Bullying

I wrote this late last week, intending to send it to the Canberra Times, but didn't send it in the end, because I kind of lost track of what I thought the point was. Still, for whatever it's worth, here it is:

Walking home from the ANU yesterday evening I was twice almost run down on pedestrian crossings. The drivers clearly saw me; they simply chose not to slow down, and I had to take a sudden step back or risk being hit. This was bullying, pure and simple. Might makes right.

The same sort of behaviour was repeated by cyclists, not only on the Turner "shared path" but also on ordinary footpaths. One notable bicycle bully was riding home with his young son, showing him by example how to hold his line on the narrow path, without slowing down, and thereby force pedestrians to step off into the dirt or be run down.

When adults routinely behave like this, why are we so surprised and distressed by bullying in schools and the atrocious behaviour of professional footballers, cricketers and other sportsmen?

We have no reason to expect impressionable young people to behave respectfully when the entire adult world is run by bullies at every level, from the epidemic of bullying in Canberra's public service workplaces, to the behaviour of the "developed" nations on the world stage.

Campaigns to eliminate bullying in schools are hypocrisy of the "Do as I do, not as I say" variety. Any kid who takes them seriously is a fool. The bullies are the smart ones. They see through the double standards and are busy perfecting the life skills that will get them to the top in the adult world.

It's time we adults start treating children and each other with respect.

Free range eggs

I wrote to the Canberra Times this morning. First time in a little while. There was an article in there about eggs, and a new push to finally outlaw the practice of keeping hens in tiny cages, at least here in the Australian Capital Territory. My letter was in response to one very particular lie pumped out by the battery hen industry, namely that the sales figures prove that people don't really care, that they prefer cage eggs. Here's what I wrote:

Only 25% of eggs sold are free-range or barn-laid ("A paltry existence", Canberra Times, 18 April 2009, Forum pp 6-7). The Australian Egg Corporation says this proves that there is a lack of demand, that most people "overwhelmingly choose to buy cage eggs". Wrong. You just have to go into any supermarket to see the truth. The reason people buy cage eggs is because they can't get anything else. The shelves of organic, free range, barn-laid and other more humanely produced eggs are always bare, despite their much higher price. The choice is usually cage eggs or no breakfast. Personally I'd rather go hungry than eat the product of such cruelty.

I hope they print it...

But there's a whole lot more to say about this that I didn't put into my 113 words. Partly because letters to the editor have to be short to have a chance of getting printed, and partly because it would confuse my point. One letter, one point. But here I can ramble on as much as I like, and nobody is going to censor me or edit me or anything. You can stop reading if you get bored. Go on. Feel free.

John Stanhope (our Chief Minister, for any readers not from the Canberra area) says there's no point in outlawing battery cages for chickens in the ACT, because all that will happen is that they will move 5km over the border into NSW. Let's just unpack that argument for a moment.

Firstly it's one of those horrible arguments that says "I can't do it because none of the others will". In other words, we should wait until the other states & territories change their laws before considering changing ours. No thoughts of leadership or taking a stand.

But why not? Dig deeper. Stanhope, like most politicians, would be very happy to make a public ethical stand if he thought it would be to his advantage, particularly his electoral advantage. His primary motivation is staying in power, not any thought about improving the state of affairs in the ACT or the wider world. So what's in it for him? Why would it bad for him if Pace Farms moved across the border?

Jobs? Hardly. If Pace Farms moves from Parkwood to Queanbeyan, nobody needs to lose their job. Half of the workers might already live in NSW for all I know.

Taxes? I wouldn't know. I thought the ACT Government didn't have the right to tax local people or businesses, but there are exceptions, taxes that aren't taxes... Rates for example. Perhaps Pace Farms pays a lot in rates and it would affect the local economy to lose that income?

There was something in the article about Pace Farms representing 50% of the ACT's agricultural otuput. (Let's leave aside the linguistic weirdness that says a bunch of enormous metal sheds filled with millions of shit-covered sickly chickens squashed into tiny wire cages is agriculture. How can you compare that—or any of the other disgusting industrial animal production systems—with a genuine farm?) So what? The ACT, like the District of Columbia, is a small, artificial, administrative region, created for the sole purpose of ensuring that the national capital is not part of any one of the several states that make up the federation. The idea that it should be self-contained, that it should compete with the states on the same footing, is ridiculous. We have very little agriculture because we have almost no agricultural land. The ACT is mostly mountainous national parks, and the rest is almost all urban or suburban. The few tiny hobby farms inside the territory are drought-stricken dust bowls. Of course we have next to no agricultural production, but that seems pretty right to me.

Could there be corruption at work here? Surely not. The Australian Egg Corporation probably lobbies pretty hard, and they probably make donations to both major political parties, but can't imagine that there's anything corrupt beyond that standard, unremarkable level. Nothing to justify Stanhope on the one hand saying that he abhors the practice of battery chicken production, and on the other steadfastly, resolutely refusing to do anything about it.

Maybe it's the unions? Maybe the union that covers the workers at Pace Farms would lose members and power if the business moved across the border. Maybe they would have to change branches or something? Could that be the reason?

Anyway, enough speculation. Let's backtrack and try to look at this from a larger perspective.

Battery chicken production—and indeed all factory-farming—is cruel. That should be enough to have it stopped everywhere, immediately. Cruelty to animals is something I find very hard to understand. Industrial-scale cruelty to animals is unconscionable. Despicable. Inhumane. Dehumanising to those who do it. It diminishes all of us for as long as we allow it to continue.

It is also dirty and produces pollution. It spreads disease. It also—and on this I am 100% certain—produces vastly inferior eggs. They are less nutritious, they are not as good for cooking or baking, and they don't taste as good. (Rick Stein did a blind test on his cooking program and there was no doubt whatsoever of the taste difference. The chef who prepared them also commented on the texture and colour, how they hung together, and so on.) Their only advantage is that they are cheap.

Europe is already moving on this. Of course there are some glitches and peculiarities in the process (like Sweden outlawing cages and then importing cage eggs from Poland), but these are temporary and will be sorted out. With determination and cooperation, it can all be done. Egg producers needn't even lose money on it in the long run. They charge more for free-range eggs. If prices are too low compared to costs, they will go out of business. If people won't buy expensive eggs, then there will be adjustments, but my guess is that it will turn out to be like petrol for their cars: people will pay pretty much whatever it costs, and changes in demand will be relatively small.

But the Egg Corporation are right about one thing. As soon as people stop buying cage eggs, the egg producers will have to change. They know perfectly well what I pointed out in my letter: that demand for free-range eggs exceeds supply. They have already been trying to get around that with misleading labelling, and I suspect that "barn-laid" is an example of that. When faced with a choice between cheap cage eggs and expensive free-range egss, many people will choose to pay more for the more ethical, healthier and better-quality product. Good.

The problem is that when faced with a choice between cheap cage eggs and an empty shelf labelled free-range eggs, far too many people buy the inferior, unhealthy product of industrialised cruelty to animals. And that has to stop.

Noise

OK, so I know it's not such a big deal, not when compared to overpopulation, climate change, starvation, war...

But really, why do people have to be so noisy?

The students across the road from us think nothing of having a party that starts at 10pm and goes on until 4am, with loud music that stops us from sleeping. When we go across to ask them to please be considerate, they are — at least initially — as sweet as anything, apologetic, understanding. Of course they'll turn it down, no problem. They can't quite understand what the problem is, but fine. And then five minutes later it's pumping again, and it doesn't matter how many times we go across there, how stroppy we get, it's impossible to get quiet for more than five minutes at a time. And they're drunk and not making any sense, and the police aren't interested because frankly this is pretty minor stuff compared with the drunken brawls taking place in the city. And so the conclusion you have to draw from all this is that not only do we no longer have any right to quiet enjoyment of our home, but that most people don't even understand what the problem is.

If it was just a party every few weeks, that would be bad enough. But of course it isn't. Parties across the road or next door are just the most acute manifestations of something all-pervasive. Noise is everywhere.

There are also the hoons: young (usually), male (always) exhibitionists who own cars or motorbikes that have been specially modified to make noise. Some genius with a Harley who thinks it's cool to ride laps around the block at 3am. Riding around effectively shouting "Look at me!" I mean, how old is this guy? Six? Any number of greasy, spotty young McDonald's-fuelled kids with cars that have had the mufflers removed and replaced with so-called "sports exhaust systems". In other words, they have had the mufflers removed so that they make more noise. Now there are supposed to be regulations about this. Back in the days when you had to get your car inspected before you could renew your registration, that sort of thing would be picked up. Fix it in seven days or no registration. But now there's no inspection, and the police turn a blind eye. Too busy trying to break up those drunken brawls in the city.

And then there's the TV. I like to watch TV. What I don't understand is why dialogue is set at such a low volume that I can't make it out, but advertisements, music, station promotions and so on are deafening. I'm not the first to complain about this, and the stations always deny it, but they're obviously lying. Everybody knows it. Those ads and promos are so loud that I have to watch TV with my finger constantly on the Mute button, ready to zap it the moment the ads start. Spoils the experience. The shock of being deafened if I'm too slow on the button, the anxiety of trying to avoid that. So, you might ask, why not just watch cable, or ABC or SBS? Because they have just as many ads, and they're just as loud, that's why. ABC doesn't advertise? Excuse me? They advertise their own programs, they advertise their radio stations, they advertise the DVDs of their own programs, they advertise other products sold in ABC shops, and if they can't think of anything else to advertise, they simply advertise themselves. Perhaps it doesn't add up to quite as large a fraction as the commercial stations, but it can't be far off. And what the hell for? What are they trying to achieve? Because I can tell you what they're actually achieving: they're pissing me off, that's what. So watch a DVD then, you say. Well sorry, that's not so great either. First I have to sit through five minutes of stupid scary notices telling me how big the fine will be if I try to copy the disc. And then all their menus (and don't get me started on the user interface design: appalling, really, learned nothing since the 1980's) have loud background music. So I turn it down to an acceptable level, and when the film starts I can't hear anything. So I turn it up until I can just make out the words, and then they play some music and I'm deafened again. Half the time they have dialogue and music at the same time, and the music is ten times as loud. I've taken to putting the subtitles on.

If I go to a café or restaurant, they can't just leave me in peace. Firstly, they all now have fashionable interior design, which means every surface is as hard as possible, no fabrics or soft furnishings anywhere, and so even the tiniest sound is magnified and echoes throughout the space. So anyone talking finds it hard to hear themselves, and they raise their voices louder and louder until everyone is shouting to try to be heard. And then they insist on playing music, so it's still noisy in there even if the place is empty. If I wanted to go to a nightclub or disco, I'd go to one. Why is that when I go to a café or restaurant I have to put up with the same noise?

The other day we were walking in one of the parks by the lake. It was a beautiful afternoon. The ducks were swimming. Boats were sailing. People were having picnics and barbecues on the grass under the trees. We went towards the traditional Japanese garden, a place for quiet meditation and reflection, with the gentle sounds of water running over pebbles... And it was all spoiled by a group of very nice young people having a picnic nearby who had brought along a ghetto blaster and thought it was just fine to pump out a dance beat in the park on a Saturday afternoon. Thump, thump, thump... What is wrong with them?

What amazes me is that nobody else seems to be bothered by this. When someone rides past on a Harley or cruises past in a car with one of those music systems that takes up the whole of the back seat and has subwoofers that can be heard on Mars, most people smile. They are impressed. Wow, this guy can really make a lot of noise. They enjoy noisy restaurants and cafés where you have to shout to be heard. They like discos and nightclubs and parties... When they're out walking in the bush, they listen to Britney or Bon Jovi on their iPods.

What are they afraid of? What might happen if they weren't immersed in noise all the time? Here's my guess: they might have to listen to that little voice telling them that they're not really living, that they're just wasting their time here on earth, that none of the crap they fill their lives with is worth a pinch of shit. And that's too uncomfortable, because if they stopped to listen to that voice for even a moment, they might have to actually feel something. Forget about the next step, doing something about it, just feeling something is already too much.

And yet, live and let live, right? If they like all that noise, if they're prepared to live that kind of empty life, fine. Let them enjoy it. I suppose. I mean, not really, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem, and all that, but what can you do? But why do they assume that I like it too, or that if I don't, I don't have a right to? I'm not given a choice. And that really pisses me off.

If I was inclined to violence, I'd go around smashing things. Putting sugar in the fuel tanks of noisy cars, smashing ghetto blasters, sabotaging restaurant and café sound systems. But you know, apart from violence just making things worse, it's not really those things that are the problem, it's the people. And until they grow up and face themselves, they'll find some way to drown out their own and everyone else's thoughts and feelings with noise. And I'll keep on complaining about it.

Manifesto

The world is fucked.

Seriously, there is so much wrong that it's driving me nuts. I want to do something, but I don't know where to start. The opportunities for action seem so limited. Join a group. Write letters to politicians. Go to meetings and protest rallies. Save the forests. Save the whales. Free, free Palestine. Down with plastic bags. Buy fair trade coffee and free range chicken. Recycle.

Fine, but it really doesn't seem like enough. A few powerful people have the ability to completely over-ride anything I do, anything millions of people like me can do. Look at the Iraq war for example: millions, literally millions of us protested, made our views known in no uncertain terms, and look at what happened: Bush & Blair & John Howard just decided that we were all wrong, and went ahead and did it anyway.

Becoming a trained counsellor and psychotherapist is good too. I can make a real difference to the people who come to me for help. A profound difference. Help them turn their lives around. It's wonderful and inspiring. But it's one person at a time. And it's slow. I have this little argument in my head that sometimes I find convincing, that says that each person that I help becomes a therapeutic influence on those around them: family, friends, others in their workplace, people they meet in the street and at the shops... and their influence on those people makes them a little bit happier, nicer, and so on, with ripples moving outward into the world. So I'm not really just helping one person at a time. Sounds good to me sometimes, but at the moment, watching the world go down the tubes, it just doesn't seem to be enough. By the time those few of us who are even half-decent humanistic therapists have influenced enough people that it might change something, the world population will have doubled, the temperature will have risen by 5 or 6 degrees, and it will all have been too little too late.

The only people who seem to have the power to do something on a sufficient scale are heads of state and of the biggest multinational companies. Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Ban Ki Moon... Maybe even Kevin Rudd, although by the time you get to him, there's probably not that much point. But forgetting that for a moment, assuming they really can make a difference, how do you get to be one of these people? Join a political party. Kiss arses. Toe the line. Compromise. Like in the Leonard Cohen song:

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within

Same sort of thing in business. Work your way up from the bottom. But it's worse than that. It's not just the compromise. If you want to rise to the top in politics or business, you have to be ruthless, single-minded. You have to want power and be prepared to do anything to get it. Nice guys don't get preselection. They don't make billions of dollars. They don't get the backing of the powerful special-interest groups. They open doors for others and have them slammed in their faces. You want real power. You have to be prepared to get your hands dirty and bloody. You have to be prepared to climb over the bleeding bodies of your friends and family to get there. That's the way the system works. These forces are built into the fabric of our so-called civilisation. It's survival of the fittest out there. Western civilisation: individualism, greed, competition, war...

I guess I could, you know. Join a party. Go to meetings. Pay my dues. Try to look good, to speak well. Get noticed. Maybe get to be a candidate, hopefully get elected. Make some deals, try not to compromise myself too much, try to keep some sort of freedom of action, keep the constraints to a minimum. Assuming it all goes perfectly, maybe get some minor ministry in twenty years. Try to make some good decisions, change policy incrementally a little bit for the better, within the bounds of party policy, the budget, what I can persuade people to do, knowing that we'd eventually lose government again and that chances are any good work would be undone by my replacement...

It doesn't look promising. What I really want is to be dictator of the world. To be able to say something like, I decree that from now on there will be no more weapons made in the world, and that all weapons factories will immediately start manufacturing solar panels, windmills or water pumps instead. And for it to happen. Just like that. We all know it has to, or we're all doomed.

But the chances of me becoming ruler of the world are, frankly, not too good.

But I don't want to implode. I have to do something. I have to start somewhere. I have to at least express myself, unblock some of this energy, this anger, this frustration, and get it out there. If I don't, I think I might go mad. Certainly depressed, and I know what that's like, and I'm not interested in going back down that path. Or, more accurately, I'm not interested in continuing down that path.

Hence this blog.

Of course it's better to actually do something about the state of the world. All I'm really doing here is complaining, whingeing. Hence the title. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. A whinge a day keeps the cuckoo doctor away. (My friend calls counsellors "cuckoo doctors".) In that sense this is selfish. It's about my own mental health, emotional health. Getting it out there rather than letting it fester inside and eat me up with cancer or multiple sclerosis or some other stress- and/or emotion-related chronic degenerative disease.

It's also about the people around me. Instead of burdening them with my moods, my negativity, my defeatism, my glass-half-empty view of the way the world is, I'll put all of that here, and I hope that will make me a bit more pleasant to be around. Because I know, because I've been told, that I'm a bit of a pain at the moment.

But there's more to this than making myself easier to live with, for me as well as those close to me. I think. Maybe, just maybe, complaining out loud will help to free up my own processes, get those juices flowing. Maybe if I can get it all out of me I won't feel so blocked and angry and stuck and confused and depressed. Maybe my thoughts will come clearer and instead of the caged lion decision process I've tried to express above, going around and around in circles, making plan after plan and then demolishing each of them... Maybe things will resolve themselves and I'll know what to do, I'll know why I'm here and action will follow. Let's hope so.