some exercise data and such

What I need to attack my weight/waist problem:
A better set of scales, but these’ll do (measure weight in the morning, after ablutions and before brekky).
A dressmakers’ tape-measure (waist to be measured at the level of the navel, neck below the larynx with tape sloping downward to the front)
I don’t know my height precisely, but it’s around five feet seven, that’s around 170.2 cms. We’ll say 170 cms. Given a weight of 76 kgs, my BMI is 26.3 kg/m2, which is in the overweight range for a person of normal musculature, that’s to say, it’s overweight unless your muscle/fat ratio, which of course is calculated differently, is very ‘good’ (a high proportion of muscle to fat), which mine certainly isn’t. They also have waist to height ratios, and body fat percentages (on this site I’m visiting), but I haven’t got the data to input into those yet. Must get my BMI figure down for starters.

weighty matters

Time has really come to take health and fitness in hand, so I’ll be recording my efforts in this area here. The pedo has been given back to my erstwhile. A useful device so I must buy another, but must also do much more. My official weight must be recorded. It is 76 kilos or perhaps just a little under, wearing nothing but my specs, on my unreliable scales. That’s today Sunday Feb 27 and I’ll measure again in a week. Later I’ll look at weight to height standards. TISM, so I must break the bad habits. I can do it. And exercise, besides walking.

couple paras on why I think the SYC program should continue to be funded

Have been asked by my Anglicare SYC support worker to help out with a para or two extolling the virtues of the program and how it benefits young people, as it’s that time of year. Apparently their funding was slashed during the last round of grant reviews or whatever they’re called (which would probably indicate that they won’t slash it again this year, but you never know).
(To whom it may concern)
The Special Youth Carer program funded by Anglicare, with the assistance of CYFS, is designed to assist young people in care through one on one placements in which the carer, assisted and guided by the Anglicare support team, encourages the young person in developing independent living skills such as self-care, household management, budgeting, cooking and interpersonal skills in a personal and relaxed environment. I have been involved in this program as a carer for some two years, and I feel that the benefits to young people at risk are considerable. One of the young people previously in my care has made the transition to independent living quite successfully, and I’m confident of continuing success in the future.
The environment provided is one of semi-independence, with the carer acting as mentor and guide but also as house-sharer, which encourages the young person to take part-ownership of the household with all the rights and responsibilities that this entails. The young person is thus provided with a safe, secure and largely hassle-free base, as far as is possible, from which to consolidate and to develop towards the future.
One of the keys to the success of this program is the level of support provided to both the young persons and the carers in these one on one situations. At a time when the demand for foster carers is greater than it has ever been, many carers are discouraged by the lack of support in what is an increasingly demanding role. In the SYC program, weekly meetings with the support worker and monthly review meetings involving the department through CYFS ensures that the placement can be properly monitored and evaluated. Issues that arise can largely be resolved through communication and negotiation, which provides a balanced approach that promotes independent thinking in a nurturing environment for the young person as well as support for the carer. I hope to continue working in this program for the foreseeable future, and I hope that, for the sake of young people in the program and their carers, funding for it can continue at the highest possible level.
Yours sincerely etc

some general vaguely middle east stuff

Wrote too soon the other day when waxing enthusiastic about the new Palestinian government – four killed and many wounded in a massive suicide bombing in Tel Aviv yesterday, the first bombing targeting civilians since November 1. Hopefully a minor setback, as relationships have been slowly improving since Arafat’s death. Of course it was more or less inevitable that some suicide bombing would still occur, given the rage of so many Palestinians.
Through blogger, I’ve uncovered Baghdad Burning, apparently written by an Iraqi woman, clearly of the moderate persuasion, bemoaning the situation now that, apparently, the forces backed by al-Sistani are the big winners out of the election. A major turn towards Iran. And of course given the appalling Iranian crack-down on bloggers critical of the regime, blogs such as this become more heroic, and more essential.

remember the renaissance?

Managed to finish reading another book, this one a brief but pithy tome on the Renaissance by Paul Johnson. Only 160 pages or so, it focuses almost entirely on Italy, most notably the cities of Florence, Rome and Venice. The author makes a good case, to this lay reader, for focussing on Italy as the cradle of the Renaissance, perhaps especially in the visual arts and in architecture, though the introductory pages emphasise the revolutionary nature of a non-Italian invention, the printing press, in disseminating some of the new ideas throughout Europe at a rate hitherto undreamt of.
Among its many fascinations, the book introduced me to the work and character of artists who had only been names to me, such as Donatello, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Corregio and Palladio. A difficult task in a short unillustrated volume, but the point is to whet the appetite. I also learned things about the Big Names like Michelangelo that I didn’t know about, eg that he had virtually no interest in landscape (though admittedly anyone with the slightest observational power would’ve noticed this), being intensely focused on the human (male) figure – almost symbolic of the energy and shortcomings of humanism, you might say. Also, both he and Leonardo were notorious for not finishing their commissions – too many things on the go, I know the feeling boys.
Anyway, a useful little tome to carry with me on my grand tour, one day, full of buildings and frescoes and public sculptures and such to look out for.

more on climate change

Listened to an interview with Sherwood Roland, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, on RN, which has added to my education re the subject. Apparently there are six greenhouse gases, which for my sake I'll name. Carbon dioxide (C02), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SH6). CO2 first began to be measured back in 1958, the finding being around 315 ppm. Now the measure is around 379 ppm. Roland is saying we can’t let it get above 450-500ppm, but that seems a long way off, and with positive and negative feedbacks coming into effect (eg a concomitant increase in water vapour in the atmosphere, which will cloud the issue ho ho, and also increases in vegetation which will absorb CO2) predictions again become difficult.
Apparently a two degree warming is used as a benchmark figure – beyond that, catastrophe. But of course this figure is highly disputed even among climatologists. In any case we’re up around 0.8 increase now, and there should be another .5 or so coming out of human activity even if there were to be a major turnaround tomorrow, according to Roland. He believes there needs to be 50-60% reductions in fossil fuel emissions – Kyoto asks for about 5%. I need to look more into the whole Kyoto thing.

praise due

The saintly dogfighter had done a superlative job of updating us all on the Rao row, which leaves me shaking my head more than ever. It's the Baxter period that's most disturbing, the real inner circle of hell.

immigration department woes

Meanwhile back here the approach of our immigration authorities continues to nonplus, embarrass and humiliate, and that’s just we observers, not to mention those in their power. The Taipei Times has run a piece on Hu Cuiyu, the 104 year-old Chinese woman who has been declared an unlawful non-citizen as a visa overstayer. Apparently she came over on a 12-month visitors’ visa in 1995, and was denied a return flight by airlines who considered her too frail to travel. So what can you do? The department doesn’t allow her to stay in the country, the airlines don’t allow her to leave – maybe she should go live in the airport like in that movie I haven’t seen? Julian Burnside’s on the case, hoping to further embarrass the government over this one, and good luck to him.
This has caused me to look up Burnside, and I find he’s been debating our Amanda and reading her the riot act, or rather, section 268.12 of the Australian Criminal Code. Burnside’s full speech is reported at Crikey, and its powerful indictment of the Howard government, and of Ruddock in particular, I fully endorse. In fact my loathing of Ruddock has found me wandering about the house talking angrily to myself/Ruddock at all hours, promising lengthy terms of imprisonment for human rights abuses. Burnside has managed to channel that anger more effectively, but still the government seems impervious.

new-look Palestinian government

Read an interesting report from salon.com about the new Palestinian government, all bright and shiny and internationally educated, a great sweeping away of old Arafat cronies apparently. A new era in negotiations? Haven’t heard much on suicide bombers lately.

monosyllabic Euthyphro dilemma updated for the Judeo-Christian One

I have David Chalmers and Strange Doctrines to thank for this one:
Is the good all right with your god on the ground that it is good, or is it good on the ground that it is all right with your god?

global warming?

I’ve often wondered at how little global warming gets a mention in the New Scientist mag which I try to buy and read each week, considering it’s supposedly the biggest issue facing the planet and we need hard and ongoing scientific data to keep as alert to the issues and possible solutions. The February 12 issue, four days before the Kyoto Protocol came into effect, has at last come to the party, and I’ll use that as a starting point to try to get a grip on the phenomenon.
One of the problems of the stuff in NS is that it's come out of a conference on dangerous climate change, what they call 'outlier' predictions of horrendous warming, up to 11 degrees C, so much of the reporting is skewed towards the dire. I'll try to keep a level head.
Some things are beyond contention. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. Concentrations are currently about 35% above pre-industrial levels. About half of this increased CO2 since the industrial revolution is being absorbed by the oceans, increasing their acidity. It’s naturally assumed that the effect of this increased acidity on complex ecosystems will be substantial, though not easy to predict. It’s very likely that worldwide coral growth will be affected, and presumably this is already happening.
It’s also beyond doubt that there is a greenhouse effect as a result of carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere trapping the infrared radiation emitted by the earth’s surface. Recent measurements have shown that infrared radiation - in the 13 to 19 micrometre wavelength range, which is the part of the infrared spectrum trapped by CO2 – has escaped from the atmosphere less and less in the past thirty or so years. This unescaped radiation would be stored in the atmosphere as heat.
With all the uncertainty, though, it’s hardly surprising we have some individuals and groups claiming that the effects will actually be beneficial. Of course it’s always worth noting who's putting out certain interpretations and who’s backing them.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has often been criticised by global warming sceptics for ignoring alternative interpretations and scenarios as it tries to build a consensus that can lead to effective action in terms of curbing emissions, but some scientists at a recent conference in Exeter, England, are advancing the idea that alternative scenarios, which present an even worse picture of the problem, may turn out to be correct.
They’ve pointed to ‘dangerous extreme’ events, such as the 2002 heat wave in Europe that killed an estimated 30,000 people (I missed that one), which they argue are rendered more likely by incremental changes to average climate conditions.
Probably the most important and controversial feature of climate change research concerns ‘tipping points’, the triggering of irreversible climatological changes, such as the melting of the polar ice caps, which will lead to a substantial rise in sea levels.
Looking at Antarctica, the East Antarctic ice sheet sits on land, but the land of the West Antarctic is below sea level, and the ice sheet above it appears to be slipping into the sea and breaking up. Predictions have been made in the past about this scenario, with claims that the whole process could be completed in 200 years, but they have been either disputed or dismissed. More recently alarm bells have begun to chime again, but more research needs to be done.
The difficulty of course is that not only can sceptics dispute that polar ice is melting, they can also dispute the causes of such melting, as well as the likely effects. On global warming generally, Robert Mendelsohn of Yale Uni argues that the benefits are offsetting the damages, particularly for North Americans and Northern Europeans. The official line of the US government is that climate change science is ‘uncertain’, which of course means business as usual.
Temperature records going back 150 years indicate that 19 of the 20 warmest years, in terms of average global temperature, have occurred since 1980. A reasonable point could be made here that 150 years is hardly a long time. In Robin Stirling’s book, The Weather of Britain, he pointed out that the weather has fluctuated much more over larger periods. There was the Little Ice Age of a few centuries ago (I remember reading about it in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando), when parts of the Thames were covered in metres of ice, and there is some evidence that in Roman times Britain was a few degrees celsius warmer than it is today.
It’s also questionable whether human activity alone is responsible for the upward trend of temperatures in recent years – in fact it’s now generally agreed that solar cycles are at least partially responsible. The changing frequency of volcanic eruptions also has an effect, but scientists are more or less agreed that, in the past thirty years at least, neither of these two factors should have played a part in the 0.5 degree increase in global temperature. So even sceptics accept that human activity has effected some climate change, even if they disagree on its effects.
The picture that’s beginning to emerge from my explorations, shallow though they might be, is quite muddled and a little unconvincing. I don’t see any clear reason as yet to side with the catastrophists, though I would err on the side of caution in assuming that increased CO2 emissions are likely to increase global temperature, with the follow-on effect of causing sea levels to rise due to thermal expansion and the melting of glaciers.
So what evidence is there of sea levels rising currently, and if there are rises, are they within normal fluctuations?
The IPCC has predicted a global rise in the sea level of approximately 1 metre in the twentieth century [on what data are these predictions based?]. The sea level rose by 20-30cms in the twentieth century, threatening the islands of Tuvalu and the Maldives, though again it’s uncertain that CO2 emissions are primarily responsible. America’s EPA predicts a rise between 30 inches and six feet in the course of the century. It’s an inexact science, to say the least, and this makes the taking of measures to ward off global warming quite a difficult proposition. How can we hammer away at CO2 emissions via the Kyoto protocol if we can't agree on the impact of CO2 emissions on global climate change? There’s no doubt that much global warming scepticism is self-serving and opportunistic, but many sceptics have a valid point considering the number of variables and the lack of consensus on the causes, effects and extent of global warming. There’s no doubt that some groups behave with missionary zeal and are quick to blame all impacts on wealthy fossil fuel-consuming nations, and there's also no doubt that the science of climate change is enormously complex and open to manipulation.
My tentative conclusion is that global warming is occurring, and some of it is due to human activity. The consequences of such warming are largely unforeseeable at this stage, as is the extent of the warming and whether it’s within ‘natural limits’. As to consequences, a point made by Julian Hunt is worth pondering, on the distinction between hazard and vulnerability, hazard being the actual phenomenon and vulnerability being the effect on the community. This distinction was tragically illustrated in the recent tsunami, which so massively affected vulnerable and impoverished coastal communities. If we were able to better predict events related to global warming, such as heat waves, obviously the vulnerability of communities would be greatly reduced.
I'm sure much of the science in this debate is beyond me, but I'm smart enough to recognise that the only real consensus in this debate is that there has been a global warming over the past hundred years, and that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased quite a bit (from 280 to 380ppm in the past 250 years or so). And that there is quite probably a causal link there. The best article i've so far come across in my search (that's to say the one that most agrees with my tentative conclusions) is this from Rob Lyons. It's a pleasure to find a new site like Spiked.
Another reason for scepticism is that temperatures tend to be measured in cities, where there's been much local warming in the past century or so. There are counter-claims that these local effects have already been factored in, but the debate in this area, as in global warming generally, will continue to run and run.
So, I feel more informed but not more certain.

scratch that

My stupid fault.

linking breakthroughs and probs

I’ve been making efforts in the rudimentaries of linking, and have succeeded in putting sidebar links to a few blogs and sites, but for no reason I can uncover only six of the eight links I added to the template have come out in my blog. The other two links are every bit as material in the template, they loom just as large, they follow precisely the same formula, but the blog treats them as if they don’t exist. No wonder I’m screaming.

more on Cornelia, and Ruddock’s inferno

Already, and unsurprisingly, all seems to have gone quiet on the Cornelia Rau scandal, though more allegations are coming out re abuses within Baxter.
Back on Feb 4 there was this from a mag called Expatica (I think for English-speaking ex-pats in Germany), wrongly describing Rau as an Australian citizen – I believe she’s a permanent resident like me. Today’s Age carries an article on the ethical dilemmas facing medical staff, particularly psych staff, when human rights are possibly being abused.
Amanda Vanstone’s website gives details of the nature and scope of the enquiry headed by former police commissioner Mick Palmer. Five ‘terms of reference’ are mentioned, the one of most interest to many of us dealing with the kinds of issues mentioned in today’s Age article, that is that the enquiry will ‘examine and make findings on measures taken to deal with [Rau’s] medical condition and other care needs during that period [i.e. March 2004 to Feb 2005];’, because it’s the awful treatment of people in detention generally that makes this really scandalous. You wonder if Rau will ever recover from the abuse she suffered. You wonder about all the others…
This Feb 6 Age article really captures the issue well. It describes a hell in which the more ‘crazy’ your behaviour becomes, the more badly you are treated by staff and the less likely you are to be dealt with by health professionals, or to be independently assessed. It’s an immigration department mindset created largely by Ruddock, and he should take the blame for it. Yet this government is still allowed to get away with bland assurances and business as usual.

the neighbour, the child, the search for love

Right away from sex for a while but perhaps not. I’m thinking how I need to disentangle myself just a little from my next door neighbour, good friend and quondam wife. Yesterday, this very very helpful solicitous woman persuaded me to catch a train with her to the city to visit Lincraft for suitable curtains for my lounge and dining areas. She herself was not in the most able of states as she’s a chronic fatigue sufferer lately under pressure through being more or less forced to mind an extremely active and occasionally disturbed two-year-old for at least part of each week. This two-year-old is being ferried about between mother and grandmother as well as to other family members as circumstances permit. This is affecting her behaviour. She’s currently very much into opening what she shouldn’t be opening and spilling the contents (talcum powder, her grandmother’s cosmetics, my osmocote, my sunblock) on the floor, in the bath, into a pot-plant. We’re not sure how much it’s normal terrible twos stuff, how much due to these multiple separations.
So, with this loveable monster-child powdering and rubbling her house and exhausting her to the point where she’s sobbing on the phone to doctor Andrew asking for more or different medication to cope, she’s at a low ebb, and the journey to Lincraft was a kind of retail therapy, but not for me.
I appreciate, I think, what she’s doing for me, enthusing over my décor, getting me enthused, but I also well understand why it is that the vast majority of shoppers are female (as my quondam wife informed me as we waited an age to be served). Whether it’s because they ‘naturally’ have the patience, or they have patience thrust upon them, je ne sais pas, but I felt increasingly resentful (but I can suppress these feelings better nowadays) as I waited while my erstwhile chopped and changed between curtain patterns and argued with me about contrasts and complementarities. Lincraft is going into liquidation, and so everything was marked at half-price, an astonishing bargain as my Erstwhile constantly pointed out, but this also lead to a great crowd of shoppers and extended waiting times. I was the only male present, not even a queer eye to be seen.
One of my frustrations was an age-old one in my relations with my erstwhile. Astonished by the unheard of cheapness of the material, she felt the urge to buy more, and more. Almost more than she could afford. So I began to worry about finances and juggling, unexpectedly. Another frustration was more complex – she wasn’t prepared to accept my decisions on the curtain colours I’d chosen for my own home, generally because she felt, and rightly, that I was just making the easiest decisions to get the hell out of there. So I felt financially imposed upon, interiordecoratively imposed upon and temporally imposed upon. Yet at the end, though I’m so behind with the writing, I must admit it was worth it, just about. I’ll have attractive good quality curtains in my showcase areas (sewn up by my erstwhile, another small prob), all for the price, more or less, of another entry in a blog nobody reads. And so the links with the erstwhile are extended that much further.
Then there’s the child. I see a lot of her, she’s a bright spark, into everything, but responsive all the same to the ‘voice of command’ (a phrase of my erstwhile). Something the erstwhile said recently set me thinking, that it does really seem true that kids need both parents, if at all possible. A big issue in the out there. Anyway the child’s responses to my mild scolding, mixed with play and affection, have been impressive, to my mind, and a part of me wishes I could be her regular male parent – her real father's a junky. Of course much of me wants to be free of the whole thing, selfishly independent, disentangled not only from this child but from the whole family and its cares and woes, its kindnesses and incompetencies, its daily battles and thrills. To escape into bigger issues, global warming, the perils of social evolutionism, the problem of theodicy, but also into the possibility of a new love to point me in new directions. I have someone in mind, but I’m quite possibly being absurd.

what some girls do

So, they get more inebriated and uninhibited, the half-dozen male strippers come on (and they’re young and beautiful, all waxed and shiny in the modern fashion), and the women’s clothes start to come off. They urge each other on, and often go for the strippers in groups like ants to a honeypot (some connection with the way women visit the loos together in public nightspots), providing safety in numbers but also reinforcing each other in the acceptability/daringness of their behaviour – which runs the gamut up to full sex up on the stage or on secluded sofas, and which seems to include quite a bit of impulsive lesbian exploration, as the spirit moves in them.

Superindulgent Western decadence of course, but is this also to be dismissed as dysfunctional sex? There’s no doubt that many of these women – only women are allowed in it seems – have boyfriends, partners, husbands, and have healthy sex lives and happy relationships outside this scenario. A sociobiological explanation seems more satisfactory here than one based on dysfunction or even lack of self-discipline. It could be argued that this isn’t about reproductive strategies, since the women have no desire to become impregnated by these male strippers, any more than men go to prostitutes in the hope of impregnating them, but I think this misses the point, that our desire to have sex with certain people just is a reproductive urge, though our own understanding of that desire doesn’t really involve conscious thoughts about reproduction. It’s going on far below the level of our awareness.

towards sexual excess

Literally choking on my muesli at Howard’s continued refusal to apologise to Cornelia Rao – he’s thinking about litigation, but what sort of a person’s mind turns to litigation when confronted with the kind of treatment already proven to have been received from government departments in this case? It’s more than mean-spirited, it’s just disgraceful, and quite shocking that we’ve come to be led by such a hard nut. The liberal party in general deserves better than this, and they should consider dumping him, please.

I want to return to sex, any excuse will do. The earlier-discussed article on porn lit, as I’ve written, has Antonella Gambatto spouting about prostitution catering for dysfunctional male sexuality. While I think she’s right that there may be a tendency for a swathe of articulate ex-sex workers writing about their lives on the game to skew the perspective away from the harder edges of prostitution, which will perhaps always be a profession more engaged in by the drugged, desperate and self-loathing than by the coolly calculating and creative businesswoman, I’m not at all convinced about the dysfunctionality. or rather I largely agree with porn-lit writer Kate Holden that prostitution can be no more dysfunctional than marriage or monogamous relations in many circs.

Presumably to Gambetto a more functional male (and female) sex life would be monogamous (once the appropriate partner is found) with maybe the odd dalliance, but generally with the exercise of restraint and self-discipline, and of course growing respect for the partner, as shared memories grow and commingle, a situation given its best romantic gloss by the bard himself, in The Comedy of Errors:

Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing
As take from me thyself, and not me too.

The difficulty is that there are still those urges, for the male and the female, to spread the seed, to have a bit on the side, and it’s impossible to say in any general way which is more damaging to relations and to individuals, to suppress those urges or to give them free play. For males who follow the latter course there are prostitutes, and also more dangerous liaisons. It’s the oldest profession and it’ll always be with us, so to describe it as merely catering for dysfunctionality is just wishful thinking. For females, there are also the dangerous liaisons, but let’s not pretend that’s all there is.

As an occasional porn surfer I’ve come across sites which have alerted me to a new dimension in female sexual excess. Though the pics are splashed across different sites they seem to be drawn from the same location – a nightclub, probably somewhere in Europe, frequented apparently exclusively by women, real women obviously (not performers), in their twenties, thirties, some in their forties, a typical nightclub age range. Some are young and slim and beautiful, some aren’t, but all appear to be having a relaxed fun time, drinking, smoking, laughing and chatting, apparently oblivious of the video or other cameras floating around catching them in the act.

on bodily transactions

The article also comes up with an old issue, which it doesn’t even begin to deal with. If prostitution ain’t so bad, why are so few men doing it?

It’s a good question but I don’t think the answer is simply that men don’t have the high exploitation threshold that women do. I think the answer is much more complexly (or maybe simply) about male and female sexuality in general. Remember the various survey findings that men are attracted to young beautiful women while women are attracted to high status men prepared to spend oodles of money on them. As a crass generalisation it’s true, and it helps to explain both prostitution and the groupie phenomenon. Not that some women wouldn’t want to have a go with a sturdy handsome well-endowed prostitute occasionally, perhaps especially those who’ve already got their status wrapped up in a neat marriage package (and socio-biology tells us – I’ve read my Jared Diamond – that it’s a broad interspecies generalisation, albeit with many exceptions, that the female of the species tends to plump for one high-status partner, with the occasional each-way bet on the side for insurance, while the male prefers to spread his seed around), but then there’s the unfortunate physiological fact that men can’t fake it the way women can. This pretty glaring fact as well as the lack of clientele for socio-biological reasons would help to explain the numbers being down. Also there’s the point that their own status counts for a lot with men, more than with women, so that engaging in prostitution would be more demeaning for a man, whereas a woman counts more on her physical beauty, and exploiting that could be in many ways empowering for her. Of course of course we can’t rely too heavily on socio-biology, but the trend is clear and needs to be explained somehow. If anyone has a better explanation please get in touch.

Presumably if more males became prostitutes, the profession would begin to enjoy a higher status. There’s also the matter of the barriers to women in hiring a prostitute. Some would argue that women are less interested in fucking and forgetting than men, but I’m not so sure about that. Possibly they might find buying sex more injurious to their self-esteem than men do. They also might find the whole scenario intimidating. With one-on-one encounters the male is generally more physically powerful than the female. This is a kind of residual effect, since the transaction is hedged around with all sorts of conventions, and since the bloke ends up the loser and the gal the winner financially there’s a built-in restorative, but often this physical difference is enhanced by cultural differences to allow a game of power to be played as part of the transaction – indeed it’s probably true that some men visit prostitutes precisely in order to buy that power, to allow themselves a period of domination and even downright bullying, to restore a ‘natural order’ swept from under them by their shrewish wives. Hopefully such scenarios are very much in the minority, but only one in a thousand would make the prostitute’s life a danger, perhaps unacceptably so.

sex at long last

Or if you can convince your readers it’s written by such a woman? Or can you get away with just having your heroine a beautiful highly-sexed woman? For I don’t like to pretend, or to try to trick readers.

The Weekend Oz article was typical in its scepticism and willingness to put down writers on sex, even their own sex, and terms such as crass, dysfunctional and such naturally crop up. Of the writers and books mentioned, I know only of Belle de Jour, whose blog I occasionally read, though I never managed to get to any of the sexy bits. I found her an intelligent writer, but sometimes curt and dismissive of the world she apparently inhabited, assuming she really was a call-girl. The tough-exterior type, witty, independent and more than a little callous. Descriptions of group sex and anal sex etc are dismissed as crass by the reviewer, and maybe they are but surely not just because of the subject matter? Anal sex in particular is common practice these days, and threesomes are certainly not uncommon. Dead-tree journalists are, as usual, behindhand in these matters. If the reviewer had checked out a few naughty blogs she might’ve been brought sharply up to date.

A useful article though in alerting me to what’s coming up in the field, publishing-wise. Might whet my appetite for another try (at writing about sex, not sex itself – but then again…). I think I’m drawn to it because, having had so little sex in my own life, I have a tendency to rate the activity rather more highly than some. Though I doubt that I would’ve rated it lower if I had had more sex. I’m basically just a libidinous cuss.

The article also touched on prostitution and the idea that these works skate over the nasty, violent drug-fucked aspect of the game, generally dealing with middle-class types who emerge from it all unscathed, thus perpetuating the happy hooker myth and feeding male fantasies of the easy-going ever-available smiling sexual athlete who can be fucked and forgotten, or maintained as an ever-blissful memory. One Antonella Gambatto (I’ve heard that name before) claims that prostitutes aren’t sex experts but only experts on dysfunctional sex. This implies that all men who go to prostitutes for sex are dysfunctional sexually and that the sex worker client relationship is at heart a dysfunctional relationship or a relationship born out of dysfunctionality.

Now while it’s true that the prostitution industry is by and large sleazy, exploitative and often associated, in the woman’s case, with sexual abuse, drug use and other problems, the fact remains that it’s too widespread and has far too long a history to be dismissed as merely catering for dysfunctional males (by more or less dysfunctional females). It deserves a far more intelligent response than this.

more on Cornelia, mainly

So, we have German-born permanent resident Cornelia Rao, sometime flight attendant, an attractive woman with blonde hair and perhaps a troubled family history who at thirty-eight found herself under observation at Manley hospital, a diagnosed schizophrenic. Actually I’m not even sure about these facts, and I may have to delve deeper into this woman’s past.

Questions that arise, some big, some small. When did Cornelia’s schizophrenia first become manifest? What was her link to the Kenja cult, what is this cult, and how did it affect her condition? Why did Cornelia head north, to northern Queensland? Did her family do anything to locate her? On what basis was she transferred from the place of arrest to the BWCC, and on what basis was she incarcerated in the BWCC for six months? Why was she found not to have an acute mental health problem after six days of tests by psychiatrists, several months after stopping her medication? Why was she transferred from BWCC to the Baxter Detention Centre in SA, a place usually reserved for those who have entered the country by unlawful means? Why was she allowed to remain in Baxter in spite of a clear worsening of her condition, and why wasn’t her condition monitored by mental health professionals (or was it?)

The system failures in this story are numerous, and the Queensland police, the psychiatric professionals involved, those responsible for tracking missing persons, DIMIA and possibly Cornelia’s family all have serious questions to answer. Meanwhile I need to continue my research.

The kenja group – Cornelia apparently became involved in it in 1998, and her false name, Anna Schmidt is a composite of the names of other members – was named in NSW parliament back in 1994, and in might be an offshoot of scientology. The description of the group in parliament, by S B Mutch, is quite lengthy, and appalling in a funny way. I’ve bookmarked the transcript.

Barista, via Quiggin: the hospital (Princess Alexandria) apparently deemed her well enough to deport. These attitudes are seeping down from the government it seems. Raises the question, as these commentators mention, about what this psychiatric assessment was really all about.

The question of a national missing persons database is treated exhaustively at Dogfight at Bankstown.

And as time moves on – I’ve spent a relaxing but over-indulgent night away with Mat and Sarah and les gentilhommes and partners at Walker Flat on the Murray – I’ve encountered a Weekend Australian article which provides exactly the sort of timeline for Rao’s movements in the past ten months I’ve been trying to construct. Bloody dead tree journalists and their resources. And now I don’t have the paper (it was borrowed) and the article doesn’t show up on their online version.

So to move on – another Weekend Australian article deals with a subject ever-dear to me, porn lit. It raised again my interest, perhaps only a shadow of my former interest, in writing about sex, from a female perspective, from mixed motives, one of which is certainly titillation. As the article suggests, even bad writing about sex is likely to sell, providing it’s not too bad, and providing it’s written by a beautiful and apparently available and sexually wild woman.

catching up with Cornelia

While in the Brisbane Women’s Correction unit (and according to one commentator she spent more time there than at Baxter) she spent a week in a psychiatric facility where she was assessed as not insane, or apparently not seriously so.
Here’s another pertinent comment - ‘Ms Rau presented apparently as a visa over-stayer. It seems odd - since as I understand it, most of these people when detected are not detained but just sent back. My suspicion is that the cops had no idea what to do with her, and the whole thing snowballed from there.’
So that might explain why she was in this Women’s Correction unit, but is it common for visa-stayers to be locked up in gaol, before going to trial, or before being deported, or while their claims are checked out?

The Age on February 9 reports a claim by lawyer Claire O’Conner that Baxter detention centre didn’t receive a visit from a psychiatrist for some three months last year. This article is important in itself in shedding light on the appalling treatment of asylum seekers in these centres, but it doesn’t help me in determining the precise date Rao was incarcerated there. Another Age article of the same day indicates that Rao was still in Brisbane in May, This article mainly deals with the government’s resistance to a public enquiry despite the entreaties by Rao’s family and by the German government (Rao is in fact a German national, resident in Australia since the age of eighteen months). Vanstone is claiming that a non-public enquiry is needed ‘to protect Rao’s privacy’ and to prevent those in detention and their advocates from taking advantage of the case. Mustn’t allow humanity to prevail.

This article also states, by the by, that Rao was still incarcerated in Brisbane in June.

Rao’s mental problems seem to have been associated with a cult known as Kenja Communications, to which no doubt we’ll return.

The SMH, also on Feb 9, ran a story of one Terry Hagerty, who befriended Rao and hatched a plan with her to escape from Manly Hospital in Sydney. According to him, she did a runner the day before. This was presumably around March 2004, ten months before she was identified in Baxter. So the picture becomes a bit clearer. Manley police were notified of her disappearance (she apparently took a day’s leave and didn’t return), and they in turn notified her family.

An article in The Australian, also Feb 9, a big day for this story, concerns a six-day psychiatric assessment at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandria Hospital (the week in a psychiatric facility previously mentioned) in August last year. Cornelia’s sister questions how the psychiatrists could have come up with their verdict, that she was not a person requiring acute medical care, since by that time she would’ve been off medication for some months (since March in fact). This article is the most useful yet in terms of timeline. It mentions that she was incarcerated in BWCC four months earlier, that’s to say in April 2004, and that she was transferred to Baxter two months later, ie in October. So, some six months in BWCC, possibly on no charge whatsoever, then three or four months in Baxter, god knows why.

hey i'm linking

Should’ve checked out the experts again before gung-hoing into the composting. Apparently I should’ve chopped leaves up to no more than two inches. And if you don’t?

Here’s a summary of composting, to help me do it right.

A hot pile is best, and quickest, with inter alia a 30:1 carbon-nitrogen ratio. It also of course involves more care and work. It can reach a heat of 140 degrees Fahrenheit (obviously an American site), and attracts none but the best thermophylic bacteria.

Carbons are gotten from leaves and dried hay, nitrogen from grass and manure. This is nowhere near specific enough for me. No mention is made of food scraps for example. Greenish ones carboniferous, others nitrogenous? Recommended to end with a carbon layer, but I’m not really layering at all.

Finished compost will have only 25-40% of the volume of the original. Can take as long as 2 tears, and probably will in my case, in spite of it’s being only a wee bin. Compost will reach maturity from the bottom up, and mature compost will ‘smell sweet, woodsy and earthy’. Hmmm.

The pile should be turned regularly. I don’t want to be doing too much of that at this smelly stage. It really would make me sick. I’ll wait about a year….

The Cornelia Rao debacle is naturally being debated on John Quiggin’s site. It’s fascinating that, within a couple of days of Quiggin’s 100 word or so posting, the near-100 comments have created a book-length volume on the case, from a number of perspectives. Of course some comments are more or less totally irrelevant, some are unworthy of the issue, but the majority are stimulating, informative, thought-provoking, quirky. So I really need to get my own site better developed, and to comment on others more. It’s really the most exciting development in writing in my lifetime.

Have been looking at Troppo Armadillo, particularly excellent, and other sites on the Rao row, and I’m really getting into the swing of things, just have to make some of this happen on my own blogsite. Might even go into collaboration with others if possible.

What I’ve so far gleaned from the bloggers and commentators re the Rao row (my spin). The Rao saga began when she was picked up by Queensland police in northern Queensland, and transferred to a Brisbane gaol (I don’t yet know on what charges she was gaoled). Locked up in Baxter since Nov 29 2004, according to one account. She was put on a missing persons list in NSW, but there are problems of communications and shared databases between different state police forces apparently. Other claims have been made that she was locked up in a detention centre, presumably Baxter, for 10 months, even though she spoke, in her ‘madness’, in a broad Aussie accent, when she wasn’t speaking German (she claimed to be Anna Schmidt, a German citizen). Her story was broken by Andra Jackson in The Age on January 31, apparently before Anna’s real identity (identity, now there’s an interesting word) was revealed. Interestingly, in Jackson’s original piece Anna/Cornelia was described as an 18 year-old. I believe she’s actually 39.

bullying and gardening

On reflection I don’t believe there’s much point in answering the above comments. An anecdote about Christ healing someone’s cancer, and a claim that belief in that particular god can’t be based on egoism because one or two, or for that matter all of the Bible’s writers speak of a need for humility (which completely misses my point), this seems very uninspiring matter for commentary. So, on to other issues.

Hurray to hear that on the radio this morning the refugee advocates are getting a hearing, re the long-term treatment of inmates of detention centres who don’t happen to be Aus citizens. Inmates themselves are asking for a widening of the terms of any inquiry into Ms Rau’s treatment. It’ll be resisted, probably successfully. But if this case of flagrant abuse doesn’t open the detention system up to public inquiry, what will?

I’ve never liked to label myself left-wing or right-wing, though no doubt those who read this blog (ho ho) will form their own opinion, but one thing that never fails to get my blood up is bullying. This is why the detention centre abuses (and there’s surely no doubt that there have been many), as well as those at camp x-ray and at Abu Ghraib, really really bug me. I mention these though because they’re currently in the news and in some sense close to home, not because I’m biased against supposedly democratic nations. The murdering of hostages in Iraq was pure bully-boy terror. Were I in the Sudan, or more exposed to reporting from that horror scene, I’d be bugged by very different images (or similar images, different protagonists). I’ve written in the past about the horrific bullying and torture within North Korean gulags, and of the long-term fucking-over of the West Papuan people. The abuse of more or less absolute power over the more or less absolutely powerless, that’s the most soul destroying situation to be forced to witness, and it’s happening everywhere, to a greater or lesser degree. At least in Australia, my Australian voice of protest has a chance of being heard – but it’s also more distressing to have to raise the issue in your own country, to know that your own democratically elected government is capable of such callousness.

A busy day in the garden and elsewhere, and having lopped off some lower branches of the biggish gum in Sarah’s front yard, to enable better car access in the driveway, I’ve filled my compost bin with gum leaves. It was already near half-full but I knew the balance wasn’t right, the experts say you should have 80% garden mulch and about 20% food scraps, so I was too light on with leaves and such. I wonder though if gum leaves make the best compost – I know some leaves, pine needles for example, seem to kill other vegetation off. I started this compost bin about two months ago, but now that it’s full I should call today (Feb 10) day zero, though I’ll no doubt keep adding to it as it subsides and densifies. Could take as long as two years to be ready. It’s certainly already the foulest smelling stuff imaginable, and I’ll have to change my clothes before dinner out tonight.

small interactions

I’m rearranging my bookmarks as a springboard to reorganising slightly my blog. Baby steps.

Here’s my comment on a piece in Online Opinion:
Just a few lines - I haven't read all the comments here, it would take too long. Richardson is criticised/condemned for apparently asserting that reality is a mere construction of language. As far as i can see, he's not making that assertion, he's summarising the critical theorists' position.
I myself don't hold to that position, but I’m not sure that it's illogical, and it certainly isn't meaningless. I believe it was Wittgenstein who wrote, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, that 'the limit of my language means the limit of my world' and 'of that which one cannot speak one must remain silent'. Now, Wittgenstein knew a thing or two about logic. Anyway this issue has a very long philosophical pedigree and is unlikely to be resolved in this forum. I have to say in any case that holding to such a view about language and reality does not facilitate bigotry or intolerance, as some here have claimed, quite absurdly.
Basically, when stripped of its academic gloss (and there really isn't much of it) the article is essentially a plea for careful analysis of authors' constructions and awareness of alternative constructions. A plea for critical thinking. Not very original, but, as I think Kierkegaard wrote, the truth may be boring but that doesn't mean that it doesn't bear repeating, over and over.

To which someone has already responded:
Luigi
amazing self discipline there.. sticking to the topic

Interesting, because the person who left that comment also left this comment on the tsunami article (he’s a very busy boy, I’m finding his comments all over the place):

LUIGI ..
u crusading Atheist you :) U have missed a crucial issue. your words, u feel you will be defeated ===> "because the human ego, which is at the heart of religious belief, will always win out against truth and the rules of evidence."

Some points there.
a) The Christian message is nothing about ego. "The first will be last and the last first. If any man want's to be first among you, u must become the servant of all"
"If any man will follow me, he must deny himself"
Much as I try, I just can't find 'ego' there.
TRUTH and the RULES of EVIDENCE
Luigi, the blind man was confronted by the 'intellectual heavies' of his day. He didn't come back with sophisticated arguments, he just said "duh. I was blind, now I see" well.. the homer simpson version might sound like that, but u get the point.
I could include personal experience here, but you would most likely write it off as a further invention. If I told you my close friend who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, has had the initial surgery to remove what they could, and is undergoing chemo and radiation, was suddenly healed by Christ.. how would you react ? Seriously, think about it ..because if God did this, and you could see that it was medically verifiable by x-rays and disinterested parties you would have little choice but to offer your life up to God in selfless and generous service till you died. The more typical reaction would be ..."err.. it went into sudden inexplicable remission" :) (in a period of minutes ? .. hmmm)
We must be careful about what we expect God to do for us, we might just GET it :)
Soooo... perhaps an 'attitude reality check' is in order for you ? I'm not being unkind, I'm simply interacting with you in a vigorous way.

touching on the Rao row

So what’s all going on with this reluctance to apologise? Not that this strikes me as the key issue in this shocking episode, but it’s a big one, and it emphasises once more the priorities of a government for which spontaneity of compassion is a complete no-no.

Apart from behaviour from ministers – Ruddock is the worst example – that makes me feel ashamed, what this story highlights is something this government has been routinely and peremptorily denying for years, despite so many reports from individuals in the medical and psychiatric fields contradicting them, that those in detention centres are well looked after and have nothing to complain about (with always the implication that they’re probably treated far better than they deserve). They’ve been getting away with this crap for years now, and the lack of a concerted public outcry has been demoralising. Of course with these revelations about an Australian citizen (shock horror) being treated so shabbily, the reports that have trickled out have received spectacular confirmation. The government is resisting a public enquiry, as well as a public apology, and that’s not acceptable. They must be thoroughly pursued on this one, for the sake of all those who’ve been criminally neglected and abused in detention centres in this country.

Some plants doing well in the back yard, others definitely not. Soil in some areas, especially near the house, is atrocious, grey with cement left over from construction. Planting out ‘silver mist’ cinerarias, all doing badly in the ground despite much watering. Also basil and capsicum plants struggling. I’ve just potted a couple of the cinerarias, two in the one pot, using very little soil, lots of potting mix, high and low grade, some particulate fertiliser, and garden mulch. See how they go.

Concerned about a ‘tioga’ strawberry recently planted. Just dosed it with water after a few days’ neglect. It was looking very droopy. The label suggest lots of sunlight (I haven’t chosen the sunniest position for it), and using animal manure and compost beforehand (I didn’t). I think I’ve stuffed that one, done all the wrong things. I’m thinking of turning to pots more.

Have also been delivered of a shed, which somehow I have to erect. Means concrete pouring, buying and laying pavers, and designing a garden around the thing. Have decided to plant an albizia dulabrissin in the front, along with lots and lots of bulbs.

A little while ago I added comments to a religious piece in Online Opinion, reflecting on the tsunami tragedy (see my two posts ‘something more current’ and ‘oh mal’). The author did respond, which was positive, but I didn’t go on with the exchange. However the debate is still alive and one of the religious has further responded to my comments. I don’t want to continue the debate there, because it’s too far removed from the spirit of the original article, so I’ll continue with it here – though the gentleman won’t be able to respond to my response since he (along with the rest of the world) doesn’t know this blog exists.

the end of the ontological argument, for now

It brings us to the problem of infinity I suppose. Infinity can be mathematically presented to us, and we can understand it in this, I think limited way, but an infinity of extension and power, and understanding, and ‘goodness’, for this is often how gods are defined, I’m not sure that this can be understood in any concrete sense. I’m not sure that we can do anything other than present the concept, despite the resemblance here to Plato’s ideal forms. After all, did Plato ever do anything other than present notions of virtue and courage, abstracted from particular instances?

Religious thinkers and philosophers, it seems to me, are always slipping between the abstract idea of an infinite god and the more concrete (eg gendered), anthropomorphised realisation of this entity. A personal, personned god. This god knows every hair on our head and intervenes, apparently capriciously (but really according to a system or an understanding far beyond we mere mortals’ ken), to deliver people miraculously from the grip of cancer, or to sweep innocent babes to their deaths in tsunamis.

I just wonder myself if there isn’t an impossible contradiction between this personal, intervening god and the conceptualised infiniteness that so many philosophers from Anselm on down claim to be necessary attributes of a necessary god. If this infinite being intervenes, then it intervenes everywhere, in everything, always. Probably impossible then to attribute morality, or even meaning, to this intervention, this total control. Remember that the big bang has been calculated to have occurred 13 billion years ago (and that may not have been the ultimate beginning) and humans have been inhabiting this paltry planet for a mere million (actually homo sapiens isn’t much more than 100,000 years old), so god’s been busy interfering and manipulating with largely inanimate matter for many millions of times longer than it’s been controlling or guiding human lives. It seems to me that the philosophers’ gloss on an entity (or set of entities for multiple-god religions) invented to provide comfort and a sense of significance to human lives has only resulted in transforming these concretely considered entities into necessary but remote abstractions, so that their ‘proofs’ become more and more irrelevant to simple on-the-ground believers. This is I think where the ontological argument founders, in its own irrelevance. Yet it also shows how these inventions called gods start to crumble and break apart when any intellectual weight is brought to bear on them.

Finished reading a book! The first book read to the end since Alan Moorehead’s ‘The March to Tunis’ back in November or so. This was Shane Maloney’s ‘The Big Ask’, a crime novel of sorts, wonderfully well written and full of fun about labor party haplessness and union standover tactics – though Maloney’s no right-winger, check out his doozy of a speech to Scotch College, which has been doing the rounds.

I need to spend more time trying to figure out the technical side of blogging, since there are obviously no white knights out there who will save me. I want to be able to do those neat links within my blog, in blue and underlined just like in everyelse’s blog. And then onto something more topical, the scandal of the detention of Cornelia Rau, and government responses to it.

don't err on the side of tritheism, for god's sake

Before continuing, I have to repeat how embarrassed and frustrated I am that my blog is so bare and unloved-looking in terms of links, images and what not. I just know nothing of the technical side of things and can’t make sense of what I come across in blogger help. For example I note that a promising (if at time’s grammatically excruciating) new blog from WA, by one Kyan Gadac, has a para or two and then you click onto another page if you want to read more. Quiggin has this too of course, and I don’t know how the fuck it’s done. But that’s running, I can’t even crawl.

What I really need is some lovely blogging/net expert to take me through some paces personally. I note that another fave blogger of mine often asks for help in her blog, which is always improving its look, but then she’s much more beautiful than I am. It’s about time you veteran bloggers spared a thought and a few tips for us hapless paddlers, but presently I can’t even make contact.

At a place called Prosblogion, I find, as part of a counter-ontological argument, the premise that, if God exists he is the sort of thing than can be causally efficacious. But even if we accept this we’re only agreeing that this gendered god can cause things, not that he necessarily did, or must. In fact reading much of this stuff – an example (and remember, this is in a modern discussion around the ontological arg): ‘One way of thinking about the Trinity involves erring on the side of tritheism rather than erring on the side of modalism, at least as van Inwagen describes it.’ etc etc – quickly convinces me that much of it is about philosophers talking to each other and developing categories to trip others up and to avoid getting tripped up themselves. It takes us far far away from what I consider the real problem or problems and the way those problems tug at us. If I can try to look at that in the context of the ontological arg, I’d ask these questions. Does speaking about, formulating a statement about a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, really mean that we have any clear understanding about such a being, and if we assume that it does, can this really tell us anything whatever about the actual existence in the world of such a being? And what relation can this possibly have to necessary being?

It seems to me that when we conceive of any being we also conceive of limits to that being, otherwise there’d be no way to define the being, to distinguish it from what it isn’t. Yet when we conceive of a being that is limited, in terms of space, time, potency, whatever, we can’t be conceiving of a being than which no greater can be conceived, because we can always imagine some other being that goes beyond those limits, even if it itself is still limited. So in order to conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived, we must surely conceive of this being as limitless, in space, in time, in power.

the ontological argument

The ontological argument, as expounded by Anselm, is purely rational, and seems nothing more than a piece of logic-chopping, albeit very elegant and very determined. It hardly seems likely to convince the sceptic, though clearly Anselm thinks otherwise, as he writes: ‘Not irrationally, then, has the hypothesis of a being a greater than which cannot be conceived been employed in controverting the fool [who believes in his heart there is no God], for the proof of the existence of God: since in some degree he would understand such a being, but in no wise could he understand God.’

What Anselm appears to be saying here is that the definition he’s come up with for God (and he seems very pleased with it), namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, will help the non-believer or fool to take a step towards the understanding of God, since he can at least understand this definition (‘in some degree’) even if he understands not God. For presumably God cannot really be comprehended in a definition, according to Anselm.

It would be easy to get bogged down in this logic-chopping. For instance, Anselm himself writes ‘even if it were true that a being than which a greater is inconceivable cannot be conceived or understood; yet it would not be untrue that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived is conceivable and intelligible. There is nothing to prevent one’s saying ‘ineffable’, although what is said to be ineffable cannot be spoken of. ‘Inconceivable’ is conceivable, although that to which the word ‘inconceivable’ can be applied is not conceivable.’ And so it goes. In fact this isn’t impossible to follow, but after a few pages it does become tedious and you begin to feel that this is all too far removed from the way gods are experienced for those who claim to experience them. Yet still the argument (and the crux of it is the bizarre claim that, since that than which no greater can be conceived must necessarily exist, because if it didn’t exist it couldn’t be that than which no greater can be conceived, since existence is greater than non-existence, God’s existence is therefore necessary and somehow demonstrable by this argument) has been very influential and has had a long run, especially thanks to the advent of another famous rationalist, Descartes, who just might have reinvented it, since he makes no mention of Anselm in his reformulation.

I would tend to agree with Aquinas, Kant and others that these rational lines of thought will have little influence on the sceptic, who sees the issue of gods’ existences as essentially an empirical matter. That’s to say, they’ll resist arguments about necessary existence as a kind of cheat. Schopenhauer dismissed Anselm’s argument as a ‘charming joke’, and it’s hard not to agree, for it doesn’t touch on the point or purpose of this being, or alternative explanations for human existence or indeed anything in the empirical realm. It doesn’t even touch on this supposedly necessary being’s activity (what proof does it provide, for example, of this being’s having a hand in human or universal creation?)

abortion encore

So it could be argued that, in spite of all the agonising and the heartache that it can cause, abortion is really one of the ultimate acts of power against the more or less completely powerless. In fact much of the agonising may involve a realisation of just this fact, that we’re destroying a voiceless, defenceless life, to make our own lives easier. No wonder we find the issue a moral minefield, even without the sacredness-of-life overlay.

Yet I think it should be recognised that these sorts of decisions have been made throughout human history, not always consciously. They’re constantly made in the animal world too, and we shouldn’t forget that we’re animals, though burdened with a more developed conscience. Decisions about the optimum number of offspring to ensure the survival, or the better thriving, of the ‘family’ or of larger groups, are being made all the time, with greater or lesser degrees of self-consciousness, by humans on down to things that creepy-crawl over the earth.

In humans the continuing success of individualism has sharpened our focus on the ‘rights’ of individuals, including the unborn, and religious groups in particular have taken advantage of this focus. This has increased the burden of guilt on women, who are faced with very difficult choices. Of course the choices are very different in different parts of the world – a married woman in the leafy eastern suburbs of Adelaide would have a vastly different view of what better thriving is than a single girl in a Moombai slum, and there are still parts of the world where the ‘rights’ of the unborn are a luxury that just can’t be afforded.

We don’t live in that part of the world however – though of course the luxury of such rights are far from evenly spread in our society – and so the abortion issue could well become as vociferous here as it is in the US. The key, I think is to balance rights against rights in individual cases, to avoid absolutism, and, dare I say, to step back from individualism to look at the costs and benefits for families and society as a whole of a practice which, in any case, is going to continue. To do on the conscious level what in any case we and our animal relatives have always done unconsciously to ensure our best survival. A suitably evolutionary and atheistic note on which to close.

Have spent much time lately on La Luna matters, which have required urgent attention. Also running around after young Mat (back to school this week, and he’s been having trouble arising from the bed of sloth). The health and fitness stuff’s not really happening, though the pedo levels remain high. Lazy eating’s a problem – I just love food. Should try to replace eating with writing. That’s to say, really absorb myself, to the point of forgetting to eat. Now there’s an ambition.

Next post, I promise, will deal with or begin to deal with the ontological argument for the existence of god.

21 grams and the unborn

The film has a deliberately grainy, grey-green look – you know from the very first scenes you’re going to experience more loss than gloss – a look of disillusionment and struggle. It’s powered as much by the emotional experiences of the three main characters (and others, most notably Jack’s wife Marianne, played by Melissa Leo), the pain they struggle with, as by the beautifully orchestrated narrative. I found it thoroughly absorbing and profoundly realised. Other critics have written of a slightly heavy-handed mysticism – the 21 grams that just might contain the soul, Paul’s speech about the difficulties of two people meeting, the weirdness of the relation between two men who have shared the same heart – which I hardly noted at all, not having a mystical bone in my body, but I found the very real and material intertwining of these character’s lives through accident and, if you like, fate, completely convincing and painful. All three of these characters have fatal weaknesses – with Paul it’s largely physiological, with Christina and Jack it’s more emotional, but they win our sympathy and our respect because of their struggle against themselves, even when they make choices we wouldn’t make. It’s a finely nuanced film about heroism and ugliness – heroism and stupidity even. The heroism just manages to win out, and this is enough to inspire. The performances are stunning, with Del Toro a stand-out as Jack.

But I think it’s time to return to religion, which I’ve neglected for too long. The abortion issue has come to the fore again lately, with the usual suspects manoeuvring for position. It’s also a live topic in the US, with the old Rowe v Wade decision apparently in some danger of being overturned. The debate has long been polarised, and the issues are usually argued along religious lines. So is it the case that atheists, who don’t have much truck with the sacredness-of-life idea, should necessarily be ‘pro-choice’ (others call this position ‘pro-termination’)? Considering that in this morning’s Religion Report on Radio National we heard from a spokeswoman for pro-choice Catholics, we shouldn’t assume too much.

Probably, atheists tend to take a pragmatic view on these matters. Others might argue that they’re just being expedient, leaning towards the ‘rights’ of mothers or prospective mothers since they’re a noisier and more belligerent special interest group than unborn kids. Of course the defenders of unborn kids have become increasingly noisy too in recent years, but since they usually argue, or shout, from a sacredness-of-life perspective, atheists are not likely to feel sympathetic.

Rejecting sacredness-of-life claims, though, still leaves us with the question of the fairness or validity of destroying an entity which certainly has life and the potentiality of a rich and fulfilling life etc. Bringing in potentiality of course is always tricky, but probably unavoidable in the issue of abortion. If you could excise the concept of potential from the debate, it might be easier to argue that a human entity, a few weeks our from conception hasn’t had much of a life, in terms of its past experiences up to its present. It could hardly be said to have developed a consciousness, and possibly doesn’t even feel pain in the sense that we know about it. Yet it has all the chromosomal ingredients, and given the ‘normal’ level of nurturing, it could develop into a healthy and active human capable of as much constructiveness and destructiveness as we regularly practice.

one good movie

Reading’s slower than usual, too many distractions especially of a deadly night-time, and my writing too has been unpardonably slack. Things should improve greatly now that Mat’s back at school, but it’s the evening, always for me a time of indiscipline, that really must improve. I feel that physical fitness just might improve too, with Mat’s help. He’ll never read a book in his life (and I really must accept that, avoid anything snide) and his Weltanschauung probably comes from multiple viewings of ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ but at least he has a sense of humour and he’s motivated in some areas more than I am. He wants me to turn the carport into a gym once Fiona’s depressing ex gets his stuff out. He forgets I also have a car to park in there, but at least it’s pushing me in the right direction.

As part of health and fitness I had proposed to give an honest account of my food intake, but I keep forgetting or getting sidetracked. I’ll try yet again. Today so far, muesli with fruit-chunk yoghurt. Two toasts, one with pepper-cheese spread, the other with smoked-salmon flavoured cream cheese. Coffee of course. Morning tea, bits of cheese and biscuits. Lunch, muffins (two) with cheese and salami and mayo. A banana. It’s now 4pm.

Mat’s on at us to get DVDs, but he’s gradually I think coming to realise the enormous gulf between my taste in these things and his. A couple of days ago, we hired three films, one for us (Sarah and I – 21 grams), one for Mat (Dude, where’s my car?) and one we all could share (The Core). This last was a very silly piece of sci-fi, with a handful of Yanks (and a token foreigner) saving the earth’s ‘EM’ field by restarting the core, which had stopped spinning. Does the core spin? Fuck knows. Anyway, a total embarrassment, with whales saving the day enfin. More interesting was 21 grams, though Sarah was at first irritated by the complicated time scheme of the narrative. Sean Penn plays Paul Rivers, an unlikely maths prof with a bad heart, or rather two bad hearts, first his own, and second the one transplanted into his chest from a hit-run victim. Caught up in a none-too-functional relationship with his wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who seems more interested in conceiving Paul’s child before he carks it than in supporting him in his crisis, Paul becomes obsessed with the previous owner of his newly transplanted heart. Not that we find this out straight away, we piece it together through flashbacks and flash-forwards, and through changes of focus, because there are two other lives that are dwelt on in depth, that of Christina Peck (Naomi Watts), widow of Michael Peck, whose heart now beats in Paul’s body, and Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro), responsible for the death of Michael and his two daughters in a hit and run accident. None of these three characters have easy lives: Paul with a death sentence hanging over him, Christina having to face life without the man who saved her from self-destruction, not to mention the loss of her children, and Jack trying to keep body and soul and family together and kick away from a life of crime and desolation.