Humans of New York: Reality has a known left-wing bias

Heard of Human's of New York?  It's a great website, I check it nearly daily for spoonfuls of information about total strangers on the opposite side of the planet.  Each post is just a street portrait and a single quote from that person.

I like to think it reminds me of infinite human diversity, how everyone has their struggles no matter their age, gender, race, child-having status, professions, housing status etc. It helps with perspective. And I need frequent reminding. And often times that's easier than connecting with one's real flesh-and-blood friends.

Brandon Stanton, the photographer, has about 8 million followers on social media. This month (January, 2015) he launched a fund-raiser for a school in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He calls it "under-served" - I think that means high crime, low income.

The fundraiser started when Stanton visited the school after meeting a kid on the street who spoke about his principal, saying "she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter.”  Mrs Lopez, it turns out, is on a mission to help her school kids care about their future and keep them out of jail.

She conceived the fund raiser together with the photographer (who is familiar with the power of the crowd and has done this a few times before). They aimed for a fund to send classes on a field trip to Harvard, for three years, because students often can't afford to ever leave their own area. And to show them alternative futures and that they can belong anywhere.

They shot for $100,000 and a couple of days ago passed a million bucks.  They've got enough for 10 years of trips plus some student scholarships.

Bloody genius.

Simple - if you show people an obvious situation of disparity in resources and a simple, easy way to redress it, it's obvious. They go for it. This one is such an obvious way to also re-balance opportunity. It's clear these children are trapped by the genetic accident of where they are born and are fundamentally unequal to kids born in other areas, with different expectations, wealth and support networks.

Over 35,000 people gave around $20-$50 to this school, and now ten years' worth of classes will get to go see the most prestigious Uni in USA. Inferring, that if your $20 can send a kid to look at a different possible future then there's a chance they can enter that future, too. That's a very cheap way to address equality of opportunity.  Of millions of readers, a solid proportion will say, yes, I'll chip in.  That's what this post title is about - I still reckon plenty of humans just fundamentally get fairness. It's pre-programmed and doesn't even need explanation. Reality has a left-wing bias. (Quote: Stephen Colbert)

Internet is beautiful when it does this - provides the network infrastructure for small payments, combined with immediacy and storytelling. Stanton's achievement in creating his own personal nation of followers, taps into the power of many. Same as unionism, public health and public schools.

Why then, can't we ever seem to understand or embrace the basics of income tax?

Looks like there's over 68,000 elementary schools in USA. Brandon can't visit them all in several lifetimes. All provide a service to kids who haven't got much money behind them. All could do with extra-curricular activities, and even just good teachers, up to date facilities and support/ mentoring/ counseling for outside the curriculum.

Who picks the ones that are most deserving? Why should that be something that pops up at random due to the skills and connections of one talented individual? Who maps where the lowest income areas in the country are? 

Bureacracy does. Paid for by tax. With process. They are not dirty words. Australian commentator and former public servant Greg Jericho wrote a great piece this week titled:

Joe Hockey either doesn't understand how tax works or he is deliberately misleading the public.

Here's the crux:

Australia’s income tax system is a progressive one. We pay higher rates of taxation the more we earn. There are five tax brackets:
$0 - $18,200 – 0%
$18,201 - $37,000 – 19%
$37,001 - $80,000 – 32.5%
$80,001 - $180,000 – 37%
$180,001 + – 45%

A distribution system so that those with all the opportunities can share some of their rewards for the genetic lottery of where they were born, with those with fewer opportunities thanks to where they were born.

So, yeah. Tax. It's like a million heart warming  internet fundraisers. Every day of the year.

And congratulations Brownville, you guys are fab.  Image c) Stanton/HONY: 

Birdman review: Mutually assured destruction

I saw Birdman two weeks ago and have just about recovered from it enough to write about it.

Briefly, I think it was brilliant and original, technically stunning, and makes you gasp and squirm and really invest in it emotionally. If you've read any reviews then you'll know it looks like it's all one continuous shot. Worth going just for that. It's about people doing a play, (on one level) - but it's a film that looks like a play and talks about theatre and art and truth. It also portrays madness and delusion. At one point it forces the audience to recognise their own minds' responses to violent action in a rude shock. 

Some reviews have talked about the character's "fractured pysche" (Empire) the multiple "collapsing walls - between character and actor, onstage and off, representation and reality" (NY Times) and the amazing performances and "thrill ride" of the film (RogerEbert.com). They all nod to the fact that the real life actors Keaton and Norton are reflecting aspects of their real careers and public reputations in these performances.

I want to talk about the outright, hard-assed verballing that goes on in this film. I saw it on a Saturday, the day after once again facing my own tendency of unwitting criticism towards the person I would most like to be close to, at a moment when I feel unloved.  I've been working on breaking this habit for ages, practicing identifying what's going on underneath before unleashing the barbs, and thought I was getting better. Sadly this time, something went quite wrong, and probably marked the end of the relationship. I still don't quite know why. So, grieving and Birdman on a hot Sunday arvo.

But enough about me. Onto this screenplay. 

I'm only a beginner in understanding story arc, pacing, structure, but a keen student. This film felt like it had a series of grenades in it -a set of one-to-one dialogues that were like bass beats, that broke up the movie into its main Acts. 

The exchanges most seared into my mind are:

• The main lead character, Riggan Thompson (a 60 year old former action movie star) and the actor, Mike Shiner (a famous stage actor brought in to save the play).
•  Riggan and his daughter, Sam who is recently out of rehab.
• Riggan and the voice of Birdman (essentially his own inner monologue).  
• Riggan and the NYT Film critic.

Folks, these characters are mean.  They say things that - if it were real life - would smash and shatter any bond you had with the human on the receiving end. Forever. I guess that's part of the thrill of working with a script. Holy moley, the pointed and destructive power of those words! I wonder how the screenwriter/s feel when they are getting that stuff down. Gleeful, cathartic, powerful,  shocked at the power of their own poison pen? Are they excited perhaps, or laughing at how close to the bone they can get, or do they feel a little disgusted that this stuff resides inside them.

To me, the thing that all these exchanges had in common was that they nailed the exact, worst fears the person under attack would have about themselves. If between real people, they would have taken still-healing emotional wounds and metaphorically reamed a butchers knife into them and opened them up bleeding and raw.

Perhaps it's just me and I'm too much of an empath. Perhaps other people just laughed and enjoyed that visceral pleasure of a real telling off (or truth telling in some people's eyes). Or maybe the writer is just characterising New Yorkers/ actors as the ultimate in hard-talking, pin pointed insulters, who can take kryponite verbal bullets, catch them in their teeth, spit them out and keep walking.

For studies sake, I've downloaded the screenplay to find a quote from each of these exchanges, and pinpoint what I reckon they are doing to their scene 'partner'. Spoilers from here on.

Screenwriter credit: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr., Armando Bo.
 Downloaded from here.

Between actors - I know your weak spot.
RIGGAN I have a lot riding on this play.
MIKE Is that right?
RIGGAN People know who I am, and--
MIKE Bullshit.
RIGGAN Mike--
MIKE Bullshit. People don’t know you. They know the guy in the bird suit. They know the guy who tells those quaint, slightly vomitous stories on Letterman.
 ...
MIKE .. This doesn't work out for you, you get to go home to your studio pals and jump right back into that cultural genocide you guys are perpetrating. “There’s a douchbag born every minute”. That was P.T. Barnum’s premise when he got rich inventing the circus. And you and your pals know nothing’s changed, and whatever toxic shit you make people are still gonna pay to see it.

So by this stage, we've learnt Mike is an A-grade asshole from a previous scene. But he managed to pinpoint Riggan's worst fear- that he's not really an artist. In 76 words.

Father Daughter - mutually assured destruction
RIGGAN  It's important to me! Alright? Maybe not to you, or your cynical playmates whose sole ambition is to end up going viral and who, by the way, will only be remembered as the generation that finally stopped talking to one another. But to me... To me... This is-- God. This is my career, this is my chance to do some work that actually means something.

SAM Means something to who? You had a career before the third comic book movie, before people began to forget who was inside the bird costume. You're doing a play based on a book that was written 60 years ago, for a thousand rich, old white people whose only real concern is gonna be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it's over. Nobody gives a shit but you. And let's face it, Dad, it's not for the sake of art. It's because you just want to feel relevant again. Well, there's a whole world out there where people fight to be relevant every day. And you act like it doesn't even exist! Things are happening in a place that you willfully ignore, a place that has already forgotten you. I mean who are you? You hate bloggers. You make fun of twitter. You don't even have a Facebook page. You're the one who doesn't exist. You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter. And you know what? You're right. You don't. It's not important. You're not important. Get used to it.

Triple whammy. This scene starts off as a potential reconciliation and acceptance (of the father's absence and the daughter's mistakes). But it changes up in an instance - to father voicing daughter's inner fear - of smallness, irrelevance - and daughter coming back with a bigger, more powerful arsenal, of total meaninglessness, after he's lived most of his life and can't start again - while hers is just beginning. 


A voice in your head -
BIRDMAN (V.O.) You were a movie star, remember? Pretentious, but happy...
[Riggan opens his eyes, slowly. A sad expression on his face.]
RIGGAN I was not happy.
BIRDMAN...Ignorant but charming. Now you are a tiny bitter cocksucker.
RIGGAN Shut up! Stop whining! I was miserable!
BIRDMAN (V.O.)Yeah. But fake miserable. Hollywood miserable.
[Riggan points his fingers at a lamp and sends it flying.]
BIRDMAN (V.O.)What are you trying to prove? Huh? That you’re an artist? You’re not.

This one was tough - Birdman is essentially Riggan's self-doubt speaking out loud. And it's the bluntest of all critics.  His self-esteem is trying to keep the upper hand and failing. It intensifies from this, go see it.

And here's one from the theatre critic, professional destroyer 
TABITHA
... why? Because I hate you. And everyone you represent. Entitled. Spoiled. Selfish. Children. Blissfully untrained, unversed and unprepared to even attempt real art. Handing each other awards for cartoons and  pornography. Measuring your worth in weekends. Well, this is the theater, and you don't get to come in here and pretend you can write, direct and act in your own propaganda piece without going through me first. So, break a leg.

Just prior to this she declared "I am going to destroy your play". Riggan does fire back with a similarly scathing responses about her self worth, I don't want to transcribe all the most intense parts. Holy smoking character assassination, batman.

So in summary, these exchanges to me are the the throbbing, bleeding heart of this film. Each time one happens, the pressure ratchets up a notch, towards the denouement. I don't know what that means for us, and for the fact that it won awards. In some comedies these kind of brutal attacks get the audience weeping with laughter - in a catharsis to our own frustrations and anger towards some comic 'enemy' or barrier to getting fulfillment. Birdman is painfully funny in parts, but these monologues aren't played for laughs.

I'm torn between thinking it is a commentary on how not to live your life (for anyone, not just performers and creative people); essentially a forensic case study in the destructiveness of unchecked criticism and "truth telling". Or perhaps some kind of kinky celebration of harsh truths, tough love, and perversely shining a bright light on all your failures and self doubt in order to excoriate them, and push on through to the other side. Did you see it? What do you think?

Passive agressive ? Me?

Following on from the teeth-grindingly annoying habit of some of my "friends" of having "greener than thou" rants on my facebook page....

Buzz and Words bring you selections from "Modern Hippie Lexicon".. thank you House of Broken Saints, whoever you are.. love, peace and mungbeans...

Bad Vibes - Someone called you on your bullshit or didn’t give you what you wanted.

Burning Man - A huge art installation in the desert that many hippies have mistaken for a model of Utopian society which they attempt to recreate in their hometowns for the next 51 weeks. Ignoring the fact that everything about it is completely unsustainable.

Ecstatic Dance - Flailing around arhythmically.

Gifting - The act of dumping your useless crap on other people.

Higher Purpose - Unemployment.

Massage Therapy - The best option for income without a higher education.

Universal Love - What you feel when you’re always high.

Universal Truths - The narrow set of beliefs held by your circle of friends.

Visionary - Drug-induced.

human stupidity: nature or nurture Pt 2

On Saturday I toddled down to my local beach. Sometimes the beach is closed, and this Saturday was one of those days. In this neck of the wood, on days with an onshore current there are several yellow signs on poles with a swimmer icon crossed out, saying:

DANGEROUS CURRENT
BEACH CLOSED

There is also a large volunteer lifeguard tent right in the middle of the beach and paid lifeguards in the the tower. People still surf, using the rip to get out back, and swimmers still get in, because it's not like you can build a fence. If people stray into the waves the guards corral them back in making use of whistles or the loud-hailer or the beach PA system, with regular warnings that the conditions are very dangerous. Oh, and there's no flags up.

On days like this there is a nasty little drop off, just a couple of metres from the water's edge. The waves aren't huge, maybe just one metre at most, and if you're not familiar with the conditions it is hard to see what the issue might be. The problem is when they surge you get pulled off the beach, and can end up further from shore than you intended and if you try to swim against the rip you get tired very quickly and can panic and start to drown.

So on Saturday, I have to admit I watched the other swimmers for a bit, checked out where the lifeguards were getting people out, got in for about 30 seconds without going past the depth of my neck and got out again. And even then I nearly got knocked over by a wave in thigh-deep water.

Then I lay on the sand for a while reading my Margaret Atwood short stories. Presently, the Dad-type next to me exclaimed "oh look they're doing a rescue" - and sure enough the volunteer lifeguards were going in with the tow rope to pull out a girl of about 13 or 14. Her and a friend has been playing in the edge for a while, they weren't any further out than the few body surfers, but one of them must have been struggling. The friend got out on her own, and I watched the two of them walk across the beach towards the clan. The friend was asking the rather shaken-looking rescued girl if she was okay, if she wanted to sit down, etc, generally being pretty cool. As they approached Mum, the excitement of the moment overtook her and she was all "hey did you see what happened?! Katy just got rescued! She got towed out by the lifeguards!"

Mum sat up from her towel like she'd been stuck with a pin. Wasn't a big-gosh-fun-adventure for her, oh no. She'd been reading a magazine the whole time and didn't even know anything had happened. Wouldn't the prowling guards and loudspeaker announcements at least make you look up?

So this post is a twin to the stupid posters one. I was astounded that where the signs and announcements were actually immediately useful and could actually prevent you drowning, there was this total disregard for it. This is not an anti-mother rant - just an anti-human one. Too much information where it is useless noise, and a tendency to completely ignore the signal where it is clear, un-ambivalent and critical to your own safety. I think there as a factory flaw in the human genome, basically.

human stupidity: nature or nurture Pt 1

Back in winter, some train station advertising made me wonder if there weren't larger forces at work to push us that bit further into complete loss of cognitive function, coupled with total dissatisfaction with our corporeal selves. The first is a series that seem to be showing the consequences of getting too close to trains. The slogans we simply mind-numbingly obvious tinged with totally patronising. Like this gem:

"getting caught in the door will hurt" - accompanying a photo of a guy in a suit with his arm, holding a briefcase, sticking out of the door.

Other ones were about prams on the platform and about crossing the tracks. I mean puhlease. That there is a hundreds of tonnes of metal hurtling into a station on electrified tracks isn't enough to encourage people to be careful? Is the logic in the comms strategy meeting (and I've been to a few, dear readers) that - if people were just to know the consequences of running to the those closing metal doors - then they wouldn't do it? If you can't work that out after the first time to see them actually shut, then you're an idiot and you deserve the bruise to teach you.

And the second one was part of the federal government's "How do you measure up" campaign, runnning with this beautiful bit of creative:

The full caption is, wait for it, "are you on your way towards chronic disease? I was confronted with this poor guy every day when I hit the bottom of the station escalators. Looks like the campaign is encouraging people to measure their waist as a trigger to lose weight to save themselves from SUDDEN DEATH.

It's been a while since I ranted here, but can I just say.. "what the hell?" I mean really, is this actually a real health issue? Or is this social conditioning out of control? Losing weight is so the new religion, Dicko did it, Madga did it, Mikey Robbins did it, it's highly trendy and a public rite of passage for fat celebs in the Emerald City. But, really, are we just compliant in shifting the global marketing coup of making women hate their earthly form - to our men? Is the health department playing into the hands of those big corporates who can shift more product if the general populace feels a little melancholy about those few extra kilos, the love handles and the muffin tops? It's not just diet programs and home gyms and such.. when consumers constantly feel like shit, everyone wins - from chocolate ice-cream to cars to beer to diamond earrings to flat screen TVs - anything to make you feel like you might satiate that longing for a perfect life.

Now, I'm going to come out of the closet on this one.

I reckon that guy in the poster could be eminently shaggable. He's so far from a hideous fatty it's laughable. I, for one, probably wouldn't turn him down, if he was funny, smart, playful, or perhaps had a love of cinema or could teach me a language, or was into body art or any bloody thing that wasn't about his goddam waistline. I bet the actual model has a happy marriage and a couple of kids who he takes to Nippers swim club every Sunday at crack of dawn and remembers to put the bins out every week. Jesus, he could be a Judo champ with that physique. I hope he got a decent pay packet for that ad is all I'm saying. For the humiliation of having to push another cack-handed attempt of the government to tell us we could get a bit crook if we eat junk and don't exercise.

I want to do a new station advertising campaign.

If you read this poster every day you will turn into a complete moron. THINK FOR YOURSELF.
(Authorised by the NSW government.)

some good news

Todd Stern, US chief negotiator at climate talks in Bonn.

"We are very glad to be back. We want to make up for lost time, and we are seized with the urgency of the task before us," Stern said to loud applause from the 2,600 delegates to the U.N. negotiations.

They clapped again when Stern said the U.S. recognized "our unique responsibility ... as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases," which has created a problem threatening the entire world.

---

Stern said no one on his team doubted that climate change is real. "The science is clear, the threat is real, the facts on the ground are outstripping the worst-case scenarios. The cost of inaction or inadequate action are unacceptable," he said — a total change of tone from his predecessors.

Full associated press article here.

And Earth Hour photos looked excellent, too! Much discussion on Earth Hour, at our place. By the way, there were postcards and newspaper ads here in Amsterdam, but I don't know if there were any official switch-offs in the city. I note some commentators are taking it rather literally, like John Quiggin, who does a calculation of the emissions stopped by people taking part for one hour, compared with switching over to a few energy-saver light bulbs for good. I have total respect and admiration for JQ in his persistent use of fact, logic and his outspoken stance on climate change and target setting in the Australian political sphere. But I think that perspective is a bit too literal and doesn't really reflect what the event is about, in terms of mass acceptance.

I personally think WWF are doing a pretty good job trying to shift the symbolism of it towards a statement of "please government take more action". And surely there aren't many Earth Hour participants who think "that's it" - an annual switch-off is enough to stop global warming. Really. It's simply a good way to count how much of the population does actually 'get' this thing - that we, humans, have stuffed the balance of gases in the atmosphere by burning oil and coal. And according to Earth Hour in Aus anyway, that's more than the commentariat like Miranda Divine would have you believe.

Acknowledged, some may say it's about 10 years after this mass awareness would have been really helpful. But anyway, Earth Hour. Not a bad thing at all.

I like the photos because they show people in charge of these landmark buildings do actually believe those fundamental things. That industrialisation has warmed the globe, and that we have to make a different choice on energy use / energy supplies to fix it. Its kind of like the relieved feeling when you go on a march .. "oh, right, its not just me.. lots of people feel this way." Either that or their boss believes it is good enough PR to put the order through to turn out the lights for an hour!

Oh, and there's another thing - I'm now here in Europe spring. Easter in a couple of weeks. With life bursting out all over, birds singing, flowers literally shooting up before your eyes... a spring fertility festival makes so much more sense. In the south, it falls just as everything is in senescence. Dur.

I would love to see these kind of change-of-season rituals adapt in Aus to have a bit more meaning. They are so old that the western world has mostly forgotten the roots, and whoops, changed them to be about Jesus, etc. Perhaps an annual lights out at the onset of Autumn, in Aus, with it's associated candles and parades and outdoor 'light' related festivals could a be perfect new tradition for marking the moment. Nights getting longer, darkness closing in, an embracing of the dark, the uncertain, the dreaming. Earth hour could have the unintentional hallmarks of a seasonal event that is fitting to the rhythm of the earth, that is something the family can do together, that is a bit mystical, and a reminder of how to tread lightly, and just a wee little bit pagan. (Sssh.. don't tell the editor of the Herald who sponsors it!)

Grieving for the climate

So, right, I've been working on and off in the area of climate change for a while now. (As if you didn't know). Since 2000 to be precise. Lately I've had a niggling feeling that the vast majority of western people are straight-out deniers. This is because of the comments attracted to every major and important article I read in a proper newspaper. I'm talking here about the ones that give space to those who think national governments need to stop weaseling out of real carbon cuts, not the crazy mis-information mafia like The Australian and The Washington Post.

Newspapers obviously are available to the everyone. From someone who has been campaigning on climate change since the 80s, like a colleague of mine, to someone who only just heard the term last week. They might have voted for Obama, but they're like "whaddya mean climactic change? Global warming.. hey-l it was snowing here last week." .. and so on.

My latest take on it is that large chunks of the Australian and US citizenship are going through the classic stages of grieving. Take this quote:

Whenever one's identity and social order face the possibility of destruction, there is a natural tendency to feel angry, frustrated, helpless, and/or hurt. The volatile reactions of terror, hatred, resentment, and jealousy are often experienced as emotional manifestations of these feelings.

from The Grieving Process by Michael R. Leming and George E. Dickinson

And you don't have to check out the links, as it's too depressing dear readers, but recent tell-it-as-it-is articles by NASA scientist James Hansen, and long time environmental commentator George Monbiot have attracted a wail of denial, attack, ridicule and defamation. I don't remember it being this vitriolic when I started on the issue.

Leading Climate Scientist: Democratic process isn't working (Hansen Interview 19 March)

Opportunity for 2 degrees lost (Canberra times, 23 March, reprinted from the Guardian)

The first one in particular attracted every single tired and disproved point from the denial camp that have all been carefully dismantled; some years ago.* (Btw.. it's clear that from about number 50-on the commentors are coming from the US, they talk about "our tax dollars.")

My mate who's been in this game longer says it's reflection of an anti-global warming campaign that has had a long time to work on its strategy and has been successfully selling doubt for about 10 years, and the efforts are now paying off.

Kind of weird for me, though, who worked in a fully government-funded department nine years ago, whose main remit was based entirely on the premise that global warming was real. Oh yeah, and quite bad for the economy. Back then, mind you, the preferred actions were education, PR and voluntary business programs rather than legislation. Maybe the risk of accepting the science wasn't so high.

And another thing - everyone I know personally is convinced to some degree, whether it is just to recycle when they didn't before (I know recycling has very little to do with climate but, hey at least it's acceptance that humans change their environment) to avoiding flying at all costs, to building low-energy homes, organising protests, or generally de-carbonising their whole life.

Since the turn of this century, the real science has gotten scarier, more urgent and some top scientists have broken ranks, going from simply analysts and predictors to urging strong action and even civil disobedience. Goodness.

But these days, it looks like all the cool kids post to blogs, with these angry, hurty and shouty messages. Hopefully it's an illusion. Perhaps web-zines, blogs, Youtube, etc, just attract a shouty minority of people. Perhaps the format lends itself better to flaming than to constructive discussion. Perhaps those who have read a paper more than once in their life and understand the basics of climate change just can't be bothered posting to say that the deniers are mad and bad. They spend that two minutes to sign an online petition for good solar tariffs instead. They are too busy changing the baby's cloth nappy and getting their gear on for the cycle to work to care.

I dunno. I hope so.

- - -

* In case anyone else has the energy to ever patiently talk to someone in real life who really is undecided and has heard about sun-spots, mini-ice-ages, water vapour, etc... without raising your voice ... This website has a long list of answers: http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

Personally, I don't have the patience, I just screech "well when you are evacuating your million dollar-home due to flash flooding, don't come crying to me!". Because I'll be living in a hemp treehouse eating nothing but squid and lentils, with solar panels, a CB radio and a bike-pedal washing machine. Come the revolution. There's no room for you and your denier ass in my woven pandanus-leaf hammock.

spammity spam-a-lama-ling-long

explanation of above: I have had a g*mail address ever since they were created, a somewhat catchy moniker, and I get a mother-load of spam. Approx 500 each week. Minimum.

Aside from the random viagra and russian babes stuff, I get things like Fox and Hound Monthly, Huggies Baby Network, Audi car lovers, Solar Winds, Borders Rewards, Classmates.com, the fucking St Elmo Stakehouse which look like regular e-newsletters.* At frist I thought is was my emails on a massive global database that has been sold to every cheap-ass retailer in the States. And of coures, if I try to click their (legitimate-looking) "unsubscribe" link, I seem to just get another slew of new, odd newsletters. Now I reckon it'actually the sky-net machines trying to locate every real email address on the planet, so they can more effectively track us down when they wage war on the humans.

Also I also get a steady stream of what looks like genuine people just stuffing up. There's definitely a Reverend somewhere in the States with a matching last name to my email, who really needs to update his parishoners, because he's going to be showing up to prayer meetings and they won't be there, after they emailed me to say couldn't make it.

Economic celebration

On yet another leg of the 6,500 km journey last week, my car compatriots, now stinky and dirty with matted hair are coversing entirely based on in-jokes and references-of-references, as you do after 10 days in a vehicle and shared rooms with the same four people. The collective experience decides we should re-brand the supposed "economic crisis" as an "economic celebration!". The mortgage holders among us (not me, dear readers) have just seen their rates fall to about 2.5 % - saving them hundreds of dollars a month; none of us acutally have an employer as such, but seem to get by from a steady trickle weird and varied freelance jobs, and all of us relish getting to have crazy outback adventures. Fuel is cheaper, savings are still guaranteed.. economic bonanza!

From a culture-blogger in Berlin, momus calls it the "silver lining" in his post about about exactly the same phenomena. He hopes its not going to get him into cosmic, karmic trouble pointing out the good things about a slump in car sales, and a growth in public housing, but these things might just be music to the ears to the occasionaly pinko socialist among us. I wouldn't want to be carrying a lot of debt right now, and I really feel for those who are or those who just got laid off by BHP. Mind you, those miners riding the resources boom in Aus have been pulling in over 150k the last few years, hopefully they put something away for a rainy day.

All in all, how about you - can you see this period as a celebration? A rejection of the compulsion to spend spend spend and instead do some repairing, or just getting off the express train of capitalism?

January 26

Drove into Melbourne about 6pm on Australia Day eve, cruising past the banks of the yarra, our assorted ratbag activists commenting on how pretty and clean the city is. Quickly followed by 'give me Newtown to look at any day.' They've got a decidedly urban grunge aesthetic those two.

People all down the riverside park setting up for barbeques the next day. The trend in Australia day over the last few years has seen more and more symbolic nationalism with a kind of diffuse and slightly unsettling focus. It seems that lots more people feel it necessary to get decked out in the flag in some way - shorts, tops, thongs, bikinis, draped as a cape (what are you, some kind of ocker super-hero?), flying on car antennas (putting the ass in class, that one), and worn as body paint.

The whole spectacle was dubbed as "morbid jingoism" by my colleagues on this trip. Can't say I diagree personally. I'm only 33, right, and from my relatively short living memory, this business is not some immutable part of Aussie tradition. We never got into flag-flying as kids. Australia day holds no real special memory of any kind of nationalist holiday, perhaps just a barbeque in one of Adelaide's many parks with a smattering of family freinds, but that was a fairly normal kid-friendly activity right through from October to March.

Perhaps Mum can set me straight on this, but I'm sure our lack of jingoistic fervour was not just a product of our suburb's chardonnay socialist leanings - I don't remember any particular fuss about it, even during high school years, where there was a slighly more bogan element. (Click "comments" to leave a note, here, technophobes).

Anyway.. see what I mean below. Early Sydney Big Day Outs always falling on Jan 26 probably sparked a trend of boozy teens trolling the flag, until organiser Ken West spoke out about it in 2007. The subsequent Howard years surely stoked this flag-waving business.



Photo from here: http://www.australiaday.com.au ... wtf?

Photo from wikimedia commons (Cronulla riots)

cuddly killer bots

So, Washington is having a think about how they can make war robots that obey geneva conventions, and don't get "angry or frustated" when going into battle.

Quotes include:

Ronald Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech university, who is working on software for the army, has written a report that concludes that robots, while not "perfectly ethical in the battlefield" can "perform more ethically than human soldiers".

He said that robots "do not need to protect themselves" and "they can be designed without emotions that cloud their judgment or result in anger and frustration with ongoing battlefield events".

Here's an idea.. how about we try to work out how to, er, like stop wars - rather than building killing machines that won't shoot at ambulances? Call me crazy.

US Tourism

Since we lost BBC World from our cable package (thanks bastard UPC, who knew you could just take off the only decent non-hysterical global news channel and just replace it with Animal Planet, then demand we pay more per month for the channel we used to have?) we watch CNN from time to time. I can only really bear it for a few minutes while making dinner - the fever pitch of everything, the constant obsessive-compulsive "what will this mean for the US" line really bugs me after a while.

Anyway, they are wetting their panties over this latest credit crunch/bank bailout. I get the feeling the Europeans are quite smug, with their diversified economy and their groovy currency steadily climbing against the dollar and the pound.

So it got me wondering whether with the Euro doing so well, the trends of tourism will invert a bit. We think just maybe there are fewer American voices in the street in high season, much more Spanish that ever before. And perhaps the new Euro-entrants like Slovakia will flood on over to the US of A to sneer at their food, be rude to their waiters and talk louder than anyone else in any public tranport or outdoor dining areas. Slovaks, Spaniards, Slovenians, Serbians. Lovely.

girl on girl

There's a pop song annoying me at the moment. I know this isn't an unusual occurrence, lots of pop songs annoy me. But this one annoys me in a vaguely political way.

It's called "I kissed a girl" by Kate Perry. Do you have it over there? You must. It's got a thumpy boring bass line and banal lyrics (big surprise there). When I first saw it while flicking past the music channel I thought it might be a cover of the artful Jill Sobule Song "I kissed a girl". Says Jill:

Genny came over and told me 'bout Fred
"He's such a hairy behemoth, " she said
"Dumb as a box of hammers
But he's such a handsome guy."
And I opened up and told her 'bout Larry
And yesterday how he asked me to marry

I'm not giving him an answer yet
(I think I can do better)

Remember that? It was poppy, sure, but it has a little story condensed into a tight verse-chorus-verse-chorus format. The two ladies chat at home, they're fed up with dead-beat boyfriends, they have a snog. After a moment of guilt, they both express the joy of the private moment.. (And we laughed/ At the world/ They can have their diamonds and we'll have our pearls). The lyrics are clever and funny, and its nice to have girls snogging in the top 10. Yay for all shades of love!

But this Kate bird just seems like a different kettle of fish. Perhaps I'm just being a daggy old prude, but compare the chorus lyrics:

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong /It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight

First, who the hell uses "chap stick" in their lyric and expects to be cool? She goes on...

No, I don't even know your name
It doesn't matter/ You're my experimental game
Just human nature / It's not what /Good girls do
Not how they should behave

You're my experimental game? Sounds pretty cold to me.

In the clip, Kate Perry is singing this on a big pink bed, wearing a kind of burlesque-stripper outfit, and after the first refrain she is surrounded by a bevvy of beauties, at one point there's a gir'ls legs splayed out from under the bed. All very debauched and naughty.

So I haven't talked about this little number with any lesbians, or feminist theorists for that matter. Perhaps it's cool for popular culture to allow chicks to be out there sexy and hott in all forms, and if that's wearing a boa and fishnets and talking about how you pashed a bird to get a kick then fine.

And ... If you're going to start on at pop songs and videos for objectifying women, wow there's a rich rich vein there of both grrls and boys doing that. Mostly boys. From Axl Rose screaming turn around bitch I gotta use for you/I ain't got nothin' better to do/ And I'm bored to Ludacris rapping on "Youza ho".. Come on playa once a ho always/And hos never close they open like hallways/An heres a ho cake for you whole ho crew. Women are nameless, treated as a walking collection of orifices, given orders, etc. Charmers, aren't they? And rich, too. So to me there's not much point getting on Kate's tail about that.

But back to these two girly songs. Probably the main difference is that Kate is a product of a "production company" called The Matrix who write and produce songs for pop princesses like Britney and Cristina. Jill was closer to 40 than 20 when her song was a big hit, and she is a real singer/songwriter with five albums out and a diverse, clever and imaginative slew of songs.

Its just that Kate's song and video is all about girl-on-girl in a porn-star way, for attention. Us girls we are so magical/ Soft skin, red lips, so kissable/Hard to resist so touchable /Too good to deny it /Ain't no big deal, it's innocent. Purhlees. Yeh, she gets a kick out of it, but because its naughty, and men are going to dig it too. However, this might be because she didn't actually write the thing, I'd wager some middle-aged song-copy dude in LA did. Is it actually his little disco fantasy, not hers? A bit like Kylie singing "better the devil you know" in the early 90s, I wonder.

At least in Jill's song, all the characters have names. They have feelings too; and there's also something bigger going on. The woman singing the song is telling a story about how she's examining her life and her relationship, and now this exciting new aspect has come into it. The end chorus says "I kissed a girl (and I might do it again)." Aw.

Well of course, in the on-line universe I am not the first to comment on this tacky song. The yanks have been at it for months. The writers at Feminste make the same point, and do it better than me. And the Washington Blade just gets the knives out and calls the lyrics vapid and offensive. I wonder what their benchmark is for Ludacris, then?

And argh - even Jill herself has posted on it... I am so not a hip and up-to-date blogger! After saying she needed extra Novocaine after hearing it at the dentist, she's actually quite nice about the whole thing. She sounds really cool and grown up on her site, if you got this far, check out her fake bio. Funny. Think I'll check out some more of her music, so thanks Katy for the tip-off.

(F) art

Have got a little behind as internet access on Kefalonia is a bit of a luxury.

24 June, Tuesday.

Calf muscles very fucking tight. A painful reminder that there are no inclines are very few steps in the streets of Amsterdam.

Vatican Museum. Only 40 minutes in the queue! Talked to a couple of gay guys from Washington, older one a doctor and quite funny. Acting reluctant to partake in all this religious stuff. When working out the length of the queue, said to his boyfriend, like all couples around the world, 'so, tell me again, what exactly are we going to see in here?'
Younger guy was a classical Greek scholar.

First, took a spin around the Pinacoteca, one of several godsy picture galleries. Saw a big flashy number of Christ's ascension (Raphael I think), and another Caravaggio to add to the list. (tick)
Dog-collared American priest giving a tour, with a very casual yankee way of telling bible stories, but also giving art commentary. Have discovered a way of sneakily learning more without paying, but sort of pinball-bouncing from tour group to tour group, looking like I'm just appreciating that particular work, and eavesdropping on part of the description. I think I sidled up to four or five different groups today, so I got a rather disjointed appreciated of the galleries and of course the Sistine chapel. For example, Raphael apparently mastered the art of drawing the eye to all and every feature of his crowd scenes, rather than picking out one single focal point with light and shade. Why this is? no idea, I thought it was an appropriate time to sidle off after that.

The art? Well looks to me like those masters packed in every exciting feature to these 'sacred' scenes as they could. Bulging anatomically correct calves on the men, gory piercings with a staff for J.C., ecstatic women, there was a lion jammed into the bottom corner of one indoor scene - what the hey? Nice juicy tabloid-style renditions, but at the same time recreations of venerated and religious stories. Neat huh.

There is a missionary museum in the Vatican with cool pieces from lots of countries in Asia, but accompanied by jarring text on how missionary efforts have gone in past years and the present day in these far flung indigenous populations. A very pointed piece on entry about how missionary work was one of respect, learning, and done in a spirit "brotherly love". Bollocks.

Sistine Chapel. Details and crazy mad shit happening everywhere. Above me is a last supper with a super realistic dog and cat fighting in the foreground. At the altar end, one of the figures on a cloud is holding a man's skin, empty of its body (or soul?) In the famous one with god reaching out to touch fingers with (who?) Adam? I didn't realise god is flanked by a holy host of some sort. Dozens of cherubic types packed in behind him in his floating cloud/ shell thing. Nudity all over the place. To me, all these showy religious works don't seem a jot more holy than any other for all the talent and mastery on display. I don't get a feeling that this chapel might be a more worthy place to worship than any other, just because of technicolour drama playing out on the walls and ceiling. And I get the feeling they didn't really think that at the time either

One room before reaching the chapel (Raphael again) features a piece called something like "triumph of the church". Deliberately featuring representatives of the "militant church" in their marble thrones. This stuff was all about power, magnificence and status. Wrapped up in a cloak of religious stories. And its not pretending particularly hard to be anything else either.

Amsterdam update

Hi everyone - I've been a bit lax in posting about the Euro-experience recently. Because I know that you're all gagging for more about Ollebolen, bitterballen, bicycling and terrible bureaucracy.

Anyway, there was a brief chilly spell, but this week we haven't had any more below-zero temps. Oh yeah and the big news is that I got a real job! For three whole months. As a press officer with an NGO that is having a big international conference here in May. My first time 9 to 5 in a real office in more than two years. And oh yes, office politics, they still exist.

Mostly though it's bags of fun. People talking on the phone in several languages every day (my team consists of Dutch, Italians, a Latvian, a Cherman, couple of brits and me the lone antipodean). And it's in a great location. This is a picture of the buildings across the canal, where I park my bike. Reflected in the ice on the one morning that the canals froze a bit. Only a thin layer on top mind you. Pretty, huh?

In other news, we made a trip out the edge of town to the Amsterdam Ikea. I was sooo excited, being quite concerned with having a gezellig home environment these days.

But it was actually a bit like the seventh dimension of hell. At the buying area they have these towering shelves up to the 20-foot ceilings, numbered from one to 67 where you have to go and find your precious flat pack. And when I finally got to my new office chair, the one that we had chosen after trying all the models for good back support and arms at the right price.... the bloody arms were out of stock. The base chair was there, but I had to switch to a totally different model at the last part of the epic Ikea odyssey in the bowels of the labyrinthine warehouse. A bit like Jason and the argonauts, I thought.

Biz nearly gnawed his own feet off he was so oppressed by the consumerist binge. I'm actually amazed he didn't grab a toddler out of (one of many) bugaboo strollers and yell "I am confiscating this human in the name of sustainability and human rights until you put all of those wretched mass-produced items back THIS INSTANT." At least I think that was the source of his moral outrage, he was a little too mithered to be quite so precise.

Yippedy do dah

Look, I dunno if this Rudd fella can make the kind of Australia that me and my bleeding-heart buddies would like. Basically, that Australia would be a 24-hour block-party where everyone worked a 4 day week, and then got a modest allowance to do their favourite hobby.

There would be no violence at all, and we would not go to any wars, in fact our military would be totally disarmed and sent exclusively to do clean energy and sustainable water projects in the world's poorest countries. There would be no decisions made based on people's racial background - in fact there would be so much blending and non-tribal love making that most Australians would look kind of like tall South-east Asians with big noses.

There would be no industrial farming, fertiliser or pesticide use - each regional municipality would have a "zero sum" food production regime, where they would produce enough basic produce for their own population, then trade with their neighbours on the surplus. There would of course be no deforestation, and a reversal of salinisation - people would earn handsome incomes from protecting forests, even if they didn't get any visitors at all. There would be no states and the federal government would concern itself with free education and healthcare for all.

But anyway , it's good to see a nasty and divisive man out of power, along with his nasty and divisive government. Perhaps we can hope for a temporary slowing down of the hardening of Australian character that's been happening over the last 10 years. Maybe a faint whiff of compassion will be detected in political rhetoric, that has become so totally overrun with talk of "strength" and "growth" and "stability" and "protection" and other paternalistic buzzwords.

Don't forget, dear readers, they allowed senior government ministers to bribe Saddam Hussein to take our wheat exports at the same time as declaring war against his nation. They slandered a boat-full of refugees who were sinking in our waters, who were trying to save their children from drowning by saying they "threw babies overboard" solely to get inside Australia's borders. They lied and lied about climate change, about whether most of the world's experts thought it was real, then when finally they had to say it was real, they lied about what the international agreements mean and how they really work. Right up to the election. And they forced through a special project about work place relations that influences a massive proportion of voters, without talking about it before an election, without proper study or advice even from their own bureaucracy.

Just try to think back ten years. Remember Max Gillies who dressed up like the PM and portrayed him as a hopeless drunk while he was in power? Remember it was okay to poke fun at politics, it was normal, and it wasn't edgy or subversive, or slightly dangerous (like the Chaser about to go to COURT for comedy?) Remember getting bulk billing at a normal GP - not just at a shitty over stretched clinic where the doctor spends 8 minutes on a consultation and gets confused if you don't need a prescription for something? Your consultation fee was paid for entirely by taxes that you'd already paid, or your parents had paid, remember? Oh yeah, and remember when you actually owned the national telecomms company (also through taxes), not only if you had a share portfolio? (Although mind you I'm all skype these days). And didn't ANZAC day used to be "lest we forget" rather than "lest we get so pissed we forget everything shit about our political landscape."

Phew. If you got through that here's some things people in other countries are saying.

The Guardian (UK)

Howard's defeat was finally delivered by the key defection of the group that had for so long supported him - the 'Aussie battler' - the disillusioned blue-collar voters that Howard had won over from Labor in his sweeping victory in 1996 -renamed 'Howard's battlers'.

The Times (UK)

Rudd, 50, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, a staunch republican and a fiscal conservative who had campaigned for lower taxes and strict control of public spending, became his country’s 26th prime minister after a huge 6.1% swing against the ruling Liberal-National coalition.

Is "mandarin-speaking" some kind of code for "communist sympathiser" I wonder?

The Washington Post headline is:

Bush ally defeated in Australia: Next Prime Minister promises new course on Iraq, Warming..

(but they require registration to view it)

The Seattle Times

The Bush administration lost one of its staunchest political allies Saturday, when Australians chose a Mandarin-speaking former farm boy to become their new prime minister. . . .

Australia becomes the latest country to turn out governments that contributed to the U.S. war in Iraq, joining Poland, Spain and Britain.

The Buenos Airies Herald

Rudd is expected to forge closer ties with China and other Asian nations and has said he wants a more independent voice in foreign policy, but yesterday again promised Australia would retain its close alliance with the United States.

Do the dishes, dammit

Oh the joy and relief! A tops lady called Deborah Cameron, who is a language professor at Oxford University no less, has written a book about why the ideas propagated in books like "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'" are mostly a load of old tosh. Some of her big myth-busting concepts are that saying men's and women's brains are somehow hard-wired differently plays straight into the hands of conservatism and of fixed roles for men and women. That there is no real data to back it those ideas up anyway. That psuedo-science about communication implies that as humans we cannot change our roles and the nature of our relationships. She likens the language myths as akin to some forms of social Darwinism, too. Here's some great quotes from the Times:

The first point to make is that in the past 20 years we have become obsessed by communication,” she says. “And that’s not just in relationships; it’s in customer care, it’s in politics. All problems are seen to be communication problems.

“If, for instance, anyone disagrees with someone else, it’s seen to be because they don’t understand each other. Well, actually you could understand me and still disagree with me. Likewise, if a train is delayed or cancelled, all anyone’s interested in is whether there is an appropriate announcement. Communication has become a substitute for actual problem solving.

“Where this relates to the Mars and Venus books is that they say problems in relationships between men and women are all down to communication. The misunderstandings are not, for instance, about the fact that men and women are both vying for jobs, or power, or status, or time. That’s quite comforting to a lot of people."

---

There is, she thinks, something regressive, deeply conservative, in this outlook because what it seems to be saying is that we can’t change.

In the Mars and Venus world view, women stay women, chatting (probably too much) and being unable to say exactly what they mean, while men get on with their straightforward competitive existences. It’s a view, she feels, that does neither men nor women any favours.

“I realise that women are peddling this stuff as much as men,” says Cameron. “There is a cheap way for women to feel good in this myth. They are portrayed as sympathetic, good at communicating, whatever. Men, on the other hand, are autistic, inarticulate Neanderthals. If you’re a woman, that’s a way of feeling good about yourself when it’s still quite likely that the man you’re with earns more money than you. It’s a big trap for women.”

----

Even when there is less on the line, men can use the miscommunication ticket to their advantage. Ask any man who has failed to do the washing up after being asked, “Do you think you might have time to do the dishes?”

“Of course everyone knows what is being talked about,” says Cameron, “because in other situations men can understand and make indirect requests. But it’s sometimes convenient for one party to misunderstand. The Mars and Venus myth says this misunderstanding is an inalienable fact of male and female relationships, but it’s not. The only thing you’ve proved is that the man is a lazy arse.”

And the data (lifted entirely from the article above):

Myth 1: women talk more than men Nonsense, says Cameron. In a popular self-help book, The Female Brain, the claim is made that women say 20,000 words a day and men only 7,000. This statistic has been widely reported in newspapers and journals but has since turned out to be erroneous and based on no real research. It has since been removed from the book.

In fact a number of studies have found that men speak more than women, although others found that women speak more than men. A recent study by the University of Arizona, on a group of undergraduates, found that both sexes spoke an equal number of words a day – 16,000.

Myth 2: men and women communicate differently More hogwash, says Cameron. Linguistic studies have shown that men and women share a 99.75% overlap in the way they communicate. If there are differences in the way the sexes communicate, they are infinitesimal.

The only real markers of difference between men and women are that women smile more and spell better, and it is, says Cameron, only a “moderate difference”.

Myth 3: men’s and women’s brains are hardwired differently when it comes to language This area, says Cameron, is more difficult. Brain scans show that, when men talk, they use almost exclusively the left-hand side of their brains, whereas women also use parts of the right side. But, according to Cameron, this has had no bearing on how we communicate.

The only proven effect of this neurological difference between the sexes, comes in the case of severe head injury. If men suffer an acute injury to the brain, they are more likely to lose their speech faculties than women, because other parts of the female brain are able to take over.

Myth 4: men interrupt more than women The evidence suggests women interrupt as much as men do. Cameron argues that some men, naturally, will interrupt more than others. The dangers of grouping men together is that the differences between men and women are so slight, whereas the differences between men and other men are more interesting.

When, and how people interrupt, argues Cameron, is much more about power and social relations than the genetic make-up of the sexes.

If you dig it and want to read more chunky extracts - there are three posted at the Guardian with more ripper quotes about how the amount people talk in a social situation has a lot more to do with status than gender, for example.

more on the 'stan

I really dig it when my women friends discuss issues in the blog environment. We are a group of brainy chicks (and that includes and anonymous non-commenters out there too I'm sure... ). However, sometimes here I would so much prefer to be having a glass of red with my homies, in their lounge room, and discussing the world's ills, with the many flaws in the way countries interact with each other. This is one of those occasions, But sadly, being on the other side of the globe kind of precludes that.. (sigh).

So just for the public record (because I know heaps of UN negotiators read my blog) and not not wanting to be combative, here's some background to the comment referring to "aid workers without guns", in the below post. I was going to put it in comments but it got too long. Disclaimer: I am no expert on the conflict in Afghanistan. I first met Mr B after he spent 10 months there in 2003 (yep, after the first troop invasion). He is very passionate and talks about it a lot to anyone who will listen, or who is captive and can't run away, and it rubs off.

Firstly there has been humanitarian aid based in that country for some 30 years, during the whole reign of the Taliban, flying under the radar to try to get emergency aid to people who needed it. Sure, you get good guys in aid and not-so-good-scary-fundamentalist-missionary-types as well. However, the basic principle of going to do education or development or medical work is the universal declaration of human rights, not national security, or political advantage. (In theory, of course. In practice there are all sorts of weird things going on with aid monies).

The Taliban had a terrible grip on the whole place, but its not as if the US or Australia was doing anything about getting rid of them just for the good of the country or the women for that matter. So for starters the whole reason they are there now is to do with security and the War on Terror, not to reclaim the autonomy of the Afghan nationals.

These days, it is just too dangerous for many of the international agencies to be there. Partly, this is because the local warlords (and Taliban, I think) associate non-affiliated groups with the US government. They have committed acts of aggression against them to make a very clear point to the public not to challenge their rule. In 2004, dearly beloved was a couple of days away from being sent back to assess the security situation, shortly after a targeted attack on the his colleagues who build hospitals and clinics. He didn't go, thankfully.

And about the poppy burning thing. Well the NY times says this year is going to be the biggest opium crop ever. "Although common farmers make comparatively little from the trade, opium is a major source of financing for the Taliban, who gain public support by protecting farmers’ fields from eradication, according to American officials. They also receive a cut of the trade from traffickers they protect." This article talks about people paying off the eradicators too - "If the government destroys our poppy, I will join the Taliban," said the farmer from Nadali" . Although that may just be a dodgy lefty propaganda rag.

The NY times also talks about needing to find alternatives, like high-paying legal crops, to actually be effective in controlling poppy cultivation. People grow to make money, not because they want to keep the Taliban in power.

About the Aus army's role - I watched a 4 corners special with one of the reporters embedded in a unit that goes into towns to do building, spending a day or so replacing a bombed school. It all actually looked really cool, and they came across really well as open honest Aussie soldiers just doing a day's work. But when you've been involved in warfare, part of the standard deal is to work on reconstruction isn't it?

But they did go in in full battle fatigues, with a tank in the lead and with soldiers in the hills all around to "secure the area". Mr B just tells me from personal anecdote that the downside for village leaders who collaborate with the army is that they can then get killed later by their rivals for collusion with enemy, which stops anyone else from bringing in services. In my opinion this is a warped and fucked up thing for the locals to be doing to themselves, and not something an Aussie soldier has much control over.

I've heard the relief agencies who know what they're doing make sure they stay separate from governments and militaries so people can accept their help, or do work for them in their own communities, without risking their lives. Also, I just wonder about how much the Aus military can spend on public relations, and get themselves on TV, and spread the word about their good works. I'd say it's a lot. So they've been very successful in communicating their aid activities, while playing down their primary role as a military force that supports the US in local security and helps them with their "war on terror".

And sure the Red Cross and MSF and Oxfam do a lot of publicity and fundraising too, but they also have to spend their funds on the ground, and they might actually build more for less in these remote areas? Also - there's water and sanitation, medicine and education to think about too. This is where my actual knowledge gets hazy and I start to rely on assumptions.... always a shaky position. I know for a fact that some readers have done higher studies in international relations so I'm a tad worried about sounding like an airy-fairy wide-eyed dunderhead on this issue.

I guess in the end the army is there, it has a situation to deal with, and I hope they're dealing with it in the most humanitarian way possible, not blowing civilians up, or killing many more animals, and trying to minimise the wider impacts to people that their presence causes. I just can't help think that Army is Army. They are trained in combat, first and foremost.

So I'll wrap it up there, and do some actual work rather than ranting off into the void. I think we are all in total agreement that Iraq is a total dogs breakfast, despite the desperate spin on it being important to keep the troops there. If you're still with me after all that, hi - thanks for reading. Comments welcome, keep em polite.

Troops make another cock-up

Not content with the overarching experience of fear and violence of war, our Aussie troops in Afghanistan had to go and run over their own dog. That makes one "skylarking" death and one animal fatality on the Australian side. And what makes us think they are qualified for this 'reconstruction' effort?

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is mourning the death of an explosive detection dog that was accidentally killed by a light armoured vehicle (ASLAV) in Afghanistan.

The four-year-old blue heeler cross, named Merlin, was resting under an ASLAV serving with the reconstruction task force in Tarin Kowt when he was run over by his own troops.

Moore on Terror

Oh yeh, how good is Australia looking right now? From Guardian International:

The backers of the Let's Get Ready Sydney campaign said it was a responsible promotion designed to prepare residents for unforeseen civil emergencies, including a terror attack.

Apart from the Go-Bags, which should also contain items such as a first-aid kit, spare change, energy bars and a radio, Sydney residents were asked to think about how they would contact friends and relatives during an emergency when mobile phone services were disrupted

As commented by Bizarro and Boy Bosun ". . . and make sure you have a boat ready to go too, that's the only way you'll get out of the Emerald city if the transport shuts down".