Sorry and the stolen generation

As a quasi-Australian (ie I lived there most of my life) and someone who has spent quite a bit of time in aboriginal Australian communities and parts of the country that have a mostly indigenous population, I have always found the stories about how aboriginal children were taken from their families and ‘fostered’ out to white families as a horrible state of affairs and one of the reasons why the breakdown of aboriginal culture has been so devastating to that section of the population. I feel a number of emotions when I think about it. I am ashamed that my ‘cultural heritage’ acted in such a way; I feel pity for those affected. But what I don’t feel is sorrow. I feel no need to say sorry. This isn’t dodging some ethical or moral obligation. The fact is I didn’t do it and neither did the current Australian government.

(I know this is going to wind people up but hear me out)

Sorry doesn’t undo the damage. If I perform some horrible wrong on someone and I later regret it then sure I am going to want to apologise but I will do that through a deeply personal motivation to try and put things right or to begin some process of reconciliation. And I can understand how some people see an apology from the government of the day as a first step in a similar process. The problem I have with this is that governments often ‘speak’ through a need for political expediency not some desire to to the right thing by all people.

Why is is so important for the government to offer this apology? What does it achieve and is it heart felt? Make films, write books, write music, paint pictures and make sure the world never forgets about a tragic part of our history. Don’t lobby the government to do it on your behalf.

Yes the government of the time made this policy and it was wrong in so many ways. The current government didn’t and as our elected officials they speak on our behalf. I’m quite capable of doing that myself, thanks.

I was never a major fan of John Howard, but by offering a statement that basically condemned the actions of the government of the time but not going so far as saying sorry was right and proper in my opinion. If we are going to hold our past responsible for the future we are in dire straights. Learn from the past, make sure as many people as possible know what happened and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Society does that, not government.

It could be an urban myth but …

A 98 year old woman wrote this to her bank. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in The Times.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three ‘nanoseconds’ must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become.

From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.
2. To query a missing payment.
3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.
4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.
5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.
6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.
7. To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required. A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorised Contact.)
8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 8
9. To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client

Driving isn’t a right it’s a privilege

I’ve always thought it was fascinating, that drivers caught breaking the law with a vehicle to such an extent that disqualification of their license is the suitable punishment, can use the fact that they need their license for work as a justification for appeal. I find it even more fascinating that drivers avoid the penalty on these grounds.

Well in the UK this week we have outdone ourselves. A police officer in an unmarked police car was caught doing twice the speed limit in a built up area (speed limit 30) and later a staggering 151 mph on a motorway.

Apparantly this case has dragged on for a bit so the judge decided to waive a penalty because the driver had “already been through quite a lot”. 151 mph! And his defense was that he was practicing his high speed driving skills. On a public road, gee, thanks for that.
It’s about time we figured out that driving is not a right. This guy should have been banned for life.

Music is not art

I was browsing through a local paper the other day when I came across a piece which discussed an art installation where the artist had taken photographs of everything they had eaten for a whole year and then arranged them into some kind of collage. Interesting I thought. Kind of funny even. Then I unfortunately started to read the comments from various art critics, some hailing it as a modern day masterpiece for various esoteric reasons that have since left my short term memory, such was the banality of it all.

It took me back to my days at University, studying music. The performance course I took was focused on jazz. I know a lot of people have no time for jazz, but personally I love it. I love the emotions and feelings that are evoked from hearing spontaneous improvisation. What I don’t love is the ridiculous, self serving, up it’s own ar$e type of critical analysis that to me seems to devoid the music of any value it might have had in the first place. That old term “cerebral” seems to pop into the mix from time to time, as if the music only has value if its making you think.

Don’t get me wrong, music has a high impact on my state of being. I find it one of the few stimuli that has a deep effect on the way I am at a particular moment, mentally and “spiritually” – but I use that term whilst searching desperately for another one. But it doesn’t make me want to sit and analyse it in any great detail.

When I was studying, I quite often looked at music I listened to and analysed it in depth, but not to seek a greater understanding of the world around me. To me that was a theoretical exercise to increase my vocabulary in the music. “I like what that guy did there .. what is it exactly he did. Oh right I see. Now where can I take that idea and make it part of my voice“.

I suppose the crux of this post is that I have always hated being known as an artist, for the critical and intellectual baggage that it brings with it. In terms of being a jazz musician, this attitude is jazz music’s worst enemy. I know plenty of jazz musicians who devalue pop music because it is not improvised, not hard, not many other things that jazz supposedly is; and by the way I totally disagree. One of my favourite quotes from a musician is “there are two kinds of music. The stuff you like and the stuff you don’t”. That’s more than likely paraphrased and I struggle to remember the source, but it does illustrate the point.

I should qualify that I know many visual artists who have the same issues with critical analysis.

“You see what Joe Bloggs is doing here is creating a rich and multi layered tapestry in which the principal themes of existence and self and delicately interwoven to bring the viewer to a higher state of being.”

Crap! Joe Bloogs created a big plastic, yellow hippopotamus and its cool to look at and kind of funny and I’m sure it was fun to make. Get a life Mr/Mrs/Miss art critic. Get a real job and stop trying to get us to understand something which isn’t there in the first place. Even the artist hasn’t got a clue what you’re on about and they made the bloody thing.

I’m going to take up sculpture. I’m going to make some stuff that will probably be appalling as I can’t sculpt. Then I’m going to have an exhibition called “Some Cool Stuff I Made”. I’m going to install Gatling guns hooked up to a speech analyser that detects any word above three syllables. You have been warned.

Ok ok, music is art. Art conveys emotion. It is deeply personal to the viewer or listener. They can discuss it with other people and it gives others an insight into the piece. Maybe a completely different way of viewing it. Maybe that will change their life, maybe it won’t.

The spirit of the law

I’m a keen cyclist. For those interested, my current steed is a four year old Cannondale CAAD5 (R600), for those who aren’t its a road bike, what we used to call a racer (back in the day).

I ride most lunch times, as getting away from your desk when you work from home is critical, and well, hey I enjoy it. Most days I’ll put in about 10-15 miles around the outskirts of the city where I live. I ride on the road, well for the most part, and this brings me to the crux of this post.

This afternoon, as I always do, I crossed the road onto a footpath for 50 yards that leads to a canal path. At this point in my ride I’m starting my warm down, so I’m riding at a slow pace. There is a bus stop on this 50 yards of footpath and today there were two women with a child in a pram and another small child on foot. So I slowed to a walking pace, unclicked a foot from one cleat and asked “excuse me” to get past. The first woman says “oh sorry”, and I say “not at all”, smile and roll past them at less than walking pace.

The other woman snarled at me “bikes are for the road”. I’ve stopped and said “excuse me”, and she repeats “bikes are for the road”. Now after giving her a polite explanation of the fact that I had stopped so I was unlikely to hit any of them and hence avoid her purile threat to sue me (???), I eventually road off again at my slow pace, but it did get me thinking.

Technically and to the letter of the law I was violating the Traffic Code, but in the spirit of the law I was acting in a manner contrary to the reason the law was there is the first place. Now I have first hand experience of this as my other half had her wrist broken by a cyclist who barreling along a foot path and collected her as she stepped out from a shop doorway.

That guy was an idiot and had no regard for anyones personal safety, including his own. I’m not. I don’t jump red lights. I don’t swerve in and out of cars parked or otherwise. In short I’m a responsible rider and where there is any doubt I take the option which is least risky.

So I ask, do we have laws in the first place because the majority of people can’t think, won’t think or are just to stupid to see the consequences of their actions? I would like to think not.