Darling, you shouldn’t have …

Blimey. A prize. Whatever next?

Well This Is What I Think has very kindly been nominated for the Liebster Blog Award – Liebster meaning “my love” or “darling” – for a blog that is actually worth the paper it isn’t written on.

We are a bit blown away. When we have gathered our breath we will thank Kay properly at dealingwithdementia.wordpress.com who was nice enough to nominate us, and also, in the spirit of this fun affair, also pass the award on to some other deserving recipients.

The post she felt moved by can be found here: http://wellthisiswhatithink.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/what-do-you-do-when-the-person-youve-loved-for-a-lifetime-just-isnt-there-any-more/

Well: time for a glass of something warming, methinks. Onwards and upwards.

Advertising F*** Up of the Year #5 – and do you want fries with that?

"I can't believe I did that. I'll never be able to show my face at the Womens' All-In Pumpkin Growing Championships again. Mother will simply die of the shame."

OK, over here at Planet Wellthisiswhatithink we know how much you’re enjoying these occasional wading around in the deepest dankest end of the advertising gene pool moments – as they are consistently the most popular posts we, er, post* – so here’s another.

(*Except for the story we ran about Adam and Eve not being real, which went viral, but that’s a one off.)

So here, with all fanfare we can muster – toot! toot! – is number 5 of our series.

And it’s a doozey.

They're obviously early risers in Yass. Er, well, if you see what I mean.

OK, so all y’all need to know that Yass is a real town. “Hi, Yass.”

Whilst a perfectly pleasant place full of perfectly nice people, it is famous for absolutely nothing (except being a good place for a coffee on the road between Sydney and Melbourne) except this stupid billboard.

What we also all need to know is why the idiot art director for MacDonalds didn’t put the ‘M’ on the other side of the sign. But then, if he/she had, then we wouldn’t all be snorting the milk from our rice crispies through our noses right now, so, well, let’s be grateful for small mercies.

I bet there’s some McDonalds signage standards rule that says “The McDonalds Golden Arches will always appear full height on the left in directional signage.” Yes, well. Suck it, bitches. Meanwhile:

Judgement is coming. Be afraid, ad land.

The other Advertising F*** Ups we’ve spotted this year, if you missed ‘em.

The world’s stupidest billboard placement: http://wp.me/p1LY0z-gX

Not the holiday anyone would really want: http://wp.me/p1LY0z-hJ

Stores abusing innocent shoppers: http://wp.me/p1LY0z-j8

And my personal favourite so far, the most embarrassingly badly worded headline in history: http://tinyurl.com/7enukvd

Please keep sending them in, and thanks Mark for this one!

We’ll have to have a poll at the end of the year as to which one is the absolute worst, and publish the results worldwide.

It will do nothing to improve the quality of the output of the advertising industry, but it will give us all a good laugh.

Hilarious animation. Why isn’t it an ad? What’s that? Not everything in life should be an ad? Sheesh. Now you tell me. (Slinks off, muttering …)

This little animation is very amusing and brilliantly executed. What’s really sad is that when I looked at it I just kept thinking “I bet this is an ad for a watch company”. Then at the end I thought, “this should be an ad for a watch company”.  You know what they say, “You can take the boy out of the advertising industry, but you can’t … etc etc”.

You never mind me. You just enjoy the animation – and well done the creators!

OK, but seriously, wouldn’t it make a great watch ad?

Police Handcuff, Charge 6-Year-Old Girl For Tantrum

Salecia Jackson. Looks pretty scary to me. Photo AP

 

I reproduce this article in full, without further comment, except to note my utter astonishment.

By Paul Joseph Watson. Infowars.com
Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Police in Milledgeville, Georgia handcuffed and charged a 6-year-old girl (seen above) with assault for throwing a tantrum in school but instead of apologizing for such unnecessary treatment, the chief of police praised his officers for their actions.

After kindergartner Salecia Johnson knocked over a shelf that injured the principal, cops were called, Johnson was handcuffed and taken to the police station where she was charged with assault.

Milledgeville’s acting police chief Dray Swicord praised the actions of the arresting officer for dealing with the deadly threat posed by the girl.

“Our policy is that any detainee transported to our station in a patrol vehicle is to be handcuffed in the back. There is no age discrimination on that rule,” Swicord told 13WMAZ.

“A 6-year-old in kindergarten. They don’t have no business calling the police and handcuffing my child,” said Earnest Johnson, Salecia’s father.

This is just the latest example in a growing trend of police officers treating young children as dangerous criminals. Zero tolerance has obliterated common sense and the routine arrest of children is another symptom that America is now a police state.

Back in December a 13-year-old middle school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico was handcuffed and hauled off to juvenile detention for “burping audibly” in class.

In January, 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes was arrested by police in Austin, Texas for spraying perfume on herself.

Also in January, cops in Charlton, Massachusetts were despatched to collect an overdue library book from a 5-year-old girl.

A 6-year-old San Francisco boy was detained for two hours by the principal and forced to confess to “sexual assault” for brushing the leg of his friend during a game of tag. The boy was later charged with “sexual battery”.

A similar over-reaction ensued when an Orange River Elementary School assistant principal called cops after seeing a girl kiss a boy during PE class, labeling it a possible sex crime.

In Stockton, California, a 5-year-old boy with ADHD was “handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer,” after the cop claimed the boy had kicked him in the knee.

In Florida, 6-year-old girl weighing 40 pounds was handcuffed and then sent to a mental health facility for screaming and throwing objects in class.

These are just a handful of the cases that have occurred recently and there are probably scores more that don’t even get reported by the media.

How on earth can we expect police officers to deal with real crime and actual dangerous criminals when a significant number of them seem to be intimidated by children who throw temper tantrums?

When did cops become so pathetic?

The fact that elementary school children are being arrested for misbehaving or being charged with sexual assault for over-enthusiastic games of tag serves as another urgent warning that both law enforcement and the school system in America are rotten to the core and run by complete morons who have dispensed with all semblance of common sense.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Over-regulated America: long overdue a change

 

I often argue with my American friends that their country shows just as many signs of being a nanny state as anywhere else, and that they should push back. But with forelock-tugging regularity they refuse to believe me. Well now this excellent article from the Economist says I’m right – following research, would you believe it, by the US government itself on the costs of such regulation mania. In summary, the home of laissez-faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly-written legislation. The trick must surely be to slash mindless red tape, while effectively regulating those things that actually need regulating but which are resistant to it, like big energy, big pharma, and big finance. A study for the Small Business Administration, a government body, found that regulations in general add $10,585 in costs per employee. That doesn’t work. It’s a wonder the jobless rate isn’t even higher than it is. So over to you, America. Fix it. Enjoy the article:

AMERICANS love to laugh at ridiculous regulations. A Florida law requires vending-machine labels to urge the public to file a report if the label is not there. The Federal Railroad Administration insists that all trains must be painted with an “F” at the front, so you can tell which end is which. Bureaucratic busybodies in Bethesda, Maryland, have shut down children’s lemonade stands because the enterprising young moppets did not have trading licences. The list goes hilariously on. But red tape in America is no laughing matter. The problem is not the rules that are self-evidently absurd. It is the ones that sound reasonable on their own but impose a huge burden collectively. America is meant to be the home of laissez-faire. Unlike Europeans, whose lives have long been circumscribed by meddling governments and diktats from Brussels, Americans are supposed to be free to choose, for better or for worse. Yet for some time America has been straying from this ideal just as Europeans fight back against excessive regulation.

Consider the Dodd-Frank law of 2010. Its aim was noble: to prevent another financial crisis. Its strategy was sensible, too: improve transparency, stop banks from taking excessive risks, prevent abusive financial practices and end “too big to fail” by authorising regulators to seize any big, tottering financial firm and wind it down. This newspaper supported these goals at the time, and we still do. But Dodd-Frank is far too complex, and becoming more so. At 848 pages, it is 23 times longer than Glass-Steagall, the reform that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929. Worse, every other page demands that regulators fill in further detail. Some of these clarifications are hundreds of pages long.

Just one bit, the “Volcker rule”, which aims to curb risky proprietary trading by banks, includes 383 questions that break down into 1,420 sub-questions.

Hardly anyone has actually read Dodd-Frank, besides the Chinese government and our correspondent in New York (see article). Those who have struggle to make sense of it, not least because so much detail has yet to be filled in: of the 400 rules it mandates, only 93 have been finalised.

So financial firms in America must prepare to comply with a law that is partly unintelligible and partly unknowable.

Flaming water-skis

Dodd-Frank is part of a wider trend. Governments of both parties keep adding stacks of rules, few of which are ever rescinded.

Republicans write rules to thwart terrorists, which make flying in America an ordeal and prompt legions of brainy migrants to move to Canada instead.

Democrats write rules to expand the welfare state. Barack Obama’s health-care reform of 2010 had many virtues, especially its attempt to make health insurance universal. But it does little to reduce the system’s staggering and increasing complexity. Every hour spent treating a patient in America creates at least 30 minutes of paperwork, and often a whole hour.

Next year the number of federally mandated categories of illness and injury for which hospitals may claim reimbursement will rise from 18,000 to 140,000.

There are nine codes relating to injuries caused by parrots, and three relating to burns from flaming water-skis.

Two forces make American laws too complex. One is hubris. Many lawmakers seem to believe that they can lay down rules to govern every eventuality. Examples range from the merely annoying (eg, a proposed code for nurseries in Colorado that specifies how many crayons each box must contain) to the delusional (eg, the conceit of Dodd-Frank that you can anticipate and ban every nasty trick financiers will dream up in the future). Far from preventing abuses, complexity creates loopholes that the shrewd can abuse with impunity.

The other force that makes American laws complex is lobbying. The government’s drive to micro-manage so many activities creates a huge incentive for interest groups to push for special favours. When a bill is hundreds of pages long, it is not hard for congressmen to slip in clauses that benefit their chums and campaign donors. The health-care bill included tons of favours for the pushy. Congress’s last, failed attempt to regulate greenhouse gases was even worse.

Complexity costs money.

Sarbanes-Oxley, a law aimed at preventing Enron-style frauds, has made it so difficult to list shares on an American stockmarket that firms increasingly look elsewhere or stay private.

America’s share of initial public offerings fell from 67% in 2002 (when Sarbox passed) to 16% last year, despite some benign tweaks to the law.

A plea for simplicity

Democrats pay lip service to the need to slim the rulebook – Mr Obama’s regulations tsar is supposed to ensure that new rules are cost-effective. But the administration has a bias towards overstating benefits and under-estimating costs (see article). Republicans bluster that they will repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank and abolish whole government agencies, but give only a sketchy idea of what should replace them.

America needs a smarter approach to regulation. First, all important rules should be subjected to cost-benefit analysis by an independent watchdog. The results should be made public before the rule is enacted. All big regulations should also come with sunset clauses, so that they expire after, say, ten years unless Congress explicitly re-authorises them.

More important, rules need to be much simpler. When regulators try to write an all-purpose instruction manual, the truly important dos and don’ts are lost in an ocean of verbiage. Far better to lay down broad goals and prescribe only what is strictly necessary to achieve them. Legislators should pass simple rules, and leave regulators to enforce them.

Would this hand too much power to unelected bureaucrats? Not if they are made more accountable. Unreasonable judgments should be subject to swift appeal. Regulators who make bad decisions should be easily sackable. None of this will resolve the inevitable difficulties of regulating a complex modern society.

But it would mitigate a real danger: that regulation may crush the life out of America’s economy.

British member of Parliament announces bounty on Obama and George Bush.

Nazir - idiot or worse?

It is alleged that British Lord Nazir Ahmed put a £10 million (US$16 million) bounty on both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush Friday, according to The Express Tribune, an English language Pakistani newspaper.

Nazir, who is of Pakistani heritage and a controversial Labour Party member of the British House of Lords, (he is supposed to have been suspended from the Labour Party following these reports), supposedly made the comments while at a reception in Haripur, a Pakistani city 40 miles north of Islamabad. Nazir told the audience that he was putting the bounty out for the capture of the American leaders in response to the bounty placed on Hafiz Muhammad Saeed by the United States.

“If the U.S. can announce a reward of $10 million for the captor of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of 10 million pounds on President Obama and his predecessor George Bush,”  Nazir reportedly said.

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Saeed is widely believed to be the head of the Pakistani based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India that killed more than 160 innocents including numerous overseas visitors to India. After the 2008 attacks, Saeed denied being connected to the terrorist group. Nevertheless, in April, the U.S. government announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture in connection to the attacks.

According to The Express Tribune, Nazir said the bounty on Saeed was a grave insult to all Muslims and that he would sell his house if necessary to obtain the funds necessary to pay the bounty he placed on Obama and Bush.

The Pakistani report was brought to the attention of blog The Daily Caller by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

If this report is accurate, this man is at best an out and out idiot. Someone should also consider whether or not his comments amount to something amounting to treason or lending support to terrorism.

“Laugh out loud snort coffee through your nose funny” – one man and his dog text messages. You have been warned.

It’s official – Adam and Eve, er, weren’t.

Adam and Eve debate the finer points of theology. By Rubens. Except they never did. No, the serpent never beguiled Eve, nor was Adam ashamed of his nakedness. Whatever next?

In a comment that will rock the confidence of many traditionalist or literalist Christians of all denominations, Australia’s Roman Catholic Cardinal George Pell – one of the most conservative Roman Catholics in a senior position worldwide, and a possible future Pope – has publicly described the biblical story of Adam and Eve as a sophisticated myth used to explain evil and suffering rather than a scientific truth.

Cardinal Pell appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Q&A” TV chat show, where he was debating British evolutionary biologist and celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins.

Cardinal Pell said humans “probably” evolved from Neanderthals (this is not strictly true*, but at least it concedes that mankind has a long history) but it was impossible to say exactly when there was a first human. “But we have to say if there are humans, there must have been a first one,” he said.

(By the way, this is widely considered, in the case of homo sapiens, to have been a female from Africa, if the DNA sampling of the world is understood. Originally, we were all Africans.)

According to Genesis, God created Adam and Eve as the first man and woman.

Asked by journalist Tony Jones if he believed in the existence of an actual Garden of Eden with an Adam and Eve, Cardinal Pell said it was not a matter of science but rather a beautiful mythological account.

“It’s a very sophisticated mythology to try to explain the evil and the suffering in the world,” he said.

“It’s certainly not a scientific truth. And it’s a religious story told for religious purposes.”

The interesting issue is that when a senior Churchman concedes one story in the Bible is mythology – meaningful, but mythology, nevertheless – then we must ask, what else is?

Noah and the Flood is one biblical story which is clearly ludicrous, unless you think he also collected two by two of every grub, bacteria and virus on the planet.

Critical theologians have long demonstrated that some of the chronology of the Old Testament – especially concerning Moses and Joshua, is not literally true. Once you remove one brick from the wall, the edifice of the literal 100% truth of the Bible collapses – correctly, in my view – and we can start to apply a modern mind to the writings of the past.

This, of course, is why so many Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants are hysterical about not reducing the verisimilitude of the Bible by a single word. What, for example, of the argument that the Bible says nothing at all about homosexuality when it is read in the original languages, even Pauline comments in the New Testament which appear irrefutable.

Will we next see Pell refute his implacable opposition to homosexual communicants and priests?

Will we see him weaken his opposition to female celebrants? (The Catholic Church long ago quietly forgot that women were supposed to stay silent in Church, and wear hats, of course.)

Pell directly contradicts the Catholic Catechism

As others have pointed out, this commentary on Adam and Eve also violates the Catholic Church’s official attitude toward the Primal Couple.  The Catholic Catechism, for example, states:

390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Created in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.

399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image – that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.

402 All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: “sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. “Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.”

403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”. Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.

As one commentator remarked: “I wonder if the good Cardinal will now be excommunicated? Don’t count on it – the Vatican tends to turn a blind eye toward these local violations of dogma.”

PS Some Days Later and more than 4,500 hits later:

This article has been criticised on some (predominantly atheist) forums because it ignores the logical argument that if Adam and Eve was bunkum then “Original Sin“  is bunkum too, and therefore the redemptive power of Christ’s sacrifice is a nonsense, so, logically the whole of Christian religion is nonsense.  (The point made in 402 and 403 above.)

To my mind this interpretation sheets home to some atheists as much obsession with literal interpretation as I criticise in some Christians. Indeed, sometimes when I see leading atheists and leading believers go at it hammer and tongs, they remind me more of each other than anything else. Anyhow: “Original Sin” – being a description of humanity’s essentially imperfect state – does not, in my opinion, need to be established by the literal truth of the Genesis story. I am quite content to assert that humanity is flawed, (just look around you), and that Christ was not (read the stories).

When, how, and why humanity became flawed and why God chose the unique nature of Jesus to correct the matter can, for me, wait until I no longer see as through a glass darkly, which I do not expect to be anytime soon, and certainly not in this life.

Meanwhile, the facts on evolution as far as our God-given brains can discern them …

*While human evolution begins with the last common ancestor of all life, it generally refers to the evolutionary history of primates and in particular the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species of hominids (“great apes”). The study of human evolution involves many scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, linguistics, embryology and genetics.^[1]

Primate evolution likely began in the late Cretaceous, 85 Ma (million years ago) by genetic studies and no later than the Paleocene by the fossil record 55 Ma.^[2][3] The family Hominidae, or Great Apes, diverged from the Hylobatidae family 15-20 Ma. Around 14 Ma the Ponginae or orangutans diverged from the Hominidae family.^[4] Later the gorilla and chimpanzee would diverge from the lineage leading to the genus Homo, the latter around 5-6 Ma. Modern humans evolved from the last common ancestor of the Hominini and the species Australopithecines some 2.3-2.4 million years ago in Africa.^[5][6]In the Hominini tribe, several species and subspecies of Homo evolved and are now extinct or introgressed, and only one species remains. Examples include Homo erectus (which inhabited Asia, Africa, and Europe) and Neanderthals (either Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) (which inhabited Europe and Asia). Archaic Homo sapiens, the forerunner of anatomically modern humans, evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago. Examples of archaic humans generally include Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo neanderthalensis and sometimes Homo antecessor and Homo ergaster.^[7] Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic Homo sapiens in the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago.^[8] Behaviorally modern humans developed around 50,000 years ago according to many although some view modern behavior as beginning with the emergence of anatomically modern humans.^[9]

Time magazine has a go at explaining, er ... time. Lots and lots of time.

One view among scientists concerning the origin of anatomically modern humans is the recent African origin of modern humans hypothesis (the “recent single-origin hypothesis” or “recent out-of-Africa” model),^[10][11][12] which posits that Homo sapiens arose in Africa and migrated out of the continent some 50,000-100,000 years ago, replacing populations of Homo erectus in Asia and Neanderthals in Europe. An alternative multiregional hypothesis posits that Homo sapiens evolved as geographically separate but interbreeding populations stemming from the worldwide migration of Homo erectus out of Africa nearly 2.5 million years ago. Evidence suggests that several haplotypes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non-African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominids, such as Denisova hominin may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day humans.^[13][14][15]

Deciding what type of day to have

Turn it off.

 

Decide that this day will be productive and consequential,
and it will be. Decide to rise above the petty distractions,
and you’re already on your way.

Decide that there are valuable opportunities in the
challenges, and you’ll find those opportunities. Decide to
make a positive difference, and you’ll have all that is
necessary to do so.

There are many factors in life over which you have no direct
control. And yet even with those things, you can decide how
you choose to handle them.

Fear or irritation will not help you. Patience and determination
are your friends. One step in front of another is always the way.

So decide to live and work and play from a perspective of love
and gratitude. Decide to greet each day, each single moment
and each new situation – good or bad – with a determination to
do what YOU can to make the world a better place.

Life is a continuous series of choices. Decide where you
want those choices to lead, and put yourself on your own
path to fulfilment.

When you know what you desire, you’ll find plenty of
opportunities to bring it about. Decide to live the very
best life you can imagine, and delight in making it happen.

An uncomfortable Easter thought. Thank you.

As a Christian on Easter Day, I saw this on a website, and I fell to thinking. Especially because the final line on the poster I saw, underneath the hands, said, forcefully and somewhat cynically, “So don’t tell me about the power of prayer.”

I was confronted. Made to think. So good on whoever devised the poster, rather agressive though it was. We all need to be made to think, at Easter-time more than ever. An aside to my religious friends: atheists have their messages for us, too.

But, of course, its core proposition is unfair.

When religious people pray, we frequently ask for other things other than peace, an end to violence, an end to sadness and despair, and end to hunger, a fair sharing of the world’s resources, and so on.

In fact, generally, being only human, we are usually asking for messes that we have created in our own personal lives to get cleaned up, or for health and happiness, or even for wealth.

And sometimes, because we ask for things we don’t really need, and as God knows this, then sometimes his answer is therefore silence, or, simply, “No”.

So I cut the bottom line of the poster off. And this Easter Day, when Christians celebrate the simple but astounding belief that death is not the end of life, but rather the beginning, I would like us all to consider that, if we are to spend 10 minutes praying, then we need to spend them praying for others, other than ourselves.

And we then need to spend an equal amount of time, or more, campaigning against the evils of this world. In Jesus’s name, and in the name of our common humanity.

Because if Jesus of Nazareth was anything, he was an agitator. Knowing more than any man before or since how the world could be, he refused to accept the world as it was. He refused to accept violence, and hatred, and selfishness, and pomp and ceremony, and misrule and exploitation of the poor, the weak, the persecuted.

So spend time on your knees, by all means. But spend an equal time or more arguing with our fellows for what Jesus taught us.

Yes, Christians need to get into Church more often, but also to get out of Church more often, into the community. That might be as simple as speaking to friends or work colleagues. Not about how much we’d like to see them in Church, but how much we’d like to see more of Jesus in ourselves, and in them.

That way, we may repair some of the damage done to Jesus’s Church by scandal, selfishness, greed, and pomposity.

And on the need to heal the world, all Christians can agree. The religious and the secular can agree. Christians and Muslims and Jews and Janes and Buddhists can agree. That would be a good start. It might even lead us to heaven on earth.

I believe in the power of prayer. I have seen it wreak incredible, mystifying, astounding and inexplicable things. Not once, but often.

But I believe in the power of people modelling Christ much more.

The Dalek Relaxation Tape – very funny absurdist humour

Ok, there are some really, really really silly people in this world.

And occasionally they come up with absurdist humour. Now I don’t want to go all hi-falutin’ on you, but I do think we should have more absurdist work around to cheer us up. So do yourselves a favour and have a listen to this …

http://www.b3ta.com/links/Dalek_Relaxation_Tape

What I just really love is the way this combines Dr Who – surely one of the great British cultural icons – with another modern meme – the seemingly relentless production of meditation materials for all us stressed out modern people who can’t cope any more.

And you know what, it is not only laugh out loud funny, it’s also strangely soothing. Bizarre.

Happy Easter everyone. I was going to do a long, serious piece about the deeper significance of Easter to us all, but I think this is just as meaningful, in it’s own nonsensical way. Enjoy.

Good Things I Have Stolen, Number One

Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to make of knowledge. (Actually, that's not bad.)

 

As I roam around the internet on a daily basis, I am often finding little aphorisms or snippets of advice – or commentary on the state of the world – that I really find thought-provoking and even, sometimes, useful. Or people send them to me, obviously caring for my personal or business health. And people post them on Facebook pages, and I think “Gee whillikers, more people should hear that.”

So I am starting an occasional series called “Good Things I Have Stolen”. I make no claim whatsoever to be clever enough to have thought these things up, unless I say so specifically. Only clever enough to recognise good advice, when I see or hear it. And where I can, I will credit them fully.

Today’s are:

“If you attempt only what you can do perfectly, you won’t get started on most tasks.
The world does not reward perfection. It rewards productivity.”

Excellent advice, especially as most A-type personalities, who should be achieving heaps with their days, are also prone to the very specific form of anxiety known as perfectionism, which is frequently a distracting and fatally limiting character flaw. It’s from Peter Bregman’s new book, “18 Minutes”.

"Life is like a cake. It takes time to bake."

With this first “Stolen” post, I will also add one that I dreamed up myself the other day.

“Life is like a cake. It takes time to bake.”

Apart from my inherent poet’s joy in rhymes, (even simplistic doggerel-style ones), this apparently simplistic but I think important piece of advice was born of me reflecting on how we create a life that we will later look back on as “successful”, and on the difference between the perspective (and perception) of passing time of young people, and older people, and what we do with it.

At three years of age, being four seems like a massive step forward, doesn’t it? No surprise, it’s adding another third to one’s existence so far.

Similarly, at 21, taking a year to achieve something would have felt like an age: and an impossibly luxurious and tardy time taken to achieve anything, to boot.

Now, aged 54, I consider a year a perfectly reasonable time to achieve something successfully. The wisdom is born of a lifetime of striving, and an understanding of how anything worth doing is worth doing well. Just as the urgency of the younger person is born of a lack of that perspective.

Yet the world needs both the driving, intemperate urgency of the young, and the reflection and wisdom of the older generations. Harnessing them both together would seem to be the plus sum game.

Last but not least today, this quote from Steve Biko, the brave martyred opponent of apartheid in South Africa, who was murdered by police while in custody in September 1977.

"The most potent weapon in the hand of the Oppressor is the mind of the Oppressed." Those that rule control those that are ruled with a mixture of consent and fear. But when the ruled believe in their own abilities to run their lives, look out the ruling class.

On the 18th of August, 1977, Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 and interrogated by officers of the Port Elizabeth security police including Harold Snyman and Gideon Nieuwoudt. This interrogation took place in the Police Room 619. The interrogation lasted twenty-two hours and included torture and beatings resulting in a coma. He suffered a major head injury while in police custody, and was chained to a window grille for a day.

On 11 September 1977, police loaded him in the back of a Land Rover, naked and restrained in manacles, and began the 1100 km drive to Pretoria to take him to a prison with hospital facilities. However, he was nearly dead owing to the previous injuries. He died shortly after arrival at the Pretoria prison, on 12 September. The police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike, but an autopsy revealed multiple bruises and abrasions and that he ultimately succumbed to a brain hemorrhage from the massive injuries to the head, which many saw as strong evidence that he had been brutally clubbed by his captors. Then journalist and now political leader, Helen Zille, along with Donald Woods, another journalist, editor and close friend of Biko’s, exposed the truth behind Biko’s death.

Because of his high profile, news of Biko’s death spread quickly, opening many eyes around the world to the brutality of the apartheid regime. His funeral was attended by over 10,000 people, including numerous ambassadors and other diplomats from the United States and Western Europe.

Donald Woods, a personal friend of Biko, photographed his injuries in the morgue. Woods originally wrote articles critical of Biko’s activism, but later met him, and became a friend. Eventually, he also had to flee South Africa, and became a noted white anti-aartheid campaigner. He further publicised Biko’s life and death, writing many newspaper articles and authoring the book, Biko.

I met Woods personally, and was very impressed with his courtesy and self-effacing manner. A less likely hero – and he too deserves that title – one could not imagine.

(The story of their friendship is moving portrayed in the 1987 movie “Cry Freedom” directed by Richard Attenborough. You can find it on YouTube probably, or your local DVD store. Well worth a watch, great cast.)

The following year, on 2 February 1978, the Attorney General of the Eastern Cape stated that he would not prosecute any police officers involved in the arrest and detention of Biko. During the trial, it was claimed that Biko’s head injuries were the result of a self-inflicted suicide attempt, not those of any beatings.

The judge ultimately ruled that a murder charge could not be supported partly because there were no witnesses to the killing. Charges of culpable homicide and assault were also considered, but because the killing occurred in 1977, the time limit for prosecution had expired. On 7 October 2003 the South African Justice Ministry officials announced that the five policemen accused of killing Biko would not be prosecuted, because there was insufficient evidence, and because the time limit for prosecution had elapsed.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was created following the end of minority rule and the apartheid system, reported in 1997 that five former members of the South African security forces who had admitted to killing Biko were applying for amnesty. Their application was rejected.

More Good Things I Have Stolen about every three days. Enjoy.

It’s not just me – Turnbull laments state of US politics

I am often criticised (in 99% of cases by ironed-on conservatives or Republicans) for being too critical about the quality of American politics, (which I freely admit fascinates me), and the performance of the right in particular. So I was pleased to see today’s report that the most popular politician (by opinion poll) in Australia appears to completely agree with my point of view.

As reported in The Age, re-reporting an interview with The Monthly, published today, Malcolm Turnbull says American politics is becoming ‘profoundly dysfunctional’. 

He has sharply criticised the corrupting power of money in the US and described America as looking ”like a country that is barely governed”.

The former Liberal leader and member of  Tony Abbott’s shadow cabinet (note, “Liberal” in Australian political terms means the main Conservative party, and current Official Opposition, and not the “progressive” position it means in America, nor the centrist position it means in the UK), says American politics is becoming ”profoundly dysfunctional”.

He attacks the Republican idea that the budgetary situation can be improved by cutting the taxes of the wealthy as ”just bizarre”, and describes the right-wing Tea Party as extreme, reactionary and radical.

Author of the interview article Robert Manne writes: ”He thinks that American voluntary voting encourages Republican extremism and the search for ‘hot-button issues’, like abortion or guns or gay marriage or Obama as a secret Muslim.

”He is concerned about the fragmentation of opinion and collapse of the rational centre. He is profoundly concerned about the ‘self-evident’ corrupting influence of ‘the power of money’.”

Mr Turnbull is also very critical of the Iraq war – in which Australia was an enthusiastic US ally under the previous conservative Howard government.

”The argument for saying it was a mistake and misconceived is a very powerful one … There are plenty of people on both sides of politics in the US who take that view.’

I am delighted to hear a conservative politician break ranks on this, which is surely now one of the most accepted facts in international conflict studies. The Iraq war was launched on lies, conducted without adequate legal authority, with no exit strategy, managed appallingly badly by Rumsfeld and others, and has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Hardly a family in Iraq has been untouched.

Mr Turnbull, who agreed to the interview on condition he would not be asked about his leader Mr Abbott, says climate change denialism is ”contrary to the views of, I think, just about everybody in the Coalition party room”. Manne however notes Mr Abbott once described as ”absolute crap” the view that climate scientists had a consensus position.

The interesting thing for me is how much more mainstream Turnbull is than the current leadership of his party. I have little doubt that were they to dump Abbott for him, (Abbott having only defeated him by one vote in the party room, remember, after a well-organised right-wing coup), that they would be elected in the largest landslide in Australian political history, regardless of how well the Government does in the next 18 months.

Almost unthinkably by current received wisdom, as things stand, I firmly believe Abbott is on track to lose the un-loseable election.

We will see.

Related articles

• Malcolm ‘Zen’ Turnbull: the other people’s choice (smh.com.au)

Even I take a photo occasionally

OK, Dear Reader, of what is this a photo? (I actually wrote “what is this a photo of?” originally until I heard Winston Churchill bellowing in my ear “Never use a preposition to end your sentences with!” and rapidly corrected it.) OK, thinking caps on …

 

Hmmmm ..... *ponders*

 

• Is it some strange marking or pattern on a South American plain, amazingly only visible from space?
• Is it the latest brilliant work from a yet-to-be-discovered Aboriginal artist?
• Is it a series of goatherder’s paths high in the un-mapped wilderness of the Himalayan foothills?

Well?

What say you, D.R?

Actually, it’s the tracks left in a rockpool at Point Leo in Victoria, Australia, from some sea worm or sea slug which has now left the building.

Camera: very old battered iPhone

Shutter setting: whatever, it only has one

Light: Australian autumn sunshine – glorious day

Copyright? Nah, bugger it, go for your life. It makes a great desktop wallpaper. Feel free to nick it.

Lots of love, Wellthisiswhatithink. xox

PS Yes, it’s been a good day, thank you. Meetings should get cancelled more often.

 

These are real Australian sea slugs. Aren't they pretty? Was it this type of sea slug in the rock pool I photographed? Not a bloody clue. Does it matter? Top to bottom: sea slug species Hypselodoris bennetti, Chromodoris loringi and Chromodoris hunteri.

 

Rush Limbaugh lies? Actually, like, LIES? No, surely not!

This is what passes for a rich and famous media star in America. It's also what dumb and ignorant looks like.

On his radio show Rush Limbaugh admitted that he has gotten exactly 7 new advertisers to replace the 160+ who have dropped, or no longer want to be associated with his show.

Limbaugh said, “This is the first broadcast week in April. Let’s go back a month. The month of March in the United States opened with the left convinced that they were finally going to drive me off the air once and for all. By the end of the month I’m still on the air with a higher audience, seven new advertisers to replace the five — actually, less than five, that abandoned us and hurt themselves. And in that month Al Gore as fired Keith Olbermann, thrown him off the air and replaced him with Client No. 9. Eliot Spitzer’s taking over for Olbermann and his 56 viewers. (interruption) How does who do what? It’s an audience of 56 people. What do you mean, how does Spitzer do it? How does Olbermann keep getting hired? That’s the question.”

But Rush was not being honest with his audience. I don’t know why he chose the number five, but according to Media Matters the actual number of direct advertisers who have dropped him is 64. According to the Stop Rush Project, the number of advertisers who no longer want their ads associated with his program in any way totals 100. This brings the total number of advertisers who have abandoned Limbaugh to 164. Not five as Limbaugh suggested, but 164.

(Article reprinted from politicsusa.com – read the full article here. )

More interesting facts on the spontaneous boycott of Limbuagh can be read here.

Nothing like a few facts to ruin your day, eh, Rush?

What is damn sure is that the whole anti-women focus of much of the American right’s attack on women in this election year – in the midst of the most complex economic situation since the thirties the best they can do is talk about abortion and contraception? – will not be forgotten by American women come November. As the wheel-less GOP bandwagon stumbles along, Obama increasingly looks safer than ever.

What do you do when the person you’ve loved for a lifetime just isn’t there any more? But they’re still alive …

Alzheimers - the modern plague

I was deeply saddened to read news reports of a mercy killing/suicide of a man and his wife: a man who had recently written in The New York Times about his love for his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife, who has killed her and himself in what their family called an act of “deep devotion”.

Having nursed my mother through Alzheimers, with the endlessly patient and loving help of my family and professional carers, I feel I now have some insight into this awful illness. In the early days, the progressive loss of memory and resulting confusion is manageable, can even have its funny moments, and the sufferer is still able to enjoy some quality of life, to take pleasure in company and family, exercise and eating.

There is never a time when you stop loving your parent and grand-parent. But there is a time when the greatest love a family can give is to let them go peacefully. Betty Yolland, 1916-2008

In its late stages, though, there is truly nothing – nothing – about life with this illness which makes the prolonging of existence worthwhile. In my mother’s case, mercifully still corpus mentis into her nineties, (pretty much), this final complete decline into dementia lasted at least eighteen months. Although she had a number of near misses with falls and fits, in all but one case (when she was revived by a well-meaning doctor with no other instructions, and therefore subjected to another six months of misery) she remained stubbornly alive, her body fighting on long after her mind had left.

I have since spoken to many people who have experienced the same thing. Universally, they report having no idea how awful it could be until they experienced it, and again, almost to a person, they argue now in favour of being able to deliberately end someone’s life when it becomes a meaningless, painful and incredibly unhappy experience.

Many, but not all, medical practitioners and nurses will agree.

And the great unspoken truth, of course, is that pain medication in the form of morphine is often given to people who have no hope of survival and recovery, in increasing doses, with a “by-product” of the process being death. But whether for cancer, or Alzheimers, or any other degenerative disease, our medical professionals, and the families of those concerned, should not have to rely on such subterfuge in a civilised society.

In my opinion, this endless prolongation of life is hypocrisy, and it is wicked. Those who argue for the primacy of palliative aged care and a refusal to contemplate the deliberate ending of a life clearly have not spent long in the company of someone with advanced Alzheimers.

Until, and if, we manage to make caring for the brain as effective as we have now made caring for the body, prolonging physical life well beyond “three score years and ten” in many cases, we simply should not subject sufferers to the indignity and misery of final stage dementia, when these once worthwhile and intelligent people lie in bed, unable to feed themselves, incontinent, screaming, crying, frequently in pain, unaware of their surroundings, and unable to recognise family and friends, or even to know where they are.

Imagine – irreversibly – untreatably – being awake, aware of yourself as a person, but unaware of who you are, who anyone else is, or where you are.

Imagine the terror. Why do we sentence our beloved old people to that?

I hasten to add, I am talking about people with advanced, late stage dementia. There is much great work being done with people in the early stages of this illness. I am arguing for dignity in dying for those who have passed into the nether region of late stage dementia and who have no quality of life left, whatsoever. In my opinion, we need a three stage plan.

We need to continue the fight to find a cure and effective treatment/maintenance for people with Alzheimers, as we indeed are, but as our population grows and ages, it becomes an ever-increasing priority. Part of that fight should be to continue the effort to advise us all on the best ways to keep our brains as healthy as possible, for as long as possible.

Second, we need to pass dying with dignity laws so that people with living wills that have stated they do not want their life unreasonably prolonged when they have lost control of them are not forced to stay alive against their express wishes. And so that brave spouses or children do not have to break the law to render them mercy, or be forced to take their own lives, in part, perhaps, to escape prosecution for a final, incredibly courageous act of love.

And third, we need to respect those who raise legitimate concerns about protecting the interests of the elderly and infirm, but to reject – out of hand – the right of those of a particular religious persuasion to allow their personal beliefs – especially when expressed in alarmist or coercive manner – to overwhelm the democratic process of offering people stricken with this illness a quiet, gentle passing.

I am a Christian. In my opinion, those who demand that our elderly continue to suffer until their hearts or lungs give out on autopilot will likely spend eternity in Hell for their thoughtless dogmatism.

A Hell that will be just as awful as the one they blindly sentence millions of other people to, right here on earth, despite the best efforts of our wonderful aged care professionals.

A short story on the events surrounding my mother’s death is in my recently published book, 71 Poems & One Story. A share of any profits go to the Bali Children’s Foundation and Alzheimer’s Australia.

The story of Mr Snelling and his wife follows (from Yahoo):

Charles Snelling and his wife Adrienne in happier times

The bodies of Charles Snelling and his wife, Adrienne, both 81, were found Thursday in their home in Trexlertown, eastern Pennsylvania.

“Our father ended our mother’s life and then took his own life as well,” the family said in a statement.

“This is a total shock to everyone in the family, but we know he acted out of deep devotion and profound love.”

The coroner said Charles Snelling shot himself; autopsy results on his wife were pending.

Charles Snelling, prominent in local political circles, responded late last year to a call from Times columnist David Brooks for people older than 70 to evaluate accomplishments and lessons in their lives.

In an essay published online in December, Snelling looked back on the turn his prosperous and happy life had taken, mixing memories of the young woman he fell in love with at first sight with the challenge of caring for someone with dementia.

They had five children in a life he describes as “charmed,” partly because he was from a wealthy, well-connected family.

But six years ago, Alzheimer’s disease arrived.

“It never occurred to me for a moment that it would not be my duty and my pleasure to take care of my sweetie,” he wrote. “After all, she took care of me in every possible way she could for 55 years.”

He and Adrienne Snelling “were wonderful parents and grandparents”, the family said. “And the love they shared during their 61-year marriage was total and complete.”

Snelling was a pilot and served for four years as president of the city council of Allentown. He also chaired the authority that manages Reagan and Dulles airports in the Washington DC area.who had recently written in The New York Times about his love for his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife killed her and himself in what their family called an act of “deep devotion”.

The bodies of Charles Snelling and his wife, Adrienne, both 81, were found Thursday in their home in Trexlertown, eastern Pennsylvania.

“Our father ended our mother’s life and then took his own life as well,” the family said in a statement.

“This is a total shock to everyone in the family, but we know he acted out of deep devotion and profound love.”

The coroner said Charles Snelling shot himself; autopsy results on his wife were pending.

Charles Snelling, prominent in local political circles, responded late last year to a call from Times columnist David Brooks for people older than 70 to evaluate accomplishments and lessons in their lives.

In an essay published online in December, Snelling looked back on the turn his prosperous and happy life had taken, mixing memories of the young woman he fell in love with at first sight with the challenge of caring for someone with dementia.

They had five children in a life he describes as “charmed,” partly because he was from a wealthy, well-connected family.

But six years ago, Alzheimer’s disease arrived.

“It never occurred to me for a moment that it would not be my duty and my pleasure to take care of my sweetie,” he wrote. “After all, she took care of me in every possible way she could for 55 years.”

He and Adrienne Snelling “were wonderful parents and grandparents”, the family said. “And the love they shared during their 61-year marriage was total and complete.”

Snelling was a pilot and served for four years as president of the city council of Allentown. He also chaired the authority that manages Reagan and Dulles airports in the Washington DC area.

Australians seeking information and support on Alzheimers should start here: http://www.fightdementia.org.au/ Alzheimer’s Australia have not been approached to lend support for this article, and may not support it or the opinions I have expressed.

Related articles

• Looking for a Better End for Dementia Sufferers (dealingwithdementia.wordpress.com)
• Alzheimer’s (stateofmania.wordpress.com)
• Fat can cause dementia: How your lifestyle can pose a threat to your mind that’s just as serious as Alzheimer’s (dailymail.co.uk)

Will you still need me, will you still read me, when I’m 25,000 …

OK, so – back at 10,000 hits (and again at 15,000 hits) we had a bit of a celebration because the blog had reached lots and lots of readers. Which is a Very Good Thing, capital V, capital G, capital T. And so as not to appear too self congratulatory, I said the next little milestone would be at 25,000, assuming it would be a fair way off.

Well, it wasn’t, because we have just belted through 25,000 hits and more when I wasn’t looking, helped by some wonderful advertising f*** ups, and some poetry, and not a little of being rude about the Republican Party.

Anyway, back at 10,000 it was really interesting, because Wikipedia had this really cool article about all things 10,000-ish which I shared with you.

Sadly, I have to tell you, dear Reader, that finding anything to go with a celebration of 25,000 is much harder. Much.

25,000 Iraqi Dinars. Before you get too excited, that's about US$21.45 right now. Don't bother printing it off and trying to pass it.

The best Wikipedia could do was this rather attractive Iraqi money.

A number of websites offered to sell me cars all under 25,000 somethings, mainly Aussie dollars.

And Flat Finder told me they had over 25,000 apartments on offer in Australia.

There’s a battery charger called  CTek XS 25,000. There’s not many people know that.

And Kenya has just fired 25,000 striking health workers.

Oh, and an outbreak of Avian flu in rural Victoria resulted in 25,000 ducks getting the chop. Awww.

And a woman in Dublin received 25,000 Euros for a botched cosmetic surgery thing on her lips. The way the Euro’s going I hope she spends it soon.

But that’s about it for our massive, once in a lifetime celebration of all things 25,000-ish people.

Not terribly inspiring, I’m sorry. I will pick our next number to celebrate more carefully – and, as always, thanks so much to everyone who reads the blog, and comments, and passes it on. You’re why.

Meanwhile, un-noticed by all except close family, 21 years ago Monday just passed my darling daughter popped into this world, and after hanging around a bit, rather quickly in the end, actually.

At one point my wife asked the midwife “What’s happening?” The midwife calmly replied “You’re having a baby.” My wife somewhat tiredly asked “When?” The midwife drily replied, “Er, now.”

And out she came.

So on Monday we had a few drinks, and then a few more, and there’s going to be a big party soon, of course, and, you know, all the things people do when someone has a significant birthday.

Which is much more of a something to celebrate, really, than a battery charger or a strike in Kenya, or even a blog. So I thought I’d mention it.

I’ve been quieter than usual, this week, because I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a 21 year old daughter. Sadly, I keep running up against the most obvious conclusion “Sh*t, man, you got old.” It’s hard to ignore the fact that the body is beginning to creak alarmingly, and the brain doesn’t go quite as quick as it used to. But all in all, I am content with my lot.

Because, you know, kids don’t come with a manual, no matter how many people try to sell us one in the bookstores, and her mother and I just muddled along as best we could, making plenty of mistakes, clinging onto each other for dear life sometimes as the waves of life rocked our little boat backwards and forwards, but we made sure that what we did do for the kid was try to teach her right from wrong – and always to hang onto what’s right – to always believe in her dreams, to be able to talk to us about anything, and to love her to bits.

Good, bad, indifferent, grumpy, cheerful, frightened, brave, loud, quiet, hard-working, feckless, in love, out of love, in sickness and in health, we just loved her to bits. And always will.

In return, she grew, miraculously, before our very eyes, into this infinitely better and more golden and more caring and more insightful human than us.

Which is all, on reflection, that I think you can really hope for when you set out – that you leave behind you a child who is just the best that you can both be, and then some.

And she is. So “well done Caitlin”. You turned out real good. Thank you. And please remember I really want cable TV in the old folks’ home. I don’t care if the place smells of cabbage and wees, but it must have cable TV.

OK? Deal.

Exactly 19 years and three days ago. My God, I look young.

 

 

 

 

Lodge Road, Southampton … a poem about a place, a very long time ago, and the love that was lost there

 

LODGE ROAD, SOUTHAMPTON (1-3)

 

1

Determined, the bus belches its way up the incline.

Inside, cold white faces stare at me, unseeing.

They look at me but don’t watch.

(I take care not to stare

as they pull up at the flaky green bus stop

But I do watch).

 

Out from the bus steps the girl with the long, greasy-blonde

hair. I have seen her often. The sort of girl

you really shouldn’t fancy

(so, of course, you do).

 

This morning she pressed her body

into an envelope of black plastic,

stuck down the edges with a gash of make-up,

and posted herself to another pointless day.

 

Tonight she puddles her way home again.

Scuffed red shoes perilously splish-splash their way

past my heart.

A tight little ball of sex

and lost dreams, no longer hopeful,

and not pretty enough for her clothes.

 

2

On the corner of the road with the playground in

Pepe closes up Pepe’s Italian hair-dressers.

Winds back his shiny new awning

and gazes with smiling satisfaction at the light streaming

from his windows.

Lighting up the pavement.

 

Everyone will see what a warm inviting place his little shop is,

as they crawl home in the wet.

They will look at the bright lights and Panther hair tonic

and the piles of unbought faded yellow Durex packets

(“Something for the weekend, Sir?”)

and remember they needed a haircut.

 

(Pepe learnt all this from his father.

so it must be true).

 

As I pass him, he looks straight through me.

He does not recognize wet people in anoraks.

Only dry, springy heads of hair in need of

conditioning and cheerful chatter.

 

Next door at the late night grocery store

the till-girl who wouldn’t be working for the Indians if she had

any choice, but you know how work is,

reaches new heights of indifference.

 

As we all drip politely on her recently straightened pile of

Evening Sports Echos she is already in her lover’s arms.

Proud and defiant, she stares down confidently at all comers

in the local disco.

 

“He’s mine,” she sneers, “­All mine!”

Rich without money, a coarse, virile possession in an

unexciting world.

26p pint of milk kiss

74p curly smoked sausage groping urgent hands

62p Mother’s Pride Thick Sliced last Saturday in his car

it was the first time with him

won’t be the last

oh no.

 

She doesn’t even see me as her mind on automatic pilot

calls out my bill.

Well, why should she?

 

3

I press my nose to the drizzly window of the video shop,

waiting for the crush inside to die down.

Wonder if they’ll remember I owe them a quid?

The little tubby girl is serving, all stupid shy smiles and

dimples. She’ll let me off even if she remembers.

 

Little black boxes of freedom from thought stacked neatly

row upon row. Boxes of dreams.

Don’t get that one, it’s rubbish. Saw it last week.

(Can’t tell you though.

Don’t want to be thought the sort of

bloke who talks to folks in video shops.)

 

Trot home clutching our escape route for the night.

Never mind what it is, dear.

(Not that we do anymore anyway).

You stare at him, and I’ll watch her, and when they do

(as they always do)

we’ll clear our throats self-consciously

(’cause we don’t, so much, anymore.)

 

There was a time when we did.

Watching them at it would

probably have sparked us off.

But the spark went out.

Got damp.

 

(Should we have got a comedy tonight?

Always should when it’s raining. How come it’s always

raining nowadays?)

 

Now, out there in the street,

the dirty old bus putters his way home,

leaving a last late commuter cut up on the kerb.

Impervious, inexorable, the great yellow Leviathan trundles into the middle distance,

unaware that my TV screen has turned to a little white dot

that seems to want to suck me in.

 

As you quietly wander up to bed

I listen sadly to the occasional late-homer,

full of the desperate cheerfulness of a

drab pub where at least someone talks to him.

71 Poems & 1 Story is available in printed format and as a download. Share of any profits to the Bali Childrens' Foundation and Alzheimer's Australia

4G or not 4G? That is the question for Apple’s new iPad

As previously flagged in this blog, the new Apple iPad does NOT – currently – hook up with Telstra’s 4G in Australia (or Europe, or Asia) – although it hooks up to 4G standards in the USA and Canada. This Age article and video interview does an excellent job of explaining the issue and why the ACCC have now got very upset with Apple.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/apple-offers-refund-rejects-corrective-stickers-over-new-ipad-20120328-1vxlm.html

Apple’s defence, as I understand it, is that Australia simply doesn’t have what it considers a 4G network – which is an interesting charge for Telstra to rebut -  but it also hard not to think that Apple’s behaviour in promoting the product in the first place as 4G compatible in Australia was disingenuous at best, especially as the problem of hooking into Telstra was known about in advance.

Anyway, now Apple and the ACCC will both have to deal with the fallout. And costs, as they ended up in court. Silly billies.

Gratuitously offensive politically incorrect joke

"Ve haf vays of rescuing your economy ..."

So, Angela Merkel arrives at Passport Control at Athens airport.

“Nationality?” asks the immigration officer.

“German,” she replies.

“Occupation?”

“No, just here for a few days.”

Oh come ON – admit you laughed.

(Thank you, Dario)