It's time for some #AlternativeFacts. Trump is not President, Obama is allowed to have a third term, and that Simpsons episode from 20 years ago remains a funny satirical portrait of an alternative future America.
And in this lovely, lovely world, we can safely ignore politics and take our children to visit one of Melbourne's historic houses.
Our original intention was to visit Como House, and then take the little punt across to Herring Island. And after I talked up both to the kids and got them all excited* about going, I did the very basic internet research I should have done first and found that Como House wasn't open. (It seems to be open on weekends again now, so we will go another time).
So, on this particular day (last Saturday), we visited Rippon Lea instead. (Read on to see some pretty pictures and experience the charm of Rippon Lea).
Showing posts with label culture and history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture and history. Show all posts
Jan 27, 2017
Mar 8, 2015
The destruction of Nimrud by ISIS
Do I detect something new in the world's response to ISIS' destruction of the ancient city of Nimrud?
In 2001 when the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, the world was aghast. During the Iraq War when the Baghdad Museum was looted there was condemnation and outrage.
It's possible the world has got used to these wanton displays of barbarism. But I think there is something else.
The atrocities of ISIS have been so horrific and so many, and their brand of Islam so ignorant and barbaric, that we can only feel a sort of numbed sadness, but no surprise, at these latest crimes (which, obviously, are NOTHING compared to their crimes against humans).
Also, we now know how ISIS operate. With their English-language magazine, beheadings on Twitter, and horrific rhetoric, we know they need shock, outrage and publicity. They want us to be outraged, to feed their campaign of fear.
So I am detecting, in the comparatively muted media response to the destruction of Nimrud, a refusal to play into that. And this is definitely MY feeling in response as well.
Hey ISIS:
You destroyed the idolatrous statutes in the Mosul Museum? You bulldozed Nimrud? And you're going to bulldoze Nineveh too? Well SO WHAT.
You've beheaded aid workers and journalists. You've mutilated children, raped and sold girls into slavery, terrorized and tortured your populations. You've just burned a man to death in a cage, you barbaric thugs. You want to destroy your region's heritage, and knock down structures which pre-date Mohammad by centuries and have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam? You want to bulldoze ancient statues and treasures which already exist in a million photos and textbooks and videos worldwide, and so won't ever be erased?
Well go for it, you thick, ignorant psychopaths. Knock it all down, and just watch how much the world is not going to give one single shit.
Idiots.
In 2001 when the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, the world was aghast. During the Iraq War when the Baghdad Museum was looted there was condemnation and outrage.
It's possible the world has got used to these wanton displays of barbarism. But I think there is something else.
The atrocities of ISIS have been so horrific and so many, and their brand of Islam so ignorant and barbaric, that we can only feel a sort of numbed sadness, but no surprise, at these latest crimes (which, obviously, are NOTHING compared to their crimes against humans).
Also, we now know how ISIS operate. With their English-language magazine, beheadings on Twitter, and horrific rhetoric, we know they need shock, outrage and publicity. They want us to be outraged, to feed their campaign of fear.
So I am detecting, in the comparatively muted media response to the destruction of Nimrud, a refusal to play into that. And this is definitely MY feeling in response as well.
Hey ISIS:
You destroyed the idolatrous statutes in the Mosul Museum? You bulldozed Nimrud? And you're going to bulldoze Nineveh too? Well SO WHAT.
You've beheaded aid workers and journalists. You've mutilated children, raped and sold girls into slavery, terrorized and tortured your populations. You've just burned a man to death in a cage, you barbaric thugs. You want to destroy your region's heritage, and knock down structures which pre-date Mohammad by centuries and have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam? You want to bulldoze ancient statues and treasures which already exist in a million photos and textbooks and videos worldwide, and so won't ever be erased?
Well go for it, you thick, ignorant psychopaths. Knock it all down, and just watch how much the world is not going to give one single shit.
Idiots.
 |
| "Iraq; Nimrud - Assyria, Lamassu's Guarding Palace Entrance" by M.chohan - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons |
Feb 18, 2015
Going for a drive
When I was a kid one thing our family did quite a bit was go for a drive. We were not driving to anywhere. Usually we would not even get out of the car. We were just going for a drive.
The 1970s and 80s I guess were the last gasp of the "driving as an end in itself" hobby. When you think about it, it makes sense. Cars took off as something that everyday people owned in the 1950s and 1960s, and at that time people did of course, go driving as a fun activity. The kids from that time were my dad and his generation, so they continued the practice, to a lesser degree, in their adulthood. Plus in my family's case, both my grandfather and my father worked in the auto parts industry, so they were into cars and driving anyway.
My dad like his dad was "a Ford man". In Australia in the 1970s you were either a Ford man or a Holden man. My dad like his dad drove a large Ford sedan, which he was entitled to lease or buy courtesy of his employer. These were nice cars, but being the 1970s they were not a patch on cars today. They didn't have retractable seat belts or air-conditioning. As kids we would get car sick in the back, and there was no DVD system to distract us, no sirree Bob! (Mine was a deprived childhood, obviously). But they were big, and on long trips up to New South Wales or Queensland there was enough room in the back for me and my sister to curl up and sleep, moderately comfortably, against the armrests or leaning on our pillows against the doors.
My dad always took care of his cars. I don't recall ever eating or drinking in one, though we must have been allowed to on occasion I suppose. He would get mad at us for wiping condensation off the windows, or for touching the window glass at all. Dad washed the car regularly, and did the weekly oil and water checks, and kept the tyres inflated. So the car was always ready for a drive.
The best car I remember was a blue Ford Fairlane with leather seats and a white roof. I think that one had air conditioning. Which you'd think was a huge improvement but in fact often meant me and my sister sweltering in the back and not allowed to wind down our windows because the air conditioning had just been turned on and would kick in "in a couple of minutes".
But even in a nice car, going for a drive is not something that kids usually choose to do with their weekends. When Dad would announce we were going for a drive, my sister and I would groan and moan but there was no getting out of it so we'd get in the car and off we'd go.
Strangely I don't remember a lot about these drives. I remember the experience of being in the back seat of the car: playing games (or fighting) with my sister, feeling car sick, the prickle of the seat fabric against my bare legs (or the stickiness of the seat leather in the later years), the seat belt strap chafing my neck, the burning hot metal belt buckle on a summer day. I remember tinder-dry farmland and winding roads, and feeling thirsty.
The only place I loved going for a drive was the Dandenongs. I loved the tall trees, the filtered light, the quiet, and the green ferns. I didn't even mind that we never actually stopped the car and got out and enjoyed the forest up close. I just loved driving through it.
I also loved driving on the freeway, driving at night and driving in the rain. I loved the feeling of snuggling against the car door, gazing out the window at the dusk, stars or streaming rain, and listening to my parents talking quietly in the front.
Last Friday after work I picked up my kids from Mum's house but we stayed there a bit later than usual because it was raining hard, and I prefer not to drive in pelting rain if I have a choice. When I told the kids we were waiting for the rain to ease off, M was disappointed. "But I love driving in the rain," she said. "It's so cosy!"
We don't "go for a drive" these days, but we do drive a fair bit, and I do love driving. I still like driving on freeways and driving at night. So my kids will have their own "driving memories" similar to mine, I guess. But without the car sickness, sweltering heat, or the elbow burn incurred from a hot metal belt buckle in summer.
The 1970s and 80s I guess were the last gasp of the "driving as an end in itself" hobby. When you think about it, it makes sense. Cars took off as something that everyday people owned in the 1950s and 1960s, and at that time people did of course, go driving as a fun activity. The kids from that time were my dad and his generation, so they continued the practice, to a lesser degree, in their adulthood. Plus in my family's case, both my grandfather and my father worked in the auto parts industry, so they were into cars and driving anyway.
My dad like his dad was "a Ford man". In Australia in the 1970s you were either a Ford man or a Holden man. My dad like his dad drove a large Ford sedan, which he was entitled to lease or buy courtesy of his employer. These were nice cars, but being the 1970s they were not a patch on cars today. They didn't have retractable seat belts or air-conditioning. As kids we would get car sick in the back, and there was no DVD system to distract us, no sirree Bob! (Mine was a deprived childhood, obviously). But they were big, and on long trips up to New South Wales or Queensland there was enough room in the back for me and my sister to curl up and sleep, moderately comfortably, against the armrests or leaning on our pillows against the doors.
My dad always took care of his cars. I don't recall ever eating or drinking in one, though we must have been allowed to on occasion I suppose. He would get mad at us for wiping condensation off the windows, or for touching the window glass at all. Dad washed the car regularly, and did the weekly oil and water checks, and kept the tyres inflated. So the car was always ready for a drive.
The best car I remember was a blue Ford Fairlane with leather seats and a white roof. I think that one had air conditioning. Which you'd think was a huge improvement but in fact often meant me and my sister sweltering in the back and not allowed to wind down our windows because the air conditioning had just been turned on and would kick in "in a couple of minutes".
But even in a nice car, going for a drive is not something that kids usually choose to do with their weekends. When Dad would announce we were going for a drive, my sister and I would groan and moan but there was no getting out of it so we'd get in the car and off we'd go.
Strangely I don't remember a lot about these drives. I remember the experience of being in the back seat of the car: playing games (or fighting) with my sister, feeling car sick, the prickle of the seat fabric against my bare legs (or the stickiness of the seat leather in the later years), the seat belt strap chafing my neck, the burning hot metal belt buckle on a summer day. I remember tinder-dry farmland and winding roads, and feeling thirsty.
The only place I loved going for a drive was the Dandenongs. I loved the tall trees, the filtered light, the quiet, and the green ferns. I didn't even mind that we never actually stopped the car and got out and enjoyed the forest up close. I just loved driving through it.
 |
| dmscvan/Flickr CC |
I also loved driving on the freeway, driving at night and driving in the rain. I loved the feeling of snuggling against the car door, gazing out the window at the dusk, stars or streaming rain, and listening to my parents talking quietly in the front.
Last Friday after work I picked up my kids from Mum's house but we stayed there a bit later than usual because it was raining hard, and I prefer not to drive in pelting rain if I have a choice. When I told the kids we were waiting for the rain to ease off, M was disappointed. "But I love driving in the rain," she said. "It's so cosy!"
We don't "go for a drive" these days, but we do drive a fair bit, and I do love driving. I still like driving on freeways and driving at night. So my kids will have their own "driving memories" similar to mine, I guess. But without the car sickness, sweltering heat, or the elbow burn incurred from a hot metal belt buckle in summer.
Dec 2, 2014
How things have changed
I tell you it's uncanny. A couple of months ago I was thinking about music over the years and about how songs have changed since the 80s. I mused on two things: one is how no one does the "fade out" anymore. Until quite recently all pop songs always ended in a fade out, to the point where it was just the standard way to end a song. That no longer is the case. The second thing was how singers used to do their own "special effects" such as repeats and echos - e.g, Rod Stewart in Young Turks towards the end going "ti-ti-time is on your side, side side side" (etc). It's pretty funny when you hear it in an old song now, but back then it was, again, just standard.
Then a few weeks ago I noticed Slate did a whole article on the demise of the fade-out in pop music, and BAM, I can't talk about this now.
Slate has a way of capturing what we used to call the zeitgeist: things you were thinking or almost thinking yourself which means probably everyone was thinking them. Right there now are articles about how the internet has made us constantly "obsessed" with things ("cultural manias"), how popular Taylor Swift is, and how we should not attempt to bring back extinct species (in case you missed it, some guy wants to bring back dinosaurs, as if Jurassic Park never happened).
Anyhoo, then in the last few days I've been playing with a post in my head about listing all the ways that life is different now compared to when I was a child... Well, I know that's not hugely original. But still, now I see Neil deGrasse Tyson has just done the same thing. What's more, the first thing in his list is about toothpaste tubes, which was one of mine. So therefore, before I have to delete all my draft posts and come up with something new (of which I have nothing), I'm just going to NOT read any more of Neil's list and I'm going to go ahead with my list as it is.
Toothpaste tubes were made of metal, and would develop very sharp points where you squeezed them, which could give you a nasty scratch. They were also messy, because they had screw-cap lids which also tended to roll lazily off the benchtop and onto the floor while you cleaned your teeth.
Telephones had three sounds that don't exist anymore. The lovely soft brrrrr made by the rotary dial, which I loved, the lovely soft brrrr-brrrr made by the telephone ringing at the other end while you waited for the other side to pick up, and the horrible, jangly, nerve-wrackingly loud ring at your end when someone called. From the time I was little until the fairly recent advent of soft-tone phones, I HATED the sound of the telephone ringing. Remember that tiny little sound it made right before it started ringing, almost as if it was taking a breath before screeching? Like nails on a blackboard.
Blackboards.
Classroom work-sheets from mimeograph machines (mmm, that lovely purple smell...) *
Teachers thought schoolyard bullying was an inevitable part of childhood and didn't do much about it.
Corporal punishment in schools - remember that? We didn't have "the strap" from my parents' days, but boys got a slap with a wooden ruler on the back of the legs, and girls on their open palm. Or girls were told to "touch your toes" and then a slap was delivered to the bottom. Creepy. I still remember a teacher on the first day of class showing us a wooden ruler with black marks on the back which she said were made by "boys' legs".
More things were made of wood. Rulers, strawberry crates, even some kids' pencil cases (thanks Mum for reminding me of that one). Strawberries were only available once a year.
Our parents and teachers sharpened our pencils with a knife.
We ate less. I'm pretty sure I passed most of my childhood in a state of mild hunger, being fed only with three square meals and two small snacks daily; my poor deprived childhood....
Takeout every Saturday. Fish and chips, occasionally hamburgers, Chinese dim sims with rice and soy sauce, or my favourite, Kentucky Fried Chicken (that's KFC to you, kids). We rarely ate McDonald's, but when we did, I always had the box of fried chicken. No nuggets in those days.
In school I learned that brontosauruses were real, dinosaurs were covered in scales, and there was this ridiculous new theory that a meteor might have wiped them out. As if! We also learned that the global temperature was cooling and we were headed for another ice age.
Expensive, special-treat colouring books made of white paper instead of the normal scratchy brown paper. Expensive, special-treat comic books made of white paper with the occasional coloured page in them, when Dad shelled out for the 75c one.
Two-colour printing. Common in children's books, flyers, and posters. This was still a thing, just, into the early nineties, when in my early twenties I worked briefly for a university printing and publishing office. People would bring in their floppy discs, let us know if the work was formatted or not, and we would book in some desktop publishing followed by some thrifty two-colour printing.
Book pages that had visible wood shavings in them.
I remember when toast-slice bread became available. It was so decadent! A sensible friend eschewed toast-slice bread on the basis that you will always eat two slices of bread so with toast-slice bread you are eating too much bread - thus giving me a lesson in moderation which I remembered but alas, have rarely practiced.
No one I knew got up before 7.00 am. That left ample time for breakfast and the work commute.
If you were lucky enough to have a trampoline or a friend with a trampoline, then you were unlucky enough to pinch the skin of your palm in between the springs around the edge. OUCH!
There was hardly any air-conditioning. Summers were spent sweltering in unbearable heat and bathed in a constant film of sweat. Car rides were torture. School days spent in boiling hot portable class rooms, where the only air came from louvered windows right up near the ceiling that the teacher had to open with a two-metre pole.
We drank less water I suppose, because we didn't carry water bottles around. Or we drank hot water out of drinking taps. Make no mistake, I don't miss this. When I was a kid I used to wish you could buy water in a can (soft drinks were my only reference for purchased drinks).
Homemade clothes. My mother made many of our clothes, even doing a Knitwit course and making us t-shirts and sweatshirts. So when I grew up I made myself skirts, dresses and once even a pair of cuffed trousers. Then suddenly, at some point in the 1990s, it became more expensive to make clothes than buy them.
* As Andrew points out in the comments, I might be thinking of a roneo/spirit duplicator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator) which I have for years thought of as a mimeograph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimeograph) - similar, but different.
Then a few weeks ago I noticed Slate did a whole article on the demise of the fade-out in pop music, and BAM, I can't talk about this now.
Slate has a way of capturing what we used to call the zeitgeist: things you were thinking or almost thinking yourself which means probably everyone was thinking them. Right there now are articles about how the internet has made us constantly "obsessed" with things ("cultural manias"), how popular Taylor Swift is, and how we should not attempt to bring back extinct species (in case you missed it, some guy wants to bring back dinosaurs, as if Jurassic Park never happened).
Anyhoo, then in the last few days I've been playing with a post in my head about listing all the ways that life is different now compared to when I was a child... Well, I know that's not hugely original. But still, now I see Neil deGrasse Tyson has just done the same thing. What's more, the first thing in his list is about toothpaste tubes, which was one of mine. So therefore, before I have to delete all my draft posts and come up with something new (of which I have nothing), I'm just going to NOT read any more of Neil's list and I'm going to go ahead with my list as it is.
Things that have changed since I was a child
 |
| H is for Home/Flickr CC |
Toothpaste tubes were made of metal, and would develop very sharp points where you squeezed them, which could give you a nasty scratch. They were also messy, because they had screw-cap lids which also tended to roll lazily off the benchtop and onto the floor while you cleaned your teeth.
Telephones had three sounds that don't exist anymore. The lovely soft brrrrr made by the rotary dial, which I loved, the lovely soft brrrr-brrrr made by the telephone ringing at the other end while you waited for the other side to pick up, and the horrible, jangly, nerve-wrackingly loud ring at your end when someone called. From the time I was little until the fairly recent advent of soft-tone phones, I HATED the sound of the telephone ringing. Remember that tiny little sound it made right before it started ringing, almost as if it was taking a breath before screeching? Like nails on a blackboard.
Blackboards.
Classroom work-sheets from mimeograph machines (mmm, that lovely purple smell...) *
Teachers thought schoolyard bullying was an inevitable part of childhood and didn't do much about it.
Corporal punishment in schools - remember that? We didn't have "the strap" from my parents' days, but boys got a slap with a wooden ruler on the back of the legs, and girls on their open palm. Or girls were told to "touch your toes" and then a slap was delivered to the bottom. Creepy. I still remember a teacher on the first day of class showing us a wooden ruler with black marks on the back which she said were made by "boys' legs".
More things were made of wood. Rulers, strawberry crates, even some kids' pencil cases (thanks Mum for reminding me of that one). Strawberries were only available once a year.
Our parents and teachers sharpened our pencils with a knife.
We ate less. I'm pretty sure I passed most of my childhood in a state of mild hunger, being fed only with three square meals and two small snacks daily; my poor deprived childhood....
Takeout every Saturday. Fish and chips, occasionally hamburgers, Chinese dim sims with rice and soy sauce, or my favourite, Kentucky Fried Chicken (that's KFC to you, kids). We rarely ate McDonald's, but when we did, I always had the box of fried chicken. No nuggets in those days.
In school I learned that brontosauruses were real, dinosaurs were covered in scales, and there was this ridiculous new theory that a meteor might have wiped them out. As if! We also learned that the global temperature was cooling and we were headed for another ice age.
Expensive, special-treat colouring books made of white paper instead of the normal scratchy brown paper. Expensive, special-treat comic books made of white paper with the occasional coloured page in them, when Dad shelled out for the 75c one.
Two-colour printing. Common in children's books, flyers, and posters. This was still a thing, just, into the early nineties, when in my early twenties I worked briefly for a university printing and publishing office. People would bring in their floppy discs, let us know if the work was formatted or not, and we would book in some desktop publishing followed by some thrifty two-colour printing.
Book pages that had visible wood shavings in them.
I remember when toast-slice bread became available. It was so decadent! A sensible friend eschewed toast-slice bread on the basis that you will always eat two slices of bread so with toast-slice bread you are eating too much bread - thus giving me a lesson in moderation which I remembered but alas, have rarely practiced.
No one I knew got up before 7.00 am. That left ample time for breakfast and the work commute.
If you were lucky enough to have a trampoline or a friend with a trampoline, then you were unlucky enough to pinch the skin of your palm in between the springs around the edge. OUCH!
There was hardly any air-conditioning. Summers were spent sweltering in unbearable heat and bathed in a constant film of sweat. Car rides were torture. School days spent in boiling hot portable class rooms, where the only air came from louvered windows right up near the ceiling that the teacher had to open with a two-metre pole.
We drank less water I suppose, because we didn't carry water bottles around. Or we drank hot water out of drinking taps. Make no mistake, I don't miss this. When I was a kid I used to wish you could buy water in a can (soft drinks were my only reference for purchased drinks).
Homemade clothes. My mother made many of our clothes, even doing a Knitwit course and making us t-shirts and sweatshirts. So when I grew up I made myself skirts, dresses and once even a pair of cuffed trousers. Then suddenly, at some point in the 1990s, it became more expensive to make clothes than buy them.
What else has changed in your lifetime?
* As Andrew points out in the comments, I might be thinking of a roneo/spirit duplicator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator) which I have for years thought of as a mimeograph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimeograph) - similar, but different.
Aug 13, 2014
Robin Williams
Like everyone else, when I heard the news yesterday morning about the death of Robin Williams, I was shocked and upset. I was so shocked I exclaimed out loud, even though I was alone at the time.
Obviously the worst part is the loss of Robin Williams - to his family of course first and foremost, for whom it's a terrible tragedy, and to the world, for which it is a great loss and terribly sad. The next worst part is realising that someone who everyone loved so much was suffering so badly. Who wouldn't have wanted to help?
Of course depression is not like that. Robin Williams was open about his mental health struggles, he loved life and his children, and he did seek help during his life. There has been plenty of really good stuff written about the nature of depression and about Robin Williams this week, which covers all this ground and why depression is not "sadness", depression has little to do with how rich, famous or loved you are, and how it is cruel and ignorant to call suicide "selfish".
I've been amazed the last 2 days to realise not how many people loved Robin Williams (we knew that), but how many people have said he helped them or saved them, or changed their lives. When you look back on his career, it's no wonder. Has anyone else ever made so many films and TV shows, of such variety, and covering such territory? A colossal talent, he could do smart, funny, impersonations, slapstick, serious acting and famously, improvised comedy. He was in so much - and of such variety. He made films that held meaning for a lot of people: The World According to Garp, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, Patch Adams, Good Morning Vietnam, The Fisher King, Good Will Hunting.
Last night I listened to Paul Verhoeven who was a guest on 774 ABC Radio, talk movingly about how Mrs Doubtfire, of all films, had saved him during an awful period of his teen years when he was being bullied and was on medication for depression.
Pandora wrote about how Dead Poets Society changed her. Numerous people on Facebook have commented similarly.
I grew up loving Robin Williams in Mork and Mindy.
As an adult I loved him in Aladdin (the harbinger of the new style of manic, very funny kids' movies that we know today), and in Dead Poets Society, Good Morning Vietnam and Good Will Hunting.
My kids know him from Hook, Flubber and Night at the Museum 2.
Here are a few of my favourite Robin Williams quotes from some of these shows (with thanks to IMDB for filling in the gaps in my memory on a couple of the longer ones).
Mork and Mindy:
"Mindy, your mail has more windows than a Holiday Inn!"
Aladdin:
[Genie to magic carpet]: Yo, Rugman! Haven't seen you in a few millennia. Give me some tassel.
[explaining the three wishes rules to Aladdin]: And ixnay on the wishing for more wishes.
Mrs Doubtfire:
Good Morning Vietnam:
[making fun of army jargon]: Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P.
[doing a weather report]: The weather out there today is hot and shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the north.
"It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot!" ... What do you think it's going to be like tonight? "It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but it ain't no good if you're in the jungle."
My family all still do "It's hot! Damn hot!" in a crazed fake American accent, at some point every summer.
As Russell Brand put it yesterday:
Obviously the worst part is the loss of Robin Williams - to his family of course first and foremost, for whom it's a terrible tragedy, and to the world, for which it is a great loss and terribly sad. The next worst part is realising that someone who everyone loved so much was suffering so badly. Who wouldn't have wanted to help?
Of course depression is not like that. Robin Williams was open about his mental health struggles, he loved life and his children, and he did seek help during his life. There has been plenty of really good stuff written about the nature of depression and about Robin Williams this week, which covers all this ground and why depression is not "sadness", depression has little to do with how rich, famous or loved you are, and how it is cruel and ignorant to call suicide "selfish".
I've been amazed the last 2 days to realise not how many people loved Robin Williams (we knew that), but how many people have said he helped them or saved them, or changed their lives. When you look back on his career, it's no wonder. Has anyone else ever made so many films and TV shows, of such variety, and covering such territory? A colossal talent, he could do smart, funny, impersonations, slapstick, serious acting and famously, improvised comedy. He was in so much - and of such variety. He made films that held meaning for a lot of people: The World According to Garp, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, Patch Adams, Good Morning Vietnam, The Fisher King, Good Will Hunting.
Last night I listened to Paul Verhoeven who was a guest on 774 ABC Radio, talk movingly about how Mrs Doubtfire, of all films, had saved him during an awful period of his teen years when he was being bullied and was on medication for depression.
Pandora wrote about how Dead Poets Society changed her. Numerous people on Facebook have commented similarly.
I grew up loving Robin Williams in Mork and Mindy.
As an adult I loved him in Aladdin (the harbinger of the new style of manic, very funny kids' movies that we know today), and in Dead Poets Society, Good Morning Vietnam and Good Will Hunting.
My kids know him from Hook, Flubber and Night at the Museum 2.
Here are a few of my favourite Robin Williams quotes from some of these shows (with thanks to IMDB for filling in the gaps in my memory on a couple of the longer ones).
Mork and Mindy:
"Mindy, your mail has more windows than a Holiday Inn!"
Aladdin:
[Genie to magic carpet]: Yo, Rugman! Haven't seen you in a few millennia. Give me some tassel.
[explaining the three wishes rules to Aladdin]: And ixnay on the wishing for more wishes.
Mrs Doubtfire:
Mrs. Doubtfire: It was the drink that killed him.
Miranda: How awful. He was an alcoholic?
Mrs. Doubtfire: No, he was hit by a Guinness truck.
Good Morning Vietnam:
[making fun of army jargon]: Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P.
[doing a weather report]: The weather out there today is hot and shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the north.
"It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot!" ... What do you think it's going to be like tonight? "It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but it ain't no good if you're in the jungle."
My family all still do "It's hot! Damn hot!" in a crazed fake American accent, at some point every summer.
As Russell Brand put it yesterday:
Today Robin Williams is part of the sad narrative that we used to turn to him to disrupt.
 |
| Photo: Shameek/Flickr |
Aug 6, 2014
Old Tech
Last Christmas one of the things we gave the kids was our old iPod Nanos. I wiped all the music, loaded heaps of the kids' favourite songs, and bought $10 headsets from Kmart to replace the old Apple earbuds.
It was their favourite gift and they still love them, and use them every day.
Recently they've got into playing 'spy games' so last weekend I handed over all our other old gadgets for their toy boxes.
They now enhance their games with my old Motorola Razr flip-phone, Y's tiny silver Nokia, a hand-held voice recorder and my high school scientific calculator (which is still a good calculator!).
Oh, and Y's first mobile phone, the massive and heavy Philips Fizz.
The phones are their favourites, and they were mystified by the voice recorder and the portable tape deck. The voice recorder was purchased years ago while I was doing a teaching course, to record interviews and record myself teaching classes.
"How does it work?" asked the kids as I handed it to them.
"Easy," I said. You open it here, see, and load in a blank cassette..."
"What's a cassette?"
"Uh... you know, those plastic things that they used in the old days to play music?" They looked at me blankly and I realised they've probably never seen one. "Never mind."
So I went on the hunt for some blank cassettes, so they could record things.
Not too long ago (I think), you could still get them at supermarkets. No longer. JB Hi Fi don't seem to have them. An online search brings up a few online stores that sell them, but nothing else. Then the other day, I dropped into our local Quickie Mart for milk and found some very dusty TDK 90 minute cassettes on the hardware shelf. Who would have guessed twenty years ago, that you would eventually be able to buy the coveted TDK 90-minute cassette tapes for $2.90 each?
It was their favourite gift and they still love them, and use them every day.
Recently they've got into playing 'spy games' so last weekend I handed over all our other old gadgets for their toy boxes.
They now enhance their games with my old Motorola Razr flip-phone, Y's tiny silver Nokia, a hand-held voice recorder and my high school scientific calculator (which is still a good calculator!).
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| "What is this, a phone for ants?" |
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| Hello, old friend |
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| State of the art! |
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| Circa 1986. Note my restraint not making it say HELLO or BOOBS |
Oh, and Y's first mobile phone, the massive and heavy Philips Fizz.
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| Ha ha ha ha ha! |
The phones are their favourites, and they were mystified by the voice recorder and the portable tape deck. The voice recorder was purchased years ago while I was doing a teaching course, to record interviews and record myself teaching classes.
"How does it work?" asked the kids as I handed it to them.
"Easy," I said. You open it here, see, and load in a blank cassette..."
"What's a cassette?"
"Uh... you know, those plastic things that they used in the old days to play music?" They looked at me blankly and I realised they've probably never seen one. "Never mind."
So I went on the hunt for some blank cassettes, so they could record things.
Not too long ago (I think), you could still get them at supermarkets. No longer. JB Hi Fi don't seem to have them. An online search brings up a few online stores that sell them, but nothing else. Then the other day, I dropped into our local Quickie Mart for milk and found some very dusty TDK 90 minute cassettes on the hardware shelf. Who would have guessed twenty years ago, that you would eventually be able to buy the coveted TDK 90-minute cassette tapes for $2.90 each?
Do you still use any of these old gadgets?
Jun 11, 2014
Old Slang
I recently picked up the Back To The Future trilogy for eight bucks so the kids and I watched all three movies in a weekend. (The kids loved them - it was fun). The first movie was made in 1985 and there were a couple of slang phrases in it that were ubiquitous at the time, but have since disappeared from use. It got me thinking about other slang that has fallen from use.
There are a bunch of US, Australian, English and New Zealand slang terms that were all pretty big when I was a kid and teenager. (That's mid-seventies to late eighties). Hardly any of them have survived, though a few have. Some have morphed into shortened versions ("veg out" became "veg"). Some have evolved into updated versions ("Get serious!" was replaced by "Get real!" which is now used slightly differently as "Let's get real"). Some have survived, like linguistic artefacts, as ancestors of former phrases (we no longer say "kick the bucket" but we do have a "bucket list").
Some fell out of favor and then came back. The best example I can think of is "Far out!", which was a quaint, funny seventies slang term not used in the eighties, but is now back in use. I think maybe it's because it's a handy stand-in for "F- - -!" to use in polite society or in front of children.
There were some that seemed funny and totally fine at the time but seem a bit offensive in retrospect - "ghetto blaster" comes to mind, along with "spazz" and other playground insults best left in the past.
Slang is funny. The ones that stick are easy and clever, and there are others that try too hard, take too long to say (e.g., "technicolour yawn") or just won't work. ("Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen").
Some are resisted, uselessly. In New Zealand in the eighties I remember an Anglophile newspaper columnist bemoaning the use of the American "slang" term (keep in mind New Zealand was a pretty old-fashioned place back then) "hired and fired" and wondered why we couldn't use the "better" British English version "backed and sacked". As we say these days: good luck with that.
But even slang terms that are not resisted, are really popular and seem destined to stick around, seem to mostly eventually fall away. Just ask your parents what terms they used to use as teenagers. Or watch a movie from your own youth, and be reminded of all the things you thought you'd be saying forever.
Do you remember these?
There are a bunch of US, Australian, English and New Zealand slang terms that were all pretty big when I was a kid and teenager. (That's mid-seventies to late eighties). Hardly any of them have survived, though a few have. Some have morphed into shortened versions ("veg out" became "veg"). Some have evolved into updated versions ("Get serious!" was replaced by "Get real!" which is now used slightly differently as "Let's get real"). Some have survived, like linguistic artefacts, as ancestors of former phrases (we no longer say "kick the bucket" but we do have a "bucket list").
Some fell out of favor and then came back. The best example I can think of is "Far out!", which was a quaint, funny seventies slang term not used in the eighties, but is now back in use. I think maybe it's because it's a handy stand-in for "F- - -!" to use in polite society or in front of children.
There were some that seemed funny and totally fine at the time but seem a bit offensive in retrospect - "ghetto blaster" comes to mind, along with "spazz" and other playground insults best left in the past.
Slang is funny. The ones that stick are easy and clever, and there are others that try too hard, take too long to say (e.g., "technicolour yawn") or just won't work. ("Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen").
Some are resisted, uselessly. In New Zealand in the eighties I remember an Anglophile newspaper columnist bemoaning the use of the American "slang" term (keep in mind New Zealand was a pretty old-fashioned place back then) "hired and fired" and wondered why we couldn't use the "better" British English version "backed and sacked". As we say these days: good luck with that.
But even slang terms that are not resisted, are really popular and seem destined to stick around, seem to mostly eventually fall away. Just ask your parents what terms they used to use as teenagers. Or watch a movie from your own youth, and be reminded of all the things you thought you'd be saying forever.
Do you remember these?
- That's heavy (serious or profound)
- Cosmic!
- No shit, Sherlock
- Get serious!
- What a whacker (Australian - was eventually replaced here by the English 'wanker')
- It's a joke, Joyce
- Der, Fred
- Choice! (chiefly New Zealand)
- Couch potato
- Veg out
- Radical!
- Cool bananas (still in use - supposedly ironically - by people my age; also 'Coolio')
- Brill (brilliant)
- Brillo pad (inevitable evolution of "brill")
- Ace!
- Mondo
- No way, Jose
- "So funny I forgot to laugh" (Sarcastic. I think it was a thing only kids said, but we said it a lot)
- space cadet
- yuppie
- propeller head (nerd)
- Poindexter (nerd)
- spazz attack (go crazy/freak out)
- technicolour yawn (vomit)
- chuck a party
- metal mouth / brace face (someone wearing orthodontic braces)
- Cowabunga!
- As if!
- Like, oh my god! (ermahgerd!)
- Go jump in the lake / Go take a long walk off a short pier
- Sit and spin
- dirtbag
- scumbag
- (Something) City - as in, if there were a lot of bad people somewhere, it was "Scumbag City"
- pash (kiss)
- suck face (kiss)
- kicked the bucket / bought the farm (died)
- porchlight on dim (one card short of a full deck; not all dogs barking; cuckoo)
How about these once popular sayings and quotes:
- Whatchu talkin' bout Willis? (from the TV show Diff'rent Strokes)
- Hang in there! (poster - branch - kitten. Remember?)
- It's hard to fly like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys (also a popular poster)
- Happiness is a warm puppy (from Snoopy)
- You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. (from the TV show The Incredible Hulk)
- Let's be careful out there (from the TV show Hill Street Blues)
- "Holy (something), Batman!" (from the TV show Batman and Robin)
- Good thinking, Ninety-Nine (from the TV show Get Smart)
Have you got any more?
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| Alex/Flickr Creative Commons |
May 31, 2014
Agents and Agencies
I've thought a lot over the last few years about how our world is organised, and how it has changed. Namely, that everyone outsources. And this is ever-increasing, so that you get more and more layers to everything, and everyone gets more specialised.
The New York Times tweeted this yesterday:
Well, why not the fight against terrorism? Everything else specialises, and farms out what it is inefficient to do itself. It's the story of our age: everything uses third parties, agencies, proxies, aggregators.
I work in stockbroking operations. Since 2008 the stock market has been DEAD. For the last 3 years everyone has expected the coming year to pick up. Now we're saying 2015. Surely 2015? It has to pick up sometime!
In the meantime, as conventional brokerage has been DEAD, companies have been scrambling. The growth area (well, "growth" is a bit much - let's say "segment everyone is scrambling to") is to form small - tiny - advisory firms and build up a list of clients, and pay bigger brokers to do your trade execution. These days not only is the cost of running a brokerage firm prohibitive, but the compliance onus is very high. Only medium-to-large firms can do it now. Everyone else has given it up and is operating these tiny, ever-morphing advisory groups. Many of those groups do work for other advisory groups, so for example, Broker A has client Firm B which has direct clients but also has a client Firm C which has its own clients, one of which is Firm D..... So you end up with very diffuse, multi-layered business and client structures.
Another growth area is portfolio "wrap" services and reporting services. These are aggregators, who take in data feeds from brokers and custodians and create custom reporting, data mining or portfolio management for clients. They might do this under their own banner, or offer "white labelling" so that reports are branded for another firm who passes them on to its clients.
Among brokers, even larger players are using each other to perform some functions, or execute for some sectors of their business. No one is trying to do everything anymore.
Everywhere the same thing is happening. Insurance: a million different small firms, underwitten by the old large ones that used to do it all. And various aggregator businesses specialising in filtering options and helping you choose. Utilities: as governments have privatised services like electricity, we now have multiple providers, but it goes further: the electricity provider uses a billing service to manage its billing, and on-sells debts to a debt collection agency. I would not be surprised to learn that beyond each of these there are a further two or three "layers" or agents, responsible for different portions of the work.
Governments privatise services when they become too costly to run, which is essentially all of them in these days of low-taxing low-spending governments. Companies take them over and quickly work out they are not profitable, so the companies become more efficient and specialised and farm out or sell off the bits they can't afford to do to someone else.
Is it good? Is it bad? These questions were asked more often in the previous decade. We're all used to it now (more or less), and on balance I think it's good. It makes commerce vibrant and varied, it keeps things nimble and fosters growth and change. And it spreads risk and limits damage: if one part goes wrong it doesn't affect the whole; another small part springs up to take its place. What I can't figure out is if, holistically speaking, measuring the whole system, it is more efficient or not. I'm sure that it is, but it's hard to quantify. But regardless, whether it is or not, it is now such a fact of business and life that it's just the way it is. We could no more unwind it than we could un-layer an onion.
The New York Times tweeted this yesterday:
U.S. Strategy to Fight Terrorism Increasingly Uses Proxies http://t.co/2RB35w5XdL
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 30, 2014
Well, why not the fight against terrorism? Everything else specialises, and farms out what it is inefficient to do itself. It's the story of our age: everything uses third parties, agencies, proxies, aggregators.
I work in stockbroking operations. Since 2008 the stock market has been DEAD. For the last 3 years everyone has expected the coming year to pick up. Now we're saying 2015. Surely 2015? It has to pick up sometime!
In the meantime, as conventional brokerage has been DEAD, companies have been scrambling. The growth area (well, "growth" is a bit much - let's say "segment everyone is scrambling to") is to form small - tiny - advisory firms and build up a list of clients, and pay bigger brokers to do your trade execution. These days not only is the cost of running a brokerage firm prohibitive, but the compliance onus is very high. Only medium-to-large firms can do it now. Everyone else has given it up and is operating these tiny, ever-morphing advisory groups. Many of those groups do work for other advisory groups, so for example, Broker A has client Firm B which has direct clients but also has a client Firm C which has its own clients, one of which is Firm D..... So you end up with very diffuse, multi-layered business and client structures.
Another growth area is portfolio "wrap" services and reporting services. These are aggregators, who take in data feeds from brokers and custodians and create custom reporting, data mining or portfolio management for clients. They might do this under their own banner, or offer "white labelling" so that reports are branded for another firm who passes them on to its clients.
Among brokers, even larger players are using each other to perform some functions, or execute for some sectors of their business. No one is trying to do everything anymore.
Everywhere the same thing is happening. Insurance: a million different small firms, underwitten by the old large ones that used to do it all. And various aggregator businesses specialising in filtering options and helping you choose. Utilities: as governments have privatised services like electricity, we now have multiple providers, but it goes further: the electricity provider uses a billing service to manage its billing, and on-sells debts to a debt collection agency. I would not be surprised to learn that beyond each of these there are a further two or three "layers" or agents, responsible for different portions of the work.
Governments privatise services when they become too costly to run, which is essentially all of them in these days of low-taxing low-spending governments. Companies take them over and quickly work out they are not profitable, so the companies become more efficient and specialised and farm out or sell off the bits they can't afford to do to someone else.
Is it good? Is it bad? These questions were asked more often in the previous decade. We're all used to it now (more or less), and on balance I think it's good. It makes commerce vibrant and varied, it keeps things nimble and fosters growth and change. And it spreads risk and limits damage: if one part goes wrong it doesn't affect the whole; another small part springs up to take its place. What I can't figure out is if, holistically speaking, measuring the whole system, it is more efficient or not. I'm sure that it is, but it's hard to quantify. But regardless, whether it is or not, it is now such a fact of business and life that it's just the way it is. We could no more unwind it than we could un-layer an onion.
May 23, 2014
What I've been watching
I haven't had a TV obsession since Breaking Bad.
It is very clever and very funny. I read Sherlock Holmes stories as a kid at my grandmother's house, reading the volume she had received for a school prize and enjoying it immensely. I have that volume now and have not picked it up in many years, but I am now itching to read it again.
Until now.
The last few days I've been poorly, and have spent a good amount of time lying down watching Sherlock on DVDs.
Magnificent. I love it.
Try this brief and perfect sample:
It is very clever and very funny. I read Sherlock Holmes stories as a kid at my grandmother's house, reading the volume she had received for a school prize and enjoying it immensely. I have that volume now and have not picked it up in many years, but I am now itching to read it again.
When my headache goes away that is.
For now, TV's modern Sherlock will suffice.
I can make do, I suppose.
I know, it's very boring and common to be enamored of Benedict Cumberbatch, but you can now add me to the throng of adoring fans.
What have you been watching lately?
May 8, 2014
Things we don't need to see in any more movies
Continuing the fun, I now present a list of really, REALLY overdone things that are in a LOT of movies. Most of these are visual tropes, but some are just plain old cliches.
Got any more?
I've seen enough to last me forever of:
- Runaway Ferris wheels rolling through city streets
- Fruit carts being crashed into by cars
- Random St Patricks Day or Chinese New Year parades
- Unhinged scientists
- People/vehicles bumping into ladders and causing workmen to fall off them
- Men jumping off things into rivers before other things crash into them
- Vehicles mounting footpaths during chases
- Cars driving the wrong way down freeways
- Dogs stealing strings of sausages from butchers
- That really insanely heavy rain
- Really mean high school football coaches
- Drill sergeants
- Women screaming (or crying hysterically)
- Men not screaming (or crying hysterically)
- Overly literal, unimaginative scientists proven wrong by mystic/wonderous events
- Any character living in a houseboat, for any reason
- Young boys who are smarter/calmer than their grown women carers
- Mysterious strangers at funerals
- People running through airports being chased by security
- Female villains wearing dark lipstick
- Pies cooling on windowsills
- Old guys in denim overalls sitting on porches
- Dogs chasing cats through other people's houses
- People caught kissing via their shadows behind a lit curtain/screen
- Mechanics spitting on the ground
- Bus passengers in third world countries traveling with cages of chickens
- Ululating women in black abayas
- People escaping being run over by lying down under trains/trucks
- Cute children's drawings or painted signs that were obviously created by an art department
- Creaking wooden screen doors banging while a wind chime twirls ominously
- Cork boards with papers tacked all over them to help the hero think
- White boards with crime figure head-shots tacked to them and arrows joining them up
- People hiding in bedroom cupboards with slatted doors
- POV shots through camera lenses (complete with freeze-frame and clicking for photos taken)
- Partners who refuse to take the hero/ine's claims seriously despite mounting evidence
- Children's school concerts that descend into chaos
- Assistants saying "You can't go in there!" and then "I'm sorry sir, s/he just barged in"
I feel like I could go on, but I will pass it on to you.
What other scenes and visual tropes are totally overdone in movies?
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| Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
Apr 26, 2014
What universe do these movies take place in?
It's an easy post to make fun of the cliches and unrealistic plot devices in movies.
It's easy and it's fun.
Here are some that I've often wondered about. Some of these things might be real in American life, or they might only exist in movies - I don't know. Can you tell me? Can you think of any more?
Before online shopping, how was one person ever able to use another person's credit card? Didn't they have to sign, or did Americans get PINs years before the rest of us? Did no shopkeeper ever bat an eye when a kid paid for something with a credit card, or a person with a different gender to the name on the card? I don't know.
* Except for Kmart. They are awesome.
So do they furnish these school cafeterias with the exact number of seats as there are students, less one? Is there nowhere outside kids can sit? Does everyone always eat in the cafeteria? I don't know.
It's easy and it's fun.
Here are some that I've often wondered about. Some of these things might be real in American life, or they might only exist in movies - I don't know. Can you tell me? Can you think of any more?
"Use my credit card"
This has existed in movies forever, way before online shopping.Before online shopping, how was one person ever able to use another person's credit card? Didn't they have to sign, or did Americans get PINs years before the rest of us? Did no shopkeeper ever bat an eye when a kid paid for something with a credit card, or a person with a different gender to the name on the card? I don't know.
"Don't worry, I'll return it tomorrow."
In movies people seem to be able to return unwanted items for cash. In Australia this doesn't exist*; you can only get a credit note for something else in the same store. Do Americans have better consumer protection laws and stores willingly take back items for cash? Probably. I don't know.* Except for Kmart. They are awesome.
"You're fired!"
In TV shows and movies you can fire anyone, for any reason, with no notice. Is this allowed in America? Because here, unless you are an intern, a nineteen year old who doesn't know their labour laws, or a contractor, you can't be fired summarily for messing up or kissing your boss' girlfriend or whatever. Even if you steal money, your boss needs to do some stuff before they can fire you.Take your pet to school day
Ok this only seems to exist in kids' TV shows and it has probably never been a real thing. But how much did you wish this would happen at your school?No seats left at the high school cafeteria
First of all: wow, high schools in America have cafeterias. I'm not sure if they all do - do they? They all seem to in movies. Not like Australian highschools which have a canteen staffed by three parents and the kids sit around on benches outside to eat their lunch. But how about that scene, where someone is new or has been ostracised, and there are no seats left for them to sit at so they have to sit on the floor or in a toilet cubicle?So do they furnish these school cafeterias with the exact number of seats as there are students, less one? Is there nowhere outside kids can sit? Does everyone always eat in the cafeteria? I don't know.
Single parent works but also has scenes bringing kids to/from school
Cushy working hours, obviously well paid. Is there no before-school and after-school care in America, or just not in the movies? I don't know.Family dog understands human conversation and emotions
The dog barks to answer questions. It covers its face with its paws when something embarrassing happens to its owner, or when its owner kisses someone.New kid goes to school by him/herself
Even primary school kids. Never accompanied by their parents. They just walk in alone, and have to find their way around.Kids have stuff to do after school
Not homework. Solving mysteries and stuff. All the kids are available after school and their parents are all home, so they all get to visit each other, ride their bikes to places, and solve mysteries or negotiate social challenges before dinner.These shortcuts:
These are well known. They are shortcuts, keeping the action going and reducing unnecessary dialogue:- no one says "goodbye" when hanging up the phone
- everyone drinks coffee "black", no milk or sugar
- "keep the change"
- too busy for breakfast
- parking spots right outside the place
- no one else in the clothing store
- dinner if working late = noodles in a box
Fantasy Land:
These ones exist to make the movie cool and the movie-goer jealous:
- amazing houses and apartments, always clean and tidy
- clueless bachelor / very young person still has fully stocked kitchen and every appliance/gadget
- walkable neighborhoods
- new cars - notice how the windows are always super shiny
- clean pet dogs sleep on couches and beds without shedding hair, fleas or smells
- kids have tree-houses
- excellent clothes
- young people have cool careers that they are at least ten years too young to have
Cliche
Then there is dialogue cliche. We all know the most common phrase in all movies is "Let's get out of here."
But did you ever realise how many movies contain the line "You just don't get it, do you?" That's a phrase I don't think I've ever heard uttered in real life. And yet....:
Got any more?
Apr 21, 2014
Alternative Medicine
Last year I read the fantastic 'Trick or Treatment', by doctor and researcher Edzard Ernst and science writer Simon Singh. It is a scientific examination of alternative medicine. It does not debunk all alternative medicine - indeed some are shown to be (moderately) effective. Rather it is an examination of alternative therapies with evidence for and against, and some surprising results.
In recent years we have thankfully seen a resurgence in respect for science and more questioning and rejection of some of the more outlandish beliefs that have been popular for years. The social acceptance of atheism and the explosion in popular science writing online and in magazines and best-selling books have all been part of this.
But there has also been an impact the other way. The more strident the science fans and atheists become, the more many people are irked and even suspicious. Perhaps it makes more people cling to 'alternative' worldviews, seeing the scientists and writers as part of a bullying conspiracy.
I am angered by anti-vaccination groups and I struggle to empathise with and understand parents who don't vaccinate - but then I remember my own scepticism (due to lack of knowledge) when an anti-swine flu vaccine was developed so quickly, and when some batches of seasonal flu vaccine created adverse reactions in young children in 2010 (the problem was limited to a couple of bad batches and was not due to the vaccine itself, which is safe).
I thoroughly reject astrology, reiki, therapeutic touch and homeopathy, but I have been open minded (to some degree) on chiropractic, acupuncture and reflexology, as these at least seem to have some level of biological plausibility.
Of course I am sure a physiotherapist could have achieved the same result. But the chiropractor was still effective.
However, chiropractic for anything other than muscular-skeletal pain is completely implausible.
When my kids were babies in 2006 it became popular to take babies to chiropractors for 'colic'. I was appalled and amazed that anyone would take a baby to have its spine manipulated, or that any ethical practitioner would do such a thing, for a therapy that makes no sense at all.
But acupuncture for weight loss, infertility, quitting smoking or anything else makes no sense at all.
In fact, the authors of 'Trick or Treatment' show how neither therapy is that effective, despite seeming plausible. Acupuncture seems to make sense because of its seeming relation to the nervous system, and this is how I had assumed it worked. But in fact the 'meridians' used by acupuncturists bear no relation to the actual nervous system, and needles are only inserted under the skin, not in nerve points. This was a surprise to me and I was a bit sad to read all this about acupuncture. The ideas of ancient Chinese wisdom and 4000 years of history are so nice it is hard to give them up.
I have a friend who practices reiki, and without really discussing it we agree to disagree on such therapies. What I can say is my friend is a caring, empathetic and ethical person who does truly help people. She is gifted and intuitive in her reading of people and their ailments, and she never professes to be able to fix anything outside of her remit. She is also a qualified reflexologist and masseuse, and I can attest from experience she is very good at these therapies.
A couple of years ago my father found himself with severe, ongoing back pain. He already has a terminal illness and has had periods of pain, so his doctors - even his very good specialist - were somewhat dismissive. I do believe due to his age and underlying illness, his doctors did not give the same consideration to his pain that they would have given a younger, healthy patient. His pain was chronic. It altered his voice and his personality and often he could barely move.
I kept telling him he should ask for an x-ray. I thought he might have a slipped disc. He asked his doctor who said no, it was just muscular. I couldn't believe it. For the next few months every time I spoke to my dad I told him he needed an x-ray.
Who finally raised the alarm (apart from me)? An acupuncturist. She was feeling around his back and told him he had something strange sticking out of his spine, and said he needed an x-ray. He told his doctor who finally ordered an x-ray, and the problem was diagnosed: a large tumor on the spine that needed major surgery and months of physiotherapy afterward.
In this case, although acupuncture itself was no help, the acupuncturist certainly was.
In recent years we have thankfully seen a resurgence in respect for science and more questioning and rejection of some of the more outlandish beliefs that have been popular for years. The social acceptance of atheism and the explosion in popular science writing online and in magazines and best-selling books have all been part of this.
But there has also been an impact the other way. The more strident the science fans and atheists become, the more many people are irked and even suspicious. Perhaps it makes more people cling to 'alternative' worldviews, seeing the scientists and writers as part of a bullying conspiracy.
I am angered by anti-vaccination groups and I struggle to empathise with and understand parents who don't vaccinate - but then I remember my own scepticism (due to lack of knowledge) when an anti-swine flu vaccine was developed so quickly, and when some batches of seasonal flu vaccine created adverse reactions in young children in 2010 (the problem was limited to a couple of bad batches and was not due to the vaccine itself, which is safe).
I thoroughly reject astrology, reiki, therapeutic touch and homeopathy, but I have been open minded (to some degree) on chiropractic, acupuncture and reflexology, as these at least seem to have some level of biological plausibility.
Chiropractic
I saw a chiropractor fix my husband when his back went out some years ago. He woke up with his back having spasmed and 'stuck' and he was white and almost vomiting from pain. At that time I didn't realize chiropractic was alternative medicine. I thought it was a medical specialty, or an accepted therapy like physiotherapy. So I took him to a chiropractor. She showed me how he was all seized up on one side of his back, manipulated him a little, and he was fixed.Of course I am sure a physiotherapist could have achieved the same result. But the chiropractor was still effective.
However, chiropractic for anything other than muscular-skeletal pain is completely implausible.
When my kids were babies in 2006 it became popular to take babies to chiropractors for 'colic'. I was appalled and amazed that anyone would take a baby to have its spine manipulated, or that any ethical practitioner would do such a thing, for a therapy that makes no sense at all.
Homeopathy
When M had horrible reflux and screamed in pain, before the problem was diagnosed I bought a 'natural' medicine for 'colic' from a pharmacist. Only when I examined the bottle at home did I realise, amazed, that this popular medicine sold by a professional chemist was in fact a homeopathic waste of time and money. I tried it, but it did nothing, of course.Acupuncture
Acupuncture and reflexology have always made sense to me for the purposes of pain relief and nerve-related problems, because we know nerves are connected. You know that thing where you scratch your leg and feel a twinge somewhere else?But acupuncture for weight loss, infertility, quitting smoking or anything else makes no sense at all.
In fact, the authors of 'Trick or Treatment' show how neither therapy is that effective, despite seeming plausible. Acupuncture seems to make sense because of its seeming relation to the nervous system, and this is how I had assumed it worked. But in fact the 'meridians' used by acupuncturists bear no relation to the actual nervous system, and needles are only inserted under the skin, not in nerve points. This was a surprise to me and I was a bit sad to read all this about acupuncture. The ideas of ancient Chinese wisdom and 4000 years of history are so nice it is hard to give them up.
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Kung Fu Panda (Dreamworks)
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Reiki
Reiki and therapeutic touch were debunked by a 12-year-old for an American school science fair project some years ago.I have a friend who practices reiki, and without really discussing it we agree to disagree on such therapies. What I can say is my friend is a caring, empathetic and ethical person who does truly help people. She is gifted and intuitive in her reading of people and their ailments, and she never professes to be able to fix anything outside of her remit. She is also a qualified reflexologist and masseuse, and I can attest from experience she is very good at these therapies.
The allure of alternative medicine = the limitations of conventional medicine
The authors of 'Trick or Treatment' paint a very good picture of the allure of alternative therapies. Conventional doctors are often busy and not always good at listening, the appointments are only 15 minutes and specialists can be brusque and have limited knowledge outside their specialties. In contrast a homeopath, naturopath or hypnotherapist will spend much more time with the patient, listen empathetically, and will prescribe a holistic treatment specifically tailored for that person. If nothing else, the placebo effect is triggered and the patient also feels well looked after.A couple of years ago my father found himself with severe, ongoing back pain. He already has a terminal illness and has had periods of pain, so his doctors - even his very good specialist - were somewhat dismissive. I do believe due to his age and underlying illness, his doctors did not give the same consideration to his pain that they would have given a younger, healthy patient. His pain was chronic. It altered his voice and his personality and often he could barely move.
I kept telling him he should ask for an x-ray. I thought he might have a slipped disc. He asked his doctor who said no, it was just muscular. I couldn't believe it. For the next few months every time I spoke to my dad I told him he needed an x-ray.
Who finally raised the alarm (apart from me)? An acupuncturist. She was feeling around his back and told him he had something strange sticking out of his spine, and said he needed an x-ray. He told his doctor who finally ordered an x-ray, and the problem was diagnosed: a large tumor on the spine that needed major surgery and months of physiotherapy afterward.
In this case, although acupuncture itself was no help, the acupuncturist certainly was.
Apr 9, 2014
Stay at work mums, full time dads and others
I have stopped using the term "working mother" or at least I am trying to.
There are no perfect terms, because the term that each group of parents invents for itself annoys the others.
"Working mother" is annoying for mothers who are not in paid employment because they are home with their children: " 'Working mother'? What the hell do they think I'm doing all day?"
"Full-time mother" is hated by mothers who work in paid employment, including me. I am a full-time mother. I am a mother 24 hours a day as is every other mother. Motherhood (or parenthood) dictates how and where I work, as much as how I am at home. Also, what?: Anytime someone is away from her kids, she is not a mother? If you're a stay at home mother, when you leave your kids at kinder, or when you have a girls' night out, are you no longer a mother?
"Non-working parent" is wrong - for the same reason that "working mother" is.
"SAHM" (Stay At Home Mum) seems to be the preferred term by most, but what about the dads? They've started using SAHD. Is that a bit ironic, because it looks like SAD? I do wonder if "stay at home" is a bit annoying as it sounds a little patronising or limiting, like "housewife". Maybe just "At Home Parent" (AHP) is better?
"WAHM" (Work At Home Mum) is the one term that no one seems to grumble about. Or maybe that's just my misconception as a WOTHM (Work Outside The Home Mum - what, not going to catch on?)
Not one of these "lifestyles" is better or worse than the others, per se. Not one is a ticket to work-life balance - we're all as stretched and unappreciated as each other. There is of course just what works best for you and your family, or more accurately, what you have to work with and what you make of it.
But regardless of the terms we use to describe "mothering", one of the things driving change most is a critical mass of fathers being home with their kids.
There are so many of them now, and not all of them have blogs of course (pfft - what do those guys DO all day?) - but the ones I've noticed most as change agents are:
"World's Best Father" (Dave Engledow): this is the guy who created all the photos of himself with his baby daughter, she in various ignored or "helping" scenarios (sitting on an ironing board while he's ironing, etc) while he is usually looking away, reading thoughtfully and holding a coffee mug with "World's Best Father" on it. The photos are genius, encapsulating at once all the best qualities of how we regard the stereotypical dad: involved with the kids but casually; making the kids fit around him instead of the other way around; funny; relaxed; borderline-neglectful-but-actually-good-for-the-kids. Here are a couple of samples (these are all over the internet and they are a couple of years old now, so I've decided this is okay):
Reservoir Dad: RD is awesome, because he is very proudly a SAHD, and embraces the lot that goes with it, including actual, thorough housework. Not for him the superhero vacuum and willful blindness to dirty toilets and dusty windowsills - no, he happily and manfully tackles the lot. I actually think this is BRILLIANT. He writes about being a primary carer and shows that when it's done by a man it looks pretty similar to when it's done by a woman; this post in particular is just wonderful and I love it.
Of course, dads bring their alpha guy privilege to stay-at-home parenting, and that's simultaneously irksome and fantastic. RD admits men get more support in some ways than women as parents, and he has a robotic vacuum cleaner which makes me completely jealous ... but at the same time why wouldn't you make things better for yourself wherever you can, and why don't women do this more? - because we do it all properly!! and we're doing six million other things you can't see!! ... Sorry, that just slipped out. Where was I? Anyway, having more men take on the primary carer role (and more women the breadwinner role, and more men and women working part-time and doing a bit of everything), is a good, good thing, with great advances in mutual understanding and improvement for everyone all round.
I've kind of lost my thread with this post, but think I've said what was on my mind anyway, so I'll leave it here.
Meanwhile, if you want a bit of fun, take Buzzfeed's What Type of Parent Are You quiz.
I'm "overwhelmed" which I found a little disappointing. I'd thought I had moved beyond "overwhelmed" after eight years at this parenting gig, but I guess not. Buzzfeed knows best!
There are no perfect terms, because the term that each group of parents invents for itself annoys the others.
"Working mother" is annoying for mothers who are not in paid employment because they are home with their children: " 'Working mother'? What the hell do they think I'm doing all day?"
"Full-time mother" is hated by mothers who work in paid employment, including me. I am a full-time mother. I am a mother 24 hours a day as is every other mother. Motherhood (or parenthood) dictates how and where I work, as much as how I am at home. Also, what?: Anytime someone is away from her kids, she is not a mother? If you're a stay at home mother, when you leave your kids at kinder, or when you have a girls' night out, are you no longer a mother?
"Non-working parent" is wrong - for the same reason that "working mother" is.
"SAHM" (Stay At Home Mum) seems to be the preferred term by most, but what about the dads? They've started using SAHD. Is that a bit ironic, because it looks like SAD? I do wonder if "stay at home" is a bit annoying as it sounds a little patronising or limiting, like "housewife". Maybe just "At Home Parent" (AHP) is better?
"WAHM" (Work At Home Mum) is the one term that no one seems to grumble about. Or maybe that's just my misconception as a WOTHM (Work Outside The Home Mum - what, not going to catch on?)
Not one of these "lifestyles" is better or worse than the others, per se. Not one is a ticket to work-life balance - we're all as stretched and unappreciated as each other. There is of course just what works best for you and your family, or more accurately, what you have to work with and what you make of it.
But regardless of the terms we use to describe "mothering", one of the things driving change most is a critical mass of fathers being home with their kids.
There are so many of them now, and not all of them have blogs of course (pfft - what do those guys DO all day?) - but the ones I've noticed most as change agents are:
"World's Best Father" (Dave Engledow): this is the guy who created all the photos of himself with his baby daughter, she in various ignored or "helping" scenarios (sitting on an ironing board while he's ironing, etc) while he is usually looking away, reading thoughtfully and holding a coffee mug with "World's Best Father" on it. The photos are genius, encapsulating at once all the best qualities of how we regard the stereotypical dad: involved with the kids but casually; making the kids fit around him instead of the other way around; funny; relaxed; borderline-neglectful-but-actually-good-for-the-kids. Here are a couple of samples (these are all over the internet and they are a couple of years old now, so I've decided this is okay):
Reservoir Dad: RD is awesome, because he is very proudly a SAHD, and embraces the lot that goes with it, including actual, thorough housework. Not for him the superhero vacuum and willful blindness to dirty toilets and dusty windowsills - no, he happily and manfully tackles the lot. I actually think this is BRILLIANT. He writes about being a primary carer and shows that when it's done by a man it looks pretty similar to when it's done by a woman; this post in particular is just wonderful and I love it.
Of course, dads bring their alpha guy privilege to stay-at-home parenting, and that's simultaneously irksome and fantastic. RD admits men get more support in some ways than women as parents, and he has a robotic vacuum cleaner which makes me completely jealous ... but at the same time why wouldn't you make things better for yourself wherever you can, and why don't women do this more? - because we do it all properly!! and we're doing six million other things you can't see!! ... Sorry, that just slipped out. Where was I? Anyway, having more men take on the primary carer role (and more women the breadwinner role, and more men and women working part-time and doing a bit of everything), is a good, good thing, with great advances in mutual understanding and improvement for everyone all round.
I've kind of lost my thread with this post, but think I've said what was on my mind anyway, so I'll leave it here.
Meanwhile, if you want a bit of fun, take Buzzfeed's What Type of Parent Are You quiz.
I'm "overwhelmed" which I found a little disappointing. I'd thought I had moved beyond "overwhelmed" after eight years at this parenting gig, but I guess not. Buzzfeed knows best!
Mar 5, 2014
What's the difference?!
The modern (wealthy) world is a world of surplus and too much choice. We have to fend off salespeople trying to get us to switch energy billing provider, and spend time resentfully comparing phone deals, insurance packages, mortgages, credit cards, etc.
Then we hit the supermarket and are confronted with whole sections of aisles devoted to different brands and permutations of very specific things. I'm pretty sure this has got worse as I'v got older. I remember when we moved to the US in 1979 and being amazed by the variety of types of thing in the supermarket. What amazed us there then has long been the norm here now, too.
But I'm pretty sure I remember, when I was young, that supermarkets could fit all the tins and bottles that related to 'tomato' (tomato paste, tomato puree, tinned tomatoes, bottled sauce) in one aisle. Now they're spread out among at least two. (Oh, the difficult lives we lead!)
Then there's this stuff:
I understand choice of delivery system: some people prefer soluble tablets, some prefer traditional tablets, and some (like me) prefer "caplets". (Capsules are no longer sold as they can be tampered with). But still, aren't a couple of choices enough? As long as one of those includes caplets?
As for type of pain targeted and speed of relief: headache vs osteo, normal vs "rapid relief": do they really work differently? It doesn't seem plausible to me, and if you turn the packets over and read the back, they seem pretty much the same. But apparently I am wrong: there are apparently (small) differences which you can read about here.
But I'm on board with child-friendly band-aids. I've bought my share of Dora, Wiggles and Barbie band-aids, marveled at how easily they peel off, and stifled impatience at kids rifling through the packet searching for the one they want or refusing to wear Dora when we've run out of Barbie. I'm kind of glad we're past that now, and the kids will only wear regular band-aids.
But the shapes - so many shapes! When did it ever get so complicated?
Here is beef mince for cats:
They are actually not different colours though it looks that way from my photos. (You try taking surreptitious product photos in a supermarket).
Since they're both made of minced beef one can't help but wonder, what is the difference?
Well, it's not much. Both are mostly beef and contain the same ingredients. They both contain kangaroo and seaweed extract, and the cat mince has a little more of those in it. I bought one pack of each and feed my dog and the cat both from the same pack. We used the dog meat first and then the cat meat. No preference was shown by either animal, of course.
The only important thing for both pets is that meat from the other animal's bowl generally seems to taste better.
Then we hit the supermarket and are confronted with whole sections of aisles devoted to different brands and permutations of very specific things. I'm pretty sure this has got worse as I'v got older. I remember when we moved to the US in 1979 and being amazed by the variety of types of thing in the supermarket. What amazed us there then has long been the norm here now, too.
But I'm pretty sure I remember, when I was young, that supermarkets could fit all the tins and bottles that related to 'tomato' (tomato paste, tomato puree, tinned tomatoes, bottled sauce) in one aisle. Now they're spread out among at least two. (Oh, the difficult lives we lead!)
Then there's this stuff:
Panadol
WHY are there a million types of Panadol? I'm not talking varieties of painkillers or brands, but different types of the SAME brand of the SAME kind of painkiller.I understand choice of delivery system: some people prefer soluble tablets, some prefer traditional tablets, and some (like me) prefer "caplets". (Capsules are no longer sold as they can be tampered with). But still, aren't a couple of choices enough? As long as one of those includes caplets?
As for type of pain targeted and speed of relief: headache vs osteo, normal vs "rapid relief": do they really work differently? It doesn't seem plausible to me, and if you turn the packets over and read the back, they seem pretty much the same. But apparently I am wrong: there are apparently (small) differences which you can read about here.
Band-Aids
When I was a kid, I'm pretty sure there was just one kind of Band-Aid. That one kind was one size, and came in little paper envelopes threaded with red string that was supposed to tear the envelope open when you pulled it down, but usually did not. They stuck to your skin like glue, left a grey residue outline, and were ripped off by your mum when a corner came unstuck and they started to tug at your knee hairs but you were still too chicken to tear them off yourself.But I'm on board with child-friendly band-aids. I've bought my share of Dora, Wiggles and Barbie band-aids, marveled at how easily they peel off, and stifled impatience at kids rifling through the packet searching for the one they want or refusing to wear Dora when we've run out of Barbie. I'm kind of glad we're past that now, and the kids will only wear regular band-aids.
But the shapes - so many shapes! When did it ever get so complicated?
Dog mince and Cat mince
Here is beef mince for dogs:
Here is beef mince for cats:
They are actually not different colours though it looks that way from my photos. (You try taking surreptitious product photos in a supermarket).
Since they're both made of minced beef one can't help but wonder, what is the difference?
Well, it's not much. Both are mostly beef and contain the same ingredients. They both contain kangaroo and seaweed extract, and the cat mince has a little more of those in it. I bought one pack of each and feed my dog and the cat both from the same pack. We used the dog meat first and then the cat meat. No preference was shown by either animal, of course.
The only important thing for both pets is that meat from the other animal's bowl generally seems to taste better.
What kinds of consumer choice make you happy, and which ones make you crazy?
Feb 2, 2014
Why do we need stories that ask why do we need scary stories?
The feature article in the 'Life and Style' section of the paper today was this:
I love scary stories and I love anthropology, cultural history and mythology, so hooray, even though I think this topic has been well and truly covered. It's actually a promotion for new Australian film The Darkside, but still, I feel like this is the fifth article I have read in the last couple of years asking "why do people like scary stories?"
Do a Google search for "why do people like scary stories" and most of these articles will come up, along with a good bunch of blogs and forums answering the same question.
I don't actually think it's that mysterious, is it? Stephen King answered the question in On Writing, and all these articles, blogs and forum posts answer it too.
People like (or are drawn to) scary stories because:
New Scientist, in its recent Night issue, had a great article called The night: Things that go bump... which says the paralysing terror we feel at noises in the night (and during horror stories) is our animalistic fear of predation, of being hunted and eaten. That gives me a shiver just re-reading it (and reminds me how horribly stressful the life of many animals must be).
So that's pretty well explained, from my point of view.
Be afraid.... The enduring power of ghost stories.
THE HAUNTING From ancient tales of mythical creatures to the unspeakable crimes of modern cinema, the ghost story holds us in thrall.In this spectral world where sorrow dwells, why are we unable to look away?
I love scary stories and I love anthropology, cultural history and mythology, so hooray, even though I think this topic has been well and truly covered. It's actually a promotion for new Australian film The Darkside, but still, I feel like this is the fifth article I have read in the last couple of years asking "why do people like scary stories?"
Do a Google search for "why do people like scary stories" and most of these articles will come up, along with a good bunch of blogs and forums answering the same question.
I don't actually think it's that mysterious, is it? Stephen King answered the question in On Writing, and all these articles, blogs and forum posts answer it too.
People like (or are drawn to) scary stories because:
- they are cathartic, allowing us to feel and release pent-up tension and fear
- they help us manage our fears of the unknown and death
- they allow us to rehearse scary situations
- they provide the adrenaline rush of the 'fight or flight' response which we need to keep us safe
- this adrenaline rush, as a by-product, provides a thrill which is (kind of) pleasurable
- or, encapsulating all of these: as Older Single Mum commenting on this post of mine so succinctly said, they "still the mind".
New Scientist, in its recent Night issue, had a great article called The night: Things that go bump... which says the paralysing terror we feel at noises in the night (and during horror stories) is our animalistic fear of predation, of being hunted and eaten. That gives me a shiver just re-reading it (and reminds me how horribly stressful the life of many animals must be).
So that's pretty well explained, from my point of view.
Jan 21, 2014
Dear Pixar
Dear Pixar,
You make great movies. You really do. Up, Monsters Inc, the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, WALL-E: all fantastic.
I just have one request, and it's not just mine; my daughter wishes it too.
This is the request:
Can you do a movie with a girl protagonist?
I know you're owned by Disney, and I know THEY do plenty of girls, but see, they're not NEUTRAL girls they way Pixar protagonists are neutral boys. The Disney girls are all beautiful, princessy and plucky. They're either princesses who want to be more than princesses, or girls who don't know they are princesses. They are the kind of game, doesn't-know-she's-beautiful heroine that has plagued girls' stories forever. (I love Tangled, but you KNOW what I'm talking about).
In contrast, the hero of every Pixar movie is Just A Boy. He's not special, or handsome, or a lost prince or a particular personality. He's just a boy. He can drive the story and be the star and every kid can relate to him because he's not spelled out or limiting in any way. Boys in stories can be that, you see. Because most writers are men they create a kind of neutral, go-to story protagonist who's Everykid. When those same writers create a girl, they are suddenly creating someone "different", who is not Everykid. Hence all the lost princesses, the beauties, or the tomboys.
Can we have girls that are just Everykids?
Not princesses. Not beauties. Not tomboys. Just kids. Who are girls.
If you're not sure how to do that, try this:
Write your next movie, starring your usual boy hero. Then after you've written it go back and change all the pronouns from he, him and his to she, her and hers.
Then get your illustrators to make the smallest number of changes possible to change their drawing from a boy to a girl. It should just be a matter of face and hair, in most cases.
A girl wearing jeans is not a tomboy. She's just a girl wearing jeans.
Can you try that - maybe?
Because I think that would be very cool.
If you want to see what that might look like, please take a look at the only two movies I know of which have "neutral girl" protagonists: Coraline and Matilda.
You know what though - even those two use the girl's name as the name of the movie, which I don't think they would if the star had been a boy, so they're not entirely neutral. (The girl's name as the story name means the girl is "special"). But within the movie itself, I think both of those get this right.
My daughter was at first curious, and is now increasingly irritated, at why every movie has a boy as "the kid" in it. When she asks me about it, or voices her irritation, that's one thing. But worse is when she is bewildered and even - not to over-dramatise what may seem a trivial issue - a little hurt by it, and she asks me why this is how things are. Then I have to explain things to her that I wish were not the truth, and I say "this will change" and I really hope it's changing already and she doesn't have to wait until she's grown up and write these movies herself for things to actually change.
I know there are more pressing problems in the world and compared to them this is not a big deal. But it's an annoying thing, and it should be easy to fix.
My daughter was at first curious, and is now increasingly irritated, at why every movie has a boy as "the kid" in it. When she asks me about it, or voices her irritation, that's one thing. But worse is when she is bewildered and even - not to over-dramatise what may seem a trivial issue - a little hurt by it, and she asks me why this is how things are. Then I have to explain things to her that I wish were not the truth, and I say "this will change" and I really hope it's changing already and she doesn't have to wait until she's grown up and write these movies herself for things to actually change.
I know there are more pressing problems in the world and compared to them this is not a big deal. But it's an annoying thing, and it should be easy to fix.
So, if you could give this a go (and NOT name the movie after the girl in it) it would be much appreciated here.
P.S. Can you also please pass this letter on to Dreamworks, Sony Pictures and Paramount when you're done.
Thanks very much.
Love,
Jackie, A and M.
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