What is Arpa Narpa Narp?

Aug 6, 2013 | Australian Values, Border Security, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Global Warming, Immigration, OzPol Values, Racism, Science Values, Terrorism, Values

What is Arpa Narpa Narp?

A guide to Federal Electioneering

 

 

Q: What is “Arpa Narpa Narp“?

 

A:Where everyone’s bills are going, according to folksy, down with the biddies, Tony Abbott today.  
Strangely enough Sir Roger don’t recall his bills ever going anywhere else over all his long years. Except at Col’s, where they’re going Darndarn (Proiza Sadarn). Or not.

So why did Abbott, sitting among the cooing old ladies, make such an obvious claim?

He said it because the biddies (and the viewers) would find, oddly enough, that they agreed with him. And they would nod, and frown at the awful bills (Goa Narp).

And people watching on teevee would not only agree but see that Abbott was someone other people agreed with.

“It seems it is all right to agree with Abbott,” they might think, “and what he said makes sense, doesn’t it?”

The problem, of course, is that Arpa Narpa Narp is where bills always go. And despite suggesting otherwise, and despite his royal telephone, or the dimwitted cardinal, there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. And he knows it.

If you think about it you can work that out.

Average incomes have doubled in less than a decade. Inflation isn’t going below zero, nor are interest rates.

Abbott and/or his advisers knew exactly what he was doing. (Actually on balance, probably just his advisers…)

The technique is to make a statement which provokes an instant, automatic response in what Daniel Kahneman calls “System 1” thinking.

System 1 is fast, impulsive, automatic, uses stereotypes, is often inaccurate and can only make good judgments on simple tasks. System 1 thinking doesn’t take much energy at all.

Bread and . . . . . . . . . . . . ?

2 + 2 = . . . . . ?

Quickly: A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?
Quick! What’s your immediate answer?      $ . . . . . . . .

17 x 13 =  . . . . . . . . . ?

So politicians (and their advisers) attempt to speak directly to System 1, to manipulate a desired response and not to give people time to rouse “System 2”  into action.

System 2 is the thinking that works things out and considers complex problems.

System 2 takes attention. Filling out forms, deciding which phone or soap powder represents the best value, working out what to say to that girl or boy, writing your thesis.

System 2 is much better at working things out but it gets tired really quickly because it uses so much energy.

That’s why politicians and the Murdoch tabloids don’t like to give people a chance to actually think too hard. They might work out the scam.

So Sir Roger recommends not letting them get away with it. Listen to their simplistic nonsense so that you know when they’re lying — (as Stuart Wagstaff used to say, “and isn’t that…all the time?”).

Tell your friends.

  

  

By the way, in our quick test did you get that the ball was 10c?

Sadly, no. If the ball is 10c, then the bat, costing a dollar more than the ball, would be $1.10 and the total for bat and ball would be $1.20, not $1.10 as stated.

The ball is actually 5c.

Oh, and 17 x 13 is obviously a System 2 exercise … can you do it in your head? Well done! 

17 x 13 = 221

And now you feel like taking a nap.

Daniel Kahneman’s book is called Thinking, Fast and Slow. Sir Roger HIGHLY recommends it. Available on Kindle, too.

 

  

Not 2007 – But the Excitement Lingers

Jul 30, 2013 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Fame, Legal, OzPol Values, Values

Not 2007 – But the Excitement Lingers

 

Like a Well-Fermented Fart

 

Preamble to  “A Moron in a Hurry” —  Sir Roger v Gough’s Gouls

Strangely enough this title could be, but isn’t, about the next election. It’s about Labor Icon Gruff Wiblam and his pale irritation Steel Rod.

As you may be aware it is no longer 2007 and John Howard is not a Prime Minister any longer, merely still a silly irrelevant old shit.

Sir Roger, overwhelmed at the time (2007) by the urgent need to remove the irrelevant but malignant old cunt, and replace him with Steel Rod, launched a wildly unsuccessful campaign to bring back an emblem of the dizzy dreams of hope from the early 70s – the “It’s Thyme” t-shirt.

Sir Roger had quite forgotten that he had created a sparkling opportunity to ignore this … er … opportunity which apparently no-one saw or, certainly, wanted.

Well, the UWS rozzer for the Whittling Institute has been onto Sir Roger by email (a bit like being dumped by text) with an order to cease and desist.

Anyway, you can’t get the shirt. It doesn’t exist. The opportunity is dead as Marley’s doornail.

The commercial ex-premises have been boarded up like an outback dunny in a sandstorm and bulldozed into the silage pit.

Sir Roger apologises profusely if you, dear reader, ever for a moment suspected that a t-shirt splashed with the ValuesAustralia.com logo was in any way sanctioned either by Teh Great Man himself, or indeed by his now legally wagon-encircled, immortally corporate self.

Sir Roger was slightly miffed that the letter-writer, who he suspects was in fact the junior office girl, wrote in that formal and threatening language which seems to the clean-living and unwary to accuse one of all manner of the vilest of premeditated and vicious crimes and to suggest that the recipient is the lowest bastard in the world if not a baby-eater – or worse, a catholic priest – when they could as easily have written, “Dear Sir, you may not have realised that [blah blah] and your intentions may have been honourable, but we would like you to not do that any more, please. We’d rather not, for both our sakes, have to ask you again if you don’t mind. Let’s know if you object. Love and kisses, Helen (via Allison).”

Sir Roger’s response, since he had no evil intent – quite the opposite – would have been the same, to help them out with their problem.

Except . . . .

Except for the excitement Sir Roger feels in anticipation of his now sanctioned like-minded retaliation (which you can be certain he will share with you).

He hasn’t anticipated so much fun since the Department of Something or Other threw the book at Values Australia and dropped it on their own foot.

He does, though, feel for the poor lawyers.

Much as they might have desperately wished they could write an understanding and thoughtful letter, they simply cannot. Their hands and pens and minds are chained to the formula and the style guides they learnt while articled. There is only one way to write such a letter and they must do it.

In this most free of countries lawyers, of all people, have no professional freedom. In their hearts they wish they could change the world for the better the way they dreamed, in the idealistic glow of youth, when they watched Boston Legal – or perhaps in Helen’s case, Perry Mason – but instead they sit in rooms lined with boring books doing unutterably boring, endlessly repetitive and eye-wateringly trivial things like conveyancing, or sending form letters to the wicked.

And that is why on Friday nights some of the lawyers Sir Roger has known blow up and get pissed to the eyeballs and shame themselves.

Sir Roger is so sad for so many lawyers’ existential struggle to mean anything.

Meanwhile, he is unfettered by any such constraints. Every day is a new excitement and a new challenge and an opportunity to influence his world and he has the freedom to write whatever he wishes.

Sir Roger will now seek legal advice whether:

1) he is permitted to use the phrase “Its Thyme” , in daily personal conversation about political matters, or whether he would need a tip jar to send off royalties on a monthly(?) basis to the corporate rozzers, and

2) whether he will now be required to return to himself the price he paid for the item [actually, is it okay to use the word “item” as it is strikingly similar to the word “time” and in any case may itself be trademarked? In fact how can we be sure that any word or phrase we use in certain contexts is not trademarked or otherwise proscribed?

Be careful people, or the University of Western Sydney will be down on you like a ton tonne of pricks!].

 

  

Life in Australia

Jun 25, 2013 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Education, Freedom of Speech, Humour, Immigration, Legal, Lifestyle & Life, Media Values, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Terrorism, Values, War

Life in Australia

One word: Durian

 

Robert – a self-styled “foreigner” to our shores – is most upset to have been hoaxed by the false promise and dashed hopes of life in Australia. A few days ago Robert commented on an ancient post here at Values Australia and his comment was upsetting.

Sir Roger cannot bear the thought of another’s pain and Robert surely is in pain.

So is Sir Roger. He had no idea how unhappy he himself must be, given Robert’s assessment of the Oz he had until then thought so wonderful.

 

 

So following is Sir Roger’s response to Robert. 


Sir Roger has asked his manservant esteemed assistant to pen a response to Robert. He would have liked to have been able to respond personally but is unable as he is packing his belongings in preparation to leave this dreadful hell of a country.

He is astonished that he had been so blind in his comforts, his pleasures, his friendships, his safety and his freedoms not to realise how utterly miserable he must obviously be. And indeed he is at this very moment beset by a grotesque problem. That is, where he should move away to and how should he get there? By plane? Or by boat?

The United States may seem a much better option except for the constant shootings, the fundamentalist christians and the Tea Party.

The UK? Very civilised, at least on the surface, and the world’s funniest comedians, but, oh, the endlessly whining whingers! And the weather!

Somewhere in Africa, perhaps? Central African Republic? Chad, Nigeria, South Sudan? There are plenty of spaces becoming available there since so many of them are choosing to come to Australia. But the job opportunities are not so good and someone like Sir Roger is sure to be kidnapped. And he questions why, if it is so wonderful there, so many of them are choosing to leave, that so many could even find Australia preferable. Big question mark on that one.

Asia? He fears the death penalty for minor crimes in China. He values his internal organs (and his external ones for that matter) and doesn’t want them shared with a transplant tourist before his time.

Japan fails to offer the wide open spaces that he craves.

Malaysia? He just doesn’t like their appalling racism. You know? Of course as a white man he could live behind a tall fence in a white compound with fierce dogs but where is the interest in a bunch of self-absorbed, arrogantly superior, self-congratulatory, western businessmen and their bored wives and nasty children?

Thailand? One word. Durian.

Indonesia beckons…but trips at all the hurdles of entrenched – and world famous – political, judicial, law-enforcement and corporate corruption, not to mention brutality to animals, religious intolerance, terrorism, death by firing squad and plain ignorance. Pretty country, though, and lovely people if you get to know the ones who aren’t trying to rip you off.

India? Well, you know, of course it’s worth a visit but … Sir Roger doesn’t consider rape a worthwhile or even enjoyable pastime. One of his friends is moving to Bhutan. Would he have to convert to Buddhism, though? He’s not all that religious. AT ALL.

And South America is the most dangerous continent on earth.

There’s always western Europe, of course, and Sir Roger does love to spend large amounts of time there, especially in their restaurants and in the cheese and wine aisles of their supermarkets, but they can be cold to strangers who don’t speak their languages perfectly, don’t you think? And it’s all so old and the skies are so murky. There’s very little that’s fresh blue.

As for Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Syria … hmmm … you know, Sir Roger’s not much of a one for car bombs, Talibans, shooting young girl students, hatred, bigotry, religious intolerance, violence, bloodshed of any kind, actually – not even Rugby League – or cranky old narrow-minded farts in funny turbans and beards a pelican could nest in, doling out fatwahs like Easter eggs at Christmas.

So Sir Roger is struggling to find a country either

a) that would accept him or
b) that he would accept.

Perhaps after all he will have to remain for a little longer amongst the awfulness of:

  • religious tolerance (despite the fact Sir Roger is a little intolerant of religious beliefs in general),
  • freedom of speech
  • a more or less free press
  • freedom to congregate
  • personal safety
  • world standard education, free to secondary level
  • a social safety net
  • free medical treatment
  • stable democracy (with no shootings at election time)
  • astoundingly pleasant weather
  • mostly generous people
  • a thriving triple-A economy (no matter what they say)
  • a rich cultural life (very well, yes, much of it imported)
  • comparatively high incomes
  • comparatively low unemployment
  • electronic access to the fascinating rest of the world (while keeping it at a safe physical distance)

and many other such depressing qualities.

Perhaps therefore he will stay for a bit longer.

He has just phoned your writer now to explain that he is beginning to understand that when a person comes to another country of course they will come to that country with preconceptions.

Those preconceptions, when they come in hope, will often be that the new country will be just like the country they escaped but somehow better — their home country but without the bits they don’t like. And this will not work.

For example, Australia is Australia. It is not Sri Lanka, or Britain, or India, or Germany or wherever, with bells on.

It is Australia.

That is it.

Anyone who comes here will find strangeness and things that confuse and they don’t understand; social conventions they are not used to, and that grate with how things used to be in the old country.

When they come here their task is not to compare it to the world they know and the expectations they had. That leads inevitably to disappointment.

Their task is to discover Australia for what it is and to interact with that. And love that. Or leave.

If they don’t want to be here we have no wish to force them to love it or to stay. They have the choice.

In Australia we allow people to come and go as they please. Unlike North Korea or China or so very many other countries.

At least that is what Sir Roger told your writer to say.

Just a note or two to ‘Robert’ from Sir Roger’s own Montblanc:

“  This is Australia, Robert. And this blog is Sir Roger’s home. Here you do not have to be mealy-mouthed or pretend to be genteel, or try to swear without swearing.

If you write “fkcng” you are intending that people will think “fucking” and so you are swearing anyway. So writing “fkcng” is, you see, slimy. You said “fuck” and pretended not to. And it’s true that many Australians don’t like this sort of deceitfulness in anyone, not just what you call “foreigners”. You can write “fuck” here. And “fucking”.

And even ‘FUCK YOU, CUNT’

Also, Australia is not a “convict island”, at least not for 150 years. We are a big grown-up country now. We have cars and houses and the internet and everything, just like a proper country.

The only social-cultural vestiges of those origins are the remains of a belief in equality and fairness, and a healthy disrespect for authority, both sadly on the wane.

And when you talk about ‘the way foreigners see Australia’ this is blatant intellectual dishonesty. Certainly some foreigners don’t like Australia. Of course some don’t. It would be a miracle beyond all miracles if it were otherwise. So, a few “foreigners”, then? The ones who agree with you and are as stirred up about their disappointment as you are?

Robert, we are not required to create the country you wanted in your dreams in order to satisfy you, although we would very much like you to enjoy this country – very much. But we simply cannot create that country just for you.

So the use of the “convict” epithet and the lumping of all foreigners into your basket of betrayed hopes reveals both emotional desperation and intellectual dishonesty.

I really feel your pain that caused this outburst. I went to Sumatra once, hoping to experience a tropical paradise with generous, friendly people, only to discover it (Medan, anyway) was the absolute arsehole of the earth, even worse than Tehran, although the Batak people of Samosir Island were indeed very lovely.

But when I want my own arguments to be taken seriously I personally find it is best to refrain from corny, shouted insults and sloppy arguments.

 

 

Welcome to Australia, Robert!

 

 

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 1

Dec 23, 2012 | Arts, Australian Values, Cultural Values, Economic Values, Education, Freedom of Speech, Lifestyle & Life, Love, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Science Values, Values

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 1

 

S ir Roger is returned from the Mountain with the Migently Mountain Manifesto.
Here are Tablets One to Five: 

 

1. 

Do what is right.  

 

2. 

 You are safe.

Now, at this instant, you are safe.
You are safe, right here, right now.

This might allow you to calm down and get a grip to deal with stuff.

Nothing is promised for the next instant, however.

But right now at this instant you are safe.  

  

3. 

Most people are about as honest and ethical as they can afford to be.

Yes, some people are less honest than they could be.
Some struggle to be honest at all.
Some are frankly more honest than is necessary or comfortable.

The value of honesty is relative.
People will steal a loaf of bread if they really have to.
They may not want to but if that’s what they must do to feed their children then they will do what they need to.

Some things are more important and more pressing — in the moment in real life — than esoteric debates about morality.

It’s true that some people exhort you to be honest.
Other people want you to be honest. 
They don’t want you to be honest for your benefit. 
They want you to be honest for their benefit, so that they can make informed decisions based on reliable reports.

In reality, though, most people don’t make decisions based on facts anyway.

On the other hand, being honest places less stress on the memory.
And it (sometimes) makes you feel better.

Telling the truth is a different matter.

There is no such as THE Truth.
There’s my truth and your truth, for a start. 
What most people mean by ‘the truth’ is merely opinion and interpretation based on life experience, emotion, limited information, conjecture, flawed logic, magical thinking, and vague probabilities.

There’s the “whole” truth. 

No, just joking. If there is a “whole truth”, it’s impossible to know because — for just one thing — you would have to describe the velocity and position of every fundamental particle in the Universe from the beginning of time.
You can’t tell both the position and velocity in any case, and if you could even get the information in a whole lifetime you wouldn’t get past describing the first billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second of the Universe. Let alone interpreting the data. 

The best you can do is describe the best interpretation of the motley collection of tiny random scraps of perception you can grasp as they rush by.

Then there’s the “ABSOLUTE” Truth.

There isn’t one.

So stop killing people because you mistakenly think you have it.  

 

4. 

A Job is trading time for money.

But your time — your life itself — is of immeasurable, incalculable value.

Your Job is something you do because you have to, to survive financially, pay the bills, feed the kids, pay the rent or the mortgage. 

Your Work is something you want to do, something you must do — so it is also something you do because in that sense you have to do. 

It’s something you “have” to do because it’s an expression of who you are.
It’s your contribution to the world. It’s the difference you make because you are you and because you can.

For example, a teacher has two basic jobs:

1) spend time in a room with people and

2) do paperwork.

Being in a classroom is how we know you are doing your job. The paperwork is how we know you did your Job.

A teacher’s Work on the other hand is growing people, inspiring them, helping them learn to learn, to love learning, to appreciate life, to contribute to the world, to experience the most of the world that they can, as richly as they can.

The “Dignity of Labour” is a myth.
It is born of a conspiracy cooked up by capital and colluded with by labour, probably beginning during the Industrial Revolution, if not even earlier in the feudal era.

Capital needed — and still needs — workers to be as close to compliant slaves as possible.
Long hours, dirty work, few rights and low wages stopped people getting notions too far above themselves, or amassing the savings to escape.
It kept them needing the employer and the job.
Labour needed a social mythology to justify its powerless dependency — and the degradation of selling its soul to make others rich.

The solution was to frame labour as bestowing “dignity”. 

And eventually it became a fact instead of a pretence.
And it didn’t hurt to have the (obscenely rich) Church bestowing God’s blessing on the charade.

Blessed are the poor, the meek, the hungry, for they shall eventually get all the good stuff.
Just not in this life. 

As a result “early to bed and early to rise” assumed a moral character to the point where anyone who gets out of bed after 6am or goes to bed later than 10pm is committing a “sin”.

This is all bullshit. Any job in which you give over your labour and your time and your life to make someone else rich is shameful, degrading and humiliating and not dignified at all. It would be a sin if there were such a thing.  

If there were such a thing it would be a sin not to do Your Work, the Work you must do, the Work you love.

Be the person you are who makes a difference in the world.  

 

5. 

Great leaders (and managers) don’t manage people (or boss them).

Leaders manage outcomes.
They do this by facilitating people in doing what they know how to do — which, after all, is why they were employed in the first place — and in developing skills to do it better.

Leaders share a vision which inspires and engages.
They provide meaningful goals and engage their colleagues in the value of the work they do.

People who work for coercive managers do the least they can in order to keep their jobs.
They have low job satisfaction and low productivity because they don’t own the work they do.

People who work for inspiring managers do the most they can because they want to and they want to because they own their work and they know why it matters.

That is why they have such great work satisfaction. And that is why they stay.

 

Most people want to do a good job.

A good manager doesn’t have to force people to do their best.

A good manager knows to get out of the way of people doing their best.

 

Almost everyone wants to do the best work they can. 

Manifesto Tablet 2
Manifesto Tablet 3
Manifesto Tablet 4

Mount Migently Manifesto

Dec 22, 2012 | Arts, Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Education, Immigration, Indigenous, Legal, Lifestyle & Life, Love, Media Values, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Science Values, Values

Mount Migently Manifesto

 Australian Values

 

Australian values have lately been enthusiastically asserted by some Australians and Sir Roger has been much impressed – in much the same way a washed-up prize fighter feels the repeated impressions of his opponents’ fists in his guts.

These assertions of “Australian values” tend to be energetically debated:

in Melbourne with French and Indian visitors to Australia on trains, buses and trams,

in university college meetings in Sydney,

in the halls, offices and party rooms of Parliament House in Canberra

and particularly on commercial radio breakfast programs everywhere. 

Sir Roger was reeling from the onslaught and disheartened by the proponents’ ignorance, illogic, idiocy and illiteracy; by their fear, spite, narrow-minded prejudice, stupidity and frankly pre-agricultural social views. 

Someone had omitted to convey to them that for their brain to operate as advertised it is necessary to update the database regularly and to calibrate it with reality. 

Someone had omitted to explain to them that the texts on which their ethics are based and with which they (selectively) justify much of their self-righteous bombast are not actually sacred but were all simple rulebooks written thousands of years ago to enable the social control of brutal sand tribes, to suit their primitive times and conditions, calm their existential terrors, alleviate their ontological horrors, excuse their ignorance and justify their brutality. 

Someone had failed to explain to them that the foundation myths, the stories of Australia on which they hang their narrative of Australian culture, are just that. Myths. It never happened, Bruce.

It’s just like when your girlfriend lied to you – you weren’t the first. 

Dismayed by the galloping erosion of the humane, generous, fair and tolerant values of his Australia Sir Roger therefore repaired to the mountain top seeking counsel and wisdom from the winds,  the silence and the intelligences of the cosmos. 

Sir Roger was generously granted that counsel and has returned from the mountain top bearing enlightenment. 

Over the next few days and weeks he will share with his world these insights into the best of human and Australian values. 

 

 

Malcolm Turnbull: Next Prime Minister?

Dec 7, 2012 | Australian Values, Border Security, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Global Warming, Immigration, OzPol Values, Science Values, Terrorism, Values

Malcolm Turnbull: Next Prime Minister?

 

Backing into the limelight


Sir Roger believes Malcolm Turnbull could easily be the next Prime Minister of Australia.
What do you think? Here’s why:

1) The coalition and the right wing media will bring too much pressure on Julia Gillard about the Slater and Gordon quagmire – either facts or compelling implications – so that either she can’t stay, or she becomes too much of a liability to the party’s electoral success, vacating the PM-ship by choice or force.

2) Rudd will decline to nominate for leadership of the party, so he will be drafted and oh so very reluctantly accept (as someone described T. E. Lawrence, “always backing into the limelight”).

3) With Rudd at the helm again, Abbott, who already is hugely disliked (and an immature fool), barely tolerated as “at least not Gillard”, will preside over disastrous poll results (because Rudd will easily usurp his role as “at least not Gillard”).

4) Abbott will be unceremoniously dumped and Turnbull, who is hugely liked, will replace him. Christopher (Politics Beats Values) Whine, by the way, will immediately explain that while he couldn’t say so he always hated Abbott, thought he was the wrong man for the job, and preferred Turnbull.

5) People are already angry at Labor which in most policies is indistinguishable from the coalition; indistinguishable even from those of the war criminal  John Howard. People are looking for an alternative but they are a bit fond of action on global warming and humane treatment of refugees, both of which might just conceivably be revived under Rudd.

6) Nevertheless Turnbull is better liked than Rudd and, promising to pursue good, moral and humane policies and good real Australian values, will win the next federal election in a landslide.

7) The Greens and Independents will disappear from the Reps – mostly because people are so bloody … we’ll stop there.