Jan 1, 2003

Welcome: We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here ...

(I don't know whether people in other countries always sing that as the second verse of Auld Lang Syne a few seconds into January 1, but they do it here. Nutz.)

Thank you for being here, all 53 brand-new members of AAA. I wish each and every one of you the best year you've ever had. I intend to have that, and I know that it will happen not so much according to my circumstances but according to the hundreds of little and big choices and decisions I make in my mind every day.

I'll listen closely to what my head is saying; the smart things and the stupid things. I have great faith that by constantly refining these, and by raising each of these thoughts a notch or three each time I recognise them, my stupidity will decline and my days will grow brighter.

I want extremely bright days, and I hope you want no less. From the emails I receive, I know that you have much to teach me, because I'm just beginning. The world needs turned-on people and we can turn each other on. This is the reason for the Almanac, and for AAA. That, and a love for doing what I do.

What do I do again?

Today is about beginnings. I'm so excited to be beginning this annus mirabilis. Every morning, afternoon and evening, as we uproot the stupid thoughts and ratchet up the thinking just a few more notches, the words "More will be revealed" give confidence to our footsteps, wherever we are headed. The attitude and mantra of "More will be revealed", as I have come to learn despite myself, work near miracles.

Bright blessings, all. On with the show!

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

PS Today is a very special day in many ways. The AAA will not always be as large, nor as elaborate, as this edition. In 2003, let's all burn bright , not burn out. 

Jan 9, 2003

God: Yesterday, in an email group in which I'm a member, someone wrote: "Christianity just happens to be the (state-based religion) in the United States. Atheists and the like may not like it, but that is the way it is."  

I was a bit dumbfounded by the confidence of the assertion of this view, which I take to be historically very inaccurate, so I wrote onlist to that member that it seems to me that that George Washington's Congress put precisely the opposite proposition.

On June 26, 2002, a USA federal appeals court ruled  that it is unconstitutional for schools to practise the recitation of the 'Pledge of Allegiance', because it contains the words 'under God'. These theistic words were only inserted in the Pledge quite recently: 1954 to be precise, during the administration of President Eisenhower. This was contrary to America's longstanding position on the subject.

The judge in this case, Circuit Judge Alfred T Goodwin, wrote in his decision (and as a non-theist, I agree wholeheartedly): "Leading schoolchildren in a pledge that says the United States is 'one nation under God' is as objectionable as making them say 'we are a nation "under Jesus", a nation "under Vishnu", a nation "under Zeus", or a nation "under no god", because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion,"     Source

America's first international treaty, signed during the Presidency of George Washington, was the one made with Libya and signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796. The Treaty with Libya, one should note, was written while many of the 'founding fathers' were alive and very active.

It says, in part (emphasis mine):

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,– as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Musselmen,– and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mohammedan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever interrupt the harmony existing between the two countries."

I thought it was a pleasant joust, but unfortunately the other chap unsubscribed within five minutes and I didn't get to hear his side. Was it something I said?

There's much more on this subject in a stimulating article that I wish I had written, at http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

PS I'd love some feedback and criticism of the AAA if you have time, thanx.

Jan 12, 2003

Clear: Poor girl. I know, "she just works there". And I really can be a bastard sometimes. She was only doing her job.

Here's me in the new agey shop. Lots of nice stuff. Piles of self-perfection books with mauve covers and purple text. Genuine Taiwanese Indian dream-catchers; plenty of naughty-looking back massagers; stacks of bottles of essence of flower fairy.

Poor girl just looked blank when I said "What a shame, huh? What a shame. Tsk, tsk, tsk."

I went on: "The crystals." (The shop was an Aladdin's cave of beautiful minerals, some of them quite large; some of them caves of crystals, like half watermelons or bigger.) "Can you just imagine the environmental destruction caused by this trade?"

Continuing blank look from shop girl.

"Just picture it," says cranky old imaginician, "There's a beautiful hillside in some poor country in the tropics. Maybe Guatemala, Indonesia or Mozambique. Rainforest and bubbling brooks. Birds of paradise flying overhead.

"A bunch of poverty-stricken locals in patched jeans and sleeveless Michael Jackson t-shirts, working for some Western shyster, rock up in a storm of dust in a '64 Dodge flatbed truck, carrying crowbars and sticks of gelignite.

"They find a majestic, small grotto of amethyst crystals, or maybe quartz or topaz. And then it's ... 'Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work the crystal monsters go!' Kaboom!!!"

Oh gawd, I think I frightened the poor chick with the kaboom!!! Then I hurried out of the shop.

You know, I think it's weird. I've been carrying on about this crystal thing for decades, and to this day I'm the only one I've ever heard mention it, and I've never seen a word written. Could it be because of the close ties between the green movement and the new age movement? We all hate to relinquish our vices.

Just a thought. But it seems crystal-clear to me.

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

Jan 23, 2003

Pseudodictionary: I've been having fun submitting pseudo-words to www.pseudodictionary.com 
and a few have been accepterated. Have a go yourself, it's fun!

http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16465

http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16499

http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16477

http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16478

Abundance and gratitude,

Pip

(PS: Since then I've had sent them some more):

http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16532

http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16531

http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16529

Jan 25, 2003

Hiss: On this day in 1950 Alger Hiss, a well-heeled Harvard graduate who had concealed his membership of the US Communist Party and espionage for Stalin’s USSR, was found guilty of perjury in a US court, largely on the damning testimony of Whittaker Chambers, a Time Magazine senior editor and  former Communist Party member. A young lawyer named Richard Nixon was involved in Hiss’s downfall as well. The statute of limitations for espionage had expired, but Hiss was tried for perjury.

Abundance and gratitude,

Pip  oops!

(PS: This article was in the lite Wilson's Almanac today, but with an omission in the final sentence, causing an unfortunate ambiguity of meaning. First time I've made a serious typo in haste at 5.45 a.m. – today.)

Jan 28, 2003

Obsession: Today, which of the four armed men above am I thinking most about on January 28, 2003?

A clue: I think they are all dangerous, but one of them has captured my attention, for today, at least. His mindset and his weapons capacity make him hugely frightening, but, despite the significant media coverage he receives, his potential for dropping us all into a terrible conflagration is generally underestimated and unreported.

Is the man occupying my thoughts today Saddam Hussein? This dictator undoubtedly has weapons of mass destruction, those that President Clinton told the world a few weeks ago that the USA had given to him, plus a few of his own. But no, today Hussein is not the one I am thinking of the most. Perhaps tomorrow.

Am I obsessing about Osama bin Laden today, the oil-rich fanatic whose every pronouncement drips with more vitriol than all the West-hating poor of the world could summon up? Whose present whereabouts, we are told, or even whether he is alive, is unknown? Bin Laden who the West is searching for? (Or, so it is said.) The very thought of bin Laden would make a dead man shiver, but no, I am not thinking about him so much today. Perhaps tomorrow.

Is it US President George Bush who's on my mind so much today? After all, his deputies such as Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell just this week clearly told us that regardless of the findings of Mr Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspectors, the war is on. No one, presumably not even the emasculated Mr Blix, has ever believed that the inspection had anything to do with reality, nor that the oil and weapons tycoons currently in the White House have not had this conflagration on the drawing board since 1992.

Mr Blix is a smart man, and he must have his own opinions. After all, when he was Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, even before he won his gold medal from the Nuclear Institute, he helped set up Saddam Hussein's nuclear capacity, so we can be sure he knows where the bodies lie.

Am I thinking about George W Bush because France and Germany have flatly said they will not support his misguided adventure? Or because Bush's pal Rumsfeld's retort, that those two countries are "old Europe" has done more harm to Euro-American relations than anything since the Benny Hill Show? No, it's not this folly that consumes my mind. The Europeans can handle themselves.

Mr Bush, I admit, is in my opinion the most dangerous man in the world, a man whose worldview is shaped by cranky, superstitious Christian-Zionist apocalypticism, patrician upbringing, low intellect, and an influential coterie of oil corporation barons.

No, I'm not thinking about Dubya today, even though his speechwriters are now sharpening his crayons for the State of the Union speech tomorrow, when he will announce a further step towards the war announced in Wilson's Almanac many months ago – though the big steps, as always, will remain unannounced in "the national interest". No, I'll give you a break from Bush today.

Sharon votes a few hours ago

The man occupying my thoughts is Ariel Sharon, soldier-politician. Sharon, who is heavily favoured to win today's election in Israel, is yet another wild card in the powder-keg Middle East. By the time you read this, Sharon will probably be back in the seat of power in the most powerful nation in the Middle East, the one nation that receives most of America's foreign aid, despite Israel's great wealth. He, too, seems to lack rationality, and like Bush, bin Laden and Hussein, most likely derives his reckless politics from an unsavoury blend of jingoism, fundamentalist religion, and xenophobia.

Let's not forget the one man who single-handedly overturned the fragile peace process and set off the second Intifada by so foolishly visiting the Muslim-claimed site at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. A moderate, wise leader could not have done such a thing, but would have chosen instead to seek resolution of the old conflicts by temperate means. Sharon's visit to that site was clearly a slap in the face to his opponents, and a huge insult, much as if bin Laden had occupied the Vatican illegally, and taken a stroll for the media through St Peter's Cathedral. Who could be surprised that the dispossessed, and the fanatical, would be enraged?

This weekend we've seen a brutal incursion, yet again, of Sharon's troops into the territories over which Israel has defied UN resolutions for decades. Thirteen people, including a child at play, were killed by Israeli soldiers. More stones will be thrown, and possibly more men and women in their despair and powerlessness will choose terrorism as their way of lashing back. This action is widely seen as a cynical domestic political tactic by Sharon to help him retain office in today's poll.

We must also remember that bin Laden told the world that although he did not order the September 11 tragedy (and, being bin Laden, he would surely have claimed it as his own if he had) he believed that the main reason for its occurrence was the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel. As we say in Australia, a man with a cork eye can see that, and so can Blind Freddie. Blind Freddie also sees what will rain down more terrorism on Western nations.

Why am I thinking on Sharon so much today? Because it dawned on me that a man who thinks like Sharon does, is capable of many outrages. He is quite capable of claiming that his country has been struck by an Iraqi missile carrying either a biological, chemical, or nuclear warhead. Such a claim would allow him to retaliate in kind, and all hell would break loose.

I do not have a crystal ball, but Sharon, in my opinion, has it in him to do such a thing. Furthermore, the vast empire of the Israeli security and defence forces, including the notorious Mossad, are quite capable of fabricating whatever evidence is required to give to the Western media – the same media that have on the whole backed to the hilt the occupation for decades. Who can imagine a CNN investigative reporter looking into such a claim? Indeed, who can imagine a CNN investigative reporter?

The way Bush and Sharon have set up the current conflict, in which a war will occur regardless of what Iraq does or shows to the weapons inspectors, means that the only way the world can ever find out the nature of Saddam Hussein's nuclear capacity is if and when he uses it.

Sad to say, a dreadful irony exists now, were Sharon to follow the path I have suggested. That irony is this: in a possible retaliation against an Israeli pre-emptive nuclear strike, the world might get the verification of Saddam's nuclear arsenal. That is a chilling prospect, and its containment within those two countries with their huge batteries of weapons of mass destruction, would be highly uncertain. 

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

PS Phillip Adams hosts what is probably the best radio show I know, and I try not to miss an edition. Adams is an excellent interviewer, and he manages to get extremely erudite guests on a fascinating mix of topics. It's called Late Night Live and can be heard each day at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lnl/default.htm – well worth bookmarking. Last night's program http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lnl/audio/LnL_27012003.ram featured a discussion on the forthcoming war, and it was  while listening to it that I was moved to write this editorial.

Feb 2, 2003

Encouraging: An hour before sitting to write this, I was at the peace demonstration not far from where I live. As Coffs Harbour is a country town, 600 kilometres from a big city, I expected to be one of the very few there. I thought 50 people would be likely, and 150 a huge crowd. It was not widely publicized and I didn't even know the venue until nearly midnight last night.

It's very encouraging that, by my estimate, a huge crowd of about 2,500 or 3,000 people marched. That really is a lot for a small town, especially as we are on the opposite side of the world from the forthcoming pre-emptive invasion, and winds in our hemisphere are less likely to carry radiation if things turn for the worse, now that the US administration has allowed the possibility of having a Middle Eastern nuclear war. I felt very proud of my local community.

We passed by a couple of churches, and one can only hope our singing and idle chatter in the street as we marched by did not disturb the large congregations therein.

My amateur photos are now at http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/news.html

Special:
Dr Keith Suter on modern peacekeeping

If one would be rich, it is said, one should seek the company of rich people. Perhaps when one would be a good communicator, one should seek the company of people such as Dr Keith Suter, for few are gifted with immense abilities like his. 

In 1994 Keith was voted Australian Communicator of the Year, and he has many other distinguished awards and titles. I’m pretty sure that when he flies, his resumé (see below) isn’t hand luggage, it’s freight. One PhD wasn’t enough for Dr Suter, so one day he went and got a second. Such is his output, I do believe some goblin waved the no-sleep wand over him.

The other, night Keith and I caught up for the first time in ages and he offered this article to the members of Wilson’s Almanac. I’m grateful for it, and his generous offer of more articles in the future. See below.

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

Change of heart to peaceful solutions

By Keith Suter, PhD*                                                                      

What happens if they give a war and no one turns up? Some Western Governments are trying to whip up public opinion in favour of a war against Iraq, but they are not having much luck.

In Britain, the main supporters for Prime Minister Tony Blair's military ambitions are in the opposition Conservative Party. Many of his Labour Party backbenchers and most of the media are – at the very least – sceptical of the need for a war.

This is not just an issue over Iraq. There has been a major social change in Western countries towards the "peace" issue. During the Cold War peace groups were branded as unpatriotic and "Moscow fronts". Now "peace" is respectable – it can even be displayed on the Sydney Harbour Bridge on New Year's Eve as a greeting to the world.

This helps to explain what has happened to the peace movement in countries like New Zealand and Australia. It seems to have disappeared just when it is needed. Many Governments are gearing up for war against Iraq, but there are not the wide range of peace groups that operated in Cold War years.

Instead, the peace movement has become mainstream, middle-class and middle-of-the-road. It is now respectable and its values permeate all sections of society. There has been a quiet social transformation.

This change in values may be seen in four ways. Most noticeably, there is a lack of support for a war against Iraq. The media and many parts of the public are sceptical.

This is not from any love of Saddam Hussein but from a general sense of combat fatigue. Conventional military operations do not seem to be as effective as in the past.

After all, there was a war against Saddam 11 years ago but that did not solve the problem. And the United States-led operation in Afghanistan has still not brought peace to that country.

Wars do not seem to settle anything; they only lead to fresh wars.

Second, there is increased interest in the roots of war and more imaginative ways of settling disputes. If conventional military forces do not work, what could?

In Afghanistan, for example, imagine what the situation would have been like if the US had poured aid into the country in the late 1980s as the Soviet Union withdrew its forces, so that Afghanistan became a flourishing pro-Western state. That would have prevented any scope for the Taleban and Osama bin Laden to take root.

Third, many of the erstwhile "militaristic" segments of society are less militaristic. Anzac Day memorials are attracting large numbers of people, not least young people. But the activities are not a glorification of war, more a regret at the tragic loss of life.

It seems that the grave loss of life of young people in April 1915 resonates with the fears of young people about their own future and how a group of old men can still ruin lives.

Meanwhile, military institutions are reinventing themselves. For example, the Imperial War Museum in London on Remembrance Day last year hosted the Nobel Peace Prize winner Sir Joseph Rotblat, who spoke on "A world without war. Is it desirable?"

And fourth, in Australia at least, the Defence Force now enjoys the highest level of public support since World War II. In particular, its peacekeeping operation in East Timor is seen by peace activists as redeeming Australia's tarnished image – an image created by pro-Jakarta Australian Governments from that of Gough Whitlam onwards.

Thus, peace activists have had to re-evaluate their own attitudes towards the military and recognise it has an important role in the new era of peacekeeping.

Therefore, there is a greater sense of "peace" among the previously differing segments of society and a greater willingness to work together. The old feuds between "warmongers" and "peaceniks" no longer make sense. The new era of warfare requires new ways of thinking.

Warfare used to be international and conventional. Now, it is increasingly internal and guerrilla. Large fighting formations no longer bring lasting peace (as both the Soviets and the Americans have found in Afghanistan).

Instead, miliary operations have to be seen in the broader context of not only winning the war but also winning the peace. This means co-operating with international relief organisations and non-governmental organisations.

It also means trying to find other ways of settling disputes. We are all "peace activists" now.

About Keith Suter, PhD

Professional fellow of the Futures Foundation, Australia.

The Consultant on Social Policy at Wesley Mission Sydney. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Global Business Network Australia, Consultant to Aged and Community Services (NSW), Health Services Association (NSW), and the Conflict Resolution Network. 

His first doctorate was in the international law of guerrilla warfare and his second in the economic and social consequences of the arms race.

He is:

Chairperson, Environment Committee, Australian Institute of Company Directors Chairperson, International Humanitarian Law Committee of Australian Red Cross (NSW) Vice-President, International Commission of Jurists (NSW)

Director of Studies, International Law Association (Australian Branch)

From 1991-1998, he was President of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.

Between 1979 and 1999 he was at various times the national and state presidents (NSW and WA) of the United Nations Association of Australia. In 1999 he was made a Life Member of the UN Association.

His teaching positions include part-time lecturer in the Department of Social Work, University of New South Wales (in the Masters of International Social Work), where he teaches the introductory course on international organization.

His latest book is In Defence of Globalization (University of New South Wales Press, 2001).

In 1986: International Year of Peace, he was awarded the Australian Government’s Peace Medal. In 1994, he was voted “Australian Communicator of the Year”.

Author of Keith Suter Comments, a weekly news commentary, broadcast on 2GB.

Books by Keith Suter

Feb 3, 2003

Feb 4, 2003

Trillion: I sometimes have people ask me how I can be for peace when it seems apparent that war is the only solution to many problems.

I always say that war is always a result of failure of the imagination, and lack of faith in human ingenuity. So I keep a few examples of potential solutions up my sleeve. Here's one:

We hear various estimates of what the war will cost in terms of money and human suffering. We hear figures of billions and perhaps trillions of dollars, and half a million casualties. As the prestigious journal, The Guardian, reported last week:

"... for reasons of internal diplomacy or because of American pressure the UN is unwilling to go public with the figures. But a newly leaked report from a special UN taskforce that summarises the assessments calculates that about 500,000 people could "require medical treatment to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries", according to the World Health Organisation.

WHO estimates that 100,000 Iraqi civilians could be wounded and another 400,000 hit by disease after the bombing of water and sewage facilities and the disruption of food supplies.

'The nutritional status of some 3.03 million people will be dire and they will require therapeutic feeding," says the UN children's fund. About four-fifths of these victims will be children under five. The rest will be pregnant and lactating women.'"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4593608,00.html

(This, no doubt, is why certain people want to go ahead with the invasion without UN approval – they know what pressures are being brought to bear within the UN by the people in its agencies, such as those that deal with health and welfare issues.)

I can't help thinking what we could do with a trillion dollars. There are lots of things I could think of, but the one that grabs me today, and almost makes me laugh (if it weren't so serious), is a great big bounty.

If the powers that be were not lying to us; if the UK and USA really wanted just to depose Hussein and didn't have ulterior motives, it seems to me that a trillion dollars would be acceptable to the dictator's cook, personal trainer, brother-in-law, barber or – better still – the generals that kowtow to him, to hand him over dead or alive.

If this seems like a stupid idea, consider how stupid – and how desperately cruel to our bothers and sisters and their kids in Iraq – the alternative is.

If ten generals did not hand over Saddam Hussein on a silver platter by 8.30 pm tonight for a combined reward of one trillion dollars, I'll drink a gallon of Caltex motor oil through Donald Rumsfeld's underpants. 

I have more ideas that have been rejected by some of the best armaments corporations in the world. Stay tuned.

If you would like to share some alternatives to national incineration and possible World War III, there is a poll on the homepage of the Scriptorium: http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com. What would you do with a trillion dollars? I hope you will vote before the authorities notice it's democratic.

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

Test: Saddam Hussein of Iraq was interviewed last weekend by the eminent British politician, Tony Benn (the longest-serving MP in the history of the British Labour Party), and the interview was broadcast last night on prime-time UK television. See http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030204/80/drkbj.html

In the interview, Hussein (rather predictably) stated that his country has no weapons of mass destruction, and no links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organisation.

I have not seen the interview, but I have heard parts of it on radio. From what I have heard, and my brief research on the Internet, it seems to me that Mr Benn missed an excellent opportunity to make the interview even more meaningful.

Benn might well have asked Hussein to swear on the Muslim holy book, the Koran, that he was being truthful.

Generally, in the Muslim world, an oath sworn on the Koran carries more weight than its counterpart in the more secularised Western world, an oath on the Bible.

The Koran is highly revered by most Muslims. Most Muslim homes have a Koran wrapped in cloth, often an expensive silk cloth, and placed high somewhere in the dwelling, such as a high shelf. I have seen with my own eyes, when I was living with Afghans in Sydney, the remarkable reverence accorded this book even by non-religious Muslims. I have heard with my own ears stories of desecration of the book, both deliberate and accidental, and the dire consequences for the persons responsible. Even for the Koran to be dropped on the ground, or accidentally soiled, is a matter of grave concern.

Some of my Muslim readers might correct me on this, but it seems to me that were Hussein to be asked to swear on the Koran, for him to do so dishonestly would draw the ire of a significant part of the Muslim world, including his own followers, his own generals, his subjugated people, and the citizenry and leadership of other Muslim nations. To swear in such a way would require a very great amount of consideration for the Iraqi dictator, and might give the rest of the world a greater insight into the truth.

It is a great pity that Mr Benn wasted a unique opportunity on global television to press Hussein on this matter. Let's hope someone else forces the issue, but at this late stage in the aggression preparations of the Iraqi people's external enemies, it seems unlikely to happen.

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

Feb 8, 2003

Byron: Australia has been in the talons of the worst drought here for at least a century. It's been so dry, people have been sending their potplants out on agistment. Trees are chasing dogs around. Crows are flying backwards to keep the dust out of their eyes.

But in some parts, it looks like it might be getting better. Around here, on the north coast of New South Wales, we've had a few drops over the past week, enough to make it humid, if not to settle the dust. It's not falling much where it's needed across the nation, though. The rains will come, of course, but just when is not known.

I drove up in drizzling rain last weekend to a place about three hours drive north of here, named Byron Bay, sited on the most easterly point of this continent of Australia in view of the big volcano, Mt Warning, and on the edge of that volcano's magnificent caldera. 

Click to see a satellite photo with Byron Bay the marked point at lower right

Byron Bay was called 'Cawanbah' by the Bundjalung aboriginal tribe, but renamed by the greatest navigator of all time, Captain James Cook, in 1770 after Admiral 'Foul-weather Jack' Byron, the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron and a remarkable man in his own right. That was nice of Captain Cook, wasn't it?

The master of HMAS Rainbow, William Johns, mapped the bay and its three rocks in 1828, hence the name 'Rainbow Region' for a large portion of the north coast, although many think it received its nickname from the 50,000 or so hippies who now live from Bellingen to the Queensland border.

I remember going there as a kid and walking out past the lighthouse at Cape Byron, at low tide. As the waves receded I picked up a pebble from the furthest place that I could, and brought it home to keep in my room the very most easterly part of Australia. I suppose a lot of kids' rooms had those most easterly parts in those days, because it was before the age of computer games.

I always love going to Byron, though it has become very developed since the 1970s when I had my best times there. Byron's first European settlers in the early 1800s were cedar getters. These were followed by gold prospectors and 'cow cockies' (dairy farmers). Then came the surfies, followed by the hippies, backpackers, yuppies, Paul Hogan and real estate speculators. The scene of farmers drinking on a brown wooden pub veranda has given way in 25 years to a multi-coloured town of many materials and diverse lifestyles.

I was invited to see a chap who has tens of boxes of material from the early days of the alternative settlements of Byron district, and Nimbin (heart of the alternative scene here). Peter was active in the owner-builder movement and generally in the rural resettlement and commune movements that so changed the culture and landscape of northern NSW. I have a long association with the 'Rainbow Archives' at the Mitchell Library in Sydney, and Peter's collection will be connected to that archive in due course. Peter's background as an anthropologist, too, is revealed in his collection, as he has studied aboriginal and 'alternative' modes of community. I can't wait to actually sit down with his trove of material.

Peter's home on the hill offered a great vantage point of the area. I drove him then to a party where he and his friends were celebrating a court victory over a development that businessmen were planning for that hill, where the protesters had found a species of orchid long thought to be extinct, and found nowhere else.  

My mother always told me I was a week too late at birth, and my sister tells me I was born 100 years too late (I wish she would say "early"). However, I was a week too early at Byron. Today, as I write, radio ABC reports that there are 750 naked women on one of Byron's hills. It's too early to be in the news yet, but might show up here http://abc.net.au/goldcoast/ on my local station soon.

Grace Night, a local musician, has organised an anti-war protest, such as the one in New York yesterday, only much, much warmer and with a lot more than 30 women. Jeannine has reported on other such protests around the world, and I endorse them most heartily. I think perhaps I should organise one for Sandy Beach where I live. In fact, seeing as I saw a crab at my back door yesterday, I might even extend the concept of where the beach is. Such is my devotion to the cause of peace. But I remember being told by the manager of a nudist camp once that they would call the police if I didn't get dressed, so perhaps I'll stick to written agitation.

Perhaps it was the naked women in NYC's Central Park that prompted Bush to call an Orange Alert, and not the fact that Colin Powell was caught quoting Tony Blair's fabricated 'evidence' to the UN Security Council yesterday – a great diversion (see Daily Planet News this edition). Though I guess this would be a Blue Alert – or a Blushing Red one.

By the way: Don't get agitated! Agitate!

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

PS The article I sent yesterday, Myths of the 'War on Terrorism' has already been updated and about 10 new footnotes added. It's at http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/myths.html

Ongo-Bongo! http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/friends.html today has something important about this article and Indymedia for trust-swappers if any are interested in lending a hand for distribution. 

Byron Bay image gallery http://www.byron-bay.com/photos/index.html

Feb 12, 2003

Proudly announcing two new sources of Daily Planet News alerts

Due to the current interest in the Middle East, and the appalling bias of the reporting from the CNN-Fox etc Axis of Evil, I have placed two important newsfeeds on the Daily Planet News pages of the Wilson’s Almanac Scriptorium. They are well worth bookmarking after turning off one’s television set.

First of these regularly updating feeds at http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/news.html comes from mainly Western journalists who are fed up with the general misreporting. It comes courtesy of Electronic Iraq, which will be covering the war – if the millions of people rallying worldwide on February 15 fail to stop the invasion.

Sample story: US orders 100,000 body bags for Iraq conflict

The second feed is provided by Electronic Intifada, and you will find it at http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/news1.html. This news source covers the Palestinian conflict rather more accurately and compassionately than mainstream Western media are capable of doing, given the circumstances.

Sample story: Aid for Palestinians suffers due to focus on Iraq

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

Feb 15, 2003

Smile!: Jeremy Bentham, today's birthday boy (February 15, 1748), is known not only for his philosophy of Utilitarianism, but also for a particular invention that affects our lives very much today, the ‘panopticon’. He proposed it as a model prison, whereby the prisoners’ activities could be seen virtually at all times by the prison warders. By the same token, the inmates could not see the guards, and never know when surveillance was upon him. The

psychological uncertainty was in itself part of the control and discipline of prisoners.

http://www.notbored.org/

And you thought you’d seen everything on the WWW!
Drive this guy insane with his panopticon (webcam) in his office: http://www.drivemeinsane.com/

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

Feb 17, 2003

Little: After two decades, Australia has been returned to 'Triple A' status by the international credit ratings agency, Standard and Poors. So our economy must be going well, as evidenced by the greatest disparity between rich and poor for 100 years (as in many Western countries that are doing very, very, very well).

Prime Minister John Howard must indeed be pleased to have friends in the White House. To tell them his good news, I mean. Far be it from your almanackist to suggest that any nudges and winks have been seen last week in Washington when Mr Howard sat at the feet of the master. Too close to photograph.

By the way, Mr Howard, I recall, did not get a mandate from the Australian people to go to war in the Middle East with an ally that speaks of using nuclear weapons.

After the weekend's enormous anti-war rallies around Australia, Mr Howard told the public last night that no matter how many people march for peace, he will not change his mind about invading Iraq. This would seem a curious interpretation of the concept of 'representation' as set down by the Constitution that Mr Howard is sworn to protect and defend.

How pleasing, then, today to hear the Australian, Richard Butler, speaking so passionately against Mr Howard's current bloody-minded stance. Mr Butler, you might recall, was the 'Blix' of 1998 – head of the UN weapons inspections team. That was the one that withdrew from Iraq – the one that politicians and the media keep saying was expelled (see http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/myths.html). Another persistent lie of the current propaganda campaign.

Mr Butler, for a career diplomat, sure was hot under the collar today when railing against John Howard's folly. Impassioned? Man, the guy's voice was cracking. He called for a referendum on the matter of whether Australia would go to war without UN backing. Of course, he conceded, this is not likely to happen, as Mr Howard knows that he would lose it hands down. Especially after seeing 300,000 people marching in Sydney, 150,000 in Melbourne, 100,000 in little-bitty Brisbane, and even 2,500 in Bellingen, a country town about as big as the Front Lawn at the White House.

I have not watched more than two hours of television for years (and loving it!), but I went next door last evening to see the rallies on the 6 o'clock news. My impression, after having seen the marches, Mr Tony Blair, and "Little Johnny Howard" (as our PM has long been known), was this: I did not sleep well last night, for excitement. Bush, Blair and Howard won't be sleeping too well after the marches, either, I think. I think a few trips to the toilet might have occurred during the night, at the White House, Number 10 Downing Street, and The Lodge. Good.

People of goodwill, who are appalled at the notion of Western politicians threatening to nuke small countries – any countries – know full well that they must keep up the laxative effect on these little men, for they are tenacious, fabulously rich, and powerful, but they are little men nonetheless, and their power rests on our approval.

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

Feb 18, 2003

Electric: Holy David Korten!

It was bad enough to discover last week that Kodak sold rockets to Saddam Hussein. I'm thinking of returning my Box Brownie camera.

But this was too much. Holy Willard Scott! NBC is owned by General Electric? The huge manufacturer and trafficker in armaments? The guys that make the things that burn, blast, impale and decapitate nice little kids and their mothers in poor countries all around the world? Thanks, Jeannine, thanks a lot for telling me yesterday.

Not that I watch TV – and I already knew NBC looked like it must be part of some multimedia axis of evil. But not this. Not the trustworthy peacock. Not jolly old Willard Scott. I remember that guy. 

I'm taking this real bad. You gonna pay, J-9 Wilson. Next you're gonna tell me Dow Chemical (the napalm guys – they still make it) is in there as well ...

Say what??!!!!!!

Abundance and gratitude,
Pip

PS Shop David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World  

Who controls the media?

 

General Electric Primary military product: Jet engines Annual Sales: $1.7 billion in 1996 for military sales Primary customers: Egypt, Israel, Kuwait Famous/infamous for: Political clout as a media giant and billion-dollar arms dealer Major campaign contributions (1997-98): $1,215,550 from General Electric and related PACs

"As both a billion-dollar arms dealer and owner of the NBC network, America's General Electric is uniquely positioned to profit from the new arms race – and simultaneously to influence what the public knows about the weapons buildup.

"GE had aircraft-engine sales in excess of $2 billion during 1996. That's not an insubstantial amount – but it's only 2 percent of the corporate giant's $79.1 billion in overall sales that year ...

"GE's defense holdings, media interests, and sheer overall size give it huge political clout ..."
Geov Parrish

* Carlyle Group and Bush http://www.angelfire.com/indie/pearly/htmls/bush-carlyle.html

Read about media manipulation

Democracy, General Electric style

Feb 23, 2003

Snow: I've never seen snow. Sure, there is snow in my state of New South Wales for a few months every year, and there's a big winter sports industry at places like Thredbo and Perisher. But it's expensive to get there and expensive to stay there. Not on poet wages.

Of course, I've seen plenty of snow on Christmas cards, because Australians still haven't quite got European attitudes out of their system, although such attitudes make no sense in the wide brown land, where Christmas is generally hot and sticky.

Then there's 'Santa Sno'. That's the spray-can stuff Aussies goop all over their windows in December. It gets hot and sticky and smells evil, and is terribly, terribly silly. But looks great and brings back fond childhood memories.

I lied. I did see a bit of snow once. One day in 1974 I saw some patchy snow on the ground near Jindabyne, but I long to see snowflakes falling. At nearly 50 years of age, it must be about time. I want to sing something really schmaltzy like Walking in a Winter Wonderland, and embarrass people around me as I fling handfuls of the white stuff in the air and throw snowballs at grownups. A friend told me about 'snow angels' a few weeks ago. Gotta do one of them!!

I'd be like a couple of Japanese girls I saw on Manly Beach once. They were fully dressed, kneeling down and running sand through their hands, giggling. I'd be like that. Sand, we got. I live on Sandy beach. Last week I had a crab come to visit me while I was almanacking. I gots plenny sand. But snow ... snow I ain't got.

I have friends in the Northern Hemisphere who tell me that you can get sick of snow. This, I find incredible. However, I would rapidly get sick of being cold. Anything less than about 21 degrees Celsius (70 F) and I get miserable and don't feel like working. Out comes the fan heater and the long johns. I function best above 80 F and, if I'm gardening for a crust, I won't down tools under 100. Then it's too hot even for me. That's what I tell the bosses, anyway. I'm just lazy, to be honest.

My hyperborean friends seem jealous of my situation, but that's because they are shivering right now. I expect that in six months time when I'm shivering, they'll be whingeing about the damn heat.

I could tell them right now for nothing that there are disadvantages to living in the warmth. For one thing, ants don't get around much in the snow. Or so I imagine. A visit to my kitchen would dispel any romantic notions of warm-climate bliss. It's not that I don't like ants. I just wish they'd let me see a little bit of my kitchen bench. It's like a Donald Duck picnic here and I feel like going " .....   ................    ............ !!!!" (how do you spell Donald Duck expletives anyway?). 

When I walk in at night, if there isn't much moon, I have to run the gauntlet. First, I have to negotiate the passage from the front yard to the back (I live in a garden flat). Then, in the pitch black, I have to hold my hand in front of myself in order to detect any spider webs in my path. These are webs like fishing nets strung among the trees and bushes, made by spiders as big as Jules Verne's squid. The worst thing on a warm summer's night is to find such a spider negotiating your face, in the pitch black, and your head and upper torso tied up like a gladiator's.

The warmth has brought out the wildlife all right. Here's a green tree frog from my front door.

Trouble with frogs is, they bring the snakes. I had a baby carpet snake (a python) just over a metre long come and visit every night recently. Mr Frog has gone, and every morning there was one less zebra finch in my landlord's aviary, which is just outside my door. I miss the finches, but not their weird chirping at dawn. Definitely not a sound to go to bed by.

Carpet snakes will bite, though they're not poisonous, but walking from the car through the darkness, past the orb spiders, also requires some courage when one considers the prospect of treading on a snake. Even in shoes. Trust me.

Red-bellied black snakes are poisonous, and someone saw one outside my door recently. This is not fun, and I would prefer a couple of metres of snow.

The really big wildlife phenomenon of this warm climate is the bugs. Despite the fly screens on my windows, there is a population explosion of bugs in my flat. I'm thinking of reporting them to Paul Ehrlich. I suppose the good thing is they keep the ants down, and the spiders keep the bugs down. At least the Christmas beetles have gone underground again. Have you ever been in bed trying to sleep, all the while getting buzzed by kamikaze beetles? I counted 30 one night, and the first week I lived here (in November) I never had fewer than 15. I thought, "Pip, old son, you've done it again. Another mansion. This is another fine mess you've gotten us into." (Except, the day that I say "gotten" will be the day that I call chips "fries".)

My solution? I left on my bathroom light as a lure. Then got (gotten?) into trouble for keeping my neighbour awake.

Someday I'll see snow and find out what everyone's complaining about. But if there are no bugs, I don't know what the problem is. And 'freezing rain'? That's a new one on me. I'd like to see that! It sounds like an oxymoron to a dumb Aussie. I wonder do they have boiling snow in the frigid north as well.

Abundance and gratitude,

Pip

Hyperreality: I killed my TV before it killed me.

The second Gulf War will not happen, just as the first one did not. In 1995, the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard wrote that The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, and I'm sure we all know that it is so. Wag the Dog met The Truman Show.

What did take place was a simulacrum, or a representation of a war. Despite the fact that scores or hundreds of thousands of our fellow people were killed by blast or flame, and uncounted numbers of others were maimed, it didn't happen. It was on TV, it was great drama, it rated through the roof, it created CNN and when it was over we watched another show.

On one level, the cruellest aspect of the media's production of that human catastrophe was their complicity. Journalists and camera crews, led around by the nose by public relations consultants to the military, reported what they were shown and what they were permitted, and most viewers believed their reports. 'Smart bombs' hit buildings on the cross-hairs and just a few enemy personnel were killed, we were told, and we saw the simulacra on CNN and NBC. (Most of us didn't know that NBC is owned by weapons manufacturer, General Electric.) That's when we got the term 'collateral damage'.

Of course, everyone now knows that GWI was a lie-bomb bigger than Hiroshima – that the coalition massacred multitudes of innocent men, women and children. We know about the Turkey Shoot on the Highway of Death, and the 70-kilometre trench we bulldozed full of 'damage'.

On another, more fundamental, level, it is the phenomenon of simulation itself which is the more disturbing aspect of Gulf War I, the Movie. All elements of the world today are reduced to simulacra, and even our own pain is separated from us. The Twin Towers tragedy quickly becomes a Hollywood disaster movie, as well as a sub-industry of books, CDs and TV shows, and its ratings power is soon deflected towards a non-sequitur nation, Iraq. Millions are spent on PR (disinformation) with PR companies bigger than Texas.

If you go to Fiji, you can see native Fijians dancing traditional dances, except they are not real either. Hyperreal is not real, any more than game shows or denatured junk food are real. After 'work', and when the tourists have returned to the Fiji resorts to watch TV from home, the natives go home and watch TV too.

Now our planet is paved over like Disneyworld, where Disney actors as native dancers do the same as 'real' Fijian dancers, and where you can canoe on an artificial lake.

Grassroots movements for the environment are countered by Astroturf movements run on behalf of toxifying corporations, by huge transnational PR companies, which organize campaign letter-writing workshops in people's homes. The politicians and editors who get these letters and petitions cannot tell the difference, but it doesn't matter because the computer sorts the mail. We live on Gilligan's Island, and the wars are entertainment. The supermarket has 27 'brands' of tea on the shelf 'competing' with each other, but they are owned by just two companies, both of which make armaments and own a string of TV channels and newspapers. My hyperbole is scarcely worse than the hyperreality.

This virtuality goes on and on like barbershop mirrors. Parody is parodied, Michel's French Onion Soup is made in Malaysia and packed in Nigeria, and meanwhile back in Fiji the traditional dancer videotapes the Norwegian tourist. Both are actors, because the script is impressed upon them and memorised from birth. It is a process that fractures – and fractalises – our existence. It fractalises because we are all making that which is making us, whether we are Fijian or Australian. In the final event, the starving Somalian child, defined as a portrait for a charity, is also reproducing their own part of the fractal, and we project it onto our screens. We, in turn, project the image back to Africa where she can see her own death, 'live'. Nothing is real if it has not been screened.

As Baudrillard pointed out in his essay 'Disneyworld Company' (1996):

At Disney World in Orlando, they are even building an identical replica of the Los Angeles Disneyland, as a sort of historical attraction to the second degree, a simulacrum to the second power.

It has been said that the average Westerner can identify 10 non-culinary plant species, and 1,000 corporate logos. So far removed have we become from Nature, from each other, from the planet we inhabit, and from ourselves, that we can even watch war. Eleven days out from the greatest day of peace rallies in human history, and we are ten days into "the next thing". What? The Grammies?

Consumed by the flickering banalities of programming, executed by experts for our sedation, compliance and money, we are sophisticated like the sophists of the Areopagus of Athens (Acts 17:21) who loved only novelty. Old things, tried and true, can be valued, but only in dollars, or used as decoration much like antique cast iron cooking ware on restaurant walls. 

Athenianism and Disneyworld are killing us as surely as they permit us to watch spectacles of death. Deaths of other people; deaths of human beings who are valued at one white person per 1,000,000 brown. An American baby who falls down a well gets vastly more TV coverage – even in Africa – than a million dying babies in Africa. We tell the lie that they are different, far away and not part of us. We pretend to ourselves that the West has compassion fatigue, when in fact we have terminal ennui, racism and self-absorption.

How do we remove ourselves from this enclosure of narcissism in which we have imprisoned ourselves?

In t