lifestyle" reasons and so forth? I detest it, but it is, ultimately, on the consciences of the procurers and performers of the deed. If there is a God, let them answer to Him for it; the state should not coerce women to give birth to children they don't want. The possible consequences to those children should be considered; there are worse fates than a quick trip to Paradise directly from the womb. The newspapers are full of them every day. For example, I saw a horrific report on the failings of child welfare in New South Wales which purported that one fifth of children there are in some degree of domestic peril.
One thing is manifest to me. A man of such ordinary moral fibre as Ratzinger should be more selfconscious of his limitations. The laying down of hard and cruel rules to others is arrogant enough without having the added provocation of hearing it from a veteran of the Hitler Youth. When the College of Cardinals offered the Papacy, he should have let that cup pass.
(* "Bashing the Bishop" is apparently British slang for male masturbation. The "bishop" reference is derived from the shape of the corona of the penis being similar to that of a bishop's mitre. I am indebted for this fine piece of etymology to the works of "Andy McNab" of Bravo Two Zero fame. )
Monday, 28 April 2008
Post #10 Hire a Hall/Everything (A Taxing Question)
The 20/20 summit has passed without most of us particularly noticing its beginning. It was like one of those towns you drive through before it sinks in that you passed a sign saying, "Welcome to...". I think the skeptics may be proven right about the whole thing being a flam. The treatment of taxation, or non-treatment is a feature of it that I found disappointingly prominent. I'll try to remedy Kevin's omission with a few pointers of my own:
1. One thing that gets me about the recent debate on "reforming" the economy is that the imposition of new taxes is seriously suggested as a solution for anything. The famous "carbon tax" that some people have been bleating about for the past decade is a good example. It basically means adding another tax to those already applied to carbon fuels to discourage people from using them. Stripped of the baloney it means you pay more at the bowser and for everything to which petroleum is a price input. The same goes for electricity generated using carbon fuels. Now, if the "market" could be dissuaded from using carbon fuels by taxing them they would have gone down a long while back. "Price inelastic" is the phrase that comes to mind. What is the consumer supposed to do; call the power station which is built for carbon-fuel operation and say: "The carbon tax has discouraged me from using your coal/oil-fired juice. Please only send solar or wind power to my home in future"? Actually, the Western Australian electricity supply now offers a "green power" option to some consumers and as some folk, who were lured into it, have now discovered...it costs more than the carbon-fuelled juice. The only way a change to clean power will occur is by subsidisation and tax breaks. The taxing option only turbocharges inflation. After all, who pays the tax? Not the oil or coal or gas providers. It's paid by Joe Blow at the bottom of the heap, who has no say in what fuel power staions use or what sort of vehicles the manufacturers build.
2.The second-most heinous tax I can think of (after death duties) is the "property rate" levied by local government. This has a particularly cruel twist. Because rates are determined by reference to the rents that properties may attract if offered on the open market, the owner-occupier who doesn't even own a rental property is coerced to pay according to what their premises might earn them in income if it was rented. That's really the limit! If a home was bought 20 or 30 years ago and has appreciated greatly in sale or rental value, the owner appears to be doing well. In fact they may be stuggling to find the funds to pay those value-based rates and in danger of losing their home. This is the classic trap of being asset-rich and cash-poor. After all, in the end, if you realise the value by selling up, you still have to find a place to live. Every place similar to the one you're leaving will be just as expensive. Unless you're seriously downsizing, you have a problem. Imagine losing a home you've put your guts into building up for decades, perhaps putting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and labour. All for the sake of an unpayable couple of thousand in rates. If rates were restricted to rental properties I'd say, "fair enough"; after all it's income tax deductible for landlords and they are (usually) making money from the property. If local government must exist, let its revenues come from the Commonwealth and State mainstream or the taxing of commercial properties.
3. Payroll tax is the dopiest of all taxes. I've heard all the arguments in favour of it. Stuff 'em! It's a tax on employment, pure and simple. It should be abolished.
4. How about really simplifying the income tax system by establishing a tax-free threshold of $26,000 dollars and a flat rate of 20% on every dollar above it? The compensating factor would be a slashing of allowable deductions. Let people spend their own money for their own welfare first; give everyone a tax-free income that you could actually live on.
1. One thing that gets me about the recent debate on "reforming" the economy is that the imposition of new taxes is seriously suggested as a solution for anything. The famous "carbon tax" that some people have been bleating about for the past decade is a good example. It basically means adding another tax to those already applied to carbon fuels to discourage people from using them. Stripped of the baloney it means you pay more at the bowser and for everything to which petroleum is a price input. The same goes for electricity generated using carbon fuels. Now, if the "market" could be dissuaded from using carbon fuels by taxing them they would have gone down a long while back. "Price inelastic" is the phrase that comes to mind. What is the consumer supposed to do; call the power station which is built for carbon-fuel operation and say: "The carbon tax has discouraged me from using your coal/oil-fired juice. Please only send solar or wind power to my home in future"? Actually, the Western Australian electricity supply now offers a "green power" option to some consumers and as some folk, who were lured into it, have now discovered...it costs more than the carbon-fuelled juice. The only way a change to clean power will occur is by subsidisation and tax breaks. The taxing option only turbocharges inflation. After all, who pays the tax? Not the oil or coal or gas providers. It's paid by Joe Blow at the bottom of the heap, who has no say in what fuel power staions use or what sort of vehicles the manufacturers build.
2.The second-most heinous tax I can think of (after death duties) is the "property rate" levied by local government. This has a particularly cruel twist. Because rates are determined by reference to the rents that properties may attract if offered on the open market, the owner-occupier who doesn't even own a rental property is coerced to pay according to what their premises might earn them in income if it was rented. That's really the limit! If a home was bought 20 or 30 years ago and has appreciated greatly in sale or rental value, the owner appears to be doing well. In fact they may be stuggling to find the funds to pay those value-based rates and in danger of losing their home. This is the classic trap of being asset-rich and cash-poor. After all, in the end, if you realise the value by selling up, you still have to find a place to live. Every place similar to the one you're leaving will be just as expensive. Unless you're seriously downsizing, you have a problem. Imagine losing a home you've put your guts into building up for decades, perhaps putting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and labour. All for the sake of an unpayable couple of thousand in rates. If rates were restricted to rental properties I'd say, "fair enough"; after all it's income tax deductible for landlords and they are (usually) making money from the property. If local government must exist, let its revenues come from the Commonwealth and State mainstream or the taxing of commercial properties.
3. Payroll tax is the dopiest of all taxes. I've heard all the arguments in favour of it. Stuff 'em! It's a tax on employment, pure and simple. It should be abolished.
4. How about really simplifying the income tax system by establishing a tax-free threshold of $26,000 dollars and a flat rate of 20% on every dollar above it? The compensating factor would be a slashing of allowable deductions. Let people spend their own money for their own welfare first; give everyone a tax-free income that you could actually live on.
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Post #9 Hire a Hall/Everything (Res publica and monarchy/royalty)
Kevin Rudd has reopened the topic of the republic and the (ab)usual suspects have come out whining for their so-called "monarchy". Another twisted word which, along with the phrase "Westminster system", has been thwarting original thought about constitutional reform in Australia for many a weary year. The British royal sovereigns haven't been "monarchs" in the true sense of the word* at least since King John whacked his seal on the first Magna Carta. Any doubt about that was removed, along with King Charles' head, in 1649. And the "Westminster system"? Beats me. It seems to be as many things as there are definers of it. How our federal system, with a "basic law" type of constitution and a serious dose of Americana could be a Westminster system, poses a question I'll leave to those with a few decades to stew over it.
The people who sprout these bogusisms have a purpose, of course, and that's a lot easier to figure out. They are the enemies of change. They just don't want change ; any change. Their motives vary, I believe. Some are probably simply possessed of fixative personalities with an intransigent streak to back it up. Others like the current arrangements where the imprecision of the statute/convention overlap allows power to default (in a de facto and unrestrained manner) to the Ministers of the Crown. Those "monarchists" who are MPs usually fall into this category.
The interesting thing about the debate on constitutional reform is that it keeps locking into this pattern of "the monarch versus the republic". Why doesn't anyone see a distinction between wanting complete sovereign independence for our country and the debate over the type of head of state? I can see it clearly enough: We can have a resident Australian royal sovereign and be independent of Britain. In fact, just to show what a good sport I am, Her Illustrious Majesty Elizabeth, Queen of Australia, may kick on if she pleases. She won't even have to apply for her own job again! That's fairer than the Liberal/National coalition government and their sycophants were to many of our compatriots who became redundant for "operational reasons".
If Her Majesty doesn't care to relinquish the sovereignty of the United Kingdom in exchange for exclusive dominion over the Commonwealth of Australia (mystifying as such a response would be), one of her potential heirs may be willing. There is no need to bring all of the pomp and paraphernalia of the royal concept of Britain to this land; the style of the Governor-General would be quite appropriate. This will call the bluff of the purported royalists - do they genuinely support royal government or is that merely a blind for something else?
We can also tinker with the appointment process; plenty of royalties are elective, not hereditary. Thus we can elect the head of state and have a royal leader in the one go. Once this issue is resolved the dam will burst on all the other constitutional reform that is in abeyance. Perhaps that's why some people prefer to keep us talking in futile circles on this subject.
John Howard was a good example of this, making all of the solemn noises about loving the Queen, telling John Hewson that Australia would become a republic "over his dead body". The truth was put into public view during the Hollingworth episode. For the uninitiated, Howard recommended to the Queen that an Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Australia, Peter Hollingworth, should be apppointed to the Governor-Generalship. After the appointment, nasty stories began to surface about the new GG. He was alleged to have, during his tenure as a bishop, blind-eyed a situation involving a priest who had taken sexual advantage of a 14 year-old girl who had been under the priest's tutelage. Hollingworth had also knowingly acted as mentor and patron to a priest who had engaged in paedophilia and wanted to continue in the ministry. He attempted to put the fire out by appearing on Australian Story and managed to throw kerosene on himself.
How did the great, self-proclaimed "monarchist", John Howard, respond? By leaving the carcass to swing in the breeze. "It's a matter for him", said Howard. He wasn't going to condemn his own judgement in recommending the man, so he let the fellow continue in office for months until ignominy, in its various forms, drove him to resign. Howard wouldn't tell the Queen to sack the bastard! Why not? Because saving his own political face was more important than the disrespect shown to the Queen by having a patron and protector of paedophiles inflicted upon her as her pricipal viceroy in Australia. When Howard visited the Queen in Britain during the course of Hollingworth's slow death on the vine, he came out of the Palace looking rather discomfited. The Queen had made her views known, one supposes. Now the great monarchist was never so fond of the Queen after that and he was noticeably less effusive when playing host to her in return.
People like Howard don't really give a damn about the Queen. What they do like is the nice, messy constitution that allows power to default into their hands. Power that would be constrained and checked if a new constitution was written. No more sending forces overseas on the strength of a phone call from the White House - the Parliament would be given power over the decision to make war. The same goes for the appointment of federal judges and various other discretions that are usurped by Cabinet Ministers. So, let's petition for an Australian royal government - and see how the "monarchists" cop that!
*All power exercised by one person at their own discretion.
The people who sprout these bogusisms have a purpose, of course, and that's a lot easier to figure out. They are the enemies of change. They just don't want change ; any change. Their motives vary, I believe. Some are probably simply possessed of fixative personalities with an intransigent streak to back it up. Others like the current arrangements where the imprecision of the statute/convention overlap allows power to default (in a de facto and unrestrained manner) to the Ministers of the Crown. Those "monarchists" who are MPs usually fall into this category.
The interesting thing about the debate on constitutional reform is that it keeps locking into this pattern of "the monarch versus the republic". Why doesn't anyone see a distinction between wanting complete sovereign independence for our country and the debate over the type of head of state? I can see it clearly enough: We can have a resident Australian royal sovereign and be independent of Britain. In fact, just to show what a good sport I am, Her Illustrious Majesty Elizabeth, Queen of Australia, may kick on if she pleases. She won't even have to apply for her own job again! That's fairer than the Liberal/National coalition government and their sycophants were to many of our compatriots who became redundant for "operational reasons".
If Her Majesty doesn't care to relinquish the sovereignty of the United Kingdom in exchange for exclusive dominion over the Commonwealth of Australia (mystifying as such a response would be), one of her potential heirs may be willing. There is no need to bring all of the pomp and paraphernalia of the royal concept of Britain to this land; the style of the Governor-General would be quite appropriate. This will call the bluff of the purported royalists - do they genuinely support royal government or is that merely a blind for something else?
We can also tinker with the appointment process; plenty of royalties are elective, not hereditary. Thus we can elect the head of state and have a royal leader in the one go. Once this issue is resolved the dam will burst on all the other constitutional reform that is in abeyance. Perhaps that's why some people prefer to keep us talking in futile circles on this subject.
John Howard was a good example of this, making all of the solemn noises about loving the Queen, telling John Hewson that Australia would become a republic "over his dead body". The truth was put into public view during the Hollingworth episode. For the uninitiated, Howard recommended to the Queen that an Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Australia, Peter Hollingworth, should be apppointed to the Governor-Generalship. After the appointment, nasty stories began to surface about the new GG. He was alleged to have, during his tenure as a bishop, blind-eyed a situation involving a priest who had taken sexual advantage of a 14 year-old girl who had been under the priest's tutelage. Hollingworth had also knowingly acted as mentor and patron to a priest who had engaged in paedophilia and wanted to continue in the ministry. He attempted to put the fire out by appearing on Australian Story and managed to throw kerosene on himself.
How did the great, self-proclaimed "monarchist", John Howard, respond? By leaving the carcass to swing in the breeze. "It's a matter for him", said Howard. He wasn't going to condemn his own judgement in recommending the man, so he let the fellow continue in office for months until ignominy, in its various forms, drove him to resign. Howard wouldn't tell the Queen to sack the bastard! Why not? Because saving his own political face was more important than the disrespect shown to the Queen by having a patron and protector of paedophiles inflicted upon her as her pricipal viceroy in Australia. When Howard visited the Queen in Britain during the course of Hollingworth's slow death on the vine, he came out of the Palace looking rather discomfited. The Queen had made her views known, one supposes. Now the great monarchist was never so fond of the Queen after that and he was noticeably less effusive when playing host to her in return.
People like Howard don't really give a damn about the Queen. What they do like is the nice, messy constitution that allows power to default into their hands. Power that would be constrained and checked if a new constitution was written. No more sending forces overseas on the strength of a phone call from the White House - the Parliament would be given power over the decision to make war. The same goes for the appointment of federal judges and various other discretions that are usurped by Cabinet Ministers. So, let's petition for an Australian royal government - and see how the "monarchists" cop that!
*All power exercised by one person at their own discretion.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Post #8 Hire a Hall/Nothing (Lost ...the plot and Community Stand-hards)
1. Yeah, I hate to admit it; I've been a fan. Last season, however, I encountered something that tested my suspension of disbelief beyond reasonable limits. Charlie and Desmond are heading out to the underwater station on a possible suicide mission to shut down the radio jammer. They use as a guideline to the station...the power cable that supplies the station. "Why not just cut it?", I thought. Then Charlie commits a needless suicide by shutting himself into the flooding compartment after the mad Russian detonates the grenade. He could just as easily have closed the hatch from the outside. I laughed at them then, not with them.
This season they've got a plot device where an entire aircraft identical to Oceanic 815 is in an trench off Bali - complete with 324 bodies aboard. Apparently Ben Linus has fixed this to cover what's really happened to 815. Well, a bogus flight recorder and some metal panels might pass. An entire aircraft? From where would it be obtained? After all, every one of those large jets is accounted for to the tiniest part: how could the fake possibly work? It couldn't. Yes, Lost has jumped that Dharma-logoed shark.
I'll keep watching it if I'm around a TV when it's on, but the bubble has burst for me.
2. Also on things televisual; I've been becoming increasingly weary of the late-night groaning, gasping, self-stroking, lip-licking, lingerie-gnawing, general-purpose pseudo-masturbatrices who infest the commercial breaks on free-to-air TV. They appear in order to sell what I call the "loser-lines". They exhort the viewer to text a number which will obtain for one "pictures of hot sexy babes on your mobile". If you're a loyal customer they'll send you some "moan tones". I shudder to think. Then there are the "6 sexy Russian babes" who want to infiltrate my mobile, the "girls gone wild", the (excruciatingly badly acting) bimbos who will fake an orgasm over the phone. There are also strippers (admittedly not as trashy as most of the others) who do their schtick around a dance-pole. There are also dating services which imply that the young and beautiful are waiting in droves for the viewer to call and proposition them.
But, worst of all, there are two male characters selling a nasally-administered impotence treatment who go by the names "Sniff and Stiff". They appear on a stage to play a grand piano; standing up, concealed behind the keyboard and, purportedly, striking the keys with their erect penises. As they take the ovation, an elderly man in the audience asks a "compere" if he can learn to play like "Sniff and Stiff". Don't get me wrong: I like a wank or a fuck as much as any heterosexual male worth his testosterone. But there is a time and a place. There's also a question of dignity. These two cretins don't even respect the midnight threshold which usually keeps the bimbos at bay. I've seen these bastards on as early as 9:00 pm.
It's part of a pattern. I've also seen an ad in prime time, for a retailer, in which the expression "No wuckers" was used. For those who don't know it, this is a bit of slang in the classic Australian style. You form it by starting with "No worries". This becomes the more emphatic, "No fucking worries". The next step is deliberate Spoonerism: "No wucking forries" (with the "u" and "o" rhyming). Finally, it's compressed to "No wuckers".
Why not complain to the authorities? Because they've farmed out complaints to industry bodies for the private operators and to a bureaucratic overview group for the two government networks. If you complain to them they rebuff you by saying that "community standards" have altered to the point where this stuff is now tolerable.
I once read an article about television in a very old bound volume of Meanjin, a venerable magazine which many Australians will know of. The edition was from the early 1950's and the article dealt with the issue of whether television should be allowed to be established as a service in Australia. I was amazed at the time of reading that anybody could have thought of stopping it. I now wonder what would have happened if a transmission of the typical fare of today could have been sent back to 1950 for the edification of the citizens. The cynical, unashamed stuff that really is broadcast. Not the placatory promises about the cultural and educational benefits of the service which accompanied its introduction; the real everynight thing. I am sure they would have been utterly repulsed and would have damned the thing to Hell. Even though I still watch some of it, I wouldn't mind if it didn't exist. The cost/benefit analysis is in. Television is a net loss.
This season they've got a plot device where an entire aircraft identical to Oceanic 815 is in an trench off Bali - complete with 324 bodies aboard. Apparently Ben Linus has fixed this to cover what's really happened to 815. Well, a bogus flight recorder and some metal panels might pass. An entire aircraft? From where would it be obtained? After all, every one of those large jets is accounted for to the tiniest part: how could the fake possibly work? It couldn't. Yes, Lost has jumped that Dharma-logoed shark.
I'll keep watching it if I'm around a TV when it's on, but the bubble has burst for me.
2. Also on things televisual; I've been becoming increasingly weary of the late-night groaning, gasping, self-stroking, lip-licking, lingerie-gnawing, general-purpose pseudo-masturbatrices who infest the commercial breaks on free-to-air TV. They appear in order to sell what I call the "loser-lines". They exhort the viewer to text a number which will obtain for one "pictures of hot sexy babes on your mobile". If you're a loyal customer they'll send you some "moan tones". I shudder to think. Then there are the "6 sexy Russian babes" who want to infiltrate my mobile, the "girls gone wild", the (excruciatingly badly acting) bimbos who will fake an orgasm over the phone. There are also strippers (admittedly not as trashy as most of the others) who do their schtick around a dance-pole. There are also dating services which imply that the young and beautiful are waiting in droves for the viewer to call and proposition them.
But, worst of all, there are two male characters selling a nasally-administered impotence treatment who go by the names "Sniff and Stiff". They appear on a stage to play a grand piano; standing up, concealed behind the keyboard and, purportedly, striking the keys with their erect penises. As they take the ovation, an elderly man in the audience asks a "compere" if he can learn to play like "Sniff and Stiff". Don't get me wrong: I like a wank or a fuck as much as any heterosexual male worth his testosterone. But there is a time and a place. There's also a question of dignity. These two cretins don't even respect the midnight threshold which usually keeps the bimbos at bay. I've seen these bastards on as early as 9:00 pm.
It's part of a pattern. I've also seen an ad in prime time, for a retailer, in which the expression "No wuckers" was used. For those who don't know it, this is a bit of slang in the classic Australian style. You form it by starting with "No worries". This becomes the more emphatic, "No fucking worries". The next step is deliberate Spoonerism: "No wucking forries" (with the "u" and "o" rhyming). Finally, it's compressed to "No wuckers".
Why not complain to the authorities? Because they've farmed out complaints to industry bodies for the private operators and to a bureaucratic overview group for the two government networks. If you complain to them they rebuff you by saying that "community standards" have altered to the point where this stuff is now tolerable.
I once read an article about television in a very old bound volume of Meanjin, a venerable magazine which many Australians will know of. The edition was from the early 1950's and the article dealt with the issue of whether television should be allowed to be established as a service in Australia. I was amazed at the time of reading that anybody could have thought of stopping it. I now wonder what would have happened if a transmission of the typical fare of today could have been sent back to 1950 for the edification of the citizens. The cynical, unashamed stuff that really is broadcast. Not the placatory promises about the cultural and educational benefits of the service which accompanied its introduction; the real everynight thing. I am sure they would have been utterly repulsed and would have damned the thing to Hell. Even though I still watch some of it, I wouldn't mind if it didn't exist. The cost/benefit analysis is in. Television is a net loss.
Post #7 Hire a Hall/Everything (Adopt a Digger)
Anzac Day approaches. Now, Anzac Day is "our day of the year...", and it has acquired a stronger following as time has passed. But as rising generations take a growing interest in these matters, the original Anzacs, the First AIF, are reduced to one survivor; Jack Ross (109), who lives in a nursing home in Bendigo, Victoria. Within a handful of years there won't be a single surviving veteran of the First World War anywhere on Earth.
I've visited the Australian War Memorial (AWM) and seen the reconstructions, dioramas and antique weapons. I've also seen the great and tragic walls of names. But the human memory doesn't think in names engraved on stone. It works by visual and other senses that go beyond bare data. Nothing matches an image or a tangible form, such as sculpture, in making the subject vivid to the viewer. I had an idea once that would put a statue, in the personal likeness of each of the fallen in the grounds of the memorial. The AWM counts total Australian military deaths in war at 102,807 to date. That would be a shocking number of statues wouldn't it? Imagine them life-sized, put together in groups according to the conflict they served in and the units in which they were enrolled. They could be customised, given the sort of uniforms and basic equipment that they carried to battle, and each posed in a slightly different way. (Actually, it occurs to me in writing this that someone already had a very similar idea; the terracotta figures of 7,000 warriors, 670 horses and 130 chariots buried near Xi'an in China's Shaanxi Province.) Better still, those representing subjects for whom photographs were available, could be given the actual likenesses of those persons.
The AWM has a project underway which is collecting the photographs of as many of the "names" as they can. The statuary would be a consequential step. Now, here's the hard part: What's it going to cost and who's going to pay for it? Public subscription is the best way. Families could be invited to contribute over time to the erection of a statue of a relative by making payments as and when they could to a trust fund established for the purpose by the AWM. Those with no surviving kin could be listed on a website and people could choose from the list a name to dedicate their contributions to.
And where would these statues be placed? Perhaps the best place would be in the great sward of lawn in front of the Parliament House in Canberra. From this position the MPs could watch and be watched by the images of those who gave their lives in the wars our leaders sent them to. The sheer size of this installation would give pause to anyone inclined to send forth an expedition and remind them of their obligations to those who will be left behind by the dead. Here they would be in a place with constant, higher media exposure than the AWM itself, which is media-invisible apart from Anzac Day (25th April) and Remembrance Day (11th November).
A last thought: I first read of the famous monument to the 300 Spartans in a book which translated the inscription on the ancient memorial thus:
Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
We took their orders and we died.
That sounds like a reproach doesn't it? As in, "You bastards got us killed, are you happy now?"
I think I have a better translation for it:
Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
Obedient to orders, here we lie.
It is a statement of pride for duty done, not a reproach. And let us never give cause for reproach in the name of those who have died for us. Let us not allow them to become invisible in our land.
Monday, 21 April 2008
Post #6 Hire a Hall/Everything (An Australian Name)
Multiculturalism is a word that I would like to burn/cut out of the Australian lexicon with flamethowers and chainsaws. It's an idea which was apparently imported from Canada in the late 1960's and found fertile ground under the Whitlam and Fraser governments in the period 1973-1982 . When the Hawke government superseded the Fraser regime in 1983, this deceptively anodyne word had become embedded in the national political discourse. In the years since, it has become a dubiously sacred cow which has become anything and everything to those who want to draw sustenance from it. To those who are weary of it and its increasingly bogus incarnations it's a chook's neck well past its chopping date.
What is this multiple-culture-ism that we are supposed to pledge our support to? It seemed, originally, to mean allowing non-British immigrants to Australia to have pride in their national origins and to not be coerced to be ashamed of their surnames or accents. It meant supporting them in blending their cuisine, songs, dances and traditional arts into the lifestyle of Australia. At least that is what I believed it meant when I first made its acquaintance.
Now it seems to mean some things to some people that are hardly constructive. It is used as a justification/podium of defiance for failing/refusing to become fluent in English; for maintaining racial/ethnic/religious animosities from "the old country" and attempting to propagate them in Australia; for trying to drag the entire Australian polity into interventions in foreign squabbles; for sucking up money from the public trough for narrow-focus programmes . The main problem with it is that it's drifted from the truly cultural and the anchor-point of being Australian first. This is fine by some of the self-appointed "community spokespersons" who get to spend the budgets for those ethnically-targeted programmes. It also provides a nice handle for branch-stacking in political parties, which suits some candidates just fine too.
Culture is about behaviour and belief, not genetic traits which we call racial or ethnic. It is about discretionary behaviour, not the things bestowed upon us by our DNA. Now, I accept that it can be argued that using sun-shield cream is a behaviour and that it has a genetic origin. People talk about "deaf culture" and other disability cultures. I'd just make the distinction that there are physiological bases for these behaviours which, to some degree, mandate them. The kind of culture I'm talking about here is all about choice. Although most people acquire their first religious beliefs (if they have any) through infantile indoctrination, anyone can make a choice in their own head to change their beliefs. Race and ethnicity can never be changed.
Yet, when you criticise multiculturalism, the first shot that comes back is an accusation of racism; millions of people have now been brainwashed to believe that it is a synonym for multiracialism and/or multi-ethnicism. I see this word as a wedge between Australians, serving the exact opposite purpose of the original intention.
The saddest part of all is this: I see and hear people who were born in this country, even some whose parents were born here, saying: "You Australians..." or "These Australians". They usually say it to or about people of British Isles ancestry, who have now acquired the exasperating nickname "Anglos". Apart from displaying an abysmal ignorance of the ethnic history of Britain and Ireland, it shows that the sayers of it have been persuaded to believe that they are foreigners in their own country. I usually respond to this by asking, as moderately as I can manage, "Who are these third-party 'Australians' you're talking to or about? You are an Australian." Some are amazed to hear me claim them as compatriots. Others are hostile: "No, I'm (fill in the nationality)".
We used to have "New Australians". We should bring that back. The Ethnic councils and other organisations of that ilk should find all their funds by means other than governmental subsidisation. The word "multiculturalism" and all variants and derivatives of it should be purged from all official communications.
Reluctant as I am to point to the USA as a model in anything, particularly community relations, there's one thing I like about the place. When some nuisance/bigot is sniffing around some newly-met person with an "ethnic" name and says, "Karabodski? What kinda name is that?", the answer comes back, strong and proud: "It's an American name."
That's what we should be striving for: an unquestioning and unquestioned primary identity as citizens of our own country. That's what I want to hear: "What kind of names are Mokamba, bin Suleiman, Papadopoulos....?"
I'll tell you clear and proud: They're Australian names. And don't forget it, bastard.
Culture is about behaviour and belief, not genetic traits which we call racial or ethnic. It is about discretionary behaviour, not the things bestowed upon us by our DNA. Now, I accept that it can be argued that using sun-shield cream is a behaviour and that it has a genetic origin. People talk about "deaf culture" and other disability cultures. I'd just make the distinction that there are physiological bases for these behaviours which, to some degree, mandate them. The kind of culture I'm talking about here is all about choice. Although most people acquire their first religious beliefs (if they have any) through infantile indoctrination, anyone can make a choice in their own head to change their beliefs. Race and ethnicity can never be changed.
Yet, when you criticise multiculturalism, the first shot that comes back is an accusation of racism; millions of people have now been brainwashed to believe that it is a synonym for multiracialism and/or multi-ethnicism. I see this word as a wedge between Australians, serving the exact opposite purpose of the original intention.
The saddest part of all is this: I see and hear people who were born in this country, even some whose parents were born here, saying: "You Australians..." or "These Australians". They usually say it to or about people of British Isles ancestry, who have now acquired the exasperating nickname "Anglos". Apart from displaying an abysmal ignorance of the ethnic history of Britain and Ireland, it shows that the sayers of it have been persuaded to believe that they are foreigners in their own country. I usually respond to this by asking, as moderately as I can manage, "Who are these third-party 'Australians' you're talking to or about? You are an Australian." Some are amazed to hear me claim them as compatriots. Others are hostile: "No, I'm (fill in the nationality)".
We used to have "New Australians". We should bring that back. The Ethnic councils and other organisations of that ilk should find all their funds by means other than governmental subsidisation. The word "multiculturalism" and all variants and derivatives of it should be purged from all official communications.
Reluctant as I am to point to the USA as a model in anything, particularly community relations, there's one thing I like about the place. When some nuisance/bigot is sniffing around some newly-met person with an "ethnic" name and says, "Karabodski? What kinda name is that?", the answer comes back, strong and proud: "It's an American name."
That's what we should be striving for: an unquestioning and unquestioned primary identity as citizens of our own country. That's what I want to hear: "What kind of names are Mokamba, bin Suleiman, Papadopoulos....?"
I'll tell you clear and proud: They're Australian names. And don't forget it, bastard.
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