This is my fiftieth blog entry which gives me an undeserved feeling of achievement. Sometimes it is good to be so easy to amuse. I have been doing this blog since January which means I have averaged ten entries a month which doesn't seem so impressive when I think about it. Those who know me will probably wonder how I managed to shut up for so long. I'm having immense amounts of fun writing meaningless dribble and occasional birthday shout outs to people who have been dead for centuries.
Some people use their blogs to advance their political views or to keep their internet readership (who are undoubtedly waiting in breathless anticipation) abreast of the latest details of their hernia operation or the turmoil of their lives. You have to wonder what these people did before blogging. Personally I find it difficult to muster up much interest in my life and the thought of boring the entire internet with it smacks of narcissism in the extreme. Of course by deliberately eschewing such topics I am indulging in a form of reverse narcissism which is even more monstrous but I feel relaxed and comfortable with my hypocrisy.
My specious attempts at nonchalance regarding my blog are swept away by the pathetic eagerness with which I receive every indication that somebody might actually read it. To those who do read it, I thank you both. There are many topics on which I have an opinion and a few on which I have an informed opinion. There may even be one on which I have an accurate opinion. I will do my best to ensure that nobody manages to work out which from reading my blog. Writing is much more fun when released from the obligation to be accurate or even fair. I take comfort from the fact that anybody who uses my blog as an information source is so far down the road to dementia that even rigorous accuracy on my part would be of no use to them.
I'm really not comfortable with technology, even the modest amount that goes into producing a blog. It is an indication of how far behind the times I am that I thought that learning to touch type would be a good idea. The time will come soon when even keyboards will be things on a level with the dinosaurs.
I suppose books will go next. That will make me sad because I love books and yet I can look clear eyed at things like kindle (is it really a coincidence that a book replacement brings to mind burning?) and realise that literacy is moving on. On every level except the sentimental I applaud this. For those who recoil back in horror it is as well to learn that there is nothing sacred about printing or even literacy. It was simply the best method of storing thoughts that we have created up until now. Few people can write cuneiform script or paint buffaloes on cave walls to tell a story anymore but civilisation hasn't collapsed, indeed it has managed to modestly thrive.
So it is with books, in a generation from now I will be the crazy old man with all the dead trees in his house. I will hobble from behind one of the stacks when the Salvation Army comes calling and scare the youthful collectors by telling them that bibles were once written on paper. They will refuse to take the donation from this pathetic, wild eyed figure and will hurry down the steps again using whatever has replaced text messaging to assure each other that they're not really scared but that old man was so strange.
I will have stopped writing my blog by then of course. I can barely operate my computer now, by the time I enter my dotage I will be completely incapable of persuading the computer to turn itself on. I will beg and weep before the five millimetre sliver of technology promising many sacrifices if it will let me hear my voicemail but it will deem me unworthy and sever my line of credit. Eventually I will be reduced to using a burnt stick to carve pictures on the walls of my flat. That is if I can remember how to access the iBuffalo application on my toilet. And if I can find a burnt stick.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Nine Out of Ten Tigers Agree; More Civil Wars, Fewer Tsunamis
There's a guy in Aceh who claims he can speak to tigers. He is actually on the payroll of Aceh's Natural Resources Conservation Agency and his job is to go to areas that have had tiger incursions and persuade them to return to the forest. Apparently he has quite a success rate. Despite the desperate rarity of the Sumatran tiger contacts between them and humans have been growing, largely because the forests they live in are getting rarer even faster than the tigers. Tigers have been prowling through villages causing angst to the locals and the locals have responded by calling in this guy. Oh, and poaching.
Wouldn't it be cool to have something like "Tiger Liaison Officer" on your resume? "Oh yes," you could say at dinner parties, "I was based in Aceh for a few years but then head office called me and asked me to take over the Rajastan bureau but the schools there weren't great so I quit." Apparently things have been made worse in Aceh tigerwise by the unexpected outbreak of peace. There has been a civil war going there for ages and as usual people had fled outlying farms and villages for the more communal dangers of the city. However the war ended a few years ago and people are moving back to the countryside. Unfortunately so are the tigers.
Sadly the tigers are just one more victim of the massive tsunami which swept largely poor regions with lots of coastline back in 2004. The Indonesian army and the Acehnese guerrillas looked at the devastation and realised that what they had been doing was simply mickey mouse by comparison. The army moved out, the guerrillas disbanded, elections were held, guerrilla supported parties won but affirmed loyalty to Jakarta. A happy ending for everyone except the long suffering Sumatran tiger who must have been hoping the war would go on forever. It just goes to show that there is a loser at every peace conference. Rumours that hot heads demanding continued fighting were tigers in disguise have so far not been proved.
The more I look at the world the more I realise that the cause of most of what happens can be put down to irony. The tigers benefited from a man made disaster and their existence is now threatened due to a natural one. Tell that to the next environmentalist who demands that military budgets be cut back in order to fund saving the planet.
Wouldn't it be cool to have something like "Tiger Liaison Officer" on your resume? "Oh yes," you could say at dinner parties, "I was based in Aceh for a few years but then head office called me and asked me to take over the Rajastan bureau but the schools there weren't great so I quit." Apparently things have been made worse in Aceh tigerwise by the unexpected outbreak of peace. There has been a civil war going there for ages and as usual people had fled outlying farms and villages for the more communal dangers of the city. However the war ended a few years ago and people are moving back to the countryside. Unfortunately so are the tigers.
Sadly the tigers are just one more victim of the massive tsunami which swept largely poor regions with lots of coastline back in 2004. The Indonesian army and the Acehnese guerrillas looked at the devastation and realised that what they had been doing was simply mickey mouse by comparison. The army moved out, the guerrillas disbanded, elections were held, guerrilla supported parties won but affirmed loyalty to Jakarta. A happy ending for everyone except the long suffering Sumatran tiger who must have been hoping the war would go on forever. It just goes to show that there is a loser at every peace conference. Rumours that hot heads demanding continued fighting were tigers in disguise have so far not been proved.
The more I look at the world the more I realise that the cause of most of what happens can be put down to irony. The tigers benefited from a man made disaster and their existence is now threatened due to a natural one. Tell that to the next environmentalist who demands that military budgets be cut back in order to fund saving the planet.
Time to Examine Mining Opportunities in Zimbabwe
Dear God, its an emergency. Its all hands on deck, every man to the barricades, all hands to the pumps and every finger in a dyke. Australia faces a disaster the likes of which it has never before seen. I'm doing my part, I'm pumping barricades like crazy which isn't easy with both my hands on the deck and as for the dyke, lets just say I'm lucky the police weren't called. Fortunately our federal government is on the case. They have leapt into action and launched an advertising campaign. The emergency I refer to is the insistence of the mining companies in saying bad things about the governments proposed new tax. To ward off the collapse of civilisation as we know it the government has used emergency powers to permit them to use government (ie, our) money to fund an advertising, sorry "public awareness", campaign to point out what should be the self evident benefits of the new tax.
Since the new tax will fall on the mining industry they have, unsurprisingly, been a little miffed and have alerted the public to this state of miffedness through statements by various CEOs and an advertising campaign of their own. Responding with a level of hysteria that seems a little over the top the government has accused them of lying through their teeth, of paying a criminally low amount of tax and demanded 38 million advertising dollars to set the record straight.
So where does the truth lie? Where do the lies lie? What the hell is going on? The answer is simple; the tax is another quite clever idea which the government has attempted to implement with its characteristic clumsiness and incompetence. I find it difficult to remember a government with so many good ideas that it has managed to bugger up so badly. Of course the mining companies don't like it, do you like paying tax? However they would probably have been prepared to accept it if the bloody stupid bits had been removed. Having cocked up or backpedalled on pretty much every idea they've had so far the government has dug in its heels over this one and has effectively declared war on the most productive part of our economy.
Speaking from a position of pure ignorance the situation seems to be as follows; the new tax is touted as being a tax on super profits. That is, its an extra tax on those profits over and above what the government considers to be a reasonable profit for an industry to earn. So far so good, there's a mining boom going on and minerals companies are raking it in. The problems appear in the details, firstly the government seems to consider about 5.9% to be a reasonable profit. This is based on the return on government bonds which, at least in this country, are some of the safest investments in the world. The mining companies, understandably, have pointed out that if they wanted that sort of return they wouldn't spend billions looking for minerals, they would simply buy government bonds. Mining demands a vast capital investment with no guaranteed return and when a return comes the investors want the profits to reflect their risk. Secondly, apparently the tax is to be levied on existing operations rather than just on new ventures meaning that a lot of the figures the companies relied on when working out the profits from what they're doing right now are meaningless.
Of course the mining companies haven't helped their position by claiming that if the tax is imposed then everyone in Australia will die in poverty tomorrow. The CEO of Rio Tinto claimed that this tax has raised the sovereign risk of investing in Australia's mining industry to the highest in the world. This is patent rubbish although since the guy who made that statement was the one who damn near managed to bankrupt Rio Tinto in the middle of a commodities boom its entirely possible he believes it.
For those who don't know, sovereign risk is basically the finance industries measure of exactly how barking mad the government of any country is. The crazier the government, the more interest they will charge on finance for investments in that country due to the increased risk of the government doing something that will completely screw up the original basis of the investment. Such as introduce a retrospective tax for example.
The mining industry overstated their case but they had genuine concerns which a little consultation would probably have been able to relieve. The government screamed to the heavens and claimed that the minerals industry was paying a ridiculously small amount of tax and backed this up with an academic paper prepared by a couple of guys in North Carolina. Said guys pointed out that their paper was an academic study that didn't include all the data and wasn't meant to be used as an actual guide for tax reform. Oddly the government didn't think about asking the Tax Office how much tax the companies had paid.
My personal opinion, impose the tax on new projects only and have it cut in at about twelve to fifteen percent. Unfortunately the government has already spent the money and if they backflip on one more thing they're going to look like a circus sideshow. So now we have an emergency, I have bought a hard hat and a whistle. When society collapses I will be ready, I'll use the hard hat as a begging bowl and the whistle to attract dogs which I can then kill for food.
In unrelated news Serena Williams has just won her latest round in the French Open despite appearing to be unwell. I don't think I have yet seen a tournament when she was in perfect health.
Since the new tax will fall on the mining industry they have, unsurprisingly, been a little miffed and have alerted the public to this state of miffedness through statements by various CEOs and an advertising campaign of their own. Responding with a level of hysteria that seems a little over the top the government has accused them of lying through their teeth, of paying a criminally low amount of tax and demanded 38 million advertising dollars to set the record straight.
So where does the truth lie? Where do the lies lie? What the hell is going on? The answer is simple; the tax is another quite clever idea which the government has attempted to implement with its characteristic clumsiness and incompetence. I find it difficult to remember a government with so many good ideas that it has managed to bugger up so badly. Of course the mining companies don't like it, do you like paying tax? However they would probably have been prepared to accept it if the bloody stupid bits had been removed. Having cocked up or backpedalled on pretty much every idea they've had so far the government has dug in its heels over this one and has effectively declared war on the most productive part of our economy.
Speaking from a position of pure ignorance the situation seems to be as follows; the new tax is touted as being a tax on super profits. That is, its an extra tax on those profits over and above what the government considers to be a reasonable profit for an industry to earn. So far so good, there's a mining boom going on and minerals companies are raking it in. The problems appear in the details, firstly the government seems to consider about 5.9% to be a reasonable profit. This is based on the return on government bonds which, at least in this country, are some of the safest investments in the world. The mining companies, understandably, have pointed out that if they wanted that sort of return they wouldn't spend billions looking for minerals, they would simply buy government bonds. Mining demands a vast capital investment with no guaranteed return and when a return comes the investors want the profits to reflect their risk. Secondly, apparently the tax is to be levied on existing operations rather than just on new ventures meaning that a lot of the figures the companies relied on when working out the profits from what they're doing right now are meaningless.
Of course the mining companies haven't helped their position by claiming that if the tax is imposed then everyone in Australia will die in poverty tomorrow. The CEO of Rio Tinto claimed that this tax has raised the sovereign risk of investing in Australia's mining industry to the highest in the world. This is patent rubbish although since the guy who made that statement was the one who damn near managed to bankrupt Rio Tinto in the middle of a commodities boom its entirely possible he believes it.
For those who don't know, sovereign risk is basically the finance industries measure of exactly how barking mad the government of any country is. The crazier the government, the more interest they will charge on finance for investments in that country due to the increased risk of the government doing something that will completely screw up the original basis of the investment. Such as introduce a retrospective tax for example.
The mining industry overstated their case but they had genuine concerns which a little consultation would probably have been able to relieve. The government screamed to the heavens and claimed that the minerals industry was paying a ridiculously small amount of tax and backed this up with an academic paper prepared by a couple of guys in North Carolina. Said guys pointed out that their paper was an academic study that didn't include all the data and wasn't meant to be used as an actual guide for tax reform. Oddly the government didn't think about asking the Tax Office how much tax the companies had paid.
My personal opinion, impose the tax on new projects only and have it cut in at about twelve to fifteen percent. Unfortunately the government has already spent the money and if they backflip on one more thing they're going to look like a circus sideshow. So now we have an emergency, I have bought a hard hat and a whistle. When society collapses I will be ready, I'll use the hard hat as a begging bowl and the whistle to attract dogs which I can then kill for food.
In unrelated news Serena Williams has just won her latest round in the French Open despite appearing to be unwell. I don't think I have yet seen a tournament when she was in perfect health.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Is Serena Williams Fat, Lazy and Skanky Enough to Win the French Open?
I have a cold at the moment. It's kind of fun, I'm sitting here rocking gently from side to side so that I can hear the fluid in my lungs slosh about. My work colleagues have been overwhelmingly sympathetic with comments like, "Don't breathe on me", "You sound dreadful" and "Why did you come in?" Back at home the cat has been ignoring the hacking, retching and self pitying moans and point blank refuses to bring me hot soup in bed. Honestly I don't know why I keep her around.
Strangely with the exception of the actual symptoms I feel pretty good. I have never felt more alert which is a surprise because I have dozed off three times today already. Fortunately I woke up before the train passed my stop. That probably means I will have difficulty getting to sleep tonight but don't worry, I have a secret weapon. The French Open tennis tournament started this week. I'm not crazy about the French Open but as a cure for insomnia it beats every sleeping pill in the world.
I watched the first set of Serena Williams' match against (insert competitors name here) last night. Actually "watched" is a generous term. I saw the first couple of games and woke up just after Williams had taken the tie breaker. Then I went to bed. The trouble with the French Open is they play it on clay. This means that rather than wait for a commercial break you can actually go to the bathroom after the ball is served and be back in your armchair before its been returned. Lendl and Wilander played a final one year where I managed to read a newspaper while the ball was travelling from one baseline to the other. Watching the French Open is like watching people play tennis knee deep in mud.
I did see enough of the tennis yesterday to hear the commentators providing their usual Williams Sister Commentary. Williams Sister Commentary runs like this; you have to comment on their clothes, their motivation, their injuries and how fat they are. If you're Roger Rasheed you can toss in a couple of comments about their tits and arse as well. You may occasionally touch on the tennis if you need to mention something so vulgar in order to emphasise your point about their clothing, weight, tits etcetera but don't make a habit of it. There is a great deal of opportunity for Williams Sister Commentary because they win so often that you get a lot of chances to say things about them. If you didn't watch any of the matches but simply listened to the commentary you would get the impression that all these titles were being won by fat, lazy, semi crippled tarts with poor taste in clothing. In actual fact only the last of these is true. And now I've ruined the point I was trying to make because I have commented on the Williams sisters clothing.
I like watching the Williams sisters play (either of them). Their combination of power, touch and speed has to be seen to be believed. Even when they lose they never fail to be a commanding presence on any court they walk onto. Tennis needs more people like Venus and Serena Williams and fewer tennis commentators. Even the French Open can't be completely tedious when one of the Williams sisters is struggling through the mud, I mean clay. I also like the fact that the umpire makes the calls in French. It is after all the French Open and a few gestures like that can help the French to pretend their country still has relevance. Its also fun watching the players staring at the scoreboard to help them figure out what the umpire just said.
I know I have disparaged the French Open in the above but put it down to either fever or possibly too much ibuprofen. I actually love the French Open because when I see it telecast it reminds me that Wimbledon is just around the corner.
Strangely with the exception of the actual symptoms I feel pretty good. I have never felt more alert which is a surprise because I have dozed off three times today already. Fortunately I woke up before the train passed my stop. That probably means I will have difficulty getting to sleep tonight but don't worry, I have a secret weapon. The French Open tennis tournament started this week. I'm not crazy about the French Open but as a cure for insomnia it beats every sleeping pill in the world.
I watched the first set of Serena Williams' match against (insert competitors name here) last night. Actually "watched" is a generous term. I saw the first couple of games and woke up just after Williams had taken the tie breaker. Then I went to bed. The trouble with the French Open is they play it on clay. This means that rather than wait for a commercial break you can actually go to the bathroom after the ball is served and be back in your armchair before its been returned. Lendl and Wilander played a final one year where I managed to read a newspaper while the ball was travelling from one baseline to the other. Watching the French Open is like watching people play tennis knee deep in mud.
I did see enough of the tennis yesterday to hear the commentators providing their usual Williams Sister Commentary. Williams Sister Commentary runs like this; you have to comment on their clothes, their motivation, their injuries and how fat they are. If you're Roger Rasheed you can toss in a couple of comments about their tits and arse as well. You may occasionally touch on the tennis if you need to mention something so vulgar in order to emphasise your point about their clothing, weight, tits etcetera but don't make a habit of it. There is a great deal of opportunity for Williams Sister Commentary because they win so often that you get a lot of chances to say things about them. If you didn't watch any of the matches but simply listened to the commentary you would get the impression that all these titles were being won by fat, lazy, semi crippled tarts with poor taste in clothing. In actual fact only the last of these is true. And now I've ruined the point I was trying to make because I have commented on the Williams sisters clothing.
I like watching the Williams sisters play (either of them). Their combination of power, touch and speed has to be seen to be believed. Even when they lose they never fail to be a commanding presence on any court they walk onto. Tennis needs more people like Venus and Serena Williams and fewer tennis commentators. Even the French Open can't be completely tedious when one of the Williams sisters is struggling through the mud, I mean clay. I also like the fact that the umpire makes the calls in French. It is after all the French Open and a few gestures like that can help the French to pretend their country still has relevance. Its also fun watching the players staring at the scoreboard to help them figure out what the umpire just said.
I know I have disparaged the French Open in the above but put it down to either fever or possibly too much ibuprofen. I actually love the French Open because when I see it telecast it reminds me that Wimbledon is just around the corner.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Everything I Needed to Know I Learnt From Stoutly the Packhorse
The Ballad of the Drover is a poem by Henry Lawson. Lawson was an Australian poet and he was everything a poet should be, that is to say he was an unreliable drunk who died in the gutter. This is absolutely essential if you want to be taken seriously as a poet. Painters are neurotic, chefs are psychotic and poets are unemployable deadbeats. In his most recent volume of memoirs (titled, I think That's Right I'm Still Not Dead) Clive James blames his career in television for the fact he has a hard time being taken seriously as a poet. Not so, Clive James has a hard time being taken seriously as a poet because he hasn't beaten his wife, alienated his daughters and rolled around in the gutter covered in his own vomit.
But I digress, The Ballad of the Drover tells the story of a young (you guessed it) drover who has been away for months herding cattle and is now hurrying home to see his fiancee.
But I digress, The Ballad of the Drover tells the story of a young (you guessed it) drover who has been away for months herding cattle and is now hurrying home to see his fiancee.
And well his stockhorse bears him,
And light of heart is he,
And stoutly his old packhorse
Is trotting by his knee.
It is an indication of the level of humour in my family that the packhorse was immediately and unanimously christened "Stoutly". Stoutly is rather a favourite of mine for reasons which will soon become clear. The rains have come to the Queensland plains and a river which the drover must cross has changed from a dry gully to a raging torrent but the drover is determined;
We've breasted bigger rivers
When floods were at their height
Nor shall this gutter stop us
From getting home tonight!
But oh, the hubris and alack, the tragedy because;
When flashes next the lightning,
The flood's grey breast is blank,
And a cattle dog and packhorse
Are struggling up the bank.
The dog, of course, does something stupid;
The faithful dog a moment
Sits panting on the bank,
And then swims through the current
To where his master sank.
And round and round in circles
He fights with failing strength,
Till, borne down by the waters,
The old dog sinks at length.
Not surprising Stoutly has other ideas;
Across the flooded lowlands
And slopes of sodden loam
The packhorse struggles onward,
To take dumb tidings home.
From all of which we can determine that Stoutly was the only lifeform in the poem with a grain of commonsense.
I don't think that Stoutly has been given the recognition that he deserves. Day in and day out he goes about his job with dull, uncomprehending application. The others are smarter or more loyal than he. They shine more brightly, gain honour and praise but, like Icarus, they stray to close to the Sun. While the drover and his dog meet a watery death Stoutly takes one look at the unfolding tragedy and goes home. There will be another drover and that drover will need a packhorse.
So to those of you out there like Stoutly, who don't shine but rather struggle through their lives and whose greatest qualification for the job is that they turned up, take heart from Stoutly's tale. Highflyers fall to earth, packhorses rarely do and even if it happens the drop isn't so bad. If the highflyer you're following rides into a raging river, leave the silly bastard there to drown. There will be another along in a minute, and he'll need a packhorse.
PS. For those interested here is a link to the complete poem. http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/1011-Henry-Lawson-Ballad-Of-The-Drover
And light of heart is he,
And stoutly his old packhorse
Is trotting by his knee.
It is an indication of the level of humour in my family that the packhorse was immediately and unanimously christened "Stoutly". Stoutly is rather a favourite of mine for reasons which will soon become clear. The rains have come to the Queensland plains and a river which the drover must cross has changed from a dry gully to a raging torrent but the drover is determined;
We've breasted bigger rivers
When floods were at their height
Nor shall this gutter stop us
From getting home tonight!
But oh, the hubris and alack, the tragedy because;
When flashes next the lightning,
The flood's grey breast is blank,
And a cattle dog and packhorse
Are struggling up the bank.
The dog, of course, does something stupid;
The faithful dog a moment
Sits panting on the bank,
And then swims through the current
To where his master sank.
And round and round in circles
He fights with failing strength,
Till, borne down by the waters,
The old dog sinks at length.
Not surprising Stoutly has other ideas;
Across the flooded lowlands
And slopes of sodden loam
The packhorse struggles onward,
To take dumb tidings home.
From all of which we can determine that Stoutly was the only lifeform in the poem with a grain of commonsense.
I don't think that Stoutly has been given the recognition that he deserves. Day in and day out he goes about his job with dull, uncomprehending application. The others are smarter or more loyal than he. They shine more brightly, gain honour and praise but, like Icarus, they stray to close to the Sun. While the drover and his dog meet a watery death Stoutly takes one look at the unfolding tragedy and goes home. There will be another drover and that drover will need a packhorse.
So to those of you out there like Stoutly, who don't shine but rather struggle through their lives and whose greatest qualification for the job is that they turned up, take heart from Stoutly's tale. Highflyers fall to earth, packhorses rarely do and even if it happens the drop isn't so bad. If the highflyer you're following rides into a raging river, leave the silly bastard there to drown. There will be another along in a minute, and he'll need a packhorse.
PS. For those interested here is a link to the complete poem. http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/1011-Henry-Lawson-Ballad-Of-The-Drover
Does Monty Die in Gaol?
I can't open the paper nowadays without reading a column by somebody raving about the cruelty and oppressiveness of our society. How we have pandered to mindless conservatism and the "politics of fear". Apparently modern society is frightened, reactionary, unimaginative and well on the road towards becoming the Fourth Reich. Our culture is crushed beneath the stultifying hand of narrow conservatism and right wing extremism. I have a question for these people, "If our society is so reactionary, extremist and unpleasant why hasn't it taken the necessary steps to make you shut up?" As for the politics of fear jibe, all politics are the politics of fear.
Of course there are problems with this society, people still get raped, robbed, beaten up and ripped off by dubious businessmen. Sadly this is part of the baggage of freedom. My favourite American, PJ O'Rourke, pointed out that freedom means freedom to be a butthead. Freedom means that you are free to be David Irving if you think Jew baiting Nazi revisionism will look good on your CV (and when you think of the kind of people who read David Irving's CV it probably does). Our society hasn't fully or completely successfully integrated its immigrants and various social outcasts but let's get some perspective. At the moment we're wondering whether its safe to let in Muslim immigrants, only a few decades ago we were wondering whether Greeks and Italians could really be defined as white. The major question on homosexuality is whether we allow them to marry, a couple of generations ago it was whether we gaoled them or castrated them.
There seem to be no end of commentators lining up to say how horrible and intolerant our society is blissfully unaware of the fact that our society is the only one that would put up with them for a heartbeat. And this is where it gets really strange. A certain number of them (by no means all) have nothing but praise for societies and civilisations that couldn't approach the levels of tolerance present in our own if they tried for a thousand years.
A number of the more thoughtful have, instead, pointed to the glaring flaws in our society and that's perfectly fine. Despite, and sometimes because of, our best efforts things go horribly wrong. East Timor is a perfect example of that. In 1975 Indonesia invaded the then Portuguese colony of East Timor and brought it under their rule. The Labor government in Canberra was delighted at this example of proactive decolonisation. The East Timorese who had just swapped an indolent and incompetent government several thousand miles away for an aggressive and brutal one right on their doorstep were less impressed.
It is not inconceivable that other cultures and societies have things to teach us but I find it very difficult to believe that any place whose main import is aid and whose main export is refugees has very much to teach us. As for those who feel we should respect cultures different to our own simply because they are cultures I might point out that until recent centuries our own culture included, segregation, slavery, wife beating and witch burning. Should we have "respect" for that as well. I don't see why not, its traditional and what's more they're our traditions. Surely we should have study groups and government grants to ensure these things don't die out in this callous, secular modern age.
In judging society I have a very simple rule of thumb. I call it the Viscount Montgomery rule. Bernard Law Montgomery was, as I might have mentioned before, a deeply disturbed individual. His father was largely absent (due to his job) and he and his siblings were raised by what by all accounts seems to have been a very cruel and tyrannical mother. Certainly she warped Montgomery's entire attitude towards women and his loveless upbringing definitely contributed to some of his more unpleasant personality traits. In today's society Montgomery would probably have been taken into care, shunted around foster homes, become a juvenile delinquent and died in gaol before he was thirty. And Hitler might have won World War 2. So my rule for society is; any society where Montgomery dies in gaol after being fostered out isn't good enough for me.
Of course there are problems with this society, people still get raped, robbed, beaten up and ripped off by dubious businessmen. Sadly this is part of the baggage of freedom. My favourite American, PJ O'Rourke, pointed out that freedom means freedom to be a butthead. Freedom means that you are free to be David Irving if you think Jew baiting Nazi revisionism will look good on your CV (and when you think of the kind of people who read David Irving's CV it probably does). Our society hasn't fully or completely successfully integrated its immigrants and various social outcasts but let's get some perspective. At the moment we're wondering whether its safe to let in Muslim immigrants, only a few decades ago we were wondering whether Greeks and Italians could really be defined as white. The major question on homosexuality is whether we allow them to marry, a couple of generations ago it was whether we gaoled them or castrated them.
There seem to be no end of commentators lining up to say how horrible and intolerant our society is blissfully unaware of the fact that our society is the only one that would put up with them for a heartbeat. And this is where it gets really strange. A certain number of them (by no means all) have nothing but praise for societies and civilisations that couldn't approach the levels of tolerance present in our own if they tried for a thousand years.
A number of the more thoughtful have, instead, pointed to the glaring flaws in our society and that's perfectly fine. Despite, and sometimes because of, our best efforts things go horribly wrong. East Timor is a perfect example of that. In 1975 Indonesia invaded the then Portuguese colony of East Timor and brought it under their rule. The Labor government in Canberra was delighted at this example of proactive decolonisation. The East Timorese who had just swapped an indolent and incompetent government several thousand miles away for an aggressive and brutal one right on their doorstep were less impressed.
It is not inconceivable that other cultures and societies have things to teach us but I find it very difficult to believe that any place whose main import is aid and whose main export is refugees has very much to teach us. As for those who feel we should respect cultures different to our own simply because they are cultures I might point out that until recent centuries our own culture included, segregation, slavery, wife beating and witch burning. Should we have "respect" for that as well. I don't see why not, its traditional and what's more they're our traditions. Surely we should have study groups and government grants to ensure these things don't die out in this callous, secular modern age.
In judging society I have a very simple rule of thumb. I call it the Viscount Montgomery rule. Bernard Law Montgomery was, as I might have mentioned before, a deeply disturbed individual. His father was largely absent (due to his job) and he and his siblings were raised by what by all accounts seems to have been a very cruel and tyrannical mother. Certainly she warped Montgomery's entire attitude towards women and his loveless upbringing definitely contributed to some of his more unpleasant personality traits. In today's society Montgomery would probably have been taken into care, shunted around foster homes, become a juvenile delinquent and died in gaol before he was thirty. And Hitler might have won World War 2. So my rule for society is; any society where Montgomery dies in gaol after being fostered out isn't good enough for me.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Does Mrs Montgomery Live or Die?
I can't open the paper nowadays without reading a column by somebody raving about the weakness and decadence of our society. How we have lost our "traditional values" and are spiralling towards societal collapse. Apparently modern society is weak, lazy, decadent and full of a sense of undeserved entitlement. Our culture is too permissive, morally bankrupt, saturated with sex and so on. If our society is saturated with sex is it too much to ask that a little trickle down to me? We have apparently lost the fine virtues of a previous generation who were much more noble, self sacrificing, hard working and blah blah blah. "The fabric of our society is crumbling," they yelp as stories of single mothers, juvenile drug dealers, illegal immigrants, political correctness and racial tension assault the very bastions of decency itself. Well it must be admitted that society has a problem, for starters we can't get these obsessive whingers to shut up.
Certainly there are many problems with our society; people have problems, people make up society, can anybody do the math here? Possibly the only way to have a flawless society is to remove people from it. For those desiring a perfect society permit me to commend them to an anthill. Apparently the way to solve all of our problems is to look back to a more appropriate time. This despite the fact that today's society was created because people realised that yesterdays society wasn't satisfactory. Throughout history people have looked at society and thought "surely we can do better". History has shown that they were right, every time. We could do better and have. No doubt we will do better than our current society in the future, we usually do the occasional backsliding notwithstanding.
Nevertheless the past seems to hold a great deal of attraction for some people and its easy to see why. Society in the past wasn't fairer, or better, or nobler but it was easier. A place for everything and everything in its place. Things were simpler back then; black was black, white was white and as a rule the two didn't intermarry. Any attempt to find this society, however, runs into an unpleasant stumbling block; where the hell is it? How far back do we have to go to find it? Twenty years? Not even I want to relive the eighties. Sixty years? World War 2, that was a lot of fun for all concerned. A hundred years? I quite agree, penicillin and pain free dentistry are vastly overrated. Further still? Might be okay as long as you're white, male, don't have to work for a living and have a relaxed attitude to personal hygiene but at some point a priest is going to come around to ask why you haven't been on crusade recently.
Of course it can be argued that what such people really want is a return to the moral attitudes and outlooks of earlier times when people were polite, respectful, honest, hardworking and patriotic. There certainly was some of this back in the day but at the exact same time as people were displaying those qualities they were also displaying racism, homophobia, hypocrisy and intolerance. In any event the people who had these qualities were not a product of their time they were a product of their upbringing. There are people today who show all the good qualities mentioned above (and not a few who show the bad) what is missing today is the pretence that everybody behaves like that. This is largely because people are more informed today (note I said more not better). Nowadays you have to be living under a rock not to realise that many of the virtues touted by our leaders are conspicuous by their absence in those self same leaders. This was also true in earlier days but fewer people realised it. The true difference between society today and that of say forty years ago is a tearing of the veil. The emperor has no clothes and people are shocked at the display, but the emperor never had any clothes. Attitudes have changed over time naturally and many people who were brought up with the qualities I've mentioned previously nevertheless have managed to adapt them to our new society by keeping true to themselves and improving our overall society by doing so. It's entirely possible that their earlier counterparts would still consider them to be hopelessly depraved and decadent. So be it, I know which era I would prefer to live in and its the one with decent toilet paper.
In judging society I have a very simple rule of thumb. I call it the Mrs Montgomery rule. Elizabeth Montgomery nee Hobart (and Carver) was the wife of the man who would eventually become Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. At the time he was a major in the British army and she was a widow with two young children. Montgomery was a ruthless, rude, arrogant pathological liar and (according to one of his biographers) a closet homosexual and borderline psychopath. Elizabeth was artistically inclined, something of a pacifist (despite the fact that her brother was in the army) and quite a good amateur painter. Despite their personality differences the marriage was a very happy one on both sides until 1937. In that year Elizabeth was stung by an insect while on holiday, contracted blood poisoning and died. She wasn't in any exotic locale, she was bitten by a very ordinary run of the mill British insect but due to a lack of penicillin and antibiotics (which hadn't been discovered yet) she wound up in a box. Montgomery was devastated as he had lost about the only person who could put up with him. So my rule for society is this; any society in which Mrs Montgomery dies rather than being up and about twenty four hours after the insect sting simply isn't good enough for me.
Certainly there are many problems with our society; people have problems, people make up society, can anybody do the math here? Possibly the only way to have a flawless society is to remove people from it. For those desiring a perfect society permit me to commend them to an anthill. Apparently the way to solve all of our problems is to look back to a more appropriate time. This despite the fact that today's society was created because people realised that yesterdays society wasn't satisfactory. Throughout history people have looked at society and thought "surely we can do better". History has shown that they were right, every time. We could do better and have. No doubt we will do better than our current society in the future, we usually do the occasional backsliding notwithstanding.
Nevertheless the past seems to hold a great deal of attraction for some people and its easy to see why. Society in the past wasn't fairer, or better, or nobler but it was easier. A place for everything and everything in its place. Things were simpler back then; black was black, white was white and as a rule the two didn't intermarry. Any attempt to find this society, however, runs into an unpleasant stumbling block; where the hell is it? How far back do we have to go to find it? Twenty years? Not even I want to relive the eighties. Sixty years? World War 2, that was a lot of fun for all concerned. A hundred years? I quite agree, penicillin and pain free dentistry are vastly overrated. Further still? Might be okay as long as you're white, male, don't have to work for a living and have a relaxed attitude to personal hygiene but at some point a priest is going to come around to ask why you haven't been on crusade recently.
Of course it can be argued that what such people really want is a return to the moral attitudes and outlooks of earlier times when people were polite, respectful, honest, hardworking and patriotic. There certainly was some of this back in the day but at the exact same time as people were displaying those qualities they were also displaying racism, homophobia, hypocrisy and intolerance. In any event the people who had these qualities were not a product of their time they were a product of their upbringing. There are people today who show all the good qualities mentioned above (and not a few who show the bad) what is missing today is the pretence that everybody behaves like that. This is largely because people are more informed today (note I said more not better). Nowadays you have to be living under a rock not to realise that many of the virtues touted by our leaders are conspicuous by their absence in those self same leaders. This was also true in earlier days but fewer people realised it. The true difference between society today and that of say forty years ago is a tearing of the veil. The emperor has no clothes and people are shocked at the display, but the emperor never had any clothes. Attitudes have changed over time naturally and many people who were brought up with the qualities I've mentioned previously nevertheless have managed to adapt them to our new society by keeping true to themselves and improving our overall society by doing so. It's entirely possible that their earlier counterparts would still consider them to be hopelessly depraved and decadent. So be it, I know which era I would prefer to live in and its the one with decent toilet paper.
In judging society I have a very simple rule of thumb. I call it the Mrs Montgomery rule. Elizabeth Montgomery nee Hobart (and Carver) was the wife of the man who would eventually become Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. At the time he was a major in the British army and she was a widow with two young children. Montgomery was a ruthless, rude, arrogant pathological liar and (according to one of his biographers) a closet homosexual and borderline psychopath. Elizabeth was artistically inclined, something of a pacifist (despite the fact that her brother was in the army) and quite a good amateur painter. Despite their personality differences the marriage was a very happy one on both sides until 1937. In that year Elizabeth was stung by an insect while on holiday, contracted blood poisoning and died. She wasn't in any exotic locale, she was bitten by a very ordinary run of the mill British insect but due to a lack of penicillin and antibiotics (which hadn't been discovered yet) she wound up in a box. Montgomery was devastated as he had lost about the only person who could put up with him. So my rule for society is this; any society in which Mrs Montgomery dies rather than being up and about twenty four hours after the insect sting simply isn't good enough for me.
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