Please note The Green Man is usually accurate however he does tend to drift into the mischievous areas of satire and parody from time to time. Such is the nature of the Green Man. In fact he is not above complete fiction when the fancy takes him.
If you are motoring along a highway in the near future you may find yourself confronted by a rather unusual sight. Lane markers moving themselves, as if by magic, into place to close off or open up a lane. These robot lane markers have been developed by Shane Farritor, a roboticist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
They consist of a "shepherd" lane marker who contains a GPS and communicates with a laptop. The laptop provides the GPS coordinates of the location of the first marker. The shepherd lane marker then takes responsibility for placing his sheep along the road. The sheep use much simpler and cheaper technology, making the whole system much more affordable.
The principle benefits of the system are a more rapid deployment and collection of road markers because the normal issues of the safety of the workers placing the road markers has been removed. The controller can simply indicate via the laptop where the road markers are to be placed and leave the shepherd road marker to complete the task.
Read more in New Scientist.
So, The Age reports that a Canadian study found that on measures of quality of life Australian Aboriginals were the second worst in the world, only China fared worse. That sets The Green Man a thinking. If only China was worse that means that those poor beleaguered individuals in Iraq actually have a better quality of life, and probably did have under Saddam, than our own indigenous community.
Now that the WMD have not turned up, the focus of the justification for the invasion has changed to the liberation of those poor oppressed peoples. Imagine that, it seems that a section of our own community is more even oppressed. How embarrassing. No doubt John Howard will be flying into Alice Springs or some other centre of Aboriginal poverty for a photo opportunity, just like his recent trip to Iraq for ANZAC day.
And speaking of his recent trip to Iraq, it just shows how little The Green Man knows of the complexities of national security. It seems that it was OK for Channel 9 to invited along on the PMs secret trip to Iraq because he could be guaranteed good coverage. The ABC, on the other hand, which is our publicly funded national broadcaster did not even get told about it. And, by way of a further demonstration of the complexities of the security involved, it seems that photos of the PM in his flak jacket did not endanger his security. Photos of him in a helmet that did not fit him properly and made him look like a bit of a dork on the other hand were banned on the grounds they breached security.
To drift into the serious for a moment, it is extremely disappointing that our esteemed Prime Minister could not see past his potential personal tragedy of not being re-elected at the next election to the greater tragedy of all those poor boys, 8,400 to be precise, who were suckered into volunteering and then sacrificed shores of Gallipoli on the whim of some pampered English private school graduate who regarded the soldiers from the colonies as less important or valuable than his English mates. ANZAC day is a day to mourn and should be above such petty grabs for photo opportunities.
Dave Haxton, a regular visitor to The Green Man blog, lives at Hammerstead Farm, lost somewhere in the American bush (that's rural countryside to the non-Australians out there). It looks like a peaceful, idyllic lifestyle generally speaking but it is about to get a shake up. It is likely to be the site of a frenzied few weeks of feasting, sex, and general partying till you drop, literally. Although, to be fair, Dave's farm has not been singled out. It will be happening across most of America as billions of cicadas emerge in mid-May this year.
Michael Schauff of the Agricultural Research Service's Systematic Entomology Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland says that this years emergence of "17-year" cicadas will be the largest emergence of the species ever. They are called 17 year cicadas because they emerge from the ground once every (now how many years was it again) Oh that's right 17.
Although generally regarded as harmless they are guaranteed to make a lot of noise, clog up radiators of cars and make an all round pest of themselves as they pursue their glutonous and lust filled endeavours.
Michael reliably informs us that those of you who are not too particular about your sources of protein may like to experiment with consuming them. Whilst being high in protein they don't have a very "meaty" taste. Michael thinks
"They are quite soft and take on the flavour of whatever you cook them in. They are not quite like a piece of meat, more like a small white potato that's been cooked"
Apparently it is best to get them when they have just hatched before their exoskeleton becomes too hard. They may even be appropriate for some vegetarians who, like the rest of us, consume insects and insect parts everyday, al beit, inadvertently. It just depends on how far down the animal kingdom their vegetarianism extends.
Read more in New Scientist.
It is an interesting experience running a blog. As regular readers know, The Green Man posts on a quite diverse range of topics and it is impossible to know which is going to be a popular post and which not. Some of the more peripheral posts have been long term favourites on The Green Man. One post in question is the inadvertant killing of the worlds tallest hardwood tree in Tasmania.
This has some sort of synergy really given that The Green Man is an ancient forest spirit but it was completely unintentional. Anyway, in the spirit of the earlier post, Nature has an interesting article on the theoretical limit to which a tree can grow, it is 130 metres apparently.
As pointed out in the comments section of the earlier post the tallest trees are California redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), and the research has shown that they have about maxed out, height wise, because of the difficulty of getting water up that high to feed their leaves. The tug of gravity and the friction between the water and the vessels through which it flows mean that fluid cannot be dragged any higher than 122-130 metres.
The Green Man knows a lot about America. After all he gets to look at it every night on the television, Australia having largely foregone its TV industry in favour of purchasing mostly American and some UK television programs, not to mention the sheep dog trials from NZ TV1. (That was a joke, we don't actually get the NZ sheep dog trials however I understand they are still popular in the land of the wrong white crowd as the Moaris have start to refer to their land.)
Anyway, based on the TV, The Green Man knows that America consists essentially of LA and New York so it came as a big surprise that 20% of Americans live in a rural setting. That is 56 million Americans which is an aweful lot. Cornell University has decided this is a significant group of people and have released a new book, "Challenges for Rural America in the 21st Century", which examines rural people and communities and the disadvantages they suffer in quality-of-life measures.
This is a diverse book looking at the rural American life experience from a number of perspectives, you can read more about it here.
Staying with ethical issues for the moment, we will journey into the realm of IVF. (That’s Invitro Fertilisation to you)
Baby making is usually a fun, and often impromptu, activity. It is not so for those couples who are desirous of offspring but are having trouble conceiving. For them it is a scientific process and, as usual, nature has dealt the man the best card. Let's face it getting sperm outside the male body is what it is all about for men and men derive great pleasure from said activity. For women however, eggs are meant to stay safely tucked away inside and getting them out is an intrusive and uncomfortable experience.
It is only natural then that women particularly want the whole IVF process engaged in as few times as possible and multiple births are often seen as a desirable way of achieving this objective.
Ted Chapler Professor of Reproductive Endocrinology in the UI Carver College of Medicine, and Director, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility at UI Hospitals and Clinics thinks that, when forming the desire for achieving multiple birth pregnancies, many couples do not understand the increased risks both to the mother and to the babies in multiple birth pregnancies. Twins, triplets etc have more risks of infant death and long-term disabilities such as cerebral palsy than births of single babies do. A study by Ted found that less that 50% of parents were aware of the increased risk of cerebral palsy and less that 30% were aware of increased risk of infant death.
On to money for a moment. He found that
lower family income played a role in increased desire for twins, which may indicate that some couples feared they might not be able to afford further treatment and wanted to build their families quickly with multiples
Ironically, the health care costs associated with child of multiple birth pregnancies is approximately 100 - 200 times that of a child from a single birth.
The nature of IVF is, as the name implies, that embryos are created outside the body, that is what "invitro" means. Doctors have a choice on how many of these embryos to implant at any one time in the mother. Cognisant of the risks involved many doctors are now choosing to fewer embryos, thus reducing the incidence of multiple births. This desirable practice must be accompanied by better education for couples entering IVF on the risks that are present in all aspects of the process.
We have an excellent understanding of the value of a sheep kidney, at least for the purposes of devilled kidneys for breakfast. A delicious spicy dish that is so tasty it has to be bad for you. We do not, however have a value of a human kidney for the purposes of putting inside someone who does happen to have a working one at the moment.
"Trading in human organs is not a butcher shop type activity, or at least it shouldn't be" I hear you say, well some of you anyway, and The Green Man agrees, however it does not mean that a human kidney does not have a value. Today, sadly, everything must have a monetary value to be important and you will be interested to know that the value of a human kidney is US$90,000. This is according to Mark Schnitzler, an assistant professor of health administration at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Not being one to get too bogged down in this ethics stuff he set up an mathematical model to work out the value of a kidney taking into consideration the saving in costs of medical treatment for the recipient and their increased quality of life. They concluded,
For the recipient of a living, unrelated donor kidney transplant, the estimated medical expense for 20 years following transplant is $277,600. The expected medical cost for a dialysis patient for that long is $372,179.The difference of $94,579 is the expected savings that would be generated by a living, unrelated donor that could be paid to the donor without increasing costs.
This does not even take into account the value of the improved quality of life of the recipient. If you factor that in, the value of the kidney rises to US$176,000.
There are currently 55,000 US citizens waiting for a kidney donor and altruistic kind are pretty few and far between. Hence Dr Schnitzler's journey into the ethical minefield of exploring the possibility of paying for kidneys.
It is easy to jump up and down and get emotional about this but the reality of the situation is that it does little or no harm to the donor to donate a kidney and there a lot of people for whom $90,000 could improve and extend their lives. Given it does no harm how is it different from being paid for your hair by a wig maker?
Pru Goward, the Australian federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, presented a paper last night reflecting on the "men's movement" and, from what I can gather from the edited extract in The Age is dumping on it as a group of men who are potentially
"driven by anger and sadness for what has been lost, rather than hunger for a better future".
To paraphrase, that the men's movement is about returning to "the good old days" where women were subservient and men ruled the world. I think she has missed the point completely, although there are undoubtedly men's groups around that fall into that category.
The reality was that "the good old days" were not that great for men either. On the surface they had power but as Henry Thureaux succinctly put it over one hundred years ago
Most men live lives of quiet desparation
The men's movement has nothing to do with women, or with returning to "the good old days". In Australia and, from what I can gather, Canada, USA and England, the men's movement is about helping men free themselves from the destructive expectations that society puts on them.
The enlightened young men that Pru Goward refers to in her article are, sadly, still the minority. Australian men are still ultimately expected to be the breadwinners in the household. They are still taught that it is a sign of weakness to cry, or show any emotions except "happy" and "angry". They still believe that it is a sign of weakness to visit a doctor or take the medication that is prescribed if you do. Their health is still largely ignored by medical research and any funding of such is limited at best. None of this has anything to do with women, except in enlisting their support as mothers and wives to assist in important social change.
The men's movement is not interested in turning back the clock, nor is it interested subjugating women. It is solely concerned with the psychological and physiological well-being of men. Pru Goward may like to turn her attention to discriminations that exist against men in our society because they do exist, particularly in the area of health.
Morris dancing is a big feature of the National Folk Festival and, as usual, there were a number of Morris troupes performing. Danced in sets, Morris dancing dates from mediaeval times.
Like most ancient culture it is mixed in origin and the exact details are lost. Clearly, however, there are pagan/pre-Christian influences, encapsulating, as it does, the symbolism of spring and fertility rites. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, The Green Man himself frequently features as part of the troupe, although his role is typically a disruptive one. One of the interesting aspects of ancient culture is its embracing of the anarchy of natural forces as an integral part of life. Today we like to live under the illusion that we live in a controlled and manageable world and an illusion it is. Whilst we have more control over our environment that our predecessors we are still at the mercy of the natural world and our refusal to accept that make the random misfortunes of nature harder to accept.
Anyway I have drifted off the topic, which is Morris. The Molonglo Mayhem Morris site points to the term “Morris” arising from a corruption of “Moorish” dancing, a suggestion that it may have been introduced to England by the Moors in 15th century. The England of this time was a vast land not connected by high-speed motor ways. Consequently, following its introduction, Morris evolved and developed local character in the various regions that adopted it.
Molonglo Mayhem, a Canberra based Morris troupe, adopt a version from the Welsh border region which is characterised by highly coloured rags attached to their clothing, painted faces, and comical hats. This is perhaps the wildest style of Morris although the dances themselves do not differ greatly from the generic style.
By contrast, the Victorian troupe Brandragon adopt a North-West County style. Dressed in green and red they reflect a forest influence. In the left of the photo you can see a variation of the disruptive character that is typically played by The Green Man. Unlike other forms of Morris, which use raw sticks that are bashed together, usually disintegrating over the period of the festival, Brandragon use more stylised half hoops and sticks. These are decorated with forest motifs like ivy and leaves.
The more commonly recognised appearance of a Morris dancer is in white with straw boater hats adorned with garlands of flowers representing the spring and fertility themes typical of Morris. This style of dress was represented at the festival by the Victorian group, Britannia Morris Men and the Adelaide Morris Men.
Look at these photos they are of a baby in the womb, produced by ultrasound. Ahh aren't they cute, so much better than the ones the doctor does. That is because the doctor is so scared of the potential damage that ultrasound might do to a fetus that he uses very low power ultrasound. These photos are by a shopping mall equivalent. They have no such qualms. They use high power ultrasound, the type that has proved efficacious in the heal of bone and soft tissue damage.
Doctors know that this high powered ultrasound alters the way bone behaves when it is repairing itself following an injury. They have no idea what it does to a developing fetus. Not to worry I am sure that the used-car salesman with a fetish for large pregnant women who is now providing this invaluable service at the mall knows exactly what he is doing. He must do, afterall he has just shelled out $100 000 for the machine.
Unfortunately those wowsers at the FDA (that's US Food and Drug Administration) are not so sure it is a good idea. Nor is the The American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine which "strongly discourages the non-medical use of ultrasound for psychosocial or entertainment purposes." You see ultrasound is high energy radiation and any form of radiation at this level can be safely assumed to have an adverse affect on a fetus.
Yes I know it seems silly that those doctors waste all that time at university learning about the physiology of the human body and don't give you nearly as good pictures as the aforesaid used-car salesman. Let's just assume they have your baby's welfare at heart shall we.
You can read an analysis of the FDA report in the BMJ here or read the original FDA report here.
Ever wondered what a person making a complete fool of themselves looks like. Well wonder no longer. Here is a photo of The Green Man on day one of the National Folk Festival.
Who would have guessed that it would be so scary getting up in front of a few hundred people and reading poetry.
It was a bit of a mistake to present "Out Back Yard" (which you can find below) on the first day. I think it was one of my better poems but it was stuffed up because I was so nervous.
Not to worry, there is always next year. Perhaps it will take the poor unsuspecting fools who attended that long to recover from The Green Man's poetry from this year. Who knows, next year I may even start writing the poems more that two days before the festival.
The British Medical Journal reports that Dr Michael Leitzmann of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland has been examining the association between ejaculation frequency (including sexual intercourse, nocturnal emission, and masturbation) and the risk of prostate cancer. He found that most categories of ejaculation frequency were unrelated to risk of prostate cancer. However, high frequency was related to decreased risk of total prostate cancer.
The Green Man demonstrates a rare example of restraint. There is so much good satirical material here, it is a shame it is such an important subject.
New research indicates that girls do, in fact, learn faster than boys. Where boys have a short attention span are concerned with rough and tumble games the girls are more studious and anxious to learn. Paying close attention to their mothers girls quickly pick up the technique of catching termites using a stick. Boys on the other hand take much longer to learn this skill.
It seems that, once again, our chimpanzee relatives are not that much different from ourselves. Learning abilities in human children are characterised by girls tending to catch on faster than boys when considering learning skills such as writing and drawing.
Well away from the National Folk Festival for a moment. Here is a montage I found via J-Walk a blog of nothing and everything and one of my regular reads.
It is a photo montage of soldiers killed in Iraq. Hmmmmm
The image is from PhotoMatt
Yes, there will be a lot more serious post about Morris Men at the festival. They are a big feature there and worthy of some consideration. This, however, is the tivial post on Morris, since I am still working on the serious one.
It has been said that Morris is the most fun you can have standing up, particularly if you have a bad back and that unusual sexual position we have all read about is beyond you.
This is the Adelaide Morris Men hard at it at the festival this year. Hmmm it looks like thirsty work. The Adelaide Morris Men clearly agree. Here is a photo taken some 20 minutes later.
What's not to like about Morris, daggy clothes, hitting with sticks, and copious consumption of beer. This is The Green Man's idea of fun.
Of course the real John Howard would never attend anything so culturally significant as a folk festival. For heavens sake, there is all that anarchist type stuff there where people actually think that money is not the most important thing in the world and that the refugees arriving from overseas are not nasty terrorists but scared and desperate human beings seeking a new life in a land of plenty. The sort of people who actually think about things and don't believe everything the Murdoch press tell them to believe. Why would he want to talk to people who won't grovell in front of him and say he is wonderful.
John would not dream of mixing with that sort of person, crikey some of them even speak funny. Although at least 2 people there spoke with an American accent which I am sure John is extremely comfortable with. Interestingly both were poets and I am sure John would have turned in his grave, if he was dead, when he heard their poems. Dick Warwick, disconcertingly pronounced War-Wick, presented a number of gentle and nostalgic poems in the cowboy idiom then on the last day he presented a lengthy poem that basically slammed George W in a way that has been rarely heard from Americans in Australia. The Green Man estimates that it was no stunt. He was pallid and drawn when he left the stage, clearly he felt grief stricken and betrayed by a country he loves dearly.
Who would have thought this kind and gentle man from Idaho was a terrorist but clearly he must be because George W knowingly informed us that anyone who did not support him was a de-facto, if not a real, terrorist.
Anyway on the photo. This is a bronze statue cast recently which gained some notoriety. There has been a suggestion that John Howard took us into Iraq, in part, because he had always fancied the notion of being a war time Prime Minister. Hence the “digger” outfit he is wearing. The Green Man would normally not be comfortable with a parody of a person’s size, the uniform being that of a man of greater stature, however in this instance he prefers to look on it as a statement of Johns integrity and moral stature rather than his physical stature.
Each of the plastic hearts you see surrounding it contained a message of grief or compassion or empathy for the thousands who have suffered, one way or another, from the divisive, isolationist or military policies of the current government.
Day 4 started with the Poets breakfast again. I presented a somewhat caustic piece but funny just the same.
From the poets breakfast it was over to the Quokka dance venue to watch some creole dancing. Hmm you start to get the feeling that you may have been at the festival one day too long when a women in a country style floral print dress, R.M. Williams riding boots and dancing in that half-hop/half-skip cajun style has a strangely erotic look about her.
Not to worry, by 3:30pm we are packed up and trundling sedately down the Hume Highway in a Melbourne direction. Leaving the world of craziness and back to the world of normality, or is it the other way around.
I can be a good bush poet
I'm sure I'll make the cut
I've got a checkered shirt
And I'm working on my gut.
I'll come from South Australia
I think a farm is best
And when it comes to growing up
I'll have suffered like the rest
I write of fluffy creatures
A koala and some sheep
Hey, this stuff is easy
I can write in in my sleep
Socioeconomic norms
I'll endeavor not to flout
Oops, that word is way too big
Better chop it out
Now a serious bit
My voice is soft and low
It's sunrise in the bush
And I watch the Darling flow
And like that mighty river
All poems must have an end
I think that very shortly
There's a few less I'll call friend
This poem has an end
And I'm getting there at last
Hey, make a path down there
I may need to get out fast
Bush Poetry is fairy floss
It is very light weight art
Even if it is being read
By a deep voiced chubby fart
So enjoy your bush poetry
But read some good stuff too
And now there's only one word left to say
Ah yes, It's kangaroo.
I still have at least one Easter egg left. Poets Breakfast poem is below. This one got a good response.
Todays hit is the Playford dancing (think English period drama on TV, a lot of walking around holding hands and looking at one another.) My lack of any semblance of coordination usually precludes any competent dancing but even I can manage this.
Illegal Immigrants
Like so many had before them
By sea they smuggled in
little food in the container
half starved but still alive
When illegal and unwanted
They arrived upon our shore
The government it was paniced
It was clear it had to act
To address the rising threat
New laws they did enact
When illegal and unwanted
They arrived upon our shore
Desperation to settle
Marked their early days
The new land will accept them
Despite their foreign ways.
When illegal and unwanted
They arrived upon our shore
The government moved swiftly
The public on its side
The media it was utilised
To keep the anger high
Report any sightings
That was what we’re told
To prevent this new invasion
From ever taking hold
Now they have arrived
Illegal and unwanted on our shore
The message it was simple
We can not accept their presence
Through townships and through country
We must stop the fire ant menace.
Like so many had before them
By sea they smuggled in
little food in the container
half starved but still alive
When illegal and unwanted
They arrived upon our shore
The government it was paniced
It was clear it had to act
To address the rising threat
New laws they did enact
When illegal and unwanted
They arrived upon our shore
Desperation to settle
Marked their early days
The new land will accept them
Despite their foreign ways.
When illegal and unwanted
They arrived upon our shore
The government moved swiftly
The public on its side
The media it was utilised
To keep the anger high
Report any sightings
That was what we’re told
To prevent this new invasion
From ever taking hold
Now they have arrived
Illegal and unwanted on our shore
The message it was simple
We can not accept their presence
Through townships and through country
We must stop the fire ant menace.
I am pretty sure this isn’t the day for the Easter eggs but hey I am on holiday. Once again it is poets breakfast. Day two is the day for the serious poem, see "continue reading" below.
If you are going to a folk festival why would you leave your wombat at home? Of course there is no good reason so the wombat came too. It had an immensely good time, never short of attention and there were always plenty of volunteers to carry it if it got tired of walking.
Todays hit is part two of Martin Pearsons satirical review of the Lord of The Rings, The Two Towers (I missed part one). Clearly appreciation of folk music and The Lord of The Rings goes hand in hand since a significant percentage of the attendance at the festival attempted to fit into the tent which was not nearly big enough to house them.
It was then off to the main venue for more music. Kavish Mazella was singing, amongst others. Her songs are of varying quality but not her voice. She has the most beautiful voice, come to think of it, who cares what she is singing just listening to her voice is a worthwhile experience.
The Tough Australian Man
Don’t speak to me of being tough
I bought that line through the years
I toughed it out despite my growing fears
Don’t speak to me of being cheery
Optimism is not the answer
When you gut is full of cancer
Don’t speak to me of being brave
I’ve been brave since school
I bought that stupid myth, now I feel a fool
Don’t speak to me of manhood
I lie here, living and decaying
I will not hear a word that you are saying
When I said I felt strange inside
She’ll be right is all you said
You thought that it was in my head
When I started to loose weight
When I began to sweat and shiver
You laughed that I had stuffed by liver
When I started shitting blood
You told me it would all work out
And told me that it was time to shout
Now you talk of our good times
As if they somehow even up the score
Really, they just don’t matter any more.
Now you have a job to do
My son will need a caring man to show him how its done
To live a life that is rich and full of fun.
When my son is 9 and crying from a fall
Don’t tell him to take it like a man
Hug him and support him in everyway you can
When my son is 15 and going to a dance
Don’t make him feel a failure if he doesn’t score
Tell that his time will come for this and so much more
When my son is 18 and finally has a car
Don’t encourage him to get pissed behind the wheel
Teach him to care. To love. To feel
Australian men are vulnerable just like all the rest
If you think that toughness means an Aussie bloke
I’ve news for you. It is just a sad malicious joke.
If you are an Aussie man here’s the message in this poem
Regardless of what you’re told, none of us are tough
If you can’t describe your GPs décor, you haven’t gone enough.
Don’t speak to me of being tough
I bought that line through the years
I toughed it out despite my growing fears
Don’t speak to me of being cheery
Optimism is not the answer
When you gut is full of cancer
Don’t speak to me of being brave
I’ve been brave since school
I bought that stupid myth, now I feel a fool
Don’t speak to me of manhood
I lie here, living and decaying
I will not hear a word that you are saying
When I said I felt strange inside
She’ll be right is all you said
You thought that it was in my head
When I started to loose weight
When I began to sweat and shiver
You laughed that I had stuffed by liver
When I started shitting blood
You told me it would all work out
And told me that it was time to shout
Now you talk of our good times
As if they somehow even up the score
Really, they just don’t matter any more.
Now you have a job to do
My son will need a caring man to show him how its done
To live a life that is rich and full of fun.
When my son is 9 and crying from a fall
Don’t tell him to take it like a man
Hug him and support him in everyway you can
When my son is 15 and going to a dance
Don’t make him feel a failure if he doesn’t score
Tell that his time will come for this and so much more
When my son is 18 and finally has a car
Don’t encourage him to get pissed behind the wheel
Teach him to care. To love. To feel
Australian men are vulnerable just like all the rest
If you think that toughness means an Aussie bloke
I’ve news for you. It is just a sad malicious joke.
If you are an Aussie man here’s the message in this poem
Regardless of what you’re told, none of us are tough
If you can’t describe your GPs décor, you haven’t gone enough.
Hmmm, so is this the day for eating of chocolate Easter Eggs? Not sure, pehaps I had better have one just to be on the safe side.
8:00am and it is off to the Poets Breakfast for my first public performance of the festival. It is a poem called "Out Back Yard". See below. It goes down moderately well.
Then off to the piazza to watch the Molonglo Mayhem Morris. 
I will have a more complete separate post on Morris later but let me just say that only something this daggy could be so much fun.
Molonglo Mayhem Morris represent Morris dancing from the border regions and are characterised by the ragged clothes costumes and the face painting. If I was going to get into Morris this one would be for me.
Anything that gives you an excuse to dress up like a complete fool and paint your face has to be inherently worthwhile.
Dreams were of the great outback
Astride a horse on a distant track
With dust and Spinifex under hoof
The Milky Way was your nightly roof
Such were the dreams of Australian boys
Before the coming of hi-tech toys
They are men today and wear their ties
Cocooned in buildings safe from flies
They have a debt and are working hard
Today they dream of the Out Backyard
The horse and saddle have given way
To ride-on mower from extra pay
The dusty track is ten yards in length
And runs past shrubs to the paling fence
The outback bore with native fauna
Is now the pond in the right back corner
Some in latter years, in car with caravan behind
Pursue the dream, with failing eyes and failing mind
For the rest, whose lives were hard
Contentment is the Out Back Yard.
Yep, that is the day before day 1 but there was still some action.
We arrived at approximately 3pm and settled into our small part of the Folk Festival world, right behind the cattle judging pavillion. (It is held in the show grounds) Fortunately this year the pavillion had been well mucked out and the aroma of cow manure was not too overwhelming.
Folk Festivals draw their inspirations from the global community and the approach to electricity is drawn straight from the third world. The trick is to go, armed with your extension chord and double adapter, in search of a connection between two existing extension chords. Then, deftly, you unplug, insert your double adapter, connect up your extension chord and Bob's your uncle so to speak.
The evening was marked by the opening concert which was attended after the important task of testing that the Guiness at the Guiness tent was up to scratch, which after 3 or 4 large glasses (Guiness doesn't come in small glasses) I deemed it was. It is amazing how the lay back feeling of the festival overtakes you so quickly.
Each year at Easter ageing hippies from across Australia gather in the nations capital to share four days of music, dance, poetry and copious amounts of guiness.
It is a yearly opportunity for The Green Man to pretend that Australia is still a nice accepting and tolerant place to live where music and the oral traditions of this eclectic country are celebrated. Where the older traditions of music and dance that were brought to this country are blended with more recent arrivals to produce a rich patchwork of music and culture.
By way of example, take a klezmer band, that's a middle European Jewish musical style for the uneducated souls amongst you. They are playing on the main stage beneath the flag of Eureka with a didgeridoo providing the base. Our recent, our old and our ancient cultures in harmony to produce a symbolism that resonates with inclusiveness. How far this is from the divisive Australia of the Howard government.
Well it is reassuring to know that there are at least 10,000 caring and compassionate Australians. I suspect more but we are given so little opportunity to display it these days.
Let's think now. Why would a company put its call centre in India instead of its home country, Australia, UK, USA etc?
Could it be because it is cheaper?
Probably!
And why I wonder is it so much cheaper? Could it be that they pay their employees a pittance?
Yes it is and it has been coming back to bite some companies. BBC reports that certain individuals of ill repute are offering a year in wages to call centre staff in return for access to UK credit card details, which is probably not all that much. The looser privacy laws in India make it a breeze for this sort of activity to flourish.
It has been predicted that 200,000 jobs will be exported by 2008 for the UK alone to India, the consequence being that every UK every banking and personal finance customer in the UK will have their personal finances available for scrutiny in the third world. They must be happy about that.
Accountants Ernst & Young say
"given the volume of offshoring that is going on and the risks attached, there will be a major regulatory failing within five years".
In Australia, the USA, Canada etc, presumeably, it is a similar situation.
Birds of a feather do, in fact, flock together and few do it with greater determination than penguins.
Few that is except for Australian females, known in the vernacular as "birds". The challenge of any young testosterone filled male, when entering a social situation, is to try and separate one from the pack. Initially, of course, new participants spend time identifying the most appealing specimen and commence the game of manouvering her away from her group of friends. Many hours can be fruitlessly frittered away in this futile endeavour. More experienced males, on the other hand, have learnt through bitter experience that fortune fancies the less fussy and focus their attention on any bird who drifts away from the collective security of the flock.
The first step is to envagel your way into this exclusively female group and pretend you are interested in the outcome of the prevous nights episode of Australian Idol or whether Tom and Nicole could ever get back together again. Next, and this is the really tricky part, is to move the topic of conversation onto something that the object of your desire finds interesting but the rest of her friends do not. Thereby making an opportunity for you to move yourself and said female away from the group. Usually your exploits at the pub last Saturday night and the ensuing vomit will not achieve this objective. It takes many years for men to appreciate that women cannot understand the masculine pride that accompanies such an event.
For those who are not battle weary males, who have endured far too many social disasters to find the pathetic exploits of their conterparts amusing, hours of enjoyment can be derived from watching lanky and selfconscious adolescents attempting to not only understand but also pretend that they are interested in the topics that occur withing the female domains at a party, typically the kitchen and lounge room.
There are always the male domains of the area surrounding the BBQ and the rumpus room to which a young buck can retreat to lick his wounds after being savaged by a group of females. Here he can return to discussions in which he is completely relaxed, of the footy and exploits at the pub.
All is not bleak however. As the night progresses bordom and alcohol set in amongst the females of the group. At last the simple minded exploits of their male equivalents start to sound, well not interesting, but mildly amusing anyway. They breach the male domains. Older men, making futile attempts to suck in their beer guts, make way for them to enter the group. A collective "If only I was 20 years younger" thought ripples through the middle age contingent. They are the only ones there, waiting for their wives, the younger ones have given up and gone to the pub.
In Victoria where The Green Man lives most of the population lives in suburbia and views itself as safe from bushfires which are a natural feature of the environment in which we live. Even though many live in areas where their feeling of security is quite unfounded they are protected by the management of fire by the government.
Unlike most of these people The Green Man knows both the necessity of fire to our ecosystem and also the terrifying experience of being confronted by a bush fire. The image of a bush fire that people have is typically a daylight one. This is because it is when the news cameras can get good footage. With even the simplest extension of the imagination however will realise that bushfires do not go out at night and magically restart the next day. They burn through the night and few things are more frightening than watching the approaching fire at night.
This is the view from The Green Mans balcony. Fortunately on this occasion it is a fuel reduction burn by Parks Victoria but the glow in the night sky, the smell of burning gum and the discoloured moon are disconcerting when you have experienced the real thing.
For some considerable time there has been considerable moaning and several law suits by the Music Industry regarding the online sharing of music in peer-to-peer networks. They point to declining sales of CDs as evidence of the problem.
Research by Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill points to a different reason for the declining sales. Namely that the music is crap and noone wants to buy it. They say:
While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who, when hearing it, realise that their old BeeGees and ABBA CDs aren't that bad afterall
RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss does not agree. She claims that the BeeGees and ABBA were just as crap as the current musicians.
For a final word on the subject we turn to University of Texas at Dallas professor Stan Liebowitz
My conclusions, in a nutshell, are that MP3 downloading does appear to be causing harm, particularly in the aethetics of the nerds who are downloading it.
Read what they actually said in Wired.
Psychological Science, the journal of the American Psychological Society that focuses on empirical research in psychology and prides itself on being at the vanguard of research in matters of the thinking variety has once again stolen the march on its competitors. The May issue reports on ground breaking research by Nicholas Christenfeld and Michael Roy of University of California, San Diego.
It will take a great weight off your mind to know that, yes, dogs do look like their masters. Well its true for pedigree dogs anyway, where the prospective master can accurately predict what the puppy they are purchasing will look like when it groups up.
Those of you, like The Green Man himself, who have a dog of questionable parentage will be relieved to know that the study also ruled out the theory that dogs grow to look like their masters or perhaps that masters grow to look like their dogs. There was no correlation between how long a person has had a dog and how much they looked like it.
The Green Man's dog will be mighty relieved.
