THE IMPACT OF THE COMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTION - 1990 TO THE PRESENT.

 

To say that the world has undergone a revolution since the 1990's is an understatement and yet for some reason this revolution hasn't yet been given a label, such as in the case of the Industrial Revolution.  Perhaps it is because this revolution has quietly insinuated itself into our lives, been embraced with gusto and left us all slightly dumbstruck, addicted and so engrossed that no one has thought to give it either credit or a name.

Differing from those other two types of revolution, political and orbital revolutions, a cultural revolution can be defined as a dramatic and wide-reaching change and, since 1990, that is exactly what has happened and it has affected every person on the planet.  Back in the eighties a lecturer at the university I was attending told us that the coming era was the Communication Age.  I was studying Media and Communications at the time and yet his statement didn't really hit home as it should have, but then no one could really anticipate the massive changes that were about to take place.

I finished my degree in 1990, just before the internet hit the ground running.  We had computers of course, but, at that stage, no one had access to the internet because it wasn't available in the public domain until 1993, except perhaps to scientists and the military.  My lecturer was obviously up to speed, however, and could see where things were heading.

From the 1960's, evolutions in computers and technology gradually led to computer networks and, progressively, to the internet.  A universal communication standard (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol TCP/IP) was developed to allow networks to communicate with one another.   In 1989-90 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, a system of linked hypertext documents and pages that could be accessed by a browser, making the internet user-friendly and accessible to the public.  In 1993 CERN put the World Wide Web software into the global domain and the world hasn't been the same since.

By the time I finished my studies, I had heard of the internet and first came across it when visiting an office where my, then, husband worked.  One of his co-workers could access it on his computer as a business tool and I asked to see it.  I don't remember particularly what I saw and Windows wasn't available at the time, so it would probably just have been a lot of uninteresting text and figures.  This was in the early nineties when mobile phones were the size of bricks and certainly weren't smart.  They also didn't have cameras; text messaging was probably the first big advance as they evolved and internet connection a mere dream.

The internet brought a huge change to the way business was done, while creating business opportunities and destroying others as well.  Later on, when social media allowed people to flood the internet with images and opinions, some people became famous simply for promoting themselves online.  They didn't actually have to do anything other than be in your face and have an opinion then ask people to 'follow' them.  What the internet has given us is a much clearer picture of the ratio of intelligent compared to not very intelligent people that exist among the eight billion or so souls inhabiting our planet.

Those eight billion people can now communicate with each other easily and en masse, put forward their opinions and read everyone else's.  In a way it's almost as good as having telepathy and an insight into everyone else's minds.  Apart from the dross and the sheer joy of communicating at will with so many people, the benefits have been huge.  Knowledge previously only accessible through searches in libraries and contained in books is now available instantly simply by using a search engine.  So many fields, including research and medicine, have benefitted from the amount of shared knowledge and speed of access.

The old way to carry out research.

Thinking of how businesses have been affected, consider the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  Such resources as this have accumulated vast quantities of knowledge on every conceivable subject over decades and set it down in indexed volumes.  The final printed version of the Encyclopedia Britannica was a 32-volume set published in 2010 and cost AU$1,395.  Following that it focused entirely on its online version.  Then along came search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, to name a few.  Well, I'm sure those very search engines use the Encyclopedia Britannica online version now, and, probably, have to pay a subscription to do so, along with the other sources they access.  There is a free online version of Encyclopedia Britannica that is supported by advertising, but it is limited in scope.  If you want the full version, you need to subscribe.

No matter how many types of businesses suffered incredible upheaval with the arrival of the internet, an enormous number benefitted from it but, even more importantly, people used the internet to create businesses that would flourish on an online, global platform.  The internet created billionaires and is still creating billionaires.

It would be impossible to fully discuss everything that the internet has brought about and all its repercussions.  I'll probably only give a few examples in this post because it is a huge subject.  The internet also shows us that whatever is good in life can, equally, have a bad side but that is true about all things.  Everyone with children worries about screen time and the effect it will have on them, from small children to teenagers.  Having three grandchildren, I've watched firsthand how incredibly well they have taken to technology.  It's really no wonder as their brains are fresh and uncluttered.  It's why they learn language so quickly.  My two eldest grandchildren have i-pads and now laptops for school.  The youngest has an i-pad on which he sits wearing his headphones, playing suitable-for-age and often educational, games.  Their screen time is rationed by their parents.

My granddaughter expertly searches the internet for video art tutorials to learn how to draw.  She's not just glued to the screen; she's using the internet as a resource and educational tool.  She recently showed me a site about what type of marine creatures live at what depths of the ocean, from the surface to where there is no light.  She is nine and she finds lots of things of interest that are designed for people her age.  They're at an age of curiosity and want to learn, not just play computer games.  She also plays interactive games with friends online.  I've very impressed with what's available online for kids to use as resources and to discover the world.

When he was in primary school, my eldest grandchild who is now twelve, used a program on which his school set him math's homework called Mathletics.  Students can access it and do it on their devices without the paper and the mess, then the teacher logs in and marks it there.  Honestly, if I was a seven-year-old again and a fairy godmother came along and told me she would wave her magic wand and create a box that would let me play games, talk to my friends, show me how to do things like draw or build things, teach me, show me movies and places and take pictures, that I could then print, I would think that I had landed the best fairy godmother in the world.  Either that or that a time-traveler had popped into my bedroom from the future.  As I don't believe in fairy godmothers and I'm a logical person, it would have to be a time-traveler.

The internet allied with GPS, Global Positioning System, allows us to navigate in our cars, planes etc.  The GPS can ascertain our position, but will just give points of latitude and longitude, which wouldn't make much sense without a map.  Using an app like Google Maps, map data is downloaded over the internet so that your position can be viewed along with roads, points of interest and directions.  The first GPS apps that were made available for purchase over a decade ago were very expensive.  Now we can just upload them to our phones with little or no cost.

Life is being made easier and easier for us in many ways, thanks to the internet but harder for some in so many other ways.  Cyber security is now a thing.  Hacking is a thing.  Money scams are a thing.  Governments have dedicated cyber security departments because hackers can access military intelligence.  Once, if you were a spy, you needed to be able to access a computer physically or break in somewhere with a mini camera and photograph files.  Now the secrets come in a stream of zeroes and ones on optic fibre.  It's not just the military that has to protect itself online.  Identities can be stolen as well as your money but online banking and paying your bills is wonderful and time saving.  Queuing in banks is something we can all still remember and is one of life's drudges.  The internet has truly been like magic in allowing us to move our money around at light speed without having to walk into a bank.

Because of email, post offices have suffered massive losses as paper mail has decreased, however, online shopping has put life back into these institutions that now have massively increased parcel deliveries thanks to online shopping.  Large department stores have suffered thanks to so many online retailers but are fighting back by offering their goods online as well.  Many have reduced their number of actual stores as a consequence.

IMPLICATIONS:

Children raised past the year 2000 will feel as lost without the internet just as those of us raised with electricity in our homes are at a loss as what to do in a blackout.  We no longer have wood fired stoves and, at night, are used to television and radio to entertain us.  The youth of today have grown up with the internet are used to having information, entertainment and social interaction on demand.  It is stimulating and addictive.  If the internet suddenly ceased to exist in their lives, I believe most would feel thrown into a void, and it is understandable.

What they must learn through parents, older people and educators is how to be self-reliant without the internet in terms of both communication, research and find other interests not allied to being reliant their devices.  How to access information the old way - a physical search through books in libraries.  Books and hard copy of information must always be available.  If all knowledge was only available on the Cloud in the future and we lost access to the internet, humanity would be thrown back into the dark ages.

I have always thought it would be a good idea if children from the age of, say, ten and onwards through their teens were given the chance to attend camps for two weeks every year where they could learn basic and fundamental survival skills.  This would include making fire, growing food and hunting (including preparing raw meat), making shelters, orienteering, finding and purifying water and basic first aid.  These are just a few things that most of us raised in modern times would find difficult to do.  The more children are raised as technology progresses, the less able to fend for themselves our descendants will become should disasters or war destroy our technology.

People born from the late 1940's onwards grew up with television and we have all felt very privileged to have entertainment and information so readily available to us.  Fifty years prior to that there was no phone, no radio or television and later on cars and flight took a few decades to become available to the masses.  Electricity also took decades before it was available in most areas.  Vaccinations and antibiotics were a huge benefit to mankind.  As someone born in 1952, I felt I had really been lucky to be born with access to all these things.

We sailed along quite nicely with these inventions for some decades, not really feeling the need for much else and all the while companies like IBM, Intel and Arpanet were working at progressing computers.  By the 1960's we'd heard about them but didn't imagine that they'd be used by anyone but businesses, universities or researchers.  We couldn't have imagined that they'd become as integral to our homes as our refrigerators.

MINICOMPUTERS AS THEY WERE.

An L5000, an earlier model of a Burroughs minicomputer than the L6000 that I probably worked on.

By the time I dropped out of studying for a Bachelor of Science at University in 1972, computers had moved into the business world.  Some took up an entire room that required constant cooling, but minicomputers were becoming available as I would soon discover.  Post university my parents couldn't stand having me sit around not knowing what to do with myself and they encouraged me to take a course in something that interested me (i.e. that paid).  Nothing did interest me but, due to pressure, I decided to take a Computer Programming Course with the Control Data Company.  This cost money that I was expected to pay off.

I got through this in six months and was employed by Burroughs Ltd., a company that made minicomputers.  I coded accounting packages in Cobol on grid paper in an office (when people were still allowed to smoke at work) before the coding was compiled on another computer somewhere else and returned in holes punched on paper tape in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange - a computer code that assigns a numerical value to basic English letters, characters, and symbols - that could be fed into the minicomputer to program it.  The computer had no screen or VDU (Visual Display Unit).  Screens have made computers user friendly.  It's like giving them a face, eyes, ears and a mouth.  Interacting with a minicomputer back then was just programming it and then testing if the program worked.  You fed it data then checked the printed output to see if it did what you wanted it to do.

I lasted nine months in this tedium that I decided wasn't living.  I doubted that I ever paid my parents back.  Today's personal computers are compact, have screens and, if you're clever, you can even write programs them.  I can't because I lost interest long ago.  Windows made computers far more user friendly and fun.  I almost wish I'd stuck with programming.  There was money there if I'd become proficient.  I even went back to university and studied Computer Science for one year.  I transferred and did an Arts degree instead.  Honestly, I never did make real money.

People don't really write programs anymore, I'm told.  They make them using Sub-Routines, which are basically pre-existing programs.  When people tell me they work in I.T., I assume they are technical.  In fact, they can be in sales, network administration or installing software or hardware.  No one, anymore, says that they're a programmer, in fact, I don't think most people know what it means.

WHERE IT REALLY COMES FROM.

Undersea cables are the backbone of the global internet.

I have, until recently, laboured under the impression that the internet is mostly brought to us through satellites.  How wrong I was.  It turns out that undersea fibre-optic cables carry approximately 99% of all international internet traffic.  Satellites are used for hard-to-access and remote areas where laying cables is not feasible.  I had previously thought that one of the few useful benefits of the space race was that the internet relied on satellites.  It is interesting to note that undersea cables have been being laid for 170 years.  The first were copper and transmitted telegraph signals.  In the mid-twentieth century coaxial cables carried telephone service, and the first fiber optic cable was laid in 1988.  You live and learn.

A lot of hard work, such as laying all that cable over thousands of miles of ocean, has gone into bringing the internet to people all over the globe.  The foundations were laid years ago and layer upon layer of emerging technologies progressed and combined to give us instant communication and access to more information and knowledge than we could ever possibly absorb.  Billions of people have created their own web pages: everyday people, learned institutions, research entities, governments, media empires, utility providers, banks, your local kindergarten, influencers (a word I simply cannot stand), small and large businesses and lots of people who want to sell you things.  The list is endless.  You name it, it's probably there as well as the so named 'dark web'.

Whatever you think of it and however you use it, the internet has brought something akin to magic into our lives and is a positive addition to our lives.  It definitely has its negatives, but those arise from the use made of it by human beings. 

END

TRUTH, LIES, EVIDENCE AND REASONABLE DOUBT: the Mushroom Lunch Murders.

 

Death Cap Mushrooms

Like a lot of people lately, I've been intrigued by the Death Cap Mushroom murders in which three people died and another almost died after they ate a lunch laced with Death Cap Mushrooms in a rural town in Victoria, Australia.  Did a divorced mother of two teenage children deliberately poison four guests as an act of spite towards her ex-husband?  Being a stickler for the facts, I was worried that the jurors would convict a potentially innocent woman.  Perhaps it was just a dreadful accident.  I believe there should be irrefutable evidence in order to justify a conviction.  I remember well the Lindy Chamberlain, ("A dingo took my baby"), case where the zeal of the Northern Territory Police to have her convicted based on their dislike of her religion, her lack of apparent emotion and their just-plain-bloody-mindedness to blame someone, put an innocent woman away for three years before she was exonerated.

As such my mind was open to the possibility of Erin Patterson (the accused mushroom killer's) innocence right up until the verdict, after which I read and heard more about the detective work that led to her conviction and began to believe the law had got it right after all.  There was too much lying by Patterson.  Yes, that could be explained by fear, but other things couldn't.  She had stated she bought the mushrooms she used in the dish from Woolworths and some more from an Asian grocer whom she couldn't remember.  Leongatha, her hometown, has a population of around 5,800 people.  How many Asian grocers do you think it has in order for her to forget which of them it was?

Her mobile 'pinged' off two mobile phone towers in areas where the toxic mushrooms had been listed as having been found by two online sites.  A week later she bought a food dehydrator, which she denies having done even though there were photos on her phone of mushrooms drying in a dehydrator.  She was caught on video at the local dump, dumping the food dehydrator that she didn't have.  The dehydrator was recovered and forensically tested.  Lo and behold, it showed traces of Death Cap Mushroom toxin.  She also had three mobile phones and only gave one to the police.

After learning of all this, the possibility of 'it was a terrible accident', as she had claimed, just didn't add up.  She has been described as intelligent and had also taken and passed an Air Traffic Controller course.  That is a notoriously difficult course, and she completed it.  She has brains and nerve so why, in this age of forensics and the ability for technology to track our movements, did she think she could get away with murder?  And why take the chance of killing four people at once and think you can pass it off as a tragic mistake?  I honestly think Patterson must be extraordinarily arrogant to have underestimated the intelligence of the police and medical professionals in her local community.

How could you actually plan a meal with the intention to kill, prepare it, eat across the table from your victims, who were not even your ex-husband - (the person with whom you had the issue) - making small talk and then praying together?  She had asked them to lunch to discuss her 'cancer diagnosis', which didn't exist, so they must have felt obliged to attend and, like lambs to the slaughter, they did.

The presiding judge in the case gave the jury about five days of instructions to explain what things they should consider, what they should not, and about finding a motive, but my feelings are that Patterson was convicted as much by the pertinent facts as by her character.  She had been correctly portrayed as a liar both during the lead up to the case and in earlier instances in her life.  Her behaviour when her victims fell sick was also incongruous.  She had turned up at the hospital for tests after she was informed that her guests had poisoning and was advised she should also be checked as she had eaten the same meal.  She arrived at the hospital unfazed and, five minutes later signed a document to allow her to leave against hospital staff wishes.  She also showed no concern for two of her ill lunch guests who were just metres away from her in the hospital.  She was setting off red flags that brought her under suspicion and led to the hospital doctor calling the police.

For a clever woman, she wasn't being clever at all.  If she had gone to all the trouble to plan these murders, why try to take out four people at once?  Why didn't she ditch her mobile phone on her travels?  Why didn't she buy a dehydrator months ahead and use it regularly so it didn't arouse suspicion and why ditch it at the local dump where there are security cameras?

She is going to appeal, but the case has been covered by media all over the world.  Getting an unbiased jury at this stage will be difficult if not impossible.  One thing is for sure though, I bet Patterson is never given kitchen duties in prison.

END

THE 'F' WORD - The Pros and Cons of Obscenities.

 THE 'F' WORD.

Image credit: Calvin and Hobbes

It's probably the most used word starting with 'F' in the English language: the 'F' word.  You know the one I mean.  It's so well known that you don't even have to add the next three letters.  It is, by definition, a four-letter word: short words that describe sexual or excretory actions.  I, of course, have no statistics to back up my guess, but if you imagine, in the daily lives of people, the number of stubbed toes, whacked elbows, spilled or dropped anything, missed appointments, phone calls, buses, opportunities et al, and the things someone shouldn't have said but can't take back that cost them their job, promotion or spouse - well, you will no doubt expect that a large percentage of the people who have suffered one of those misfortunes, will have expleted.  (I don't care that 'expleted' is not a verb, I'm making it one.)  They may not have meant to, but it slips out.

I think an expletive is very helpful in the right situation or, rather, the wrong situation, when something bad has happened.  Uttering an expletive when you have done something stupid to yourself, or have had something bad done to you, is probably better than slamming your fist into a wall with frustration or into the face of someone else.  Expletives are a viable means of venting; of letting out intense emotion.  Swearing may well save someone who is upset from suffering a stroke, who knows?

When I decided on the subject for this post, it was because I had become annoyed with the prevalence, and apparent acceptance, by the entertainment media of, in particular, the 'F' word.  It has been tabu on live television since its inception.  Historically, It wasn't heard in the American movies until the 1970's, and on a very few rare occasions in British films earlier.  Little by little, over the years, its use has crept increasingly into films but, lately, it's not just creeping, it's marching boldly into television and streaming productions.

In both movies and television shows, with the exception of live and free to air, it is as if the media are trying to force that word, and similar obscenities, down our throats, and it makes me wonder why.  Are they trying to make it so commonplace as to make it acceptable, to lose its effect, or are they trying to lower our standards, to slacken our moral fibre?  Is it possible that the people who make entertainment in Hollywood and elsewhere overseas, spend their lives spewing profanities instead of other, purpose built and fit for purpose adjectives?  Does someone need to send such producers copies of the Oxford English Dictionary and a Thesaurus?

I am also going to be sexist here.  I know that men don't particularly like women to swear.  It's not about equality, it's about femininity.  Swearing isn't sexy.  I repeat that.  Swearing isn't sexy in conversation.  If you stub your toe, that's okay but if you use a swear word as an adjective, noun or verb in place of something more articulate, you're just trying to fit in, and it shows.  I'm old enough to be really sure about this.  It holds true for all ages of men down to the Millennials.   In groups born later than the latter, the 'F' word will have no more effect than 'bugger' or 'blast'.  Men want to respect women, and they won't respect a woman who doesn't respect herself.  They really don't like them competing with them in the profanity stakes.  Oddly enough, that's for the boys.  They want to be able to impress a woman occasionally by leaving the swear words out of their conversation, and that won't work if she swears like wharfie too.

I know some of you reading this will be guffawing at these sentiments.  You will, I assure you, eventually find out that I am right.  Times do change of course and that's why I take into consideration that Millennials onwards will take no umbrage at the use of the profanities we use these days.  Media producers today, however, do use them to shock and to add an edge to their shows.  I wonder, however, when the dialogue has the actress being as profane as the actor, if the screenwriter has the voice right for the character.  Sometimes it just doesn't work for me.  I sometimes think that when the dialogue doesn't seem right for a character, a male writer is writing female dialogue or, perhaps, it's a Millennial writing the dialogue for a middle-aged actress.

Is it a good, or a bad, thing that the media is force feeding us profanities in fictional shows?  Does it lower the standards of the audience and a younger generation?  Do we want impressionable youth spewing words many of us find offensive thinking it's the norm?  Will it demystify and take the power from these words?  I have personally watched over the decades, as the standard of humanity has deteriorated, and so I would like to see us maintaining a set of standards in relation to certain things in the hope of maintaining certain aspects of civilization.

Words have power.  It's no use pretending that they don't.  "The pen is mightier than the sword", first came to us from English author Edward Lytton in 1839, and has resonated ever since.  We all know words can hurt, especially when coming from people we love, like or admire.  Another old adage is, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me".  In truth, they shouldn't be able hurt us as they are but vapour on the wind.  But they can and do hurt.  They can even wound fatally, because of the affect they can have on the mind and emotions of their recipients.

I could go on and on about the power of words, but I don't have to.  Anyone who speaks and negotiates their way in this world using a language, knows how many ways their words can be taken the wrong way, misinterpreted or twisted by other people.  Words, as such, can even be dangerous.  I'm not going so far as to saying swearing is dangerous, but I think you're getting my drift.  It is the way people receive what they hear that must be considered when making an utterance.

At a personal level, I don't appreciate when the media, a very powerful instrument in our society, takes it upon themselves to be the arbiter of our morals.  In my daily dealing with people over the decades, I haven't heard the 'F' word used in conversation even a quarter as much as I hear it in television and movies.  I'm not talking about as an expletive; I'm talking about as an adjective.  I'm prone to letting out the 'F' word more often these days when I suffer a sudden misfortune, but then I chide myself.  That's because it used to not come so quickly to my tongue.  I still find it offensive, and I can't help wondering if I have started using it because the entertainment I ingest is so replete with the word, in even the blandest of entertainment, such as comedies, that it has caused the censors built into my own internal dictionary to accept it as a 'word safe for utterance around children and the general public'.

Basically, my internal dictionary is being subliminally rewired to accept the 'F' word, but the moral code area of my brain does not and will not, accept it.  I will remain true to my set of standards, even if my mouth chooses to let the 'F' word fly occasionally, but I will never, ever use it as an adjective.

END

LET'S HEAR IT FOR DONKEYS and their 7,000 years of service to humans.

Happy Donkeys (DreamCafeArt)

DONKEYS came to my attention recently because they kept popping up on television news reports.  They were neither the reason for the bulletins in which they appeared, nor were they even mentioned, but they were there.  The televised coverage was about people fleeing their homes, their countries and their livelihoods to safety.  Among the mechanized transports carrying people and goods were donkeys, either heavily laden or pulling carts top heavy with goods and people.

Now, I feel terribly for people in such a situation, but my heart really goes out to the donkeys, mules, hinnies or whatever hybrids they are.  They haven't messed up the world, we have, and then we make these poor, innocent beasts carry the weight of our mistakes.

Donkeys are rather overlooked because of the horse, their showier distant relative, whom they branched off from over 7 million years ago.  Horses are to donkeys what supermodels are to the average woman, at least appearance wise.  Horses can be raced, groomed, ridden and sometimes change hands for huge amounts of money.  There are work horses of course, and even horses eaten for meat, but then there are racing thoroughbreds, special breeds of horses, Spanish Riding School horses and so forth.  Nobody gets a donkey to do dressage or spends a fortune breeding them.  They are the unsung darlings of the equine family, uncomplaining and mostly unnoticed in work and in war.  Yes, horses have suffered dreadfully in war, I know that, but you don't see Napoleon sitting on a donkey to have his portrait painted, do you?  No one thinks of a donkey as a majestic beast and yet, they have been of use to us for much longer than horses.  The truth is, however, that Napoleon rode on a mule, not a horse, to cross the Alps.

Paintings of Napoleon crossing the Alps: the idealized version and the actuality.

We've recently seen donkeys carrying people and their goods to safety (or wherever they've been told it's safe - and usually isn't) in the war between Israel and the Hamas/Palestinians.  I include Palestinians in that last statement (although this post isn't about politics) but in the interest of accuracy.  The Palestinians, innocent and complicit alike, are bearing the brunt of this war but I'm sure it's the Palestinians using the donkeys because the Hamas have so many weapons, they can surely afford mechanical transport.  They can also hide in the numerous tunnels they have dug under Gaza and so, don't have to abandon their homes on a laden donkey.

Elsewhere, in other news reports from Sudan, Ethiopia, Syria and Afghanistan, where people are fleeing from war, famine or persecution, you'll see the humble donkey, or its cousins, bearing burdens for humans.  According to my research, which, I've distilled from various sources, the donkey originated in Africa from the African Wild Ass and was domesticated in North-East Africa around 7,000 years ago, 3,000 years before humans domesticated horses.  Donkeys were first used to carry people and goods in Egypt before their reach extended South to Sudan, West to the Sahara, and East to Ethiopia and onwards.

Throughout history they have been of immeasurable assistance to humans in trade that must be carried out by land routes because of their endurance and ability to carry heavy burdens long distances.  They can also be used for milking, raising water, milling, as pets and even rides for tourists.  Sadly, they can also be used for meat.  Approximately 3.5 million donkeys and mules are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. (Source: Wikipedia)

The first donkeys to arrive in the Americas came on the ships of the second voyage of Christopher Columbus and landed at Hispaniola in 1495. (Source: Wikipedia).  They reached Mexico by 1528 and only reached the United States in 1598.  In 2006 it was estimated that there were approximately 41 million donkeys in the world.  Since then, donkey populations in China, which had the largest population of them, have decreased as well as some other countries, and it would be very difficult to make an accurate assessment of the number presently in the world.

Donkeys have also found their place in fiction, probably the most famous being a toy, Eeyore, in the Winnie the Pooh books.  Poor Eeyore was always depressed and, considering how donkeys are used as beast of burden, I wouldn't be surprised if they were, but I think depression is only experienced by human beings.  Donkeys are generally gentle, tolerant and forbearing.  They are, however, considered stubborn, but that is probably because they tend to 'freeze' in the face of danger, unlike horses that are likely to bolt and flee.  They just have a strong survival instinct. 

Eeyore (Courtesy of Disney)

Like many animals, donkeys have been used in war.  At least they are mostly used as pack animals, not to be ridden into battle, although they have often been in the thick of it.  Probably the best-known instances of donkeys used in war arose from the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey in WWI.  An Australian and a New Zealand soldier, (ANZACS - Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) both became well known for using donkeys to transport wounded soldiers from the front to first-aid stations.  I found it interesting, in my research, to discover the story of the New Zealand soldier, Dick Henderson, a stretcher bearer.  I had heard of the Australian soldier, John Simpson, also a stretcher bearer, and his donkey, 'Simpson's donkey', as it's part of Australian ANZAC folklore.  I am Australian, after all.  Surprisingly, however, I had not heard of our New Zealand counterpart and his donkey.

Dick Henderson, New Zealand stretcher bearer and his donkey and the photo that inspired the painting.

The painting of Dick Henderson and his donkey transporting a wounded soldier, hangs in both Australian and New Zealand museums.  In John Simpson's case, the donkeys were bought ashore to carry water, but Simpson decided to use his to carry less seriously wounded soldiers to safety.  Those with life-threatening head, chest and stomach wounds could not be transported this way.  Simpson is credited with being the first to do this in the campaign.  The poor man died only three weeks after having landed at Gallipoli but had become a familiar sight in that short time transporting the wounded on his donkey and made his mark in history.

Obviously, donkeys and mules were used well before this war and for the same reason, but by the time WWI came around, photo coverage and in the field reporting, brought the animals to the public's attention.

A happier and somewhat less cumbersome task for donkeys and mules is to carry tourists.  Until I researched the animals, I didn't realize how capable they are of withstanding heavy loads.  I don't tolerate animal abuse, but once I knew this, I wasn't so anti their use for taking tourists for rides.  It's a hell of a lot better than being used in the firing lines or eaten once the food runs out.

Recently I found my late parents' photo album of their round-the-world journey and, 'lo and behold, there they were riding donkeys in Greece.  Mules tend to be larger and so I think that they are riding donkeys.

My parents riding donkeys in Greece 1974.

Donkeys, throughout history have been viewed as an inferior beast, possibly because they are servile and tolerant.  Their stubbornness has also made them appear stupid, when really, all they are is hesitant and careful.  A stubborn creature is not stupid, in fact, it knows exactly what it doesn't want to do.  They were, however, typecast early in written history and people's opinion of them hasn't changed much since.

"Donkeys were found in the works of Homer, Aesop and Apuleius, where they were generally portrayed as stupid and stubborn, or servile at best, and generally represented the lower class. They were often contrasted with horses, which were seen as powerful and beautiful." (Source: Wikipedia, Cultural references to donkeys.)

The Jewish religion even adds to this demeaning attitude to the creatures by considering them impure:

"In the Jewish religion, the donkey is not a kosher animal. In the Zohar, it is considered avi avot hatuma i.e. an ultimate impure animal, and doubly "impure", as it is both non-ruminant and non-cloven hoofed." (Source: Wikipedia, Cultural references to donkeys.)

I can't help feeling sorry for the dear creatures for being held in such low regard historically and, at the same time, used ceaselessly for our benefit.  At least by not being considered kosher, they are less in danger of being eaten in some societies.

Donkeys and their kin, asses and mules, have given us colourful analogies based on their perceived characteristics.  Examples of these include 'stubborn as a mule', 'make an ass of yourself' and 'donkey vote' (in which you simply mark your voting preferences 1,2, 3 without giving any thought to the candidates).  These sayings imply that donkeys and their kin are both stubborn and stupid, but that hasn't stop humans using them for all manner of things, and that's because these animals are reliable, capable and strong.  They don't bolt or flee in the face of danger either.  Surprisingly, they don't eat at much as horses either, making them more economical.

 "(Donkeys) need less food than a horse or pony of comparable height and weight, approximately 1.5 percent of body weight per day in dry matter, compared to the 2–2.5 percent consumption rate possible for a horse."  (Source: Wikipedia - Donkey)

Most of the world's donkey population is found in undeveloped countries and used as working and pack animals.  In developed countries where there are fewer of them, they are mostly used as pets and for breeding.  This is the case in the area in which I now live, which is at the edge of suburbia where farms and large acreages begin.  Near to me are a number of hobby farms with various unusual animals from llamas and alpacas to camels and donkeys.  Some of them have open days where children and adults alike can pet and interact with the animals.  Animals such as these are well cared for and a long way from poverty and war zones and it's wonderful to think that there are some creatures in the world being cared for by humans and living their best lives.

END

 

 

 

EDITING THE PAST: The dangers of whitewashing literature and history.

Image Credit: Paul Wood via Cartoon Stock.

Who dares erase the past?  A damned fool, that is who.  One who wants to rewrite history, or literature, in a context they judge to be palatable to the masses.

It is offensive to be considered a member of the masses, who apparently lack the ability to read literature in the context of the time it was written, and who must take offence at outdated terminology and opinions, and to have 'woke' members of society edit and alter original texts on our behalf.  These people take it upon themselves to be judge and jury of our morals (as if they were Nazis at a book burning) and alter original published texts written, sometimes, over a century ago, without the permission of a long dead author.

The result of such puritanical vandalism is to subdue, even negate, the original voice of the author.  It takes the words right out of his or her mouth.  It removes the historic attitudes of the time in which it is written, whereby the modern-day reader is denied insight into the mores of the times in which the text was embedded.  It is, thus, denying history and, as the saying goes, "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

What is most appalling about this 'editing' is that the majority of people are appalled by it and yet publishing houses that should have ethics, not yellow streaks running down their spines, are the ones taking part in the vandalism for fear of the 'woke' brigade.  The 'woke' brigade will include schools who have thrown themselves headfirst into the ocean of political correctness to protect the tender young minds in their care (over whom they refuse to exert discipline for fear of being sued), to protect their sensitivities and ensure they don't learn archaic discriminatory words or gender discrimination from Enid Blyton (author of Noddy) or Roald Dahl (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).

Okay, when it comes to children's books, I'm more on their side.  Frankly, the Noddy and Big Ears books creeped me out and, if I really wanted to erase some children's stories completely, it would be the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.  In my mind they were simply not fit for children.  Loathe them as I do, I would not erase them.  They represent their times and the attitudes of those times.  While I would read neither author to children, I would leave the texts untouched because you CAN'T CHANGE HISTORY.  They are testament to their times.

However, when it comes to adult fiction, leave it alone.  For heaven's sake, the James Bond books by Ian Fleming are in the 'woke's' sights.  In this case, however, it is the publisher entrusted to the books' future imprints that has taken an initiative to not offend modern readers as they (and obviously the blockbuster movies) have managed to reinvent Bond by allowing him to change with the times.  

"Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, the company that owns the literary rights to the 007 series, hired sensitivity readers to review the classic books ahead of the reissue. The Telegraph said the new versions would feature a disclaimer: "This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set."   

BY THEARA COLEMAN, THE WEEK US PUBLISHED MARCH 9, 2023

In this case, the editing is to keep the character of Bond up with the times and ensure both the novels and the movies remain relevant to the present generation.  If, however, let us imagine, a publisher decided to edit Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", to appeal to modern sensibilities, what would your thoughts on that be?  Mine would be horror.  One of the beauties of Austen's works are that they take us back to the morals and mores of a past time.  Her characters are works of fiction that give us a glimpse into history and the workings of the society and attitudes of her day.  We can see the role of women in society at a time when marriage was considered the only option available to them.  Young women of today, reading about the limited options available to their gender in that era, can revel, be grateful for and be vigilant to ensure that their sex is never placed in this abominable situation again thanks to authors such as Austen's, albeit fictional account of women's lives in the past.

Would we rather edit that history out so we are not appalled by it, or be aware of what society is capable of and be on guard should it ever repeat itself?

 Theara Coleman in her article in The Week US also states:

"Modern publishers often enlist sensitivity readers to help to screen literature for potentially offensive material, especially for children's books.  While some argue that the practice is a form of extreme censorship, others say it promotes diversity in publishing. Though it's more common for publishers to use sensitivity readers for future work, some have utilized their services to help identify published books that might need edits."

It's one thing entirely for a publisher to pre-edit a manuscript it has accepted responsibility for publishing, it is quite another to edit a published book (even one of their own imprints) that is decades, even a century or more, old.  I believe that is because they are taking away something quintessentially part of the original publication and that is its signature, if you will, in time.

It's not just literature that is making historical alterations.  I was somewhat surprised a year or two ago when I began seeing trailers for a show set in Regency England.  It was obviously a costume drama set in a Jane Austen type setting involving the Upper Middle Class and, I presume, some aristocracy.  I was a tad confused by coloured actors playing some of the titled characters.  I have nothing against this BUT it is a show appealing to a young (late teens to twenties onwards) demographic.  Again, fictional it may be, but in no way is it reflective of the era.  It would be lovely to imagine English people of that time being as egalitarian as we are today; that people of African descent weren't instead used as slaves and, if free, never allowed to rise up the social ladder.  I just hope the young viewers will not end up with a skewed view of history.  History was cruel.  It is better they learn the truth and see how much better we have become, than to hide the truth.  That is because there is reason for shame, and it should not be whitewashed.  Perhaps the show's producers feel that presenting this altered version of history will ensure youth will imagine society was always so egalitarian and so will continue to be, but I really think that is a bit of an odd way to go about it.

There is a word we should all become familiar with in this age of 'woke' editing: Bowdlerism.  It's definition: A policy of Bowdlerization, or censorship of removing what is considered indecent.  This kind of editing has happened previously in history.

According to Nicholas A. Basbanes in "Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World":  

"Long before the British physician Thomas W. Bowdler (1754-1825) and his sister, Henrietta Bowdler (1754-1830), took it upon themselves to make the plays of William Shakespeare 'safe' for innocent eyes, the wholesale editing of another author's writing so that it might be more palatable to prudish tastes was known as 'castration' to some, 'winnowing' by others. But with the publication of the first edition of the Family Shakespeare in 1807, the world of letters got a new verb—bowdlerize—to identify the process of literary expurgation."

 And so, even Shakespeare isn't safe from the prudes of history.  Certainly, let people make blander versions for their own spurious enjoyment.  Just let's be sure to keep the original texts intact for posterity and to appreciate their genius.

END.

NO, I'M NOT ON A DIET.

Many years (read decades) ago, when I lived in Hong Kong, an astrologer (Canadian, not Chinese - he'd come to me highly recommended) told me that, with Jupiter in my sixth house, I had a propensity to put on weight.  At the time I was by no means overweight but, at 5'4" (164cm), when I did put on weight, it showed easily.

During my adult lifetime my top weight has been 65kg (10 stone 3 pounds).  That's not including my fully pregnant weight, which topped that, but it doesn't count.  I mean, I had another person in me.  My bottom adult weight has been 50kg (8 stone).  Presently, I weigh in at 54kg and I'm happy with that.  Unlike most post-menopausal women, I have lost, rather than gained, weight.

I have never been a big eater but that's not through choice or a desire to remain thin.  It is simply because I grew up with an appalling and easily upset digestive system.  I was a reed thin child but, as adolescence crept upon me, I was deposited in a boarding school.  The school's nutritional guidelines were disturbing to say the least.  Bread with every meal and afternoon teas of cream and jam filled buns. Fat deposits began to accrue on me.  Well, obviously, I needed curves, that's the point of hormones after all, among other things.  Those other things included a severe case of cystic acne that lasted well into my twenties.

Nonetheless, I was never overweight, but was always conscious that I might become so because my mother had been thin when she married my father and, by my teen years, she was two sizes overweight.  She wasn't fat, she just wasn't thin.  I resembled her in so many ways that I decided that I would always have to watch my weight.  She also wasn't a big eater and I presumed that we both had, what is termed, a slow metabolism.

Before I fell pregnant with my son, my weight had dropped to 50kg from around 61kg when I married.  Post pregnancy I was 63kg and this weight would not shift until four years later when I was living in Hong Kong and it plummeted, for a number of reasons that I won't go into, down to 50kg again.

Fifty kilograms, for me, is not a natural weight.  I tend to look skeletal.  Nonetheless, once back in Australia I wanted to maintain my svelte appearance but, try as I may, I began to gain weight, about one kilogram (two pounds) per year.  It took ten years for me to go from 50kg to 63kg.  I was eating normally, which is to say, not much, and so I began to eat less but I still gained slowly and relentlessly.  It seemed that the astrologer was right and Jupiter had it in for me.  I had a friend at this time who was very slim and could eat two helpings of everything and not gain a thing.  I believe it comes down to genes, rather than planetary alignments, but who knows?

I discovered one very important thing from trying to stay at a weight that my body didn't approve of: the body decides our ideal weight.  It will more than happily let us go over it, but it won't let us stay under it.  It would rather we gained fat in case of a famine and, for the same reason, will make us gain if we fall below a certain level where our fat deposits won't sustain us in a crisis.  At least, that's my theory.

I think it comes down to the fact that, throughout most of human history, we have not had food readily available to us.  Only in the last ten thousand or so years have we become agrarian and it's only in the last hundred or so years with the Industrial Revolution, mass global transport and trade, that most of humanity has been assured of food.

There are exceptions of course.  Wars and civil wars, including tribal wars in Africa, even more than drought, are usually responsible for food shortages in these food abundant days.  Our bodies genetic coding, however, is based on hundreds of thousands of years of the human experience and has programmed us to survive, even prepare for, periods without adequate sustenance.  Our brains also aid in this survival mechanism and make us crave fattening foodstuffs that have allowed food chains such as McDonald's, Haagen Daz, Pizza Hut, Dunking Donuts right down to your local fish and chip shops and greasy cafes to pander to your starvation avoiding whims.

What a pity our genetic coding doesn't instill a loathing of war in us as well.  Unfortunately, war probably arose out of skirmishes between people over food and hunting grounds and may be coded into us as well.  We haven't outgrown what was once a survival mechanism.

I eat less than most people do.  I do not exaggerate.  I am known for it in my family and by our friends to whom it's a bit of a joke.  I used to be able to eat more, when I was younger, although not much.  I watch with barely concealed envy as my daughter-in-law and her mother (both normal sized women) make scones for afternoon tea with an assortment of jams and cream and eat them with my grandchildren.  If I attempted the same, I would not be able to eat any dinner.  When my partner has our friends to lunch, he will also bring out a dessert of some sort that they will scoff down joyfully.  I watch in dismay and take a bite from my partner's plate just to get a taste.

My stomach has been my dictator since I was five years of age.  After what it put me through in my youth due to lactose intolerance and whatever else upset it, I do not test its limits.  It simply isn't worth it.  How I would trade with someone else for a day just to know the pleasure of eating a decent size meal followed by cheesecake or some such, let alone to be able to consume same with a milkshake or frosty shake.  However, it's just not even on the cards.  I don't even want to think where that would take me.

I'm sure you're not feeling sorry for me.  Most people would like to be able to curb their appetites at will but, if you have to sit at a table and watch your lunch companions eating a whole roll each, perhaps two, filled with ham, cheese, salads, mayonnaise etc., and you literally can only consume a third of what they're having without getting a stomach ache, it is just plain sad.  It is only since menopause that my usual small portions have not been responsible for me slowly gaining weight, as I did in those ten years when I was younger and tried to stay underweight.

I envy people who can go to an 'all you can eat' buffet and get their money's worth.  I am a huge devotee of the doggy bag when I go to a restaurant.  When I asked for one at a restaurant when I was first dating my partner, he was appalled but he came to understand that it's only fair considering my inability to eat enough.  I also can't eat too quickly and so, taking a doggy bag home, means I can enjoy what I couldn't eat in one go, later on.

Friends are now telling me my face is too thin.  This is the result of ageing and fat deserting my face.  Unfortunately, you can't stick fat back where you want it.  It has to be applied all over unless you have the money for a plastic surgeon to place it artfully where it is needed.  I'm not about to try eating enough to fill out my cheeks and couldn't even if I wanted to.

So, to end this blog, my advice to those of you who can eat well is, enjoy.  If you need to diet, don't do crash diets.  They just confuse the body because it thinks it's in a famine and you'll just end up programming it to gain.  The best way to control your intake is long term discipline, something I've had to acquire thanks to my temperamental tummy.  You don't have to starve yourself thin.  Go about it slowly and don't develop an, "I'll binge now and diet", later mentality.  Discover your body's ideal weight and work at keeping it.  It's also silly to say that any particular food is bad for you or fattening.  It's really all about how much of it you eat.

END

CLOTHES, CLOTHES EVERYWHERE, AND NOT A THING TO WEAR.

 

It occurs to me that, if I live to be one thousand years old, I will never have, in my wardrobe, the perfect outfit for any occasion that just happens to arise.

For example, recently, I had to attend my partner's son's wedding.  It was a daytime wedding followed, later, by an evening through night-time reception and dinner.  It wasn't quite black tie, but it was well dressed.  It was also in an in-between sort of season.  You know the kind, Autumn going into Spring but, potentially, also Summer.  October, in Australia, is a pot luck kind of season.  Although I now live in Queensland, which is north of New South Wales where I grew up in Sydney, October can be fickle, to say the least. In Sydney, just as you were warming up from a cold Winter heralding the promise of Spring, October would blast us with an early heatwave before abating and pretending to be Spring again.  I'm talking in the 90 degrees Farenheit or the high 30's Celcius.

To put this in perspective, Sydney is relatively cooler, on average, than Brisbane where I live now.  Brisbane, however, can also deliver October heatwaves.   This is what caused my clothing conundrum for the wedding.  I had saved the dress from my son's wedding eleven years earlier.  His wedding was in our Australian Autumn of April.  It was an expensive, long sleeved, knee length dress with a bold black and white pattern.  I studied the long sleeves and decided that I would probably end up too hot if I wore the dress.  I have a propensity for overheating at the drop of a hat.

I have a kind neighbour who used to attend the horse races a lot and this required dressing up.  She offered me a selection from her wardrobe and I chose one dress as a standby.  I had tried her dress on in Winter and it fitted, looked nice but not exciting.  It would do.  I wasn't the star of the show, the bride and younger women would be.

The wedding day arrived, hot and sticky so, at the last moment, I put on my neighbour's dress.  Immediately, my skin could not breathe.  If there is one thing I can't wear here in Brisbane, it is any fabric containing polyester.  In Winter it had felt fine, so I didn't check the label.  If I'd realized that the dress was a polyester blend, I would have known it would be too hot on a warm day.  I stood before the mirror contemplating whether I could get through almost twelve hours in the dress.  The wedding was at 1.30pm and finished at 3pm.  The guests then had to find something to do until 5pm when the reception began in a ritzy nightclub in the city, some distance from where the wedding was held.

I doubted I would make it to the threatened hour of midnight, that my partner told me I was expected to remain, up until the bride and groom left.  We agreed I would take off solo at 9.30pm.  That, however, didn't solve the polyester blend dress problem.  Standing alone in my bedroom, partner long gone to attend to his son and make whoopee at a swank hotel, I had to make a decision.  I looked desperately into my wardrobe, which holds items up to thirty years old, classics too good to throw out, and grabbed a twenty-year old purple linen, sleeveless dress that I had had made by a dressmaker.  I had added some gilt edging to the neck at some stage to liven it up.  I had lost six kilograms since wearing it, but it looked okay.

I had also invested in patent beige shoes to go with the borrowed polyester blend dress, and I put these on but, as an afterthought, I took a very ritzy pair of high heeled sandals because I knew my feet would hurt.  I also took a black bolero jacket in case I felt cold.  I never did.  It just became a nuisance to tote around with me.

I arrived at the church, where I met up with my partner, feeling cool but underdressed.  It didn't matter.  All the young women were dressed to the nines and looked gorgeous.  The bride wore a very expensive gown, the material alone costing a fortune.  It was her dream dress and she looked lovely.  In fact, the whole wedding went off beautifully including the reception.  At the end of the service, however, my feet were complaining hugely, and, in the car, I changed to the ritzy sandals which let my bunions out for air.

In spite of all my preparations for the day, I ended up in a make-do twenty-year old dress.  I don't go to many events these days, but it surprised me that I had so little to choose from for this one occasion.  To be honest, I really didn't want to spend money on a new dress that I would rarely wear again.  You buy something for an occasion, and it ends up staring at you forlornly from your wardrobe for the next ten years.

I have tried, over the years, to accumulate a wardrobe that can cope with any occasion that arises, however, life changes and fashion changes.  Even when I think I have classics in my wardrobe, I find they have begun to date.  I've pulled out jackets that I think will do just fine after years of not having worn them, only to discover they have shoulder pads, are too loose or are too 'something'.  Some things stand the test of time, but most do not.

That's not the worst of it.  There are things that, at seventy, I do not feel right wearing any more.  My body is still slim, but I don't feel right wearing a halter dress that shows a lot of my upper back.  There's nothing wrong with my upper back, but I'm seventy.  The really, really galling thing are my arms.  The part of me I thought would never age have creases running vertically down the upper arms.  I will still wear sleeveless dresses, but I just don't get how these lines happened.  My mother was plumper than me and she didn't have them.  I figure that my slimness is the problem.  You really just can't win with age.  The lines are there, not too obvious yet, but they're working on it.

When I watch television and stream movies, I see some very beautiful older actresses who have had plastic surgery.  They look great through the years as they maintain their tweaks and tucks, but then, a little too much tweaking and their faces look startled and gaunt.  Fat departs from the face and botox freezes features.  There comes a time when too much is too much and you have to learn to be your age but, no matter what, you have to be cool, and I'm not going to hide my bad bits.  I shall wear them with pride or, at least, pretend to.

END.