I’m going to begin this with a bit of a rant. Later on is some content
which may be triggering in relation to child abuse.
There is some truly appalling house construction done in Australia -
and elsewhere. I’ve been watching some late night TV, in between doing what I
can for Dad, and caught one show where people were buying, ‘renovating’ and
selling houses, and everyone - including the real estate agents and,
presumably, the idiotic buyers - was thinking solely about the use of internal
space, and NO ONE gave any thought to structural integrity, insulation, making
the house more sustainable, etc.
Here in Oz * , we mostly have light houses - wood frames and brick
veneer in the south, timber frame and weatherboard up north. Very few are built
with verandahs these days, almost none are built with underfloor heating, and
there is a completely misdirected obsession with passive solar - which is
bleeping useless south of Sydney.
Ancient Rome was capable of building better homes than us (although that was for the rich).
Boat design here is also stupid. I’ve been watching the generally
wonderful Keep Turning Left (has a few moments of gender bias), and
something I am awestruck with is that almost every boat has a head (a marine toilet). True, they all
discharge over the side, which they shouldn’t, but compared to the stupid
arrangements made for toilets on Aussie designed boats (e.g., under parts of double bunks!), the Pommies are light years
ahead of us.
The other problem I’m not happy with here is the proliferation of incompetent
project managers. The people I’m talking about all seem to be in their 30s,
determined to make a name for themselves at managing costs - and all at the
expense of the truly skilled people who actually do the work. The people I’m
thinking of have no conception that they’re in a line of competing interests
and may need to wait their turn. One such idiot in the last few days was
foolish enough to claim that it was ‘unfair’ that his project make less profit
because an estimate, provided in a
hurry as a favour to this cretin, wasn’t exactly correct and the project lost a
couple of hours - less than 1% of the total scope of work.
It was enough to make me momentarily wish I worked in a company where
everyone was over 40. The problem with that is that I know many engineers,
including project managers, in their 20s and 30s who are good at their jobs, as
well as being decent human beings - unlike the moron referred to above - and
who I would be perfectly happy to work with.
The real enemy here is the drive for what is euphemistically referred
to as ‘efficiency’ at the expense of humans - and the factory collapse in
Bangladesh is the ultimate expression of every person who has ever complained
about the cost of consumer goods.
We like to keep our heads in the sand about what we do to people, us homo sapiens sapiens, whether it is
about costs, other people, or design.
Not good. Not spiritual, not decent in terms of humanity, not clever,
not compassionate. Not good.
Oh, and a quick note on a totally different expression of stupidity (which was the working title of this post),
despite the truly appalling acts of our current prime minister, Tony Abbott (including the misogyny he - along with
many other Australians - showed towards Julia Gillard), I have not
described him as evil. Why? because he is too stupid to be effective, and that
makes him a dangerous fool, not someone I would consider to be truly evil.
John Howard, on the other hand, was a master manipulator of people - he
used fear politics and selfishness as he destroyed large chunks of what was
good about Australia. That effectiveness was part of what made him evil in my
view. (The only other Australian
politician I would apply that label to is Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the ‘flying
peanut’, who was premier of Queensland and used flagrant abuse of the law to do
whatever he wanted. The current incumbent in that position, Campbell Newman, is
rapidly heading towards earning that word as well … )
On this, have a look here
…and also, the TV series "37 days" is sad indictment on how close efforts to prevent the First World War came to success ...
OK, so moving on from that, I’ve read a few things on the Internet that
are of concern.
The first is some parts of the media’s use of the wrong acronym for the
group causing so much trouble in Iraq recently. Isis is a wonderful Goddess,
people, not an acronym for a terrible group. This is something that has
concerned me several times recently - that terrible group in Greece which has
misappropriated the name of the Golden Dawn is another example. Fortunately, in
both cases, the Wild Hunt has posted something - and clearly, in the recent
case, people are taking action (I was
inspired by the post to write to one major media outlet, actually). The
articles are here (which is about respecting the sanctity of Isis’ name), and here,
for the earlier one.
Now, the Wild Hunt has also posted some quite disturbing information
about one of my former favourite authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley. Through this
post, I have discovered that MZB was worse than I originally
understood: not only did she fail to respond to her the abuse that one of
her husbands committed, it turns out she was an abuser herself, according to
her daughter. For more on this, see here.
I’m glad that some of the people who have benefitted from publication
of stories in anthologies that MZB edited have done thinks like speak out or
make donations. I’ll probably keep the MZB books I’ve got, but I will do some
thinking on something to do ... although
clearing the negative units that allowed this to happen strikes me as something
useful to do …
* slang for Australia
[2]
Please see here and my post "The
Death of Wikipedia" for the
reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of
h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as
extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather
engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy").
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr,
Wéofodthegn
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux? … Morinehtar?
… Would-be drýicgan
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible.
- One size does NOT fit all.
- Don't be mediocre - seek to excel.
- Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
- Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
- May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
- Ban the dream interpretation industry!
- A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
- Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
- Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
- Expertise at intimacy and emotional happiness is generally not the same thing as spiritual growth.
- Any person, male or female, who has neither a serious health issue, dependents nor an agreement about study. yet expects their partner to work to support them, is, spiritually speaking, little more than a parasite.
- The means shape the end.
- BPLF restraint of uncooperatives is NOT an opportunity for revenge or getting even - even unconsciously.
- As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
- My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be
stronger [people].
John F. Kennedy (who was
quoting 19th Century Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks)
Jesus loves you. Odin wants you to grow up.
We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us.
F.W. Boreham
Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.
Jane Elliott
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.
(based on
writing by) Edmund Burke
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Albert Einstein
We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children
Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
Robert F. Kennedy 1968
There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
John F. Kennedy
If we could change ourselves, the
tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so
does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see
what others do. (Often degraded to “Be
the change you want to see in the world” – see here)
Gandhi
Tags: abuse, attitudes, children, discrimination, environment, family, governance, peace, personal responsibility, politics, society, violence, war,
First published: Fryrsdagr, 27th June, 2014
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Friday, 27th June, 2014
