Behind the bamboo curtain We thought it happenstance The sweat at the minced imp dance A waste until it travelled freelance And met us at home - that’s for certain.
What is it? Truthfully, I cannot do cryptic crosswords. I admire those who can and that is why I have set this test. The clever readers among you will be able to solve this easily – if I have made the answer get-able.
The answer is a single word on everybody’s lips this year.
More cake for everyone says sustainabilityillustrated.com
Yesterday the Chairman of AMP David Murray stood down at the request of major shareholders. David Murray was the former Managing Director of the Commonwealth Bank. On his retirement from the bank he became a respected go to leader. His reputation was unimpeded so what went wrong?
In simple terms he failed to understand a company has to have a greater ambition than to make money for its shareholders. Shareholders make it clear they want their directors to make money for them. This is something he concentrated his efforts upon so what went wrong? David Murray lost sight of the fact that a business also has a social responsibility. It also has an environmental responsibility all of equal weight to profit.
It is a pity for David Murray he did not pay more attention to the work of John Ellington’ theory of the Triple bottom line: People, Planet and Profit. It has been taught for years in business schools. The shareholders should not have been surprised David Murray decided governance for profit was his aim as he was a known skeptic of Global Warming and Social responsibility.
This is not to play the man. I do not set out to demonise him. He is simply a man of his time. He is out of time. A director must keep up. A nation must keep up. Our nation is demonstrating an inability to keep up. It has announced plans of change to the funding of university courses. If a student chooses to study STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics ) the courses will be cheaper. If the student chooses to study the humanities, (philosophy, literature, history, politics, economics, sociology) the course will be more expensive. Worse, if the student fails to pass the first year of study they will lose federal funding.
Many successful people are able to point to failure in tertiary study being the catalyst for them to choose a more appropriate area of study. From their “failure” they became better – more dedicated students. It should surprise no one ones youth is not a good indicator of how a person might grow through life. Sometimes failure is the wake up call an individual needs to reassess their goals. Cutting funding creates an unwanted economic barrier. It is short sighted.
It is short sighted to direct students into STEM subjects because universities are not training establishments whose job it is to train work ready people. Their job is to educate people in the higher skills of learning, synthesis, critical thinking, and evaluation. These are all things I have written about previously however they do need to be reinforced because when it comes to evaluation of education and company performance the bottom line is multidimensional.
To return to a hobbyhorse of mine it is important companies look to their social responsibility. I have a total dislike of the lack of social responsibility big tech show.
Here are some examples.
If you want to know something, anything, the common thing to do today is to Google an answer. The smallest state in the world is something Google knows. The last match played between football teams – when these two teams last met the scores were identical – Google throws up the answers in a fraction of a second. We have come to learn Google will tell you the answer. The last time Google paid tax in your country is the only one that stumps it.
One thing it can tell you with ease is , Jeff Bezos’s wealth increased by $637 billion in the first six months of the Covid 19 pandemic. That is because he is the largest shareholder of Amazon. Amazon in the wink of an eye is the largest distributor of products in the world. It’s largest competitions Alibaba – ebay and Tencent are not minnows either. Because normal shopping is disturbed people are spending more time online and these businesses are now the preferred locations search for goods they want.
In their company we find Apple, Facebook. These companies may pay a modicum of tax but here in Australia we have a Who’s Who of companies each with turnover in excess of AU$1b that pay No Tax. A company of the size of these companies avoiding tax is not living up to its social responsibility. They argue they remain within the law in country out of country across the globe, in each they escape the taxman’s grasp. Many of these companies have greater wealth than sovereign nations. The same nations unable to tax them are powerless. The only thing that can stop them is shareholder pressure. It should not be feint hope shareholders revolt at their inaction to accept they operate with a social responsibility to their countrymen. The time has come for shareholders to redirect their boards to the principles of the triple bottom line. To pay tax where the money is earned. To think globally and reject profits earned from environment damage.
If it helps you identify culprits here is a partial list from which to start: Chevron, Exon Mobil, Energy Australia, Santos, Amcor, Peabody, spotless group, Ford, Nissan, Healthscope, Foxtel,
Oh the list runs on And on.
If David Murray upset some shareholders because the firm promoted a man proven to be a sexual abuser, where are the upright shareholders of the miscreant companies? If the shareholders are so addicted to dividends they refuse to look how their money is earned then it is time to double tax them if the company uses loopholes to avoid tax.
Billy Bunter was the child subject of a comic character of my childhood. Billy wore glasses. He was overweight. His character did not represent more than one child in our very large instructional class. Even if there was one child in our class which was overweight the child wearing glasses was in a different year level. Due to our limited vocabulary the overweight child was called “Fatty”. The one wearing glasses we named “Four Eyes.”
Nicknames were a popular way of labelling classmates. I was named after the cartoon bird “Woody Wood Pecker”, because it had a semblance to my surname and the my hair stuck out like a wood pecker’s crest because it was strong and unyielding. Variously the name was shortened to Woody or Pecker and I wore either of these names until I left school at 18. From that age the people calling me these names have just faded from my life.
Over the years it became improper to single people out and label them according to some attribute they showed the world. (At least politically incorrect language is now frowned upon in polite society.). In my experience children have always been cruel to one another at name calling.. They possibly are today, after all, left to self-management they possibly still resemble the characters in Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”. (I remember “Piggy” as an adorable little chap who was given a hard time by his fellow travellers).
Piggy, Fatty, Four Eyes, Bluey and Spud are common cruel names. Spoken with malice they were supposed to hurt. I am sure they did/do. The child with resilience able to struggle past the hurt may at some later stage in life be embraced by his peers for some innate skill he possesses – while those who have injured him, now admire a hidden talent . Then the slur of the nickname is worn with pride, however the damage done by the many to the few always hurts.
As a young man I was slight and athletic no one would – even in jest- call me Fatty. Over time I became sturdy, round and today my BMI label says I am obese. I have become Fatty.
This fatty grew old and invisible. It happened sometime in my sixties. I began to notice I could walk around in mixed company and no one noticed I was there. When I had settled into my septuagenarian years I entered a water aerobics class in Torquay. (Water aerobics is a gentle exercise older women take up in an aquatics pool in my neighbourhood). So as not to draw attention to myself I went to the class with my wife and hid away in a corner of the pool at the back of the class. Initially I was very self-conscious and concerned the class members possibly disliked a male in their midst. Fortunately many of the women had accepted another Bruce before I even started, so being male was nothing more than being a novelty. In time Lloyd would occasionally join our group and together we beat the water into submission. (I wish.)
Seven years later I report my classmates accept we all attend the class for fitness. The name Water Aerobics is not a misnomer. I puff, pant, and gasp for air because it is a very energetic aerobic workout. Being in a warm pool it is as easy as you like, but at the same time water is as hard as cement to move when the speed of your movements increase. It induces fitness. At the end of class I feel worn out yet exhilarated.
The only times we have missed these sessions are holiday periods and our recent lockdown. In those off periods I balloon. When I return to the pool and concentrate on my core my shape is more manageable. As a result I miss not going. To return and face the hard work of pulling myself back from obese to look overweight requires stamina. Consequently have learned not to look at the clock when I miss a week. The 45 minute sessions seem to go on for hours if I dare peep.
It is so hard to return to fitness I look for a pool whenever we are away. During the first year or so of these lessons we were on the road and we stopped in Moree. It was a novelty to hop into the Artesian Swimming Baths. The water is in six large pools. The temperature varies in each one – from 40 degrees down to air temperature. It is common to see lots of old Victorians up there in the water. The advice is not to linger in the hottest pool for more than 15 minutes, yet the hardened old travellers seem to be happy to sit motionless in the water like buffaloes for hours. When I jumped in I used some of the aerobic moves to strengthen my core – the wizened regulars were aghast someone dared move the water for 15 minutes. Mind – it was very challenging to go from that temperature to the water of a regular out door pool.
Our body shape seems more related to genes than it does to diet, (excluding the influence of hidden sugar). People of all races seem damned when a likeness for sugar ruins their regular diets. Friend Lyn says it depends on calories in verses energy output. She is right of course nevertheless my inclination is to go with my first statement. I only seem to fight obesity whenever my weight increases by a kilogram or so otherwise I lay down the gloves and that is my prejudice.
Overweight kids are so common in this decade being the class “Fatty” is no longer rare. I pine for those wishing to change their lot and recommend Water Aerobics for the day when they want to change their future. At least they will build up their core muscle strength.
Yesterday, Roger and I had a dress rehearsal for our first dry sail of Inshore Lady. Her companion, Micro Scoot, has been fishing already and proved she is a good tender vehicle. She too has a Spritsail as opposed to the Gaff Sail the plans call for.
The larger sail may make for better sailing but we figure the Spritsail will be a safer boat for our grandchildren to manage. Principally this is because it does not need a boom. (Many sailors will tell how they have been hit on the head by the boom as a yacht tacked starboard to port, or vice versa. Maybe they will not tell you – few admit a mistake of this kind.)
I have some minor finishing to do and our chilly winter water is uninviting so she will remain indoors for a while yet. However she is ready for a dip.
Roger made the sail from a small tarp as the designer John Bell suggests. This is a useful repurpose of the fabric.
In case my use of sail names is confusing the photo below is of a model we made beforehand. The sail is a gaff sail. It has a boom. The boom holds the sail firmly – just above the head of the sailor – and when the boat changes direction (tacks) the boom swings across the boat to catch the wind as it turns.
The old photos you find in a box in the attic might be rubbish. You will only know if you take a look. You know what I mean I hope. The fuzzy black and white ones, the faded colour ones, came from long ago. The machinery you see in them seems unbelievable, yet it was as new as fresh paint when the photographer took the picture. The same can be said about the people. The clothes they wore, and the hair styles are different to yours. So much so everything looks old.
In another place you might find a book with old photos stuck to the pages. That is how people kept in touch with their past before the digital age. (You might have to look up the meaning of the digital age – things seem to change so fast). At first it might seem hard to see anything you recognise in the scenes, for example, if there is a photograph of your house – take it outside and compare the scene with your surroundings today, it is likely as not much will appear the same..
The children you see in the photographs grew up. Luckily most of them lived long lives. You know that because the photo of that girl “Grace”, that boy “Albert” are the same people we can see in this thirtieth birthday snap, see Grace here, and the old fellow with the walking stick is Albert. We know that because his name is on the reverse. (The names in your photos will be different. The challenge is to find their names, it might be fun).
This could become a little history game. You could try and guess what work they did just by looking at your photos. That would become a sociology game. You can learn some science, or some geography just from photos. If you take this far enough you can learn about obsolescence and how Kodak, the name most people used to capture their photos, died in capitalism’s nirvana.
My writing is like that box of old photos. Some ideas are stuck together. In other essays the point of the story is lost. I am hoping you might find a glint of something before it is trashed.
She wrests rusty orb
Forgotten in lost concepts
Detected treasures
I am gathering some of my writing into a book to be released in 2021. I imagine the readers of my book are as yet unborn. Here is my proposed prologue. The reason for writing the prologue is to explain Cassandra’s prophecies are minute, like diamonds..
photo. Rattle Poetry Ekphrastic Challenge : Claire Ibarra Photography
