A birthday concert: Bach

Today is of course the birthday of J.S. Bach -- of whom I am a great afficianado. So Anne and I went to an organ concert at a nearby Lutheran church to celebrate the occasion. Both the organ and the organist were excellent and Bach's ringingly self-confident music grabbed me from the very first notes.

The thing that inspired this post however was the prominence of East Asians on the occasion. The man selling tickets at the door was Chinese in fact. It reminded me that I have often read that the great Western classical music has a proportionately much bigger following in China and Japan than it does in the West.

I am very grateful for that. It could well be that Western culture is now decadent and much of our glorious cultural heritage stands in danger of being largely lost. I was for instance horrified to find out that, at the end of his high school years, my son had never heard of such great English poets as Wordsworth and Coleridge. I promptly sat down and read him some of course. The only introduction to poetry that his school gave him was to a very minor black poet! I happen to have known the black poet concerned (Kath Walker) and can tell you that she was essentially a whiner and little more.

So our kids are being de-educated and de-acculturated and it seems possible that there will one day be very few of our Volk left who will know enough to carry on the knowledge and appreciation of past wonders and attainments. That Asians may keep alive what we do not is therefore some comfort to me. While there is life there is hope.

When I first heard the music of Bach at age 13 it was an electrifying experience for me. It would be sad indeed if the generations to come never got the exposure that would introduce them also to our crowning musical achievements. But I think that lack of exposure is probably already happening in far too many cases. So if Asians keep alive our great cultural traditions it will all be to the good.

The precentor and the dragon

What is a precentor? You haven't a clue have you? Shame! A precentor is a senior official of a cathedral or other large ecclesiastical establishment. It is all part of your European Christian background and culture. To defend your culture you first have to know about it. So try harder. The precentor originally led the singing and he is still usually in charge of a cathedral's musical affairs -- though he also is a senior administrator generally -- often the next down in seniority to the Dean.

I met a precentor today. Anne and were were in town for a stroll and noticed a service in progress at the metropolitical cathedral of St John (Anglican) so we popped in for a biscuit and a sip of wine. (Just joking! Atheists don't take communion). Anyway the music was good, the service was delightfully mediaeval and we had a quick chat with the precentor afterwards. In the absence of the Dean (who was over at the CATHOLIC cathedral in some good cause!) the Precentor celebrated the Eucharist so also had hand-shaking duties afterwards.

I must admit that I was a bit fuzzy about what precentors actually did -- partly because the duties of precentors do vary -- so I was pleased to meet a live one and find out what he did. He was indeed 2IC to the Dean.

After church we strolled down to the Botanical Gardens for another sit-down and had a very fat dragon (an 18" long lizard) come up to us in an apparent quest for food. A very pleasant Sunday morning!

On apathy

I was at university during the Vietnam war and the University of Queensland was as frantically antiwar as most universities were at that time. Like the USA, Australia both had conscription and had troops in Vietnam -- and the young treasures at university definitely did not want to get shot at. In such a climate, to be vocally pro-war was almost impossible (though I was) but one group of dissenters got around that by forming what they called "The Student Apathy Group" (SAG). Apathy was almost the only respectable way of dissenting from the prevalent Leftist line. Also studying at the time was a very good humoured Australian Army Major named Imre George Apathy -- of Hungarian origin and universally known as "Bob". When SAG heard that there was a real-life student Apathy on campus, they promptly made him their patron!

So I think it is clear that apathy can be useful at times. And it is in fact very prevalent. I was at a birthday BBQ recently with a small group of perfectly decent ordinary Australians where I supplied the sausages. At one point I said: "And you will be pleased to know that the sausages are halal" I got exactly the response I expected -- total incomprehension. I might as well have said that the sausages were "haram" (forbidden). It was just another indication that those of us who blog, read blogs or just keep up with current events are in fact well out of the mainstream. The average person is interested only in events that affect him or her directly and personally.

And I think that is a good thing. Australia has benefited greatly from economically rational economic policies introduced by both major political parties so Australians can afford to be apathetic. Whichever party gains power will almost certainly do a better job of managing the economy than do most of the world's governments. But apathy has its price. The U.S. economy is not as well managed as the Australian one -- witness the vast U.S. agricultural subsidies -- but Americans have a somewhat higher standard of living than Australians because they are so highly motivated and therefore work harder. By contrast, Australians would rather go to the beach most of the time. And they often do.

Footnote:

Yes. I did join the Australian Army (I became a sergeant) and I did volunteer for service in Vietnam. Incomprehensible, I know. Definitely not apathetic.


In my army days

An aboriginal Sunday

This post will encourage Leftists to shriek "racist" and "Nazi" at me but they regularly shriek that at GWB and heaps of other conservatives so I am going to disregard such shrieks as devalued currency.

I grew up with Aborigines (Australian native blacks) in my class at school and I have seen plenty of them since -- particularly as a landlord (Yes. I HAVE let rooms and houses to them. Racists do that, you know) -- so I think I know a bit about them. And if you are looking for "cultural" differences, Aborigines must be as different from people of Northern European ancestry as you can get. And the reason why is that they were isolated in Australia from other populations for up to 60,000 years (on some estimates). So they evolved separately. And they evolved to suit Australia as it originally was. And the abilities they evolved -- particularly a remarkable capacity for observing and remembering minute details of the landscape -- do in some ways leave the rest of us for dead. In other ways, however, they are badly lacking in what is needed to fit into modern Western society -- a strikingly poor ability to plan ahead being their most obvious handicap. They very much "live for the day".

One thing I have always envied them is their ability to relax. They can sit around under a tree all day happily doing exactly nothing. I, however, am one of those instinctively hard-driving people who is genetically from the far North of the world. And the fact that, in my retirement, I post daily to seven blogs of my own and contribute frequently to four group blogs is, I think, some testimony to that. It is as hard for me to sit back and do nothing as it is easy for Aborigines. But yesterday I managed it. Just as Aborigines often do, I spent the whole day sitting around and doing practically nothing other than some intermittent chatting. Anne accompanied me in this experience, of course. She is probably more full of beans than I am these days, however, so she caved in first and shot off to do something at about 7pm. She spent many years as a remote-area nurse working with (and getting on with) Aborigines so knows them even better than I do. So she knew all about the model I had in mind when I said we were having an Aborigine day. She enjoyed it but she couldn't keep it up! Genetics will out.

Australia day today

Australia day is a national holiday. It commemorates the arrival in Australia of the first white settlers on 26 Jan., 1788. So I guess it is terribly politically incorrect these days. There is minimal criticism of it, however. My many relatives on my mother's side have for many years been celebrating it with a get-together over a BBQ. It is normally the one time of the year that we see one-another so it is nice to have that opportunity to keep in touch. There are usually about 20 of us. The children who were brought along by their parents many years ago still come -- now bringing their own children with them. And that of course is a great delight to us all.

My Burns Night last night was a great (if low-key) success. The cockaleekie soup, haggis, tatties, neeps and clootie dumpling were all first class. Pipe music was played, the haggis was properly addressed and favourite Burns poems were read. We were all a bit too old to hit the Scotch whisky too heavily, though.

Burns night

Monday was Anne's birthday and preparations also had to be made for Burns night on Wednesday (TODAY!) so I was busier than usual. At 9am I set out to track down and capture a haggis for Wednesday dinner. And it was in fact more of an expedition than I had expected. Being a lazy sod, I don't make my own haggis but get it off a very talented man who is both a master butcher and a brilliant pastrycook. Visiting his shop is always a great pleasure. His website is here.

I usually get to his shop by taking an exit off the freeway that leads straight to the shop but on Monday I discovered that the bureaucrats who know better what is good for us than we do ourselves had closed that exit off. So I spent half a nerve-frazzling hour trying to find an alternative route to the shop. I eventually succeeded more from luck than good management. And, Yes, I DID stop and ask for directions at a nearby service station but the young girl on duty there did not have a clue, not too surprisingly.

Anyway, I did finally get my haggis plus some clootie dumpling for dessert. I am marking the birthday of the poet in a very low-key way this year. No speeches etc. There will be just four of us at my place to share some haggis and probably read some of the poems. For those unfortunate souls who have never been to a proper Burns night, you can at least read about it here. My own previous post on it is here.

Anyway, on Monday night I took Anne to the Hilton for the smorgasbord. The Hilton smorgasbord is probably the dearest in town but the food is probably also the best -- including a big bucket of the incomparable Sydney rock-oysters in prime condition. I had bought Anne some white slacks (of a very un-slack kind) plus an embroidered white top for the occasion and she got into high heels for what she said was the first time in 40 years so she looked pretty good to me. For some inscrutable reason she seemed to think that I looked good in a blue shirt and grey slacks but there is no accounting for taste. Anyway, we people in our 60s can still have a lot of fun, surprising though that news might be to much younger people.

A new year begins

I am writing this in the wee small hours of 2006, my New Year's Eve celebrations having just concluded. Ann and I went to a social occasion earlier in the evening but we spent the last couple of hours of the old year in one-another's company only. As midnight approached we put on a tape of "Andy Stewart's Hogmanay". Even an ersatz Scottish New Year is better than no Scottish New Year! We greatly enjoyed it anyway. I have always loved the great old Scottish sentimental songs and Andy gave us a great selection of them. The Scots know who they are and what they are.

Blacks versus Hispanics

John Brimelow recently put up on Vdare a reasonably friendly comment in response to my recent post about New Orleans.  That he calls me a "market supremacist" causes me no grief at all -- though my libertarianism is in fact much broader than mere market advocacy.  What Brimelow implies by calling me that however is a bit amusing.  He is claiming that I ignore the importance of race and genetics.  I am sure that any regular reader of my posts would be falling off their chair laughing at that! 

What Brimelow is bothered by is that I appear to be defending Hispanics.  As he is an anti-immigration warrior that curdles his egg-nog.

 I in fact am also an immigration restrictionist, unlike some libertarians.  I think  that just as a homeowner has the right to say who lives in his house, so a nation has a right to say whom they admit to their home.  And, as an Australian, I am very mainstream about that.  Both of our major political parties support a crackdown on illegal immigration and our government has in fact successfully reasserted control over immigration into our country. 

But none of that should blind us to the fact that not all minorities are the same.  And I think that a comparison of blacks and Hispanics treated as groups definitely favours Hispanics.  I am well aware that the measured mean IQ of Hispanics in the USA is at present low but I have presented reasons elsewhere for thinking that Hispanics will in general eventually rise above that and become good mainstream Americans -- which only a Leftist would expect to happen with blacks as a group.

And Brimelow's claim that wages of up to $15 per hour are unattractive in a country where the national minimum is $5.15 seems to me quite absurd.

Who should thank whom?

As I think I have mentioned here before, I get a lot of email where the sender's address ends in "mil" -- indicating that the sender is either enlisted in the U.S. armed forces or works as a civilian for the U.S. armed forces. And some of those emails do come from servicemen in Iraq. A frequent feature of those emails is that the sender thanks me for what I write in my postings  on my various  blogs. I always feel most unworthy of such thanks. I feel that it is I who should be thanking the men concerned who voluntarily put their lives at risk to serve the welfare of us all. Perhaps I am biased because of my own small service in the Australian army but I think the profession of arms is the noblest profession of all. In what other profession does one consciously volunteer to put one's own life at risk as an integral part of the job? I am therefore pleased that my latest post on Tongue-Tied may be of some help to the men and women serving in Iraq. I reproduce it below:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Monday, December 26, 2005

Can Anyone help?

As I have mentioned before, I get a lot of email from readers of my blogs who are in the military. I have just got an email that I think I should share in case anyone reading this can help:

"The army here in Iraq has apparently blocked the whole 72.x.x.x domain, and that is where Townhall.com is located. Can you contact them and tell them they have fans (and financial contributors) in Iraq that cannot access their site? Maybe they can change their IP address, maybe they have an alternative address, or maybe they can contact someone and complain that their site is being blocked. By law, the army cannot block some sites and leave others accessible unless they have a really good reason.

I think it is pretty disgraceful when a mainstream conservative site like Townhall is blocked.

MERRY XMAS! 2005

Yes. That motheaten guy looking at you above is I -- photo taken this year.

Again not a lot of news to report this year. My blogging keeps me busy in front of my computer for about 12 hours a day so I am the sedentary man. I do however go out a lot to eat -- usually for both brunch and dinner. I have only those two meals per day. There is a small anecdote about my breakfast adventures here and a note about one of my dinner adventures here. [Both of those posts are now reproduced below -- dated 25 Nov and 14 Oct,]

Judith Middleton moved out a few months ago to return to Melbourne and care for her aged father -- who is now very frail. So I was left without a companion for a short while but I now have a new lady by the name of Anne. She is such a keen chorister that she is in two choirs so she and I share a lot of musical interests -- including an interest in early church music. Through her choral contacts she hears a lot of what is going on in the Brisbane music scene so if there is some good Gregorian chant or the like being performed somewhere she lets me know and we go along. That has meant rather a lot of visits to churches lately -- even though we are both unbelievers (though both of us were, coincidentally, once communicants at Ann St Presbyterian church). There is an account of our visit to "Our Lady of Victories" Polish Catholic church here and a memoir of our visit to "Our Lady of Protection" Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church here

Anne is a pretty individualistic lady but she is very kind to me -- perhaps because I am the individualistic type too. She has even been to Iceland -- a place I often talk about but only admire from afar. She is a nurse by trade and tells me that everything you hear about the Queensland Health bureaucracy is true. See here for an example of what I mean.

I reported as follows last year:

"I am constantly in and out of surgery for my skin cancers these days. I just had three lots done at once yesterday. Rather remarkably, all the local anaesthetic the dermo pumped into me seems to have had a lasting but beneficial side-effect: For the last 4 months or so I have had a very sore left shoulder that I could move only in certain ways without pain. I never could work out for sure where the pain came from but it seemed to be tendonitis rather than arthritis. Anyway, six hours after surgery on my OTHER arm, the pain was all gone and I could move both arms any way I liked! I only hope the effect lasts! They put a lot of adrenaline into local anaesthetic so maybe that had something to do with it. Frozen shoulders are a rather common problem among oldies so now you know how to cure it! There are not many instant cures around for anything these days so it may be worth remembering. There was a famous case in America where some sort of surgical anaesthesia cured a kid of his autism so there may be more in these anaesthetics than meets the eye.

And I am pleased to say that my shoulder problems did indeed vanish. I am now as good as gold in that department. My dermatological adventures are however unending and there is a report of the most recent one here. I am now more or less over the procedure concerned but it sometimes takes months before everything is 100% again and that seems to be the way of it on this occasion too.

It's surprising whom you sometimes meet when you frequent hospitals, however, as I noted in October.

My son Joe is now 18 and has just finished his first year at university -- majoring in Mathematics. He got marks of 7 out of 7 for all his mathematics subjects so we are all pretty pleased about that. I have arranged a celebratory dinner in honour of the achievement for this Thursday, at which a bottle of Grange will be opened. For those who do not know the wonders of Grange, it is Australia's most famous wine and costs around $500 a bottle for the current release (1999). So I hope I don't give Joe a taste for it. It will keep him poor if I do. There are some pics of Joe here

I started a new blog recently devoted entirely to Australian politics and events of interest and it seems to have taken off well. See here.

And what about a funny photo to finish up with?

Gregorian chant at Our Lady of Protection Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church

Because both the lady in my life (Anne) and myself are lovers of early church music we tend to end up in churches a fair bit on weekends even though we are both unbelievers. Mentally, I am as atheist as you can get but emotionally I am still Christian. And I can assure you that that apparent inconsistency bothers me not one iota. I have an enormous appreciation (and considerable knowledge) of my Christian heritage.

Last night we went to a concert held after the regular service at Our Lady of Protection Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church here in Brisbane. How a church can be both Byzantine and Catholic is a considerable puzzle. Byzantium is the home of Orthodoxy. But I assume that there was a schism some time in the past where an Orthodox church kept all its Greek rites but decided to recognize the magisterium of the Pope as well. The fact that the church still had a version of the mediaeval "rude screen" between the altar and the congregation supports that. There was also no organ in evidence -- which seemed very strange to an old Protestant like me. Presbyterian/Methodist churches that I know always have an organ with a pulpit in front of it as the focus of attention in a church (rather than an altar).

The first thing I noted in the church was the large number of children and young people in attendance. It made me feel very grateful for our Ukrainian immigrants. After the genocide inflicted on the Ukrainians by Stalin, perhaps they feel an urge to restore their numbers. And, unlike Muslims, Ukrainians don't make the news by harassing Anglo-Australians. I guess having a religion that says "love your neighbour" is a bit different from having a religion that says "Kill the infidel".

The main attraction on the program was a series of Latin chants by "Schola Cantorum" -- a Brisbane choir who seem to specialize in that. The male members dressed in monk's robes so one got a very good feel for how the chants were originally intended. And hearing them in a church with such a prominent mediaeval feature as a rude screen helped with that too.

And the priest was YOUNG! Still in his 20s by all appearances. Great to see that Christianity is alive and vital among this subsection of the Australian population at least.

UPDATE: Yes. I know that "rude screen" is probably a corruption of "rood screen". "Rood" in Old English refers to the cross. Cognate with "rod"

Philosophy and postmodernism

I rarely read philosophy these days. I went into the basic philosophical questions in my student days and shortly thereafter had published my conclusions about the nature of mind, the nature of ethics, the nature of cause and the nature of self. I have never seen any reason to alter my views about any of the questions concerned in the many years since but I have at times elaborated a little more fully my views about moral philosophy.

And for me any philosophy that fails to give an account of mind, ethics, cause and self is quite simply failed philosophy. And a philosophy that denies that any of those things are real is therefore fit only to be ignored. As it happens, however, there are lots of failed philosophers about and they have somehow conned the taxpayers into paying them a lot of money. They call themselves "postmoderninsts" and, as far as one can make any sense at all of what they say, their essential credo seems to be "nothing is real". When I come across such garbage I tend to be overcome by the wish that I could hit the so-called philosophers over the head with a baseball bat and then say to them: "Don't worry. Nothing is real so I didn't really hit you over the head with a baseball bat. Just carry on as before while I get ready to hit you again". I think reality would be rapidly rediscovered under those circumstances.

I was triggered off into this little tirade by a book I have just been having a look at. It is called Explaining postmodernism and is by Prof. Stephen R.C. Hicks, who undertakes the heroic task of trying to make some sense of postmodernism and trace its historical roots. As irrationality has always figured largely in human experience, it is no surprise that he finds the sources of postmodernism to be many and varied and to go back a long way. He traces postmodernism back to Kant but he could have gone back much further if he had wished to look at lesser-known writers.

His conclusions are in general also mine, though he is more polite than I would be. In my view postmodernism is simply a juvenile tantrum about how unco-operative reality is with socialist thought. Socialism has of course long had big appeal to intellectuals because it offers the simplifications that intellectuals tend to seek. The only trouble is that the simplifications don't work. From the French revolution on through Stalin and Hitler to Pol Pot we all now know of the horrors that it regularly leads to. So having had their childish simplifications taken away from them by reality, Leftist intellectuals stamp their foot and say that it is reality which is at fault. By denying reality they are in some insane way able to hang on to their faith in socialism.

My only quarrel with Prof. Hicks is that he uses the term "Right" in a peculiar way -- no doubt through political expediency. He seems to think you can be of the political Right and also be a socialist! That enables him to avoid upsetting the applecart with regard to Hitler. He admits that Hitler was a socialist who differed only in detail from the Communists but still calls Hitler a Rightist! Calling Hitler a Leftist would in academe cause Prof. Hicks to be consigned to outer darkness, of course. The only sense I can make of Prof Hick's usage is that he is using "Right" to be synonymous with "Nationalist" but that is pretty sloppy when one considers that, at least from Napoleon on, there have been plenty of Leftist nationalists. Perhaps he just has not read Friedrich Engels, who was as fervid a German nationalist and racial supremacist as Hitler was. (See, for instance, here and here and here and here). And, yes, the Engels I am talking about is the co-worker of Karl Marx. Or were Marx & Engels not Leftists? I think in this matter I have to say that Prof. Hicks gets himself into absurdities as big as those he ennumerates among the postmodernists. Or perhaps he just does not know his political history. He reads this blog, however, so I suspect that he knows it better than he can afford to admit, which is a bit sad. But he has to survive in academe after all and he is only a young man yet.

In most normal usage, Rightism would be identified with conservatism and if anybody wants to know what history shows about the nature of conservatism, I have just updated my account of the matter here.

Academic books and papers very commonly end with the conclusion: "More research is needed" and Prof Hicks is no exception. He feels that postmodernists have been allowed to flourish by the fact that realist and empiricist philosophers have not given final and uncontrovertible answers to the puzzles that they consider. He seems to think that if realists and empiricists had done a better job then postmodernists would not have flourished. I think however that such a conclusion runs counter to his own observation that postmodernism fulfils a psychological need rather than having any real intellectual function. I cannot see that a completed program of realist philosophy would have stopped the absurd tantrums of the postmodernists. And the day that there cease to be questions in philosophy, it will no longer be philosophy.

There is another review of the book here which claims that Hicks does not describe the thought of the philosophers he covers in enough depth. My own view of that is that Hicks is a hero to have waded as deeply as he did into such dog's vomit. My own essay on postmodernism is here

Illegality may be a good way to filter immigrants

I recently put up an excerpt from this NYT article, which pointed out that by Mexican standards most of the illegals were Mexican mainstream rather than dross. I should have said what I see as the implications of that. I think it supports the view that GWB has taken on the matter -- that these people deserve some respect as enterprising, hard-working people. All immigration is a selective process and it well behooves us descendants of immigrants to think of immigrants as a bit better than their parent populations. I know that I am much struck by this view whenever I am in England. The English who still live in England seem a VERY grey lot compared to the many Englishmen I know who have emigrated to Australia. Englishmen abroad are so much more self-confident and dynamic than the ones who have remained passively behind in England and who look forward only to the day when they will become OAPs (State-supported seniors).

Emigration is always a selective process of some kind and the only issue is what the particular selective pressure is in any given case. And I frankly think that the selective pressure of getting into the USA illegally is probably as good a filter as passing any of the normal bureaucratic barriers that I know of. It is obviously true that the illegals do also contain a significant criminal element but, as a social scientist, I look at the process overall and conclude that the USA is probably not worse off genetically for its Hispanic influx. There are a lot of good genes coming across the border too.

And now for my usual anecdote, another breakfast one as it happens! When I think of Hispanics, I think of the guy that I used to get breakfast off in NYC. I used to order ham and eggs at his little diner and I went there because it was both cheap and a good breakfast. And was that guy efficient! He moved like greased lightning. I have never seen anybody butter toast with one swoop of a knife before but he always did. So he could serve twice as many customers per unit time as most eatery workers. It was a splendid example of capitalistic incentives at work and also a splendid example of the sort of immigrant you get when you make them pass a heavy filter.

When England was still English

"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

Hopeless old sentimentalist that I am, that coda to a great speech still moves me to tears. And I fear that Churchill was more prophetic than he could have realized. I think WW2 may indeed have been Britain's finest hour. At that time England was still English and Scotland was still Scottish. No more of course. England is now a mish-mash of the world -- including some very unsavoury bits of the world. And London, I am told, is now about 50% black.

I spent a year in Britain in 1977 and at that time most of England was still English. Brixton was already not a good place to go and Notting Hill was a bit dubious but there were plenty of London pubs etc that were still as English as they had ever been so I was able to get an impression of what England was like when it was still all English. And I understood and appreciated Englishness not only because of my ancestry but also because I was a bookworm as a kid and almost all the boys' books I read at that time were written and printed in England. The scene that those books portrayed was very alien to what I experienced in my own environment in tropical Australia but because I steeped myself in it, it became a second world that I grew up with. So when I did go to London I felt totally at home there.

So I do understand what the English have now lost and will almost certainly never regain. To have lost something as wonderful as an English England is a great loss indeed.

RECOVERING

Well my big surgical procedure seems to have gone OK. Many thanks for the good wishes I have received from many readers. I felt like shit when I came out of the anaesthetic but after a few hours of post-operative testing they let me go home, whereupon I fell straight into bed and have just woken up after a few hours of sleep, feeling fairly normal. There was some morphine in the cocktail that the anaesthetist poured into me however so I am not sure if that has worn off yet or not.

I went into one of Brisbane's many private hospitals where my treatment was faultless: lots of competent and attentive staff. Maybe I should give the hospital a free plug: It was North West Private hospital, a for-profit hospital. My lady-friend Anne is a nurse and her her loving presence during my recovery period helped a lot too. The procedure was a dermatological one and I have frequent more minor dermatological procedures so I was on first-name terms with the surgeon. We even had a few laughs before proceedings began. I had had a couple of small excisions (SCCs) done by him just six days before and he in fact took out the sutures resulting from them while I was on the table -- as they were already well-healed. It is lucky I am a good healer.

For those who take an interest in such details, the hospital staff that I encountered were all white and all spoke perfect Australian English -- which helps a lot as I am a bit deaf these days. I don't think I should sit up for long at this stage so I don't think I will post to all my blogs straight off but I may get more up during the day. It is just after midnight here in Eastern Australia at the time I am writing.

Encountering the Muslims and the Chinese

Social scientists and others rely (or should rely) on extensively sampled data to support generalizations that they make.  Valid generalizations can hardly arise from anything but sampling of a wide range of relevant data.  To generalize about a given population, you at least need to sample it in some way.

Nonetheless, statistical generalizations do NOT seem to be very persuasive to most people.  Not unreasonably, people tend to be much more influenced by observations and events that they know personally or that people they know have told them about.  So generalizations will not usually gain much traction without illustrative examples.  Anecdotes are at least as persuasive as well-founded statistical generalizations.

So what I want to do below is give two small anecdotes from my life that do in my view illustrate at the personal level two generalizations that I believe are well supported by other historical and psychometric data:  That many Muslim populations are emotionally immature and that the Chinese are innately a highly civilized people.  There are exceptions to every rule of course but what I want to do is give examples that illustrate the rule.

I often eat out for breakfast.  And in highly multicultural Australia the providers of breakfasts are ethnically highly varied.  And the “ethnics” often do not understand English well.  So getting a breakfast from them can sometimes have its communication difficulties.  On one such occasion, I was having difficulty getting what I had ordered from a Muslim (Iranian, I think) business.  After communication had repeately failed, I began to get a bit irate.  When I did so, however, the Muslim owner got irate with me and accused me of insulting him.  At that point I simply turned on my heel without another word and walked out— and I never went there again.  He went broke a few months later.

On a second more recent occasion, a similar situation transpired in a business run by a Chinese man.  Did his “honour” get besmirched by my annoyance?  Not a bit of it.  He was apologetic and conciliatory. I did not walk out of HIS eatery.  I enjoyed my breakfast when I eventually got it and I will eat there again.  I shook his hand as I left by way of apology for my bad temper.  And I am betting that he won’t go broke.  Give me the Chinese any day.  I have known Chinese people since childhood and have had umpteen opportunities to observe their behaviour here in Australia—and the example I have just given is absolutely typical of them in my experience: Truly smart, patient and civilized people..

Celebrating the feast of Christ the King at "Our Lady of Victories"

It has from time to time been said on this blog that if you want to live in an entirely white society, you need to move to Eastern Europe. In Brisbane you can do that with relative ease. This Sunday morning, I attended a mass at "Our Lady of Victories" church -- Brisbane's major Catholic church with an entirely Polish congregation. The service was mostly in Polish but, being a bit deaf, I found it hardly more incomprehensible than the service at the Metropolitical Cathedral of St. John -- a marvellous stone Anglican church to which I also occasionally go for the music. Being a great fan of early church music (the Missa Papae Marcelli by Palestrina is my favourite in that department) I am often to be found in places where few atheists go.

Anyway, the service at "Our Lady of Victories" was overwhelming. The congregation was of course entirely pink-skinned and mostly elderly. There was Gregorian chant even before the service began and young nuns in wimples were much in evidence. The service began with a magnificent ecclesiastical procession with all sorts of flags, banners and uniforms -- with the distinctive caps of the heroic Polish armed forces much in evidence. There was no order of service or prayer-book handed out. People KNEW what to do and when to do it. Sanctuaries were opened and closed, bells were rung and trumpet fanfares were sounded. And best of all was the heartfelt singing of Polish hymns. And, quite amazingly, after the service was over and we left the church, we all processed right around the church and resumed devotions while standing outside it -- with the clergy officiating from the entrance staircase. There was a definite reluctance to let go of a great community occasion. It was all pretty foreign to my poor old Presbyterian heart (the lady I was with was also of Presbyterian origins) but the power of the occasion was still very evident to me nonetheless.

So, yes. I do appreciate the ways of my Volk -- with that term VERY broadly defined -- and I believe that they are so powerful that they will never go away. That the Poles have endured so much and still emerged victorious in all the ways that matter is proof of that.

An article that slipped through the net

It is part of the conventional religion among psychologists to believe that conservatives are the ones who are “authoritarian”.  Joe Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers party just did not happen, you see.  And like most Leftist beliefs, this one is impermeable to evidence.  I have reported in the academic journals heaps of carefully conducted research  showing the belief to be false but I was wasting my time of course.  You can’t argue with something that people need to believe.

Still, every now and again, a piece of research pops up which questions the orthodox faith and one such article is: “Is political conservatism synonymous with authoritarianism?”, in The Journal of Social Psychology of Oct 2005, volume 145, issue 5,  p571ff. by H. Michael Crowson, Stephen J. Thoma and Nita Hestevold.  Their research is of course the usual rubbish that passes for science in psychology:  No attempt at sampling, no awareness of what the questionnaires they use actually say, internally inconsistent indices treated as informative, negligible correlations reported as if they offered useful information etc. but it is still nice to see a challenge of sorts to the orthodoxy being put up.  I would give a more detailed critique of what they did but I don’t want to discourage them too much.  They should probably read this and this and this, though.

ISRAEL, JEWS, IMMIGRATION

The  heading above draws attention to some of the most emotive  issues in today's world but I have never been one to run from  controversy and I am not going to start now.  I just feel sorry for the  Jewish people that the mere mention of their name is an "issue".  I am  myself a great supporter of Israel.  The Israelis have bent over  backwards to be fair to the other inhabitants of their ancient land and  got only mass-murder of their people as a response.  So I am delighted  to note that our present Australian conservative government is also a  resolute friend of Israel.  A small excerpt: 

"The  Howard-Downer duumvirate in Australian foreign policy has changed our  position on the Middle East at the UN in a way that is wholly  remarkable, not only independent but positively brave, utterly  politically incorrect and undoubtedly right in principle; and,  amazingly, is meeting with success. Australia has always been a strong  friend of Israel...  the UN has established a vast bureaucracy dedicated  to blackening Israel's name....

Most nations that Australians  would regard as like-minded, such as the west Europeans, the Canadians  and some others, traditionally find this all too hard to deal with and  seek a coward's solace in abstaining from most anti-Israel resolutions  and activities. Until about two years ago, that was Australia's way as  well. But then came the wave of terror attacks on Israel, Israel's fence  and the absurd overreaction to it. Alexander Downer and John Howard  decided enough was enough....  it wasn't going to go along with the  usual Israel bashing. In truth it was a proud moment in Australian  foreign policy and certainly one of the deepest independence....

This  vote was not a one-off. It has become the pattern of our voting on  Israel-related issues. Canberra has attempted to use its influence with  Pacific Island nations, and even in Southeast Asia, to try to produce a  change. And, get this, it is working. Canada has joined Australia on  some critical resolutions and the attitude towards Israel at the UN has  begun to change noticeably."

And I again want to draw  attention to Isi  Leibler's article which shows, quite appallingly, that in Britain  the Leftist intelligentsia  are a greater source of antisemitism even  than  the Muslims.  Thank goodness that their official leader, Tony  Blair, is a decent man.  If his name had been Adolf .....

Hooray!   The good sense and moderation of ordinary British people has won the  day again.  There was an  official move to ban members of Britain's anti-immigration party  (the BNP) from being employed as firemen (firepersons?) in Dorset but  the  Dorset Fire Authority Committee rejected the  move: 

"One member of the committee stated: 'I think  it is totally inappropriate to single out one political party in this  way! The fact of the matter is, if any member or firefighter acts in an  improper way, he will be dismissed."  "And I don't see why we should  single out this particular party. It is not proscribed, it stands in  general elections, and I think it is totally wrong!" "If we were going  to do it, we'd have done it with the Communist Party that had strong  membership of the fire brigade union 20 years ago!" "We didn't do it  then and I don't see why we should do this now!"  The motion to reject  the proposal was seconded, and a unanimous  vote rejected the motion to ban BNP members from the Dorset Fire  service." 

And in my view it is the sense of moderation  and fairness displayed above that has made Britain Great and which  makes me proud of my British origins, remote though they now are.  "First  they came for the BNP ...." and in Britain people DID speak up.   And I myself have spoken up in the  most practical way that I know.

AUSTRALIANS ONLY HAVE FIVE COMMANDMENTS

(We are great abbreviators). The quiz I put up recently about knowledge of Australian slang seems to have been very popular so I thought I might re-post the observations below:

From its foundation in 1788, Australia has always been a traditionally unholy place with a very low rate of churchgoing. Americans trace their founding fathers to religious zealots but Australians trace their foundations to convicts. And other major population elements in the white settlement of Australia -- such as goldrush "diggers" and Irish rebels -- did little to alter the culture originating from our convict origins. Only about 3% of modern-day Australians have convict ancestors (I am one of the 3%) but the early days formed a culture that has been passed on to others as they arrived -- just as only a small minority of Americans now have primarily English ancestry but English is nonethless the language of America. And Australia's only national hero to this day is Ned Kelly -- an Irish highway robber who eventually was hanged for his undoubted crimes.

So how come Australia is a civil, prosperous and pleasant place to live? It is because Australians DO have a widely agreed-on moral code -- but it is not a Christian one. It originates from the values of the English working class of yesteryear and can perhaps be conveniently summed up (in its original Australian slang) as the following five "Commandments":

* Thou shalt not dob in thy mates
* Thou shalt not bung on an act.
* Thou shalt not be a tall poppy
* Thou shalt give everyone a fair go
* Thou shalt be fair dinkum

Translating these into standard English yields APPROXIMATELY the following:

* You must not incriminate your friends to the boss, the police or anyone else. Loyalty to your associates is all-important.
* You must not be ostentatious or pretend to be what you are not.
* You must treat others as your equals. If you are seen as being better than others in anything but sport you will be made to suffer for it.
* You must be fair and permissive in your treatment of others.
* You must not be insincere or dishonest.

From Hammurabi onwards, most moral codes have had much in common and the Australian and Christian moral codes do also have things in common but the Australian moral code is not preached in churches. It is simply traditional and widely heartfelt.

UPDATE:

A mate has reminded me that I forgot one:  "Thou shalt not crawl to the boss"  -- a very important one indeed.  It's actually a sub-set of No. 5 above.  Insincere talk designed to ingratiate oneself with your employer is forbidden.

NOT ALL BLACKS ARE EQUAL

I was just leaving Wesley Hospital (A top Brisbane private hospital) yesterday after one of my regular encounters with the surgeon's knife (for skin cancer) when I saw a very recognizable figure walk in -- a member of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). He seemed rather surprised when I greeted him but he shook my hand anyway. I remember writing a congratulatory letter to him about something or other in the 1980s (though I forget what it was about now) so it was a pleasure to shake his hand. And I think it is the only time I have shaken hands with a Prime Minister anyway.

Paias Wingti had a couple of terms in the 1980s and 1990s as Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. He is of course a Melanesian ("black islander"). I grew up with Melanesians around the place and rather like them (as I have noted previously) -- which I would not say of certain other dark-skinned populations. Note however that I say "populations". There are good and bad individuals in all populations.

That got me thinking about Melanesian IQ. Lynn & Vanhanen give the mean IQ for Papua and New Guinea as 84 and at first glance that seems well justified. Melanesians have only recently emerged from the stone age. But it doesn't gell with my experience of them. I have met lots of Africans (both in Africa and in the USA) and I have met lots of Australian Aborigines and I have no doubts whatever about the accuracy of the mean IQ quoted for both those groups. But Melanesians seem in my experience of them to be a lot brighter than that. And with the difficulty of measuring ANYTHING cross-culturally (see e.g. here), I think I am entitled to reserve judgment on the matter.

But if Melanesians are reasonably bright, how come they were in the stone age within living memory? Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and I think this is one case where one of Marx's ideas was right (though Engels tried to talk him out of it). Marx believed in geographical determinism -- a common 19th century idea from which we get the phrase "blood and soil" as a description of what is important to people.

Mostly the idea is rubbish but I think it explains New Guinea. New Guinea is very large but it is also extraordinarily mountainous. It is probably the earth's most wrinkled bit of geography. And the people of course live in the many small valleys and are very effectively cut off from one-another by the surrounding mountains -- which is why every valley has its own language. So I think it was simply the isolation of the New Guineans that kept them in the stone age. There was little communication with outsiders and hence no diffusion of ideas. And that of course contrasts greatly with the relative ease of communication across the great Eurasian landmass.

And for some reason New Guinea has very little fauna to hunt. Birds and tree kangaroos are about it (Yes. Some kangaroos do live in trees). So living in those isolated valleys was pretty challenging and meant -- as in Northern Europe -- that you could only survive by planning ahead -- which the New Guneans did by planting their "gardens" and raising pigs. Basically, if your garden did not feed you, you starved. And gardens are not equally productive all the year round so root crops such as cassava had to be grown that could be kept aside for when there was nothing else to eat. So that's my contribution to the theoretical biology of Melanesians anyway. For very different reasons, I think they had pressures on their mental development that were similar to the pressures that produced modern Europeans.

I might mention that the Melanesian population in mainland Australia is small but they generally fit in well, are peacable and are well-liked. I mentioned my own positive view of Melanesians to the lady in my life -- who was for a time a nurse on Thursday Island -- the most populous bit of Melanesia that is still part of Australia -- and her response was simply: "They're lovely". And she is certainly in a position to know.