Ahmed al Ahmed, the Hero of Bondi

 

Today's post is about heroes. In particular, one hero. I'm sure everyone who's not actually dead will recognise Ahmed al Ahmed, who pounced on an active shooter and disarmed him at Bondi the other day. Many people are alive now who would not have been, had it not been for his heroic and selfless act, and he is now in hospital, undergoing apparently a number of surgeries after being shot half a dozen times in the course of his noble and courageous deed.

Mr Al Ahmed is an ordinary enough man. A first generation immigrant from Syria, he is a small businessman (he's been described by various news ouutlets as both a fruiterer and a tobacconist, and I do not know which is correct, but really it hardly matters.) He is middle-aged, fat, and balding. In short, a typical Australian. You would pass him in the street without a second glance. And yet. When the chips were down, this ever-so-ordinary man reached into himself and found a well of courage and unselfishness that might well be the envy of princes.

This is my point today. Enough has been said about how shocking and dreadful the massacre was, how nasty antisemitism is, how Mr Netanyahu should STFU, and how ASIO were their usual incompetent selves. We know all these things. But what I want to talk about is the role model.

We are always presenting role models to our children. If we don't explicitly do it, the television does it for us. I'm not sure who it is the media are pushing this week, but no doubt it is some pop singer or other. It is rarely anyone with real substance. And yet, here we see the perfect role model for any child. Because Mr Al Ahmed wasn't special. He isn't especially handsome, or buff, or rich. Just an ordinary man with an ordinary life, a shopkeeper. And yet he has shown himself to be cut from the very finest cloth. Because of his actions.

I'm not saying everyone should start shoving Mr Al Ahmed down the throats of their young. That's not the way, shoving things down people's throats. All it ever does is to give the victim a distaste for the thing being shoved. I think, myself, that's the main reason our churches are so empty today. What I am saying is that we should all take a good hard look at what we ourselves admire and praise. Because that is likely to be what will influence our children. Kids don't listen much to what we tell them. But they are like sponges with what they see us actually doing.

Epstein, Motherhood, Rape Culture and the shit we need to fix.

Paedophilia is the topic of the day in America, with every celebritty with even the remotest claim to respectability frantically virtue signalling about how shocked and disgusted they are. And that's all very natural, of course. Epstein and his pervert mystery island are disgusting, worse than disgusting, they were evil, and our sympathy goes out to the many victims of this horrible business.

But before you get too well away with the pearl-clutching, I'd like to ask you if you have ever done any of the following:

• Picked up a child without warning, because you were ready to leave
• Showered kisses on a child who was squirming to get away
• Patted a little girl on the bottom 
• blown raspberries on a child's skin while he begged you not to do it
• tickled a child while she begged you to stop
• Coerced a child to sit on someone's lap when she didn't want to
• Tricked out a little girl with makeup and tiny high heeled shoes

It starts in infancy, you see. The grooming. By the time we are three, we have learned that our bodies are not our own. That we aren't allowed to say no, or if we are, that it will be disregarded. Often, we also learn that we will be punished if we don't pretend to like it. And this is not what happens on some arch-pervert's island of horrors. No, it's what happens in nice, normal families.

Alongside this, girls also learn that it's not cool to make a fuss, that we should be 'nice' at all times, that we mustn't be rude no matter what. And of course, there's a lot in that. Children in the raw state are like wild beasts, and have to be taught civilised behaviour. But I think myself that there starts to be a problem when we differentiate what we are teaching them on gender lines. 

There's no logical reason that it has to be so. Little girls and little boys are virtually identical until they're taught to be different. And yet, by the time they start kindergarten, many of them have already been selected into gender-based cultural subsets. Yes, even today. There is of course the infamous 'pink aisle' in chain stores. But it's not just that. How many little girls under, say, 7, have you seen lately, out and about wearing big frilly tutu affairs over their clothes? Probably about half of them, right? Now, how many little boys have you seen wearing one of those things? 

Even if we don't treat tiny boys differently from tiny girls, though, there is still a massive indifference in our society to the notion of consent, as applied to children. And yet, it is here, in early childhood, that the personality is formed, and the basic understanding of 'how life works' first starts to be acquired. And we need to be facilitating the development of healthy boundaries, not crippling it.

So here's my challenge for today. Yes, there's a challenge. The next time you feel a great rush of affection for some small child, and feel prompted to snatch it up and shower it with kisses or whatever, give that child a gift instead. Teach him or her THIS SONG. It's short and simple enough for even a very young child to learn by heart, and little kids love to chant this sort of thing endlessly. This one time, let them be using that very annoying habit in the service of good.

    

The Lies we Tell Ourselves (and each other)

Today I want to talk about things we commonly say that are untrue. Well, not strictly speaking untrue as such, but so mindlessly tautological that they qualify as bullshit all the same.

Now, I'm not talling about actual lies. The things I'm going to discuss here are things that are often said even by people who are Models of Rectitude and would never, ever even tell you your bum didn't look big in that. Most of these are  true, but just plain stupid, but the moast egregious is necessarily false.

Let's start with the former category. 

True, but Utterly Pointless

It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn.

Well yes, of course it is. It is hardly going to be darker AFTER the dawn, is it? That's the nature of dawn, it GETS LIGHT. You plonker. This saying, intended to be comforting, is just about the most mindless thing in the English language. 

There is No Smoke Without Fire.

True enough; that's what smoke is, after all: the output of fire. However, this saying, true on its face, is mostly used to justify the spreading of unsubstantiated gossip, and these days, to try accused persons in the media, thereby removing or severely damaging their ability to receive a fair trial, a thing considered in civilisd societies to be a basic human right. It's a saying that anyone with a conscience really ought to banish from his lexicon. 

Nothing Succeeds Like Success.

This saying (American, of course) is so meaningless as to be offensive. Success is, in fact, succeeding. It is like saying that water is wet. 

It Is What It Is.

This one is the ultimate tautology. I shouldn't knock it as I can myself be caught saying it whenever I want to virtue signal my extreme, and fictional, stoicism. Nevertheless, it is mindless and very bad.

Necessarily Untrue

It'll Brush Off When It's Dry.

This saying always causes me to howl with outrage, although because of the intention behind it, it's usually a silent, internal howl. Nothing ever really does. The idea is that something wet, or semi-wet, has defiled something, if you wait until whatever it is dries, you can just brush it off with no harm done. This is nearly always untrue, because of the nature of wetness. Wetness causes things to soak in. It is , of course, possible that a wet substance such as mud, or vomitus, or the blood of your enemies, has landed on some impermeable substance, such as leather, or plastic. Then it would indeed brush off harmlessly when dry. But in such a case, you can just bloody well wipe it off while it's still wet, can't you? If the offending matter is wet, and has landed on anything porous, or woven, or whatever, it is going to soak in, a feature of the physical propreties of water. It has to do, I believe, with molecular bonds or something. Not a physicist, but you can probably get any high school science teacher to explain it. And once it has soaked in, it isn't going to just come off with brushing, because it is in there, in the pores, between the weave, whatever.

I was going to have a lot more of these, but I can't keep on. I have to watch my blood pressure these days, or apparently my brain will squirt out of my ears or something.

Following up to my Death Cleaning post - I've started. Nothing spectacular yet, but at least one item has gone out every day, either to the rubbish or to the Blessing Box.

Finally, a word about my colleague's new book:

"Do not look at Borrogg with the Fiery Eye!" 

Too late; they looked. The resulting quest begins here.

Get TOND, BOOK ONE: THE SONS OF TLAEN RAS-ERKÉLTIS by Steven E. Scribner today! 

https://www.amazon.com/Tond-Book-One-Tlaen-Ras-Erk%C3%A9ltis/dp/1520157576

Death Cleaning

Emptying one drawer gives us a small, manageable amount.

Swedish Death Cleaning has been in the social media a lot lately. Despite its gruesome name, it is a positive concept. Any adult in my generation has probably faced the depressing task of cleaning out a house where the resident kept everything for decades. It's horrible and sometimes even tragic. In the cases where the person clearly couldn't cope and had just given up, it's heartbreaking. I faced this myself and I'll never forget the air of darkness in that house. The sorrow clung to every surface, it was in the very air one breathed, along with the black mould. 

It terrifies me to think that I could die and inflict this on my son. I discovered Flylady myself while he was still a boy, so he's grown up with the concept of fighting clutter, and he lives in a really rational way. It would be just awful to think I'd stick him with what I had to go through. So I've been toying with the Big Declutter for many years. Flylady, Marie Kondo, Swedish Death Cleaning and so many others. I've read the books, I've tried the methods, and although I've achieved quite a lot, I still have far too much STUFF and I still feel burdened by it. Not in a life-ruined, sad-every-day kind of way, but I recently spent ten days on holiday in Brisbane, and I had a little apartment there, and the clean, spare, whiteness of it was just balm to my soul. I spent quite a lot of time in that apartment, as walking was very painful due to an injury from which I was recovering, and every moment was joyful. The emptiness of it. Not once did I miss anything except my dog and my husband.

Be that as it may, the full-on, blitzkreig approach, where you eliminate everything not absolutely essential one category at a time, as in the Kondo method, isn't for me. It's just too full-on. I resent it, if that makes sense. Of all the methods I've read about, the Flylady one comes closest to the ideal. Even there, though, I fail to adopt her system whole-heartedly. All those routines and checklists always end up pissing me off and I get overwhelmed, and it's almost a kind of mental clutter, and if there's one thing this little black duck can't cope with, it's being overwhelmed and feeling out of control. So I didn't succeed with Flylady either.

Nevertheless, Flylady's basic principles do work for me. Hey, it got me through Law School! I was failing Criminal Law when Robert Cilley gave me the study technique, and that got me through the whole degree with credits and distinctions. I even made the Dean's List once! So the principles are really good, but the way they are implemented in the standard Flylady method, although it's a great method, just isn't for me.

The central concept is for me though, and that is the notion that decluttering is a lifestyle choice rather than a one-off activity. So I have the idea that I'll go back to my old ways with the housework, but build the decluttering into everything I do. It will be easy enough to tell if it's working or not, because if and only if it is working, boxes of stuff will be going out to the Op Shop. Or big items being given to people in the community or whatever. Actually I love doing that; I've given away many super things directly to the recipients I've found in our local community's facebook group, and it always makes me feel so RICH. I even ticked a bucket list item doing this, giving an old caravan to a homeless family. They are still living in it and I get such a warm feeling every time I think of that.

So, my idea is that as I go about my regular housework, I'll be always looking for things that can go out. Watch this space for how well it works!

Fun for Everyone - a Survey of the Best Short Videos

My last post was much too downbeat so I thought today I'd concentrate on sharing a little joy. So these are my favourite short video producers. I've not attempted to sort them into any particular order, but they are all well worth trying. 

Purrallel Universe

I have to admit, this one is my number one top favourite. They're AI videos of kittens, but they are made with such loving attention to detail, and the fictional world they show us, although it closely mirrors our own world, is so bright and clean and utterly wholesome. I find such emotional comfort in them, and they're one of my mood resources when I'm feeling down. This is the only channel that has the power to make me drop whatever I'm doing when I get a notification that a new one has dropped.

Lyanna Kea

This series is a bit racist, and I'm not entirely comfortble with that, but it's really only her use of the word 'Asian' that gives me a problem, and I realise not everyone shares my view that 'Asian' is a racist word and a racist concept. Some people are just wrong, okay? But that said, the videos are entirely harmless, and utterly hilarious. I always admire a person who can play all the roles in a multi-character skit, and Kea's work never fails to give me a great big laugh.

Jonny Devaney

This talented Canadian chap makes videos about dogs. Most of them are hugely funny dialogues between God, Gabriel and occasionally Satan, during the creation of various dog breeds. For anyone in the dog world, they're practically required viewing.

Silvia

This woman is absolutely hilarious. Her videos have a dark edge, but it's never seriously dark, just in bad taste, kind of thing. Her pastiches of Harry Potter are a real treat, as are the various hypothetical scenarios she portrays. 

The Juice Media

Honest Government Ads - searing political commentary delivered as satire, but so near the bone that it's basically bare facts without the dressing of polite language. A must watch for anyone who cares about our country.

Oisin Mulligan

This Irish man is a fat loss and fitness coach, but he does it all with kindness and a complete absence of bullshit. His wholehearted authenticity and delightfully pungent language quickly made him a favourite with me. His weight loss method really works, too.

Chris Kohler

This guy is some kind of financial whiz in real life, but the videos are beautifully sharp little scenarios that explain fundamental truths about our economy in a completely painless way. And lest you think the subject matter is dry and fit only for nerds, I can tell you his videos are among the funniest of all the ones I watch. I never fail to laugh out loud.

That Good News Girl

Not really a girl, this woman presents a daily short video, always with some beautifuly heartwarming content. New ones go up every day,  mostly about animals. If you are struggling with Weltschmerz, this is the place to go.

The Spicy Nonna

If it is possible to love a person one has never actually met, then I love this elderly Italian man (Nonno) and his feisty wife (Nonna). 

The subject matter is usually fixing something that's broken or cooking something, but it's just so full of down-home Italian goodness that it makes me feel homesick. 

Cat Face

The best web cartoon I have ever seen. Cat Face is... well, I don't think I can even describe him. You have to watch it to understand. Why it has not become a huge cult I cannot understand.

Rami Nader

This Canadian man is a clinical psychologist practising in Canada. There are various series of videos; I watched the series dealing with depression and it would hardly be too great an exaggeration to say they saved my life. The other big series is about anxiety disorders. A wonderful resource for anyone who's struggling.

Aketch Joy Winnie

These videos are about life in a traditional village in Uganda. They're absolutely fascinating and presented with such flair and gentle humour.

So there you have it - my hotlist. Doom scrolling unnecessary - you can use the links to go straight to the one you want.

OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE, PART II

 I'm in a sour, snarky mood today, for reasons that have nothing to do with this blog, but I feel like ranting so that's what I am going to do. 

And what better to rant about than the floodtide of offensive language sweeping our society? Well yes, of course there are better things. Genocide. Fascism. The Gap. All terrible things, and I just don't feel equal to going there. 

So I'm going with the language, and following on from my post of 7 May, here are some more of the vilest excrescences infesting our speech these days.

Go potty

One hears this all the time from American women. At least, I hope it is only Americans. I pray that it is, although I have rather a sinking feeling given how the bogans love to ape the Americans. I have no words for how much I loathe this vile baby-talk, which is now being applied even to dogs.

Shit. A perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word. Use it.

 

Doggy

And speaking of dogs, when did we start calling everything relating to them 'doggy'? Not reasonably, as one might say 'his car has a doggy odour', but as a descriptor - 'doggy daycare', for example. And it is creeping outwards. One day in a cafe a woman referred to my dog as a 'doggy'. It was all I could do not to disgorge my latte, and the expression on poor Emily's face cannot be described. 

Have some respect!

Lay down

Please, please, people, stop doing this. I feel like shooting myself just looking at it. There is absolutely no reason ever to say this, unless you are Melanie Safka recording a hit single. 

Crispy

This one has been around for a long, long time, but still manages to set my teeth on edge. 'Crisp' is already an adjective. Enough said. 

Well that's all we have time for today, and honestly it's all my sanity can stand, and I hope my next post will be about something more inspiring than the mouthings of the semi-literate.

DIVERSITY AND WHY IT MATTERS SO MUCH

On Facebook today, I saw a post describing how one high school in Canada holds a dance every year where the students invite old people from low-income housing to be their partners for the evening. It's a dinner dance, and the food is also catered by the students who take cooking as a subject. You can read all about it HERE

I was more impressed by this than I can say, and not just for the obvious reason. Yes, of course it is lovely to give poor old people a fun night out, it's kind, it's generous and all-around a marvellous good deed. But I'd like to talk about the benefits to the children themselves. The ones attending the dance with their ancient partners. Because whenever we perform an act of kindness, there is nearly always a reciprocal benefit.

The first thing that occurred to me was that many of them will probably get taught some of the older, more formal couple dance styles. That's a great thing; dancing used to be considered a necessary social skill, but nowadays, well I wish I had $10 for every young man I've seen sitting at his table all night at the dance parties I go to, just because he doesn't know how to do any of the dances and lacks the confidence to ask for help. And the corollary, the young women lacking partners because let's face it, there are never enough men at these things, and I'm sure it has been like that for hundreds of years. 

But then I thought, some of those kids will probably form an ongoing friendship with their partners. That's more of a benefit than it might seem at first. Why is it so, you ask. And I will tell you.

In all of the most toxic situations I've experienced in my long and occasionally useful life, the worst ones always seem to involve a relatively homogenous population. Consider the average nursing home - the entire population is usually very old, and they're not the place you'd want to be in, are they? I'd rather die, myself. Another one that springs to mind is typing pools. Where everyone is young, female and from the same socioeconomic background, toxicity flourishes like weeds in rich soil. The same thing happens in groups of soldiers and sailors. We've all read about the atrocities soldiers have committed. And I'm not going to point the finger at any country, because my own country has far from a clean record in this respect. With my own ears I have heard Australian soldiers happily boasting about murdering civilians, under the approving eye of their sergeant. And that is a culture that developed in our military back in the Vietnam days, where soldiers on active service were all male, almost all of Anglo-Celtic heritage, and nearly all of a similar age (because conscription harvested our boys at a particular age.) 

What's the probability of seeinig some toxic behaviour in a group like this? 99%? 100%?

On a less dreadful note, consider the average Protestant Christian church. You can look out over the pews and see what has been poetically described as 'a sea of silver'. I'm not saying that those churches are toxic; many are wonderful places. But those congregations that include some younger people, some children, some people from other lands, and so on, always have a more living, vibrant feel to them.

In anciant times, and we can still see this today in people who live a more traditional lifestyle, humans were mixed together in villages, in tribes, in extended family groupings. This charming video gives is a hint of the interconnectedness of neighbours in a Ugandan traditional village. This one makes the point even more strongly. In our own European culture, until the twentieth century got under way, with its so-called 'nuclear families', we saw much more of this interconnectedness, and we see the benefits of it even today in how successfully immigrant families establish themselves. Peoples such as our Italians, our Greeks and our Vietnamese help out their compatriots and relations, and they do better, I think, than we would do if we emigrated to their countries in similar circumstances. They have come from countries less tainted by American notions, and so their sense of family is a broader, deeper thing than it typically is to those of us with a more Anglo-Celtic heritage. You give your cousin a job, his children run errands for your sister, Nonna looks after the little ones and lives in her daughter's house. Hardly anyone gets forced into a 'home'. Everyone is useful, everyone is valued, and the interpersonal connections are as strong as steel cable. And that interconnectedness supports the diversity that sees their social gatherings populated by everyone fronm 96-year-old Nonna to the new baby, and these peoples flourish in new lands, quickly building up the cash reserves that enable the starting of businesses and general prosperity, because each new couple can fall back on the assistance of the wider family, both financial and social.

Italian immigrants quickly established themselves, and civilised us into the bargain.

My own belief is that these effects of diversity are far deeper and more wide-ranging than the current view of DEI, which tends to be seen merely as a push-back against bigotry. In reality, it is the foundation of finding our way to a better, kinder, more truly human society.