Movember

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo. I'm not genetically the first guy you'd choose for such a task, and I'll probably end up with a Pedro rather than a Merv, but I believe in changing men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer. Why...

• Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.


• Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.


• Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate, enter my registration number which is 168359 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 168359. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative, which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you'll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket .

More info is available at www.movember.com.

Movember is proudly grown by Commonwealth Bank, Holden, Schick and VB.

Movember is proud partners with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative.

Oh but reader, heal thyself
Put the book back on the shelf

By the time the bus drops me off on the way home this evening, I will have closed the cover on the third and final installment of Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver trilogy. The cycle has taken me a number of years to complete, which I will put down to its considerable length (approaching 3000 pages, I would guess), and a few intervening activities generally incompatible with reading novels, most significantly the writing of a thesis.

I have enjoyed the series tremendously. I struggle to summarise it to people when they ask me what I'm reading. Its certainly an adventure story, with much buckling of swash to be found in exotic locations. Its also well and truly historical fiction, covering important periods of history in Europe, and movements such as the standardisation of currency and its trade, the development of organised science and engineering which eventually lead to the industrial revolution, and the slave trade from a European perspective. Although the setting is different, this mix is very much similar to the one he used in his previous book Cryptonomicon; indeed, he reuses character names (and associated archetypes) from that book, quite considerably.

The scope of the whole thing is quite improbable, and although Stephenson won't win any prizes for being prosaic, he tells a very good yarn, and has obviously done his research well and has a genuine affection for his subject matter.

Highly recommended.

weddings

I've had a steady stream of weddings over the last 7 or 8 years. Emma & Andy, Cav & Layla, Afe & Trish, Dan & Afro, Jesse & Alison, Jacques & Sophie, Sandy & Neil, and Manu & Erwan (the latter two being celebrations of marriage but not weddings in the strictest sense). This past Saturday, that company was joined by Dave & Maria-Luisa.

I really enjoy the whole spectacle of it: the getting dressed up, the making speeches, the gathering of friends & family, and the excuse to consume food and drink in high quanities and quality.

Having said that, one thing that Lach mentioned to me this week is that weddings are a poor way of meeting new people. Statistically speaking, this shouldn't have been the case on Saturday, as Maria's side featured no-one I knew, and outnumbered Dave's side by probably 2 to 1. Despite that, Lachlan's law prevailed and I really didn't meet many new people, instead spending most of my time talking to people I already knew.

Heinlein and libertarianism

How strange. John, who spends a lot of time pushing libertarianism, mentioned reading Heinlein a few days ago. Then, today, Kerry mentions Heinlein while expressing her skepticism about libertarianism. Small world!

I've only read a little Heinlein - Stranger in a strange land, and possibly Starship Troopers, although I'm not quite sure - and it was at a time when I wasn't really thinking about politics much.

election announced

The federal election was announced yesterday for the 24th of November. I followed the previous election reasonably closely, albeit from a great distance, and suspect I'll also be very interested throughout this one.

Some of my closest involvement has been through John and the party he has started, the Liberty and Democracy Party (LDP). They were previously known as the Liberal Democratic Party, but the AEC (effectively, as I understand it) ruled that the Liberal party had a monopoly on the term 'liberal', which is both ironic and wrong.

John has cast around at a couple of social gatherings recently for warm bodies to run in House races for the LDP, including asking me. I was pretty tempted, and haven't totally ruled out signing up for a run in Ryan, but I think I'm probably more interested in discussing policy than in a Quixotic candidature. I'm also not sure to what extent running lots of "token" candidates(with all due respect to those I know who are running) is a good idea for the LDP; they're up for $500 registration per candidate, with little likelihood in most cases of gathering enough votes to be reimbursed.

I have strange discussions with John about politics. I agree with most of the philosophies and principles of the LDP, but have trouble with some of their policies, in terms of where they have chosen to apply their principles (e.g. shooters' rights, smokers' rights) and the practicality of doing so (particularly regarding privatisation and deregulation). It certainly makes for interesting discussions, though.

I'd encourage anyone who is remotely interested in politics to seek out others who are or might be, and to engage them in discussions about what you think is important for this election. If you have been unimpressed by something your government or your representative has said or done, one of the reasons that happens is because people don't engage enough in the political process.

RWC07 - hardly knew ya

I hadn't gotten into the rugby world cup at all - no TV, and shocking timing with the bulk of it taking place during the much more important AFL finals.

At the urging of a french friend, I followed the online commentary of the Wallabies' loss to England, and it sounded to me like dour English "don't score a try at all costs" rugby defeating a Wallabies side that couldn't kick a penalty into the ocean if they were standing on the shore. Still, I don' t really feel any personal loss, as I was never invested.

No doubt my French friends are happy that they're through to a semi-finals devoid of the top 2 teams in world rugby. I didn't see the game, but looking at this, its hard to understand why more kiwis, in particular, aren't pointing out that the French will be there pretty much on false pretenses. I'm an AFL fan, so I like a forward pass as much as the next man, but that's a disgraceful no-call.

a bit of lip

I just pulled out my trumpet for a practice (that's not a metaphor, if you can believe it) for the first time in God knows how long. The usual debacle ensued, of remembering fairly quickly the keys, and being surprised at not having lost an awful lot of range (though range was never my strong point) until about 10 minutes in. I then decide to try a song and see that range completely disintegrate until after 20 minutes I'm doing long note warm-downs and conking out at a ridiculously low note.

get rent

Researchers once again prove common sense. Yes, young people prefer to live near stuff. Yes, renters hate the idea of a tight rental market run by bastard agents. Surprise, surprise.

weekend

Busy weekend.

Friday night was Julz' birthday, and a bunch of us hit the Bowery for cocktails, then wound up back at Abingdon playing a dancemat game around 3am.

Saturday was grand final day, and a bunch of us made a blokey afternoon of it around at Neil's place.

Following that, I popped over to Mick'n'Paul's place for dinner and a screening of Oldboy. I gave Julz her birthday present, a Neon Genesis Evangelion model (possibly this one), which we then spent a few hours assembling into the early hours. We also had a visit from some guy wearing a headband and obviously either crazy or crazy high, who hung around talking to himself and playing with Mick's car until we called the police, against the possibility that he'd do either himself or Mick's car some harm.

Finally, on Sunday, Mum and Dad came down with a set of drawers and a set of shelves. We also went for a look at sofabeds - didn't buy one, but not far away now.

passing thyme

A couple of things that have happened in my life since starting work:

I had a nice trip down to Canberra for work a few weeks ago. I flew down Monday night, was picked up by Lee, and stayed at her place after a nice dinner, which gave a good few hours for chatting and catching up. She has a really nice apartment down there. She dropped in to my workshop at ANU the next day, and when it finished early I had the opportunity to walk over to Liz & Mike's place, a few blocks away. It was really good to chat with Mike and Tom, although I had to leave before getting a chance to say more than "Hello/Goodbye" to Liz.

There have been a few good nights spent with Mick/Paul/Julz/Celia/Nené/Andy and that general crowd. One was Mick's birthday dinner at Garuva, after which we went back to Wynnum Rd and had white & black russians on the back deck. Another was Celia's birthday, for which we headed up to Keperra for some paintball, which was hella fun, and well worth the bruises that we all carried (and still carry, in my case) out of it.

new digs

About 3 weeks ago I moved into an apartment in Teneriffe. Its a one-bedroom place, but its pretty big with a nice balcony, and its in a pretty expensive suburb (the most expensive in Brisbane, I was told at the Capalaba Sports Club last week).

Over those three weeks I've slowly been going about filling it with stuff. Twice in the last 4 years I've been reasonably flush with furniture, appliances, and the sorts of things that one needs to feel at home in a place (as opposed to just camping there). Twice I've sold all that gear to move overseas, so I find myself once again looking at buying a fridge, washer, bed, table, couch, TV, etc. I'm going OK so far, having acquired a fridge and washer, paid for a bed and table/chairs for which I'll take delivery reasonably soon, and just about filled my kitchen with some nice gear (pots, pans, knives, etc). Thanks to a mission to Dan Murphy's with Lee, I also have a reasonably well-stocked cave. Nonetheless, until I get my few remaining items, I still feel a little bit temporary.

no news is ... ?

It hasn't been through any express decision or desire, but I seem to have stopped updating here about what I've been doing. On the off-chance that I still have anyone reading this blog, would you prefer to find here more regular accounts of what I've been doing, occasional flawed insights into politics and the way the world works, or a combination of both?

Tongue Lashing

Either Alexander Downer has a very dry wit, or he is under grave misapprehensions about what one learns from a 2-month course in French conducted in Australia, and how French compares to Mandarin as a language.

This is the email I just sent him.

Monsieur Downer,

Vous êtes vraiment un gros nul.

Ce n'est vraiment pas normal qu'un ministre des affaires étrangères ne
reconnaisse pas que apprendre le francais et apprendre le mandarin ne
sont pas la même chose.

De plus, c'est évident que M. Rudd parle couramment mandarin.
Peut-être que vous êtes un prodige en langues étrangéres, mais
personellement, ayant appris le français (en france), je trouve
difficile à croire que vous parlez aussi bien français (que M. Rudd
parle mandarin) grâce à deux mois de cours en australie.

Finalement, je trouve honteux, dans une culture où l'étude des langues
et moins en moins valorisée, qu'un ministre des affaires étrangères
dénigre quelqu'un qui a clairement fait l'effort de bien apprendre la
langue de notre plus grande partenaire de commerce.

En essayant de rester quand méme poli, veuillez agréer, Monsieur, mes
sentiment les plus distingués.

For the benefit of those that don't understand that (a number which I personally suspect will include Mr Downer):

Mr Downer,

You really are a moron.

Its outrageous that a foreign minister not acknowledge that learning French and learning Mandarin are not the same thing.

Additionally, it is clear that Mr Rudd speaks Mandarin well. Perhaps you are a foreign language prodigy, but personally, having learnt French (in France), I find it difficult to believe that you speak french comparably well after two months of courses in Australia.

Finally, I find it shameful that, in a culture where the study of languages is less and less valued, a foreign minister belittles someone who has clearly made the effort to learn the language of our largest trading partner.

I noticed a bunch more letters in the Australian, including from the head of Asian studies at ANU. Rightly so.

batshit crazy awards

And the batshit crazy awards for today go to:

• Telstra, who are going to sue the government over broadband rollout contracts. Should that fail, they plan to "tell Mum".
• Manchester United, who have signed a 9 year-old from Brisbane. While that might sound pretty silly, sillier is the fact that they sign about 40 players of that age every year. An honorable mention goes to the family of the kid, who are moving (back) to England in order to be closer to the club. Just to recap, the kid is 9 frikkin years old.
  

outrageous

This is just outrageous. Making the police accountable to the judiciary and to the law itself is an important element of a free democracy. If as the article suggests the government is claiming, there is a problem with the judiciary leaking information about operations, then surely that is criminal activity and needs to be dealt with as such. The checks and balances in the system have to be respected and maintained. The solution is not, however, to remove those checks and balances. We covered all this 60 years ago, for goodness' sake.