I Return!

So it’s been quite a while since I last wrote – months, in fact. Hopefully from here on in though, things will start to calm down a bit, and I will have more of an opportunity to write. So here might be a few things for you to look forward to in the next few months – excerpts from some stories that I’m working on, some general philosophical thoughts, and just so that we don’t get too serious, perhaps a bit of light gossip too! Keep your eyes open, people

Why the Average Joe Six-Pack should not become VP.

As some of you may have heard, Sarah Palin thinks shes the representative of the Average Joe Six-Pack. The insinuation is that, as somebody who more closely reflects the average American, she is a more trustworthy leader. And indeed, she does seem to represent the average American! Palin went to a tiny, unheard of high school, and then moved on to ordinary – non-Ivy League – Colleges (although the fact that she changed College 5 times still remains unexplained). She’s married to an ostensibly ordinary man, holds the same conservative values that the “silent majority” supposedly believe in, and to top it off, is estimated to be worth a mere $1.2 million (and really, who isn’t these days?)!

I’m not going to argue that her average education does put her a lot closer to the Average American than, say, Barack Obama (an Ivy-League graduate who, by the way, holds a J.D.). The premise that the argument “more alike is better” is based off is the notion that, if somebody is like you, then you can trust them; that because they are so highly educated, the Washington (read: Democrat) ‘Elite’ cannot understand ordinary people’s issues (in the same way, perhaps, that conservatives often claim academics cannot?).  But is this really what we should be looking for in a leader?

To get a real idea of what Palin’s grasp of the world is like, I implore you to just watch this (the Russians are sending bombers over Alaska?) and this (oh there’s far too much to work with here…), if nothing else. Perhaps the most indicative part, however, is the following snippet:

Katie Couric: I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Sarah Palin: I’ve read most of them, and again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media-

Katie Couric: Like, what ones specifically, I’m curious, were you-

Sarah Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have, um, been in front of me all these years, Um I.. I have a vast, I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

Yes that’s right – Palin was unable to point to even a single newspaper or magazine that she reads. This isn’t a crime – I’m sure many of you could not honestly say that you regularly read a newspaper – but the fact that she was clearly unable to even think of a local paper to lie about is alarming. And none of us should forget the fiasco last week, when Palin was unable to name a single case apart from Roe v. Wade. Again, most of us couldn’t, but this is beside the point.

The fact is that we do not want this in a leader. The average American (or, for that matter, Australian) can be as uneducated as they like; we are all free to pay as much or as little attention to world events as we wish, and on a personal level, it’s probably not fair to judge a person based on this. But whilst it may not be the job of an ordinary person to know these things, it is the job of a President, or Vice President, or for that matter any sort of leader, to have a strong grasp of these things which affect the country. His education may make some of us feel different, and dare I say it, inferior, to Barack Obama, but I think most of us would also agree that in order to keep astride of the almost countless things which can affect a country, some high level of intelligence is needed; it may well be that this thing that makes Obama so different is exactly the thing which makes him deserving of the job. Because as much as we might like the idea of having someone who can related to us in power, I think that if you really think hard about it, you’ll realise that you would not want the dumbest person you know to be the second most powerful person in your country.

Still, the Vice-President may be completely irrelevant, and Sarah Palin in particular might be a name we forget (with glee, I assure you) in a few months. I’m sure that most of you are not following the election particularly closely, so in my final part I’ll give you a quick update on how things are faring. 270 votes are needed in the Electoral College to win; at the moment, RealClearPolitics gives Obama 264 votes (192 solid, 72 leaning) and gives McCain 163 (158 solid, 5 leaning). If the vote were taken today, Obama would have 353 votes, and McCain 185 – not that much worse than Clinton’s vote. There’s no point in being presumptuous – things can change in an instant. But the way things are going, it looks like it might just be a good election year.

Become an organ donor so that somebody won’t DIE.

We live in a funny society. “Freedom of choice” is what we seem to base it on; the freedom to choose what you buy, or how you spend your time, or what you want to do with your life. The freedom (theoretically) to choose what religion you will believe in, or to choose to believe in none; the freedom to choose which government we will have making our laws, and even to a large extent, the freedom to choose whether or not we actually obey those same laws. When it’s really important, we might take away that freedom – that’s why people who murder or rape go to jail, and that’s why people who do stupid things like fight people or drive whilst drunk are often fined.

For some reason organ donation is not put in this category.

People’s belief systems have to be respected, up to a certain point, and I understand that to some people organ donation (primarily after death) may offend their religious ideals, and I understand that to others it may seem weird and uncomfortable. A lot of people probably squirm at the idea of somebody else using their body parts after they have died, and I can understand that as well.

All this is completely irrelevant though. If you are not an organ donor, then you are a murderer. Yes that’s right, I did just say that, and I will say it again, just to be clear – if you are not an organ donor, then you are a murderer. At any given time there are around 2000 people on waiting lists for organs, and countless others die of diseases such as cancer which could easily be fixed by removing their infected organ and simply giving them a newer, healthier one. And how many people donate organs every year?

200.

Regardless of what beliefs you have, and regardless of how squirmish it might make you feel, the fact is that there is always somebody who could use your working organs after you have died, and access to those organs may just save their life. It will never become a legal necessity to donate organs, and there will probably always be a lot of selfish people who refuse to help out a fellow human being with something that they are no longer even using themselves. But that’s exactly what it is – selfishness.

So next time you have a look at your drivers liscence and it says that you aren’t a donor, please, spend a second thinking about how your selfishness is going to make a person die. Think about the pain they are probably in, think about their family, about the pain of losing somebody they love. And don’t just think about an eighty year old man sitting in a hospital bed; think also about a 12 year old child with liver cancer who will never get to experience the sort of life that you have. If you can think about that and then sleep at night, then I really hope that one day you will find yourself lying in a hospital bed, knowing that you are going to die because of somebody elses selfishness. You deserve it.

Why you should care about Georgia

Look, I’m not going to reference any of my figures or information, partly because to do so would require a lot of work, but mostly because as things stand, it is impossible to say what particular information is true, or which side is best believed. The thing is, and I realise that a lot of people might not realise this, but Georgia has for the past week been at war with Russia.

South Ossetia is a small region on the border of Georgia and Russia. There are a few things that you have to know about this general area. Firstly, the South Ossetians view themselves as being of the same ethnicity as the North Ossetians, and the whole lot view themselves as being allied with Russia – but because of the drawing of national boundaries after Georgia seceeded from Russia in the 90′s, it was split in half. Secondly, the South Ossetians have since then been trying (through both nonviolent and violent means) to rejoin the North Ossetians in being a part of Russia. Thirdly, it might pay to remember that Georgia itself has long been a part of Russia – some of you may be interested to know that Stalin was a Georgian.

So what happened over the past week? Well, I’ll give you a brief overview. On Thursday, Georgia sent in soldiers to deal with tensions that had been growing in South Ossetia. In response, on Friday Russia began bombing georgian forces and sent in their own army, and by Sunday night Russia had gained control of the region. Over Sunday night to Tuesday Russia began to bomb other parts of Georgia (there were reports that bombs were falling near the airport at Tblisi, the capital of Georgia). Over all, Russia has estimated that around 2,000 people died, and the UN has said that around 40,000 people fled their homes. If you want to know more, I suggest that some of you google it; there are a lot of newspaper articles to be found online that will tell you, in a lot more detail, what exactly happened.

So why am I going through all of this? Honestly, it is because I realise that a lot of people simply don’t care. It involves Russia (which many mistakenly believe to be utterly powerless now), and in no way involves us (and doesn’t look like it will either); besides, most people probably find the olympics far more interesting.

I want you, for a second though, to imagine something. Imagine that you didn’t live in Australia; Imagine that you lived in, say, the Ukraine, or Lithuania. 20 years ago, your country was part of the USSR, not by choice but because if it tried to leave it would be invaded by one of the most powerful countries in the world today. Nearly 20 years ago that same country collapsed, and you gained independence. And suddenly, over the weekend, that very same country managed to invade another country without any repurcussions. To be sure, President Bush had “strong words” with Vladimir Putin, and the French and Danish foreign ministers (wow, the big guns right?) personally went over to sort things out. But really, what has just happened is that Russia invaded another country, and not a single thing was done about it.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to pick a side. Honestly, on the one hand I can see how Georgia would be terrified; on the other, I can see how Russia may have felt it was simply protecting its own people. That is beside the point. The events of the last weekend are important, and I will do my best through this blog to keep at least some f you informed of some of the goings on of the world.

Can you go a day without a drink?

Let me first say that I’m not one to despise alcohol or coffee. Well, that may not be entirely true – I’m no coffee drinker, as many can attest to (perhaps the best example of this happened a few months ago. There was a decision to be made – hot chocolate, coffee, or mocha, and I in all my wisdom said “Why don’t you ask for a half-hot-chocolate-half-coffee?” Needless to say, there was laughter). Still, I won’t suggest that there is anything terrible about it, and as for alcohol, well I’m more than happy to go out and get the odd drink or two.

I was, though, reading the paper this morning, when I stumbled upon this article. The fifth sentence glared at me: “This column is for anyone whose day is bookended by caffeine in the morning and alcohol at night, anyone who cannot name a social event they have attended in the last week which has not featured one of these beverages”. It never really occurred to me (well it had, but not quite so eloquently), but when you think about it, it’s true.

When was the last time you asked for date advice? Not the “does he/she like me” kind of advice, but advice as to what to do for a date? If Gloria Jeans is the first suggestion (and I suppose any variation on ‘coffee’ will do), try asking for another. What will people say? I mean you could go to a movie, have a picnic, watch the planes taking off, go to the beach, visit a museum or art gallery, go see a play; perhaps the most shocking revelation is that you could go to dinner. But those things seem a bit clichéd, and possibly a bit too serious, don’t they?

Perhaps so, but they seemed to suffice for people in the past.

Now try to consider some sort of nighttime event. Call it, if you will, a party. You may invite anybody you like, it may take place anywhere you like, and for the sake of ease we might even pretend as though money were not an issue. There is, however, one caveat: no alcohol is allowed. If this condition was placed on you every week, so that the scenario here was not in fact a one-time thing but some sort of a long term plan, what exactly would you do? I have a feeling most of you would be hard pressed to come up with a list that was significantly different to “bowling and the movies”. Even the most ordinary activities which we involve ourselves in now might seem uninteresting to a lot of you. Honestly, what appeal does a club have when you are sober?

The point I want to make about alcohol (and to a lesser extent, coffee) is not that it is terrible, or that it is ruining our lives. Alcohol is terrible, and a lot of people will have serious liver problems in a few years, and to be perfectly honest, without it I imagine that crime rates would be a lot lower. But it’s a legal drug, and that won’t change anytime soon. It might pay, however, to consider exactly what percentage of your life (excluding, obviously, time that you’re at work/ uni, where it does not pay to be drunk) you spend drugged up on these substances. It may be fun, but is it so at the expense of you no longer being an interesting person? That seems like a pretty big price to pay.

A beginning…

Well here we go, I too caved and got a blog. Well, I suppose ‘caved’ is the wrong word, there wasn’t exactly a massive amount of pressure on me to get one (there wasn’t really any, I suppose…) but what with Ash having one, and then Bec, and then I saw comments from Sam and Jono, I figured now was the time to join the bandwagon. Besides, this way I can rant on here, with links and all, uninterrupted. If you’re interested enough to keep reading it (and hopefully some people will be, but if not then that’s ok) then I’m sure that over the coming months you’ll learn a lot more about me and how I see the world.

There isn’t a lot to say this afternoon I suppose, given that I’ve only just arrived back in Sydney, and frankly there hasn’t been enough going on to write about. Well, there are a few things – Rich has left to spend a year in England, and I saw Dimmy yesterday, but I’m not about to angry-rant about either of those things. So for now, I shall retire, and leave you with a slight spoiler: I will very soon have a little surprise for all of you!

p.s.: Ah ha, Jono makes a very good point. So perhaps what I meant to say was “what with Jono, and then Ash…”. There you go!