A True Volunteer

 

They're sweet and juicy

The Oxford defines a volunteer as "a person who does something without being forced".

It's a term usually applied to a person, but my father-in-law, a lifetime farmer, used it to refer to plants which came up all by themselves without being planted by human hands. He grew mostly peanuts.

Until I met him, I had never heard the term used in this way. His often unconventional and picturesque use of language reflected a life lived richly across many parts of the country, and a keen sense of observation.

More recently, I have been involved in exploring the use of the term as it applied to the use of conscripts in this country between 1965 and 1972. I was amazed to find that there are those who define conscripts as volunteers.

Upon analysis, it became clear that mythology has no respect for facts and history, so the volunteer myth persists like barnacles on a boat.

With that concession to metaphor, I'll give myself permission, gentle reader, following the example of my father-in-law, to apply the term to a plant. 

The plant in question is a variety of tomato. I have no idea exactly what breed of tomato, because it came up all by itself near one of my worm farms. I feed the worms with leftover organic cooking waste, and some seeds must have escaped.

The soil here is pretty good, and most things grow well. This summer has been especially wet, and the grass grows whilst you watch. The volunteer tomato did exactly that, after I almost removed it because I thought it was a weed. It was, actually, as a weed is defined as an unwanted plant that turns up somewhere you don't want it.

It grew like a weed, and flowered prolifically, much more so than the numerous tomato I'd bought and set up in hanging pots. It's producing large fruit which initially were spoiled by fruit fly until I applied some organic insecticide. 

We now have more tomatoes than we can eat. I'm looking for recipes for tomato sauce and chutney.

The volunteer metaphor works well, as the plant is sturdy, energetic, and resilient, a bit like the ahistorical myth as applied to national service. 

 

 

Short Finals at Cunnamulla

I was going through some archived video the other day, and came across this.

It was a video grab (via iPhone) of a landing we made at Cunnamulla in 2017, when I was working permanent part time as an Advisory Visiting teacher.

The chartered flight (Beechcraft Super King Air) flew Roma - Cunnamulla on Thursdays with the flying surgeon and his offsider anaesthetist. As far as I know, he never performed surgery on these occasions. Rather, he was assessing and preparing patients for procedures carried out in Roma.

To be honest, I never had any idea what he was doing during the day. Upon arrival, I would be dropped off at the school, and the medical (QHealth) people at the hospital. We'd be collected by a government vehicle at the end of the day and driven to the airport. Boarding the aircraft after it had been locked up and sat in the sun all day, particularly in the summer, wasn't much fun, although once the engines were started it cooled down quickly. 

Hitching a ride on these regular charters was a very efficient use of taxpayer resources. The aircraft was a nine-seater, there was plenty of room, and a whole day wasted on travel by car was avoided.

Nevertheless, permission to do it was withdrawn shortly at head office level, overriding the very sensible local decision to allow it. I never was told exactly why. It's possible that it had something to do with cost and/or insurance.

In any case, I always enjoyed the flights, and usually sat in the cockpit where I could see what was going on. The airstrip at Cunnamulla was originally built for US bombers (B-17s) stationed there in World War Two. One of the US personnel involved was a certain Lt Commander Lyndon B Johnson on leave from the US Congress. Apparently he had advised that  Cunnamulla was inland far enough to be out of range of Japanese attacks.

That history explains the length of the strip at Cunnamulla at 1733 metres. It would still be marginal for modern airliners. A 737 needs 2133 metres.  

 

At the Bakery

Pic courtesy ABC

My daily habit, gentle reader, is to drive the short distance to a nearby bakery to buy a coffee and a bagette. 

 I should probably walk, but my son's blue heeler looks after my exercise by taking me around the block daily. Besides, I enjoy driving. 

You should always do something you enjoy every day. I can at a stretch, pretend I'm still driving my MX5, despite the fact that I had to dispose of it a few years ago as physical access became a problem. The CX3 has the same engine and gearbox, after all. 

 This morning, as I was about to drive out of the car park at our local shopping centre, I was approached by a woman who asked for money. I told her I didn't have any cash (which was true) and was about to offer to buy her something from the bakery if she was hungry, but she didn't give me the chance, telling me to "f**k off" before I completed my explanation. She then approached somebody else, and as far as I could tell, got a similar response. 

 I was thinking about this incident on the way home. The last time somebody asked me for money was in Washington on a visit in 2018. Apart from that, I vaguely remember a similar request in Paris in 1980. 

That was a very long time ago and in a very different place when the world and I were a little younger. So what has changed, in regional Queensland, and perhaps in this land of Oz, to cause this behaviour to emerge? Are there fundamental changes afoot, or was this an isolated insignificant incident? 

ACOSS (the Australian Council of Social Service) with the cooperation of the University of NSW, has published a report which illustrates pretty clearly at least one aspect of the situation, that of wealth distribution in Australia. It reveals, amongst other things, that people in the highest 20% of the wealth scale hold nearly two thirds of all wealth (64%), while those in the lowest 60% hold less than a fifth of wealth (17%). 

 That is obviously significant, but is this disparity a simple enduring reality, or is it part of a trend? Generally in this country, current research doesn't detect a measurable trend, and that, I suppose, is somewhat comforting. Ann Harding's 2002 paper does however suggest that the middle class (however you define it) is shrinking. Certainly, the Australian dream of home ownership is increasingly beyond the means of many of the younger members of the current middle class. 

 Inequality across the pacific is growing, as is apparent from this illustration from this Pew Resource Centre study.

Social and economic trends across the Pacific are almost always visited on us in this country, after a three/five year delay. The abandonment of support for the war in Vietnam first in the USA, and a few years later here, is the best example of this phenomenon.

These trends shape the political culture. 

In the USA, the response seems to be the rise of neo-Fascism. In Australia, the emerging of the TEALs and the growth of support for Green candidates in urban electorates is apparent. Young renters are becoming more than a little unhappy with the major parties.

The Marketing of Outrage

Australia Day aftermath. Pic courtesy Courier Mail

Unless you've been under a rock for the last few days you've been hearing, gentle reader, about the controversy regarding Australia Day merchandise and a couple of our leading retailers.

Let's look at what's actually happened, and then examine the blowback.

Woolworths published this statement which was picked up by Channel Seven -

There has been a gradual decline in demand for Australia Day merchandise from our stores over recent years. At the same time there’s been broader discussion about 26 January and what it means to different parts of the community.

We know many people like to use this day as a time to get together and we offer a huge variety of products to help customers mark the day as they choose.

Woolworths and BIG W celebrate the best of Australia every day, and we’re proud to support the farmers, producers, and suppliers who work with us.

When you drill down, they're saying two different things. One is that there has been a decrease in demand for Australia Day merchandise recently, and the other is that the day means different things to different parts of the community.

I can't understand why those statements are controversial. They both reflect reality, and any large retailer that ignores measurable trends affecting their business will rapidly become a small retailer.

Then there's Aldi. 

They're reported as announcing they won't stock special Australia Day merchandise, but you won't find any mention of that on their website.

As you might expect, they're talking about what they are selling, rather than what they're not selling.

The irony is, if you walk into a Woolworths or Aldi store, you'll find Australian flags stocked, it's simply that they're not promoted. Strange but true.

So what is the media outrage all about? Marketing, of course. The various online and print media organisations are marketing the story.

It attracts clicks and sells papers. Outrage always does.

And the politicians extracting every ounce of attention by commenting are generally those who regard the market as sacred.

Two Tragedies

 

Pic courtesy CNN

The two tragedies I'm referring to, gentle reader, are the war in Gaza and the media's response to it.

Every war is a tragedy, a failure of rationality, and an exploitation of what is evil in the minds of men.

The current Middle East conflicts (and there are many) provide a textbook example of human tragedy. Daily, civilians are dying, and whether they are "innocent" or not makes no difference.

I learned in Vietnam fifty years ago that the military will always classify a dead civilian as "enemy" and by that definition not innocent and deserving of death. Much the same is happening in Gaza at the moment. Maybe Gazans support Hamas and maybe not, but I doubt a child can be a true supporter of any ideology.

To begin to explore the reasons for the current conflict is a can of worms, and depends to an extent on what version of history you accept. I won't go there, except to say it's embedded in the religions and culture in that part of the world. 

What is abundantly clear is that media takes sides based on their biases, and discerning the facts from the reporting is all but impossible.

Social media is worse, because it lacks the filter of what passes as journalism these days.

To see people in Sydney and other state capitals waving flags, both of Palestine and Israel, is complete idiocy in Australia. 

The only cause worth the action of taking to the streets is the cause of peace, and nobody seems to be prepared to support it.

We live in strange and remarkably irrational times...

 

A Sweet Use of Adversity

My recently-completed thesis is no longer available on USQ's thesis repository.

This is a problem, as I need quick and easy reference online.  

My efforts at publishing it in messy bits and pieces, gentle reader, was an abject failure. 

An IT-savvy friend has suggested I post it as a link using Google Docs. I had to learn how to do this, but it's not difficult. 

To access the whole document, click on this link.

Chickenman Remembered

One of the very few entertaining aspects of serving in Vietnam was the opportunity to listen to episodes of Chickenman broadcast on American Forces Radio.

They were universally funny and a send-up of the genre of radio serials that had been popular both in the US and Australia throughout the fifties and sixties.

By the time I was in country, this genre of programming was no longer popular back home in both countries, but they enjoyed a resurgence amongst service personnel during the war. They were at the same time a reminder of home, and a bizarre diversion.

There was also an Australian radio station set up by members based in Vung Tau, which supplied news, sporting broadcasts and other reports from home. From memory, it didn't broadcast around the clock as the American station did, and was bereft of the "commercials" which punctuated the American broadcasts, which reminded GIs to fasten their buttons, take their anti-malarials, and secure parked vehicles, amongst other things. 

This broadcast coincidentally was made on the day I arrived in country aboard HMAS Sydney. 

You're probably familiar, gentle reader, with Robin Williams' Good Morning Vietnam.

We used to listen through earphones to AFN on transistors secreted in our basic pouches. It was tolerated, but not encouraged by our commanders. Listening without earphones was  a chargeable offence, as was listening (with earphones) on picquet.

The Americans were prone to playing radios at all times, even when patrolling in the case of some units.