Donnerstag, 14. Juni 2007
Hibernating
The computer mouse was playing up yesterday amd I was sick, so no post. Since I was diagnosed as diabetic a couple of years ago I have learnt that the simplest viral infection can leave you feeling like you’ve been on the wrong end of a rhino stampede. Ian’s been sick too and is still suffering some effects of the shingles, so we were two sore, grumpy bunnies. We took to bed for most of the day.I think I’ll spend a quiet afternoon watching “The Two Towers”. I enjoyed it more than I expected at the cinema and thought it much better than ”The Fellowship of the Ring”. In fact I have enjoyed the movies more than the often turgid and, to my mind, rather over-rated books. (Yes, I know what an amazing achievement they are but iI must confess to having been more than a teensy bit bored.)I saw the final part of the excellent but very depressing BBC doco-series about terrorism. This episode was about state-sponsored terrorism. Iran, Libya and Argentina may have a lot to answer for, but US activities in Nicauragua under Reagan/Bush surely qualify as state-sponsored terrorism in my book (not to mention Chile and a few other little interventions). The truth is out there, but it’s buried miles deep in mass-media spin and patriotic bombast. I admire so much about America but its foreign policy often seems to me so self-defeating. Barbara Tuchman spelt it out in “The March of Folly” but no-one, especially in the Pentagon or the neo-conservative think-tanks was listening. With the formation, after WWII, of the National Security State, perpetual warfare became a necessity for its own continuation. Little vassal states like Australia adopt the polemic and you end up with messes like the one we face now.There are two other factors that I think are at work here: the intimidation of moderate Muslim voices by the extreme Wahabi form of Islam and the failure to engage with the rest of the world by the average American. Over 200 people (88 Australians) were killed in the Bali bombing. I was amazed that one lj’er that Ian and I talk to had never heard of it. I was also amazed when travelling the US how many people had no idea where Australia, Iran or Woop-Woop were. Maybe its all the testosterone generated by all those quasi-military gym classes in high-school. Don’t get me wrong, apathy is a very Australian sin, but our highly multi-cultural society does tend to make us aware of more than our own back-yards. Now I’ll just grump off ‘til I feel better.
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I've chatted with several lj'ers and they have all demonstrated ignorance to some degree or other of fundamental international issues. I have discussed with them the US'centric view of the world they have and they just nod in assent.
our highly multi-cultural societyWe live in a very well-informed and tolerant ghetto, if you ask me. Just go out to the suburbs and it's all an entirely Anglo monoculture, where 'coloured people' are Greeks and Italians ... eeek! Much of rural Australia is still in the 1950s, it seems, and I think you must admit that our version of Australia, safely coccooned in multicultural Central Sydney is exceptional, rather than the whitebread norm. Heavens, there's even a Bible Belt on the North Shore (don't go there!).
The people in places like new York and Washington DC seemed aware of the rest of the world, but the folks from Peoria and middle-America did seem a tad solipsistic.On another note, have you seen any large, scary spiders yet? Keep the true-life adventures coming to we armchair travellers please.
That's true, but you may be a bit behind the times about rural Australia, places like Orange and Parkes/Forbes aren't as backward looking as they used to be. If we continue much longer under the governance of our Prime Minister and his reactionary cronies, however I can't see us heading in any direction but backwards.And everywhere, the deadening hand of Murdoch and Co sows fear. A timid opposition is no help either. We've got to get our courage back.
That's true, but you may be a bit behind the times about rural Australia, places like Orange and Parkes/Forbes aren't as backward looking as they used to be. If we continue much longer under the governance of our Prime Minister and his reactionary cronies, however I can't see us heading in any direction but backwards.And everywhere, the deadening hand of Murdoch and Co sows fear. A timid opposition is no help either. We've got to get our courage back.
that's one of the things i'm a little apprehensive about. when we move, we are going to be in a very anglo environment. i will have to actively seek out some friends from different cultures. in particular i think find some way of being in contact with the local aborigines. for s my eldest son, he's enjoyed the benefit of inner city multiculture, but for little s.bear it will have to be something we actively teach him to be part of.my inlaws are italian as you know.....they talk about south east asians as "wogs" as if they are somehow of lower importance. full circle....that is what they encountered when they first came here. you'd think they would have learned more eh?!
Yes, it's not just the red-headed Hanson types who do it. Some of the most virulent racism I've ever heard has come from people who have themselves suffered discrimination. There are Arab/ S. E. Asian hateds, Greeks who loathe Aborigines. We have to realise it's not just an Anglo problem, It's an everybody problem.
my high school band/aeronautics teacher was a WWIIveteran, and he always said that "Most Americans arefat, dumb and happy!" Since WWII most of our presidents, and virtually all our lawmakers have encouraged us to be so. most of my life i have listened to so-called conservatives telling me thatthe 'tax and spend Democrats' were at fault, and theliberals have said that the 'backwards-looking' Republicans were at fault. i find that my son'sgeneration is much more well-informed than mine, butstill, THE MARCHING MORONS has already come to pass.most people could care less, as long as they have their '3 hots and a cot'. unfortunately, much of the world has one cold, and a cold corner to sleep in.that makes for some mighty conflicts, without anysimple resolutions. until more people learn to takeindividual responsibility for themselve, and quit looking over others' shoulders trying to tell them how to live it will remain "same as it ever was".~paulwhew!(steps down off his soapbox)
Until we learn to care about more than 3hots and a cot and really cheap gas we can expect a few more spectacular horror-shows like 9-11. No amount of macho-posturing, no "Full Metal Jacket" marine -trained robotics will get around the fact that we live in a world that is, like the environment, a complex web. It's well past time that US schools realiused that there is something out there besides America. It's called The World,
oh, i completely agree with that, Bill. some daysi'm more pessimistic than that, other days moreoptimistic. some of us here have been trying for years to get an actual government, rather than amilitary-industrial run machine. others seem benton doing their damnedest to short out any common-sensesolutions of any kind. my main concern now is to tryto wake up a few of the sleeping, and get more of theawakened to actually get up and do something,rather than wallow in self-interest and elitism.~paul
citizens of empirical states usually are ignorant about those under its sway and deluded about everyone else. Sadly, in a very real sense we are part of the American empire--certainly economically and culturally. We know it and see the differences big and small.Most Americans? Don't know, don't want to know and don't need to know.
Britain was an Imperial state that at least had a pretty thorough knowledge of its subject states.As long as there's Mozart, Shakespeare, Schubert and Picasso, I'll never really feel totally absorbed by an American empire.Doesn't empirical mean founded on observation and experiment? Do you mean imperial?
/me understands about the virus thing.... Hubs is diabetic and is now sick with some creeping crud in his chest and head... *hugs*
I have enough history to be apalled, or at least mesmerized by the recent events here. Americans do not have a stranglehold on ignorance. when I was in NZ a while back I could not find any teengagers who knew if NZ was in WWII. The empire terms seems appropriate. To my mind, I see our current policy emulating some of the later Greek Byzantine emperors. Make border states, destabilized everyone else with cash, maintain an unstoppable army. Of course this did not work against the Muslims later on. We cannot even claim to a Christian bastion either.Bush has overspent everything, our good will (an intangibole but important thing) our budget and much of the trust of the American people abroad.I lived in the UK during the Reagan years with all the protests ovewr the nukes stored there at Upper Hereford and all, but I never worried for my safety there or in Europe. Now I wonder.As for myself, frankly Afghanistan should have happened, but we also need to take responsibility to put evrything back together again, which is where our significant failures are going to haunt us. If we cannot put them back together again, Afghanistan and Iraq are going to be worse problems than they were before.I have no idea where Woop-woop is, but it does sound Australian. You are using a rather broad brush here, by the way.
Please excuse the typos, it is early.
Oh, this is just the sort of rave I go into when I'm tired and cranky and the world looks rather brown. Better to take it out on big, beautiful, dumb, wonderful, awful America than my poor old partner. It's got broad enough shoulders to carry a few gripes from me.Afghanistan isn't called the "grave of Empires" for nothing.Byzantine history is almost totally ignored here and, I suspect, almost everywhere else. If it wasn't for John Julius Norwich's wonderfully entertaining 3 volume history, I'd know next to nothing about it.No-one who knows me well has ever made the mistake of taking me too seriously. Einstein, I aint.
The creeping-crud seems to be a world-wide phenomenon at the moment. Thanks for the hugs, and I hope hubby is feeling better soon.
Oh and I hunted around and found a Dutch travelogue of Woop Woop.Wow. Very beautiful. I like that place.Grave of Empires indeed. Gandamak. ugh. So it goes.I have a soft spot for the Byzantines. Studied them a bit here and there. Interesting as Empires go, and we could learn a fee things from them.Hope the spring brings you some nicer weather.Rave away, I like it when something provokes my brain. Makes for conversation. Too bad you are so far way, this would be a fine conversation starter. I am reminded of when flag burning became the rage around here , and I thought that the flag was more than just some cloth and some moron burning it wasn't tarnishing what it really was.Besides, burning is a proper disposal for a flag, much better than taping one to your car antenna and letting it get weathered into fragments and then binning it. Which has been happening muchly since 9/11.
(1) I agree about Tolkien. I'd much rather live in that world than read about it.(1a) I feel similarly about Dickens: love movies made of his work, but can't stand to read the books.(1b) Yet I love Hugo.(2) Part of my own ignorance stems from frustration with news sources. When it comes to news, I just want facts. If I want opinions, I'll read editorials. And yet bias seems rampant. I feel that I get the most depth of coverage if I read one conservative source, one liberal, and then either BBC News or the International Herald-Tribune ... but I really don't have the energy to do that every day. There's just too much information being strewn around. Most days I prefer to have my new information be about science and art, for the simple reason that I enjoy those subjects. Does that make me selfish or a poor citizen? It's difficult to know.(3) Err ... so NZ teenagers are eating ANZAC biscuits without any curiosity as to the name?
ANZAC Day? Is that the one where all the veterans parade? Wasn't it originally done to commemorate some WWI battles like Gallipoli or Suvla Bay? Some time in April isn't it?I am a history nerd, and I work in the military so I consider myself rather more informed on military history than the average person, but come on, not knowing if your grandfather (or your nation) was in the second World War?ANZAC biscuits are still around?
Sorry, disagree about Dickens. I love him on TV or the printed page, especially "Bleak House" and "Great Expectations".I liked "Les Miserables" but it took stamina. I seem to remember reading some other Hugo years ago,but so long ago that I scarce remember. Was "Toilers of the Sea" Hugo or Dumas (pere or fils)?Probably Dumas, as I vaguely remember a fight with an octopus. Which reminds me of Dorothy Parker's wicked rhyme: Although I work and never cease At Dumas pere and Dumas fils Alas, I cannot make me care For Dumas fils and Dumas pere.Attempting to find the facts is a big job for an ordinary person. The media, in all their manifestations,combine to form a sort of modern Tower of Babel. We all get exhausted and need to stop and smell the flowers sometimes.I may as well give you my other Dorothy Parker favourite: she was dining with some wit, (Menken or Runyon or someone ) and she was challenged to make a rhyme from a given first line. She was given , "Hickety-pickety my black henShe lays eggs for genlemen"(Here Parker thought for five seconds)"You can't persuade her with rope or lariatTo put out for the proletariat".
Yes, I know that I'm much in the minority re: Dickens.Back in the Mesozoic Age, in college, I had to give a solo voice recital, and I sang two Dorothy Parker songs set to music as part of it. A couple of people even got the jokes.
Oh, sure. I've got a recipe for them somewhere. Want me to dig it up?
I love to cook and, well, its , history too. Right?A fine excuse for banishing my dietary guilts. Perhaps it would drive those visons of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of my hindbrain.
I watched the Twin Towers last weekend and I like it very much, event ho I also found it to be contrived and predictable. I may watch it again this weekend just to double check! ;) I'm glad that you are feeling better!
Well, I was wrong, but I did find an online recipe for them here. And they're to commemorate Gallipoli, which was WWI, so I suppose teenagers might be forgiven. No one seems to think about WWI anymore, which is a shame. Wasn't it (a) the advent of modern warfare and (b) a time of great disillusionment in Western societies? Seems like it would get more coverage.
Well I don't think the average resident of the UK was as knowledgeable about the realities of life in the former colonies. And I find most English are still ignorant of the negative impact colonialism had on places like India and Africa--they still see the colonial project as a good thing. Full stop.You're right of course, the American empire is less codified and structured, but it does impact far and wide methinks. Empirical also means of or pertaining to empires...though not commonly. :)
I agree that it (WWI) was the first time the industrial giants turned their mechanistic affections upon one another. It ended any grace or civilised behaviors such as the Edwardians or their predecessors. It certainly did not really end on November 11, 1918, and indeed simply mooched around until it flared up again in Poland later on.It created a series of events that are still reverberating now. Definitely (for bad or good) a seminal event, to me. I am not speaking of the casualties because to add that in, the influenza epidemic of 1918 would also have to count and it killed more people than the war did, especially in the U.S..How can something like this go unremarked?Thanks for the recipe.
oooer, I love Dorothy Parker. What a wit! I'm currently reading through a collection of her short stories. I am one such American that doesn't see the rest of the world as territory to be stomped over. I disagree with almost all foreign policy. I was considering a politics major for awhile, but that didn't work out. I share the frustration of trying to find unbiased news (I recently posted a rant on it- American journalism has never been very objective). Thanks for your perspectives. They're well-conceived and down to earth.
ANZAC biscuits will always be around.The ladies of the Australian Countrywomen's Association and the New Zealand Women's Division of the Federated Farmers are immortal.
Anzac Day is the 25th of April and commemorates the landing, under withering defenses, of Australian and New Zealand forces at Anzac Cove, Though the assault over several months was marked by great bravery and the evacuation was a triumph of sorts, (not one soldier lost), the entire Gallipoli campaign, brain-child of one W.S. Chuchill, was a disaster.
"Big Blonde" is a great short story. Hers's another favourite rhyme:Would you like to sinWith Eleanor GlynnOn a tiger-skin?Or would you preferTo err with herOn some other fur?
I'm looking foreward to part 3. Some of the dialogue so far is very clunky, but hey! it's Tolkein.
I I just remembered who Dorothy was dining with. It was Somerset Maugham.
Really? I thought "imperial" came from the Latin "imperium" ="empire", while "empirical" came from the Greek "empiricos" = "experience". I suspect you're pulling my leg.
why? is your leg sore? ;)
ooooh! I love that!I wrote on Elinor Glyn for my thesis. She had quite a bit to say about jungle cats. ;)
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