Consciousness – Page 75

Hello chaps

“…this is our school let love abide here, love of God, love of mankind, and love of one another.” – School prayer, Maclean Primary School (possibly paraphrased)

Religion in government run schools is a flashpoint subject. There’s nothing that will get the blood boiling for your average atheist than to have religion try to eke its way in to the school curriculum. The issue has been hotly debated in the US for years and the debate has hit our shores with the PM’s decision to fund chaplains in State Schools. The issue has been in the peripherals for a long time – last year it was the proposal to teach intelligent design in the science room – France had an impassioned debate over the rights of students to wear religious clothing to school – the secular state/church relationship is peculiar to say the least.

Surprisingly for some, the chaplaincy scheme is almost as unpopular with Christians as it is with Joe Blow atheist, albeit for different reasons. Whatever your philosophical position on the matter – Australia is a country that celebrates religious freedom – and encourages diversity of beliefs – as a result of the s116 of the constitution (which rules out an official state church). This freedom is a result of the historical hard work of many Christian men and women who staunchly fought for that right – along with fighting for other notable causes such as equal rights for women and aboriginals, the labor union movement, the founding of the Liberal party etc… where there is political or social progress in our history there’s generally been a Christian involved (some would describe the advent of secular humanism and other small l liberal advents as progress – I would argue that they’re generally an example of the use of freedoms won earlier or blatant plagiarism of ideals from historical groups). There is a strong social and historical argument for the teaching of Christianity in schools – but the context it’s taught in is open for argument – should Christianity enjoy a protected position as the religion of choice taught in RE? Should Christians be given special preference in these newly formed government funded chaplaincy positions? The philosophical answer to both those questions is probably not – if we’re upholding a society where people are free to believe whatever they want (which is as important for Christians as it is for Muslims, atheists, Jews and Mormons) we possibly need to provide equal access to all the options (an all or nothing approach of sorts).

I’ve been having some conversations with Mr Benny lately on the issue – below are some extracts from the emails we’ve sent back and forth…

“I hate school prayer.” – Ben

So do I, but for theological reasons – I don’t mind the idea of a Christian praying for the school every day – that’s great – but forcing people to pray to a God they don’t believe in is ridiculous and should be offensive to all Christians because it belittles the idea of God.

“I’m happy to have the history of religion and umm i lack the ability to express this part – i think it’s perfectly good to have the “stories” (sorry i know that’s a real bad word I just can’t think of the right one) of religion to be taught in the same way as science, maths, Shakespeare etc. My concerns stem from the fact legislation is being brought in and it is moving towards what I just mentioned, but the ideals are then being raped by religious zealots intent on promoting religion in schools. $20000 goes to a school, the discretion on who to employ is falling within the schools, you have some religious people in positions of authority, a religious chaplain is employed, and suddenly you have $20000 of tax payer’s money to have a preacher in a school.” – Ben

This argument is interesting but somewhat contradictory. Who is going to get to teach the religious subjects? Suggesting an atheist teach religion is like suggesting a drama teacher teach physics because they have some grasp of the concepts involved but no understanding. A religious teacher should be just as free to promote religion as an English teacher is to promote the beauty of the English language – or a science teacher is to promote the complexity of a plant. That’s what education is – it’s being presented with a series of views and deciding which ones appeal. Because of the “wonderful” nature of postmodernism in education there’s no truth that can be taught as an absolute anymore anyway so children aren’t being forced to believe anything. I can deny gravity if I can justify it. The anti RE argument is also completely flawed – RE in state schools is an opt out system where parents who feel strongly enough can pull their children out of a class – in an interesting side note we don’t have opt out science, or opt out maths so clearly there’s already a distinction between the subjects. What we do have is an opening for anyone of any religious persuasion to come in and teach RE – in my primary school the JWs had their own religion classes – and I can only assume if a Muslim wanted to teach Islamic RE classes during that timeslot that would be a possibility under the current legislation.

The role of the counsellor/chaplain needs to be clearly defined – and Christians are just as concerned about the implications of this legislation as everyone else – nobody wants crazy people running around on school grounds converting kids to an obscure cult. And the last thing Christians want is for a government driven by a politically correct agenda to water down the gospel into a more palatable mix of peace and love – without all the nasty bits.

“I swear, if there are reports of school chaplains directing students to prayer and such if they are approached for counselling then I will go and punch them in the face myself (that’s just student X, not a student they have a history with and know is of their religious persuasion).” – Ben

What guidance can a guidance counsellor offer – when is a student allowed to leave school grounds to seek counselling from a church – a large number of community based, government endorsed counselling services (ie the Salvation Army) are church based anyway so you’re not solving whatever your perceived problem is by keeping counsellors out of school – unless your problem is that it shouldn’t be happening at school because of your political ideology – and that’s a rabid breakdown in rationality if the ideal is more important than the people impacted. People will not be forced to use these counsellors – they’re there for those who will – and in that case it’ll be $20,000 well spent – the fact is that $20,000 will only pay about a half of a person and the other half will come from the combined churches in an area – so the federal funding is probably ensuring chaplains have an obligation to act as counsellors rather than religious salespeople.

And therein lies the concern for Christians – in paying the chaplain, the government then essentially pays to have some control over their message/methodology – which is a breakdown in the separation of church and state in the other direction – ie the state should not dictate the practices of a church. Most Evangelical Christians feel strongly about the notion of the gospel being the only way to God – any watering down of this message fails to serve their purposes as much as it would be a failing if the education system was to employ a “preacher.”

I read Premier Beattie’s plea for churches to pray for rain with interest – particularly the paragraph referring to members of other faiths as “brothers and sisters” who should be encouraged to pray to their Gods – which God will get the credit now if it rains? Seems pretty confusing to me – not to mention the politically correct agenda being pushed and signed onto by the heads of Queensland’s major Christian churches… shame, shame, shame I say.

November 6, 2006

Ton of fun

Here we go – 100 posts chalked up on the board – if I was a cricket player I’d be raising my bat in triumph – this raises a question or two that I’d like to see answered – namely “why is 100 runs called a ton in cricket when it’s generally a measure of 1000 kgs?”, “why celebrate 100 anyway – why not make the mark 77 – it’s much more achievable?”, “What was a ton called before the metric system?” – if you know the answer to these questions I’d love you to tell me.

You’ll notice that for a limited time only you can view all 100 posts on the main page. I read some of the earlier ones – and like everything that I write and reread I think some of them are terrible and I apologise in retrospect for inflicting them on you.

I’ve used this blog to comment on a number of topics ranging from myself and my (mis)adventures, politics, the media and sport.

Luckily for you mr(s)/(-r +iss)/(-r + s) reader there’s plenty more where that came from with the wide world providing ample fodder for me to shake my proverbial stick at. One day I hope to be an old man sitting on a porch shaking a literal stick, but for now I’ll be content with what I have.

My (mis)Adventures
Lend me your ears (or eyes because this isn’t an aural experience) and I will tell you tales of strange dreams, daring adventures and wild animals.

For those of you unfamiliar with this tail(sic) last week I dressed up as a lion to help a friend in need. I’m assuming that he’s had enough time to spread the news so that I don’t get the scoop. A picture will be posted shortly – but the long and the short of it is that Aaron proposed to Donna with my assistance (and I mean on the night, rather than right from the beginning when I was instrumental in their coming together – I can actually claim credit for that one). I sold him a flower with a ring in it, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But the story doesn’t end there. Well hopefully not for Donna and Aaron – but definitely not for me as you’ll now read. The night before last while engaged in peaceful slumber I had a very strange dream. I dreamt that I was in the lion suit again, only it had become a dolphin suit. I was suggesting that someone else try the dolphin suit on, but the suit had suddenly developed buttons. I had some trouble with the buttons and they eventually ripped off the suit – the buttons that is, not the person. At that point I woke up and found that I’d somehow managed to insert myself into my quilt cover and the buttons were in fact real.

Media and politics
There’s hours and hours of stuff I could write about the media at the moment – who’s buying, who’s selling. It’s a world gone topsy turvy – but so far nothing too scary has happened. I suspect it will be like every other controversial law passed by the government – it’s impact will actually be fairly minimal.

The ABC is in the throes of a series of rolling strikes from staff demanding pay increases across the board. The best strike story came last night as a camera man walked off the job mid story.

Sport
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while – it’s a few weeks old, but it still makes me cringe…

So there you have it. 100 posts featuring more than 54,600 words. That’s more than a novel.

October 27, 2006

Life in the tropics

Someone recently pointed out that it has been a while since I actually wrote anything about myself and life in Townsville. So here’s an update for those of you out there who care. For those of you who don’t just scroll up and down and marvel at the snazzy new design. I’ve been in Townsville for 7 months and one day today. If I was a gestating foetus I’d probably be able to survive outside the womb if I was born after that period – and that’s an apt analogy for life in Townsville. I think I could survive life in Townsville for an extended period of time now – and I wouldn’t even need to be kept in one of those fancy humidicrib cradle things that they use for premmie babies. Summer is approaching pretty rapidly and that’s a little scary, but the Townsville Bulletin recorded this has been the coldest October on record. This is the latest in really bizarre weather patterns that have been occurring up here since I moved. It rained heaps in the middle of the year – which it’s never meant to do. There was a cyclone and an extended wet season. The stingers that were meant to arrive a few weeks ago still aren’t plaguing the beaches. I guess I’m changing the face of North Queensland. Outside of the weather (or inside) things are good. Work, church and home continue to be enjoyable and challenging and all the things those respective areas are meant to be. Nothing overly newsworthy has happened in any of those areas so I won’t bore you with any details.
I’m really enjoying spending time with Robyn. We made an appearance in the Townsville Bulletin a couple of weeks ago after attending the spectacular Townsville Enterprise North Queensland Tourism Awards – my media releases promoting the event earned me a pot of flowers from my CEO – they are now slowly wilting on my desk. Here’s the photo for your viewing pleasure.

Other than that there’s not much else happening. Other than some cool visitors heading up this way. Aaron and Donna are coming up this weekend which will be fun. I’m looking forward to getting up to mischief with my former partner in crime. Steve has just told me that he’s also coming up to visit next week which is pretty exciting. If anyone else wants to come up and needs convincing you should check this website out.

So there’s my update. That’s post number 98, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do to mark post number 100 – maybe I’ll release a book version of my blog.

October 19, 2006

There goes my hero

I promise today will be a long blog with many tangents. Here are the topics I will discuss – as this list will serve as a reminder for me as I write the blog and as a warning for you, my faithful readers: the excessive number of songs dealing with heroes and heroism, the excessive number of songs named Betterman (as a tangent), heroes specifically (and meeting one of mine), Andrew Finden’s amazingly well thought out contributions to my blog brought on by a nostalgic walk down memory lane, the advertising industry, the media, Kevin Rudd, Quality magazines, Big Day Out… a week of relative inactivity brought on by the absence of my nearest and dearest Townsville friends: what I do when I lack stimulation.

Songs about heroes
Once upon a time I was part of a hugely successful soccer team somewhat appropriately named Mitchie Mayhem. Our strategy was to reduce the opposition to our level of chaos (mayhem) and then beat them into submission. One particular year our team overcame improbable odds to make the finals – we were required to win a high proportion of our last few games to qualify. One week, to inspire our boys to victory I sang a song about heroes during the warm up. We won, and it quickly became a prematch superstition which was firmly entrenched by the time we made the grand final. By my count, and in my somewhat hazy recollections, there were 8 matches that required songs and there were no reruns. Off the top of my head there was There Goes My Hero, the Spiderman hero song, Wind Beneath My Wings… the list goes on. It looks like easy song writing fodder.

Tangent – Betterman
While we’re on the subject of easy song writing fodder – what’s the deal with the number of songs named Betterman? Robbie Williams, Pearl Jam, John Butler Trio… there are numerous songs out there – why can’t anyone just be content with the man they are…

Heroes
What is a hero anyway? Someone who inspires? Someone others aspire to be like? Have you ever met your heroes? I’ve always been a little reticient to meet people who inspire me, or whose achievements I aspire to because of the fear I’ll be disappointed. Last night I put a face to a person who’d been a faceless hero of mine for some time. I appreciate good advertising. I appreciate wit. And as a result I’ve always been a fan of Virgin Blue’s advertising campaigns and corporate branding. Last night at a work seminar I met the man behind the marketing. He was talking about the advertising industry and had some really good things to say – no one had any idea that he was the Virgin guy until he brought it up in the last 5 minutes of his presentation. His approach to that account totally blew me away – in pitching for the role he basically told Richard Branson that there was no way he could be the face of an Australian airline because Australians know him as a crazy British guy who crashes hot air balloons – hardly someone you’d trust to fly you around the country on a budget airline. I can’t go on too much about this because of all the topics I have to cover. But I almost got his autograph at the end – that’s how cool I think he is. He also loves puns, when he said that I felt an almost instant connection to him. I’m very rarely in awe of anyone’s intellect or creative vision – but this guy was good. Except when he called himself a guru. That almost lost him points, even if it was slightly tongue in cheek. I’ve also always had a problem with the arrogance involved in labelling yourself as a “creative”. But I’ll forgive him that.

Andrew Finden’s comments
While I’m on the subject of inspiration, I was going back through the comments on some of my older posts, as I do, and I read through some of Andrew the Opera Singer’s comments. I’d like to congratulate Andrew on his always informative, well educated voicing of sometimes contrary opinions on the pages of my blog. One particularly interesting comment of Andrew’s that I’d like to query but didn’t actually do at the time was from the post on whether derivative art is bad art, he said:
“Does this mean that all these boy bands are ok? Heck no! The real problem with pop music is that it’s dumb. It’s like having a painting with a yellow panel, a red panel and a blue panel. It’s not hard to understand. It’s basic and simple. Good art is not basic, and is not always easy to understand. Mozart doesn’t repeat three chords over and over. It has intricacy and complexity.”

My question is this – is the statement that good art is not basic fair in an era where subjectivity rules and minimalism is the new black – can’t a 3 chord (or even a one chord) song with evocative (but not necessarily complex) lyrics be just as valid as a piece of art? Shouldn’t artistic value be determined by emotional response?… which segues nicely into my next topic…

The Advertising Industry
One of the things Mr Advertising Guru had to say was on the topic of corporate branding. Branding is bigger than your corporate logo. Branding is the “emotional response” people have to being presented with your company – it’s the associated feeling, the vibe, the connection people feel to your product or services. A good advertising campaign and established brand will communicate a positive message and evoke a positive response from your target audience. Being the media afficianado (I almost used the word guru) that I like to think I am, I realise that advertising is what makes the media world go round (unless you’re the ABC – in which case tax is what spins your world). Without advertising there is no content. Tourism Australia are moving towards campaigns without paid advertising. The basic premise is that because editorial content is more credible than a paid ad it’s more valuable to the customer. We work out the PR value of our editorial generated by multiplying the advertising rate by an obscene 9 times.

There are a number of problems with this model – without advertising there’s no editorial, there’s a very grey line between obtaining editorial coverage and the talkback radio “cash for comment” fiasco.
Following the Tourism Australia case study for a little while longer – Tourism Australia want editorial content to carry their key messages. (side note: Tourism Australia are doing what the government is doing and moving towards a user pays system). To justify all the travel editorial out there the media will need to find advertising from other sources for their travel shows, travel liftouts in newspapers, and travel magazines. This search will lead them to small businesses and the costs will fall on the heads of the little operators to fund. No media outlet will provide editorial without advertising dollars to back it up.

The state of the Media
Again, a natural segue from advertising to the media itself – I’m worried by the cross media ownership laws. Small country towns will suffer if all their outlets are bought by the same company only allowing the one “voice” to provide news and information. However, the concept of owning multiple media platforms is also quite exciting and I’m sure the different media outlets are salivating at the prospect of being able to sell advertising packages across multiple platforms. The buzz word for this is “convergence” and Nine are already doing it to some extent with PBL owning the Bulletin – having a local paper, or a national paper, where you can cross promote your content and bundle your advertising will make a lot of people a lot of money.

Quality Magazines (and Kevin Rudd)
John Howard has been in the newspapers this week speaking out on Quadrant – the intellectually stimulating but admittedly verbose and elitist culture watch magazine. The PM likes it. He doesn’t like the rest of the “left wing” media. There are a number of interesting magazines that I suggest you all buy because magazines are the coolest thing since sliced bread. These are: The Monthly (which this mo
nth features an article from Kevin Rudd on the mix of religion and politics which is well worth a read, I have a lot of respect for Kevin Rudd (who I also met this year) this article enhanced my respect for him), Quadrant, Rolling Stone, J Mag, The Bulletin (just for John Birmingham’s column really, and sometimes the cover stories are good), Dissent (for some lefty balance), The Quarterly Review. If you read all these then you too can be a well informed, self proclaimed media afficianado.

Big Day Out
I am most definitely going to Big Day Out next year because so are Muse. You should all join me. I also heard a rumour somewhere that Thom Yorke will be coming… but that could just be hearsay.

My Week
This week has taken way too long. Robyn, Tim and all the people who brighten the doors of JJ’s (my house – don’t ask what it stands for) are off on a camp. Dave and I have been spending some quality time, although mostly I’m playing computer games because they’re proven to make time go faster. Other people are still around in Townsville (Scooter is still here, and CB is around – but no one has really been providing me with any stimulus so I’ve created my own fun by killing France in Civilisation 3. That’s pretty rewarding actually – we should all declare war on France every once in a while.

So there you have it, over 1600 words of pure substance (as in it’s 100% the same type of substance – whether it’s gold or “other” is up to the reader to decide… that’s the nature of art – but this certainly isn’t minimalism)

October 6, 2006

Rules for operating a motor vehicle…

Joel suggested I’d attract more interaction on my blog by courting controversy. Well, like the Townsville Bulletin, I’m sick of the crap drivers in Queensland. 28 lives have been lost to bad driving in North Queensland this year. That’s 28 times my press releases have been bumped from the newspaper by speeding, drinking, and stupid truck drivers who are too impatient to realise that 10km/hr over the speed limit will only get them to their destination at a marginally earlier time than obeying the speed limit and not tailgating my poor little purple excel. Or the other poor little people they routinely run off the road. The problem is not endemic to North Queensland. There are bad drivers all over the “Smart State”. My basic rule when I get behind the wheel of my deathbox is to assume that all the other drivers on the road are idiots. That assumption is pretty consistent with my experience. Here are some simple rules for you idiot Queenslanders to follow:

Indicate when changing lanes – it’s simple, it’s courteous, it stops people running into your car.
Don’t change lanes while turning on a roundabout – finish going round the roundabout then change lanes.
Shoulder check before merging – that way I don’t have to brake to avoid hitting your stupid souped up commodore.
Don’t under any circumstances honk your horn at me when I obey the road rules.
Give way at give way signs, give way to pedestrians when they have right of way.
Don’t overtake me on the highway when I’m already going slightly over the speed limit – the moral to this story is that if you’re an idiot and you overtake me, you’ll probably get busted by the police like that red Mitsubishi the other day.
On the other hand, if you drive a slow car, or drive a fast car slowly – use the left hand lane.

Here are some unwritten principles that I think should be introduced to discourage bad driving:

When you’re being overtaken on the highway by an impatient idiot – speed up so they can’t pass you.
When a truck is tailgating you on the highway turn on your hazard lights and/or softly apply the brakes so that your brake lights come on.
If a little car is tailgating you in the suburban streets remember your handbrake doesn’t have brake lights and the person at the back is always deemed responsible for a collision.
If you’re being tailgated at night let the other car pass you then high beam it. Alternatively, remember the speed limit is an optional maximum – if there’s no overtaking lane feel free to slow down to a speed you feel is “safe”.
When someone does something a little bit silly on the road give them a patronising round of applause rather than the traditional “up yours” hand signal.

I read an article somewhere on a proposed police crackdown on flashing your lights to warn other drivers about upcoming speed traps. I may have mentioned this before but I think that if police were serious about reducing speeding and not revenue raising they’d drive around in unmarked cars flashing their headlights. I was saved by a friendly fellow road user the other they and felt so grateful that I drove the next 5 minutes courtesy flashing everyone who came my way. What’s the socially acceptable distance from a speed camera to flash your lights? Do you have to be in the immediate vicinity of said speed trap or can you continue flashing as long as you’re on an unbroken stretch of road?

Sadly this tirade was brought on because my press release didn’t get picked up by the local paper because they spent too many pages covering our unsafe roads and the road toll.

October 4, 2006

One flu over the cuckoo’s nest

Yesterday I went to the doctor for the first time in 6 years. It was an unexciting adventure that I’ll attempt to spice up by adding pirates to the retelling:

Since just about the time I gave up McDonalds and all other forms of “fast food” (June 30 as an end of financial year resolution) I’ve been ironically feeling less than healthy. A conspiracy theorist may try to link the two events together. But they, like all conspiracy theorists, would be full of snot. Being the man of action that I inherently am I decided that 3 months was enough time procrastinating and waiting for nature to take its course (and realising that if nature did actually take its course I may in fact be submitting myself to an early death – death by dry cough doesn’t sound that appealing) and I made myself an appointment at Townsville’s “The Doctors” medical centre. I chose that particular centre because I drive by on the way to work and they conveniently have five consecutive ones in their phone number. They also had a lunch time appointment available so I booked it. It was at this point that the pirates (neither metaphorical nor literal, in fact they’re completely fictional in nature) mindlessly interrupted proceedings by firing their canons into the insides of my head, at least that’s how it felt in there yesterday. I bravely fought off the pirates by convincing the captain to stage a mutiny against himself. This proved to be a particularly effective strategy but relies strongly on a tertiary education in persuasive techniques. I employed the three Greeks – Pathos, Logos… and Aramis (a little three musketeers joke there) as my gentle persuaders. When they failed I simply black mailed the pirates with promises of copious amounts of pirate treasure. It just occurred to me that if one of the pirates was black and was wearing black chain-mail you could black mail the black mailed black male. So once the pirates were merrily plundering greener seas, I made my way to the doctor. This Doctor was from an ethnic minority of some sort and since the Doctor Death scandal I’m always a little sceptical about their qualifications. I checked his certificate on the wall – and it turns out he studied in Perth so I’m not sure if that should make me more or less worried. He was efficient and believed me when I diagnosed my symptoms as “flu” and he prescribed a course of steroids, antibiotics, and painkillers now I’m ready to cycle the Tour de France next year.

In other news, I went to a tropical island (Hinchinbrook) last weekend. It’s nice.
I was on a national fishing show last Saturday (I Fish). I didn’t see it. The QNI 2006 North Queensland Tourism Awards are on this Saturday night – everyone who’s anyone is going to be there (including me). They’re on at the port. When I’m feeling particularly self indulgent I’ll update the press release section on our corporate website and you can read all about it.

At some point in the future I think I’ll write about IR reforms and their impact on the length of my allotted daily toilet breaks… It makes me flush just thinking about it.*

*It’s always nice to end on a pun – nb that the * means that last sentence counts as the end and this is a footnote.

September 28, 2006

Free will vs election

Disclaimer – Be warned, this blog is long and talks about politics – for a lighter look at the world – go outside during the day, or hit your light switch…

Dear Andrew (and friends)*

I was sitting at the Coffee Club in Brookside (a free plug for my sister’s workplace) yesterday drinking a very fine cappuccino (exaggerated for the sake of the story) with some very fine people. The fine people included the always entertaining Mr Andrew Poyser, the always enjoyable Mrs Sarah Poyser, and the always very lovely Miss Robyn Burt. Roo apparently thinks my blog is full of rubbish but would read it if it was an email addressed to him – or would participate in a conversation with similar content – also known as talking turnstile**. And so today’s blog is in that form in a bid to double my readership by including Andrew and Sarah (and unborn Poyser who I suggest should be called Nathan) that would mean my total readership consists of 5 Poysers – Mark, Steve, Roo, Sarah and unborn Poyser… meaning that Poysers represent 83% of my total readership of 6***. If this blog were a democracy they’d have a clear majority. Luckily**** this blog is not a democracy.

Unfortunately Queensland is. I say unfortunately because based on last Saturday’s election there just aren’t enough quality candidates to fill all the required positions in Queensland’s parliament. I think the skills shortage stretches to the government. An interesting side debate at this point would be to discuss the merits of using high wages and good super packages to attract top quality people into government. It’s an argument that makes sense to me. Otherwise you’re left with showboaters who just do it for the attention and don’t actually know how to govern. At that point the achievements of government become the development of a sports stadium and several other tourism and lifestyle enhancements. Ala the Beattie government.

Here’s my retrospective analysis of the former Beattie government’s performance from a series of emails involving my politically motivated friends Ben and Joe^

Email 1 from Ben:

“Why do you think Beattie isn’t very good. I find him quite the vessional^^ leader. I’m trying to think over the past 8 years and I find it really hard to pull Beattie apart. OK, our health system needs work and Beattie probably should take care of that. And 2 years ago I said that trains were going to become a bigger and bigger issue in Brisbane and despite all the growing concern Beattie has ignored this and I think this will blow up in his face next term. Hell, public transport around Brisbane is getting worse and worse and I think this may have gone under the radar this election by next time I doubt he’ll be so lucky. The Goodwill Bridge was a bit frowned upon and the Smart State campaign wasn’t the huge success that he (and no one else) thought it would be but they were just stupid projects on the side and well, I kinda like the Goodwill Bridge and I think everyone who uses it would agree and only people with no reason to go near it really opposed it, like most things.”

Well, I don’t like Beattie for several reasons and my reasoning is included below – however I should point out that I’m pretty sure the Goodwill Bridge was a local government (Brisbane City Council) development so the state can’t really claim credit for it anyway – should they want to…

My response 1:

“If you break it down to the lowest common denominator – the State government are responsible for health, education and roads. Beattie has absolutely stuffed up every one of these areas.

All the problems are of his making – if he’s going to blame the population increase for the health problems that’s his fault. His government have aggressively targeted relocators from other states. It’s his fault. The water shortage wouldn’t be as big a deal if the population was a more manageable size in the South East corner. Public Transport and road congestion wouldn’t be as big a deal if he hadn’t been busily attracting 3000 people to the South East every week (that figure may be slightly inflated). Sure more people means more money for the state from Federal coffers and a greater capacity to generate economic stimulus – but if you’re not supporting more people with more infrastructure then quite frankly you’re buggered.

Beattie is the master of superficial – he’s a great ambassador for the state – but his policies are screwy and the state will gradually eat itself if he’s left in control.

He’s trying to claim that the rate of employment in Queensland as a positive outcome of his governance – which is tripe – everyone in Queensland should be employed – we have a skills shortage in North Queensland (and in fact everywhere). If the government was training and educating people better for the last 8 years that wouldn’t be a problem – the fact is people aren’t pursuing apprenticeships, people aren’t going to uni as much as they were… sure people are getting jobs, but anyone can operate a checkout, drive a forklift or pack a crate.

He’s rubbish. His policies are rubbish. Luckily for him, the opposition are rubbish too.”

Ben responded with a very long email which I’ll summarise for the sake of brevity… or less verbosity…

“Point 1 – The entire campaign was aimed at bringing skilled people to the state, which in actual fact has failed terribly with more skilled people going out and a net massive increase in stupid people, mostly pensioners/retires I noticed in the last demography reports I saw. So basically Queensland is becoming the new Florida, and now I think of it the comparisons don’t end there.

Point 2 – I think health problems are partly intertwined with lack of trained staff. Which brings us to education. This is an area i dont totally agree with you.… blaa blaa blaa^^^ …. university education rates are at the highest they have ever been in Australia, I was working with the census data not long ago that showed that since 91 the number of people with degrees increased from 6.9 to 12.8 (those numbers might be slightly off, they were around there though) and this census it was predicted to be at 14.9 (we will find this figure for sure mid next year).Now, I could simply go and find this report as it is in my massive pile of papers on my desk, but i am lazy. However, my point is the number of university educated people is rapidly increasing, as university is seen as an easier job than work (or so I presume). However, if you mapped the growth in certain areas, such as doctors, they should be increasing at the rate of population growth..

Point 3 – Finally, there will always be some unemployment, as it is made up of cyclic, redistribution and lazy ppl.(sic)(editors note: funny that Ben is too lazy to write people) also, I’m not sure if this is true but I think it might also be the case the proportion of the population of labour age in the labour force may be changing, as further study is eating a chunk of the population up that has historically been a very productive age bracket.”

That really is a summary – he clearly doesn’t spend enough time working…However, lots of the stuff I scrapped was Brisbane specific – ie skills shortage and public transport are bad in South East Queensland etc etc… So here’s my response – and that ought to close out today’s entry – it ought to, but then it would miss my really good ideas that I’ll now close with instead *(part b) :

1. Queensland is bigger than Brisbane

2. A fairly large chunk of the state’s economy is derived from minerals processing and mining – a large percentage of those operations occur in the state’s north – eg Townsville is a $10.2 billion regional economy growing at 12% per annum.

3. Beattie has made a lot of stupid industrial policy announcements in this election. Bowen is a rubbish site and making it a major point in an industrial triangle is a stupid decision. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I don’t count arts degrees as university degrees – I have a feeling that I read that while numbers are currently up – enrolment figures for universities (particularly regional universities) are in decline – this may be because of increased competition (more places across the board means that some unis are sharing their former stranglehold on places) but JCU is undergoing massive funding cuts because they aren’t getting the numbers they need. We’re pouring out lazily educated students who are too lazy to move anywhere into a lazy workforce. The fact that I got a degree without visiting the library, attending classes, or in fact learning anything particularly useful during my degree reflects poorly on the standard of education on offer.

The skill shortage generally refers to skilled labour – ie tradespeople, apprentices and construction workers – there are already too many engineers and economists… We don’t need uni trained people really – we need people who are prepared to do the jobs that are readily available and essential. But at the end of the day, no one wants to be a sewerage treatment worker… or do anything hard. Because people are lazy and stupid… once again that’s the result of a crap education system allowing crap parents to breed crap children and it’s a downward cycle of crap.

We then involved Joe in the discussion because quite frankly, he’s a political animal…

Joe what do you think of Peter Beattie?

I will be spending 4 hours handing out “how-to-vote” cards tomorrow. Enough said.

I asked who for and he got a little insulted – but this is why (brilliant election idea number 1):

I ask because I figure you could produce your own how to vote cards and hand them out for neither party… That’s what I’d be doing.

Brilliant election idea number 2:

What do you think would happen if we encouraged enough people to write our names on their ballot papers across every electorate?

Brilliant election idea number 3:

I think the Coalition should completely target their campaigns in Beattie’s and Bligh’s electorates – putting all your eggs in one basket is frowned upon but I think if they could knock the leaders off their perches it would be almost literally a major coup. Imagine if Springborg and Flegg had spent the entire campaign period doorknocking personally in the seat of Brisbane and convincing residents to change their vote. If they could push that campaign widely in the media it may have shown they were proactively doing something about getting rid of Beattie.

I’m suggesting they work hard at getting rid of Beattie – it would be the best way to ensure the destruction of the labor government. Think about it take away Beattie and Labor are stuffed – name one other Labor politician outside of your local member and the big portfolios… Beattie has tried to be all things to all men – he hogged the ministerial portfolios to the point where he was minister for about six things as well as Premier. They’d be stuffed without him. He only just managed to scrape 50% of the vote in his electorate anyway – unfortunately it was split between 4 other candidates.

*I had to add the (and friends) because addressing this entry to Roo and then mentioning him in the first paragraph would have been odd. The joys of non linear writing…

** a very old in joke based loosely on an AFL ad and the concept that the content of our conversation is somehow a marketable commodity and would attract large numbers of interested parties…

*** estimated.

**** Luckily used loosely – I’m sure they’d do a good and responsible job of governing my blog.

^ Names not changed to protect the guilty.

^^ A word made up by Ben – to be understood based entirely on the context of use in the sentence. It’s like a random adjective. Or a vessional adjective.

^^^ irrelevant disagreement removed

September 11, 2006

Long time no blog…

I apologise for my lack of blogging lately. I would suggest attributing it to a complete lack of blogworthy content. Any other suspicions would no doubt be completely unfounded.

I was a Hair’s breadth away from posting some form of comment on the Pakistan cricket fiasco… but then decided not to. If Darrell Hair really does believe ball tampering was going on then good on him for taking a stand. Lucky Dean Jones wasn’t commentating at the time the Pakistani decision not to return to the field was clearly an act of sporting terrorism.

There’s a state election happening in Queensland soon. It must be the least exciting election ever. When you have to choose between an incumbent idiot and two challenging idiots who do you choose? Actually, Springborg strikes me as a really genuine kind of guy, it’s a shame he genuinely has no policy solutions for the health and water crises… neither of which are of his making. It seems unfair that he should have to clean up Beattie’s mess, and be punished for not knowing where to begin. That would be like me having to tidy my housemate’s room – or vice versa.

There were also some interesting word things that I thought I might blog about – but you can look up anally retentive on wikipedia for yourselves.

I went to Magnetic Island again yesterday with a journo from the SMH. It’s the first time I’ve hosted a journalist there in sunshine. We conducted site (and sight (i’ll never tire of that pun)) inspections of some very nice new developments over there that I’d buy if I had the money.

August 26, 2006

Blog By Email version 1

This is the coolest invention ever. Cooler than sliced bread. Cooler than any of those other time saving devices dreamed up (somewhat ironically) by people with too much time on their hands. I can write an email from anywhere to my blog and it gets posted. Mattias asked why I thought that was cool. Well Mattias, let me tell you why it’s so cool. It makes writing a blog entry heaps easier. I can do it in about half the time. You’ll notice my reason here has changed since this was originally posted.

It’s 5.30 now, and I’m still at work. This is actually a test email because I’m not sure my emails are working. I guess there are other things I could be doing at 5.30 in the afternoon, because there are always new bits and pieces to write about Townsville. It’s a happening place.

In fact you should all move to Townsville. Every one of my readers (that’s right, all two of you). (I think that kind of feels a bit like I’ve done some work now).

I don’t really have a lot to blog about today… except the fact that I’m happily declaring myself a hypocrite. I knew all those years of bagging out couples for being couples would come back to haunt me.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a defamation case involving a NSW politician Michael Costa. He’s suing a radio station for airing a claim that he paid a visit to a lady of the night. That case got a mention in the papers yesterday – but a new and different case piqued my interest. TV host Ian Turpie, the luminary host of such classics as The Price is Right. Apparently Machiavelli was right, every man has his price*… for Turpie it took a few dollars to claim that he was suffering impotency – he was taken to court for faking it. My question is – does he now launch a defamation action to defend his impotency? Sounds like he’s between a rock and a hard place… or not. Sorry. That was bad. In fact this whole post was fairly gratuitous. I’m just enjoying my new toy (actually it’s not really a toy – more a convenient shift in technology).

*as quoted in A Man For All Seasons

August 16, 2006

I’m emailling my own blog… Now I have seen everything

This is an interesting concept. I can email blog entries through from work. Or from home… by email.

Let’s see if this works.

August 16, 2006

Promises, promises… oh and an apology…

So when is a promise a promise? Some unnamed politicians (who will probably be named later) would suggest only “core” promises are promises. Consider this hypothetical (and by hypothetical, I mean real) dilemma:

In a job interview, in order to impress the interview panel, a potential employee suggests he or she will stick around for a lengthy period of time. The potential employee gets the job. Was that promise a core promise? Who knows.

Then for the sake of argument, say a job with substantially better pay is advertised and the particular employee believes they have a fairly high chance of securing the other job – should they stay or should they go?

Disposable promises are an insipid social malaise. No one wants to be bound by these promises any more. And it’s all because of politicians. Here’s an article posted on one of the Herald’s blogs about another form of apparently disposable promises (the marriage vow).

While I’m on the subject of politicians and what they say – I’m betting that following the Prime Minister’s apology on the interest rate rise there’ll be at least one letter to the editor asking why he can apologise for that but not for the treatment of aboriginals.

Well let me give you my insight into apologies. A topic on which I’m an expert. You can’t apologise for something that you didn’t do – you can say I’m sorry for the way you feel about it… that’s every kid’s favourite trick. The government can’t admit responsibility for the actions of previous governments. That would open up all sorts of litigious wormholes.

On the other hand. I’m sorry for all the… and by that I mean for my excessive use of the elipsis…

August 2, 2006

Irony, Irons and other stuff

A little while ago someone suggested I write about the misuse of the word irony in the lexicon. Well I would, but ironically I don’t know anything about the topic (See that was funny on a couple of levels). I will point out my favourite example of this societal abuse of the word – Angst ridden Canadian Balladeerette (is that a female singer of ballads?) Alanis Morissette’s song ironic. The only irony in that song is that it doesn’t actually contain irony…

“A traffic jam when you’re already late

A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

It’s meeting the man of my dreams

And then meeting his beautiful wife

And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?”

No Alanis I don’t think… and clearly neither did you. I’d suggest that’s more like poetic justice… as found in the correctly titled song Poetic Justice – written by Tom Kimmel and covered by Jane Saunders.

“I feel like the king when the queen loses faith
And the crowd rushes in to tear down the gate
While the whole palace slept, and I never rang the bell.
Maybe that’s poetic justice, but it’s pretty hard to tell.”

Actually – perhaps ironically that doesn’t sound like poetic justice to me – but perhaps that’s due to a lack of context. Ironically, again, Jane Saunders released an album called Poetic Justice – with the Tom Kimmel song as the title track. The song contains these lines:

“I feel like the king
When the queen loses faith
And the crowd rushes in to tear down the gate
And declare what was mine
I stole from someone else
Maybe that’s poetic justice
But it’s pretty hard to tell”

So if her album is named after the song, and she sings the song, could she not be declaring something as hers that she stole from someone else… Guilty as charged I say.

So as you can see it’s almost impossible to learn anything ironic from a female song writer… or in fact from anyone at all. Except perhaps H.W Fowler who is quoted on Wikipedia (note: I understand the irony of claiming it’s hard to learn about irony from anyone and then turning to the source of all “reputable”* information**) as saying

“Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that “more” and of the outsider’s incomprehension.”

So there you have it. An ironic insight*** into irony.

My iron beeps when it’s been left on for too long. Isn’t that a useful function. I discovered this while preparing to attend the races (of the equine variety) yesterday. Perhaps ironically*** (after my post last week) I did place a bet on a horse and it was quite literally pipped at the post. I bet $5 and lost – I figure the $5 goes a small way towards repaying Jupiters Casino for kindly inviting me into their corporate marquee for the day and feeding me seafood and cake. They would have provided me with free beer too (or heavier stuff) if I wasn’t feeling fluey and congested still. I had a day last week where I wasn’t feeling fluey and congested but then I got up at 4.55am to host the Today show breakfast people up here and the lack of sleep didn’t help my cause. (Look how I tied four pieces of information into the one paragraph – watch and learn people… For those at home wondering what the four pieces of information are: 1. My iron beeps, 2. I went to the races, ate at the corporate tent and placed a bet (all one topic (but three pieces of information I guess)), 3. I am sick, 4. I had the Today show up here last week). Wow. Are you awestruck yet? Probably not. I should point out that I’m actually not as arrogant as I sometimes sound…

* “” Denotes sarcasm
** referring to Wikipedia
*** used ironically

July 30, 2006

I’ll bet…

The mighty Manly Warringah Sea Eagles are on a roll. I was so confident they’d beat the Panthers that I placed a bet with a friend of mine who happens to support them. Is this wrong? If I was sure the Sea Eagles were going to win isn’t that tantamount to stealing? If I was uncertain – is that poor stewardship of my money? Is gambling in and of itself wrong – or is it the associated greed? I don’t want the $5 that Pat is going to have to cough up because his team are unable to function effectively as a unit – I wasn’t motivated by greed. I just like to win. A game is infinitely more enjoyable if there’s actually something weighing on the outcome – by enjoyable I mean exciting – there’s more adrenalin involved if you actually might win or lose something depending on the outcome. But am I going to hell because of this bet? (well no, I’m not going to hell… at this point that was a little bit of rabbitical hyperbole… not that I’m claiming to be a Rabbi, or a rabbit…) Is gambling sinful? Should we be condoning or facilitating any form of greed. The Catholics have been running Bingo competitions as fundraisers for years so they obviously don’t have a problem with it. Neither does the Australian Chief Executive of Woolworths who is a professing Christian.

In that story above (by above I mean contained in the link above…) he made some pretty carefully considered statements about the decision his company has made to invest in a series of gaming establishments.

“I don’t think that’s a moral judgment, I think what is a moral judgment is that one needs to be careful and concerned about the environment in which they sell in the market facilities of that nature.”

While personally I don’t have a problem with gambling if you can remove the element of greed from the equation – if it’s budgeted entertainment with no addiction involved then go for it… who am I to say that using a pokie machine is any less fun than playing an arcade game. My problem is making a distinction like Mr Woolworths (not his real name) has made here. It reminds me of a scene from the Godfather where the Mafia Dons (head honchos) are gathered round a table discussing a move into the narcotics industry – one of them says ”

“I don’t want it near schools — I don’t want it sold to children! That’s an infamia. In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people — the colored. They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls… “

Somehow the logic in both those quotes seems strikingly similar to me – as long as we’re careful where we put the bad stuff people can go and do the bad stuff if they choose to. Gambling addiction is, without question, a destructive thing. Like the Whitlams I wish I could blow up the pokies… but then I’d lose out on cheap pub steaks designed to attract gamblers. So in conclusion I haven’t exactly figured out my position on gambling yet… but I thought that article was interesting… particularly the quote below, and the fact that Mr Woolworths said he’d be happy to sell bullets at supermarkets if it was legal and there was demand for them. Again, not a moral decision apparently. But where do we draw the line for Christians involved in business? Is it wrong to work at Maccas if they cause obesity? Is it wrong to be a lawyer? I think Mr Woolworths actually has it right in this case…

“I believe that I’ll be accountable one day for my life and so to that extent I’ll be accountable for my integrity,” he said.

July 23, 2006

literally… not figuratively

This is literally the best blog topic suggestion I’ve ever received…

“I would like you to write about the misuse of the word ‘literal,’ and about how ironic it is that the word literal has lost its literal meaning. It really annoys me when I hear comments on A Current Affair stating that “These are literally the tenants from hell.”” – Joel.

Well Joel I would quite literally love to write about that… and I will… now.

Literally literally means to:

In a literal manner; word for word: translated the Greek passage literally.
In a literal or strict sense: Don’t take my remarks literally.

Incorrect usage of the word really bothers me too. I would suggest that a more appropriate word, in most cases where literally is used out of context is in fact the word literarily.

Of, relating to, or dealing with literature: literary criticism.
Of or relating to writers or the profession of literature: literary circles.
Versed in or fond of literature or learning.
1. Appropriate to literature rather than everyday speech or writing.
2. Bookish; pedantic.

If tabloid journalists began using literarily instead of literally it would literally solve half the problem over night.

For example the quote “These are literarily the tenants from hell” – could be acceptable if the show went on to prove that the tenants were of a hellacious nature. For it to be literally true, one or more of the following points must be demonstrably true:
1. The tenant is in fact Satan.
2. The house is in fact hell.
3. The tenant is actually dead, and the report has been beamed back from hell.
4. The house is in Ipswich (replace this suburb with the westernmost suburb in your city – I guess for Townsville readers it’s Charters Towers or somewhere like that).
5. The tenant is demonstrably a demon.
6. The tenant lives in a gambling house
7. The tenant is a scrap of material in a tailor’s box

I agree Joel, Current Affairs programs are literally the worst thing on television. They are literarily a product of hell.

Now on to other pressing issues. I had a thought the other day. Well actually, I had several. This one was to do with the “Drink Drive and you’re a bloody idiot” campaign. It occured to me that there are actually a lot of people in our society who a) are bloody idiots already, b) would like nothing more than to grow up to be a bloody idiot, or c) are not quite bloody idiots but would like to take that next step. It occurs to me that the campaign is flawed on that basis. It occurs to me now that that isn’t as interesting as it seemed in my head when I read it online. Stay tuned for my thoughts on Shakespeare and how lucky he was that his performers didn’t have speech impediments. Try saying Shakespeare with a lisp and it comes out as thakethpeare (and you spit on all the people in the same room as you). But that’s for another post. I may also make some comment about cb’s favourite new word, or new favourite new word. The word is both new, and her new favourite. Allived. To me it sounds a little bit Strongbadian – It’s a great way to transform an adjective to a verb. It’s just a shame alive actually only has one l though really.

July 20, 2006

Now coming to you in Wide Screen… at least from my end

Well, well, well… that of course is the answer to the question “what did the oil baron say when three new oil deposits were discovered in Iraq. The US of course simply said “Fire the torpedoes”, which was pretty useless because Iraq only has a very small coastline and there are much more effective ways to blow things up in Iraq. Strapping explosives to your chest seems to be one way… that’s not really funny is it. Not at all PC.

There’s not really much interesting stuff to write about today, owing to the fact that I spent yesterday in Charters Towers. It’s a hole. Or a series of them. Mostly because it contains a lot of tunnels left over from the gold mines. It is however, one of North Queensland’s premiere tourist destinations – attracting history buffs from all over the country. So if you like history it’s worth a visit. Or if you like meat pies. I’m sure it has plenty of redeeming features.

Today I took mum, dad, and Susie along to an Indy car roadshow thing in Townsville that I had to go to for work. There was lots of burning rubber, lots of noise, lots of girls in Indy outfits, and lots of the types of guys who enjoy those sorts of things. Then I went to WOW and bought a new screen for my computer… and more importantly, the new Muse CD. I’m impressed. I was worried at first. But it’s very good. It’s nothing like any of their old stuff. But Matt Bellamy is still the coolest front man strutting his stuff on stages around the globe.

That’s about it for this episode – be sure to check out the thoroughly politically incorrect ramblings at that other blog… http://philnsmiz.blogspot.com

July 15, 2006