Earlier this week I had a brush with freakout-ness-ness (not my own; someone else’s) and it left me a little unsettled.

It’s really hard to see someone lose it. It’s not the first time. But it’s still unsettling. And I don’t mean “lose it” in the sense of having a big, angry blow-up and storming out of the staffroom or anything. I mean finding yourself in a place where the world is one enormous, scary, unpredictable beast stalking you; circling slowly, its hot breath just over your shoulder… and when you turn to look, there’s nothing there. Where every sudden noise or movement is enough to make you jump, frantic and wild-eyed.

I can’t really imagine what that’s like, despite my rather weak attempt to portray it there. I guess it’s probably–in part–what Kurtz meant when he talked of “The Horror” (although he had a great deal of bad conscience to come to terms with in addition to his malaria-induced mania).

My image of [the person I’m referring to] curled up in the pitch black of a completely empty country railway station waiting room at 1am, shivering as much with the bitter winter cold up here in the mountains as with terror and confusion, is one I imagine I will carry with me for some years to come.

Likewise, the sensation, the feel of how she awkwardly clutched me, almost like a blind person testing an object for more clues as to its identity and authenticity… and then once she had determined it really was me, the way she so desperately needed to be held, to be in the only kind of safe place that was then available: my arms. These things have left a mark that I didn’t expect, somehow.

I’m not really sure what the point of this post is. I think I just needed to express something about what happened. I haven’t really talked to anyone about it yet. At the time and the following day it was just a case of “have to deal with the situation”.

And the day after that I had a full teaching schedule and a special function in the afternoon. Went to bed super early because I was so tired. Then I was off work sick for a couple of days (unconnected other than just being run down, I think) and I just slept. So I’m not really sure I’ve had a chance to process it all yet. Yesterday and today I was tapping away at blog-stuff and tonight I came home from dinner and suddenly found myself typing this!

I was, in fact, two lines into a post on another blog related to my profession when three or four of the paragraphs above just tumbled out of me. Ain’t that weird, huh? I guess it says something; good thing I know how to read between the lines.

Say, I’ll go back and finish that other post now and you can make what you will of this one!

To your mental health,
Leslie

Say, my creepy Orwellian computer system (actually, just a simple WordPress plug-in and nothing to worry about. Honest!) is displaying this message automatically because it wants to help you get the latest updates to this somewhat irregular blog delivered to you direct, hot off the press via RSS! Huh? Via...WHAT??? Don't worry, it's just a fancy email thing without the spam. Easy. Painless. Safe. Click here to subscribe via RSS..

Thanks for visiting & I hope you find some good stuff here! Leslie

I was off work sick today and I had the chance to listen to my favourite Australian music station, Triple J, over the internet. Each weekday afternoon they have a half-hour current affairs program called “Hack“.

Today there was an interesting segment about the increase in rates of HIV. You should go and download the program and listen to it (click here and look for Friday’s streaming audio. Of course, if you’re reading this after December 3 2007, you’ll need to go to the archives link at the top and see if this story is in there somewhere. Sorry!) It probably runs for about 6 or 7 minutes and the segment I’m referring to is in the middle of the show.

There is reference at the beginning to “the grim reaper ad”, which may have been lost on many of the younger listeners today, and may be lost on you if you weren’t watching Australian television in the 80s. So I’ll give you a quick rundown. This ad was, I seem to recall, actually pulled after a rash of complaints that they were too scary and upsetting for some people.

Here it is. I hadn’t seen it for many, many years and although it’s certainly dated in some ways (such as the use of the word “gays”), the effect is still the same. For all its melodrama, it stills packs a punch for me somehow.

The details say it was screened in 1987, but I seem to recall it being earlier than that. I thought I was in Grade 5 or 6 at elementary school. Seems I was wrong; in 1987 I was in first year of high school.

[Note: high school in Australia is from ages 13-18, generally at the same school. We don’t really have any sort of formalised national “middle school” system. We do have some “senior high schools” for 17 and 18 year olds, but mostly, “high school” in Australia means ages 13 to 18 at the same school.]

So, I was probably 12 or 13. I don’t think I was really old enough to understand what HIV was. I knew what sex was, of course, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t realise that anything bad (apart from unplanned, teenage pregnancy) could happen from having sex. So I guess the message was lost on me until we actually started learning about these things in Health Education class (or whatever it was called). And when I did, those images of the bowling alley came back to me quite vividly.

So, anyway, on Hack today there was an interview with a bloke who was one of the senior advisors to the Minister for Health at the time. It’s a little promo piece for a doco called “Rampant” that screens this coming Monday night on Australian tele about the rise of the HIV epidemic in Australia in the early to mid 80s. I’d quite like to see it, but I live in Japan.

You can check rates of HIV infection in other parts of the world by going to the World Health Organisation’s website. In Australia rates are definitely on the rise again and as the guy in the interview says:

one of the paradoxes of good prevention programs is
that after a while people start to become complacent.

December 1 2007 (tomorrow as of the time of writing) is World AIDS Day and you can read a statement (rubber-stamped) by the Secretary General of the UN here. There is also a statement by Dr Peter Piot, the Director of UNAIDS here. And, finally, there is a Fact Sheet by Region with some interesting information. One thing was that injecting drug use is a contributing factor in the Arab world, which for some reason I wouldn’t have expected. Not sure why, but it came as a surprise.

If you would like to make a donation, there are plenty of HIV/AIDS organisations out there, of course.

Some people might be less sympathetic, however, thinking that those infected were foolish enough to, say, have unprotected sex and therefore have to accept the consequences of their actions.

This I happen to partly agree with this. It’s not the same as saying, though, that they “deserved it”. That’s total rubbish. And about as mean-spirited and spiteful as a person could possibly be.

One of my favourite topics/rants is “Taking responsibility for your life”. We make certain decisions and we have to deal with their consequences. Fact.

We can blame other people. We can blame other things. We can blame circumstances.

And, yeah, sometimes things are really NOT under our control. That happens. And when something bad results, that’s particularly shitty. But most of the time we DO have control over the situations–or at least control over whether to put ourselves INTO situations where we know we might be relinquishing some or almost all of our control. And if we choose to go ahead, then we can’t really say “Well, it was out of my control!” If you had a choice to be in that situation or NOT be in that situation, and you chose to be there… You see where I’m going with this.

Not that this point is specifically connected to HIV/AIDS. It’s just a general comment about life.

The thing about HIV, though, is that it can affect lots of people who really DIDN’T do anything bad or wrong. And that’s more than a bit shit. Like people who become infected from their spouse because their spouse had an affair, or went to a prostitute, or shared needles, or whatever.

That’s really horrible, that is. These people (mostly women) are handed a death sentence with no input whatsoever. It’s not like they made a dumb decision. Their PARTNER, the person they supposedly trust enough to be in a relationship where condoms are no longer necessary, does something that then affects them both.

This is the thing that’s really awful about HIV as far as I’m concerned.

Maybe you’re reading this and you’re HIV positive because you didn’t have safe sex or you shared needles. Does that mean I think you “deserved it”? Does it mean that I think you should die? Of course not.

But to be completely honest, I can only say that I have empathy for how awful it must be to live with such a thing day in day out. But in reality I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like. It must be awful. So it’s great to see people who say “Hey! I’m not going to let this beat me! I’m gonna get out there and live life to the full!” instead of just giving up.

But I can’t honestly say that I am sympathetic. You made the decision to have unsafe sex or to share needles, knowing full-well that you might get HIV, but you went for the short-term payoff (pleasure in the moment) and risked the long-term consequences (your health). It’s almost like gambling, in a way. Or Russian Roulette. I’ve heard it compared thus many times.

It’s harsh, I guess. And there are millions of people who probably think I should be more compassionate. Well, re-read the last two paragraphs. I am compassionate insofar as I think it’s truly, truly horrendous a thing to live with. And the psychological pain must be terrible. I really feel for people in that situation when I think about how awful it must be. The situation elicits my empathy.

But I still maintain that taking responsibility for your own life is no one else’s business but your own. We make our beds, we lie in em. There doesn’t need to be anything mean-spirited about that point of view at all.

The sooner people start taking responsibility for their own actions (and beliefs and modes of thinking for that matter), the sooner people will stop feeling like victims when they are only “victims” due to their own choices.

Sometimes people truly ARE victims. I am not addressing those things in our lives where we really were victimised. But if we look at all the instances where we think we are/were the victim, we’ll find that only in a very few of them can we really say that this is the case. In all others, we made decisions to do–or more often than not, NOT do–something and certain consequences ensued.

Another thing about this, though, is whether the message is actually getting through to people or whether everyone has just become too complacent. I find it hard to imagine that most high school kids wouldn’t know about HIV and other STDs, but maybe they don’t.

And access to condoms, well! We’ve had several big uproars about that in Australia over the years. Schools have tried to introduce condom vending machines into toilets and I think they have been overruled by the PTA every time. I can only imagine (because I don’t have any proof whatsoever for this assertion) that the primary grounds were religious ones. I’ve heard the same old argument many, many times before: “If we talk openly about sex and make condoms available, then we will be seen to be condoning sex before marriage.”

Now, if we take the last bit, that’s MOSTLY (to be as fair as I can be to a religious point of view) because there is a wider social morality in most cultures that sex before marriage is a bit of a no-no. But I also think that in countries like Australia and New Zealand, and in the UK and Canada and the US and France and plenty of others that I can think of where the religious police are not part of the government, that this point of view is really only paid lip-service in most cases.

Everyone (and I mean that quite literally) knows that a HUGE number of people–probably the overwhelming majority of people–lose their virginity before they are married. This is not the same as sleeping with 50 or 100 different people before you’re married.

You only need to have sex ONCE to get HIV.

But remove the religious zealots from the equation and you would probably still have a large contingent of the PTA arguing not to put condoms in the toilets and not to teach kids about sex in class. And the only reason I can possibly think of here is that they would be concerned, again, that they would be condoning sex.

Weird point of view. Totally fallacious. Clearly.

And are parents so naive that they think their kids don’t actually know what sex is? I knew what sex was (and basically how to “do it”) looooooooong before I really understood what it was all about (and I just mean that physically, not any of the emotional aspects either)!

Don’t you think that’s pretty dangerous? For kids to “more or less” know what sex is, but not really understand the full implications of their actions?

Duh! Seems like a no-brainer to me.

“But, uh, Leslie, if we talk about it, then kids will think that WE think it’s okay for them to just get about like rabbits”

Okay…

So how do you deal with Arnie mowing down hoards of people with semi-automatic weapons on the tele, or Mel punching someone in the face, or Dan Akroyd creating the biggest multi-car pile-up Detroit has ever seen?

Alright, these are facetious examples. But how about the crack house in your suburb? Or the date-rape of your local prom queen? Or the stabbing of a service station attendant in your town?

Clearly these things come up over the dinner table, or while you’re out for a walk, or fishing, or doing the ironing together or whatever…

Is talking about these issues–which clearly do need to be talked about, right? Right?–is talking about them condoning drug use, date rape, or first degree murder, respectively?

But, “Oh, no, we can’t talk about sex and teen-pregnancy and STDs because kids might see that as the green-light to go hog-wild!”

Every parent KNOWS that their kids don’t need no freakin green light to have sex. They will do so when they’re good and ready, whether that’s when they’re 15 or 25.

I thought parents wanted the best for their kids. Weird, huh?

“As a parent, what I’ll do is say that I have your welfare and best interests at heart, but what I’ll do is choke off any information that you might get that could, in fact, help you to make responsible decisions…”

And if you’re reading this and you can POSSIBLY disagree with the position I’m taking there, then I can only think it’s by using the old “I’m doing it to save your eternal soul” defence. Which begs the question: So you’d rather see your child go through incredible suffering in this life, and die much earlier than he or she otherwise would have (accidents and other random diseases aside)? Yes, I understand that this life is only one, whereas eternity is by definition forever. But, really. This kind of thinking, to my mind, is just plain sick.

Oh, and if you’d be so kind as to not leave comments to this post saying stupid shit like “AIDS is God’s punishment for being gay!” or any other ridiculous, bigoted spewings, that would be great. In this space, you’re like droids in the creature cantina.

Here’s to your health!

Leslie

I was out for dinner with a friend of mine tonight and she accused me of being as dogmatic in my beliefs about the absence of supernatural phenomena as a fundamentalist religious nut is in their defense of scripture.

We were having a spirited and adult conversation (the nature of which might be an interesting series of posts come to think of it—so stay tuned!) and her comment wasn’t at all malicious.

But it was a gross misrepresentation—and a tired one at that, might I add—and I wasn’t having it. But just as much, I didn’t really want to go through how positively UNdogmatic I am—in stark contrast to the fundamentalist; I’ve simply had that conversation (or should I say “I’ve had to present that ‘defense’”) more times than I can recall. I pointed out the basics of the argument, but then just referred her to Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion.

If either of the following conditions apply to you, you need to read Chapter 8, sub-section: Fundamentalism and the Subversion of Science:

(a) you have ever been accused in the same manner as outlined above

or

(b) you think that someone who ardently refuses to believe in supernatural phenomena (and can make sound, rational, logical, well thought out, scientific arguments for why this is the case) is on the same keel as a fundamentalist.

While you’re at it, you might also like to take a look at the quotation of and discussion around Bertrand Russell’s celestial teapot passage (Chapter 2, sub-section: The Poverty of Agnosticism).

That should, in the case of (a)-people, be enough to immunize you against the inevitable in the future, or in the case of (b)-people, give you something to think about. For those falling into category (b), pay special attention to the story about the Golgi Apparatus.

To your success!

Leslie

P.S. Do go and at least read the reviews of the book on Amazon. I particularly like G.Merritt’s review (the most recent at the time of this post). The comment about the life-raft versus swimming is spot-on and, in fact, is something that came up in our conversation tonight and caused a bit of a problem.

This book really should be required reading for everyone. It’s school curriculum stuff. But, uh, like that’s ever gonna happen!

I just listened to the first part of The Dhammapada, the thoughts of Buddha. I downloaded it from LearnOutLoud, which I’m a big, big fan of!

But I don’t think I can bear to listen to the second part. This one finished just in time! I was listening to it while I was preparing dinner, which is the reason I’ve totally fallen in love with audio books (more on that in a minute), but I’m going to put on some music while I eat.

The Dhammapada, what a pile of tosh. Really.

Here is a summary:

Be good, live a life of temperance, learn to master yourself (very close to the previous point—and reminiscent of a recent post on this blog!)… and guess what? You’ll go to heaven, you may even reach Nirvana.

Do evil things, indulge your desires and live hedonistically, and shun any self-reflection… and guess what? You’re a fool! And where do you think you’re going, huh?

Wow! What a fucking revelation!

And, no, it wasn’t even a revelation at the time.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of words to say that—and not much else. And more similies than a room full of freestylers on open-mic night! Sheesh!

It’s all very poetic and apart from the go to Heaven/Hell bit (which I don’t believe in the existence of because I’m a Rational Atheist), I agree with the basic premise.

Repeat: the basic premise.

There is quite of lot of stuff in there that I patently disagree with (like respect the aged just because they’re aged. Bollocks! I’ll afford you my respect regardless of your age until such time as you do something that warrants its withdrawal).

And stuff that’s just laughable, such as [to paraphrase] if you do evil shit, then amongst the list of 10 things that may happen to you is that lightning might strike your house.

So, I repeat, the basic premise, which I summarised earlier (and which I here snip the religiousity from), is fine: don’t do bad shit (coz we all know what that is! We don’t really need to be told that, do we?), demonstrate temperance and restraint (i.e. don’t behave like a beast), and learn to master yourself… and you’re on the right path to a fulfilling life.

There, you don’t need to read it.

But I strongly recommend you get on over to LearnOutLoud and check out their enormous selection of audiobooks.
I used to not be a fan of audiobooks. Well, I should be honest: “not be[ing] a fan” suggests I’d listened to some! More to the point, I thought the idea was a bit silly (being the big reader that I am). I wondered who would possibly want to listen to a book when reading it is clearly much more enjoyable and blah blah blah [insert host of other reasons—some still valid, some not].

Well, I was wrong. I started listening to lectures that they have on there. How’s that different to listening to a lecture on the radio, say? And I found that I was able to do that while preparing dinner. I don’t commute currently, but if I did, I would certainly consider listening on the bus or in the car too.

Then, once I’d become addicted to listening to lectures, I started listening to the audiobooks. These are much more hit and miss. Sometimes the quality is superb, and they are much, much more engrossing than I’d originally thought they would be.

Sometimes, they’re stilted and painful, like listening to the “Coming this summer to a cinema near you!” voice-over dude. (I secretly think there is only ONE guy in the whole world who does those cinema ads. There couldn’t possibly be thousands of men all emulating that voice… could there?)

To your success!

Leslie

P.S. I just know I’ll listen to the second part. That’s just the sort of twat that I am. So stay tuned for my “review” of the second part of The Dhammapada.

I was wondering about music today. In particular I was thinking about the sort of music that is characteristic of film scores.

The reason is that there was some music playing on the school broadcast system during lunch today that really did it for me. There was something rousing about it; something stirring. And it made me think of many things, but one thing that was memorable (coz I was just daydreaming these thoughts that I’m now tapping out here) was the memory of a gal I used to date who had no real interest in music.

I found that incredible.!How could you just shrug no matter what kind of music was playing?

She’s the same girl with whom I had the following conversation:

Me: Okay, look, I appreciate that you say you’re not really into beer, but honestly this is one of the most unique and delicious beers I have ever tasted in my many years of beer drinking… you really should try some, y’know…

Her: Okay… [taking a sip… long pause…] Mmm… … … …* indifferent shrug* beer.

And so it was with music too. It’s incredible that she and I dated for so long now that I think about it! Nah, I’m jokin’ She was a good lass and we were a good couple. Just didn’t work out. But it is quite amazing considering how much of a music-nut I am.

I am truly at a loss to explain how music cannot move a person.

Now, okay, maybe there’s some music that does it for her, but hey! I listen to a lot of different types of music (Geez I love that old joke “I like both kindsa music… country AND western!”) and nothing seemed to make any impact.

So back to the music at lunch today. It was that real stirring, heroic action movie type of music where the hero is really being put to the test. And not in a swashbuckling way, either; more like being asked to do the Henry IV thing and march into battle like an heir to the throne, and shed the skin of his lay-about, larrikin youth; to stand up for something he believes in… in the face of overwhelming odds… where failure means not only utter defeat, but sure death.

[Editorial note: I love the way that I can’t even describe this stuff without using the same old tired literary cliches! Ha! (In fact, there’s another right there!) And another thing: How many movies can you think of that use the Henry IV character arc? Okay maybe some people might argue that The Bard ripped it off from The Odyssey, but I think that tale is rather different. He could have stolen it from somewhere else… if you know, please feel free to leave a comment! But seriously, how many movies have that arc? I started getting tired of seeing it at least 10 years ago, but they keep a-comin’!]

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, this stirring heroic music…

I was wondering how much of it is enculturation, y’know. For example, if we were to take this same piece of music and play it to the proverbial Lost Tribe of Borneo (of which one was actually discovered just a few years ago! How funny is that!), would they have the same reaction? Would they describe the music as “stirring”?

On first thought, I would say “No”. We have been brought up with a gazillion movies which play that kind of music when a certain set of actions (imbued with a particular and limited set of meanings) occur. And after X number of years of this, we just learn to associate this kind of music with certain pictures. For example, I could “see” certain things as I listened to the music today, but I had never heard that piece of music before (I know because I asked later what it was and it turns out it was from one of the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks. I haven’t seen any of those movies (as much as I’d like to, I might add! I have no idea whatsoever why I haven’t done so!).

But then I thought some more about it. It’s quite possible that most (not all) people might respond to that piece with similar feelings—if not the same set of images to accompany them.

Just a thought. Whaddayareckon?