POETS UNITED - MONEY

“It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.” - George Lorimer 

The topic for this week’s Midweek Motif at Poets United is “money”. Here is my contribution: 

The Will 

And finally the will was read,
At the appointed time,
To all interested parties
As stipulated to the solicitor
By the testator. 

“I give all my tangible personal property
And all policies and proceeds of insurance covering such property,
To my son…”
How odd, that he only called me “son” after his death,
While when he lived he simply ignored my existence.

So I have my “father’s” money,
Making his other relatives sour,
Their eyes dripping poison, choosing for me a slow painful death
(Had their eyes been daggers
I would have succumbed to multiple wounds and an easy death).

The stranger who on his deathbed acknowledged me
As his son and legal heir, made me a millionaire.
And yet how poor I feel, when no tears came to my eyes
At his death;
When no sense of loss accompanied his passing…

He left me money, but no memories;
I have no photos in an album;
He taught me nothing, we never spoke;
I know nothing of him, I have no knowledge of his heart;
He spent no time with me, he took no interest in my life.

The money willed to me, is but an afterthought,
A neat sum to buy some ease for his troubled conscience;
Atonement for sins of omission,
A purchase of a ticket to heaven,
Where all good fathers go.

POETS UNITED - SHOES

“Just walk a mile in his moccasins
Before you abuse, criticize and accuse.
If just for one hour, you could find a way 
To see through his eyes, instead of your own muse.”

 – poem excerpt from “Judge Softly” by Mary T. Lathrap, 1895 

This week in Poets United the Midweek motif is “Shoes”. The origin of the English idiom “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” is given above. My poem below: 

Walk in His Shoes

It’s easy to dismiss the homeless man as lazy,
A good-for-nothing shirker of responsibility.
He is the foolish grasshopper who now freezes in Winter,
Because he sang all Summer long, isn’t he?
While we, industrious ants, were working hard…

He sits in a large carton, wrapped in an old, dirty blanket
While his breath condenses into tiny snowflakes.
He trembles and his eyes stare vacantly into the night,
While passers-by (few that they are) ignore him
Wrapped as they are in furs, woolen coats, warm boots.

He knows their thoughts and he’s given up hoping
For a few coins, that would buy him something hot to eat.
Way out beyond hope is the expectation of a kind word,
Someone who’s willing to stop and acknowledge him,
And his wretched existence as a fellow human.

The wind howls and the people rush to catch the train home,
Tonight is no night for laggards, there is no promenading.
The homeless man feels his teeth chattering as the sharp razor
Of the midwinter cold slices through him, freezing his heart
(Does he still have one? – He wonders).

A man and his son stop in front of him and the father drops some money
Into the empty tin the homeless one has forgotten beside his carton.
As the vagrant warmly smiles, the son frowns and admonishes his father:
“Our teacher said to not give money to bums; that sort of thing encourages them,
And they only spend it on booze, and the problem multiplies…”

The father looks at the son, surprised, and says calmly:
“Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes, Son...”
The son look askance at the homeless man, who shifts in his carton
Revealing his bare, dirty, bluish, freezing feet;
“Ha! Look he has no shoes; no doubt he spent the money on liquor.”

The father looks at his son’s warm boots and says:
“Take off your boots and give them to this barefoot man.
Then judge him when you’ve walked home on your naked feet,
Trudging that long mile through icy puddles, mud and dirty water…”

POETS UNITED - WEALTH

“There are people who have money and there are people who are rich.” Coco Chanel

The subject of Wealth is today’s topic at Poets United. The challenge is to write a poem about wealth, whatever wealth means to us. Here is mine:

As Time Passes

As time passes, I remember how:

We used to share a single bed

And laugh as we squeezed so close together

That our breaths would synchronise

And our hearts would beat in syntony,

As each heartbeat would fall into the other.

As time passes, I remember how:

Our hands would clasp each other

And through the sense of touch our souls

Would mingle through the skin;

And our chemistries would share reactions

In the test tubes of our sweaty palms.

As time passes, I remember how:

We would share a simple meal

And the food was made delicious

As we poured happiness on it –

Better than the richest sauce,

Our joy a condiment better than the rarest spice.

As time passes, I remember how:

Our lips would thirst for kisses ceaselessly

And our mingling breaths would communicate

Our innermost desires, our thoughts, our hopes…

Our eyes, though closed, would clearly

See into the depths of each other’s soul and share our boundless wealth.

Now, we share the broad expanse of a large gilt bed

And touching is rarely anything but accidental.

Now, our hands may hold each other every once in a while,

But our dry palms are places too arid for the excursions of our souls.

Now, every meal a rich repast: Caviar, truffles, champagne…

But we may as well be eating cardboard.

Now, our lips are locked closed, imprisoning our souls,

And our eyes wide open, barely acknowledging each other’s presence

When circumstances would have us pretend to kiss…

ART SUNDAY & MOVIE MONDAY - THE FORGER

“Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.” - James Fenton

Combining Art Sunday and Movie Monday this week as I have been extremely busy with work and family! The bane of the art lover is forgery. For a serious collector to be able to obtain an original art work from a favourite famous artist is the holy grail of his existence. Enter the forger, ready to make a dream come true by providing the desired art work… Often of course the forgery is masterful in its own way and the forger can be an accomplished artist with much talent (if not genius). The niggling concept of “originality” is raised along the way, but one has to consider how often great artists plagiarised others and even their own works. In any case the subject is fraught with difficulty and always along the way the matters of “money”, “investment” and “financial gain” rear their ugly heads. These of course have nothing to with love of art and some of the great collectors of art have been pure and simple investors with no genuine love of art per se.

For Movie Monday, an interesting 2014 film by Philip Martin, “The Forger”, starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan. The plot centres on the world’s best art forger (Travolta) who makes a deal with a crime syndicate to get an early release from prison, but in return he must pull off an impossible heist - he must forge a painting by Claude Monet, steal the original from a museum, and replace it with a replica so perfect that no one will notice. He takes on the task but has to ask the help of his father (Plummer) and son (Sheridan). The three generations of the family plan together the forgery and heist, but on the way their relationships are examined and each has to deal with some issues that have been causing some consternation for some time.

The film is not a typical action/thriller but has elements from these genres. However if one goes in to see it and expects high adrenaline action scenes will be disappointed. It is more of comedy/drama piece of relationships between male members of a family and the way they deal with their feelings and lack of communication along their way. The forgery and heist have a part to play in the story, but they also act as a catalyst for the very real issues faced by each of the main characters.

The acting is very good, with veteran Christopher Plummer adding class to extremely good line delivery. Travolta does a great job and seems to cope well with the different demands of a portmanteau role and Tye Sheridan delivers a brilliant performance as the troubled son. Cinematography, music and direction are excellent and the plot (apart from a couple of small holes) is engaging and balances well the two strands of the narrative action vs human interest. Some critics have said of the movie that it is a little slow-paced, but when we watched it we found that its 92 minutes runtime was just right for what it was trying to say.

Now in terms of what I would like hanging on my wall, a forgery or an original… Of course an original is better if for nothing else, sentimental reasons: Knowing that the creative hands of the artist had touched the canvas and applied the paint on it gives a frisson of pleasure and makes of the painting a little of a precious artifact. However, if I had in my possession a good forgery I would enjoy it almost as much and revel in the knowledge that another artist (albeit a forger) had devoted so much time to learn about the artist he was copying, study the way he prepared the canvas, sketched out the design, applied colour, wove the brushstrokes and swirled the palette knife so that even the experts were fooled. We live in an age of duplication (i.e. “art prints”, cheap factory made “originals” and dubious “modern art” that is produced to a formula), so a forged canvas of a great artist of the past seems to me to be a good way to enjoy truly great art. Which raises another thorny topic, what makes art “great”?

How do you feel about forgeries? I guess the main objection to a forgery is that is made in order to profit from it by defrauding the person who buys it in the belief that it is genuine. Financial considerations aside, is a good forgery an imitation? If a copy were made for the love of art and an artist, and not for ill-gotten profit, is it still art?

MOVIE MONDAY - BREAKING BAD

“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” - Immanuel Kant

We are currently watching the 2008-2013 TV series “Breaking Bad”, starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt and RJ Mitte. Vince Gilligan created the series and a number of talented writers and directors have worked on the five seasons of the highly acclaimed and very popular series. We didn't watch this while it was showing on TV, despite all the acclaim and instead are watching it now on DVD. We are watching the penultimate season at the moment and are still enjoying it very much.

In case you are unaware of the plotline, and the main premise of the show, here is a summary: When chemistry teacher Walter White (Cranston) is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given only two years to live, he decides he has nothing to lose and embarks on illicit activities to make money. He lives with Walter Jr (Mitte), his teenage son, who has cerebral palsy, and his wife, Skyler (Gunn) in New Mexico. Determined to ensure that his family will have a secure future, Walt embarks on a career of drugs and crime. He proves to be remarkably proficient in this new world as he begins manufacturing and selling methamphetamine with one of his former students, Jesse (Paul). The series tracks the impacts of a fatal diagnosis on a regular, hard working man, and explores how a fatal diagnosis affects his morality and transforms him into a drug trade kingpin. Complicating things is that Hank (Norris) is Walter’s brother-in-law who is married to Skyler’s sister Marie (Brandt), and who is working in the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The success of the series is that it involves characters the viewer can identify with and sympathise with, even though we know that they do is morally reprehensible. One cannot help but feel for Walter who finds himself in such an uncompromising position that he has to resort to illegal activities in order to make ends meet. We know that what Walter does is bad, and we know that Walter makes a conscious decision to leave the path of light and go into the darkness, yet we try and make excuses for him, hoping that he will see the error of his ways and find redemption… Walter’s decision to follow evil is ultimately his choice and we know that ultimately he will pay the price – and perhaps that is how the series maintains our interest. We watch with morbid fascination as Walter commits greater and greater crimes and wince as he quashes his conscience and feel some relief as he begins to suffer the consequences of his evil actions.

A strong theme running through the series is “family”. Nearly every character in the show displays an attachment to their family and it is this excessive devotion that motivates many of their actions (good or bad). Walter’s primary motive for his choices to manufacture drugs is to make money to leave his family when he dies. Even the Mexican drug lords uphold family ties as sacred and the obvious sacrifices that Skyler makes to assure her family’s safety support this view. As the show progresses, we find that family can act as a convenient peg on which to hang all sorts of crimes and at some point, Walter finally admits that while he started to do “bad things” for his family, he continues to do so after he succeeds in overcoming his enemies “because he can and because he has begun to enjoy it…”

Acting is quite amazing. Every single actor in the series plays superbly, and that goes for the supporting cast as well. The writing is great and the scenario makes for some thought provoking viewing and quite a lot of philosophising for the thinking viewer. Production values are excellent and I would recommend this show to all and sundry, even though it is quite gritty and violent and deals with extremely sensitive topics. Watch it, if you haven’t done so already!

POETS UNITED - MERCY

“Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save.” - John Gay

“Mercy” is this week’s theme challenge for participants of Poets United. We seem to be losing this quality of mercy as our civilisation progresses. Everything can be bought and sold, including people, consciences and allegiances. Mercenaries have always existed, but nowadays they form a readily available fighting force to be had by the highest bidder.
Here is my entry:

Death of a Soldier

Senseless
Killing of innocents without regard
Blind to unending pain:
Mercenary without a heart.

Killing of innocents without regard
Immune to pleas of mercy.
Mercenary without a heart -
His gun spits out death, victims’ bodies lie senseless.

Immune to pleas of mercy
Mercenary hardened to death
His gun spits out death, victims’ bodies lie senseless.
Lying there, still.

Mercenary hardened to death
Blind to unending pain
Lying there, still,
Senseless…

MOVIE MONDAY - NEVERMORE...

“The Sophists’ paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer.” - David Antin

I was looking through my archive of digital photos at the weekend and came across some of Pireás (Peiraieus for the classically minded) from several years ago when we had visited Greece. Pireás is the port of Athens, 12 kilometres southwest from the centre of Athens, and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf. It has a population of just under 200,000 people and is a lively, colourful, beautiful municipality. The photos brought back some fond memories and a sense of wanderlust and nostalgia. It has been some years since I have travelled to Greece and I am certainly missing visiting the country of my birth.

Most people would be familiar with Pireás from the 1960 Jules Dassin movie “Never on Sunday”, starring Melina Mercouri, Jules Dassin, Giorgos Foundas, Titos Vandis and Despo Diamantidou. This was a hit movie worldwide and established Melina Mercouri (1920–1994) as a screen legend, but also typecast her a little as an “independent woman of easy morals”…

Mercouri the now legendary Greek actress plays Illia, one of the good-time girls of the port of Pireás. Every day, Illia swims at the pier, entertaining the dockhands and attracting business. On Sundays she never works and has an open house with food, drink and song for all her friends. Homer Thrace (Dassin), an amateur philosopher from Middletown, Connecticut, arrives in Pireás to investigate why Greece has fallen from her ancient greatness. He meets Illia and immediately decides she is a symbol of that fall, so he sets out to study the reasons behind Illia’s decline and to elevate her to her ancient forebears’ greatness. If he can achieve this, he thinks, Greece can do the same and achieve another period of greatness. Unbeknownst to Illia, he gets the money for the books and all else he gives her from Mr. No Face (Alexis Solomos), the local vice boss who wants Illia retired because her independence gives other whores ideas. Whose spirit will prevail? Homer’s classical ideal or Illia’s earthy and hedonistic reality?

The film constitutes a variation of the Pygmalion plus “hooker with a heart of gold” story. The viewer is gently submerged into Greek culture of the 1960s, including dance, music, and language (through the use of subtitles). The signature song and the bouzouki theme of the movie became hits of the 1960s and brought the composer, Manos Hadjidakis, an Academy Award. It won the Academy Award for Best Song (Manos Hadjidakis for “Never on Sunday”). It was nominated for the Academy Awards for, respectively, Best Actress in a Leading Role (Melina Mercouri), Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, Best Director (Jules Dassin) and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay as Written Directly for the Screen (Dassin). Mercouri won the award for Best Actress at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival for her role in this movie.

Having seen this movie again recently, I was amazed at how much Greece has changed since 1960 when the movie was released. Even though I left Greece with my family in 1970, my memories of the place then are vivid and I can say that looking at the film I can recall much of what is depicted as what I left behind when we emigrated. Comparing that to what I saw the last we visited some years ago and what I see now on cable TV, it is definitely chalk and cheese. Some things have changed for the better, but unfortunately much more has changed for the worse. Financial woes notwithstanding, Greece has become less Greek and more foreign – “cosmopolitan” carries a positive meaning (and I would argue that Athens at the very least was very cosmopolitan in the 1970s when we left). I think Greece has become “foreign” in the sense of “globalised”, with every negative aspect of the word “globalisation” you can think of.

Watching the film made me nostalgic for the Greece of my childhood. A place where it was safe to walk the streets at all hours of the night, where neighbours knew one another and cared for each other, where one had many friends, where one could enjoy life while having little, where one’s worldly possessions may have been few, but were certainly of good quality and made locally by craftsmen who had learned their craft from their father or grandfather. Where food was fresh and tasted wonderful because it was brought to the market by the growers themselves, the very morning they had harvested it. A place where national pride was stronger than pressures of global capitalism, and the financial aspirations of the majority of the population were modest. A place where happiness was more widespread…

Much is made in the film of Illia’s sense of morality, which clashes with Homer’s ideal of morality and ethics. In that sense, I can recall my own family’s sense of pride, morality and “filótimo” (sense of honour and social justice). Some things then were never even considered, much less done, because of these cultural and ethical guidelines dictated by “filótimo”. And somehow it was a better, happier society because of that. I think that this Greek “filótimo” is one of the things that is dying a slow and painful death in Greece now, and the country is in a poorer state because of this – economic crisis or not…

TULIPOMANIA

“But the eyes are blind: One must look with the heart…” The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

In the language of flowers, a red tulip, Tulipa gesneriana, symbolises ardent love.  The tulip is an importation into the West from Turkey and Persia, the word tulip being derived from the Turkish word tulband, meaning “turban”.  Young men in Persia would present their love with red tulips, this signifying their heated countenance (red petals) and their heart burnt to a coal (the black base of the petals).  The tulip also stands for eloquence, oratory and fame.

Tulipomania also called Tulip Craze, (Dutch: Tulpenwoede), was a speculative frenzy in 17th-century Holland over the sale of tulip bulbs. The tulip was first introduced into Europe from Turkey shortly after 1550. The delicate, vividly-coloured flowers became a popular but very costly item. The demand for differently coloured varieties of tulips soon exceeded the supply, and prices for individual bulbs of rare types began to rise to unwarranted heights in northern Europe. By about 1610 a single bulb of a new variety was acceptable as dowry for a bride, and a flourishing brewery in France was exchanged for one bulb of the variety “Tulipe Brasserie”.

The craze reached its height in Holland during 1633–37. Before 1633 Holland’s tulip trade had been restricted to professional growers and experts, but the steadily rising prices tempted many ordinary middle-class and poor families to speculate in the tulip market. Homes, estates, and industries were mortgaged so that bulbs could be bought for resale at higher prices. Sales and resales were made many times over without the bulbs ever leaving the ground, and rare varieties of bulbs sold for the equivalent of hundreds of dollars each. The crash came early in 1637, when doubts arose as to whether prices would continue to increase. Almost overnight the price structure for tulips collapsed, sweeping away fortunes and leaving behind financial ruin for many ordinary Dutch families.

Does this sound familiar? Do you invest in stocks and shares? Does it remind you of what happened when the stock market crashed in 1929? The Great Depression? The market collapse of the late 1980s? How frail we humans are. Ready to succumb to our basest desires. Avarice and laziness are ever present in our psyche. We want something for nothing. Easy life and riches obtained without hard work. Why work hard when you can invest your capital (even better if you can borrow it!) so that it magically multiplies. Be it tulips of shares, who cares? As long as we can make a fortune. The billions of dollars spent on lottery tickets is another instance of this attitude…

This attitude of getting “something for nothing” is unfortunately becoming increasingly more common around the world. It is not a feature of Western nations only (the “cargo cult” of New Guinea springs to mind) but it is certainly widespread in countries like ours. The consumer society that we live in contributes to it to a certain extent and the advertising messages that we are inundated with are difficult to resist. Increasing desires for consumer goods and aspirations to a lifestyle suited to the “rich and famous” bring with them desire for ready cash. We have gone beyond what we need to have a “comfortable” life and now desire and greedily want a “luxurious” one.

I grow tulips in our garden and the only profit I get out of it is the beauty of the blooms, a more than ample reward of the hard work I invest in growing my plants. I am not a stock market investor, nor do I actively buy and sell shares. My salary was always earnt through my own labours – I need no parasitic riches. I have forgotten the last time I bought a lottery ticket (well, yes, I admit it I occasionally buy one, I am human too), but should I win, my family and friends would be the ones that would most profit, my winnings spread liberally to those around me.

MOVIE MONDAY - MAD DOGS

“The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.” - H.L. Mencken

Sometimes you watch something on TV or watch a movie and you’re puzzled: You don’t know if you liked it or not, don’t know whether it was worth the effort or not… It was precisely in this gray zone we ended up in after watching the first season of the 2011, UK TV miniseries “Mad Dogs” directed by Adrian Shergold and starring Max Beesley, John Simm, Marc Warren, Philip Glenister and Ben Chaplin. Superficially this seemed like a polished black comedy/thriller, but on reflection all that shines is not gold. Thinking about it, it is a sign of our times as it panders to the worse of human nature and covers the basest of behaviours and the worse of characters. Its plot centres on modern mores and deals with easy money, a “crime pays” mentality, and devalues decency and human life. If we take it seriously… Which we didn’t, hence we watched it all, rather than turn it off in disgust.

Cris Cole has written the screenplay and the plot is as follows: Four friends, Woody, Quinn, Baxter, and Rick arrive in Majorca, Spain, to visit their old mate Alvo, who ostensibly is now a retired, wealthy property tycoon enjoying the trappings of an ex-pat lifestyle in a luxury villa in a remote idyllic location. One by one Alvo asks his friends what they’ve done with their lives, whether they’re truly happy, and whether would they rather live like him. The hedonistic mood of the friends soon changes when they realise Alvo isn’t quite the man they thought he was. The luxury yacht Alvo takes them on turns out to be stolen; Alvo’s business is anything but squeaky clean and their friend has dragged them into something exceedingly dangerous. A murder committed in front of their eyes makes them realise that easy money and a jet set lifestyle is quite often supported by a life of crime…

The locations on Majorca are wonderful and it’s worth seeing the series to enjoy that. The acting is also very good and the production values high as one would expect from a BBC series. The success of the first season of four episodes generated another three seasons. It also generated a 2015 American clone of “Mad Dogs” where the four friends visit their old schoolmate in Belize rather than Majorca. Once again, one has to wonder what makes a TV series like this so widely popular…

We didn’t regret seeing this, but we won’t be watching any further seasons/episodes. The characters are rather unlikeable with hardly any redeeming features, their motives suspect and their actions stupid, motivated by base instincts, greed and guilt. The plot is thin and predictable, the situations the characters find themselves in ridiculous. Should you watch it? I don’t know… If it falls in your lap (like it did in mine), then have a gawk at it. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother searching high and low for it.

MOVIE MONDAY - THREE DOLLARS

“Money cannot buy peace of mind. It cannot heal ruptured relationships, or build meaning into a life that has none.” - Richard M. DeVos

For Movie Monday, today an Australian film made in my home city, Melbourne. The film is Robert Connolly’s “Three Dollars” (2005). It is based on Elliot Perlman’s novel of the same name, which I haven’t read, but which I was motivated by the film to read and hopefully will be doing so shortly. The film stars David Wenham, Frances O’ Connor, Sarah Wynter, Robert Menzies, David Roberts and Joanna Hunt-Prokhovnik. The film was recommended to me by a friend who described it as “really good and thought-provoking – an intelligent film about modern-day problems and choices we each make in our lives”.

The plot involves Eddie (David Wenham), who is a typical “good guy” in his thirties, living in a large City (Melbourne but could be any other large Western city). He is a public servant in a government environmental testing agency as a chemical engineer. His latest assignment is to investigate soil samples, in what looks to be a lovely country spot, so that a large residential development can go ahead. Eddie’s wife, Tanya, is an academic and they have a young child, the adorable (and scene-stealing!) Abby. They also have a mortgage, problems relating to long-term financial security, career development, relationship stability and generally coping with the small and large problems of the modern-day urban lifestyle. The main premise of the plot is how much pressure a modern-day “nice guy” (who wants to do the right thing by his conscience and his integrity) can take before he succumbs to the temptation of corruption. Will he, won’t he?

I found the film a little tedious. Overlong, with too many details that weakened the plot and many scenes that diluted the central theme and distracted the viewer. For the first 90 minutes of the film (and it is 118 minutes long) there is little that happens and the humdrum details of everyday life are stretched out to the point of making one yawn. There is some distracting flash-back/flash-forward nonsense that is meant to enhance the plot, but that also was a distractor rather than adding to the artistic merit of the film or serving to build up to the climax. It is becoming an annoying habit with novelists and film-makers to do this flashing back and forth in order to “build tension”, but the device so often falls flat on its face…

Much is made of the “three dollars” of the title, and the three coins turn up in various scenes, but I found this a lame ruse, and ultimately devoid of the huge significance given to it by the writer/director.  The tagline of the film is “It’s about change…” – an obvious pun and as far as puns go a weak one. Director Connolly says of the film; “it’s an epic story of an ordinary man”. Hardly epic, and Eddie is not too ordinary by modern urban standards…

Now for the good points. The acting was well done on most counts and as I mentioned earlier young Abby was played extremely well by Joanna Hunt-Prokhovnik. There is a cute scene, homage to Hitchcock’s “North By Northwest” and I liked seeing my hometown on the big screen. With a bit of re-editing and lots more film on the cutting room floor, this movie could be improved dramatically. If you have not seen the film I won’t spoil it for you, but for those who have seen it, don't you think that the beginning of the film really weakens its whole plot development?

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD

"High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Supersquash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us?" - Annita Manning

Agriculture and the way that we produce our food worldwide is a very relevant and timely topic that many people are discussing and of course is quite a controversial issue. A century ago in Australia, 30% of the national economy was represented by agriculture. Since the 1980s, it has fluctuated between 4% and 6%. At the same time there have been impressive increases in productivity. The smaller farms have disappeared or have been aggregated into larger ones, so that we now have fewer, but larger farms. China buys most of our exported agricultural products and this is a trend that will increase. Biofuels is a growing industry, and one that we shall expand as petrol becomes scarcer and more expensive.

Our reliance on science and technology for increases in productivity, and also of course, in improving the quality of our produce is indisputable. Science and technology will also be needed to better manage our water resources. Australia is the driest continent on earth and from early colonial history droughts have been the scourge of the farmer. In such a hostile farming environment, making the most of our water resources is an imperative that cannot be ignored.

Cloning of animals and genetic modification of crop plants is of concern to people worldwide. It is becoming apparent that in a world where increasing population pressures are forcing reliance on technology for increasing efficiency in food production, cloning and gene technology are inevitable. We may be looking at a future where the elite and rich of the earth eat “natural, wild-type” non-genetically modified foods, while the masses will subsist largely on genetically engineered foods that are produced more cheaply and efficiently and in much vaster quantities than the “natural, organic” types.

My personal view is that genetically modified (GM) food will become acceptable to the majority of people once they are convinced of its safety and wholesomeness, and of course, if it costs much less than the equivalent non-genetically modified food. The USA is currently the world’s greatest producer of GM food, with 68% of the world’s total GM crop production in 2000 being in the United States, followed by 23% in Argentina. The type of crops varied, but 82% of all GM crops in 2000 were soybeans or corn.

Very few of today’s genetically modified foods make it to the supermarket as whole plants or grains, but highly processed foods such as vegetable oils and breakfast cereals contain a small percentage of GM ingredients. These highly processed foods include GM materials because of inadvertent mixing of process streams. Also, soybean derivatives are extremely common food additive in the USA meaning that most consumers in America today have eaten GM food (See the article here).

Most people are horrified of GM food, but the WHO has assured consumers, that GM food is perfectly safe for consumption. On this page, you can see some common questions about GM food answered. When one considers that most of the modern-day non-GM foods that we consume bear little resemblance to the wild foods that they are derived from, as we have selectively bred into them desirable characteristics, it is an example of genetic modification that is low-tech.

Genetic modification is part of our agricultural reality and it will play an increasing role in food production this century. It is inevitable that we will be consuming more and more of this type of food in the future. As is the case with all technology, safeguards will need to be put in place such that the science involved is used responsibly and safely. All new scientific and technological discoveries can be used well or badly. It is our responsibility to ensure that the good uses greatly outnumber the bad. How we control it and police it is the all-important question…

USURY

“Integrity means a willingness not to violate one’s identity.” - Erich Fromm

I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of economics (macro- or micro-). Nor do I think I am an expert in any high-flown financial matters. My budgeting sometimes probably leaves something to be desired, but at least, I do manage my personal finances more or less successfully so that I am comfortable, do not owe money to anyone and I am also able to put a little something aside, planning ahead for a rainy day in the future. So, you may say that unlike many other people I am managing to cope with matters financial…

But coping, only just! The vagaries of our economic system, capitalistic greed, our confounded politics, the insanity and unfairness of our taxation system, the escalating charges, costs and fees associated with a “user-pays” mentality are managing to erode financial coping mechanisms for many people. “User-pays” indeed! It would make sense in a system where personal taxation was more reasonable, but if you tax the average citizen highly and then expect him to pay for everything he uses as well, then the system becomes grossly unfair and is bound to fester discontent. And there is a lot of discontent around at the moment…

Speaking of fees, charges and escalating costs, the banks in Australia have gone completely crazy! This of course is in strict imitation of similar institutions in countries of the Western persuasion around the world. The charging of usurious interest rates, credit card rip-offs, the creation of ever-new fees and charges, “user-pays” costs and countless other ways of making money out of their increasingly poorer clientele is now a fact of life. The defence for their shameless profiteering is that their “shareholders must be kept satisfied”. And satisfied they are, as the banks’ profits escalate annually into the billions… One thing the banks forget, however, is that their ordinary customers far outnumber their shareholders. They cannot forever rob the numerous poor Peters to keep on making the few rich Pauls richer. This sort of thing led to several bloody revolutions in the past – France and Russia spring immediately to mind!

The soaring profits also keep the banking staff on the upper echelons of these august institutions in the lap of luxury as well. The lifestyle of the directors is truly imperial and commensurate with the salaries, which are truly obscene. The golden handshakes they receive upon termination of employment are offensive to the extreme, the bonuses that are habitually handed out to their ilk are an affront to the increasing poverty which is becoming widespread in the general population. The fee you paid yesterday and the new charge dreamed up today is keeping these people replete with champagne and caviar tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

The solution? Reform! Reform on multiple levels. How to achieve this reform is a matter of contention and will require a great deal of effort and in many cases action that will be revolutionary. Revolution will need to be in the form of a radical change in the way that we interact with the state, large organisations, industries and companies – not revolution of the bloody kind. We are bled figuratively through our pockets, so our revolution must be a figurative one also. Resistance will need to be passive, and organised on a scale that makes a large dent in the profits of these companies. If the Peters fail to deliver the profit to the Pauls, then the Pauls will need to reconsider their stance, attitude and modus operandi.

Community banks and building societies are a way that the general populace can use to escape the mainstream banking sector. Avoidance of the use of credit cards (which now almost universally attract a user pays 1%-3% charge on top of the stated retail price) is another way. Opening accounts that are negotiated to be fee-free can be another mechanism and shopping around to get the best banking deal may also help.Unless the general population of bank customers reacts in a unified and universal way, witha a huge amount of publicity, isolated reactions by single users will not have an effect. Hence the difficulty of effecting change...

And now to the title of this blog post: Usury. An old fashioned word that one does not see written much nowadays. However, it is widespread in practice...
usury |ˈjuːʒ(ə)ri| noun [mass noun]
The action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest. the medieval prohibition on usury.
ORIGIN: Middle English: From Anglo-Norman French usurie, or from medieval Latin usuria, from Latin usura, from usus ‘a use’.

WHAT AILS US?

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost

I saw some young beggars on the City streets these last few days and the image has stayed with me, as I am trying to come to terms with what I can only describe as a great waste. The faces of the young beggars sitting on the sidewalk while the laughing crowd went by them oblivious to their misery is a haunting image and the big question mark of “why?” remains with me. A society such as ours is not one that should allow such an existence. We have a tax system that is designed to support people who are unemployed, down and out and dependent on the welfare of the state. If nothing else good can be said about our Government’s unemployment benefit payments is that they help to preserve some human dignity and allow the unemployed to survive until they find another job. Numerous welfare payment ensure that youth, homeless, single mothers, wards of the state and numerous other down-and-outers are supported and do have to rely on begging for their existence.

I have travelled widely and in some countries begging is way of life. Numerous people have begging as their full time job and this is forced upon them as the state cannot and will not support citizens who are living on the brink, so to speak. The horrific images of mutilated children begging, full well knowing that their own parents have maimed them in order for them to be able to beg, brings a sickening realisation that all is not well with the world as our politicians in this and other Western countries want us to believe.

But in Australia of the 21st century, to see so many beggars on the City streets I cannot comprehend. What ails our society so that able-bodied, intelligent, young people are reduced to this pitiful existence? What a terrible waste! How can we cure a cancer like this so that we can achieve all that we are capable of? Is it such a big thing to ask that we become aware of our potential as thinking, rational, logical people? Can this realisation of our potential cure the apathy with which we look at and not see these latent possibilities thrown away?

Why should so many children, for this is what they are, run away from home? Why so many homeless? Why so many people succumbing to drugs and alcohol, a life of misery and crime? Why so much violence and so much selfishness that destroys their respect for their fellow human beings? Why so much pursuit of animal pleasures and satisfaction of the base instincts, without any thought of things of a higher sphere? I see it constantly in my students. So many of them come to few classes, and even to those unwillingly. They ask what will be in the examination so they can “study” for it. Knowledge for its own sake has become an onerous burden. Even if one tries to teach them what is vitally important, they may turn up their nose at it and say it is too much, it is irrelevant or it is too hard.

What rots the mind of our children and eats into their brains converting them into empty pretty shells that luxuriate only in the gratification of their pretty flesh? Why so much emphasis on the body beautiful, the image, the casing, such that we are now making everyone a nicely wrapped package that contains nothing of value? So much superficiality and emptiness… Is it all about money? Is that what we have made our lives equate to?

Civil unrest in Southeast Asia. Nuclear concerns in Iran. More bombings and rebel warfare in Iraq. A gathering storm in African countries. Whenever we turn on the radio or the TV, log onto the internet a new crisis or tragedy is reported. Is it so surprising that people here seem to have become inured to it all? Reports of thousands of deaths are listened to dispassionately, and so long as they are a safe distance away from us, they do not matter.

Meanwhile, the world keeps turning for us, the music stations keep broadcasting our favourite songs, the “reality” TV shows embroil us in their vicarious existence: Petty arguments, thinly veiled pornography and trivial outbursts of the manufactured authenticity of their situations acted out by the plastic people that are selected to be made into the mirrors of our society. We go out and entertain ourselves – to the theatre, the restaurants, the football games, the discos and the bars. As long as there is enough money to get us by… And some more money to buy our designer clothes… Some more for our latest technological gadgetry, and some more for the next installment of our new model car? How beautiful our little insulated existence! Can a civilisation such as this survive?