Saturday, January 31, 2009

Hot laptops

I have had computer problems again. For the last three days my laptop has continually crashed. Finally I gave up and used my son-in-law’s desk-top (my old one now upgraded) to Google for a solution. The problem is that my laptop was getting too hot – not enough cooling air – and it has been very, very hot recently! The easiest and lowest cost solution was (is) to raise the back of the laptop a few centimetres off the surface of the desk to allow air to circulate – I am using a book. Problem solved. I have been fiddling around with it for a couple of hours now without a hitch.

If anyone else has this problem - allow cooling air under the laptop by raising the rear edge with a book. I now know that there are special fan driven coolers available but why pay for something when this works for free?

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

We are not smart rats

Did you know that approximately 20% (yes 1 in 5) people in Australia (similar figures apply to other Western countries) have a ‘mental health’ problem? This problem ranges from finding difficulty in sleeping to suicide and padded cell, straight jacket type stuff. This is an amazing statistic and leads one to ask the question, “Who or what is normal?”

I do not pretend to know the answer to this question but I can offer some suggestions as to why I think the figure is so high. To me one of the major factors causing this ‘mental health’ problem is the almost universal requirement for people to ‘conform’. To ‘conform’ to the wishes and commands of ‘them’, of someone else, the group, the firm or to suit the demands of socially perceived reality whether this suits the individual concerned, or not..

While we are young our parents require us to ‘conform’ to their values and their rules, which is fair enough, because we are still learning about life (though children do rebel!!). Then there is religion. We must conform to the dogma otherwise we are excommunicated or considered an apostate and shunned by others in the congregation – this applies to Christian, Muslim, Jew or whatever. People can always change religions I suppose, this is a choice, but doing so is difficult and stressful. Most are born into a religious belief so they had no choice about it at all.

Possibly the most insidious requirement to ‘conform’ is when peer pressure is involved. This pressure is usually associated with young people, still to reach maturity and unsure of their place in the world but it can and does apply to any age group. Peer pressure also takes the form of “keeping up with the Jones’” – they have a new car I must have a new car; they have a new kitchen fit out, we must have a new kitchen fit out; ‘Daaarling I simply can’t wear this dress again!’ etc.

When we start working or change jobs we are required to absorb the ‘culture’ of the firm or be considered ‘strange’ and not part of the team or one of the boys or one of the girls. There are always certain dos and don’ts in any grouping of people which is necessary for safety, for security and to maintain a certain degree of unity but this is often carried to extremes.

What I am suggesting is not a refusal to obey the law of the land – that would be a recipe for chaos but rather recognition of the needfulness for each person to grow and develop as a unique human being, within the law. More often than not it is expectations or obligations that are the problem. For instance parents expecting their son to continue working on the farm he will inherit; the perceived obligation of the a child to continue working in the same line of business or profession as the father; parents expecting their children to get high grades at school and attend university – something the parents may not have been able to do.

Forcing someone to conform, to fill a role they are not emotionally suited to or which offends their integrity, their sense of morality or their values is stressful and causes problems – worry, depression, reliance on alcohol or other substance abuse to ‘dull the pain’.

The reason behind my writing this is a news article a few weeks ago about the extraordinarily high suicide rate in Japan. More than 30,000 people kill themselves every year in Japan, giving the country one of the world's highest suicide rates.
Some 24 out of every 100,000 Japanese people killed themselves in 2006, higher than the global average of 16, according to the World Health Organisation.

One of the reasons given for this high rate is the Japanese society's strong pressure to conform. (Extracted from: AAP article by Tokyo correspondent 07/01/2009).

We are not just a bunch of smart rats in a laboratory that can be conditioned into or out of various types of behaviour to suit whoever is considered the leader of the group, the firm or society; we are thinking, feeling human beings, trying to be just that – human beings - not human doers. We live to express ourselves creatively and to grow and develop each in our own unique way. Anything which is a barrier to this creativity, growth and this development will certainly cause stress and this may affect the mental health of those caught up in the requirement to conform in ways that are uncomfortable for them and not necessarily of their own choosing.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Being controlled by a bank

I have a dilemma which I need to resolve fairly quickly. My gut feeling is to go in boots and all and complain but there may be ramifications which, because of ‘controlling interests’ may linger for some time!!

I have an account with Bankwest, a local bank in Western Australia and in error I went $1.85 into credit – in other words because of a direct debit to pay my telephone account, my savings account was over-drawn by $1.85. For this very minor misdemeanour Bankwest charged me an “Honour fee” of $45.00! Honour fee in this instance means that they had ‘honoured’ the payment and not rejected it.

I felt this ‘honour fee’ was grossly excessive and phoned to complain. The girl who answered my call (unfortunately I did not write down her name) was not rude but very abrasive in that she did not really listen, had all the answers and told me that there had been a similar episode in November 2007 when I, to use her phrase, ‘had been educated’ about the bank’s policies. She made ‘been educated’ sound as if, as a felon, I had been subjected to some North Korean type re-education programme and should therefore know better than to complain! When I asked her if she would like to pay this amount for such a small error, she came right back with the smart comment, "Of course not. But I would never let this happen. I would keep better control of my money."

After some discussion she asked if I wished her to speak to her supervisor – I said yes. After sometime she came back and said that she was prepared to reduce the ‘honour fee’ by half – to give me back $20.00. When I said that half was $22.50 and not $20.00 she corrected herself and said it was $20.00. I thought about it and said Ok and thank you.

My dilemma is this: I still think even the revised figure of $25.00 ‘honour fee’ is grossly excessive, especially as from my previous history with the bank, going back about 4 years, they would have known that my pay would be deposited the following day. So do I write and complain, pointing out the abrasiveness of the girl; her inference about the ‘education’ programme which was rather unnecessary and somewhat threatening; the fact that even $25.00 is grossly excessive for a $1.85 ‘misdemeanour’; the obvious fact that I have never deliberately set out to spend more than I earn – this was a real error on my part? When the girl came back from speaking to her supervisor and said a reduction of half and then corrected herself, I had a mental picture of the supervisor saying “Ok it is a small amount, but try to give him back no more than half.” She came back to me said half and then corrected herself, thinking “I am going to teach this bloke a lesson and help my employer at the same time – I am going to save them $2.50 – and make him pay more.” The feeling I had was that if I had really pushed it I could have got more, by negotiation.

All this is recorded against my account. Do I write to the bank, risking a black mark of ‘trouble maker’ against this account (and God knows whether the banks pass around this sort of comment, one to the other, when people swap banks, particularly as Bankwest is now owned by the Commonwealth Bank). Do I write exercising my right to freedom of speech – to complain when I feel something is wrong – risking any possible black marks and lack of co-operation from the bank in the future? Or do I just roll over and say, “Big Brother you control everything and have won – I am grateful for any crumbs that come my way?”

As I said before, my gut feeling is to write and complain and damn the consequences. Has anyone else has a similar experience and if so what advice would you give me?

Thursday, January 22, 2009

BHP is morally bankrupt

When companies forget that business is for people and not the other way around, problems arise. When they start believing that people are there for the company to exploit, then problems arise. When the ‘Company’ or the ‘Shareholders’ become more important than the people employed, then problems arise.

It must never be forgotten that all organisations, repeat all, are at their core just service providers. BHP, for example, digs stuff out of the ground to sell (provide) to others who then process it and resell (provide) to others as they see fit. The entire process is orientated around human beings; the people who dig the stuff up, wash it, ship it, process it and resell it – only humans can do this (with the help of machinery of course) and BHP executives, managers and head office staff are also people and humans (I hope).

For a company the size of BHP – reputedly the world’s largest mining company – to suddenly close its Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia, with the loss of 1800 jobs is just not on. Particularly as until a few days ago BHP was encouraging its workers to move to the Ravensthorpe and Hopetown areas to buy or build houses there. BHP’s actions fail the two critical ethical questions: “Are you treating these people as you would like to be treated?” And: “If EVERYONE did as you (BHP) have just done would the world be a better place?” The answer would be a resounding NO! for both questions. BHP’s actions are unethical and unconscionable.

I am certain that BHP’s board of directors first thought was for the shareholders - must maintain share value and dividends to satisfy investors; nothing about the spin off effects that such a knee jerk and precipitate action will have on thousands of others innocent people. Can BHP or anyone put a dollar value on a person’s life? And it is a no-brainer to ask whether the senior executives of BHP are going to take a pay cut!! This is the really unpleasant face of Capitalism (with a capital C). Money comes first and we are now seeing in unforgiving detail what the big Australian is really made of – greed, hard-nosed businessmen (and women) following a plan to the letter, without compassion, without care, without the spirit of human kindness, just with eyes fixed firmly on the short term ‘bottom line’. Such a policy is morally sterile and bankrupt.

The impact that such a closure will have on the two small towns of Ravensthorpe and Hopetown will be devastating. Think also of the other treads that have been woven into the fabric of the area. The banks will have lent money to builders, home buyers, small business owners to grow in expectation, in line with BHP’s statements about the mine, for a prosperous future. Firms will have sold produce on credit in the belief that BHP can be trusted. To lead people on, in line with these expectations, only to suddenly dash their hopes, is not only unfair but, as I say, unethical.

If people come first BHP should certainly have played their cards differently. They could have sent everyone on leave, or they could have offered voluntary redundancy and kept the mine running at reduced capacity until some alternative strategy could be worked out. Unravel a thread in one area of life and there is no telling what the pattern will end up by being. BHP will certainly benefit financially, in the short term, by their actions but they are big enough to take a much broader, long term view of how the world will recover from its present financial malaise. This would at least give the ‘former’ employees some breathing space and some hope for the future.

Now BHP has set in motion a course of action with no means of knowing the final outcome. The law of cause and effect has not been revoked. It will follow its inevitable and implacable (and just) course to the end. It will not be stopped or impeded. BHP might not like the effect.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

New President new hope

We need the contrasts in life. They give us a focus point. Without the ups and downs, the good and the bad, the hot and the cold, the black and the white, life would be bland and uninteresting. That is the difference between Presidents Bush and Obama. I never felt confident that Bush would be a successful leader. Not after the manner of his election and the downright fraud and corruption that took place with the votes in Florida which enabled Bush to squeak in. I felt so strongly about it that I wrote a letter to the American Consulate in Canberra. I never received a reply of course.

This time there was a palpable, collective, sigh of relief the moment Barack Obama took the Oath of Office and was sworn in as President of the USA. Good on him. No matter what he does he has to be better than bumbling Bush. My wife and I stayed up late to watch the inauguration on the ABC and could sense the emotion, the good will and the trust that the Americans, in fact the World, have placed on the shoulders of this extraordinary man Obama.

It is a fact of life that a country gets the leaders they deserve – the Americans voted Bush in – twice! They have obviously now seen the light and done the ‘right’ thing. They need it and we need it, the change I mean.

We can only hope and pray that the new President will live up to the expectations that his election has created, difficult though that will be.

PS. It will be a relief for all concerned when Gitmo is closed and the stain on the American character has been cleansed!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Trees

There is a recurring daydream I have – on a warm lazy afternoon to be resting on a grassy bank of a stream or brook, in the shade of a willow tree. It somehow appeals to me.

Regarding trees, have you ever thought how useful and beautiful trees actually are? They have been around for a very long time indeed and have adapted to grow virtually everywhere there is water in liquid form. The trouble is forested areas are now decreasing at an alarming rate because of human activity. If you have recently tried to buy some dressed timber for shelving or something similar you will know how expensive it can be and is often of poor quality. It is almost as if wood should now be considered a semi-precious material!

Having used timber for various projects in the past I learned to deeply appreciate its innate beauty; the silky feel of newly planed wood and also, for me, the lovely nostalgic resin smell of newly cut pine wood. This is just the sensory appeal. Just think of a few of the uses we have for trees generally and for timber:

• Trees provide shelter and shade. Anyone who has ever walked in the shade of trees, on a hot day, will appreciate the coolness their shade provides. It is a more satisfying coolness than concrete, corrugated iron or shade cloth.

• Trees are beautiful – the overall shape pleases the eye. The colour of the leaves, particularly those which change with the seasons, is a sight for sore eyes. Those fortunate enough to have camped out and slept under a tree will know the beauty of the tracery of the leaves, like fine lace, set against the firmament. Delicate patterns of black against the deep blue back drop of the night sky, lit by the stars - that is beauty indeed.

• Anyone who is foot sore and weak after a long walk will know the feeling of renewed energy they get if they rest with their back against the trunk of a largish tree. I have no idea what it is that is ‘transmitted’ by the tree – life energy or something – but it works. After about 15 to 20 minutes of such rest I am ready for more activity. And it is not ‘just’ the resting that helps, there is something more that I, for one, cannot adequately explain.

• Trees provide wood to craft things of beauty – furniture, carvings, inlaid boxes for jewellery, toys and many other such artefacts.

• Wooden chopping boards are more hygienic than those made from plastic and do not dull knife blades as quickly as other materials.

• The timber from trees provides structural materials for protection against the elements and against those of a less than generous disposition; for houses, bridges and as props in mine shafts.

• Trees provide fruit, food and medicines (e.g. Aspirin and many other pharmaceutical products).

• Wood floats and for millennia all water born travel was made in wooden ships. All the great voyages of discovery by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Vikings, Arabs, Portuguese, Dutch and British were all made in wooden ships. A wooden boat is a thing of beauty.

• Trees are a major ‘carbon sink’ and as every school child knows – they take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.

These are just some of the more common uses. Of course wood burns and this is a problem in itself even though burning wood does keep us warm in winter. The trouble is that people ‘waste’ timber by burning large tracts of forests in the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin and in South East Asia, to clear land for cash crops.

Trees have been with us through the whole journey of mankind. We should all take greater care of those trees we have. I resist chopping down trees whenever I can because they are such beautiful and useful things and because I love them.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Israel's staggering presumption

So now Israel has agreed to a cease fire, of sorts and we are told that it has ‘exceeded its objectives’ in Gaza. Big deal. Over 1200 dead and many thousands injured. What for? If the Israelis think that bombs, rockets and assassinations will destroy a dream, will destroy the emotional fervour of the Palestinians (however disunited their various factions are) then they have learned nothing from their own history. Have the many and various anti-Jewish activities that have happened over the centuries ever sapped the Jewish dreams; ever broken their morale? Of course not! So what makes them think that doing what they have done, during the last 22 days of their offensive will bring ‘peace’ any closer.

The Israeli have destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza (for sure they will not pay for the repairs!); they killed, injured and maimed thousands of people after 22 days of brutal activity to arrive back at the point they started from! As I say what was all the death and destruction for?

They may kill thousands and destroy houses and buildings but they will never kill the Human Spirit. They should know that. So what makes them think that they are so special that what never had any affect on them will affect Palestinians any differently? We are all human beings on this world together. For whatever reason we are all here, now, with our differences in skin colour, beliefs and creeds, daily practises of living, our loves, our dreams, our hopes and aspirations – we are all in this together. So for one group of people (the Israelis) to try to subjugate another group (the Palestinians); to attempt to control how they should think and act towards the first (dominant? group) shows breathtaking arrogance, unbelievable hubris and staggering presumption.

The presumption is that Israel knows best. Do they? Have they addressed the root of the problem – a landless, disenfranchised population? That they are an occupying nation that was ‘given’ Palestine in 1946 because the world wanted to give the traumatised survivors of the Nazi death camps some place for them to recover and call home? What about the Palestinians? Without so much as a by your leave they were made landless and moved.

As the English poet and sermonist John Dunne wrote in the 1600s, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

The Israelis have been diminished by their actions – therefore they have lost. They may have ‘exceeded their objectives’ in Gaza but as I said, in the long run they have lost.

This is a defining moment in Israel’s short history. As a people the Jews in Israel are morally bankrupt. Their only recourse is to arms, to fight. That is not the way civilised people act. Whatever the shortcomings of Hamas and other hard line Palestinians, and there are many, by lowering themselves to ‘Hamas levels’ of activity the Israeli have diminished themselves – and they know it.

Why can’t the Israelis show moral leadership and lift the whole region to a new level of consciousness? Isn’t this what Jewishness; the Kabbalah and their spiritual practices are supposed to bring about? They should not just talk about it. They should walk the walk, not just talk the talk!!

Veiled women in Australia

I am entering quicksand territory with this one!! But here goes anyway.

The security situation being as it is with identification required at airports (to collect internet booked tickets); at post offices to collect parcels; at banks to prove 100 points to open a bank account; to obtain a drivers licence; to obtain a passport; and many other instances and with CCTV surveillance cameras almost everywhere, how can someone wearing a veil be identified?

When driving (and I once was shocked to see a woman with a full face veil driving a motor car) how can someone wearing a veil see properly? At best their peripheral vision would be severely impaired. And the photographs taken by speed cameras are used to identify drivers – with a veil who can tell who is driving? Driving with a veil is dangerous. Motorcyclists are required to remove their crash helmets when buying fuel after hours from a service station to avoid this very problem – lack of adequate identification.

The laws of Australia – being a democratic country – require personal identification to vote. A facial image is the easiest to recognise, which is why those intent on anti-social activities wear some sort of facial covering to avoid identification. It would be easy enough for a man, intent on a less than generous activity, to disguise himself as a woman wearing all the paraphernalia and a full veil and do all sorts of damage.

Without a clear view of some one’s face it is difficult to carry on a meaningful conversation – facial expressions convey a great deal of meaning – their mood and emotional state.

Western women travelling to some Muslim countries are required to cover up – that is their law. I have no problem with that. But in Australia where openness and lack of any form of secrecy is venerated and where, in contrast, secrecy and lack of openness is treated with suspicion, veils in public places should not be allowed. Why brings their laws to Australia and why should we be forced to follow their law? In private they can do what they like.

If a husband is jealous or suspicious and does not want other men to see ‘their’ woman’s face then don’t draw attention to it. To me it matters not whether a woman is Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Christian or whatever. If attention is drawn to someone by their dress, then people look – of course who wouldn’t? But if it is just some woman walking down the sidewalk – who cares what religion she follows and which man she ‘belongs’ to? Australia is a free country - which may be difficult for them (the men)to grasp.

No veils to be worn in public places in Australia!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Have you noticed the World seems heavy today?

Have you noticed how the world seems ‘heavy’ lately? Heavy as in full of woe, of troubles – there is not a great deal of joy around at the moment. And what gets me is that much of it is of our own making.

So many of the problems that currently beset the world are present because we, that is all of us collectively, have allowed them to happen. We are greedy; we are avaricious; we appear to lack compassion and worst of all we seem to have a very strange concept of justice. I am no legal expert but to me justice is more than a slavish adherence to the letter of the law. Anything, anything that constrains a person’s right to the fundamentals of life – education, health, sufficient food and water, adequate accommodation, the ability to exchange ideas and to move freely around the countryside, is unjust. Whatever ‘spin’ is put on it by the authorities such constraints are unjust. I have railed against this before and I will continue to do so to my dying day.

Injustice is the major cause of the World’s problems.

The Americans are now complaining that about forty-five former Guantanamo Bay inmates, subsequently released, have re-entered the terrorist ‘circle’. As if this is an excuse for not releasing them! I strongly suspect that if they had been better treated; treated as human beings; treated with at least a modicum of dignity, then they may well have thought twice about committing further acts. Treat someone unjustly and they never forget. Should they have been imprisoned at Gitmo in the first place? If they were released then presumably no charges were laid against them. But they were still treated badly and they will not forget.

The Israelis have lost in Gaza. No matter what they do they have lost. They know it and that is why they are fighting so hard to ‘justify’ holding on to something that is not theirs – Palestinian land. That is the injustice – holding on to land that is not theirs. That is the root of the problem; that is their dilemma. Flatten Hamas (which they won’t) and hold on to the occupied land and the problem remains for other generations of Palestinians to stew over and the Israelis will be no safer than they are now. Withdraw without flattening Hamas and the Palestinians can rightly claim victory – which would be gall and wormwood to the Israelis.

Then there is Africa. Ruanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe (and I am sure that I have missed a few) are all failed states and all have huge humanitarian problems, all brought about by greed and injustice. One tribe is ‘better’ than another. Military rulers and refuse to relinquish government because of the privileges they claim. My religion is better than your religion – and so it goes on and on.

There is also Asia and the Middle East. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Fiji – again I have missed a few – all have problems. All have institutionalized injustice against certain people, because of religious beliefs, racial characteristics and just the downright overall meanness of the various ruling authorities who are desperate to protect positions, their privileges and their egos.

Nothing will be solved until the injustices are corrected.

Monday, January 12, 2009

A mixed bag

I was back at work today – for the first time in 9 (yes nine) weeks!! This is the longest break from work that I that I have ever had. It was quite an effort to wake up early enough to get to work in time. Then at work (I had to go to the Head Office and not my normal branch office), for Occupational Health and Safety purposes I was required to take a medical check. I was given a clean bill of health. As I told the medico, I am in better shape now than I have been for a number of years, with a new knee and all. He was quite impressed, which pleased me no end.

The letter the doctor gave me to pass on to the relevant HR person at the Head Office cheered me quite a bit as I had been a bit concerned that they (my employers) would use the fact that I was no longer young and with a new knee as an excuse to get rid of me. Times are a bit tough, sales are down and I feared that this would be, for them, the ideal opportunity to reorganise or “down size”, to save money. This does not appear to be the case. This is a great relief.

All this concern about myself has led me to take my eye of the ball, as it were, concerning events to write about. Here are a few which I will follow up:

The Illinois House of Representatives voted 114 to one to charge Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich with abuse of power. He now faces a trial in the State Senate. (This is the guy who tried to flog off Barak Obama’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder).

There is still the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with the Israelis pushing on regardless. I mean 850 Palestinian deaths (or thereabouts) to 11 Israelis is an absurdly high premium to place on the ‘value’ of Israelis, don’t you think – about 77:1? And what a way to ‘value’ someone’s life, in dead bodies! Yuk!!

Then there is a contaminated pet food scandal concerning imported (from Canada) pet biscuits. The manufacturers deny it and say it is the ‘irradiation’ treatment that the Australian quarantine authorities use to kill any unwanted bugs, that is the problem. Other imported pet biscuits presumably go though the same process without any reported side effects (so far at least).

The world just keeps on rolling round and people get up to their usual antics for the usual reasons, money, power or just plain old ego. We never seem to learn that what goes around comes around and that an old proverb (source unknown) says, “Take what you want from life, says God. Take it and pay!”

Saturday, January 10, 2009

New Carpets

For the benefit of my readers, my writing has been disrupted by painting and carpets. Let me explain. We, my wife and I, with the assistance of my daughter and son-in-law have been painting our house. Those of you who have attempted this will know that this is no light matter. Especially when the colours - old to new – require more than one coat of paint to affect the change. At the same time we have changed from vertical window blinds to horizontal wooden ‘venetian’ blinds. Then once the painting was done we called in the carpet layers. To finalise the painting, change the blinds and get the carpets done took about four days, all up.

To do all this we had to move all the furniture out of the house (a double story ‘Town House’), some into the garage and, there being no rain likely in Perth for a while yet, some went into our little courtyard. We slept on a matrass on the floor. This was quite literally a pain for me as my ‘new’ knee joint has not yet got full articulation, so it is quite a struggle to both get down to floor level and to get up. Kneeling is the problem. All this meant that I was computerless and for two nights and we were TVless as well!

It was all worth it as the house looks very good now, all repainted with new window blinds and newly carpeted throughout!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Where is the famed Jewish compassion?

Thank God for some sense in this mad Gaza conflict. The following is copied from an ABC news report:

Queen Rania of Jordan, Israel's immediate neighbour, says the deaths of Gaza's children are unacceptable.
"The children of Gaza, the dead and the barely living, their mothers, their fathers, are not acceptable collateral damage," she said.
"Their lives do matter. Their loss does count. They are not divisible from our universal humanity. No child is. No civilian is."
UNICEF says the children of Gaza are being denied fundamental human rights, like protection from violence and access to education and healthcare.
But Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni says Hamas is the one deliberately targeting civilians.
"They targeted last week a school in Beersheba in Israel. Do you think that the proportionate action is to target a school?" she said.
"We are not going to do this. They are targeting civilians. We are not going to do this."

Two wrongs do not make a right. Israel is trying to justify their attack on a UN school by accusing Hamas of attacking an Israeli school. If Hamas did this, then shame on them. But for the Israelis to deliberately target a school (particularly when the UN gave them the co-ordinates of the school to avoid such an attack) with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth revenge mentality is criminal. By doing so the Israelis have lowered themselves to the level of Hamas (if it is proved Hamas did what the Israelis claim) and they have lost any moral ‘high ground’ they may have enjoyed.

Children and adult civilians are not acceptable military targets. If Hamas, (and I repeat if), are using children and civilians as shields then that is despicable. But for the Israelis to kill children and their parents because such shielding MAY be occurring is equally despicable. In fact it is worse coming from a highly educated and cultured people like the Jews. They should hang their heads in shame!
The Jews roundly condemned the world for idly standing by while millions of their innocent men, women and children were slaughtered by the Nazis before and during the Second World War. Are the Palestinians not human? Don’t they suffer when hurt, mentally or physically? For sixty years the Israelis have controlled (or tried to control) the Palestinians that the formation of the very State of Israel caused the disenfranchised and now landless people to gather in Gaza – somewhere where they could put some roots down and call it home.

Haven’t the Israelis got any compassion; any understanding of the Palestinians plight? Have they no ‘milk of human kindness’? The Jews were disenfranchised and made landless in biblical times and they fought for centuries to get their ‘promised land’. What do they think the Palestinians are going to do in similar circumstances – just roll over?

Monday, January 5, 2009

The problem in Gaza is the Israelis

Tell me please, someone, why is Israel so special – more so than any other piece of God’s earth? The land was there before the Jews were thought of and will still be there long after the last Jew and the last Palestinian has perished. I am fully aware of recent Jewish history and the Holocaust and the Death Camps of horrific memory and why the State of Israel was ‘given’ to the Jews (and ‘taken’ from the Palestinians). That is now past and hopefully the world has learned something from those events. But I wonder if the Israelis have moved one iota from the Old Testament dictum of, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. This does not work – never has, never will. All it does is to build resentment and continue a cycle of injustice, the seeking of revenge and feuding, which helps no one and harms many without solving the original problem. The Israelis should know this. They have been victims of the self same tactics!!

The Israelis know all this very well. Their history is replete with Jewish persecution and they quite rightly complain, loudly, to the world about anti-Zionism. If they persecute others, it is presumably pro-Zionist and therefore ok? So why should they use the same failed tactics, failed against them that is, against others and expect the tactics to work against ‘other’ ie Palestinians, this time around? Attacking Hamas, while at the same time killing innocent Palestinians in the hope that the surviving innocent Palestinians will blame Hamas (their elected Gaza government) for the slaughter and not Israel (whom they consider the occupying forces and also the oppressors) is a very unlikely scenario indeed.
I have said it before and I will say it again, and again – remove the causes and the reason for the formation and popularity of Hamas, Fatah and other hard line Arab organisations no longer exists. Think about the following:-

• The illegal and unjust occupation of Palestinian lands by the Israelis. Against the specific ruling of the United Nations the Israelis have continued with their construction of illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian lands. No compensation is offered to those Palestinians denied access – for 60 years – to what is rightfully their land.
• The Israelis complete clamp on all movement by Palestinians to prevent suicide bombs (so they say and yet the Israelis themselves developed terrorist tactics and used them against the British – see the destruction of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22nd July 1946 when a bomb placed in the basement by Israelis demolished part of the Hotel, killing 91 people -mainly British and injuring a further 46 people. Israelis celebrated the 60th anniversary of this event!)
• The blockade of Gaza. This prevents all shipment of food, water, medical supplies and any form of aid and causes untold misery in Gaza.
• The Israeli practice of using ‘collective’ punishment against ALL those in Gaza for the activities of those few who feel motivated enough to take some action. This is both unfair and unjust - and the Israelis know it!!

My sympathy for the Jewish people and my support for their ‘right’ to live in their Promised Land is rapidly diminishing. Because of their intransigence and obsession with the belief in their ‘rights’ to the land of Israel and as a ‘special’ people the Israelis are building up such a massive problem that we, in the West, will have to bail them out and clean up the mess they will be leaving. All for what? Pray tell me.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Gitmo Detainees

So now we (Australia that is) have been asked, twice by the US, if Australia will accept ‘a few’ Gitmo detainees. Why not? For starters many, if not most should never have been sent to Guantanamo Bay in the first place – quite a few have been released without charge. Certainly some of them have engaged in very serious ‘anti-social’ activities in Afghanistan and other locations but as I have said many times before, look at the reason why these people engage in such activities! People normally do not choose to do what they are alleged to have done without (in their estimation) a just cause.

Apart from a few criminal elements, which are found everywhere not just amongst the Arabs, people do not normally kill others or destroy property without considerable provocation. In their (the Gitmo detainees and others) eyes ‘they’ – brother Arabs in Palestine - have been disenfranchised; they have no land which is a fundamental right for normal human happiness and security. They are refugees living in incredibly overcrowded conditions in Gaza. Their rights as human beings are being denied; they have little or no fresh water or food; hospitals have run out of medical supplies; they have limited electricity and worst of all they are being subjected to ‘group’ punishment by the Israelis, which is prohibited by the UN. There is nothing ethical about the treatment of those in Gaza or in Gitmo. Those now held at Gitmo and others, feel sympathy towards their brother Arabs. Who can blame them?

While I certainly do not condone the methods they employ, much of what they do is born of frustration in that no one, who does not have a vested interest, has really listened to their complaints – not for sixty years at least. No one has sat down with the Arabs and said, “Ok. The situation in Gaza is X, we, the non-Arab countries in the Middle East would like Y, what do you want? Let’s work from this point forward?” Where there is a Will, there is a Way.

The Israelis and the Americans have to wake up and realise that they are part of the problem. People cannot be treated as trash without there being some consequences. The Law of Cause and Effect cannot be evaded, cannot be avoided – every action or deed has a consequence. It must be so. As individuals we cannot possible envisage the consequences of EVERYTHING we do. There will be consequences, without a doubt – positive and negative; some will be immediately apparent; some may take many years to ‘work through the system’. The only certainty is that somewhere down the line the initiator of the deed or action will themselves be affected – that is only fair.

To get back to the original question “Why not accept some Gitmo detainees in Australia?” Indeed why not? Give them a chance; give them back their humanity, their dignity and their pride. Allow them to develop as human beings in their own way. Draw a line in the sand and say, “What happened in recent history was unfair and unjust and in many respects unconscionable but it is history and cannot be changed. You are here now – in Australia (or wherever) – what do you, as a human being, want to now become?” There is nothing wrong with being an Arab. There is nothing wrong with being a Muslim. They may be ‘different’ to us White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Australians or Americans but then we are ‘different’ to them too!

The only way, and I repeat only, is to treat others the way you would like to be treated. There is no other viable alternative.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Attitudes

About six years ago I used to help transport a lady confined to a wheelchair; she had MS. She also had a daughter of about twelve years old. Now this lady (and I am being generous when I use the term lady) was obviously frustrated about her condition and relative immobility because I have never met a person so consumed with anger, nor a person so lacking in consideration for others. And her language left a lot to be desired.

This woman (note the change of term) considered both myself and her daughter as her slaves. We were supposed to be at her beck and call. Now I was paid for the task of transporting her wherever she wanted to go but her daughter HAD to help because of DUTY. She was told, in my presence that she (the mother) had a difficult birth with the daughter and had spent thousands of dollars on her clothes, education etc, so it was her OBLIGATION to help her mother. There was no display of love or affection towards the daughter. No tender words of appreciation; no thank you; nothing. I don’t know what excuses the woman gave to the Education Department but whenever I was called to transport her, the daughter was there too. I managed to speak to the daughter on her own a couple of times and she told me that she was not at all happy with her situation. It was beginning to overwhelm her. All she wanted to be was a child – to go to school and play with her friends.

I would be interested to know what happened to them as the daughter was a very nice young girl, who will need much care in the future if she is not to turn out an angry and bitter young woman. In the end the woman’s never ending unpleasantness, appalling language and her continued abuse of my time and services – I was never good enough etc, etc, just wore me down and I refused to transport her anymore. Her abusive behaviour towards her daughter used to grate on me as well.

I tell the story, above, to contrast with another woman (this one to my mind actually is a lady) who also has MS – my wife and I often see her at the supermarket and traveling around the suburb on her motorised wheel chair. Now she also has a daughter, this one would be about eight years old. The difference is that the help this daughter gives her mother is with love, not obligation. They are obviously very fond of each other and there is real friendship between mother and daughter. This sort of love is a pleasure to behold because it is genuine and from the heart. Her daughter is young enough and small enough to get a ‘lift’ on the motorised wheel chair and we have seen the pair of them scooting all over the place.

Now while I only know these people superficially, their apparently different attitudes towards their similar debilitating disease is very telling. One was incredibly negative, angry and not at all happy with her lot, while the other appears to have a more positive attitude and this shows in the happy relationship she has with her daughter and shop attendants. I can tell you which one I would prefer to help!!