Welcome to My Thinks

This is my take on global politics. My Thinks focuses on the ideologies and actions of the few that govern the lives of the many. The foibles of capitalism, the idiocy and hypocrisy of the right wing agenda, my weight loss goals – all will be covered by this blog. Sometimes we might even have a bit of a laugh. I hope you enjoy…

I Remember the Time…

Michael Jackson was a bit of a weirdo but MAN was he a genius.

It was incredibly sad last weekend to hear of the death of the man responsible for the biggest selling album of all time – the man who not only invented the moonwalk but also a pair of gravity eluding shoes that allowed him to be the smoothest of all criminals.

In these days of uncertainty and particularly massive ponzi frauds (Sandford/Maidhof) the Jackson story seems to be the one used by the media to break us out of the gloom. Well that and swine flu (I mean that has to be the most ridiculous name for a disease ever? or was that chicken flu?).

It’s hard not to make the comparison between the generations. I was about 7 when Elvis kicked the bucket. He was the size of three 1950s vintage Elvises by the time of his death in 1977. What did Elvis give the world apart from that snake-powered pelvis and the recipe for a fried peanut-butter, banana and bacon sandwich? Well, let us begin…

Elvis Aaron Presley was born in 1935 in a shack somewhere in the south of America. He grew up in Memphis and had his first number one with his first single Heartbreak Hotel in 1956. From then on he changed the face of the recording industry. How? Well, he was the first superstar of rock. By rock I’m not talking about GnR or any of those other hair bands, I’m talking good olde fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. He started it. It was him – and the people who wrote his songs. And the fat guy Colonel Tom Sanders his manager (before you write saying I got it wrong, I’m just being stupid and gag-like).

If Elvis hadn’t happened in 1956, I doubt very much that the rest of the rock ‘n’ roll scene would have happened quite as it did then in the late 50s/early 60s. If Elvis hadn’t happened, then the neither would the Beatles. Of course, this is all my own opinion based on nothing more than years of listening to popular music and reading music stats in books and on the interweb.

As Elvis changed the face of popular music in the late 50s, so too did Michael Jackson in the early 80s. Although he did release Off the Wall in 1979, that wasn’t to have quite the same impact on the universe as Thriller when it was released in 1982. Yes, yes, yes I know he was huge in the 60s and 70s with his brothers. The Jackson 5 were massive and spawned many singalong classics, but Mr. Jackson did not become a superstar until that exact point in time. Even with the release of Thriller that still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t until he baffled and amazed the world with the debut of the moonwalk during a performance of Billie Jean at the 25th anniversary Motown concert in 1983.

That was the point in time when Michael Jackson went from being the cute kid who fronted a band of brothers to being an international megastar.

To this date Thriller has sold over twice as many albums as the next one down on the list of all time sales. If you look at the list Thriller is at the top with nearly 11o million (plus the rest since it now sits at #3 on the Billboard Comprehensive Album Sales Chart. I did, however, get the figures from Wikipedia, so they must be taken in the context of anyone being able to log on and change anything they like with this, as my friend calls it, fictionary. I don’t believe there is any doubting the Thriller impact on the world of albums, R&B and red jackets with many zippers to nowhere…

After that Jackson changed. There’s a great video that shows his dramatic metamorphosis from cute boy into the freakish waif who dangled a baby named ‘blanket’ over a balcony. Blanket!! Who the hell calls their child Blanket??? It might be something to do over possible confusion with Jacko calling his first son Prince Michael Jackson and is third-born Prince Michael Jackson as well. How could he possibly tell them apart? Maybe the fact that the first Prince Michael Jackson (Jr) and the second Prince Michael Jackson (II) weren’t exactly the same age and probably looked quite different due to their different mothers may have lessened any possible confusion.

Anyhoo, it didn’t take long for Jackson to turn from an international pop megastar into a tabloid mutant. By the mid-eighties all sorts of rumours about his life were circulating – many of which ended up being thought of as fact – and these ultimately would lead to his downfall through sex abuse claims after he said there was nothing wrong with sharing a bed with kids. So maybe it’s possible just a little bit his fault.

Another problem of the megasuperstar is the fact they are surrounded by ‘yes’ people, or they deliberately surround themselves with ‘yes’ people. You don’t want to be told ‘no’ by anyone when you have the best selling album of all time. You ask for something and if someone says, ‘well you probably shouldn’t have any more painkillers Mr. Jackson because you haven’t eaten in 4 days’ then you sack them and hire the next frothing at the mouth fan willing to do your bidding. And thusly we have found the cause of death – extenuating circumstances brought about by sycophantic delivery of prescription drugs.

Elvis died on the toilet following years of similar drug abuse. Everyone said yes to him and if they didn’t they were sacked. With many of these statements I make I must qualify them by again saying my blog is my opinion and should under no circumstances be considered fact. Although I do go hunting the interweb for facts and figures to back up my blanket statements (geddit!!) so I suppose it’s not all a load of rubbish.

A bit of a weirdo, but Michael Joseph Jackson changed the face of popular music and I doubt very much that P Diddy or Puff Bobby or any of those current hiphop idiots will have the kind of influence Jacko did.

Until next time, shamon.

Boon x

It Never Hurt Me Any

There comes a point in a man’s life when he has to admit something he has resisted for many a year…

I’m turning into my father – although this has been a slow process, it is often quite hard to fight. I find myself getting grumpy at the slightest piece of poor driving for example, or I like to complain at things I’m not willing to do anything about to fix.

Of course, I am definitely not my father. And quite thankfully so as I think my wife would be somewhat concerned if I had suddenly morphed overnight into her father-in-law.

Do I have a point? When I started writing 6.5 minutes ago I was going somewhere with this. However, it seems I have wandered off track like the aimless career path of Michael Jackson following the last 30 years of advice from his many, many ‘yes’ men. Before I get back on track I have just one thing to say about that weird pseudo-paedo – man could he dance. Well two actually – did anyone ever find his other glove?

Back in the 70s, when my father had the most influence over me, giving a child a sound thrashing for disobedience, silly behaviour, swearing in the house, stealing etc, was an acceptable disciplinary option for many a parent. Both here in New Zealand and around the world I’m sure many mothers and fathers optioned the occasional chastisement in order to teach their children right from wrong. And it was fine – those were very different times. At one point in the 1970s Richard Nixon was a well respected US president, Iran was pre-republic, and Michael Jackson was black.

So when did it all change? I think the crunch would have been somewhere around 1980 – the year I turned 10. Although my father still used the spanking to discipline, Iran was no longer headed by a Shah, Nixon had been impeached and Jacko was on the road to being the King of Pop (his attempts at being the King of Soda Pop were to fail dramatically, however, after the product used to keep his afro straight exploded in a fireball during the filming of a Pepsi commercial). My dad stopped spanking me around this time, not because I stopped being naughty, far from it (that didn’t happen until my mid-twenties), by this time I was nearly as tall as him, so this kind of punishment was becoming ineffective.

During the 80s and 90s, the sound thrashing that was part of many children’s upbringing was on the decline. During the noughties, with the rise of Supernanny and her wonderful parenting skills, despite the stunning lack of any children of her own. I suppose it’s easy to practise experimental parenting when children aren’t yours (controversial comments once again Boon – grow up!). So Supernanny Jo Frost has shown 172 countries (ABC website bio) that you can raise children without the need to assault them with your hand, a wooden spoon, or some kind of buckled, leather, & gravity-defying trouser device.

So now we move to New Zealand and the current Citizen’s Initiated Referendum we have before us on the issue of smacking or spanking depending on what you want to call it. It was initiated following legislation being passed that outlawed excessive force being allowed to be used as a defence by parents ‘disciplining’ their children. But before I start talking about the subject of the referendum it’s important to point out a few things about referendums here in little old NZ…

1. A Citizen’s Initiated Referendum is just that – initiated by the citizenry. All someone, or a group of someones has to do is gather up a petition with signatures from at least 10% of eligible voters.
2. Once the petition has been organised then it is checked by the Clerk of the House to make sure nobody has signed it 500 times.
3. As long as everything is in order, then it is presented to parliament and the Governor General sets the date or declares a postal referendum.
4. We all vote on whether we agree or disagree with the question put to us.

All sounds pretty democratic… well, to be frank, it’s bollocks.

Firstly, the whole process is fraught with nonsensical gibbering from various interest groups. It is the people with strong viewpoints on the matter that initiate these referenda. They write the questions, so quite often the questions are politically charged and worded terribly. This current question is appalling: Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand? The organisers of this petition question were very cunning. If, like me, you’re against assaulting children in any way, you might decide to answer in the negative – I’m against smacking, so ‘no’. You would, in this circumstance, be voting in favour of hitting kids. The question is so bad that our prime minister John Key and leader of the opposition Phil Goff have both said it’s a waste of money and they might not even vote. Why couldn’t the question just read: Are you in favour of hitting children? If you answer positively to this question, then well done you dick.

Secondly, the whole process is a waste of time because this type of ballot is “non-binding” in that the government of the time can accept the result but the are under no obligation to pass any laws. And why would you? Punters are particularly good at having extreme viewpoints on a variety of issues – why should the politicians, who are all moderate, listen to the public they represent? I’m not sure if you can tell, but the inflection on that sentence is thoroughly sarcaticatory in nature.

Thirdly, because of the first two points, and the fact that this current referendum is costing $9 million ($US5.8 million), why are we even bothering. Couldn’t they save a whole bunch of money by doing a survey? Isn’t there something called the Internet now? Can’t we just log on to a secure page and vote there? I do Internet banking, inland revenue stuff and pay bills on-line using secure log ons all the time.

Fourthly, New Zealand has one of the worst rates of child abuse in the world. You wouldn’t think so, but about 6 or 7 times a year the news media will pick up on the story of a child – usually under 5 – who has faced such neglect and lack of respect that they have died at the hands of the people who are meant to be their carers. The last great example of this was a household of adults, who’ve since been convicted of murder & manslaughter, who ended up putting a 3 year old in a clothes drier and hanging her on the clothesline as punishment for crying. If you are in favour of disciplining children by hitting them in someway and/or with something, then you are on the slippery slope to abuse.

Think about it in this context: if I was to walk up to a person on the street, put them over my knee and give them a sound thrashing for something they had done, I would be charged with assault. There should be no difference for an adult who hits a child. Why should the size of a human determine the severity of the crime? Assault is assault – I don’t care what the bible says.

So, in summary, if you hit your kids you are a child abuser. We got rid of it out of schools in the 80s because it just doesn’t work in the long term. Nowadays there are many different options available to the parents – far more than when I was growing up when a pants-down hiding with the wooden spoon was considered appropriate. If you are a parent reading this and thinking, I smacked my child last week, does that make me a criminal – well yes it does, but you probably won’t get caught because nobody outside your family saw it. If you are wondering where to look, start with the Supernanny website – all sorts of wonderful material is available there, many bits you can download for yourself (rewards charts etc). I’m sure there are many others out there as well. Let Google be your guide.

Until New Zealanders realise that assaulting a child and disciplining a child are mutually exclusive, then our child abuse rate will continue to be above those of all other countries.

The naughty step is definitely the way of the future.

Boon x

Health and Happiness

As the alleged pig flu pandemic sweeps many nations around the globe, it’s time to ponder exactly how Republicans in the United States of America can say they have the best health system in the world. They do have the most expensive, but the best? I think not.

Contrary to the beliefs of Fox News and it’s Republican associates, the US health-care debacle has been going on for years and years and years. Thanks to some generous political tipping (various slightly legal bribes paid through a process dubbed ‘lobbying’), this side of the fence believes in its heart that private companies can offer a better health-care system.

37th in the world – (World Health Organisation report 2008).

Our grand supreme 3-point swisher Barack “Omygod” Obama is trying, as so many Democrats before him have failed to do, to convince the American public to some kind of federal government provided health-care package involving, among other things, a government provided alternative insurer.

According to the US Census Bureau, just under 50 million Americans, or one sixth of the population are without health insurance – this figure includes children. I’m not sure what it means to be uninsured as a health consumer, but if it’s anything like my car insurance (insurance is insurance after all), if you don’t have insurance and you break something by accident you have to pay the full amount to get it fixed. As with health-care, if you have a heart attack and don’t have health insurance then surely you have to pay the full amount to get it fixed. God forbid if you need a new heart or lungs.

I had a run-in with an insurance company about 15 years ago after an accidental fire in our student flat. They attempted to recover costs off me for burning down the kitchen. Thankfully (!??!) my mother had had a very similar oil vs stove fire earlier that year and had received a full pay out from the same insurance company so I was pretty confident that I did not have to pay. Taking advise from my flatmate, who’d kindly asked his father, I ignored the letters.

After a while the threatened me with a collection agency or some such thing and I asked my dad what to do. Together we drafted a letter containing the word ’solicitor’ several times and the problem went away. My point is this: they were an insurance company and the may, a) not pay the claim because of something in the terms and conditions they think favours them, and b) they will try to seek recompense if they believe you to be at fault.

Now, I’m not saying this is wrong. After all, insurance companies are people too. Well, not really. Insurance companies are companies. But they are full of people. What I’m attempting to say, quite unclearly as it turns out, is that an insurance company is in the business of making a profit. If it is a publically listed company the profit is definitely paramount and maximising said profit is what the board are aiming for. It’s not their fault, they are just doing what the shareholders want them to.

So if insurance companies are in the profit business, how might they achieve successfully in this? Please see points a) and b) two paragraphs before this. They will deny claims or charge those at fault. Why would health insurers be any different?

I’ve seen quite a few Republican types on the news in recent times. Many are concerned. Concerned and worried. Thanks, in part, to a couple of things. Obama saying he is ‘gonna change’ things and the War on Terror dribbling to a Vietnam-like close. Conservatives by their very nature abhor change – they wouldn’t be conservatives if they flip-flopped on the various issues like us liberal types. Stay the course – stand tall – be true to your calling etc. Liberals like to change their minds if evidence and research suggests they should. It’s generally called common sense.

(Of course, as with all other mutterings on this page, I am full of opinion and argument with little in the way of back up and a lot in the way of gross gerneralisation – but that is the nature of my beast (sorry to sound overly sexual there))

Common sense would suggest that a country with a sixth of it’s population unable to just waltz up to a doctor and get a flu jab or an arm in plaster needs to offer some kind of health-care to these 47 million people. Republican sense, on the other hand, suggests any government involvement in the health system is sacrilege and they will not abide by it even if it means people dying.

Many commentators are suggesting that there will be bureaucrats between the patient and the doctor. As Mr Jon Stewart, Daily Show, New York pointed out, isn’t there a health bureaucrat inbetween my doctor and me at the moment anyway?

Another point that could be made here, and I’m coming from the direction of being a public sector worker myself, is that we public servants get paid a lot less to do the same job than those in the private sector. Private sector health i-dotters and t-crossers will be getting paid the private sector rate – far more than the health bureaucrats in the US Federal Government or in the Ministry of Health in Wellington (that’s NZ).

You could argue then that having federally funded health bureaucrats in Washington deciding things might actually make the US health system cheaper…

Or is that jumping the ak-47 slightly?

Anyway America, good luck. Health reform is a remarkably hard thing for anyone to achieve. But it could mean a lot cheaper premiums, which can’t be a bad thing.

Until next time, adios.

Boon x

Death to All

Hello to everyone,

Recently I talked about the rank hypocrisy displayed by many members of what has been dubbed ‘the right’ or ‘the religious right’. This time I plan to delve deeper into this most interesting and perhaps tragic of areas.

Whatever your views on any political subject, abortion seems to the the single topic that so divides thinking. On the one hand you have the likes of me (the Roers) who believe it is a woman’s right to choose and others (the Waders) who believe it should be their right to choose. Being in the midst of some fertility issues (and a man), abortion is not high on my list of things to experience, and I would never want any baby/foetus/embryo that was created in part thanks to my vigorous swimmers to be excised in any way. Even though I hold this belief, it is NOT my place to tell others to do it my way. This is how it should be…

However, there are those members of the community who do believe that life begins, not at 40 as the old song goes, but at conception – that point when sperm and egg meet somewhere in the fallopian tubes, combine together and begin to divide (Of course, if this bunch of cells were to be removed from the body they would not be able to survive on their own, so perhaps this isn’t when life begins???). Anyway, these people have been dubbed the ‘pro-lifers’ with their thoughts that 2 cells is a human being.

So begins the critique…

I believe that people have the fundamental right to believe anything that they want to. In New Zealand we don’t actually have a constitution (as they do in the USA), but we do have a Bill of Rights which holds for every citizen. If you believe, as those members of the Heaven’s Gate cult did, that the earth was about to be ‘wiped clean’ by the comet Hale Bopp, and ate tainted pudding to pass to the ‘next level’ then that is your fundamental right as a human. The main issue I have with belief is that so often it takes on a ‘we’re right and you’re wrong’ aspect (see Christians v. Muslims, 1095-present / Jews v. Everybody, dawnoftime-present).

The ability of pro-lifers to take on the mantel of the chosen ones whose belief system is the correctest has been a time honoured tradition passed down through many a family since the process was invented. The Bible is often used as a way of justifying their thinking (as you would expect I suppose since it is the basis of their belief system). However, because it was written by the church to quell the masses, and not by God and Jesus, then it is full of major contradictions.

And the Lord said unto him, therefore whoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold (Gen 4:15).

Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you (2 Cor 13:11).

God bless the Lord for being so multi-dimensional.

Of course, believers will say we are taking the Bible out of context when we quote these various contradictory scriptures. What about them? They like to quote single lines here and there (an eye for an eye etc.), they just fail to mention the contradictory bits (turn the other cheek, do unto others etc).

Ultimately, when that hippy Jesus came along (see new testament), the whole vengeful God thing calmed down. He walked around the middle east in his bare feet singing songs of love and praising God, who, he said was his father. Of course, if this sort of thing happened now (someone claiming to be the son of God), they would undoubtedly be institutionalised and diagnosed with schizophrenia. So Jesus preached a message of love and goodwill towards man, so how have things gone so tragically wrong?

This week, in a church in the United States, a doctor was shot dead. In a church. In a church!! What??!!?!? This doctor George Tiller gained notoriety for performing ‘late term’ abortions – these are abortions performed on foetuses that could survive outside the woman’s body if they were born. Controversial? Yes indeed. Worth being murdered for? I think not. The person who shot an killed Dr Tiller walked into a church on a Sunday morning last week and shot him once, then left. Presumably this person is opposed to the service that Dr Tiller provides on religious grounds.

What I can’t understand, perhaps because I’m barking up the wrong tree, is how anybody could walk into a house of God on a Sunday and murder someone. To that person I ask, “How on earth are you promoting your cause in this case?”

If you are pro-life, if you believe that life does indeed begin at conception, then you can’t, on the other hand, kill someone, bomb a clinic, or generally terrorise other people who don’t believe what you believe. It’s just wrong. So so wrong. There is no defence for killing someone for what they believe in. None at all. I don’t care if you’re a Christian from the mid-west, Osama bin-Laden or George W. Bush. You have no right to take the life of another.

There. I’ve said my piece. A bit preachy this time, but it had to be said.

Boon x

The Budget

Greetings and hello again from New Zealand!!

As a quick aside for all the international readers before I even start, if you’re wondering where “Old Zealand” is click here. The discoverer of our country, Dutchy Abel Tasman decided on a moniker that was dear to his heart.

So I’ve been dribbling the football of thought around my brain stadium for days now wondering what I might speak about. Generally I like to dip my toes into the pool of international political intrigue. However this time I thought I would keep things a little closer to home here in little old NZ.

This week the brand new National government delivered their very first budget since winning over the hearts of the middle ground of undecideds in the general election late last year. They effectively won on a promise of tax cuts, thinking more money in our pockets will somehow make us feel better. Just to let you all know, in the first round of tax cuts on April Fool’s Day earlier this year I got less than $10 a week. Most of the money went to those people richer than I (just a humble teacher of children).

Anyhoo, since National made all their wonderful promises of money back in our pockets, thousands of people have lost their jobs as companies – led by their idiot boards – who borrowed to expand, fell into receivership as income streams dried up. As these people have stopped paying taxes, the income streams of the government have also dried up. This means the next couple of rounds of tax cuts have been ‘put on hold indefinitely’ which, in layman’s speak means (perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree here) cancelled forever.

So, one major bribe is gone, how are National going to win our hearts back? By offering a $1300 to any homeowner to insulate their house. You might be thinking that this seems like a very novel and forward thinking idea, and it is. However they have to proved this offer without means testing. I think it’s mainly because most landlords in New Zealand are cheap, and most notably the largest landlord of them all, leading the way for everybody, is the government through the wonderfully resourced Housing New Zealand. Landlords, led by the state, refusing to spend money insulating houses against the cold of NZ winters means lots of sick tenants – last week I was one of them.

Our cold, damp, uninsulated house has begun to sprout the annual black mould around windows and other unventilated areas. For 10 months of the year this place rocks. We have two deck areas, one out the back, one out the front. Both of these get loads of sun. Unfortunately, the lack of insulation in our house means that it is currently colder inside our house than outside. If we had insulation in our roof and floor then we might still be cosy from yesterday afternoon’s sun.

The other thing that was notable in the budget was the scrapping of pay talks between the government and support workers in New Zealand schools. In it’s infinite wisdom the government has decided that all those untrained teachers – and that’s what they are, people who teach our young in a variety of different settings, but are yet to have the degree that allows everyone to call them teachers – are not worthy of a pay rise this time. Once again, the poor old recession is getting the blame – what did it ever do??

So support staff, who teach reading recovery, numeracy programmes, English language support for new immigrants, and other such wonderfully supporting educatory dalliances, lose out. Not only are they not going to get a pay rise, they aren’t even getting the chance to negotiate one with the government. I guarantee a strike would normally be on the cards but these people are paid so piss-poorly that many don’t even belong to the union, so are unlikely to take industrial action. The lack of pay will also mean many can’t afford to make their political point heard.

If you think that teachers are the only educators in our schools, then you are very much mistaken. If we had no support staff then we wouldn’t have any teachers. Nobody would stay in the job with the amount of work required.

I’ll be glad when this damn recession is over sometime in the middle of 2015 if you believe the National government. Maybe then we’ll be able to get back to our old ways of spending money that we don’t have on things we don’t need.

Until next time, word.

Boon x