Reptilian Reflections

Almost ten years ago I spent a short part of winter working on a research station, conveniently located on a tropical island.

It was July so the weather was relatively mild. I went mad anyway. Ten years later, in the great clean up of 2017 (three days of ‘sweatin to the oldies’) I found bits of my island diary that survived being submerged in salt water several times;

“Skin infections (bites, grazes, stings and angle grinder mishaps) flourish in the heat. At 27c bacteria discover they enjoy a tropical holiday as much as the next person. The combination of hot weather and a bumpy flying doctor flight ushers in a certain conservatism with power tools….

“Customs sprung me this morning, roaring up onto the beach in a Lego-style zodiac. Why is it that I only get called ‘madam’ by people with guns? It gave me quite a shock. Standing on a baking roof in the middle of the Coral Sea, I’d quite gotten used to the peaceful solitude of removing salt-encrusted nails with a rattle gun…

“I’ve seen no news or TV, although yesterday the barge operator dropped in a DVD of the Olympic opening ceremony. At dusk we sat under a large, billowing tarp and watched four thousand Chinese dancers perform their routines with the measured exuberance of bunny rabbits on ice, as we drank cold beer. The television eventually sank into the loose sand…

“Although sausages like to travel in packs, they will sometimes break from their ‘stroke’ to sneak up on unwitting prey, as in the hallowed tale of Moby Spotted Dick, where Captain Rehab ran out of whisky and attempted to harpoon the largest sausage ever sighted on the twelve seas (fourteen if you squint).

Although sausages are territorial, it is not unknown for them to mate with other groups, as a group of intrepid Australian researchers discovered in 2008. Armed with little more than a set of tongs and a pallet of tinned beetroot these hardy souls ventured into areas previously unknown to science.

I’m not sure where this is going….but I think you can see I’m not cut out for research.

Low double standards

Here you can read the ‘harrowing’ account of a small, furry mammal, left hanging from a gin trap in Masterton. It died from its injuries.

Gin traps are commonly used in New Zealand to kill small furry mammals. It is illegal to set one 150 metres from homes, in case you accidentally catch and torture a small furry mammal with a name, in this case, Eli.

“The SPCA wants to send a clear message on this issue: Don’t set leg-hold traps in urban areas. The risks to pets and children are real and the consequences are potentially severe.”

That’s right. Make sure you only set gin traps in areas away from animals that humans think are cute. Technically, of course, it’s illegal to torture any animal to death, but no-one goes to court over a strung-up possum.

It’s worth noting that in Australia, cats are the target species.

 

Silleebus changez

The HSC syllabus is changing in 2018 to better prepare students for university. It will, in short, focus more on maths, science and the structure of language. In other words, students will be taught numeracy and literacy. Radical. More physics, less basketweaving.

My prima facie reading of this news story makes me sing for joy – I’ve long thought that secondary education focusses too closely on how to make a triumphant grated cheese salad or the complex plot developments of Home and Away. In this vein, the news story informs us that the existing physics syllabus invites essays detailing the achievements of famous physicists, rather than learning the physics itself. This is journalism gold; Back in my day we learned maths etc., etc.,

It’s also where I grow suspicious. You see, this story appeared on the ABC. I’ve been noticing a slightly more government-friendly editorial bent on Aunty of late. Is simply copying a biography of a famous physicist off Wikipedia really enough to pass year 12 physics?

I guess it depends on how you define biography. Understanding the discovery of a physical principal, and then figuring out how to measure and predict it, is the basis of physics. Following someone else’s footsteps through this process could be useful – a student’s own journey of discovery. If however, the biography is a florrid herstory of thwarted potential and alarming burns then I can see where we fall off the rails. Don’t get me wrong, the history and philosophy of science certainly can and does include deep scientific understanding. Equally, however, there are sociological accounts that do not. I’d be interested to know exactly what the ‘old’ syllabus contained.

What I find particularly heartening about these HSC changes is the inclusion of statistics, and a refocusing on the basic mathematics that underpins simple equations. Recently I was quite surprised to learn that statistics is almost completely absent from year 12 maths. It may not be as sexy as calculus or other ‘obvious’ STEM subjects, but in fact it is the basis of much research – in physics and engineering, but also in the popular vocational areas of data-fiddling and medicine. It also assists with avoiding blatantly stupid follies ranging from homeopathy to pokie addiction. Bring it on.

New Zealand sunsets. Epic.

Centre-fuct

Now, keep looking at my honest hands

“Coalition Ministers have continued to defend the program, claiming welfare should only be given to those who are entitled to it.”

Or, equally relevant;

“Coalition Ministers have continued to defend the program, claiming welfare should only be given to those who are still breathing”.

Seriously, this is how the government responds to the Centrelink clusterfuck? With completely irrelevant statements?

We know only eligible people should receive welfare. The question is whether that eligibility includes the right to be pursued for fake debts. 

This is the government seizing the opportunity to denigrate all welfare recipients, pure and simple. 

Australia; You’re Swimming In It.

Dogma, Karma, bullshit

How many times must I stab the radio this summer?

In today’s ABC ‘Documentary Piece’ about Roald Dahl, we hear of a young woman’s literary love affair with the author who shaped her childhood. Dahl, she tells us, with excruciatingly ponderous pace, made her into the writer she is today.

But wait, there’s a twist! There is a Dark Side to Roald Dahl, a side so horrible that one can barely bring oneself to look into it, lest their childhood be tapped open like a festering egg!

Tell me more!

Well, apparently Roald Dahl was an adulterer. And, he once called his daughter a bitch for confronting him on it. There’s more. Dahl once remarked that he’d rather be dead than fat (he’s as evil as Kate Moss! Shuffle over, Hitler and stop hogging the blanket!). It gets worse, folks. Dahl was a racist. His oompah loompahs were originally cast as African pygmies, and he ruminated on the character flaws of the Jewish people. Why, he wondered, had they attracted such perverse persecution? Sure, Hitler was a prize bumpfswiggle but in Dahl’s view the Jews had partly brought their fate upon themselves.

The radio narrator/writer weeps and wails over their gravity and depth of these failings…. Oh my God, how could I have loved this guy? How could I have read his books? WHAT A MONSTER! I can’t believe I was somehow complicit in his vile world!

After about thirty hours of this self-righteous, hyperbolic panto routine I turned it off.

When I was 8 my Dad showed me some film footage of Jews being pushed into pits. It is still the most distressing thing I’ve seen in my life and remains securely fastened in a repertoire of lively nightmares. I’ve since questioned my father’s judgement, but I’ll never forget his words;

If you had grown up in a family of Nazis, you would believe this was right too.

Dad wanted me to think about judgement, about the relativism of right and wrong. He wanted me to think hard about the social conventions that I was growing up in. (I’m making him sound like a morally righteous demi-God – he isn’t, he’s just a person like everyone else. A person who should have looked into a bit more Disney).

And so when I hear blind judgement, without consideration of context, background, politics, family, gender or class I get nervous. Because this is truly frightening. This is the blueprint of unblinking dogmatism. And unblinking dogmatism gets you front row seats at the pit.

Simply stating ‘Dahl was a monster’ demonstrates a troubling fixity of thought, something far darker than his supposed ‘dark side’. What is really, truly frightening, is cultivating the lack of insight that allows us to come to grips with what people are thinking and feeling, to think critically about the cultural patterns, tropes and values that are in ascendence at any one time. The Holocaust can’t be understood with the idea that there were just a few more shittier human beans in the can. Dahl’s story tells us that intelligent, well-connected people, loving fathers and mothers can come to hold dreadfully dangerous ideas. We are all ‘monsters’. We need to think hard about how that happens.

Dahl was a product of multiple moments in time, of the family he grew up in, the British class-constrained school he attended, the war he fought, the Africa he experienced and the women he disgraced himself with.

Dahl was a human bean. Like the rest of us.

Spoiler alert; Colonisation in Crocs

Let’s play spot the difference;

What’s going on in New Zealand this week? General freaking out about Peter Thiel buying New Zealand citizenship, that’s what. This brand new Kiwi is now the proud owner of a humble pile in Wanaka, apparently hedging his bets against a global, US centric clusterfuck.

Bolt-holes in New Zealand are the latest asset of the uber wealthy, or so we’re told. Don’t worry about being forced out of your country though, like other peaceable, desirable countries with WIFI and vegetables, NZ has an Overseas Investment Office (OIO). It ensures that only the most criminal of oligarchs can purchase state significant land.

So why didn’t Thiel go down this route? Well, as we all know, waiting for approvals on multi-million dollar purchases is so tedious. Sometimes it takes literally months. Luckily there’s another option. You can simply buy New Zealand citizenship, and then purchase whatever land you want! Just like in the olden days. Cos let’s face it, New Zealand citizenship has been a tidy export earner since The New Zealand Company*. Add to cart!

It’s not like Thiel, who is a US citizen, hasn’t bought little bits Pacific islands before. He recently purchased a home on Maui. He’s in good company, his friend Mark Zuckerberg also bought a hugely expensive estate on Maui. In a magazine article (that now seems to have disappeared) locals described Zuckerberg’s attempts to muscle out his neighbours, some of whom are indigenous owners. Zuckerberg started off by offering his neighbours inordinate amounts of money for their land. In the case of the indigenous owners, he got a few representatives to sell him pieces of land. Trouble is, indigenous title is famously complex – it doesn’t always mesh with Western capitalist version of land tenure. While some ‘owners’ took the money, others argued that it wasn’t really theirs to sell. Some people simply didn’t want to leave the place they’d called home for generations. For those who quibbled about the process, Zuckerberg’s lawyers applied force. This is called negotiation between unequal actors. Or, to use its older term, Treaty.

This is just another form of blockbusting – a co-ordinated attempt to reach a tipping point in a neighbourhood. YOU might dig your heels in and stay but everyone else has buggered off. You’re no longer among friends. But hey, if you need a job as a gardener….

It’s not that Zuckerberg or Thiel behaved illegally in Hawaii. After all, they’re simply participating in the real estate market, a market underpinned by the legitimate structures of US government. The same government that turned up about about a hundred years ago and put those structures in place, by legitimately negotiating with the indigenous Hawaiians to cede their sovereignty and accept a US system of private property and governance ….Kidding! Phew, that was getting awkward…

Seriously though, these uber wealthies seem to be doing something relatively unremarkable on Maui; using their wealth to reach a tipping point in the property market, the point at which those who’re left behind choose the carrot (take the money) instead of the stick (community dislocation and/or expensive lawsuit). Simply put, the peasants move on. Forget capital flight!  Deficit flight is where it’s at!

Johnny Moore’s article suggests that Thiel’s New Zealand property venture will be more exciting than his foray into the Hawaiian market. He describes oligarchs on the run, their children kidnapped, houses burnt to the ground. In this age of global connectedness, he argues, the only real bolt-hole is on the moon.

I think this is alarmist. The consequences he suggests are violent and also illegal. You can bet that Mr Thiel won’t be waiting a year for police to turn up at his place when someone sets fire to his woodpile. Not all NZ citizens are equal. ( I also found the casual discussion about kidnapping children bloody terrifying – I think others would too).

What’s more likely, I think, is people like Thiel will engage in a form of hyper-gentrification, a market distortion where one bolt-hole turns into a series of enclave economies. Ordinary New Zealanders will resent being made to feel like second class citizens, but hey, we’ve seen this movie before. See; New Zealand Company. Who’s dispossessed now?

 

*For those playing at home…The New Zealand Company sold parcels of land to British citizens who then sailed all the way to the other side of the world to set up house, only to discover someone else was already mowing the lawn.