(This page added on Sunday, 21st December 2008)
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UPDATE, Saturday, 10th December 2011
I'm sorry, but I'm going to interrupt the normal flow of proceedings at
this point. There is something I need to say right here, before going on -
so please bear with me.
When I first found out, about three years ago, that my old Windows 98
computer could play YouTube videos, I happily began to put links to various
music videos within my pages as appropriate. The link which appeared above
was to a delightful version of John and Yoko's "Happy Christmas (War Is
Over)" which, as I seem to recall, featured a simple and delightful picture
of a young lady in thoughtful mood as the backdrop.
Well, over the last several months, I've noticed that that video - along
with several other videos featuring music released by a certain music
company - have been "pulled", in some parts of the world at least -
apparently for reasons associated with copyright.
Okay - fair enough. No doubt there is a perfectly legal right for these
people to behave this way, if that's what they see as the proper thing to
do. I'm not challenging that. I'm a great believer in making a fair income
from ones intellectual property. (Please note that I'm not being
sarcastic here; I do indeed own intellectual property in some of my
inventions, which - thus far at least - have not made me any serious
income. I'm still hoping...)
I just think it's really sad that - after 30 or 40 years, when some of these
great songs have become so much part of our culture, and the corporations
have done very well financially out of them over that long period - some
people can't see it as in their interests to allow humanity at large the
right to simply enjoy the songs without their having to earn a dollar
every single time they get an airing.
This
somewhat fraught video, showing (as it does) scenes of war atrocities, is
the only one I can find at the moment which features John and Yoko's
original version of "Happy Christmas..." (I wonder how long that
link will survive?) - and, of course, with the festive season upon us, no
doubt some people will consider it to be in "bad taste" to call attention
to the fact that our world is still run by greed, arrogance, and abuse of
people's human rights. Well,
TOUGH!!!
I suspect that John and Yoko wouldn't have a problem with it; after all,
the song was originally intended as an anti-war song - and wars (and other
horrors) continue, as we all know very well. So the song is still prefectly
appropriate in that sense - even if it makes us uncomfortable to be
reminded of the fact at Christmas.
In spite of everything, I'd like to wish a Merry Christmas to the
men in suits
who make these momentous decisions - and hope that they might someday just
possibly come to see that there are more important things in this world
than simply making a buck at each and every opportunity, and thus obtain
something for themselves that might reasonably be called a life.
A couple of days ago, in a Launceston "op-shop" I found (and bought) a copy
of
Poems 1972-2002
by
Michael Leunig.
I'd like to present just one of the poems (the fourth one in the book,
actually) entitled "True Happiness":
How may a man measure his own happiness?
Rant over - for now! Back to my earlier discussion of the events of 2008...
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2008 started out as a year of dramatic change here in Australia. As I've
already documented in my
"new millenium"
page, the year began with a new federal government making an official
apology to the stolen generations of Aboriginal children and ratifying the
Kyoto protocol on climate change, as well as beginning to address other
issues which had become running sores under the previous administration.
Now, I don't want to get bogged down here going into a lot of detail about
political issues. As mentioned in my
"strange days indeed..."
page, I have in mind to attend to that in an "e-report card" for the Rudd
federal government, probably as soon as I finish this current page; and I
don't want to steal my own thunder.
I don't really want to get too much into economics here, either, having
had quite a bit to say about the subject in various pages within this
website already - but, clearly, it can't be avoided altogether, precisely
because that
"dismal science"
affects all of us profoundly, whether we like it or not.
What I'd like to do here is share something about myself and my
motivations - to bare a bit of my soul, if you will. Nearly two and a half
years after launching this site, the time has come to draw a few threads
together.
Even as a little kid, I was fascinated by ideas. I can remember one bright,
sunny day when, as a toddler, I was utterly intrigued by the fact that the
sky was a deep blue, and wondered why. There was something of the
scientist in me, even then.
In school, I was puzzled that most of my classmates found science boring -
or, at least, not particularly interesting. Just another subject to pass,
ho hum. Similarly for mathematics (more so, in fact).
To be sure, I wasn't totally alone. There were almost always one or two
other kids in a given class who had that far-away look, and I could relate
to such characters reasonably well.
But it was at university that I really felt in my element for the first
time. Although I struggled academically (see my
Mathematical stuff
page for more detail), I absolutely loved the lifestyle. It was exciting
to find oneself just one member of a quite large community of fellow
weirdos!
It was in 1968, my final year at high school, that I began to become
politically aware. The Vietnam war was raging at the time; demonstrations
against it were happening around the world, often at universities - and
the mood was filtering down into the matriculation colleges and even the
high schools. Of course, it all went hand-in-hand with the musical moods
of the time - John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and others were singing
for us all; and everybody was diggin' the blues, man. (Plenty of youngsters
were into "substance abuse" too, but that was something which passed me by
- fortunately.
I can't pass up this opportunity to express my deep and profound
admiration and gratitude for the many wonderful teachers we had in our
high school and matric. college years. They trod a fine line between the
necessity of being figures of authority, and quietly fostering our
awareness of ourselves and our world. They taught us to think, and
they taught us to feel. It's inadequate, but... thank you, from the
bottom of my heart.
Those were intense, heady years. In 1969, the first of my two years at
matric. college (and, notably, the year of Woodstock, the Vietnam war
moratorium demonstrations, and the first moon landing), it all became a
bit much. By early 1970 I was looking for something steady to hang my life
on - and it was in that year that I became what is now described by the
hackneyed phrase "born-again Christian".
I found genuine meaning and stability as a young Christian, becoming
actively engaged in church and fellowship life, right throughout my uni.
years. I had found my anchor. However, life didn't necessarily suddenly
become simple.
I found, to my increasing consternation, that my own views often clashed
with those of other Christians, even beginning in 1970. For example, my
own feelings about the horrors of war did not change; but some (many!)
of my new circle of friends took issue with my utterances. For such
people, "communism" was the big bugbear; it was anti-Christian and had to
be crushed. From their perspective, the continuance of the war was
justified.
Another example:
In the mid-seventies, before "the environment" had become anywhere near as
big an issue as it is now, I expressed my concern about pollution. The
view expressed by one of my Christian friends was along the lines: "Who
cares? When Christ returns, He will cleanse the world. In the meantime,
it's not our problem!"
Well, I begged to differ then, and I still do. It staggers me that there
are still Christians who live in some kind of "right-wing
fairyland" and who not only don't see themselves as being "of" the world,
they don't even appear to see themselves as being "in" the world at all.
In fact, from my perspective, such Christians - the "religious right" -
now represent a very significant contributory factor to the problems which
the world is currently facing, and which I am attempting to address via
this website.
So, to repeat the line from John and Yoko's song "Happy Christmas (War is
Over)":
So we've made some changes down here in the land of Oz. Hopefully we'll
continue to do so. What about elsewhere?
Across the Pacific, we've seen what can only be described as the beginning
of the demise of the world's most recent empire. The current financial
disaster, which is spreading around the planet like a cancer, got its
start over there; and the good citizens of that country have finally risen
up, and ditched their emperor and much of what he stands for. It will be
very interesting to see how things develop over the coming months and
years.
When I was a young kiddie, some time around 1960, there was a cheeky
little poem doing the rounds. It went like this:
So what, you might very reasonably ask?
Precisely this: Arlo Guthrie made a point of mentioning, in his concerts,
that real-life events like this are what history is really all about. It's
not the political shenanigans that important people are remembered for,
years and decades later, so much as the minutiæ of life that raise it
above the humdrum, even if only briefly. - And, in the final analysis,
perhaps that's not such a bad thing!
(If you'd like to see a video of Arlo and his backing group Shenandoah
performing this truly momentous song,
click
here.
Note that back then, in 1984, Arlo still had darkish hair. He's a
white-haired old man
now! That's how it goes; however, he's still got that magic touch - click
here
to see what I mean.)
So: Nebuchadnezzar had his trade-in; George Washington chopped down a
cherry-tree; Jimmy Carter was scared by a bad-tempered rabbit; George W.
Bush had a pair of size 10's thrown at him - and that's what makes the world
go round, yeah?
Just one last observation about the Iraq incident:
After a US election, during the transfer period, the incumbent president
is known, somewhat unfortunately, as a "lame-duck" president. Perhaps
George Bush Jnr.'s main achievement will be to be remembered as the
lame-duck president who wasn't too lame to duck a couple of smelly weapons
of not-particularly mass destruction!
I knew that something had to give, as far back as 2000, or even before. I
really tried hard to think through what was going on in our world over
several years, beginning around 1993; and by late 2000 I had written my
song
The Loan Sharks
which summed up my thoughts thus far.
I didn't know exactly what would happen. I thought that the "third
world" would in some way rise up in combined anger at the "first world"'s
abusive behaviour, and that there may well be bloodshed on a massive
scale. I wasn't too surprised when the 9/11 incident occurred about a year
later.
However, it didn't really occur to me that the global economic system
would self-destruct in quite so dramatic a fashion as it has done,
over these past few months.
So what's my take on it all? Am I pleased that it's happened? Am I
just an irresponsible lefty-radical type who jumps up and down in glee at
the very real pain the world is going through, gloatingly yelling "I
told you so!!!"?
Please - don't put words in my mouth. Do me the honour of allowing me to
tell my own story in my own way. If it's necessary for me to make it a bit
personal, I hope you won't feel the need to squirm too much.
It does affect me personally. I'm not a wealthy man; I know what it's like
to be one of the "long-term unemployed". My last paid position ended, in
less than totally happy circumstances, quite some time ago - and I haven't
been successful in finding another. In spite of all the
politically-correct talk at high levels about "equal opportunity", the
fact remains that a bloke in his forties or fifties, down on his luck,
does not find it easy to survive in what is increasingly a young
person's world.
The superannuation which I'd previously accrued as a working person is in
a managed fund, with some of it in property, some in shares, some in this,
that, or the other thing. I've never liked the fact that any of it is in
shares; and in the middle of this year (2008), the opportunity arose for
me to make some changes, should I wish to do so. However, I didn't feel
totally free to do exactly as I wished. For complicated personal reasons
which I won't go into, I made an ethical decision to leave things
as they were, rather than making the moral decision I would have
much preferred, to take the other course of action.
- And so, of course, with the collapse of the stock market, I've lost
quite a lot, just as many other people have done (perhaps including you?).
I'd dearly love to just get all my super money out of shares right now;
but of course if I do that, I "crystallize" the losses. So I'm stuck with
it - and it really sticks in my throat.
What I will do, if the stock market ever recovers to anything like
its previous level, is to then make the change, come what may, and
thus have the dual benefit of getting the cash back and - at long last
- feeling free of something which I totally despise and abhor. Frankly, I
can't wait.
So don't accuse me of being a communist, or any other such nonsense. It's
no fun being hard up. I'd like a normal life, just like anyone else. (In
fact, for the last year and a bit, I've had my own company, which - I hope
- will get me some serious income in the hopefully not-too-distant future
- but it hasn't happened yet. Wish me well...)
Okay. So having said all that, am I pleased that the global economic
system is crumbling to pieces?
Yes, frankly, I am! It was inevitable that it had to happen, eventually.
I'd rather it happens now, rather than later, in the hope that I
may live long enough to see the garbage-economics we've endured for so
long finally rejected, and something far better put in its place. I'd like
to die knowing that my children, grandchildren, and any further
descendants are going to have a far better system to serve their practical
needs than the absolute crap our generation has had to put up with.
Clearly, it's going to be tough for everyone, you and me included. It's
just a case of getting used to the idea. If the world really does
learn a long-overdue lesson from the train-wreck, it will have been worth
it. Even more to the point, though, is the fact that - at the end of the
day - it's only money.
Time out; let's refocus. What was this page supposed to be about? Oh yes,
that's right - it's about Christmas, isn't it?
So - what is Christmas all about?
Family get-togethers? Presents? "Happy holidays"? Santa? Even South Park's
Mr. Hanky, perhaps?
Lots of stress? Ultra-commercialism? Going into debt to pay for it all?
What's it really all about?
It's about the birth, some 2,000 years ago, of a baby who grew up to be a
young man who, in his prime, would spend about three years teaching,
leading, showing the way to a better world. A man who befriended the dregs
of society, as seen by the "decent" people of his time. He associated with
prostitutes, tax-collectors, even the hated soldiers of the Roman
occupation - and he made a BIG stink by very publicly taking to task the
religious leaders, not to mention the temple money-changers. But most
importantly, he came to pay a huge debt.
A debt that was about life and death; and a debt that had nothing
whatsoever to do with money.
How do you visualize heaven?
Do you see it as some kind of idyllic garden, with beautifully-manicured
green lawns, tinkling fountains, and fluffy clouds in which angels blow
trumpets and pluck harps? Perhaps with a Disneyland-style shining city in
the middle distance, with a lovely big rainbow over it? - and when you get
into that city, do you envisage that the streets will be paved with real,
literal, gold (element number 79 in the periodic table)?
I dunno. Sounds pretty boring to me!
If you've visited my
Humpty Dumpty Book
page, you've probably seen this graphic - one of my early attempts to
produce a bit of artwork on my C64:
It came from somewhere deep down inside me. It seems to have elements of
all sorts of religious symbolism all mixed up together; I like to think
there's something mystical about it. I imagine people inside those
buildings coming together to think - to debate, to throw ideas
around, to engage in a bit of intellectual banter. Perhaps, over in a
corner somewhere, there may be a couple of nerds enjoying a game of
hyperspatial chess. (Use your imagination! Do a Google search on the word
"tesseract", and let your mind play around with what you find!
UPDATE, Thursday, 7-8-2014:
I've just found a really neat web-page which features some excellent
animated gif's showing how various things "work", including zippers,
sewing machines, Wankel engines, and constant velocity joints. Fantastic
stuff... but the one I'd really like you to have a look at, right now, is
an animation of a "four-dimensional cube" - that's right, a
tesseract.
Go on - have a look, and be freaked out; and then see if you can think of a
way to visualize playing chess on a thing like that...
Well! Just today I've found that there is in fact at least one version of four-dimensional chess in
existence - in fact, the one I've found was invented in the 20th Century (not sure exactly when).
Interested? You might like to check out these links:
http://www.chessvariants.org/parton/Cubism.txt
http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/hype:a-study-in-bs
http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/hyperchess
http://zillionsofgames.com/zilligames/pics/submissions/game1033_scr_Hyperchess.gif
I'll say no more about it here - over to you!
Is it heaven? Probably not; but I venture to suggest that, to someone like
me, it's a lot more exciting than the admittedly corny scenario I painted
a few paragraphs back.
In the sky, over to the right, there's that stupid banana-shaped moon (I
probably could have made a much better job of that if I'd tried a bit
harder
But also in the sky, seeming to cast a radiant glow over the whole
strangely comforting scene, is that big, shiny star.
That's Christmas.
That's a reduced screen-shot from a program which was part of an
"e-Christmas card" I unleashed on my colleagues at my last work-place in
late 1995. While we're on the subject of stars in the east, the heavenly
host, trumpets and what-have-you, I thought you might be interested to run
my little program yourself. You can right-click
here
if you'd like to download it. It's a compiled DOS BASIC program, so it
runs in a 640×480-pixel screen. (Usual warnings about possible viruses
etc. apply, of course.) Enjoy!
I know there has to be a monetary system, an economy, even (God
help us) a stock market, perhaps - in this world, at least. I've
already acknowledged this in my
All that glisters
page (toward the bottom).
I'm glad that the world does seem to be at least starting to
wake up from the money-induced coma. German Finance Minister Peer
Steinbrück, quoted by Mike Whitney in his Global Research article
The New American Century; Cut short by 92 years,
said in Germany's Parliament:
The long-term consequences of the crisis are not clear. But one thing
seems likely to me: the USA will lose its superpower status in the global
financial system. The world financial system is becoming multipolar.
So where does that leave us? Assuming that something worthwhile will
eventually come of the financial mess, what sort of a world will we be
left with?
Suppose we do succeed in constructing a new financial system which has the
potential to be society's servant, instead of its master. All well and
good; but what will be the point if our planet is so badly damaged that
it can't sustain us? Having a viable living space is even more important
than having a properly functioning economy! To see it the other way around
is to put the cart before the horse.
Sorry about this - I'm going to be silly for a moment. The last sentence
in the last paragraph reminds me of a riddle I heard a while back: "What's
the difference between a cavalry horse and a draught-horse?" Well, a
cavalry horse darts into the fray, and a draught-horse...
(fill in the blanks yourself).
I venture to suggest that we have a golden opportunity, right now, to
get the issue of global warming onto the table and dealt with in a way
which actually addresses it from a "let's fix it" perspective. With a
world which is starting to wake up and use its collective head, there's no
time like the present to try to get our leaders - political, financial,
and scientific - to start to give some serious consideration to practical,
technical solutions, using whatever money may be available in as effective
a way as possible. On the other hand, if we let this chance slip away, old
ideas will simply remain entrenched and become even more so. There's no
time like the present - but we need to act fast if we are to get a good
result.
Politicians like to address these issues in monetary terms. They seem to
think that such things as carbon credits will somehow magically make the
problem go away; that financial carrots and sticks are enough to get
people to do the "right thing".
However, experience now shows that this sort of thinking doesn't work.
It's all too much like allowing "market forces" to sort out the problems.
But now, even Alan Greenspan
admits that he was wrong
on that score. Can we really rely on thinking which has failed so
miserably in the financial world to have any chance of fixing a scientific
problem? I don't think so!
There are new technologies which look set to help, right now, if they are
given some incentive. New solar cell technology, other ways of harnessing
the sun's energy by large fields of reflecting/focusing mirrors, hot-rock
technology (the "heatsinking" described by Isaac Asimov in "Forward the
Foundation"), harnessing wave power - all of them, and other new methods,
are worth a serious look.
Also, of course, there's the exciting prospect of harnessing zero-point
energy, about which I've had a lot to say already in this website -
and there will be more, quite soon. I'm one of an internet-based community
of people around the planet who are trying as hard as they can to come up
with working models, with which they hope to prove to the world that it's
not nonsense.
I don't want to say a lot more about this here, in this page, which has
already grown quite long and addressed a number of issues. Let's not muddy
the waters. For now, I'll just give you a teaser. Here's a photograph of
my first working model, which is not
"over-unity"
but which does seem to hold the promise of exciting things to come. I
built it two or three months ago. It's a little motor whose rotating
element features four small, pill-size neodymium (rare-earth) magnets, and
which rotates at a very respectable speed even on an old, sick
nine-volt battery (even one which is down to about seven volts):
Go ahead - laugh if you like! It does look comical (deliberately
so, I might add). But it illustrates a principle quite well. When you've
picked yourself up off the floor, click
here
to see where this thing draws its inspiration from - and then, get
involved and build one yourself! Something to keep you out of mischief
during the Christmas break.
Let's wind this up. (If you've still got a bit of last-minute Christmas
shopping to do, far be it from me to hold you up.)
One thing I'd really like to do, before finishing, is to draw attention -
again - to the plight of Schapelle Corby, who is currently
languishing in a Bali jail, having been convicted of drug-smuggling a few
years ago, but whose case raises lots of burning issues about
natural justice. There's been a page in this website dedicated to her case
since I launched the site in July 2006. I've recently updated it with more
up-to-date information. If Christmas isn't about mercy and justice, what
is it about? Please, click
here
to read that page - and perhaps consider getting involved.
Finally:
This picture added Friday, 21st January 2011 (I bought the T-shirt only
this morning!
<=
Fine print says: "IF YOU WANT IT"
One other version of the song which I like is that by Celine Dion. It's in
4/4 time, and has a different mood as a result. There's a lovely YouTube
video to watch while you listen to the song; click
here.
Really finally:
The following graphic, which I composed on my old Commodore 64 many years
ago, has also featured previously in my
Humpty Dumpty Book
page. If you'll permit me to say so, I think it's good enough to warrant
another airing here, because I think it captures the joy, and the pain,
of Christmas as well as anything I've ever seen!
A very Merry Christmas,
"...and what have we done...?"
What indeed. It's been a pretty momentous year one way and another, hasn't
it? - and not always in ways which necessarily make us feel more
comfortable about our world and our place in it.
He must first go to his cupboard
and take out all his neckties.
Then he must lay them out on the ground
End to end.
Then he must measure the length of this
line of neckties,
And that measurement,
That distance,
Is exactly the same as his distance from
True happiness.
)
“...What have we done?”
Well, in all fairness, we've done quite a bit. In Australia, just over a
year ago (24th November), we threw out a federal government which viewed
"the economy" as the only thing that mattered - until the business
community actually began to understand, a couple of years ago, that our
world really did seem headed for deep trouble as a result of a polluted
atmosphere. Global temperatures were on the rise; and even the Howard
government was forced to begin - reluctantly - to acknowledge the problem,
if only because the "big end of town" was telling it that it had no choice
but to do so. (Of course, there were other issues which led to the end of
"Howard's Way" - most notably their abominable "Work Choices" legislation
- but, one way or another, the government's number was finally up, and out
it went.)
Just a little aside, if I may:
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Jews,
Sold his wife for a pair of shoes.
When the shoes began to wear,
Nebuchadnezzar began to swear.
Of course, it's not really accurate from a historical point of view.
Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, not the Jews - or, at least, only
insofar as he invaded Judæa and took many people to his own country (in
present-day Iraq) as captives. (See
this link
for more information).
But recent events have prompted me to produce my own take on the poem:
George Dubya, the King of the Yanks,
Went to Iraq to receive their thanks.
When the shoes began to fly,
George Dubya refused to cry.
When Arlo Guthrie was touring Australia in 1984, he made a point of
singing a song about an incident involving President Jimmy Carter. It
seems that Mr. Carter was out fishing one day when he was dismayed to find
a swimming, apparently very angry rabbit trying to climb into his boat.
The incident was captured by a White House photographer; click
here
to read all about it and see the picture.
Credit where it's due. During the Commodore 64 years, I was a frequent reader of "Ahoy!"
magazine, which often featured an art gallery of C64 graphics sent in by readers. In the
December 1987 issue, one of the featured images, by Canadian reader Robert M. Ellis, was
of Santa driving his sleigh in front of the full moon. I liked the pic, and produced something
very similar on my own C64 - and later put together a PC version, which you see above.
)
UPDATE, Monday, 20-10-2014
Back to what I was saying about my quirky little
picture, above, and some of my thoughts about what it might mean:
I suppose that, in some ways, my yellow-on-black picture above harks back
to the "coffee-shop" atmosphere I remember from my bitter-sweet time as a
university student, a third of a century ago.
). Also, there are quite a few single-pixel
stars, whose coordinates were generated by the C64's pseudo-random number
generator, giving a different result every time I ran the program.
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UPDATE, Tuesday 23rd December:
With only a couple of sleeps to go before Christmas Day, I've been
working fairly hard today to get a little extra feature ready to upload
to this page. Have a look at this:
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I'll tell you one thing about heaven. If I find that there's anything
there remotely resembling money, a stock market, or an "economy", I won't
be hanging around. I'll be out of there so fast, you won't see me for dust.
Is he right? I hope so!
I've taken John Lennon and Yoko Ono's song, "Happy Christmas (War is
Over)", as an inspiration for this page. John and Yoko's original version,
in 6/8 time, is intense - even a bit "fraught"-sounding, in common with so
much of John's work. There are other versions of the song around, which
take a slightly different approach - although there will always be that
"edge", simply because of the nature of the song and the character of its
writer.
)
And a Happy New Year.
Let's hope it's a good one,
Without any fear...
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