In politics, I am extremely against extremism

Listen up, Australia. I am pretty sick of our recent political environment. We do not have to do extreme right, religious conservatism and introduce a sudden pro-gun agenda just because America does those things, okay?

Fixing MP Entitlements

The politicians are saying the problem is the rules are too opaque, and they need to be made clearer. I guess they need rules where they are not tempted to push the definitions of what is allowed to the absolute limit of shameless logic-twisting, intention-denying interpretation, just because everyone else in the parliament is doing it too.

In fact all this really needs is leadership: one decent PM who will say, at the beginning of his or her term in office, "Look, let's stop all this nonsense and all agree to just claim the bare minimum, and let me set up someone whose task it will be to check what you're claiming and disallow anything that would make a reasonable person go, 'Well, that's not reeeeally what the designers of this entitlement had in mind...' "

But since we don't have that, sure, I guess we need to tighten the rules and make them "more transparent".  So fine, it's not that hard.  In fact, the existing rules are actually pretty clear, except for spelling out what is an allowable business trip.

But ok, here are my new rules:

Travel and Accommodation:

• Business Class air travel is fine
• no charter flights or helicopters unless there is no commercial flight
• no air miles can be accrued (the same rule some companies have for business travel)
• you pay for any family traveling with you
• taxis or hire cars for urban travel but not for travelling between home and your electorate office
• no travel allowance for party fundraisers or social events
• if you have a "work meeting" at the same place as a social event, you pay half the travel cost (and travel rules as above still apply)
• you can't use your accommodation allowance to pay off your mortgage on a Canberra home. Yes you might have bought the home because you have to spend part of the year in Canberra for work, but the fact you are buying it gives you a personal financial advantage (property wealth) so you can't DOUBLE-DIP by claiming an allowance as well. 
• To achieve the above, change the flat dollar allowance MPs get for accommodation and food while in Canberra to two separate items, being a flat amount for food and a claim for accommodation, which is only paid for booked-and-paid accommodation 

Study Tours:

• Stop that nonsense

Superannuation:

• Same as the rest of us

Retirement allowances:

• existing redundancy arrangements for MPs who lose their seat are fine
• no funded office or driver. Use a home office
• Scrap the Gold Pass arrangements for free air travel within Australia for retired long-serving MPs - it's encouraging too many of them to stick around for too long. Let's make it 3 free Business Class trips a year for self and spouse, to attend the odd thingy. 

NOT HARD.


I also think it's a good idea as someone has suggested, to rename them from 'entitlements' to 'expenses' or 'claims'. If you are told something is an 'entitlement', you are apt to claim it. Just as many taxpayers routinely put in work expense claims for the couple of hundred dollars' stationery claims you are allowed to make without receipts - and can I just add, that I also think this is appalling. Don't do it, people.

There has been unhappiness about MP entitlements before, but this time it's the current government's own harsh budget and rhetoric ("The age of entitlement is over!" - oh, I love it) combined with Hockey's out-of-touch announcements ("poor people don't drive far", "people should get a good job paying good money") combined with the usual dubious expense claims by all of them, that is bringing this to a head.

To finish off: this is the funniest Bronwyn Bishop helicopter meme in my opinion:

Bronwyn Bishop says goodbye. #auspol pic.twitter.com/VuIQbpqY9q

— Tim Jones (@forthleft) August 2, 2015

I Stand With Adam

I'm not a joiner, usually. I wholeheartedly support marriage equality, but I didn't rainbow my Facebook profile. There were enough of those that mine wasn't needed - and that's usually the way I feel about protests and public acts of support once they get a big enough following.

But I actually feel quite strongly about this one, and I do agree with Fairfax that this is an important turning point for our country. These days where anything public is drawn out and carried on to exhausting length thanks to social media, there is also the need to manage and direct the momentum to make sure it is carried in the right direction.

So I stand with Adam.

The attacks on Goodes in recent times have reached such a level that they are reflecting poorly on our entire nation. We all have a duty to help end this travesty – and prevent repeats – by having the courage and decency to call out such behaviour as a racist disgrace. It certainly has no place in a nation that would pride itself on being diverse, multicultural and, above all, fair. 

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/booing-adam-goodes-australians-must-unite-against-racism-20150731-giosk2.html#ixzz3hX6fcc00

We know now, these days, the damage to a person's psyche and future that bullying causes. We know the damage it is causing Adam Goodes. No reasonable person, surely, can still argue that constant, sustained booing doesn't do any harm. We might have thought that once. We might have believed that sportspeople have to accept this and that they tune it out. We know differently now.

I know that many of the people booing Adam Goodes aren't racist. And I know that not everyone likes Adam Goodes, and public figures can be annoying in all sorts of ways. But the level of ugliness and vitriol flying Adam Goodes' way daily is beyond anything that white players ever get, and is beyond anything reasonable.

Adam Goodes is a bloody legend.  He's a great footballer obviously, having won TWO Brownlow medals and kicked 454 goals; he is loyal to his club, and he's racked up an impressive amount of community work especially for young indigenous sports. He's been a big name in football and in his community for more than 20 years.

So why the hatred?

What's he done wrong?

Staging for free kicks? I'm not a footy person so can't speak to this, but others have - like here (the Herald Sun!), and here and here.

Aboriginal war dances? If so, so what? Celebrating your own culture is not the same as attacking others.

Refusing to celebrate Australia Day? It's time Australians realised that the majority of indigenous Australians feel this way, and this is not news, nor is it surprising.

Using his Australian of the Year award to call for action on racism? An absolutely appropriate use of the platform I'd say.

'Bullying' a 13-year old? Hardly. Firstly, the 13-year-old had to learn that she couldn't racially vilify. She did learn that, justifiably. The humiliation and horror she felt after this incident must have been awful, but she also had plenty of love and support around her, and the public aspect was over fairly quickly. The media didn't drag it on, and Adam Goodes himself, once he knew the girl's age and accepted that she didn't know she was being racist, was reasonable. He didn't let it go - why should he? But he was not cruel, and he talked to her to help her understand.

When she called to apologise the next day, he got the word out:

Just received a phone call from a young girl apologizing for her actions. Lets support her please #racismitstopswithme #IndigenousRound

— Adam Goodes (@adamroy37) May 25, 2013

From the beginning, he emphasised the impact of her slur on him (it was 'devastating' and he was 'gutted').  Which was necessary for Australia to hear.

Check out his words after the event:

Goodes said the fan's offensive remarks had shocked him."I was just like, really? Wow could that happen?""I don't know if it's the lowest point in my career, but personally I've never been more hurt."It felt like I was in high school again being bullied. I don’t think I’ve ever been more hurt by someone calling me a name. Not just by what was said, by who it came from."

Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/adam-goodes-gutted-after-13-year-old-girls-racial-slur-who-called-the-sydney-champion-today-to-apologise/story-fni5fan7-1226650256245 

I can't know what racism feels like. I have an idea, but I can never feel the kick in the guts that Adam Goodes feels, when despite being successful, loved and respected in the community, a single racist epithet - and from a child, meaning she has learned it from the community around her - can bring it all down.

Australians overall are fair and inclusive. Most Australians now have grown up in a multicultural environment and are not overtly racist. In my years travelling I loved seeing Australians overseas interacting with people.  Australians treat everyone the same in a relaxed natural way that stood out for me observing it.

But there is an unmissable ugliness to the vitriol being pumped Adam Goodes' way, and in the anger with which people are defending their treatment of him. I understand people who don't like him and who are not racist, being angry at being made to feel racist. But you have to examine the underlying feelings and beliefs behind your reactions, especially when they are disproportionate.  Waleed Aly is right when he says that Australia likes its minorities happy, grateful and quiet - when this is the case we adore them. When they are not, we find it too confronting, and we kick back, hard.

An American caller to ABC 774 yesterday also was not in doubt. A resident here of 20 years, he found the booing racist without a doubt. I'm paraphrasing from memory here, but he said, "Australia is a wonderful society, and there is not the overt racism we have in the US, but there's something about this, what's going on now... This thing is putting me off."

#IStandWithAdam. Australia should learn from this and grow, but with no further negative impact to Adam Goodes.

Adam Goodes - Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

The end of austerity?

So Greece is trying something new. The government swept to power on promises to stop the crippling austerity regime that has not improved Greece's debt or credit rating one bit and has brought the country close to ruin.

After a bit of a stand-off, Greece and the Eurozone and the IMF reached a compromise agreement on Friday which was less than the PM wanted but enough to (just) allow him to save face and present it as the first step in an ongoing campaign to end the austerity regime.

Austerity, in 2010, seemed the natural and only solution. Greece was, in the words of George Papandreou at the time, 'on the edge of the abyss'. Successive governments over the decades had run the economy on a toxic mixture of socialism, neglect and corruption, and the mess had been steadily exacerbated by its inclusion in the Eurozone. (Greece expected a free kick - instead it lost the little control it had over its crappy economy and got pummeled).

The first time I felt angry on behalf of Greece was when some Eurozone countries suggested kicking Greece out of the Eurozone in punishment for obviously cooking the books to get in in the first place. That made me angry because, HELLO, when Greece got into the Eurozone so early and so easily everyone KNEW they had obviously cooked the books, including EVERYONE IN THE EUROZONE. The fact was Europe wanted to get all the major countries in quickly and to build up its base and power and was quite prepared to overlook the fact Greece could not possibly, under any true test, have met the economic conditions required.

The second time was when the IMF advised the UK in 2013 to go easy on austerity measures because, hmm, as it turns out, austerity is damaging; the IMF then admitted to having underestimated the damage the Greek bailout conditions would wreak on the country.

I have also felt angry on behalf of the Greek people, most of whom, like any other people, are hard working and honest and have nothing to do with the crap their governments have created.


Of course, as a non-Greek who has learned Greek, married a Greek, lived in Greece and generally been steeped in Greek culture for many years, my feelings about Greece are complicated.

During the time I lived there, I liked and admired the Greek lifestyle, but find the spontaneity and constant socializing exhausting (what do introverts do in Greece?). I liked how hard working people are in small businesses and at home, but could not fail to notice the bloated incompetence rampant in the public service. (Go to a post office, or any government department, in 1996 and you will see what I saw. Ten people behind every counter smoking cigarettes and ignoring or yelling at the public).

When we visited in 2012, the country was visibly, badly struggling, Closed shop faces were everywhere, even down at prime real estate like on waterfront strips.

But, three anecdotes:

(1) When I broke my arm at Athens Airport I was treated initially at the airport's first aid clinic, a gleaming, impressive facility massively overstaffed and under-medecined. The people were all very nice but didn't seem to have a lot to do. While we waited outside for an ambulance to take us to hospital, two of the paramedics came outside and waited with us, smoking cigarettes and chatting to us the whole time, which was almost an hour.

(2) The ambulance workers and people at the hospital all did a great job. Even the scary bone-setter who I never want to see again. The hospital was terrifying, grimly under-resourced with the air of a third-world clinic. But even so, my treatment there was good - and completely free. Even though I am not a Greek citizen and I had full travel insurance, I wasn't charged anything for the clinic treatment, the ambulance ride or the hospital treatment, nor the follow-up hospital visit one week later.

(3) I still remember the wide-eyed horror on a friend's face when we told her that in offices in Australia we all work eight-hour days. "Like Germany," she said. "You must all fall into your beds exhausted each night!"

Of course, things are not so simple under the surface. Greek office workers might start work at 8 and finish at 2, but they come home and scrub their houses from top to bottom and cook two meals a day. Oh, I mean the women of course. But also, who knows what was going on behind the scenes of the things I could see? I can admit that one day's observation of the Athens Airport clinic is not a good enough basis from which to make any observations at all. And when a country is that far down the plug hole, who's to say that hanging onto too many staff isn't better than adding to the massive unemployment?

But even so, these three things all made me think, Holy shit, Greece, no wonder you're in trouble!

But, like France attempting the 36-hour work week, it is admirable at the same time, isn't it? I love the audacity of resisting the capitalist juggernaut, at least a little. God knows, we all do work too hard and too much, and some changes would be nice.


But the problem is, much as we lament the hamster wheel of working hard to pay for things we suspect we might not quite need, there doesn't seem to be an economically sustainable way to operate otherwise.

Or is there?  In recent times, thanks to the longest, deepest global recession since the 1930s, and thanks in part to poor, poor Greece, the tide has appeared to turn against 'austerity politics'.

It will be very interesting to see what happens in four months time, in the next round of negotiations between Greece and the Eurozone.  I am sure another compromise will be found, that will allow both sides to claim a win to their constituents. And if the compromises continue, as the tide continues to turn against the punishing austerity paradigm, then perhaps we'll start to see, some steady accumulation of relief for Greece as well.


As for the photo below, I don't know where it originally came from but I got it from @Circa on Twitter and it seems just perfect for meme treatment. Caption suggestions, anyone?
I'll start:

'How long are we going to play chicken?'
'I don't know, I wasn't thinking past the election.'

A Walk in the Woods is going to be a movie!

Yay! I can't wait for this. My favourite book in the world, A Walk in the Woods, is being made into a movie, which is awesome, and it's starring Robert Redford which is even more awesome (two things I love in one thing!)

The reason I love this book is it has everything. It's a story of an unlikely adventure; of friendship; loyalty to friends and how friends can annoy and betray each other; endurance; changing plans and letting things go; overcoming obstacles; surprising yourself; and doing something hard and rewarding. It's also a love letter to the North American wilderness and to the simple side of life.

It's different to Bill Bryson's other books. I've enjoyed the others too, but this one has depth and meaning beyond the travel yarn premise, and it weaves in the history, ecology and cultural meaning of the North American wilderness as it goes.

In the book (and real life), Bill Bryson and his friend were in their mid-forties and unfit when they attempted to hike the Appalachian Trail. Personal growth, shock, tears and hilarity ensue.

In the movie, Robert Redford stars as Bryson (I bet Bill Bryson never imagined that while he was walking the trail), and Nick Nolte as his friend Stephen Katz. They are both a fair bit older than Bryson was, but the premise is the same.

Here is the trailer:

And apparently, the movie also has bears. Plus Kristen Schaal who I can only assume will be playing the strange and annoying hiker Mary-Ellen, because she would be perfect as her.

I plan to see this movie as soon as it comes out.

What's your favourite book to movie adaptation? 

Fear

In an early chapter of A Walk in the Woods, as Bill Bryson prepares to walk the Appalachian Trail he reads up on, and obsesses about, bear attacks. After some horrifying stories of people mauled or killed by bears in the American wilderness, he concedes that the likelihood of being attacked by a bear while hiking or camping in the woods is small. But that's not the point:

"Black bears rarely attack. But here's the thing. Sometimes they do."

Bear! Don't run. But don't climb a tree. Play dead.  

Or don't play dead. Most importantly: Don't panic!

Daniele Colombo/Flickr CC

We all know that humans are terrible at calculating risk. We blithely drive in cars which kill us by the thousands, and fear getting in a plane which is statistically the safest mode of transport.

But this point has always bothered me. Sure, traffic accidents happen every day, and so do heart attacks, cancer diagnoses and people dying of old age. But you can't live your life fearing death every time you wake up or walk (or drive) down the street. So our brains quite sensibly put these fears into abeyance day to day, just as they do our general fear of old age, death, and our place in the cosmos.

On the other hand, you don't step onto a plane every day, so it's much more natural to feel nervous when you do. When we all start driving flying cars every day, we will, I am sure, lose our fear of flying.

I also think it's quite logical to fear things that, while unlikely or rare, nevertheless have horrifying consequences if they happen. For instance, car crashes happen every day and plane crashes rarely, but (I know this logic is flawed) you can walk away from a minor car accident. There aren't too many minor plane crashes.

It's fun to scoff at people fearing unlikely things. Like helicopter parents fussing over the safety of their precious children. Parents these days worry too much, and have ludicrously over-inflated ideas of the dangers kids face outside. They stifle their kids' freedom! Kids are missing out on vital outdoor neighborhood roaming! When we were young, we had the run of the neighborhood! Child abduction hasn't increased! Children are missing out on fun, and failing to learn independence and character!

But...

When I was a kid thirty years ago we had 'stranger danger' lessons at school, and our parents were worried enough about child abduction. My sister and I rode bikes around the local streets and walked to and from school, but we weren't allowed free reign over the neighborhood.

But the thing is, back then we knew a lot less. My parents say now that if they had known what we know now about the dangers children face, we wouldn't have been allowed to do even the things we did back then.

We didn't understand the nature of child abuse. For instance, that 'stranger danger' is less of an actual danger to kids than adults they already know. Kids were routinely entrusted to the care of other adults in a way they are not any more.

We didn't understand the nature of sexual assault. I remember in the early eighties, when kids I knew were 'flashed' on their way home from school, the police telling their parents they take it seriously these days, because they now knew that flashing was a precursor crime to sexual assault. I remember we were all surprised, having always been taught to ignore and shrug off these occasional incidents.

We didn't hear as many bad stories. The news cycle was quieter, fewer assaults were reported, perhaps fewer accidents and incidents made the news, back when pictures and video from all around the world were not as easily available. So we weren't all bombarded with horror every day and were a little more naive as well.

Also, just because generations past monitored their children less, doesn't mean danger didn't exist. My grandfather recalled "a Huckleberry Finn childhood" playing in rivers and bushland and coming home at sunset. But my mother's cousin drowned when he was eight playing in a rowboat alone at the beach.


My kids are nine and want to walk home from school. They know the way, we've walked together a few times, and I am happy for them to walk home alone, some days. That doesn't mean I won't be biting my nails waiting for them to knock on the door. And I probably won't let them do it regularly, so as not to set up a routine some waiting evil-doer could notice and take advantage of. (I know: infallible logic).

I don't think you can blame parents for being hyper-vigilant over child safety these days. And I am pretty confident kids are getting enough of what they need.


As Bill Bryson puts it:

"If [bears] want to kill you and eat you, they can.... That doesn't happen often, but - and here is the absolutely salient point - once would be enough."

Bears are super scary:

Valerie/Flickr CC

How do you deal with fear?

The Culture of Free

There's been a lot written about "the culture of free" on the internet.

About how Napster spawned the expectation of most consumers that they can get great stuff for free online, and how newspapers and any company trying to make any profit at all have been trying to combat it ever since.

About how "if you're not paying for the product [Google, Facebook], then you are the product".

About how journalism is struggling to stay afloat, relevant and high-quality in a deluge of content-farming clickbait sites paying zero dollars for content.


I am part of the problem. I love my favourite podcasts but have so far not donated to a single one. (I tell myself I will). I use Wikipedia all the time, and I would like to keep it free of ads, but I have not contributed to their $3 fundraiser (I tell myself I will).

I have one online newspaper subscription, to Fairfax, which gives me full access to The Age and the Australian Financial Review for a very reasonable amount (which I suspend when funds are tight). I used to also have The Australian, but I let that go a couple of years ago when it became just too ridiculously right-biased even for my fairly elastic tastes.

I used to have an online subscription to Vanity Fair (jeez, a lifetime ago - who has time to read those articles now?). And I gave myself a three-month print-and-online subscription to New Scientist for my last birthday, which I plan to cancel - not because it's not excellent, but because it's expensive. I know buying a print magazine almost every week is more expensive, but an odd thing happens when you take up a subscription: you stop reading the bloody thing. Why it is I eagerly bought and read every issue at the newsagents for premium dollars for years, and now have 10 issues unopened from their plastic wrappings and the app barely accessed on my phone I just don't understand, but there it is.

I read lots of books on Kindle, and I buy a few songs from iTunes. (I know, Spotify, Pandora etc - I'll get there).

But apart from those things, I don't pay for anything I consume online.  (I don't torrent movies, or try to get around paywalls - I just stick to the free stuff).

I read newspapers, Slate, Cracked, Buzzfeed, Salon, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Jezebel, Freakonomics, i09, Forbes, New Scientist, Meanjin, Daily Science Fiction... and anything else interesting I get from Twitter or elsewhere. All excellent content, all "free" for now.

I know it's going to get worse. Pop-up ads are getting more intrusive, especially on mobile devices - many are virtually malware. It has got to the point where you just can't finish reading a '15 celebrities who...' list without giving up in disgust. Honestly!

And yet I am part of the problem.

To be honest I'm not sure Napster is to blame, or that it even started with the internet. In my youth I loved PBS Public Radio and I was happy to hear every second song interspersed with earnest pleas for donations, and I never donated anything (I always told myself I would).

You see I always think: what if I donate and this thing doesn't survive - I've lost my money.
And even less nobly, I think: enough other people will donate, it will be OK.
And sure enough, next week's podcast contains a heartfelt 'thank you so much for contributing, you guys are great and we are so thankful!' and I can relax a little and know that my favourite podcasts will continue.

I know - I'm not proud of it.


Today I clicked a link from Twitter to this article (see pic below). You will note an extremely reasonable - nay, awesome - subscription deal offered by the Boston Globe. You get 5 free articles, or you can subscribe for 99c - for all access, forever! (or possibly for just one year, but either way, awesome).

And I thought: Let's just see how the five articles go first.

Do you pay for stuff online, donate to sites and podcasts, or freeload? Is it freeloading, when the stuff is offered ostensibly free?

Words for Wednesday: The Recession and the Future

It's been a while since I've done a Words for Wednesday, but this week's words inspired me, and also I can not often resist a rhyming challenge.

'Words for Wednesday' is a writing prompt held by Delores at Under the Porch Light.
Use some or all of the week's words, write a poem or a story or part of a story, and visit Delores' current week's prompt to let her know you've joined in.

This week there were two lists; I chose the rhyming one:

trepidation

stagnation

depreciation

domination

acclimatization

corroboration 

Here is my effort:

The Recession and the Future

The GFC caused wide stagnation

Unemployment, depreciation

The end of the US domination

Of economic occupation

Now things are getting better, slowly

So they say, though here in lowly

Mortal world it doesn’t seem so

Money’s tight and jobs are more so

We read the news with trepidation

Stories lend corroboration

To fears and predeterminations

Nothing seems in moderation

Is it a question of familiarisation?

What’s the secret of acclimatization

To economic deprivation

And social want and dislocation?

We hope for better, kinder days

A future mapped in better ways

We wait and wonder what will follow

When today becomes tomorrow.

Everyday Beauty: Other People's Gardens

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I have garden envy, sometimes.

My husband and I are not gardeners. I have attempted garden beautification a few times, but I never follow through. Anyone (even me) can weed a flower bed, plant some stuff and throw down mulch, but the thing is you also have to stand there and water it each night for a little while, and keep up the weeding and the mulching, and remember to check on the health of those flowers every now and then.

That's the bit I don't do so well.

For a long time when my kids were little I defended myself with "time". "I've got no TIME for gardening!" "Who has TIME for that?" etc.

Now I have the time. But I have found, contrary to what I expected, I prefer to spend that time reading, tooling around on the computer, watching Breaking Bad and playing dumb games on my phone.

Y. is not much better. He has grand plans for vegetable patches and fruit trees (in the FRONT yard of course - he is Greek after all), and every now and then he will do a blitz, attacking overgrown trees, bushes and rockeries and making an impressive improvement in a two day rampage. But again, that tends to be the end of it for six months.

So gardening is not our thing.

In contrast, our next door neighbors have a beautiful garden, with lush soft green grass, pretty flowers, a rosebush hedge and gorgeous little rockeries. Our neighbors across the road have a plainer garden (probably more my style to be honest), which is trim and neat, with soft green grass and tidy green stuff around the edges.

Our kids nag us a lot, to the effect "I wish WE had a pretty garden", and "I wish WE had flowers", and "Why don't WE have a nice garden?". And I tell them, a garden is a lot of work (or money).  You see, the thing that does reduce my envy somewhat is that every second day you can see our neighbors working quite hard in their gardens, mowing, trimming, weeding, mulching and planting. It's a big, ongoing thing.

Once upon a time maintaining a nice garden was part of the deal you accepted when you moved to the suburbs. Saturdays were spent washing and maintaining the car, mowing lawns, scooping up dog poop, raking leaves, sweeping porches, and weeding and trimming the garden. It was part of the package and you had to do it if you didn't want neighbors like my dad talking about your house looking "like a rental property".

These days that social pressure is... well, not gone, but lessened.

Hence, our garden.

But I do enjoy the beauty of my neighbors' gardens, on our walks around the blocks.

Thank you neighbors,
for beautifying our walks.

Next door

This one is from my garden