Society

I have to agree with Baroness Susan Greenfield about the downside of the internet

liligans So you think you're cultured?, Society

While the internet has been a boon in many respects, I am concerned about some of its detrimental effects on the learning process.

When I first purchased a Kindle I was delighted with it. It is light. You can change the font. Downloading a book is not only fast but cheaper than the hard copy. You can carry your Kindle in a purse so that it is particularly handy for travel.

Similarly, a computer and an I-pad are convenient. You can look up anything in a second (if your connection works) and the world of information is at your finger tips. All this is true and I appreciate the benefits of the digital age.

However, and this is a big however, after reading books in E-form I find that my concentration is not as strong. I read the article on the screen and then flick around to something else and have to ask myself what was I reading?

I have read many books on my Kindle and when I study the menu I wonder what they were about. Now this does not happen with the printed word on a paper page. I have hundreds of books in my print library and can tell you immediately what the theme was and who the characters were in every one of them.

It’s as if what is on the digital screen is ephemeral, something to be read and discarded without being absorbed by the brain. I know that if I want to make a note of something I write it down on paper, because that makes it more credible to me.

So what I am referring to is not “information overload”, but rather the form in which the information is presented.

Now it’s very possible that I am having this reaction because my initial education was with books, pen and paper. Why, I can even do “proper” handwriting rather than printing. But I have been using a computer for thirty years, so I’ve been familiar with the internet for quite a while.

Baroness Susan Greenfield has been warning us about the effects of the digital age on the brain. The short attention span that is created by being able to surf the net willy nilly means that nothing much is read in detail.

We are used to the bite, the morsel, the nano-content of information and we are training our minds to flick from one thing to another without weighing the evidence, without questioning its importance and without sitting down away from the screen to reflect on what we have read.

One only has to observe the populace walking around everywhere, head down, thumbs hard at work, on I-phones. The obsession is very strange and rather scary. If they get all their information on the net and they are at it non-stop what will happen to their powers of reflection, comprehension and absorption?

This is what concerns Baroness Greenfield who spends her life promoting Neuroscience. She is certainly not against information and neither am I. In fact, I’m one of those types who checks information and spelling and trivia pedantically.

I have been an educator and I am very worried that the information and the books on E-readers are making us lightheaded. Not much is going in and staying in, and that is a pity because so much is going out into the ether.

We are inundated with the digital stuff and perhaps we are beginning to drown in it without a life jacket. It’s the medium, not the message!

Amazing spectacle on a Melbourne tram

liligans Society, totally absurd

It takes a lot to amaze me nowadays, but last Saturday I was definitely amazed, stunned even. We were rolling along on our ancient tram in Melbourne when I saw an amazing sight. Two teenagers boarded our tram. They sat down across from us and they began to chat with one another, face to face like.

Not for a few minutes before taking out their phones, but for the entire journey. They talked, they laughed, they looked at one another and nodded or shook their heads. They used body language to communicate.

It was terribly unnerving. To see two young people who weren’t doing their finger exercises on a tiny screen or shouting into their phones made me squirm awkwardly and wonder.

Who were these two young people? Why were they having a conversation face to face, not on Facebook with a million twittering imaginary friends, but with one another as if the whole thing were natural?

Were they from another planet perhaps? Or had their phone accounts run out. Had they forgotten to charge them? Perhaps some catastrophic event had caused them to misplace their phones.

Or was it perhaps my own wishful thinking, a delusion, that had invented something that no longer exists. Genuine conversation minus electronics.

There’s got to be a perfect plastic container out there!

liligans Society, totally absurd

Seems like I’ve started the year off badly. Fallen off the wagon, you might say. I fear that 2012 is no better than 2011 and all the years that went before it. Guess I’m doomed to keep on searching for the holy grail, which in my case, turns out to be the perfect plastic container.

I’ve been through a passion for Tupperware. What devoted domestic diva hasn’t? Had a few of them with their lifetime guarantees but the parties were demeaning and, besides, Tupperware is oh so expensive!

So I turned to cheaper plastic containers that soon became discoloured and weren’t quite spillproof. When they became misshapen with lids that didn’t fit I relegated them to a special place in my kitchen devoted to spare and emergency containers. You know the sort of collection I mean. Too good to throw out cause you may need them one day in an emergency.

I don’t dare ask myself what sort of emergency would necessitate a crappy plastic container, but you never know. I certainly don’t. But should the occasion arise, I’m well stocked.

My latest indulgence is “Lock & Lock.” Apparently, you can never have too many of them. I have thousands of these containers, a kitchen full. All shapes and sizes, rectangular, round, and even bottle shaped.

Long ago my naive husband suggested that perhaps I have enough plastic containers. When will I use them all? Have we got room for all these things?

He has a point, of course, but he doesn’t understand that the search for the perfect container is a bit like religion. You have to believe that there is something out there that will give real meaning to your life, structure and order. Isn’t that what religion’s about?

Well, in my case, I’m under the impression that if I can have the perfect collection of plastic containers then all will be well with the world, my world, that is. So neat and tidy, so stackable, so useful. A place for everything etc. etc. And who wouldn’t want to live without chaos?

Sadly, just when you think you have enough containers for every occasion, you pass a shop that has more Lock & Lock containers. These ones offer the possibility of storing tons and tons of leftovers. And they put the others to shame. They are made of even better plastic without that dangerous chemical in them. You know the one I mean. BPA, the latest evil ingredient in plastic. They say it could cause irreparable damage to your cells. Can’t be too careful these days, can you?

Can you?

Well, this is what happened a couple of days ago and that’s how I fell off the wagon in 2012. But this time I’m sure that I have every plastic container that I will ever need. I’ve seen the light and intend to stick to my new resolve religiously.

Do we care about gay marriage?

liligans Society

This morning I went to a current affairs discussion. We talked about the usual topics such as this weekend’s Labor Conference, selling uranium to India, the GFC, the Eurozone, the promised surplus by our federal treasurer, Wayne Swan, etc. etc. etc.

Then someone brought up the subject of legalising same-sex marriage and there was an interesting reaction to it. Nobody, but nobody, was interested in whether gays should be allowed to marry or not.

Quite frankly, my dear, we didn’t give a damn.

If they wanna get married, let them get married. It didn’t bother us one bit.

Perhaps it’s because we are older and wiser and we’ve learned that it has nothing to do with us anyhow. We have seen how marriage is no longer the genuine commitment that it was supposed to be. People get married, then they get fed up and then they either have affairs or they divorce. Or they live together without being married.

I’ve wondered why the gays want to get married at all and I think it’s because they need to be accepted by the rest of society. Which is understandable since they have not been accepted in the past and will probably always have problems with the Church.

So if they are allowed to marry they hope that they will be like us. This is quite ironic, in a way, because we as a society no longer value marriage. Been there, done that and wonder why anyone would want to be married.

Quite frankly, young women are attracted to weddings. They want a glamorous party with lots of tinsel and bling. All this fuss has nothing to do with the reality of the institution itself, of course. And when the party’s over they wonder what they got themselves into or grammatically speaking, into what they got themselves.

So good luck to the gays. Why not give them what they ask for?

Seriously though, I can envisage a time when the only people to get married will be gays. And so once again they will be a group apart. How ironic is that?

Fun at the auction at 49 Mathoura Rd Toorak

liligans Society

If you want to study humanity you will get your fill by attending a real estate auction. Sticky beaks like us occasionally attend. It’s live theatre.

So that’s what we did yesterday, Saturday, a day which apparently was going to keep Melbournians busy at about 800 or so auctions. We chose the one which was selling a very attractive renovated Nineteenth Century home.

As we approached the house we could see that every parking spot in the street was taken. A large crowd of curious neighbours and potential bidders filled the front lawn of the property. I’d been to some crowded auctions before at which nobody made a single bid. Very deflating. The whole thing would be over in a flash.

This one was different, though. Some families with little children positioned themselves. There was definitely an air of anticipation among the crowd.

Was anybody interested? Would the auction go the way of other auctions and fizzle out? We chatted among ourselves and waited.

And then the auctioneer, Justin Long, began his preamble. A very descriptive and enthusiastic one, naturally. After about ten minutes he finally declared the auction opened and asked:-

“Is there anybody here who would like to open the bidding?”

A little voice piped up. “I will” One of the toddlers stood in front of Mr Long and repeated “I will” until his dad picked him up and whisked him away.

The whole crowd burst out laughing and for a brief moment we all relaxed. And then the auctioneer asked the child:-

“Does your father have any money? If he has then go ahead and bid.”

There were four bidders there and one of them was successful. It seemed to go on forever with the auctioneer playing one of the bidders off against the others until we felt like calling out “Enough already…”

It turned out to be one of the most exciting auctions I had ever witnessed. Nail biting is the only way to describe it. And it felt so good to have that comic relief before it started. He was such a cute kid!

Occupy Melbourne see sense for now

liligans Politics, Society

When one holds a protest one really does not want to alienate the rest of the public. The people of Melbourne had put up with the protesters for a whole week and became fed up with their abuse of democratic freedom.

There were so many different agendas among the protesters that they had become a collective farce.

Some were against this, some were against that, so they all got together to disturb life downtown. No doubt there were some legitimate grievances among them. Not many as I said in my last post, since Australia is a lucky country when compared with the rest of the world.

The problem with the protesters is that they had been highjacked by formal advisers to the Green Party who saw this collection of copycats as an opportunity to disrupt the status quo. There were the usual suspects who wanted to demonise Israel as well, but there’s nothing new in that.

But mainly they wanted to take a stand against stuff. It was happening elsewhere in the world and this generation wanted to become part of something.

Well, it’s not hard to rouse naive folk by telling them that there failings are due to someone else. A protest sounded good. Sitting on your bum and shouting slogans is easier than going to work, isn’t it?

Anyhow, yesterday, they decided that since the rest of Melbourne was so much against their disruption of the Royal visit they would postpone their venture into destroying the evil monarchy. The vote was close, though.

They will continue their agitating on the weekend or whenever, but for the time being let’s hope that Melbourne can enjoy a pleasant day today.

By the way I’m not a monarchist, but that’s another story.

Occupy Melbourne. Just a bunch of puerile copycats!

liligans Politics, Society, totally absurd

About 100 policemen have just been brought into the city of Melbourne for a rehearsal. The Queen is coming to town tomorrow and so the protesters have decided to demonstrate against the “evil woman”, big business, small business, medium-sized business, the banking system, the weather, the price of petrol, Qantas, Israel (of course) and anything else they can think of. You name it, they’re against it.

Of course these people are not against the dole which supports them while they demonstrate. They are not against students’ allowances which support them while they lie around in the street chanting. They are not against making promises to the police that they will move on when they are asked to and then refusing to move.

So why are these stupid, stupid, spoiled brats throwing a tantrum on public property and causing problems for ordinary Melbournians downtown?

Well, they envy the uprising in the Arab countries. They envy the Wall St protesters who decided to take a stand against the government’s bail-out of big companies.

These Occupy Melbourne, Sydney, Perth etc groups of brats have very little to gripe about and this is the problem. Things are too good for them here in Australia.

If they don’t want to work, then either mummy and daddy will support them or they will get the dole. If they want to study then this will be free and they will also get paid to do so. Out of the public purse!

This sort of bludging is a shameful abuse of democracy. They throw around the term, “democracy” as if they know what it means. For them it means they want rights. The right to TAKE rather than the right to contribute. You can’t talk to these people about responsibility.

It costs a fortune to police these silly circuses, money that could be spent on the genuinely needy members of our society. But try telling that to these excrescences who will turn up tomorrow to mar the visit of the Queen.

Let’s face it, she won’t be perturbed by their carrying-on. She’s seen all sorts of spectacles in her life and had to keep a straight face when confronted by them. This won’t faze her. The police will cope too. They behaved admirably last week after the squatters broke their promise to move on when asked.

So go ahead you silly buggers, make nuisances of yourselves. You have absolutely no idea how lucky you all are to be living in Australia where the police won’t turn hoses on you, even when you deserve it.

Equal rights for women in Australia and Saudi Arabia. Wow!

liligans Society, totally absurd

So in five years time Aussie women will be able to take part in frontline combat. Now this is certainly a boost for equal rights in the military. Here comes Private Benjamin, I guess.

No, I’m not poopooing the idea of women fighting hand to hand in combat. On the contrary, I think that on some occasions it will be fantastic since there is nothing more frightening than women with PMT. The Taliban will be shaking in their boots (or sandals) at the prospect of a temperamental shrew hating everybody in the world and ready to kill. If the women are given lots of salty French Fries to eat and they then become bloated with fluid retention, the enemy had better watch out.

Unfortunately for the military, the male soldiers in the Aussie defence forces will cop it as well and they may even feel a little sympathy for the Taliban who are destined to be savaged by these “hormonal” women.

Still, all’s fair in love and war.

Which brings me to another equal rights story. In 2015 women in Saudi Arabia will be given the right to vote. Unfortunately for them, however, they will still have to hitch a lift to the polling booth as they are not allowed to drive a car. Anyone else see the humour in that? I think it’s called irony.

I buy a MacBook Air…

liligans So you think you're cultured?, Society

It’s possible that life was becoming somewhat too bright. The sun was making a shaky attempt to shine through the clouds. Birds twittered excitedly in the fecund branches. Fluffy white clouds floated serenely in an azure sky and I was becoming comfortable with things in general. Well, more or less.

Such a sorry state of affairs could definitely not go on. I would have to louse things up for sure. So I decided to go to the Apple Store and investigate the possibility of buying a MacBook Air computer.

Most computer experts like moi would, no doubt, be familiar with the insides of an Apple Store. A large but crowded place filled with teenagers in blue T-shirts, a sort of kindergarten for nerds, one of whom you summon by pressing a key on an iPad. You are then informed that you are next in line for service.

Presently, a beaming Matt or Hamish welcomes you to Apple World and offers to help.

Where do I start? Do I know what I want? Not really. Well, yes, of course, I’m thinking about getting a new computer or an iPad or…I really don’t know.

Why don’t you show me what there is?

Hard to describe the expression of joy on Matt or Hamish’s face. Because it wasn’t there. I felt sorry for him. This was going to be a long night.

The store was crowded and hot. Everybody was talking loudly and I could barely understand what M or H was saying to me. I looked around for a white flag to wave and a cry for HELP flashed silently in my frazzled brain.

What did I want from a computer? Well, I just want to be able to use it with as little fuss as possible.

Simple simple simple. No gimmicks, no creating my own memoirs of trips to Antarctica replete with pixies of penguins. I just want to surf the net, look up info, catch up on world news and do a little writing on my blog.

As I said, very simple, very basic.

The drone of voices in the shop sounded like a rattling train crashing through an ancient Roman tunnel. Apparently there were a million amazing apps I could buy. This computer would do cartwheels. I desperately wanted to press the ESC key or the FORCE QUIT key and leave the building.

Dear Reader, I took the MacBook Air home. Apparently, in the midst of all the racket I agreed to buy it.

This thing has no mouse. I am now having to caress the pad with three fingers or two or press hard in a certain way. I cajole the damn thing and titillate it with occasional success. But hey, isn’t that the way with most things in life?

You tickle this and fiddle with that and hope for the best. Sometimes you end up in the wrong place and have to start again.

And just when you think that you’ve got the hang of things you decide to try something new.

And that’s when the troubles begin all over again.

Raped and then accused of being racist

liligans So you think you're cultured?, Society, What Pisses me off

What is the world coming to when an alleged rape victim can’t call the alleged rapist “a black bastard”?

Apparently, according to political correctness she should have referred to him as the footballer of indigenous appearance who raped her when she was in no position to defend herself.

My ears pricked up when I heard that the alleged rapist’s barrister, David Grace QC accused the woman of being racist. How low can you stoop when you have to turn your client, Andrew Lovett, into some sort of victim of racism?

Lovett’s barrister, David Grace, kept on hammering her with:- “you didn’t want to have sex with an Aboriginal man, did you?” The woman replied that she didn’t want to have sex with anybody.

Now I don’t know whether there was a rape or not. It’s up to the law to decide. But I am utterly fed up with the outrageous demands of political correctness that is pervading our society. How can such limitation on freedom of expression be tolerated?

If Andrew Lovett is guilty of rape then he is a bastard. And if he is black, which he is, then he is black. So be it. What is wrong with being black, anyway? Methinks the barrister’s own prejudice is evident here.

On the other hand, if you don’t have much of a defence why not concoct a race issue?

Anyway, let’s say that the alleged victim is a racist, does that mean that it’s okay to rape her?

Let’s stick to the matters at hand. This is a rape trial and should be treated as such.

p.s Latest news about the trial. Verdict on 26th July. Lovett found not guilty.
p.p.s. Lovett is now being investigated on another rape charge.