Tuesday night was one I would rather forget but one that still shows up a lot about my personal behavior.
Originally I planned to buy some Chinese food for dinner because my mother was out at Parent/Teacher night and my brother was not at home. However, after I contacted my mum from the public phone in Elgin Street, I though I might as well try for something cheaper and/or less oily than is offered by the Chinese restaurant on the eastern side of Rathdowne Street. Therefore I went into the plaza on the western side of Drummond Street and had a quite luxurious toasted baguette and a milkshake as dinner.
I had always planned to spend the evening in the Bailleau Library, but for a moment I thought I could walk there. This is where the trouble began because during my time in the Bailleau - which lasted from about 18:30 to 21:00 - I thought I had left my bike in Elgin Street and when I walked back from the Bailleau I found it was not there. I thus rang up an already-worried mother and brother who told me to talk to the police.
The police, though frustrated by how rapidly I spoke, told me when I gave a description of the bike that it was likely to have been stolen by young kids who were wanting illegal drugs. After this I went home for the night but in the process I had hallucinations that some of the kids in the old housing blocks on the western side of Rathdowne Street had stolen the bike and were joyous as making me pay for my bad behavior. I was as I walked east down Palmerston Street that these hallucinations began, and when I heard a black boy talking and playing basketball with himself I began to really scream violently. I said he had seized my bike and that he should have his house searched for M-rated movies and violent heavy metal or rap music that I have imagined to make people want to do these things. At my worst screaming I was telling him that he should be restricted to movies and music rated "G" until he was fifty years old! However, the boy was saying in very rude language that he would kill me and two other black boys whom I was passing said that I should cut out the conversation if I did not want to be killed! Though I was really angry, I did that and called home.
When I was home, I told my mother about what I thought had happened. She agreed she would pay half the cost of a new bike, and told me I should ask Cash Converters and recheck the area whilst it was light. She said I had improved dramatically despite my description of the vivid screaming on Rathdowne Street.
On a warm day today, after much work with washing and food, I finally walked to check for my bike and confirmed it was not where I though I left it in Elgin Street. However, surprise of surprises, I had actually taken it to the Bailleau and it remained there when around 14:00 I visited the place again! I do not know what hallucination prevented me from even checking the stand outside the Bailleau on Tuesday, but it is still a relief the bike was not stolen!
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Is anti-modernism a necessary response to an unwinnable struggle?
One of the most effective (even for free marketers) responses to the claim of Austrian economists that capitalism ensures every country will specialise in what it can produce most effectively is this:
"in reality the distribution of resources is such that an exceedingly small minority of countries (or societies, or communities, or regions - you name it) will specialise in the production of the vast majority of goods and services, leaving the remainder to compete for producing a small number of goods and services"
To illustrate how effective this argument proves, even my last RMIT minder, who generally agree with most of what the PIGs say, was very responsive to my suggestion. Particularly he pointed out how, as I have mentioned too often already, Australia's supply of usable land and minerals means it can produce the great majority of primary products more efficiently than any other country.
Rod Dreher and Sharon Astyk, two key figures in the modern "localist" movement, have both argued that a future based on local products is the only means for cultural survival in what I as an environmental scientist call the "enriched" regions of the world (all except Australia and sub-Saharan Africa).
What the history of the world post-World War II has shows is that the free market will deliver "enriched" regions incomes and living standards higher than mineral- and land-rich Australia though continual striving for improved efficiency in the use of both land and labour: in the process directing these regions' economies to business services, tourism and precision instruments or other luxury goods. What it also shows is that this comes at the cost of an organic, community-oriented culture. The most important essentials for strong communities and stable families - housing space, energy and food - have become so unaffordable that today Europe and East Asia suffer from fertility rates so low to risk major labour shortages or a quite literally anti-human culture in which robots do all the work. Though one can say farm subsidies drive up housing costs and welfare reduces the value of children, even were these eliminated the problem might be unsolved, for:
1) detached family housing that would permit affordable family formation is not certain to compete perfectly with the tourist industry for land liberated by eliminating farm subsidies. Moreover, if all their farmland were converted to housing Japan and Europe would not match Australia's housing space
2) East Asian nations suggest that if welfare were ended people in land-short nations would rely not on children but on savings to give insurance against reaching an age when they can no longer work.
Moreover, as other nations industrialise it is likely to be very difficult for Europe and East Asia to cope since an increasing number of nations will be competing for the same class of products and for the tourist dollar. In Allan Carlson's interesting book Third Ways, he fails to consider whether the Japanese economic miracle was a factor in leading many European countries to abandon pro-family policies in the quest for short-term wealth. I see no reason to rule this out.
What Rod Dreher and Sharon Astyk hopefully offer is a much more modest goal that aims to actually use the natural resources "enriched" regions actually do have. They recognise that capitalism can provide high living standards in the short term at the cost of rapid cultural loss, so that they aim to create small communities that might be poorer than the business communities of European cities or Australian farmers on blocks of land as large as Hong Kong, but which are sustainable in both an ecological (unlike extensive Australian farming) and cultural (unlike high-density European cities) sense. Most especially, they hopefully will provide an alternative to the self-destructive materialism of modern Eurasian culture from which capitalism itself cannot be exonerated, yet at which socialism is far worse still.
"in reality the distribution of resources is such that an exceedingly small minority of countries (or societies, or communities, or regions - you name it) will specialise in the production of the vast majority of goods and services, leaving the remainder to compete for producing a small number of goods and services"
To illustrate how effective this argument proves, even my last RMIT minder, who generally agree with most of what the PIGs say, was very responsive to my suggestion. Particularly he pointed out how, as I have mentioned too often already, Australia's supply of usable land and minerals means it can produce the great majority of primary products more efficiently than any other country.
Rod Dreher and Sharon Astyk, two key figures in the modern "localist" movement, have both argued that a future based on local products is the only means for cultural survival in what I as an environmental scientist call the "enriched" regions of the world (all except Australia and sub-Saharan Africa).
What the history of the world post-World War II has shows is that the free market will deliver "enriched" regions incomes and living standards higher than mineral- and land-rich Australia though continual striving for improved efficiency in the use of both land and labour: in the process directing these regions' economies to business services, tourism and precision instruments or other luxury goods. What it also shows is that this comes at the cost of an organic, community-oriented culture. The most important essentials for strong communities and stable families - housing space, energy and food - have become so unaffordable that today Europe and East Asia suffer from fertility rates so low to risk major labour shortages or a quite literally anti-human culture in which robots do all the work. Though one can say farm subsidies drive up housing costs and welfare reduces the value of children, even were these eliminated the problem might be unsolved, for:
1) detached family housing that would permit affordable family formation is not certain to compete perfectly with the tourist industry for land liberated by eliminating farm subsidies. Moreover, if all their farmland were converted to housing Japan and Europe would not match Australia's housing space
2) East Asian nations suggest that if welfare were ended people in land-short nations would rely not on children but on savings to give insurance against reaching an age when they can no longer work.
Moreover, as other nations industrialise it is likely to be very difficult for Europe and East Asia to cope since an increasing number of nations will be competing for the same class of products and for the tourist dollar. In Allan Carlson's interesting book Third Ways, he fails to consider whether the Japanese economic miracle was a factor in leading many European countries to abandon pro-family policies in the quest for short-term wealth. I see no reason to rule this out.
What Rod Dreher and Sharon Astyk hopefully offer is a much more modest goal that aims to actually use the natural resources "enriched" regions actually do have. They recognise that capitalism can provide high living standards in the short term at the cost of rapid cultural loss, so that they aim to create small communities that might be poorer than the business communities of European cities or Australian farmers on blocks of land as large as Hong Kong, but which are sustainable in both an ecological (unlike extensive Australian farming) and cultural (unlike high-density European cities) sense. Most especially, they hopefully will provide an alternative to the self-destructive materialism of modern Eurasian culture from which capitalism itself cannot be exonerated, yet at which socialism is far worse still.
Monday, 13 April 2009
Music's lost poet has a site
My most important recent discovery has been the music of 1970s band Renaissance, since the “punk revolution” reviled and generally ignored by just about every modern critic or seen as overblown and overtly virtuosic.
Having been curious merely from a list on amazon.com of female vocal albums I was looking at when seeking a few limited-edition Laura Nyro reissues, it has loomed upon me that Renaissance, like Laura Nyro, were an artist whose innovation and influence has been obscured by the “punk revolution” because they moved so far from the “simple, loud and fast” criterion that too many (including people whose skill makes me actually admire them, like “janitor-x”). In a sense, what Renaissance did was even further than Laura Nyro from what the music press admires, at least in terms of the political incorrectness of songs like ‘Mother Russia’ and ‘The Sisters.’ I also fell Annie Haslam's survival from breast cancer could have prevented Renaissance from enjoying the rehabilitation and revival of interest Laura Nyro has enjoyed since she died of ovarian cancer in 1997.
The lyrics of these songs, which like so many Renaissance pieces yearn for a simpler past, were penned by Betty Thatcher, a professional poet who never was involved with music. This may be why they are so different from often fantasy-oriented the lyrics on finds on other progressive rock albums or the “streetwise” tone of underground music.
Recent days have seen fans of Renaissance inform me that Betty Thatcher has been very ill. I sympathise very much with these people, although almost all I imagine as being much older than me and having seen the band when it was active. Very little is actually known about Betty Thatcher in spite of the fact that the beauty of her musical poetry deserves more attention than it gets — for instance, ‘Cold As Being’ is an amazing meditation on ecological catastrophe. The surprise today was to find a YouTube site by Betty herself. Though incomplete, I hope the site can draw some attention to a group who, almost if not quite as much as Roxy Music, showed ecstatic, mystical beauty was not necessarily exclusive of working as a tightly-knit group.
Having been curious merely from a list on amazon.com of female vocal albums I was looking at when seeking a few limited-edition Laura Nyro reissues, it has loomed upon me that Renaissance, like Laura Nyro, were an artist whose innovation and influence has been obscured by the “punk revolution” because they moved so far from the “simple, loud and fast” criterion that too many (including people whose skill makes me actually admire them, like “janitor-x”). In a sense, what Renaissance did was even further than Laura Nyro from what the music press admires, at least in terms of the political incorrectness of songs like ‘Mother Russia’ and ‘The Sisters.’ I also fell Annie Haslam's survival from breast cancer could have prevented Renaissance from enjoying the rehabilitation and revival of interest Laura Nyro has enjoyed since she died of ovarian cancer in 1997.
The lyrics of these songs, which like so many Renaissance pieces yearn for a simpler past, were penned by Betty Thatcher, a professional poet who never was involved with music. This may be why they are so different from often fantasy-oriented the lyrics on finds on other progressive rock albums or the “streetwise” tone of underground music.
Recent days have seen fans of Renaissance inform me that Betty Thatcher has been very ill. I sympathise very much with these people, although almost all I imagine as being much older than me and having seen the band when it was active. Very little is actually known about Betty Thatcher in spite of the fact that the beauty of her musical poetry deserves more attention than it gets — for instance, ‘Cold As Being’ is an amazing meditation on ecological catastrophe. The surprise today was to find a YouTube site by Betty herself. Though incomplete, I hope the site can draw some attention to a group who, almost if not quite as much as Roxy Music, showed ecstatic, mystical beauty was not necessarily exclusive of working as a tightly-knit group.
Sunday, 12 April 2009
An essay on a botched job
Over the last week I have written an Epinions essay criticising ChooseCo's reprinting of the Choose Your Own Adventure series.
A point I am curious about is what R.A. Montgomery and Shannon Gilligan will do once they runs out of their own books to reprint. Probably next will be either the books of R.A. Montgomery's deceased son Ramsey or Jay Leibold titles like Sabotage, Grand Canyon Odyssey, Spy for George Washington, The Antimatter Formula, You Are a Millionaire or Surf Monkeys, all of which are listed on the recently revised ChooseCo site. If they do not reprint these, it will be a surprise if they reprint one of the many other authors who have licensed their rights to ChooseCo without having a book reprinted. More likely they will simply end their reprints and who knows if anybody will be curious to take the series up again.
A point I am curious about is what R.A. Montgomery and Shannon Gilligan will do once they runs out of their own books to reprint. Probably next will be either the books of R.A. Montgomery's deceased son Ramsey or Jay Leibold titles like Sabotage, Grand Canyon Odyssey, Spy for George Washington, The Antimatter Formula, You Are a Millionaire or Surf Monkeys, all of which are listed on the recently revised ChooseCo site. If they do not reprint these, it will be a surprise if they reprint one of the many other authors who have licensed their rights to ChooseCo without having a book reprinted. More likely they will simply end their reprints and who knows if anybody will be curious to take the series up again.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Cultural refugees: something Australia may soon face - or has it done so for a long, long time?
Here
and here one sees an excellent description of how Uwe Romeike, a German father trained as a pianist, has been exiled to Tennessee because of the mandatory school attendance laws enforced in Germany. My personal learning experience makes me more supportive of homeschooling than most of my family would like me to be. As John Holt pointed out, school does not do as much as teachers would believe to help people learn. Indeed, my most efficient learning has generally been self-taught, though my mother and brother have always criticised me for using sources they consider dubious.
Equally importantly, in an age when material conditions encourage cultures in Europe and Asia to view empathy and emotional ties as dangerous, even sinful, families like those of Uwe Romeike could easily show that this is wrong and that deep feelings have a place in a healthy society.
My previous post discussed what will happen if the US becomes more like Europe, Canada and New Zealand: Australia will become the sole refuge for those seeking the values of traditional Western Civilisation. Most conservatives in the US argue that homeschooling is necessary to preserve these because the public school system indoctrinates people with atheistic humanism. That would mean that if Obama is doing what Mark Steyn says he is, then people like Uwe Romeike will automatically seek unused land (or land no longer able to support those species it was dedicated to protect) in a desertified southern Australia to set up conservative homeschooling families.
However, what I do wonder is whether Australia being a conservative refuge is at all new. Many of Australia's present outer suburbs were originally settled during the 1950s by refugees from Eastern bloc Stalinism. Even earlier, there is agreat likelihood that many migrants, given that the social conservatism of Australia is not new, were forced out of Europe by political upheaval as well as the intolerance of governments closely tied to religions (that depend on small government for effective functioning). So even if you agree with me that future conservatives will go in larger numbers to empty desertified land in Australia, you could still see how far from being new this occurrence is.
and here one sees an excellent description of how Uwe Romeike, a German father trained as a pianist, has been exiled to Tennessee because of the mandatory school attendance laws enforced in Germany. My personal learning experience makes me more supportive of homeschooling than most of my family would like me to be. As John Holt pointed out, school does not do as much as teachers would believe to help people learn. Indeed, my most efficient learning has generally been self-taught, though my mother and brother have always criticised me for using sources they consider dubious.
Equally importantly, in an age when material conditions encourage cultures in Europe and Asia to view empathy and emotional ties as dangerous, even sinful, families like those of Uwe Romeike could easily show that this is wrong and that deep feelings have a place in a healthy society.
My previous post discussed what will happen if the US becomes more like Europe, Canada and New Zealand: Australia will become the sole refuge for those seeking the values of traditional Western Civilisation. Most conservatives in the US argue that homeschooling is necessary to preserve these because the public school system indoctrinates people with atheistic humanism. That would mean that if Obama is doing what Mark Steyn says he is, then people like Uwe Romeike will automatically seek unused land (or land no longer able to support those species it was dedicated to protect) in a desertified southern Australia to set up conservative homeschooling families.
However, what I do wonder is whether Australia being a conservative refuge is at all new. Many of Australia's present outer suburbs were originally settled during the 1950s by refugees from Eastern bloc Stalinism. Even earlier, there is agreat likelihood that many migrants, given that the social conservatism of Australia is not new, were forced out of Europe by political upheaval as well as the intolerance of governments closely tied to religions (that depend on small government for effective functioning). So even if you agree with me that future conservatives will go in larger numbers to empty desertified land in Australia, you could still see how far from being new this occurrence is.
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