Ovid in a time of COVID: 19 timely quotes from the Roman poet – with dedications as appropriate.

1.    Dedicated to people in ‘lockdown’ – wherever they are.

        Dolor hic tibi proderit oli.

Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.

2. Dedicated to antiviral drug and vaccine researchers:

        Mille sint mali mille salutis erunt.

There are a thousand forms of evil; there will be a thousand remedies.

3. For those in public health agencies:

        Qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit.

He who is not prepared today will be less so tomorrow.

4. For Dan Andrews:

        Requiescendum; dat ager uberrimam segetem requievit.

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

5. For Treasurers and managers of science agencies:

        Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur
        Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.

Resist beginnings; the remedy comes too late when the disease has gained strength by long delays.

6. For everyone:

        Qui nolet fieri desidiosus, amet!

Let the Man who does not wish to be idle fall in Love!

7. For researchers of the effectiveness of lockdown:

        Nil adsuetudine maius.

Nothing is stronger than habit.

Nothing is more powerful than custom.

8. -and another:

        Quod male fers, adsuesce, feres bene.

Habit makes all things bearable.

  • 9. For children:

        Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus
        Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit.

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.

10. For Albo:

        Medio tutissimus ibis.

You will be safest in the middle.

You will go most safely by the middle way.

11. For social media enthusiasts:

        Causa latet, vis est notissima

The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all.

12. For Joe Biden:

        Fas est et ab hoste doceri.

It is right to learn even from an enemy.

We can learn even from our enemies.

13. For Barnaby:

        Quod licet ingratum est. Quod non licet acrius urit.

We take no pleasure in permitted joys.
But what’s forbidden is more keenly sought.

14. For cultural warriors:

        Nam genus et proavos et quae non fecimus ipsi,
        Vix ea nostra voco.

For those things which were done either by our fathers, or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, we can scarcely call our own.

15. For Scomo and Paul Fletcher:

        Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.

 And he turned his mind to unknown arts.

16. For BLM:

        Gutta cavat lapidem

Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.

17. For people of hope and good will:

        Omnia mutantur, nihil interit

Everything changes, nothing perishes.

18. For Dan Tehan, Minister for Education:

        Adde quod ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
        emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.

Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.

19. For realists everywhere:

        Laudent ceteri olim; ego sum laetus ego eram natus est in illis.

Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.

[Source of quotes: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ovid]

Postscript

We are warned these days that everything one commits to digital communications can be accessed and seen by hackers and other cybersecurity experts. I have come up with a way that secret or intimate information which one wishes to remain confidential can be conveyed from one individual to another. This is an exciting prospect – and one which offers both a commercial opportunity and the prospect of hundreds of jobs. See what you think.

Postscript: When all of our communications are digitised, impersonal and readily available to any party skilled in cyber-insecurity, it occurs to me that there might be a commercial opportunity arising from people’s occasional need for communication which is characterised by certainty that the information is being transferred in confidence from a point-source to a limited number of point-recipients selected by the source. Imagine, for example, the situation in which one person (the point-source) wanted to communicate personal information (of any sort) to one receiver: a one-to-one communication. Rather than following the usual protocols relating to transmission of digital information by satellite technology, through selected encrypted social media in the Cloud which is, in effect, permanently available to the public, suppose that it was possible to encode the selected information in single issue, unique, hard copy form.

It is possible to conceive of this being operationalised by the point-source, using some combination of a medium capable of being physically marked (stone, say, or slate, or compressed layers of barley husks?) and a medium for the marking (a flint, say, or ash, or a corrosive acidic reagent?). By such means, the point-source could transfer the required information from their brain to a unique inanimate physical entity (one wouldn’t want to have the secret intelligence simply wandering away).

The challenge is then how to have this entity transferred into the cognition, via visual field, of the intended recipient. This is where I think the commercial opportunity exists. Suppose one was to enter into a contract with a person to actually carry the entity to the place of residence of the intended recipient: the contract could specify a financial return to the trans-shipper and a moiety for us as owners and managers of the intellectual property associated with the venture.

A huge amount of administrative backgrounding would of course be necessary: one would need physical addresses for any party that might be the target for transmissions; a book of Yellow pages into which those addresses could be collected (they could be alphabetised for easier access?); a system for putting potential point-sources in contact with the service, some means of levying the agreed fees from users of the service, and a large stock of yellow waterproof coats and modestly-powered motorbikes. (I wonder whether the fees could be levied on both parties to the contract – source and recipient?)

There would also need to be developments of associated infrastructure. For example, if the targeted recipient is not working from home there might be no-one home to receive the entity. Perhaps those who opt in to the scheme could affix some sort of receptacle to the outside of their door or their fence into which the entity could be placed? (This might lead to yet another commercial niche: whole companies could produce little printed flyers to be pasted onto these receptacles in an attempt to prevent miscreants from putting unsolicited items in them?)

Some sort of government licensing of the parties involved would probably be required and if it went really well government might take it over from us?. Inter-State travel might be involved and (I am ambitious for the scope and scale of the service.) even international flights.

My preliminary budgeting suggests a unit cost per contract in the range of $US13-14,000 but if the service took off that cost would fall rapidly. There might be a market for a special service (a twice daily delivery?) for a slightly higher fee. As I describe these possibilities, still more options occur to me. For example, being a physical object, the entity to be trans-shipped will have two sides; it might be possible to put the two to different purposes: one for the textual intelligence to be communicated, the other for a pictorial representation of the nearest seaside resort to the location whence the entity is being dispatched.

Any such further aspects to the proposal must be evaluated in the context of the requirement that the central purpose of the whole enterprise is not compromised – being the protected transmission of thoughts, feelings, intelligence and family news between two parties, both of whom seek a level of privacy or confidence not provided by traditional digital means.

What do you think? Am I onto something here?

Please get back to me.

Love always – your brother – gg

Part 2: Dr Strangelove to coronavirus

Note: This is Part 2 of ‘Politics and economics explained’, an assignment happily entered into for my immediate family and made freely available here to others. The narrative is made more accessible to non-economists as a result of its unreliability and through the addition of references to a number of films which relate to the piece’s subject areas. Part 1 was ‘1940-1960’ and is available on this same blogg.

The scariest thing about living during the Cold War was the possibility of a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the US. Back then it seemed possible that one or other of those countries might somehow get an unhinged leader who could order a nuclear attack on the other superpower. [Dr. Strangelove. 1964]

By 1960 people seemed to have forgotten the value of having a government lead on commercial activity, and suddenly the only thing that mattered was the profitability of commercial enterprises.  When Dr Beeching took over as Chairman of the British Transport Commission in 1964, British Rail was losing £140 million a year. So he closed 4,500 miles of railway line and 2,128 stations. This was one third of the track network and 55 per cent of stations, or the equivalent of six extra seasons of Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys (on BBC2). These closures led to the loss of 67,000 British Rail jobs – a sort of dress-rehearsal for what was in store for much of the UK’s heavy industry.

Soon after Beeching’s closures people thought they could see light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately it turned out to be a train coming in the opposite direction. This was the thundering, unstoppable neoliberalism, a new fashion for western governments that was to dominate politics and economics for half a century and wasn’t really challenged until there was an unexpected viral pandemic.

Neoliberalism was invented by Milton Friedman in Chicago one day in 1967 – and we’re still trying to get over it today. Friedman said that not only was it a bad idea to have governments do stuff, but that government intervention actually does  harm. When the economy is slowing down and unemployment rising, the government should sit on its hands and let the central bank manage growth by increasing the amount of money in circulation.  This will reduce interest rates and increase spending. (This is ‘monetarism’.)

People were persuaded. After 20 years of controlled economic expansion in which government investment (especially by the US) played a leading role, governments everywhere – Conservative, Liberal, Labour –  signed up to ‘monetarism’ and turned their backs on Keynes. [Capitalism: A Love Story. 2009]

Monetarism is a central tenet of neoliberalism which has a particular view of the relationship that a government should have with its people. It holds that free-market capitalism is all the go. It sees competition as the best characteristic of human relations. We are all consumers, not citizens. All of our choices and behaviours and attitudes are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. ‘The market’ delivers benefits that can’t be achieved by planning and ensures that everyone gets what they deserve. Inequality is a sign that things are working well. [Suits. 2011-19]

The successes of neoliberalism include the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the Panama Papers, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, and the rise of Donald Trump. [The Laundromat. 2019] [Sorry We Missed You. 2020]

One of the best practitioners of neoliberalism was Margaret, Baroness Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. She loved markets and put structural change in the UK economy on steroids by closing all the coalmines and steelworks. She also had a wapping victory over print unions and helped  Rupert Murdoch buy news organisations and salacious newspapers.  [Hack Attack. date tbc] [My Beautiful Laundrette. 1985.]

PM Thatcher famously said there is no such thing as society:

I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it: ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. [High Hopes. 1988.]

Between 1984 and 2014 over a quarter of a million coal miners in the UK lost their jobs. In 2014 there were still 5.5 million people in ‘coal mining regions’ who needed financial support. The steel industry was similarly affected. The UK steel industry employed 323,000 people in 1971, but 32,000 in 2019. The fracturing of local communities had serious adverse effects on a whole range of communal activity, including sporting clubs and local orchestras, but these were offset for some people by increased employment opportunities in male strip shows. [Brassed Off. 1996] [The Full Monty. 1997]

From 1997 to 2003 there is stable and fun government in the US. The leader of the Western world and his staff grapple in entertaining fashion with tough issues like modernisation of the US polity, religious fundamentalism, terrorism and the politics of the Middle East. [The West Wing. 1999-2006]

However in response to terrorist attacks on the US, in 2003 President Bartlett’s successor led the United States into war in Iraq. The aims were to punish the Iraqi President for the use of chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction, to install a pro-US government there and to dissuade it and other countries in the Middle East from shielding terrorist organisations. The US was joined in the operation by Australia and the UK. The Iraq War lasted seven years, saw 4,488 U.S. troops killed and cost the US over a trillion dollars. In comparison, World War 2 cost the US $4.1 trillion (inflation-adjusted) and the Vietnam War $738 billion. [Good Morning, Vietnam. 1987] [Platoon. 1986]

In the UK, 1997-2010 is a period of faux socialism during which social-democratic and neoliberal policies and approaches are pretty much indistinguishable. Then, in 2010, David Cameron (a Conservative) becomes the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. As Prime Minister he has two good moments. The first was when he became uncharacteristically firm in negotiations with the US President when he (the President) was caught coming on to his girlfriend. [Love Actually. 2003] The second was when he inexplicably decided to hold a referendum (June 2016) into the UK’s membership of the European Union. [Brexit: The Uncivil War. 2019]

Despite ample evidence from The West Wing, the Panama Papers and a global financial crisis, neoliberalism is still unchallenged as the preferred paradigm for governments throughout The Developed World. It succeeds in reinventing itself time and again through ephemeral schemes like subprime mortgages and less ephemeral ones like the sudden stupendous wealth of Russian oligarchs. All of this means that, in 2016, even someone like a 59-year-old carpenter who has had a heart attack has to fight bureaucratic forces in order to get unemployment benefit. [I, Daniel Blake. 2016] [The Era of Neoliberalism. 2019]

It’s as if the world’s economic order is waiting for some unstoppable natural phenomenon to jolt it into the realisation that it needs to Make Kindness Great Again.

Politics and economics explained

Like many others, our family has started meeting by VTC for a catch-up once a week. The agenda requires one or more of us to lead discussion on a topic of interest.  I was recently required to open discussion on changes to the world’s political economy from the second war to 2020 – a jolly little assignment, I’m sure you will agree.

Some of my children communicate best using the language and vocabulary of films and TV shows, having no experience with the simile and metaphor of economics – the dismal science. It therefore seemed helpful to couch my background contribution in language and terms they would relate to more easily. The story is mostly based in the UK.

This is Part 1 of the piece: 1940-1960. Part 2 is Dr Strangelove to coronavirus.

Part 1:  1940-1960

It is 1940. The Second World War has started. The two sides appear to be fairly evenly matched until the third quarter when (7 December 1941) the United States comes off the bench. Japan sinks seven US battleships at Pearl Harbour but not their primary target – the American aircraft carriers. Yamamoto concludes: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” [Tora! Tora! Tora! 1970]

A shy steel factory worker in Russia surpasses his production quota and receives the order of Lenin. His town is attacked by the Germans who move forward to reach the gates of Moscow. Hitler is furious when he hears that Moscow has not fallen, and the Russians also successfully defend Stalingrad. The Soviet armies then close in on Berlin. [The Fall of Berlin (Падение Берлина). 1949]

Both sides attempt to destroy the other’s manufacturing and heavy industries including, in the case of the Allies, with a cunning bouncing bomb dropped by Lancaster bombers flying at 60 feet. [The Dam Busters. 1955] Even submarines do not escape destruction, including U-96, a German U-boat hunting British freighters in the north Atlantic. [Das Boot. 1976] There was also significant destruction of infrastructure effected by Alec Guinness in Thailand. [The Bridge on the River Kwai. 1957]

Many people flee from Europe to the U.S. when the war begins, some of them via North Africa. Exit visas are not easy to come by, even for people as important as Czech resistance leaders, except in Rick’s Cafe.  Some of the European intellegentsia who make their way to the U.S. play a part in the Manhattan project to develop a nuclear bomb.  [Casablanca. 1942.] [The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb. 1980]

US President Roosevelt is determined to prevent a retreat into isolationism once the war is over. In 1941 he and Churchill announce the formation of the United Nations. In 1945 fifty nations sign the charter for a permanent United Nations, an alliance “with power adequate to establish and to maintain a just and lasting peace.” [Scary Movie 4. 2006]

In 1944 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are created in the hope of preventing a return of the cut-throat economic nationalism that had prevailed before the war. One of the architects of the post-war financial system agreed at the Bretton Woods Conference was John Maynard Keynes. He died in 1946 so wouldn’t have known that governments everywhere soon adopted his idea from the 1930s, when unemployment reached 20 per cent. He thought increased government spending could make up for a slowdown in business activity and so prevent recession and the loss of jobs.  At the time, balanced budgets were standard practice with governments, based on Mr Micawber’s recipe for happiness. [David Copperfield. 1935]

The pattern of the political economy for forty years is set by the fact that, in winning the war, Russia bore down on Berlin from the East while the Allies approached, fashionably late,  from the west.

Western nations fear that the poverty, unemployment and dislocation which exists across Europe  immediately after the war would strengthen the appeal of communism. The political situation begins to unravel in Greece and Turkey so US President Truman (Roosevelt having died suddenly) announces his eponymous Doctrine, to provide countries with support to prevent them from turning to communism.

In Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and places further to the right) Russia is doing the same sort of thing to shore up communism. Berlin is divided and becomes the symbol of the division between East and West and of the Cold War that results. This provides the background for lots of James Bond movies. [Goldfinger 1964. Thunderball 1965.]

The Truman Doctrine is the foundation of the greatest foreign-aid program in world history: the Marshall Plan or European Recovery Program. The U.S. spends $13 billion to rehabilitate the economies of 17 western and southern European countries. Assistance was offered to Eastern-bloc countries as well, but Stalin gave them better offers.

The Marshall Plan helped to restore industrial and agricultural production, establish financial stability, and expand trade. The countries involved experienced a rise in their gross national products of 15 to 25 percent during this period. The plan contributed greatly to the rapid renewal of the western European chemical, engineering, and steel industries.

People in London and Coventry were finding it particularly tough, with rubble in their gardens and leaking roofs. Therefore, to help them out, in 1948 William Beveridge invented the welfare state. This saw the government protecting the economic and social well-being of citizens by taking responsibility for people unable to find for themselves the minimal provisions for a good life.

The welfare state is a good idea and it spread to many countries.

Firms of consultants are established to help smaller firms to combat the rapaciousness and pillaging of large multi-national corporations. The consultants begin by providing direct help and then move to a community development paradigm, passing to the managers of smaller enterprises the skills and self-confidence needed for the ongoing challenge of sustainability. [1960. The Magnificent Seven

– to be continued

Before a ball is bowled – 1 August 2019

Let me try my hand at cricket prognostication.

I think it’s gonna be a low scoring series with the Duke dominating the Gray-Nicolls. There will not be a single score of over 400 but two innings scores of less than 150. (Curiously, since they will win the series, both from England.) The only batsman to score over 400 runs in the series will be Steve Smith. Jimmy Anderson will break down before the beginning of the third test, enabling Jofra Archer to begin a stellar test career.

There will be no draws unless significant time (over a full day) is lost to rain. The overall standard of fielding seen in the series will be deemed the best ever: some spectacular catches and miraculous run-outs. The bowling is deemed pretty good but the batting is disappointing on all fronts. The authorities are blamed along with the custodians of the pitches for making it such a low scoring series. Taunton, where it’s like batting on a road, comes into the frame as a potential test wicket.

The result will be 4-1 to England. Chris Woakes will continue his good form with bat and ball, and will end up being the leading wicket taker. The bowling surprise will be James Pattinson – the only quick to play for Australia in all five tests. Nathan Lyon will not prosper as he has done in other series over the past five years. Cummins and Hazlewood will bowl tightly and without much luck. Mitchell Starc will have just one good test, in which he takes nine wickets.

England’s top order continues to struggle with only two opening stands of 120+ in the series. Joe Root is the leading run scorer in England’s top five, with Stokes, Buttler, Woakes and Moeen contributing a large proportion of England’s totals.

Tim Paine will prove to be a good leader and a very nice person but will have a disappointing series with both bat and gloves. People will ask, with great respect, what might have been had Steve Smith remained captain and Matthew Wade keeper. We will all come to see at the end of the series that Steve Smith has developed quite his own batting style including some strokes previously uncategorised. He proves to be difficult to get out and is not out in three of the eight innings completed by Australia.

Within six months no one can remember who opened the batting for England twice in the series.

A CD of the barmy Army’s best songs is released in September and goes to the top 10 in the charts. The umpiring is of a consistently high standard but, more than once, a test match turns on the use or abuse made of the review system.

David Warner is a disappointment for those who expect so much of him in terms of long innings at high speeds of scoring. Usman Khawaja loses form and/or becomes injured again and is replaced at three by Travis Head, who firms up as a long-term middle order batting asset. England win because Woakes, Broad, Anderson, Archer and Moeen all have better strike rates than all of the Australians except for Pattinson. Joe Root and Ben Stokes are honoured in the Queen’s Birthday list.

Somerset fail by four points to win the first division county championship. (Boo.) Marcus Trescothick retires. Despite his hamstring and back problems, Jimmy Anderson signs up for another couple of years. In five years’ time he is knighted.

A national, rural, political dream

Sleep was elusive. Fevered dreaming stood in its place. [1]

Just suppose for a moment that, within the Australian Labor Party (ALP), a subgroup was once created for those with a particular interest in coastal erosion.

The people who join this movement have no desire to subvert or depart from the principles of the ALP; they are through and through ‘labor’ people by inclination.

It’s just that, within the broader Labor Party, they want to be seen to represent the particular interests of people around Australia who are worried about coastal erosion.

It’s not made explicit, but in the beginning most of those who join the movement do so because they believe that a tailor-made organisation will help with an overall ecological, conservationist approach.

The movement goes so well that the ALP’s administration agrees that those who wish to do so can have their membership fees diverted to and used by the new entity. With the increased organisational capacity that results, it becomes – in effect – a political party within a political party.

It adopts the name Labor for the Coast (LfC).  It holds conferences, produces publications, and develops its own positions on issues relating to coastal erosion.

As time passes, the range of issues with which LfC becomes concerned expands. There are people concerned with rising sea levels and the impact on areas settled by human habitation – including on the value of property. There are those concerned with retention of the ecology of coastal regions. There are those who want to see coastal areas more developed, and those who don’t. There are those concerned about industrial run-off; and wind farms; and maritime infrastructure.

But whatever their specific interest in the matter, members of the organisation are still, first and foremost, supporters of the Australian Labor Party.

Time passes. At some future Federal Election, Labor for the Coast announces that it intends to run its own candidates in seats where its issues are of a particularly high profile. This causes a problem for the ALP, which has to decide whether to step aside and give free rein to LfC, or to run their own candidates in what might be called ‘three-cornered contests’.

More time passes. The range of issues with which LfC purports to have a special interest, and special expertise, grows broader. Sometimes there are so many complex and conflicting aspects to the management of Australia’s coastline that it isn’t clear what LfC’s position actually is.

Some of its members fear that its original purpose – to protect the coastline – has been  watered down or perverted.

The public profile given to particular aspects of the challenge varies from year to year. After traumatic and damaging events which have particular impact on coastal areas, such as cyclones, floods and bushfires, support for the party tends to increase.

But one thing never varies and that is the close political, philosophical and organisational relationship between the ALP and Labor for the Coast. Whether in government or opposition, the larger party and its smaller, more specialised partner work together in what becomes known as the Alliance Government or the Alliance Opposition.

Time passes. One of the curious things that happens is that the policies of LfC seem to take on their own credibility and have their own status – quite separate from the positions or priorities of the ALP. It’s as if the prosecution of beliefs and policies by what is still a partial subgroup of the senior partner will assuredly lead to action by the greater whole if the Alliance wins government.

Retrospective analysis of the results of one particular Federal Election show that in the twelve seats won by LfC, a critical number of votes were cast because of LfC’s proposed policies relating to residential development, coastal wetlands and the management of run-off. These voters failed to recognise that the ALP had no specific policy positions on these more detailed issues. What this meant was that, when the Alliance won government – thanks in part to the seats won by LfC – there was in fact no corporate or party-wide commitment to those proposed policies.

The practice that developed was for the ALP and LfC to enter into a negotiated agreement, the terms of which were not publicly revealed, relating to Ministerial positions and policy matters to which the Alliance Government would commit.

People who voted for LfC for particular reasons were in the dark as to the status of the promised policies and programs relating to those matters. Nevertheless the organisation prospered. For a period of time LfC had branches in every state and territory – even in the ACT which, apart from Jarvis Bay, has no coastline at all. At its peak, LfC had federal representatives from each State and the Northern Territory.

Time passed. The management of Australia’s coastline failed to improve from the point of view of all the major interest groups.

Gradually, the senior partner in this curios political arrangement came to realise that issues relating to Australia’s coastline and its management were so important as to require its serious and focused consideration. There seemed no good reason why coastal management should be the preserve of or the responsibility of a particular subgroup. It should not be farmed out in this way.

LfC became a decidedly rickety construct. It only survived at all through the next period because of the myth it had built up that it was the only group defending the interests of Australia’s coastline against the people of the inland.

The expertise on coastal management issues which had gravitated for some years to LfC was readopted into the senior partner. LfC was gradually whittled away as the ALP recognised the importance and potential value of having its own focus on the challenges besetting Australia’s coastline.

The writing was on the wall for LfC when, in a couple of jurisdictions, it merged back into the ALP. There was a curious, misty period (described by one writer as ‘furtive’) in which LfC operated exclusively at the state level, being unable or unwilling to get members elected to Federal Parliament.

Its credibility and reputation were damaged by errors of judgement made by some of its leaders who, during the full flood of LfC’s status, were among the top dogs in national politics.

The future of LfC depended on just one jurisdiction for some years. Even this was not due to the inherent strength of its policy positions and any uniqueness with which it supported them in government. Rather, as historians have since pointed out, the quarantining of people of a particular bent from the ALP itself meant that the LfC had a significant impact on the factional balance within the parent party.

Time passed. The LfC was further eroded.

There was confusion about exactly who LfC was trying to represent. Was it the people who lived and worked on the coast, or the broader group who cared about management of the coastal fringe? Either way it was expecting too much of one organisation to represent all of those who lived in coastal areas: the young and the old, environmentalists and those involved in real estate development or heavy industry, those with bank loans and those dependent upon investment income.

Like King Canute, those clinging on to LfC pointed out that all of its Parliamentary representatives were people from coastal areas. Other people wondered whether having no representatives from the kinds of community in which one third of Australia’s population live was an advantage or disadvantage for LfC’s policy thinking.

Historically there was little evidence of LfC parliamentarians delivering services or infrastructure for coastal people unless it was supported by the ALP. This is the natural circumstance in which a junior party to an Alliance will find itself. But if all of the LfC  initiatives are supported by the ALP, what is the point of the LfC?

Before too long Alliance Governments were a thing of the past. Thereafter, whenever the Labor Party was more popular than the Liberal Party or independents, the government installed was badged simply ‘ALP’.

Life then seemed much clearer – including for people who cared about coastal management, – and the choice between the major parties much simpler.

And it was no longer possible for people’s vote to be won over in an election campaign by ‘promises’ made by a subgroup of the ALP and to which the ALP itself owed no loyalty or commitment.

– – – –

Then it was morning and such fevered speculation could end.

[1] Although he is entirely innocent of any knowledge of this piece, I am indebted to Stephen James Holt, the author of an article about politics which appeared in the Canberra Times on 15 August 2018.

123 years of argument for primary prevention in healthcare

Here’s a new take on the better sense of trying to prevent ill health rather than merely treating it. It’s from a speech last week by a Conservative member of the House of Lords, Lord Prior of Brampton, a former UK Minister for NHS Productivity:

“Simply putting more money into the NHS and hoping for the best will not work. With funding must come radical reform. We need a shift from ‘diagnose and treat’ to ‘predict and prevent’. Care must be joined up around - and tailored to - the patient.”

And here’s the take on the issue from 1895 – 123 years ago – with which everyone is familiar.

The Fence or The Ambulance
by Joseph Malines, "an American physician"

‘Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
 Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant:
 But over its terrible edge there had slipped
 A duke and many a peasant;
 So the people said something would have to be done.
 But their projects did not at all tally:
 Some said, “Put a fence around the edge of the cliff”
 Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.”

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day.
 For it spread to the neighbouring city:
 A fence may be useful or not, it is true,
 But each heart became brimful of pity
 For those who had slipped o’er that dangerous cliff,
 And the dwellers in highway and alley
 Gave pounds or gave pence, not to put up a fence,
 But an ambulance down in the valley.

“For the cliff is alright if your careful,” they said,
 “And if folks even slip or are dropping,
 It isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much
 As the shock down below - when they’re stopping,”
 So day after day when these mishaps occurred,
 Quick forth would the rescuers sally
 To pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,
 With their ambulance down in the valley.

Then an old man remarked, “It’s a marvel to me
 That people give far more attention
 To repairing results than to stopping the cause,
 When they’d much better aim at prevention.
 Let us stop at its source all this mischief, cried he.
 “Come neighbours and friends, let us rally :
 If the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense
 With the ambulance down in the valley.

“Oh, he’s a fanatic.” the others rejoined:
 “Dispense with the ambulance Never!
 He’d dispense with all charities, too, if he could:
 No, no! We’ll support them forever.
 Aren’t we picking up folks just as fast as they fall?
 And shall this man dictate to us? Shall he?
 Why would people of sense stop to put up a fence?
 While their ambulance works in the valley?”

But a sensible few who are practical too,
 Will not bear with such nonsense much longer
 They believe that prevention is better than cure
 And their party will soon be the stronger
 Encourage them, then with your purse, voice and pen
 And (while other philanthropists dally)
 They will scorn all pretence, and put up a stout fence
 On the cliff that hangs over the valley.

PPS (Post Poem Script): When Bruce Harris sent me a copy of this poem in 1997 as part of my training for work in the health sector he commented – with his usual wit and wisdom – as follows:

“From the parable:

– choose to live in a place with no cliffs – ideal but unlikely;
– don’t go near the cliff – education, expects too much;
– build a fence – authoritarian, expensive.

Until these happen, some of us have to man the ambulances!”

 

Solstice and Sunlight

The Winter Solstice in Canberra is on Thursday, 21 June 2018 at 8:07pm AEST.

After the Winter solstice the days get longer, and the day has therefore been celebrated in many cultures as a time of rebirth.

“In the Southern Hemisphere the Winter solstice, also called Hibernal solstice, is the moment when the path of the Sun in the sky is farthest north. At the Winter solstice the Sun travels the shortest path through the sky, and that day therefore has the least daylight and the longest night.”

“When the Winter solstice happens in the Southern Hemisphere, the South Pole is inclined about 23.4° away from the Sun, with its vertical rays are overhead at their northernmost position, the Tropic of Cancer (23°27′ N).”

“According to the astronomical definition of the seasons, the Winter solstice marks the beginning of the season of winter, which lasts until the vernal equinox (September 22 or 23).”

On the shortest day

on the shortest day i lie in the sun
 but feel the shade sweep over me
 hoping the dark will turn to light
 and that chance might four-leaf-clover me

this sun through glass has kept me here
 and belief in tasks worth doing
 but suppose that jobs are over now
 the agendas changed or going

suppose a canker is really inside
 not cured by sunshine at all
 where will we be – my friends and i
 when the long summer evenings call

it’s not in a bottle, not in a pill
 and not in these fears of mine:
 it’s on the breath and in the soul
 where even the sun can’t shine

if contentment comes but once a year
 when the shortest day is now over
 it might after all be just enough
 – and time will grow the clover



gg    21/6/2008

 

Command and control

From: OC

To: ADMINSO

  1. On Friday evening, at approximately 1700hrs on 29 Nov. ’85, Halley’s Comet will be visible in this area, an event which occurs only once every 75 years.
  2. All Other Ranks (ORs) are to assemble on the Parade Ground, wearing safety helmets, and I will explain this phenomenon to them.
  3. In case of rain, we will not be able to see anything, so assemble the ORs in the Canteen and I will show them a film of it.

 

From: ADMINSO

To: CO

  1. By order of the OC, on Friday 29 Nov. 85 at 1700hrs Halley’s Comet will appear over the Parade Ground.
  2. If it rains, assemble all ORs in safety helmets and proceed to the Canteen where this rare phenomenon will take place, something which occurs every 75 years.

 

From: CO

To: ADMIN1

  1. By order of the OC in a safety helmet, at 1700hrs on Friday the 29 Nov. 85 the phenomenal Halley’s Comet will appear in the Canteen. In case of rain over the Parade Ground the OC will give another order, something which occurs every 75 years.

 

From: ADMIN1

To: ORSgt

  1. On Friday at 1700hrs on 29 Nov. ’85 the OC will appear in the Canteen with Halley’s Comet, something which happens every 75 years if it rains. The OC will order the Comet into the area above the Parade Ground.

 

From: ORSgt

To: All ORs

  1. When it rains on Friday 29 Nov. 85 at 1700hrs, the phenomenal 75 year old Bill Halley, accompanied by the OC, will drive his comet through the Parade Ground and into the Canteen.

How Green Was My Lily & other terrible Fotopuns

“Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Luke 12:27).

Lilian Alpha

How Grown Was My Lily

 

How does your gordon grow?

 

My lily of the lamplight

 

“A Song Of Love Is A Sad Song – “

 

Towering inferno

 How Green Was My Lily

 

Water lily

 

Lily Marline

 

The Leaning Flower and Pizza

 

Lily and Trevally

(L to R): Parri, Tadryn, Pella, Tauri

(from 2014)

 

Taking thyme to smell the roses

 

It seems to be a little hoya?

 

The height of stupidity

Notes and credits

"Lilium longiflorum, often called the Easter lily, is a plant endemic to the Ryukyu Islands (Japan).  It is a stem rooting lily, growing up to 1m (3ft 3in) high [sic!]. It bears a number of trumpet shaped, white, fragrant, and outward facing flowers." (Wikipedia)

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length, Robert Frost.

A song of love is a sad song  
Hi-Lili, Hi-Lili, Hi-lo
(Kaper and Deutsch, 1952. Featured in the movie Lili starring Leslie Caron, 1953)


How Green Was My Lily (2018):
Executive Producer: Pella G.
Production Assistance: Catherine N.
But all complaints to me please.