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Suzy McHale’s Journal: 2017

January

Sunday 8/1: Heatwave; hair loss; currency exchange annoyances

Melbourne had its first heatwave for this year, with the temperature last night remaining close to 30°C and the previous two days uncomfortably warm and humid. A cool wind change drifted in this afternoon. Though I was grumbling about the miserable wet and cold a few months ago (e.g. 13/7/2016 entry), I still find this heat difficult to function in, especially as it has been humid also, and I live in a poorly-insulated old house (as many Australian homes tend to be) so my bedroom gets very stuffy and warm. It drains me of energy.

I have lost a lot of head hair over the last few months, literal handfuls. Perhaps a result of stress and non-functioning hormones. It is easier to look after, though I wonder what it will be like by the end of this year!

I was looking at ordering a product from the Vilous website (see 27/12/2016 entry), but the cost comes to nearly $AU180 when converted from USD , no thanks to the poor exchange rate of the Australian dollar now (currently around 70c to the USD). It is very frustrating as nearly any worthwhile product needs to be imported from overseas, and I curse the Reserve Bank every time it cuts interest rates, making things worse. It is one of the annoyances of living here – things are much more expensive.

Saturday 21/1: A sad day for the USA

A sad day for America today, in my view at least, with the departure of a respected and dignified U.S. President to be replaced by the unthinkable. Perhaps not surprisingly, the 45th President made a bombastic and aggressively nationalistic inauguration speech, which bodes ill for international relations for the next four years at least. I will not comment further as the whole topic is too disheartening.

The weather here seems to go from one extreme to another. 38°C last Tuesday, then a couple of days later a chilly Thursday morning, then heavy flooding rain on Friday morning, then back to a predicted 35°C next Monday followed by some unpleasant humidity. It is very hard to adjust to.

Sunday 29/1: Trip-up

Elbow graze from my fall

I went into the City yesterday (Melbourne CBD by train) and somehow managed to trip myself up on a footpath, and fell forward – ouch! Hard and painful; I bruised my right arm – got a graze on the inner elbow – and tore the muscle on my right chest over my ribs. I could not stop myself falling and the accompanying shock (adrenaline spike) was unpleasant also. A couple of nice guys asked if I was okay. I felt very shaken for a while afterwards, and am sore and tired today. I was upset that my hoodie jacket got a bit dirty and a small hole in the arm also.

February

Saturday 4/2: Still sore from fall; books read

A week since my fall (29/1 entry) and I am still sore! On my right side, over my ribs and right pectoral muscle, when I move in certain directions or breathe in deeply. Maybe it’s just a bruise (though there is nothing showing on the surface skin), maybe I tore some muscle there, or even cracked a rib? Don’t think it’s worth going to the doctor for as there is not much they could do (as in plaster it over or whatever).

I managed to complete the second novel in Eric Lustbader’s Pearl Saga series (see 27/12/2016 entry), The Veil of a Thousand Tears. It continues the rich worldbuilding and adventures and trials of various characters. I find myself wanting to know what happens to them, and caring about them.

I am also reading Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series, when World War 2 is interrupted by an alien invasion and colonization, and history deviates from our timeline from then on. The aliens, reptilians who call themselves “The Race,” are depicted in as much detail as the human characters and are not there just as targets to be shot at. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, which is not a feature I enjoy (I prefer a narrower focus on a few characters). The writing style has been criticized as repetitive, but I don’t mind this at all. I have already read the last in the series (Homeward Bound, where humans visit The Race’s Homeworld) and have started the first of the original series.

Last year I worked my way through C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series (Book 18 is being released this year!). (I previously mentioned her in my 30/1/2015 and 30/3/2007 entries.) These depict the adventures of Bren Cameron, a naturalized human ambassador between a human island colony on an alien planet, and the native alien species, the atevi. There is a lot of detail on various atevi clan machinations and rivalries, as well as ventures into space and interactions with yet more aliens in the later books.

Tuesday 7/2: Kick them out? Far-right nasties

Another hateful article from, you guessed it, the Herald-Sun tabloid:

Turn out adult children from home, parents advised

Susie O’Brien, Herald Sun

February 6, 2017 8:00pm

PARENTS should declare “Independence Day” and turn their children out of the nest by the time they turn 20.

Life skills coach Michele Jones thinks a failure to “set a date for kids to vacate the premises” can lead to major problems down the track.

Ms Jones said a growing number of parents were seeking professional help to persuade their adult children to leave home.

She said children should live independently by age 20.

“Parents convince themselves the child staying at home longer will help them save for the purchase of their own home, some even going as far as building a granny flat to accommodate their child, keeping them safe and tending to their every need,” Ms Jones said.

“In reality, parents are simply sending the message to their child that they are not resourceful or capable to live out in the world on their own, and they won’t be successful enough to afford a house without their help.”

“A recent Household, Income and Labour Dynamics survey of 17,000 found those who left home after the age of 25 earned $6000 less than those who fled the nest earlier,” Ms Jones said.

“Men end up $20,779 worse off and women $95,676, leading to further welfare benefit blowouts by 2020.”

Nearly 25 per cent of people aged 20 to 34 continue to live in the parental home.

In Sydney and Melbourne, this figure is 27 per cent.

Ms Jones said parents cited cost of living, university fees, and safety concerns as reasons why their children hadn’t left home.

Multigenerational Family Living, a new book by University of New South Wales academics Edgar Liu and Hazel Easthope, said financial problems were the main reason children did not leave home.

This reflected increasing tertiary qualifications, workforce casualisation and the unaffordability of housing.

However, some adult children helped to pay off their parents’ mortgages, the authors found.

Anthea Szemeti, 19, who is just about to move out of her parents’ comfortable home in Donvale into a college at the University of Melbourne, said: “Twenty is before most people have finished uni, so it could put a lot of extra pressure on them. It seems unnecessary to say they should move out by then regardless of circumstances.”

Her mother, Eleni Szemeti, said 25 was a “more reasonable” age for young people to leave home.

susan.obrien@news.com.au; @susieob

A retort I liked from the Facebook page with the article:

Lauren Kirkland: It occurs to me that we have a big issue of loneliness and mental health problems in our society – part of me wonders if this is because we don’t live as family groups like other cultures do.

Mothers are isolated in thier houses when they have newborns wondering where is that mythical village people talk about? The elderly are put into nursing homes wondering when they might see a family member again.

We are forced into believing from a young age we should be out of home, living independently as soon as we finish school. And parents are made to feel like they are failures if thier kids are still at home at 25.

(Yes these are all generalisations but I think a lot of people can relate to these situations)

Anyway, I think it’s this kind of attitude, this weird way of thinking we have that contributes to so much of what is wrong with our society.

Everyone’s circumstances are different, and some might be able to cope with being “kicked out,” but others would flounder (I am in the latter situation). Humans evolved as social animals and, unlike creatures such as some birds that literally do push their young out of their nest, humans traditonally relied on their family and relatives for support. As I noted in my 12/12/2016 entry, Western society has an unhealthy focus on rugged individualism to the detriment of social cohesiveness and mental health.

Awful far-right Conservative politicians seem to be on the rise in Australia, disturbingly. The naive, racist and small-minded Pauline Hanson has had a resurgence, no thanks to the deluded fools who voted her and her party back in, and she recently spouted her ignorant plans for what she would do if she became Prime Minister (and after Trump’s ascension to U.S. President, I would not outright dismiss this dire prospect). An equally odious Liberal senator, Cory Bernandi, has quit his party to form his own ultra-Conservative political party (a summary of his “values”). These are nasty, nasty people and will set social progression back decades if they have their way.

Saturday 18/2: Fence defaced; still liking Halo

I was dismayed to see my parents’ front fence had a couple of silver spray paint streaks on it; these must have been done last night. Not tagging as such; looks like someone was testing their spraycan. Very annoying and difficult to remove in any case (the fence is a metal Colorbond). It has had some damage from deliberate denting over the years (last time was on 6/11/2010; a whole panel was kicked in). I am so sick of the tagging scourge that is defacing much of Melbourne.

I still like the Halo gaming franchise; ironically I have never played a game (don’t have an X-Box and am not interested in gaming in any case). I have accumulated rather a lot of merchandise since 2007 or so; mainly books and figurines. My first mention of it in this Journal is in my 2/6/2007 and 3/6/2007 entries, the year Halo 3 came out, so my interest must have begun around then. I really liked the Halo 3 trailer (Bungie page; YouTube). I dislike the direction the story universe has gone since 343 Industries took over from Bungie (Halo 4 onward); the story has lost the atmosphere and mystery it had in the first three games. At least we got to see the Sangheili/Elite homeworld in Halo 5; the Sangheili are my favorite aliens in the game and are my only interest.

Friday 24/2: Deleted DeviantArt; obnoxious Liberals; war on workers

I decided to delete all my art from my DeviantArt account as the company has been bought by a website company called Wix (it provides crappy Javascript-based website builders) (discussion on HackerNews). I am probably better off hosting it myself rather than on third-party sites, whose terms of service for creative work can be dubious.

“Young Liberals call for more public service job cuts and new Tony Abbott-style commission of audit,” The Age, 21/2. The hateful policies of the Conservative Young Liberals: cut funding for the needy, privatize all publicly-owned assets, favor business and the wealthy. I am disgusted with their policies as these reduce society to one of survival of the fittest, and anyone who votes for them should be thoroughly ashamed.

Dismaying news this week that the Fair Work Commission cut Sunday and public holiday penalty rates for hospitality, fast-food and retail workers. These are already low-paid and low-status jobs, and this development adds insult to injury. Workers’ rights have been slowly and insiduously eroded over the last few decades, and this is a slippery slope towards doing away with a minimum wage altogether. (“Penalty rate cuts could backfire on business,” ABC News, 23/2.)

I saved this article from last year: “Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems,” The Guardian, 15/4/2016. Neoliberalism has become embedded in governments’ policies.

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

It is a hateful philosophy for anyone concerned with fairness as it embeds inequality in society.

March

Friday 3/3: Late warmth; novels read

Autumn already; we are having a late spell of warm weather, into the high 20s-low 30s all this week. The scorching intensity of summer has abated, so the warmth is not so bad.

Two novels I finished in the last week or so:

Thursday 9/3: More welcome warmth; more people for China

The warm weather continues. It is a nice change from all the miserable rain and cold of last year (such as in my 2/8/2016 entry).

Dismayingly, like other countries, China is panicking at the prospect of an aging population and is considering paying couples to have a second child. The last thing the world needs is an increase in their already-huge population! As Richard Stallman says, “Yes, this would assuage a temporary economic problem – but it would make all the long-term environmental problems worse. There are other ways to take care of the old people. Those that are healthy could continue working. Meanwhile, automation could leave many working-age people without jobs; jobs taking care of the old and infirm would be welcome. The state could give money to people that take care of their aged parents.”

Sunday 19/3: Whinging about women

March 8 was International Women’s Day. In tediously predictable fashion, a lot of men (such as in male-dominated forums like Reddit) began whinging about women supposedly getting special attention. Well, women are still regarded as lesser lifeforms in some cultures (Afghanistan for example), and women’s rights are still under threat in developed countries, a recent example being President Trump’s removing U.S. funding to any overseas organization that offers abortions on 23 January. If society became extremely conservative again, a lot of women’s hard-won gains could be lost. So I have absolutely no sympathy at all for any men who complain. The Herald-Sun tabloid had two execrable opinion pieces griping about Women’s Day.

Thursday 23/3: Disk migration

My hard disk drive – the main C: drive – began complaining about having a bad sector, so that finally prompted me to try to move to the solid-state drive Dad gave me a few months ago. It was a mental effort I couldn’t motivate myself to attempt – it involves turning off and opening up the computer, unplugging my secondary drive and plugging in the SDD, starting it again and doing the clone, turning off again, then removing the old HDD and slotting in the SDD – but I managed to this afternoon. There was an initial setback when the cloning program refused to clone the source drive due to the corrupt sector, but I did a disk scan and repair, and the cloning attempt was then successful.

Tuesday 28/3: Dentist ahead

I made an appointment with the dentist for a checkup and clean (and hopefully nothing else), but could not get in until 18/4, 3 weeks away. I am a bit overdue already. As usual I am dreading it – not so much the inspection, but the cost (and any unexpected extras). If dental work were at least partly subsidized by Medicare, much anxiety would be relieved. I do hope I have no more cavities; I am diligent in cleaning my teeth.

April

Thursday 6/4: Head cold; tax cuts for the greedy

I am feeling miserable due to a head cold that came on rather suddenly yesterday evening.

I was furious that a bill to enable tax cuts for businesses (small to medium) was passed by the Senate, no thanks to a sell-out Senator named Nick Xenophon, who traded passing the bill in return for some dubious one-off payments to pensioners to help with energy bills. This means that government tax revenue will suffer, losing billions over the next few years. There is the supposed promise that businesses will be able to hire more people, but in reality they will probably sequester the extra revenue for themselves and shareholders. Now the upcoming Budget, done by the hateful Scott Morrison, will have to find “savings” in other areas, most likely those that affect the vulnerable, namely welfare and health. The cognitive dissonance of this is infuriating. It is clear that the Liberals favor big business and care nothing for looking after the less well-off. Some letters in reaction from the 5/4 The Age::

Business tax cuts: Australia's community chest robbed of $24b

Following the deal between the Prime Minister and Nick Xenophon to provide a tax handout to small businesses with an annual turnover of up to $50 million (The Saturday Age, 1/4), we now have $24 billion less for national investment in infrastructure, innovation, sustainability, health, education, housing, disability, arts, culture and a development of a more prosperous and inclusive Australia. This un-targeted cash splash for all small businesses, most of whom do not innovate, export, employ highly skilled or full-time workers is a triumph of ideology over effective policy. There is no evidence, let alone guarantee, that this largesse will produce additional jobs or higher wages. A nation of yet more baristas, nail polish technicians and doughnut sellers is not the basis of a better future for Australia. Worse, a parliament of politicians who retain a faith in a failed small business ideology will only intensify inequalities.

– Stewart Sweeney, North Adelaide, SA

Policy nothing but great big con

The Liberal Party has for years been very successful in handing the resources and benefits of our economy to those with wealth and/or high income. It has also diminished the ability of organised labour to put a floor under wages. Here is a scenario I and others I know experienced. A profitable small/medium-sized business is held by a small group of people, often family. The business runs with minimum expense. Even small efficiencies requiring capital expenditure are rejected. Things are replaced only if they break. The entire profit of the business is channelled back to the owners through executive salaries and dividends, which are partly used to buy expensive homes in desirable suburbs – a great tax-free investment. We are all grateful to be employed and do not deny the right of owners to spend earnings as they like. However, to say taxing business less is the best way to use taxpayers' money to stimulate the economy and provide employment is a big con.

– Michael Wade, Wantirna

Xenophon sells out for few crumbs

In return for his support Nick Xenophon got a few concessions including a low-interest loan of $110 million for a solar thermal power plant at Port Augusta. What a terrible exchange. Imagine what $24 billion could've bought. Numerous government-owned solar thermal plants, plus more money for schools and hospitals. These would have brought jobs, sustainability and wider community benefits. The people of Port Augusta – and the Latrobe Valley – deserve a fair go. They should not be bearing the brunt of our transition away from coal. Xenophon's deal offers them a few crumbs. The forgone tax revenue could have bought them – and all of us – a much better future.

– Andrea Bunting, Brunswick

Scrutinise staff levels

If the cut in company tax rates will mean more people being employed, then shouldn't the companies that already reduce their tax by using offshore tax havens have the largest ratio of employees?

– Gerry Lonergan, Reservoir

Recipe works for 1 per centers

Here we go again. The huge government debt that Tony Abbott promised to remove by 2014 has more than doubled. Still we rush to cut taxes to business to remain “competitive.” “Competitive” countries like the US and UK are in trouble and are unable to maintain ancient infrastructure – railways, bridges, tunnels and so on – due to insufficient taxes. Australia already practically gives away its gas resources to “attract business.” It is a downhill ride that results in ever-mounting debt, failing infrastructure, short-term gains, major long term losses and money grabs from the less well-off. But it works for retiring politicians sitting on obscene perks and the 1 per centers.

– Graeme Scarlett, East Malvern

Thursday 12/4: Another welfare-hater elected

A woman of Kenyan origin has been elected as a senator in South Australia, for a fanatical religious party called Family First. A recent interview with her reveals she has a regrettably harsh attitude towards welfare.

But Mrs Gichuhi said the concept of poverty never entered her mind, and these days she is firmly against government handouts.

“The trouble with handouts is they create victims and nobody wins,” she said.

“And it’s a bottomless pit … and then, given we are in an ageing community and very soon we’re going to have few people working and a lot of people to support, is it sustainable?”

A couple of responses from a Reddit thread linking to the article:

Ballarant 36 points 1 day ago: So because nobody helped her, she has to punish everyone else. “Taught us to care,” my ass, what a bitch.

letsreviewshallwe 5 points 20 hours ago: I’d bet plenty of people helped her when she got here. The fact that she came here to improve her life is proof she was helped. I imagine her perspective isn’t rare among migrants. Migrants who go from zero to successful might likely have the most critical view of others who cannot get their life in order because they believe if they can do it everyone should be able to.

She is a Christian of the conservative right; those with this nasty attitude seem to think that welfare recipients are lazy bludgers who should be punished for the temerity of seeking government help.

Wednesday 19/4: No dental dramas

Went to the dentist yesterday; it is just over a year since I last went. Good news: no new cavities! So I just had a checkup and clean. They prefer people to visit every 6 months, but it is too expensive.

Body check, 19/4/2017

Took a photo of how my body looks at the moment. I am around 45 kg or so, and am rather … knobbly?

Tuesday 25/4: Welfare-bashing; misguided spending

Yet another welfare-bashing article in yesterday’s Herald-Sun; the paper does not bother to hide its obvious right-wing bias towards the less well-off in society, and is written to influence readers (incite anger at so-called “dole bludgers”). Problem is that the paper sells a lot of copies, so many readers will be reflexively angry and not bother to think about the issue in any more depth.

Turnbull government’s tough new measures to strip bludgers of welfare payments

SHARRI MARKSON, The Daily Telegraph
April 24, 2017 12:27pm

WELFARE slackers who refuse to participate in work-for-the-dole schemes will be stripped of payments under tough new measures to be unveiled in the upcoming Budget.

Employment Minster Michaelia Cash said today there is a cohort of people in Australia that actively say no to suitable work.

“I think all taxpayers would rightly expect that those who can work should work and our welfare system should be there as a genuine safety net, not as something that people can choose to fund their lifestyle,” she told reporters.

The Daily Telegraph revealed today the Turnbull government will close a loophole created by Labor that allows bludgers to repeatedly skip job interviews or work-for-the-dole commitments yet have their welfare payments remain untouched.

It comes as new data shows more than 33,000 people told Centrelink they couldn’t be bothered turning up to a job interview on 100,000 occasions last year – yet less than 1 per cent faced a penalty.

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge said there were obvious flaws in the current system. In total, there were 380,000 cases where welfare recipients skipped job interviews or work but had no reasonable excuse.

And in worrying signs for the future, 60 per cent of the people who failed to fulfil their side of the bargain as part of the work-for-the-dole schemes were under 30.

The principle must be that if you can’t be bothered turning up for a job interview, then don’t expect the taxpayer to continue to pay your bills

– ALAN TUDGE

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge said welfare recipients cannot expect to be supported by taxpayers if they can’t even be bothered to turn up for work, job interviews or languages classes.

Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher said she was a “bit suspicious” when this government attempts to demonise and attack those who rely on welfare.

“We support rigour around people being responsible for the money they receive and actually having to play by the rules. There is no problem with that,” she told reporters in Canberra.

A senior government source said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wanted to focus on creating a system that incentivised people to be “active rather than passive” welfare recipients.

Mr Tudge, who would not comment on the Budget, said there were obvious flaws in the current system.

“The problem at the moment is that people are escaping any financial penalty because of the loopholes Labor created. We are working on fixing this,” he said.

More than 33,000 people told Centrelink they couldn’t be bothered turning up to a job interview on 100,000 occasions last year.

“The principle must be that if you can’t be bothered turning up for a job interview, then don’t expect the taxpayer to continue to pay your bills.” Under mutual obligation schemes such as work-for-the-dole, welfare recipients are required to work, volunteer, attend job interviews or take literacy and numeracy training.

If they fail to meet their obligation, they face an eight-week suspension of their welfare.

Labor introduced a waiver system in 2009, where recipients could have their penalty waived and have welfare benefits reinstated if they agreed to “re-engage” and attend the next appointment and agreed to a course of action such as training or volunteering. As a result the system has descended into farce. Less than 1 per cent – or 2457 people – had their welfare payments stopped for eight weeks last year. About 9 per cent had their payments blocked for one day.

When the Human Services Department asked the welfare recipients why they hadn’t turned up for work, the number one answer was that: “Jobseeker chose not to participate.”

Government analysis also shows the average Australian works 15 months fulltime to pay enough tax for someone to receive welfare under the Newstart scheme for 12 months. In total, the cost of the welfare system is $160 billion per year – and growing by 6 per cent annually.

AUSTRALIAN IDLE

What a nasty attitude. The government is clearly using those on the dole as a distraction from real crimes such as multinational companies not paying their fair share of tax here, and its unforgivable and unnecessary $50 billion in tax cuts for companies it recently passed (6/4 entry). I wish more than ever for a Basic Income to be implemented so people don’t have to endure this humiliating ordeal just to try to get enough money to survive, but a BI is unlikely under the current regime and a lot of citizens would feel the same way.

Another spending splurge to get infuriated about: the Victorian State Government is to spend a further $271 million on the redevelopment of Melbourne’s tennis and entertainment precinct (as described on the MOPT website).

Melbourne Park redevelopment to include new stadium, public space and more

Herald-Sun

A $271 million redevelopment of Melbourne’s world-class tennis and entertainment precinct will form a major plank of next month’s state Budget in a boost to Victoria’s sporting heartland.

The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal the Andrews Government will commit to a grand new stage of development at Melbourne Park, home to the Australian Open.

The centrepiece of the tennis plan will be a new 5000-seat sunken stadium near Hisense Arena.

The major redevelopment will be a further boost to the sporting precinct.

The development includes a new stadium and match courts.

Hundreds of jobs will be created by the major project. The tennis cash splash will be the showpiece of Budget spending in the sports, tourism and events portfolio – to also include $45 million to boost major events and overseas visitors.

A central terrace with a new elevated outdoor public space, function centre, international media headquarters and broadcast studios will also form part of the revamp. Two new match courts will be built.

The project is expected to create 600 jobs. Treasurer Tim Pallas said stage 3 of the development, first revealed in the Herald Sun in November, would build the facilities needed to attract more visitors to Victoria.

It is hoped the Melbourne Park works will attract more blockbuster events.

A central terrace with a new elevated outdoor public space is part of the revamp. “This project will mean more visitors, more jobs, and even more chances to showcase to the world that Victoria has the best of everything,’’ Mr Pallas said.

Exclusive images of the revamp show the sheer scale of the fan-friendly masterplan. Work is expected to start in 2019 and be finished by 2022.

Tennis Australia and Australian Open boss Craig Tiley said: “The state government is showing its belief the Australian Open is one of the premier sporting and entertainment events.’’

Sports Minister John Eren said confirmation of the new works would help guarantee the Australian Open stayed in Melbourne until at least 2036. A record 728,000 fans poured through the gates of this year’s event.

That is ultimately nearly a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money wasted on sporting frivolity. Spend that on the public health system instead. If I were in charge of funding, all sports would be stripped of public funding and would have to seek such from private industry instead. Organized sports are not necessary in society – unlike the arts, sport has no cultural value – and should not be given any government support.

May

Monday 1/5: A childhood book found

Rainbow Serpent book cover

I found and bought a children’s picture book that I originally had in the late 1970s: The Rainbow Serpent by Australian Aboriginal artist Dick Roughsey (sadly deceased). I remember ordering this via the Australian version of the Scholastic Books program at my school; I think I was attracted by the cover. Sadly it vanished long ago, like the rest of my books from childhood. It has remained in my memory and I was delighted to see it in a bookshop again, thankfully unchanged. The paintings are gorgeous, done in a sort of folk art or naïve style along with elements of traditional Aboriginal art. The colors are of the Australian outback (ochre land, turquoise sky) along with stark black stylized trees and Aboriginal people. The story myth is short but still compelling. The serpent himself is black, overlain with an iridescent rainbow pattern.

There is still much endemic racism against Indigenous Australians, even amongst younger people who don’t otherwise regard themselves as such. The Reddit site is a prime example; every time the topic of Aboriginal Australians is posted at r/Australia, out come the blatantly racist remarks. Though there are a few more reasoned comments like this:

lej679 5 points 5 years ago

jeez have any of you people ever even met an Aboriginal person?

It’s not just the Aboriginal people in remote areas that have a hard time. The causes are complex – not beyond the comprehension of anyone with a bit of commonsense, but well beyond the 2min attention span of forums like this – ie: to make a start, you’d have to read a BOOK. Still interested?

I have witnessed a lot of casual racism towards Aborigines – comments by schoolteachers in the staffroom etc. They are routinely expected to fail at school, expected to drink, use drugs etc.

The damage that was done was extreme – and the wounds are still very fresh. The effects are intergenerational – and our neocon[servative] political system is firmly on the side of social reproduction.

Older people I know are also often blatantly racist and disparaging towards them. Trauma from colonization and extermination (such as the Stolen Generations) has been passed down through generations, and is a still-unresolved and complex issue. It is notable that right-wing politicians (Liberals and similar) are reluctant to acknowledge this or offer a government apology.

As the First Footprints documentary recounted (and a PDF press kit, just over 3 MB), the Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for an astonishingly long time, at least 40,000 years as hunter-gatherers, and their culture has managed to resist being eliminated. However they get disparaging remarks such as, “They never built anything or had a civilization,” but then they did not devastate the landscape like modern Western civilization has, either. Which will be the most sustainable in the long term?

Sadly a lot of their young people are seduced by the inane and stupid dominant popular culture that permeates contemporary society here – one element I hate is rap music creeping in, rather than them using their own rich songs and oral traditions.

Previous mentions of Aboriginal people: 23/7/2013 entry; my “Landscape lost” short piece.

Wednesday 3/5: Concern over content elsewhere and privatization; pet excessiveness

I decided to delete all my art posted at DeviantArt after a notice about Wix.com acquiring the company. Wix is a rather crappy Javascript-based website-builder site, and there is a lot of wariness about what this means for the Terms of Use for people’s art on the site (could be used by the company without permission). LiveJournal is another site that has changed for the worse (it was acquired by a Russian company and changed its terms of use in early April to make it subject to Russian law, which puts restrictions on what can be posted). DA has become crappy to use anyway, like so many “free” hosting sites, and I figure I am better off hosting all my content on my own site (for as long as I am able to keep it going). I will keep my accounts at such sites but not post anything there; they cannot be trusted with one’s personal content.

“No expense spared on Australia’s fur babies as doggy day care and pet minding services grow,” ABC News, 1/5. If there is one sign our society is decadent, it is the ridiculous overindulgence given to pets. “Doggy daycare” is better than some human children get. (I also detest the term “fur kids” or “fur babies”; it is horribly mawkish and makes me cringe.) Pets should not be regarded as substitute children. Some cultures would regard this trend as bizarre and unseemly. (Previous mentions on the topic of overindulged pets: 5/5/2015; 4/1/2016.)

Ironically, childfree forums (such as r/childfree at Reddit) tend to be the worst for this trend; they hate children yet many have pets that are just as messy, demanding and expensive. Anyone pointing this hypocrisy out will be flamed.

The Victorian State Budget was announced yesterday. A lot of funding was from the sale of public assets, and this opinion piece, “Why Victoria’s budget splash raises questions about privatisation,” raises concerns about the trend. Once those public assets are gone there is no more income stream from them for the government, so their sale is short-term gain (in the form of temporarily increased funds) for long-term pain (less revenue, and taxpayers are at the dubious mercy of corporations whose first priority is to make a profit for their shareholders). Under privatization, costs inevitably rise. It is a crime against citizens, as far as I am concerned.

Saturday 6/5: Author M.C.A. Hogarth

One author whom I have been following and reading for a few years is M.C.A. Hogarth (“MCAH”). She is an independently-published author whose stories are mainly science fiction and fantasy, involving aliens or human-animal hybrids. She has several worlds in which various novels are set; she is also a talented artist. My favorite of her worlds is Kherishdar, about aliens called the Ai-Naidar and the society they live in. It is an ordered and structured society benignly ruled by a long-lived Emperor, with Castes. There is an emphasis on collectivism over the individual. There are three books written so far: two “chapbooks” (collections of flash fiction) and one full-length novel. I find the world calming and restful, though many other readers strongly dislike the society.

For the Ai-Naidar, caste and tradition are not the shackles that imprison the spirit but the silences that make sense of the music of their lives. The Aphorisms of Kherishdar collects 25 short tales about what it is to have an Ai-Naidari soul: to find comfort in tradition, law and structure; to revere interdependence over individualism; to know one’s place … to always have one.

The stories are available online: The Aphorisms of Kherishdar, The Admonishments of Kherishdar, Black Blossom.

The author herself is Catholic and conservative in her politics – diametrically opposite to myself – though not virulently so; her politics do not blatantly come out in her stories. She kept a Livejournal for many years up to last year, when a political post during the US election turned quite nasty in the reader comments and she closed down her whole journal, unfortunately. She only posts on Patreon now, and I can’t afford an ongoing subscription (I dislike the idea of payments being taken out of my bank account anyway).

Tuesday 9/5: 2017 Federal Budget – targeting the vulnerable

The dreaded and dreary Federal Budget is announced tonight, by the execrable Treasurer Scott Morrison. It’s an excuse for the Herald-Sun to target and bash welfare recipients once again, as the articles I have archived here demonstrate. No unbiased reporting there; they are deliberately stirring resentment. I have included some of the reader comments, most of which are just awful.

John
John 14 minutes ago
Too much money spent on leeches of society. In Asia they would be on the scrap heap- here they have all the rights and entitlements plus a diagnosis to go with it which is their excuse to never contribute positively. Anyone on welfare who is a drug addict or any substance abuser should be scrapped of any welfare.

Claudius Pseudonymus
Claudius Pseudonymus 25 minutes ago
@Geoffrey @Claudius Pseudonymus @Keith Oh, you’re breaking my heart..... so very many dynamic and prosperous Asian nations do NOT have the Aussie type Welfare System and yet they seem to do nicely enough. The idea of starving to death seems to serve as a very effective inducement to work...

And these same Asian nations also have Health & Education funding which delivers far better results than our over-funded Aussie Health & Education.....

Strange.... but then again... keep paying ourselves more than we earn or can afford. That’s the real Aussie Value, eh...?

There is a lot of this nastiness and, sadly, these mean-spirited people vote.

Like many, I was relieved that France voted in a relatively moderate President rather than the right-wing extremist candidate. He is still not ideal but is vastly preferable to the awful fascist option. But I was disgusted to see the reactions of some of my Facebook acquaintances when I posted a link to an article about the election (screenshot). They are known from the Facebook pages of an overpopulation group and political party I joined some years ago (and left in 2016 – 22/6/2016 entry), but the tone of these has become increasingly overlapping with the far-right crazies. Businessman Dick Smith (a supporter of an Australian population party) endorsed some of Pauline Hanson’s views last year, which was the last straw for me. (She is an Australian equivalent of Donald Trump; a reactionary right-wing populist.) While I am still concerned about overpopulation, I can’t associate myself with those who share the same ideology as Donald Trump and the like. Hanson also supports cutting welfare and making it harder to apply for; another blow against her.

Staff at Fairfax newspapers (of which The Age is one) have gone on strike this week over drastic job cuts. The newspapers are the only viable alternative to the awful populist tabloid Herald-Sun, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the Australian media mogul who has far too much power and influence over governments. If Fairfax papers go out of business, Murdoch’s evil right-wing views will dominate the media here and influence the public even more.

Sunday 14/5: Necessary nurses; nasty government; evil entrepreneurs

Friday was International Nurses Day. Nursing is a vital profession that is too often underpaid and unappreciated. A couple of Australian articles: “Nurses do more than toileting, showering and pill-popping” (The Age) and “International nurses day: Why these unsung heroes put the needs of others first” (ABC News).

The Federal Budget was not all bad, but unemployed people on the dole were targeted again for even harsher penalties and essentially demonized; made scapegoats for “honest workers” to feel resentful at. Welfare recipients will be randomly drug-tested, in yet another patronizing and insulting policy, as well as having to meet more stringent requirements and being punished for refusing “suitable” jobs, presumably even crap ones. An awful degrading system, and I wish even more fervently for a Basic Income so people did not have to endure this ordeal just to get enough money to survive.

In disgusting contrast, wealthy corporations get tax cuts which will deprive the Government of needed revenue.

More on the corporate tax

Let's take a moment and recap what we learnt earlier in Question Time a short time ago. This might get a bit technical, but stay with me.

The Federal Government’s full company tax plan will cost the budget more than $15 billion a year once fully implemented.

The revised figures were outlined by Treasurer Scott Morrison, prompting Labor MPs to accuse the Government of a multi-billion-dollar blowout.

In May last year, Treasury Secretary John Fraser told a Senate hearing the cost of cutting the tax rate to 25 per cent for all businesses would cost $48.2 billion over the 2016-27 period.

But Mr Morrison has revised that figure to $65.4 billion for the decade starting on year later, on July 1, 2017 (2017-28).

The increase takes into account forecast economic growth and increasing company tax profits, which would be paid if the tax cut is not passed for all businesses.

An lobby group called the Committee for Melbourne had some suggestions on how to ensure the city’s future livability. One point I disagree with, though: “teaching entrepreneurship at Victorian primary and secondary schools.” I have said before (5/7/2016 and 7/4/2016 entries) why I find this idolization of entrepreneurs disagreeable and disturbing: children are essentially indoctrinated on how to be hustlers and embrace the ideology of capitalism, and a culture of greed and competition is encouraged.

Tuesday 23/5: Generous philanthropy, but disturbing implications

There was a lot of media attention given yesterday to a $400 million philanthropic donation by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and his wife Nicola to various charities and causes; the largest such donation in Australian history. On the surface it is a generous gesture, but this is the same man who has pushed for the patronizing welfare debit card for all recipients rather than monetary payments; the Australian equivalent of food stamps. Also, relying on the whims of philanthropists is still a poor and fickle substitute for the government doing its job with adequate funding. (Reddit post with a link to the article.)

An ABC program called The Drum also debated the gesture last night. I uploaded some of the video to my YouTube channel with some good points two of the panelists made, transcribed below:

Jane Caro: “Philanthropy should always be seen as the icing on the cake, not the cake. People need to pay their tax. Now, I’m not saying not to be casting aspersions at Twiggy Forrest; I have no idea whether he pays all his taxes or doesn’t, but I would have like the super profits mining tax; I would have liked that; that would have been good. But what I would like to see is people paying the tax that they are expected to pay, whether they’re corporations or private individuals, because no child should have to rely on charity to get a decent education; no sick person or elderly person should have to rely on charity to get decent health care, and no indigenous community should have to rely on somebody’s goodwill and acts of charity to have decent living conditions. These should be provided by the whole of society, by us all getting in there and paying our due taxes.”

Dr. Michael J. Biercuk: “The bigger concern to me is that this is a kind of a form of privatization of government expenditure. I think as Jane said so eloquently enough that … the idea of providing basic services should not be supplanted by a reliance on philanthropy. That’s where I get a little nervous.”

Note, 13/1/2019: A similar comment from Reddit by user/darklordqueen: “I’m not mad at a private citizen for doing this or that, I’m mad at a broken system of government that leaves us to rely on the largesse of the ultra-wealthy instead of expecting everyone and their businesses to pay their fair share so we can take care of these things properly rather than wait for a neo aristocrat to notice and hopefully do something. I’m mad at people who deny that without a government funded space program and government funded education and government services vital to every day life, Elon Musk would not be launching rockets and most of the country would not have power, running water, or communications services. I’m mad at people who see themselves as champions of personal freedom but refuse to acknowledge that a society with wealth disparities is inherently unfree. I’m mad that the world looks up to people who stand on the shoulders of giants and credits them for growing tall on their own.”

“Cashless welfare card will stop the wasters,” Herald-Sun, 18/5. A predictably patronizing and harsh opinion piece from a columnist there. A lot of jobs are dreary rubbish and people can’t be faulted for having little enthusiasm for applying for them. Also some have mental health issues and the stigma with being unemployed does not help, along with the punitive process now required to attain meager dole benefits. A Basic Income would alleviate a lot of stress for people. (A couple of articles from The Independent, via the Basic Income Guarantee Australia Facebook page: “The DWP must see that a bad job is worse for your mental health than unemployment,” 26/2 and “Basic income is one solution to our growing mental health crisis,” 12/5.)

Wednesday 31/5: Winter woes; reading Hogarth

I am cold and miserable as the real winter weather begins; nasty, cold and damp with single-digit mornings due this week. Winter is comparatively mild here compared to European countries; I don’t know how I would cope with the latter. I have a lot of trouble keeping warm. I feel drained and exhausted generally and have done nothing creative.

I have been reading (or re-reading) some of M.C.A. Hogarth’s novels (mentioned her in my 6/5 entry). They range from gentle to brutal in places, but I like the way she depicts aliens. Unfortunately the paperback editions of her novels are rather expensive in Australia (around $30) so I can only buy one infrequently (I prefer physical copies of books I like as I dislike having to rely on an electronic device just to read them, though I am not adverse to ebooks generally). I have read a couple of her Pelted universe novels, featuring the Eldritch (genetically-altered humans, the equivalent of “Space Elves.”

Earthrise is the first of the Her Instruments series (the ebook is a free download), one of the main protagonists being Reese Eddings and her spaceship crew of various Pelted. An enjoyable and engrossing read, as the initially tense and unhappy Reese gradually is able to overcome her psychological issues and bond more closely with the rest of her crew, and there is a tentative beginning of a relationship with the Eldritch crewman.

The Princes’ Game series is a darker and, at times, quite brutal series. An Eldritch ambassador must try to survive in the court of vicious dragonlike aliens called the Chatcaava; others who went before him have done badly. He does so but at great personal cost. To date I have read the first book; it is compelling and exhausting at times.

June

Tuesday 13/6: Digital vs. traditional art

I have been cold and miserable. Sunday was around 4°C in the morning; I managed to trip and fall on my morning walk as my body was so tense and shivering (though no injuries this time – see 29/1 entry). Falling is unpleasant because of the adrenaline surge and the helpless feeling of not being able to stop the fall.

Author and artist M.C.A. Hogarth did a public post on her Patreon, Let’s Talk Digital, on digital versus traditional media art – that digital art can easily be mass-produced via printing and this affects its value, as contrasted to a traditional art piece which is unique and tangible in a way that digital art is not. My comment there:

Digital art is great for drawings that would be tedious to do in traditional media – such as various clothing styles overlain on a figure, or technical drawings. There are some nice effects that can be done digitally. Layers and the undo function are my favorite aspects of the medium!

But … I still prefer traditional art overall; as you pointed out, each piece is unique and personal in a way digital art is not. As with books (physical vs. ebooks), a traditional painting is a tangible creation while digital exists as ephemeral pixels (and will any digital art last for centuries?).

Another advantage of traditional art is that you don’t have to invest a lot of time in learning the relevant software, as well as worrying whether the program or computer will crash or lose power, and thus whatever you are working on.

Friday 16/6: Bludger-bashing again

The Herald-Sun tabloid apparently thought it was time for more “bludger-bashing,” (a previous article in 25/4 entry) so another odious article on Tuesday, reproduced below:

Bludger hot spots: Victoria’s work-shy duck job interviews for dole

KYLAR LOUSSIKIAN, Herald Sun

FIVE of Australia’s top 10 suburbs and towns for dole recipients, who refuse to try to get a job, are in Victoria.

In Mildura, which had the state’s highest rate of welfare non-compliance, 329 people consistently failed to attend work-for-the-dole appointments or job interviews in the past year.

Only Caboolture, near Brisbane, and Blacktown, in Sydney’s west, had worse figures.

Frankston, Werribee, St Albans and Dandenong also made the top 10 in the welfare shame file, released by the federal government.

The figures show in Victoria, in the past year, more than 18,160 people failed to make five or more Centrelink appointments or job interviews.

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge told the Herald Sun most welfare recipients did all they could to find work but “too many deliberately flout the system and have been getting away with it.”

About 50,000 people the government says can work fail to attend job interviews but escape any penalty: in the past year, only 10 per cent of people who consistently missed appointments faced any financial penalty, and almost all who did lost just one day’s payment.

“The majority are men under 30 who should be doing everything they can to get work. (If they) make no effort to do so, then they are going to find their welfare payments cancelled,” Mr Tudge said.

“It is in no one’s interests to have capable young people languishing on welfare when work or training is available.”

Across the 10 areas with the highest non-compliance, 2241 people failed to turn up to five or more appointments.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said welfare dependency for those able to work should never be accepted as inevitable, or a lifestyle.

“Taxpayers are happy to help fellow Australians, but expect their money to be spent effectively and not misused.

“We’re introducing a clear and fair system of compliance which provides greater support, but also greater expectations on job seekers to have a go,” Senator Cash said.

This year, the government will introduce plans to cut payments to people who miss Centrelink appointments or job interviews, aiming to save $632 million over five years.

“Our new welfare compliance system will ensure that those who need more assistance will get it earlier. But those who are taking the taxpayer for a ride will face consequences,” Mr Tudge said.

kylar.loussikian@news.com.au

Deliberately biased and worded to stir people up, and this was reflected in the comments by the easily-outraged readers looking for an easy scapegoat. The reporter and those who commission such articles should be ashamed of themselves. I wonder if there is a case for a collective class action by the unemployed to sue the Herald-Sun for defamation.

Sunday 18/6: Dangers of outsourcing welfare; high-density living not so bad; no opportunities for me

In my 23/5 entry I noted the danger of governments outsourcing welfare to the whims of private entrepreneurs; Naomi Klein has also similarly stated her concern in a New York Times interview:

You argue that Democrats have to share the blame for Trump’s rise, partially in promoting the idea that the solution to vast inequality is to have nicer rich people, or philanthro-capitalism. Well, Trump’s pitch to voters was: “I’m rich. Sure, I have absolutely no experience in government, but the fact of my wealth is all the evidence you need that you can trust me to fix everything.” It’s an absurd pitch, but I don’t know how far away it is from why Americans have trusted Bill Gates to remake the American school system or Africa’s agriculture system. I don’t think there could’ve been a pitch as crass as Trump’s “I can fix America because I’m rich” without that groundwork laid by Davos and the Clinton Global Initiative.

There’s a quote in your book that the Trump phenomenon is an uncouth, vulgar echo of the dangerous idea that billionaires can solve our problems. I wonder if, also in Trump, we see a more uncouth and vulgar echo of another idea that the Democrats brought us: benevolent nepotism. Look at the structure of the Gates Foundation and this idea that, rather than trying to solve these huge global problems through institutions with some kind of democracy and transparency baked into them, we’re just going to outsource it to benevolent billionaires. Look at how the Gates Foundation allocates its money, and how it’s structured: it’s Bill Gates, his father and his wife and Warren Buffett – that has been interrogated a whole lot less than this current outsourcing of the world to Jared and Ivanka.

A similar concept is that of noblesse oblige, the somewhat condescending concept of the rich being benevolent to the less well-off, if they feel like it (such as patronizing charities); the drawback to relying on this is, as is noted in the Wikipedia article:

Noblesse oblige, while seeming to impose on the nobility a duty to behave nobly, thereby apparently gives the aristocracy a justification for their privilege. Their argument is “as nobles, we have rights, but we have duties also; so such duties validate our rights.”

Which is why charity should not be outsourced and privatized. The government is then shirking its responsibility towards looking after its citizens and relying on the whims of the wealthy to provide – in contrast to the government, which in theory at least should provide charity impartially.

In my 26/8/2012 entry I linked to an article featuring photos of high-density living conditions in Hong Kong by photographer Michael Wolf. The photos are a collection called 100 × 100 on his website, featuring residents in their one-room apartments (100 square feet), not much bigger than my bedroom. I am rethinking my negative opinions on high density; even those living conditions are preferable to being homeless, and there is a feeling of living in a cave, of being comforted by the enclosed space and one’s possessions. If I had the means to live by myself I would probably opt for a small apartment; I have not the energy to look after a stand-alone suburban house and garden. I see it as a safe space where one can huddle away from the world.

“Leaving school early means you'll likely never return to study in adult life,” ABC News, 15/6. Well, I am doomed then :-(. I did not complete Year 12 so I have not that or any higher qualifications, and my life now reflects that disadvantage. I have not the energy or inclination to try for them now.

Thursday 29/6: Tooth decay epidemic; bludger-bashing; aged-care scandal

There was a disturbing report in the Herald-Sun last week about high-sugar diets contributing to an epidemic of rotten teeth in children. Not mentioned in the article, though – perhaps intentionally omitted? – is the contributing factor of processed food manufacturers who load their products with added sugar. These are deliberately designed to be addictive, so all the more reason for a sugar tax. There are a lot of people who say parents should exercise discipline and control what their children eat, but parents can’t monitor their children’s intake all day, and the barrage of junk food advertising aimed at children can be difficult to counter. Sugar should be regarded in the same manner as tobacco, as a highly addictive and damaging product, and regulated accordingly.

Bludger-bashing for this week:

Welfare reform aims to ease burden on workers

Tom Minear, Herald Sun June 22, 2017 12:00am

THE average Australian would have to work for 14 years to pay the $220,000 lifetime welfare bill of a dole bludger who refuses to try for a job.

WELFARE WHACK FOR MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES

The Herald Sun can reveal more than 37,000 welfare recipients are in the government’s crosshairs for failing to meet requirements.

Another 56,000 are deemed to be “persistently non-compliant” with welfare rules, although they have “genuine barriers” to finding work, such as a lack of education.

Government figures show that of the 93,327 welfare rule-breakers identified in the first half of last year, just 1932 were penalised. And almost half were expected to be still relying on handouts in a decade.

Over their working life, they would receive an average of $222,000 in welfare payments, which would take the average worker on $70,000 a total of 14 years to pay off.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter said the concerning figures highlighted the need for the government’s welfare crackdown, to be introduced in parliament today. It includes a drug-testing trial of 5000 new recipients of Youth Allowance and Newstart.

“Too many people are not meeting the requirements attached to their welfare, such as attending appointments, and most suffer no penalty,” Mr Porter said.

“This not only puts a burden on taxpayers who face a higher long-term cost to meet these people’s welfare bill, but does nothing to help them achieve self-reliance by securing work,” Mr Porter said.

“We all know that being in work is much better than being on welfare, and this Bill is designed to specifically help more people into work and, for those with specific barriers to work, such as drug abuse, to help them overcome those.”

Job interviews are interfering with the relaxed lifestyle of some dole bludgers

Of non-compliant welfare recipients two in three are men and 73 per cent are under 35.

The reforms include a demerit points system that will crack down on those deliberately flouting the system.

The drug-testing trial will be set up in three areas, yet to be announced. The government stressed it was “not about taking welfare payments off people who use drugs”.

Welfare for jobseekers who return one positive test will be quarantined to help them cover essential living costs.

If they fail again, they will be referred to a medical professional and welfare will be conditional on their having appropriate treatment.

tom.minear@news.com.au

A later disgracefully biased article attacked the Australian Unemployed Workers Union as being a “bludgers’ club.”

The Age and Four Corners had a series of articles and reports on the exploitative practices of an aged care retirement home company, Aveo. Again it is a reminder of the danger of outsourcing something as vital as caring for elders to private enterprise, whose primary concern is to make a profit for their shareholders. And again, symptomatic of the lack of respect for the elderly that is a disgraceful aspect of Western culture and society.

July

Sunday 2/7: Cold to the bone

Yesterday and today were the coldest mornings in Melbourne for two years, getting down to 1°C. I am chilled to the bone and miserable as my bedroom and the house I live in are not insulated properly (an old weatherboard), which is sadly typical of a lot of Australian housing. My early morning walk yesterday was torture, given that I already have poor circulation. Today I wore two heavy jackets and two tops under these, which helped a bit.

I would not cope with living in the countryside outside Melbourne, where temperatures get into the minus-degrees, let alone in Europe.

Thursday 6/7: A fortuitous find

I found an art exhibition book in a local charity shop today: Dragon Emperor: Treasures from the Forbidden City, from a 1988 exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria. The artifacts include various implements, armor and clothing. And they are almost indescribably gorgeous! Garments of silk exquisitely embroidered with elaborate designs of dragons, flowers, birds in vivid glowing colors, clothing without compare today. I was raving to my parents about the items (an enthusiasm I rarely show). Just looking at the photos is a feast for the eyes. All hand-made by highly-skilled artisans.

Looking through the book brought on these thoughts, which I have been coalescing for a while:

China: tradition vs modernism

I have come to strongly dislike how the Cultural Revolution in China in the 20th century destroyed so much of its tradition, heritage and valuable artifacts. Echoing my thoughts, in r/China at Reddit, some responses to a question about this topic:

Effects of the cultural revolution (self.China)

submitted 2 years ago * by diseased_oranguntan

I've heard a lot that the Cultural Revolution harmed or destroyed or otherwise changed China's 'traditional' culture, and I'd like to learn more about that. What effects exactly are we talking here? Was it religious, as in people's practice of Buddhism/shrine/ancestor worship, or more than that?

At the same time I don't know if I believe 'cultural heritage' is honestly that enormous a deal and I think it's easy to be very reflexively negative about the effects of something like this on modern Chinese society. Do people here who are Chinese feel like some fundamental damage to China's heritage was done, or was it a more minor thing? A good comparison I guess would be Japan, which has a more or less unbroken connection with its premodern culture and still practices it mostly.

– oakpacific 2 points 2 years ago*

In the Confucian thought system, the bond between parents and children is sacred, you could even raise your filial duty as a reason to turn down an offer from Emperor to serve in the court. Also, you were not required to bear witness against your parents/children, as is stated in the Analects: 叶公语孔子曰：“吾党有直躬者，其父攘羊，而子证之。”孔子曰：“吾党之直者异于是：父为子隐，子为父隐，直在其中矣。”(translation: The Duke of She informed Confucius saying “Among us here are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father have stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact.” Confucius said “Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this.” Analects, Book VIII, chapter XVIII)

Now what happened in the Cultural Revolution? Years of propaganda brainwashing encouraged family members to report the counter-revolutionary activities of other family members, there are many cases like this one: http://www.chinanews.com/cul/2013/08-07/5131037.shtml , the whole family reported the mother for her comment against cult of personality of Mao, purely out of ideological reasons, which resulted in her sentence to death penalty, and believed that they did the right thing! It seems to me there is nothing more clear than this that the traditional Chinese culture was shaken to the core.

In other comments you will see people mentioning about how Chinese leadership talked about the rule of traditional culture in Chinese society, but in reality the leaders know BS about what they talked about, most of them have hardly read any Chinese classics in their lifetime, and whenever they attempted to quote Confucius or compose poems it usually became total blunder due to their complete lack of training/knowledge.

– desuj 2 points 2 years ago

The effects are both physical and social. The CR destroyed numerous historical artifacts and ancient architectures. There are lists online that details the major physical damages. The most devastating effect is, the CR also destroyed social trust between people. During the heydays of CR, neighbors, friends/family would rat out each other for thought crimes. I think that effect cascades down to what we have today in China - the lack of social conscience. After CR, people realized how bad the idea was. A literature trend 傷痕文學 started to reflect the psychological wounds (literally: Scar Literature)

For historical accounts, read 章诒和's books. She came from a conservative family and saw a lot of fortune/culture destroyed along with humanity.

This paragraph from a memoir by David Kidd, about his marriage into a traditional Chinese household during the time of the Cultural Revolution:

Actually, the old man’s death had come as no shock to the family. It had been expected, and they knew that Mr. Yu would never have been able to approve of “New China,” and that in a short time the inviolability of his own courtyard would have been shattered. They felt he was better out of it – honored in death rather than humiliated in life. And partly because, in their relief, they also felt guilty, and partly because they were uncertain of their own future, they had decided that the old man’s funeral was to be a sort of symbol of the past as he had known it – a last flaring of gold-and-red pomp before they should all be submerged in the drab puritanism of the revolution.

– David Kidd, Peking Story: The Last Days of Old China, from chapter: “White Funeral, White Socks”

Looking at museum artifacts and treasures from China’s imperial past, the impression one gets is of superb artisanship and creativity; of life and color; of a strong continuance of tradition and stability (as is the case with other historical and traditional arts, such as those of Japan). The Revolution deliberately destroyed this, and traumatized a generation of the country’s citizens (as well as killing millions).

Communism in contrast enforces only a drab sameness; dreary plain clothing – the most prominent example being the Mao suit. The contrast with the gorgeous, elaborately-embroidered silk robes of the Imperial Court couldn’t be greater.

This is endemic of modern industrial society in general. Such opulent clothing is now only found in that made for movies and theater; modern fashion is ugly and poorly-made by comparison.

I may add that to my “Thoughts” page.

Sunday 16/7: Cold misery; stadium waste; patient China

Another bitterly cold morning today; around 3°C or so this morning in Melbourne. This cold is torture for me. I went out on my short bicycle ride nonetheless; my hands go numb despite wearing thick gloves. I am in misery during it.

“Richmond, Carlton pitch for multimillion dollar stadium upgrades,” The Age, 13/7. An outrageous proposal by two Australian Rules football clubs who want State Government funding to help with upgrading their stadiums.

Traditional AFL rivals Richmond and Carlton are each pitching for multimillion-dollar government support to transform their old home grounds at Punt Road and Princes Park.

The Tigers and the Blues have submitted blueprints to the Victorian Government in a move that could form part of Premier Daniel Andrews’ 2018 election strategy, along with a largely taxpayer-funded $300 million upgrade of Etihad Stadium. […]

Collingwood’s proposal for a new $1 billion stadium close to the MCG has been taken off the table. […]

The Victorian Government’s funding decision could now form part of the Andrews Government’s 2018 election campaign.

The government working party, chaired by Premier Andrews and including Treasurer Tim Pallas, has been established to look at multi-sport stadia and precinct funding across the state.

Two letters in response in the next day’s paper, echoing my opinion:

The greed of the AFL

I see the age of entitlement now extends to the AFL and affiliated clubs, Richmond and Carlton (“Home grounds cash bid,” Sport, 13/7). Why should the taxpayer foot the bill for the redevelopment of the three grounds?

I suggest that these organisations show transparency by revealing the wages of CEOs and coaching staff, the cost of trips overseas and interstate, as well as other expenses such as high altitude training.

Clubs now have a $12.4million salary cap and the average player earns $371,000 a year with support for every challenge in life. State funds would be better spent on health, education, transport and victims of crime. The AFL and the clubs should pay for these redevelopments and the government should not be swayed by the “community engagement” argument.

– Glenn Marchant, Pascoe Vale

You want, you pay

I am sick of politicians using my (taxpayers’) money to fund the upgrading of sporting grounds. Surely the AFL and Tennis Australia are wealthy enough to fund these things themselves. Many taxpayers do not go to the football or the tennis but will fund these venues. I suppose the tickets to enter these venues will be more expensive, too.

– Audrey Baillie, Golden Square

“Chinese content to play the long game,” Herald-Sun, 11/7. An opinion piece on China’s possible goals and ability to wait and plan for the long term, in this case, its eventual dominance in the South China Sea at the expense of the USA’s former dominance. The Chinese authorities must surely regard US President Trump as a naïve fool, not to mention Australia’s equally idiotic government, and they would be right. I do believe that China will come to dominate the rest of the 21st century, as Western influence wanes. Whether that is a good or bad trend remains to be seen.

Tuesday 25/7: Hermit in the woods

ABC Compass screened a documentary last Sunday about a hermit, Peter O’Neill, who lived in the woods in Ireland, and who died alone. He was eccentric, anti-social and reclusive, and spent his time reading a lot of books and searching for “the secret of the Universe,” hence the documentary title. I found it sad that he died alone, but perhaps he was content. He lived in a shack in a forest, and it did not look comfortable to me – winters would be very cold. I am not sure what he did for a living, though he seemed to have a small income selling herbs online that he grew in his garden.

If I had the means I would probably be a hermit, though hopefully in more comfort (i.e. in a small apartment) as I could not cope with the cold weather. I cannot cope with the world; I have tried to acquire skills for a career of some sort when I was younger, but this did not work out and I retreated back into the relative safety of my parents’ home. I have no means of supporting myself, but society is more hostile and competitive than ever. I dread to think of what will happen to me once my parents have gone; I have no income and no savings, and I fear I would become homeless and I doubt I would last long after that.

August

Tuesday 1/8: Meteor! And the ISS

I saw a meteor this morning! (Or perhaps space orbital debris.) I was coming home from my morning walk down the driveway around 5:20 a.m. and saw a brief bright streak coming down into the west. It was bluish-white in color, leaving a short trail behind it. I also happened to see the International Space Station pass over from west to east around 6:30 a.m. yesterday morning, when hanging out my washing. I stopped looking out for it years ago, so any sightings now are accidental.

Saturday 5/8: Awaiting Spring and warmth

Still cold and miserable weather. Pink blossom is appearing on the flowering plum street trees at least, which is a cheering sign that warmer weather is not too far away.

I feel tired and overwhelmed, and unable to cope. The news that bombards us every day is almost entirely negative and it feels like it won’t take much for things to break down. My future is very uncertain and insecure, and I have a ongoing anxiety. I fear I will eventually end up homeless, as can happen to anyone. Homelessness is on the increase no thanks to housing being unaffordable. What should be a basic right is more like a competition to see who can attain shelter, and the whole system is warped and corrupted.

“A 12-pack of soap aimed at my head: abuse of young sales staff is out of control,” The Age, 31/7. Retail work is an awful, low-status, degrading job and I experienced verbal abuse myself from customers during my time doing it. I never want to work in that industry again; I would rather starve to death. I do believe I even have some PTSD from it.

Wednesday 16/8: Not quite so cold; body checks; a poignant photo

The weather is slowly getting less bitterly cold. Flowering plum street trees are out in full pink blossom (at least, the remaining ones that the local council has not felled :-().

My current weight - around 43 kg

My current weight (6/8/2017) – around 43 kg (scales may not be accurate).

Me, body check Me, body check

Two “body check” photos of myself, taken in a mirror, 13/8/2017.

I was looking through a book of photos about the Auschwitz death camp (I have been reading a little about the Holocaust recently). This photo below I found particularly poignant and harrowing:

Old woman with children at Auschwitz

Caption: A tragic image of an elderly lady trudging along a road with children destined for the crematoria in the summer of 1944. (USHMM - Courtesy of Yad-Vashem Museum)

They are both vulnerable victims, young and elderly. In a civilized world they would be protected, but civil society is no more in the death camp. I imagine myself with my maternal grandmother; how she loved me and how I still miss her; I look at photos of myself with her when I was little. The grandmother in the photo and her grandchildren would feel the same way about each other – she is herding the little ones along protectively, and they are all bundled up.

The sheer horror of the Holocaust can never be adequately expressed, yet neo-Nazis are still a problem today (such as a tragic event in the USA this week) and there are people who deny the Holocaust ever happened (despite plenty of evidence to the contrary). I can’t understand people with that mindset. Millions of people living perfectly ordinary lives were rounded up and slaughtered like animals; a complete overturning of civilized society and behavior.

I don’t know how those who survived the camps managed to cope mentally after losing family members; how they managed to get on with their lives. I could not imagine the horrors they confronted while incarcerated.

Monday 21/8: Pretty lights

One odd object that gives me a little enjoyment to look at are the color-changing solar lights that have been available for a few years. I made a .gif of mine below (just below 1 MB in size):

Solar color lights

They change in a red-green-blue cycle and are just nice to look at. I keep some for nightlights in my bedroom; I dislike sleeping in complete darkness.

(To make the .gif, I uploaded the camera-filmed .mov file – 101 MB originally – to my YouTube channel, then used an online service at Imgur to convert the link to a .gif.)

Sunday 27/8: Bludger-bashing time again

Dole-recipient demonizing from the national tabloid today; the topic was the front page headline. (Last round: 29/6 entry.) An obvious ploy to target a vulnerable group and incite hatred. The reporters who write this bullshit should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. I am angry and despairing; welfare is already nearly impossible to get and campaigns like this against a vulnerable group to incite hatred and envy only make things worse. There is an opinion piece from the Prime Minister, not that he would know anything about being poor. He spouts the usual hateful platitudes about the “dignity of work” and “enterprise, hard work, reward for effort, having a go and opportunity.” Well, many people “work hard” all their lives and still have little to show for it except a joyless existence barely managing to survive. (I have come to loathe the phrase “work hard” in fact; it implies one is morally deficient if one does not like working in shit jobs.) There is also no “dignity” in poorly-paid, low-status meaningless jobs; they are instead demoralizing. In fact The Guardian had a recent article stating that “The stress of low-paid work is making our country sick,” based on a report that says “Having a bad job can be worse for your health than being unemployed.” Another article: “Why Having a Bad Job Is Worse for Your Health Than Having No Job at All.” (All three articles reproduced here.)

September

Tuesday 5/9: Persistent cold; writers against welfare

The cold weather still persists, dismayingly, with a cold front from Antarctica sending freezing westerly winds over Victoria, bringing snow to higher latitudes. I am yearning for summer with desperation; I seem to be chronically cold. Living in a poorly-insulated, old weatherboard house does not help (though I am grateful not to be homeless).

Some letters in the 3/9 Sunday Herald-Sun in response to the unfair and biased “dole bludgers” article the previous week (see 27/8 entry). The leading letters are very nasty in tone, but a couple of others are more reasoned (surprisingly they got published, given the newspaper’s anti-welfare bias):

Off your butts, bludgers

I AM appalled but not surprised at the figures quoted in “The big bludge” (SHS, Aug 27).

It’s about time the youth of this country who are quite healthy and able to work got off their butts and stopped being a liability to society.

What an embarrassment to be presenting figures such as these on people who in a lot of cases have no intention of ever working? Why do governments allow this to happen?

While there are genuine cases where people are unable to partake in the workforce, and many who have to battle to receive entitlements, we have a large majority of bludgers within our society who seem to get away with rorting the system over and over.

I guess you cannot blame them, in the selfish environment they grow up in today, for making no attempt whatsoever to alter their very comfortable existence.

– V. Wilson, Mt Martha

System is not fair

IT is an absolute disgrace that our governments have allowed people who refuse to work to cost taxpayers $15 billion.

My wife is on Newstart. At age 62 she has many disabilities that make it impossible to do any form of work. Centrelink has 45 pages covering her ever-increasing medical issues that will not improve, ranging from chronic back problems to excruciating arthritis.

What does the Centrelink person who interviews her have to say? “Sorry, you cannot go on a disability pension as you need to have more points.” More points? What the? You have someone who can hardly get out of bed each (lay and the government wants her to work, yet no business would take the risk.

She’s still expected to look for work and fill in her Newstart papers every fortnight.

And I wonder how many more thousands of people are put in the same situation as my wife. I’m not a betting man but I’d say probably a third and there lies a lot of the problem–they, like my wife, are forced onto Newstart when they should be on a disability pension.

– Name and address supplied

Top end on take too

OK, we get it. Welfare is exploited. But if welfare recipients are bludgers, what do we call the following? ATO records show 678 of Australia’s biggest corporations didn’t pay tax in Australia in 2014-15.

Media reports say losses of hundreds of millions in the vocational training sector are due to fraud and incompetence.

Aussie battlers are facing a negative impact of the casualisation of the workforce. Many workers battle to survive structural change by having to “work smarter” in a world with fewer jobs.

– Rod Dixon, Glen Iris

Focus on the wealthy

IT is unfair to portray the 100,000 long-term unemployed as idly sitting around refusing to accept employment.

The vast majority of these people really want full-time, properly paid, meaningful employment but there are simply not 100,000 full-time job vacancies waiting for them to fill.

Instead of criticising the vulnerable poor, I wish the federal government and media would focus on the wealthy businesses and corporations that continually avoid paying billions of dollars in taxation.

– Robert Van Zetten, Highton

Sunday 17/9: Warmish day; today’s welfare-bashing; mysterious jet

I haven’t felt like writing much; too lethargic.

Today was actually warmish (15°C or so), though beginning with a chilly morning, 4°C or so, and there are even a couple of days forecast in the low 20s later this week. I do keep going on about it, but I am desperate for this awful cold weather to be over.

Today’s Herald-Sun welfare-bashing opinion piece, “The dole has gone from safety net to hammock.” Rupert Murdock seems to be on a malicious crusade against welfare recipients, using them as a scapegoating target for public resentment. It is an utterly evil attitude, but one that many readers will be influenced by. I am tired and disheartened by this continual negativity. (Previously: 5/9 entry.)

There is a high-altitude jet (or jets) that flies over fairly regularly most days, from east to west or vice-versa, leaving a contrail. Dad says it is a B-1 Lancer on patrol, based in Guam. I try to look at it from binoculars when I see it, but it is a little bit too distant to view clearly, though it does resemble the organic shape of the big jet, and is greyish in color. Anderson Air Force Base is located there and has some B-1s.

Saturday 30/9: Grand Final Day; a creature of routine; Health Care Card frustrations

Today the Australian Rules football team I follow, Richmond Tigers, miraculously made it into the Grand Final for the first time since 1982, and the local newspapers are saturated with black and yellow. I am not watching the match as the suspense would kill me! My maternal Grandpa grew up in Richmond and followed that team, so my grandmother did too, and we inherited this (I have never been to a match, though). Update: miraculously, they won!

My days seem to be filled with chores, exercise and so on and I barely seem to have the time for anything creative (admittedly all this is self-imposed). I am thus restless and exhausted much of the time. I see it as a form of self-discipline – I could lie around in bed for most of the day and stuff myself with junk food, but I choose not to (and could not live with myself if I did; I would get fat and lazy). I need routine and order, tend to be inflexible with these, and function badly if my routines are disrupted (something which other people can find exasperating). This is a typical Asperger Syndrome trait.

I have had a lot of trouble renewing my Health Card Card this year; I sent in the appropriate form on time but it was not renewed until this week, and expired last week, so I don’t know what is happening with Centrelink this year (though the nasty Liberal Government deliberately cuts funding and staff from the welfare department). Last year I received a new card in around a week. A new one has finally been issued but I will not receive it in the mail until next week at least. I need the HCC for doctor’s visit concession fares and concession train tickets.

I was doing a search for Soyuz survival training and came across this page from 2013 which mentions my site! I still find it disconcerting to see it mentioned elsewhere as I am certainly not an expert.

October

Wednesday 4/10: Warming up; too much to read; creative block; overindulged pets

Today is gloriously warm and sunny, as was yesterday. This weather cheers me up a little; the past winter has been so cold, damp and miserable for me. Sadly more rain is due over the next few days. I would be content if it never rained again.

I have quite a few novels I am reading at once; I bounce from one to the other as the mood takes me, so I will be a long time finishing them if I ever do (short attention span). Most are science fiction and fantasy; I just want escapism into other worlds.

I still have creative thoughts and images going through my head, but find it hard to sit down and bring them into the real world (writing and drawing); this is frustrating as I feel I have wasted much of the year.

As I get older, I find myself getting more tolerant of children, and even liking them. I still don’t want any but I am not militantly childfree as many on the r/childfree Reddit forum are (see 3/5 entry). Quite a few prioritize pets over children, which is a warped way of thinking, to my view. I have spent almost no time around young children in my life (a perhaps sad indictment on how individualistic and disconnected from family our society is), so am still uncomfortable with how to relate to them.

A couple more articles on the ridiculous pets-as-substitute-children trend: “The pampered dog world of the ‘fur baby’” and “No expense spared on Australia's fur babies as doggy day care and pet minding services grow.” I loathe the phrase “fur babies;” it is stupidly childish and demeaning. People in some other cultures must regard all this pet indulgence with bewilderment; animals tend to be regarded with a more utilitarian attitude there. I also find myself less adverse to horse racing and greyhound racing, as long as the animals are treated well. The various welfare groups who campaign militantly against these can be quite irritating. I do wish I could pat a racehorse and greyhound; they are elegant animals and I am craving something to hug. (I have not been near an animal since Sasha was put to sleep in December 2012, and I do not have human contact.)

Tuesday 10/10: Swedish vampires; horrible Hanson

Warm and sunny for a couple of days. Winter is slowly releasing its grip, though some mornings are still cold.

I watched Let the Right One In (the 2008 Swedish movie). I enjoyed it very much! For the most part it was creepy but understated – set mostly in an ordinary and snowed-in Stockholm apartment complex in the early 1980s (extra nostalgia for me!) – and the friendship between the bullied boy and vampire felt poignant and real. (Initially thought to be a girl, but the vampire was a castrated young boy, done long ago, as I could ascertain.) The bullies got a satisfying if gruesome comeuppance in the end! I would highly recommend the movie. The Nordic countries are ones I like, outside of Japan.

More negatively, I watched a documentary called Pauline Hanson: Please Explain!; itself quite good, but the subject matter is cringeworthy and made me embarrassed to share the same nationality as her. It says something dismal about the mentality of many people that she got back into power again. A comment from Reddit:

Not the OC, but my understanding is that rather than just shooting her down for being an idiot, we need to use facts, not emotion, and stay calm.

Any angry or dismissive reaction could lead to her supporters thinking, “See, you’re just angry because she’s right!”

Unfortunately, the bigoted, ignorant things she’s saying are in tune with what some people are thinking. It’s also easier for information to be digested in small soundbite pieces – something Hanson is brilliant at. There are voters whose only source of “news” is Channel 7. If they see small soundbite, “pro-Australian” comments from Hanson, they may think, “Yes – that’s right! How dare those Muslims come here and try and force us to eat Halal!”

That’s what we’re competing with, a lot of people who are only interested in listening to the soundbites. If Hanson’s soundbite sounds “Aussie” and speaks to what people are worried about, they are likely to listen to her, without necessarily figuring out what her policies actually mean, or whether or not they’re based in any fact.

On the other hand, if the opposing soundbite is simply something like “Hanson is an idiot”, that’s also easily digestible, but if that’s ALL someone is hearing, they may take it personally. It also doesn’t give them any information as to WHY she might be considered an idiot.

These people don’t hear the actual arguments, and they don’t have any inclination to do any research whatsoever in to what they’re supporting. So if they’re hearing “OMG those Muslims are taking things away from us!”, they might think: “That’s right! They’re taking our taxes for their pensions! What about ME?!”

If the rebuttal they then hear is, “Pauline is an idiot and a bigot”, that gives them absolutely nothing to support disagreeing with Hanson. Especially given she often rattles on about there being “no free speech” and that we’re all “too politically correct”. People already agreeing with her will think, “Jeez, you can’t even comment when the taxes are unfair!”

She talks about experiencing life’s hard knocks. She talks about raising a family and working hard. She admits she’s “just” an average Australian with a real job in the real world. Watch her maiden speech – it’s plain language, it says nothing actually intelligent or even factual, but shit, it’s perfect. She wanted to speak to these people who feel they are “Aussie battlers”. And it worked. It STILL works.

A better argument is a small, brief argument that very clearly and easily conveys why she’s wrong. It’s a tough battle with her supporters, because they often feel like they’re missing out on something. They fear that refugees are taking their jobs. They fear that if Hanson can’t “speak freely”, then they will lose their “right to free speech” as well.

Like it or not, she’s a political underdog (see Howard’s, Turnbull’s and others’ comments about her). People who think they agree with her feel like she’s “one of them” – she’s a battler, she’s a hard worker, she GETS what it’s like to be a “real Aussie”. She understands the working mums and dads! Those rich politicians don’t understand what it’s like to try and raise a family and be struggling while others are leeching our pensions, etc.

Note: I’m avidly against Hanson, and none of the comments above that seem to support her match what I think. I’m unfortunate enough to know several people who support her (ugh), but all of what I’ve said above is what I’ve noticed with them.

Edit: Pauline Hanson is dangerous, for all the reasons above. It’s not just that her policies and ideas are completely ignorant. It’s that she makes great headlines, she says things that are terrible and not at all factual, but they make news. Do not underestimate Pauline Hanson.

Edit 2: Watch the SBS special. She is given figures about Australian-born Asians, and she just flatly says, “I don’t believe those figures.” As Tracey Curro says, “suddenly a lack of education was something to be worn as a badge of honor”.

When asked if she’s xenophobic, she doesn’t know what xenophobic means. In the SBS special, she actually says 90-95% of the public didn’t know what xenophobic means and that the more they bash her, the more support she gets.

Wednesday 18/10: Warming up; collapse

Nearly 30°C today; I am not cold for the first time in what seems like months.

I have a mild interest in the survivalist/prepper mentality and culture. Quite a few people believe a collapse of our current society is inevitable in some form; it is very complex, relying on a fragile chain of supplies to keep functioning, and this is easily disrupted by natural or human-made disasters. That being said, I would not be likely to survive long; I can barely cope with my life now and have no physical or mental energy (or funds) to prepare for a disaster or learn survival skills.

A couple of active subreddits are r/Collapse and r/Preppers.

Some people want a collapse to happen – two recent posts: Does anyone want a collapse to happen? and I’m going to be made fun of for “trying to be edgy”, but is anyone else looking forward to the day society truly collapses and we can start rebuilding towards something better? There are quite a few replies to the negative in those. A real social collapse would be quite unpleasant for most.

Sunday 29/10: The Tiger’s Daughter

Warm today; almost 30°C or so! But a cool change and rain coming later, unfortunately.

I ordered a novel, The Tiger’s Daughter, by a new author, K Arsenault Rivera. It is an Asian-inspired fantasy, a relationship between two young women, one from the dominant Empire and one of the nomads from the steppes. There are influences from Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian cultures. The writing style is lush and descriptive, and I felt compelled to buy the physical book.

However, one reviewer at Goodreads took exception to the supposed “cultural appropriation” and went into great detail about the story’s supposed faults. This sort of nitpicking irritates me extremely; if authors felt constrained by such accusations, they would be too fearful to write anything outside of their own experience. It is political correctness gone to an extreme. I have to admit one reason I ordered the book was as a snub towards such reviewers and reviews. (I sent a Twitter tweet to the author saying I loved the preview chapters and ordered her novel, so I hope that cheered her a little.)

November

Thursday 2/11: 47 in a week; binging and purging; welfare-bashing

One week until I turn 47. Only 3 years from 50! I do not feel that old, mentally, though my body is obviously not young anymore now.

I have been binging and purging again: buying items I can’t afford and returning them (mainly clothing), and of some of my possessions, and of my website. I seem to have a real problem with this behavior, like with other aspects of my personality. I feel like I am going mad with it sometimes, and have realized it is very similar in appearance to bulimia. I also have a lot of trouble making any decisions, and am generally agitated and depressed. I deleted my website yet again in a fit of depression a couple of days ago, then reuploaded it (last time I did this: 17/11/2016 entry). I do have Wordpress installed in one folder, but find it clunky and dislike the lack of control I have over it, in comparison to my plain HTML webpages here which I can see and edit directly. Wordpress is a content-managed blog, and, as with such programs, there are barriers between me and my content in its database.

Time for more welfare-bashing from the Murdoch tabloids (last round: 27/8 entry.): “Warning over booming Australian welfare bill.” Would they rather see people starve, turn to crime?

Sunday 12/11: A year older; Jerry Pournelle passing; wishing for an invasion; nomadic couple

I am now 47 years old. Only 3 years from 50! I do not feel that old, mentally, as I keep saying on this topic. My life has fled by as I have watched passively. I have nothing to show for all these years, but feel too apathetic to remedy that.

The science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle passed away earlier this year (8 September – posts at MetaFilter, HackerNews and Reddit). I ordered two of his novels, Footfall (1985, alien invasion) and Lucifer’s Hammer (1977, comet impact). Although both are old now, they are still good reads. Unfortunately his politics were Conservative/right-wing, but the novels still make riveting reading despite this due to their apocalyptic nature. The comet impact one is particularly harrowing, with the complete collapse and destruction of our civilization as we know it.

I find myself wishing on the stars for an alien invasion/occupation, as I doubt that event would be worse than what humanity is already doing to each other, as evidenced by the daily news headlines. But the stars remain remote and silent.

“Wild at heart: how one woman and her husband live out in the woods,” The Guardian, 5/11. Linked to from a Reddit r/collapse post. Miriam Lancewood has lived a nomadic “primitive” off-the-grid lifestyle for the last 7 years, mostly in New Zealand, with her husband. I cynically wonder how eager they would be to continue if they had to live like that for the rest of their lives – they are not fully divorced from civilization. I found the comments on women having children a bit patronizing as such a life would simply not appeal to many. There is nothing wrong with wanting security (food, shelter, etc.).

When they do bump into another person in the wild it’s usually a hunter, and always a man. She thinks that perhaps women have lost their connection with nature, “even more than men. And also,” she adds, passionately, “why do women behave so weakly, physically? As in, ‘I can’t lift that,’ ‘I can’t shit outside,’ ‘I can’t have my period in the bush.’” She thinks it’s a shame women are missing out. […] Miriam and Peter often use the word “trapped” to describe how other people live. They never intend to have children and rely on another modern innovation – Miriam’s IUD – to make sure they don’t. They say it would be impossible to live in the wild with kids. So are kids a trap? “For us it would be a trap,” says Miriam. “You have to have a regular income. You have to settle down.” She laughs: “It scares me just thinking about it.” Miriam describes how men they do meet on their travels will often suddenly open up about their personal lives: “They say they wish their wives would come out hunting with them or if they had a choice again, they would never have children. That was the end of their freedom, they say.” […] He finds it startling that, with the advances in birth control, the majority of women still choose to have children. “I’ve met so many interesting women in their 20s, then along comes 30 and they succumb to the pressure. You think: ‘Why did you do nothing else with your life?’”

Monday 13/11: August meteor

I neglected to mention that back on Tuesday 1st August I saw a meteor! Or perhaps space debris. I was coming home from my morning walk down the driveway around 5:20 a.m. and saw a brief bright streak coming down into the west. It was bluish-white in color, leaving a short trail behind it. I just went back and added an entry for that day from my handwritten diary.

Sunday 19/11: Wild weather; patted a dog

The weather has been somewhat humid and tropical for a few days, with sunny days followed by rainy afternoons. There were intense storm cells formed over Melbourne yesterday in the late afternoon, resulting in heavy rains, flooding and power blackouts. There was a brief blackout at home (on and off), and I had my computer on, but the surge protector fitted to our power supply seems to have worked as my PC does not seem affected.

I was browsing in a local op shop (opportunity shop – charity shop) today and a middle-aged lady walked past with a little dog, a Maltese cross she looked like. The dog stopped and I impulsively patted her on the head; she was very quiet and seemed to like it – her fur was soft and silky. The lady said to me that she was a rescue (her previous owner passed away; presumably she was elderly and any relatives did not want the dog, as is sadly too often the case). We chatted for a few minutes then they went on their way. It is something I would not normally do out of shyness, but the interaction was pleasant, and was the first contact I had had with a dog (or any animal) since Sasha was put to sleep (3/12/2012 entry). Such contact is very comforting, and I miss it.

Tuesday 21/11: Planetary romance

A genre of science fiction I enjoy (as well as that of alien invasions) are those described as planetary romance, and also anthropological science fiction. Both involve human characters landing on a planet and interacting with the native aliens and landscape there. Examples include The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle, Planet of Adventure by Jack Vance (see my Books read page), and one I have just discovered and begun to read, A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason. I seen to like to observe and organize data (which was the original purpose of my website – recording what I had learned about the Russian space program) , so stories with such themes have a similar appeal, as well as the joy and wonder (and sometimes terror) of visiting an alien world and peoples.

I wish I could visit another habitable planet, and talk to the aliens there. But I am born too early, and with current technology humans are unlikely to go outside of our solar system in the next century at least (assuming our civilization does not collapse from overconsumption of resources and environmental destruction). There are still natural wonders on Earth, and a very few uncontacted peoples (ones whose culture has not yet been ruined) but both are under threat from modern industrial civilization.

December

Friday 1/12: PSU failure; rain apocalypse

My computer’s Power Supply Unit failed on Wednesday; it did not awaken from sleep mode and was completely unresponsive. Dad replaced it and it seems to be working normally again, hopefully! I borrowed one of Dad’s in the interim, but the ordeal was quite stressful!

The state of Victoria is enduring a major weather event from today and the next 2 or 3 days: extremely heavy rainfall and flooding due to unusual climate conditions. Yesterday was hot and dry; today is wet and humid, with a lot of rain falling locally already, and more due overnight (there is currently a lull). If it never rained again I would be happy!

Monday 11/12: Big Wet; Pusheen

Two weekends ago there was a “major weather event,” mainly a lot of rain falling over the south-eastern part of Australia, Melbourne included, from Friday 1/12 to Sunday. It was quite unpleasant, though Melbourne was spared the worst of the flooding.

Pusheen the Cat is my latest collectible obsession, though they are a bit expensive so I only have a very few. The plushies are soft and comforting to hold, and have a naïve happiness about them.

My Pusheen collection

Sunday 31/12: Another year gone

And not much to show for it. I have maintained my weight at least. I have not done much creatively; I am in a near-inactive period there.

Christmas Day was quiet, as is usual for me now. I did receive an iPod Nano (generation 5) that Dad had bought a few years ago and had used little, so I am happy to inherit it.