Social Studies

Some wonderful poetry by David Byrne of Talking Heads:

By David Byrne

I thought that if I ate the food of the area I was visiting.
That I might assimilate the point of view of the people there.
As if the point of view was somehow in the food.

So I would make no choices myself regarding what food I ate.

I would simply follow the examples of those around me.
I would study menus very carefully,
Making note of important differences and similarities.

When shopping at the supermarket

I felt a great desire to walk off with someone else’s groceries
So that I could study them at length
And study their effects on me.

As though if I ate their groceries I would become that person; until I finished their groceries.

And we might find ourselves going to the same places.
Running into one another at the movies
Or in a shopping mall.

Scott Morrison’s Bushfires Jingle

On January 4th 2020 Scott Morrison announced that ADF Personnel would be deployed to assist emergency services with bushfire fighting activities. Shortly thereafter a  video was posted on the prime minister’s Twitter and Facebook pages summarizing the announcement. The video was backed by a jaunty* musical soundtrack and rythmic finger clicking.

David Marr had the insight to see that Morrison, whose professional career prior to politics was in Marketing, had released a jingle. A jaunty jingle. In the midst of Australia’s worst-ever bushfire emergency.

Immediate criticism followed. The tone of the jingle. The fact that it was a jingle. The use of Australian Defence Personnel in a Party-Political communication against long-standing conventions regarding prohibition against politicising the Australian defence force (The head of the Australian Defence Association, Neil James, said it was “plain wrong. It’s simple: you don’t use the defence force for party political advantage” ), posting the jingle on a web-page which solicits donations for the Liberal Party, and, most of all, using bushfire response announcements for party-political purposes.

Here’s Why Morrison’s Bushfire Jingle Is Party-Political

Morrison vehemently denies that his Bushfire announcement jingle was designed for party-political purposes, but his own explanation shows you that he is lying.

Morrison explained that the reason for his Bushfire Ad was that he couldn’t rely on the Media to properly transmit the contents of his Bushfire response to the Australian public.

Morrison said

As much as we’d all like to only rely on the reporting of the media to get those information out, I will also seek to carry that message directly to the Australian people to ensure they are aware of what we are doing.

So, Morrison would have you believe that the Australian Media cannot be trusted to reliably transmit the contents of the Federal Government’s Bushfire response to the general public. What nonsense. The man is patently lying.

What Morrison means is that the media will not transmit the message in exactly the way in which Morrision wants it transmitted – with a jingle and jaunty finger-clicking – in a way which uncritically makes Morrison look fantastic.

Not Concerned With Facts

If Morrison was merely concerned about the facts of his response being transmitted then he would have been satisfied with his media release which contained those facts and which he posted, like his Ad, on the Liberal Party and Government websites.

But, in fact, all the facts of his response had already been reported over and again in fine detail on TV and Radio on every and all channel and station. The facts were out there everywhere.

Morrison’s Ad is not designed to address a deficit of information, of transmission or of factual reporting. Its there to address image. Morrison’s personal image. That;s how we can tell the Ad is party-political. Its there to make Morrison look good.

And the second give-away that this Ad is party-political, also vehemently denied by Morrison who says this is unimportant , is the authorisation at the end of the Ad is from ‘S. Morrison, Liberal Party, Canberra’.

Morrison has faced constant criticism since the beginning of summer for his dismissive attitide towards, ham-fisted handling of, dishonest statements about, miserly outlook towards, and indifference to the Bushfire Emergency.

The Ad is designed to repair those perceptions. So the Ad says that the Government Bushfire Response is fantastic and the person responsible for this fantastic bushfire response is S. Morrison, Canberra.

Its nothing about the supposed inadequecy of the Media to report the facts of  Government Bushfire Response.

It is 100% about the inadequecy of Scott Morrison as Prime Minister.

Hence Morrison’s Jaunty Party-Politcal Bushfire Jingle.

Acknowledgement

*Thanks to Stephanie Covery for so aptly providing the appelation jaunty for Morrison’s bushfire jingle

The Byrds On The JFK Assassination

Though quite different from each other,  The Byrds / Lou Reed / Otis Spann / Human League and indeed the entire civilsed world view the JFK Assassination in much the same way:

A tragedy. A loss. An immense and incomprehensible crime. An act of evil.

But GW Bush thinks its funny. Why ?

Smirk

Bush’s sickly appeasing grin as he states that JFK was assassinated by ‘a [single] deluded gunman’ is highly reminicent of Bill Clinton’s infamous smirk as he shamefacedly lied about his relationship with a female intern.

Both that grin and that smirk betray guilt and deceit.

GW Bush is as surely / involved / with the JFK assassination as Clinton was with the intern, that abuse of power subsequently leading to his impeachment.

Got 14 minutes 1 second to think about it ?

Or here, in one hour, learn the whole story.

The Book Of Love

“The Book Of Love”
(originally by The Magnetic Fields)

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It’s full of charts and facts, some figures and instructions for dancing

But I,
I love it when you read to me.
And you,
You can read me anything.

The book of love has music in it,
In fact that’s where music comes from.
Some of it is just transcendental,
Some of it is just really dumb.

But I,
I love it when you sing to me.
And you,
You can sing me anything.

The book of love is long and boring,
And written very long ago.
It’s full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes,
And things we’re all too young to know.

But I,
I love it when you give me things.
And you,
You ought to give me wedding rings.

And I,
I love it when you give me things.
And you,
You ought to give me wedding rings.
You ought to give me wedding rings.

===

To hear this beautiful song:

Peter Gabriel
Tracey Thorn
Magnetic Fields (Original Artists)

Could I Possibly Just Squeeze This In Before We Go ?

You haven’t pulled down the Christmas tree just yet, have you ?

As the great pseudo-Australian / Fred Dagg / put it:

Star Of Wonder
Star Of Light
Star Of Beauty*
She’ll be right

Star of glory
That’s the story
Following yonder star

Wayne Wilson-Wong agrees

Not Reduced Salt Two Minute Asian Fusion Combo Noodles

What’s with those flamin’ three kings anyway ? Why would you want to follow a star ? And can I just clarify that Magi is not the same as Maggi ?

Beautifully rendered here.

* Disclosure: I have improved the Dagg version by replacing ‘Bewdy’ with ‘Beauty’

Bargain

During my teens I read a poem in Rolling Stone magazine called Bargain.. It so perfectly encapsulated by love of the experience of listening to the radio that I cut it out and blu-tacked it to my bedroom wall where it stayed until I moved out of home. Here it is in its entirety:

Bargain

“You’ve got to change your evil ways”
The Radio says to me
Alright
I’ll change my evil ways
If you show me
How you got on the radio

And This quote by Kurt Vonnegut Jr seems weirdly connected somehow:

I’m eighty-three and homeless. It was the same when World War II ended. The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people’s discharges and stuff. And my feeling was “Please, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?” That what I feel right now. I’ve written books. Lots of them. Please, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Can I go home now? I’ve wondered where home is. It’s when I was in Indianapolis when I was nine years old. Had a dog, a cat, a brother, a sister.

KURT VONNEGUT, JR., Rolling Stone, Aug. 24, 2006

Solar Interial Motion Hypothesis Cannot Explain Recent Global Warming

As a result of comments in this thread at Lavartus Prodeo, I have been Googling Solar Inertial Motion. Discussion on it is not easy to find outside anti-AGW websites.

The application of Solar Interial Motion (SIM) to Climate Change is a work of the Australian scientist, recently deceased, Rhodes Fairbridge

After some poking around, I found that SIM is a particular case of the Sunspot explanation for climate change, i.e. that changes in Solar Output explain Global Warming and Cooling.

Here’s Fairbridge in his article The “Solar Jerk”, The King-Hele Cycle,and the Challenge to Climate Science”

“… a planet revolving about the Sun in its “Keplerian” elliptical orbit delivered no energetic jolt to the Sun’s photosphere, such as might explain the episodic growth of sunspots.

But when two planets are involved, as the faster one passes the slower one, there is briefly a combined gravitational effect that is felt by each of the planets, and more importantly, by the Sun itself. This is not a tide (which is minuscule), but a torque.

The outer, gaseous layers of that star have a low viscosity that is susceptible to any change in the angular momentum…”

…so causing sunspots.

Fairbridge’s work is briefly discussed in comments on the pro-AGW WebSite Skeptical Science in the post “Global cooling: the new kid on the block” with contributions by a proponent of SIM. The Skeptical Science moderator responds:

… Fairbridge’s work but the general gist is that the alignment of the planets affects the sun’s angular velocity which affects solar output…the question of whether solar output is driving global warming has been thoroughly analysed.

and links to a page with this summary, well-known to anyone with an interest in the AGW debate:

Solar activity has shown little to no long term trend since the 1950’s. Consequently, any correlation between sun and climate ended in the 1970’s when the modern global warming trend began.

From the above it appears that the reason SIM is not in lively discussion is that it is already discredited. Solar forcings do not correlate to recent temperature data. CO2 does.

As Btian Eno might say: Here Come The Warm Jets

 

Father, we make claims on our knees
Dawn enter here for we’ve nowhere to be
Nowhere to be
Nowhere to be

Father, stains they’re all on our knees
Down on our words and we’ve nothing to be
Nothing to be
Nothing to be

image: http://static.urx.io/units/web/urx-unit-loader.gif

Father, down we’re all on our saints
Paid to appease though we’ve nothing these days
Nothing these days
Nothing these days

Father, here they’re sprawled in a daze
We’re down on our knees and we’ve nothing to say
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/brian-eno/here-come-the-warm-jets-lyrics/#H0FjYZueXeL1iK3Q.99

The title Warm Jets came from the guitar sound on the track of that name, which I described on the track sheet as ‘warm jet guitar’, because it sounded like a tuned jet. Then I had the pack of playing cards with the picture of the woman in there, and they sort of connected. That was one of the things that was going on at the time: this idea that music was still tied to some idea of revolution, and that one of the revolutions was a sexual revolution. I wasn’t making a big political point, I just liked having fun with those things. Most people didn’t realise for a long time — it was rather deeply concealed!”

Brian Eno, interviewed by Andy Gill in Mojo, June 1998

Paul Kelly: Australia’s National Voice ?

There’s a great article on Paul Kelly, the wonderful Australian singer-songwriter in the Free section of “The Monthly” website, Thoughts in the Middle of a Career.

The author is none other than Robert Forster, co-founder of the Go-Betweens.

Reviewing Paul Kelly’s “Songs from the South”, here’s what Forster says about Kelly’s voice:

None of these songs would be as good or as pleasurable if Kelly wasn’t the singer he is. It is – and you sense his often unenthusiastic self-appraisals are to blame – his most overlooked talent. His singing can be so in sync with a song’s action and character that you forget to notice its quality… His voice – sly and warm, laconic and sometimes frail – may be the closest thing we have to a national one.

You know, when I first saw the article I misread that last sentence as “His voice – sly and warm, laconic and sometimes frail – may be the closest thing we have to a national tone.

I agree with Forster, but like my misreading better. 🙂

I’ve only seen Kelly twice in concert: once at the big theatre on Market St., in Sydney and once at a free concert at The Rocks. Both times I have enjoyed Kelly’s unpretentiousness and his respect for his band, making sure they get their fair recognition.

At the Market St gig someone called out “What’s the score in the cricket?” (There was an Ashes tour in progress in England at the time). Kelly welcomed the chance for some audience interaction, and got the house lights turned up so he could have a look at us!

I love his music. Just one example will do for now. On “Leaps And Bounds” there is a refrain “I remember”. During the song he lapses into spoken word and says simply “I remember. I remember everything.” In my opinion remembering is a sign of integrity. It’s the cheats and deceivers who always “can’t remember”.

A songwriter with the integrity to remember and to admit when he stuffs up. Just one of the reasons why Paul Kelly’s music will endure. Hey, is Kelly an official ‘Living National Treasure’? He should be.

[Pause to consult]

Good Grief, Cheryl Kernot is. Am I hallucinating?