The contradiction of poker machines and the comfort of our clubs

Poker machines and contradictions appear to be comfortable bedfellows.
Up front, the once known “one-arm bandits”, but which are now more amiably known as “gaming machines”  with only buttons, have the potential to decimate lives.
Considered in isolation, the addiction some have to the machines or at least the idea of winning they inculcate and the subsequent devastation brought on by the inevitable mounting losses, we should unquestionably disable them forthwith.
Tasmanian MP, Andrew Wilke, who has pledged his support for the Labor Gillard Government and has witnessed the personal wreckage that emanates from poker machine addiction, wants the government to introduce, nation-wide, pre-commitment technology for all gaming machines.
Players would need to indicate how much they were prepared to gamble each day and so they would then be issued with a card on which the limit was inscribed and once they had reached it they could not access another gaming machine, anywhere in Australia.

Moama RSL CEO,
 Mr Ashley Menzies.

Although gaming clubs have not yet had the intimate workings of the card-based control explained, they do know they would shoulder the costs of updating all their machines.
Just recently, at the annual general meeting of the Moama RSL Club, the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ashley Menzies, warned members that Mr Wilke’s proposal, should it become law, could bring the club to its knees.
He predicted that Mr Wilke’s pre-commitment proposal would reduce the club’s income by nearly half to seriously erode its employment abilities (it presently employs about 100 people), end the broad support it provides to local community groups and, naturally, scale back the extent of and comfort provided to its hundreds of members, many of whom come from throughout Victoria and distant parts of Australia.
Mr Ashley said his club has only one user of the gaming machines who has personally acknowledged their problem and subsequently had themselves banned from the premises.
That contrasts markedly with some of the big metropolitan clubs that can have as many as 150 people voluntarily excluded from their premises and so have a full-time person administering that aspect of the club’s business.

Mr Ashley says it appears unfair and unreasonable to target poker machines when so many other avenues to gambling exist, among them all sports, and all of which can easily be accessed in the online world.
Multi-million dollar clubs such as Mr Ashley’s unquestionably profit from poker machines, but they also have an incalculable social value, particularly in country communities, that seems to have escaped Mr Wilke’s notice.
Many people, old and young, use the likes of the Moama club as a meeting place, a place where they can engage in various social activities and, importantly, enjoy excellent food in comfortable surrounds at particularly low cost, courtesy of poker machine profits

Our role in easing the world's difficulties

A collision of circumstances about which we can individually do little, but strangely still play a huge part in easing, is impacting on our world.

Has capitalism been good
 or negative for life on earth?

We stew in our overwhelming sense of impotency as the world’s economy implodes; we watch with a crushing sense of powerlessness as our climate changes; our prodigious energy obesity worsens although warnings of earth’s finitude get louder; and violence, both physical and emotional, pervades most everything we do.
Our speculative intentions crumble as we seek the illusion of security associated with financial gain, while we mostly ignore the one investment that will realise a truly measureable return – the social equity and wellbeing of all our fellows.
We live in a world driven by a passion for quantity, the belief that nirvana is to be  found in bigger, faster, stronger and more. It is not.
The bliss humans have long pursued through this is, in reality, fleeting and when unravelled from the hype of our mercantile world, it is little more than a state of mind, while the delight we seek is found in kindly collaboration with our fellows.
As the human project becomes knotted and tangled we can rely on entropy, that unrelenting force of nature that always seeks equilibrium, irrespective of whatever other forces maybe in play, to again find the simplicity on which our ongoing welfare depends.
The much maligned austerity some governments have attempted will soon be foisted upon us all even though we may try to ignore the realities presently circling the earth.
Rather than pretend they don’t exist, that they are happening to others or somewhere else or that if we leave our heads in the sand long enough, they will be gone when we look up, we should be investing heavily in our social capital and putting our faith in a bank built from human kindness and an alliance to give us robust communities that understand and work towards resilience.
In simple terms walk whenever and wherever you can; pursue cycling with the same vigour; take advantage of public transport when possible; as much as you can, feed yourself; reduce, in any way possible, your consumption of fossil fuels; agitate for administrative changes that will allow for a re-thinking of living density in your town or city; support your local business, but demand its service be the best; apply, when you can, the principle of shopping in a “one store only” business; educate yourself – for what you know today might be useless tomorrow; and, probably most important of all, engage with your fellows.
Energy will become a priority as the decades unfold and in an age of scarcity those with skills of yesteryear will best endure the dilemmas of the world.

Unrealized compassion is the silver lining in a very dark cloud

An often unrealized understanding of the broad compassion communities have for its people quickly becomes clear when a road collision kills or injures one of its number.

Inattention coupled with a
 multitude of other ingredients can
 lead to collisions.

In what seems like only moments, news of the collision and it consequences ricochet around the respective community and this hitherto unseen, and often unrealized, compassion, sympathy and eagerness to help erupts.
Should we search in desperation for the silver lining in this dark cloud that settles upon us after a road collision then it is this – the astonishing community bonding that emanates when a collision brings death or injury, turmoil and tragedy.
People, some often remote from the tragedy itself, respond in what is a very human way bringing in anyway they can to those involved, warmth, support, reassurance and the personal contact that is known to be critical in repairing the physical or emotional damage arising from the collision.
Collision survivors are often strikingly alone for while the event might have left them with certain, and obvious, physical difficulties, it is frequently the unseen emotional changes that trigger a pervasive sense of isolation.
Many survivors often tell about the evaporation of friendships once it becomes obvious they are longer able to participate in the spontaneity often demanded by personal relationships.
However, and importantly, some in our communities willingly take up that responsibility and so provide that essential human contact that the welfare each of us hinges on.
The recuperation and renovation of a person depends upon many things, but few, beyond the intricacies of medicine, have move impact than social contact and that is often to be found in the work place.
Work, regardless of what it is, has a social value that far exceeds whatever financial reward it may or may not attract.
A “Cool Heads” program at Shepparton’s Harder Auditorium on Wednesday night was structured with the aim of encouraging young drivers to avoid the road collisions and subsequent personal dilemmas that bring on the aforementioned community compassion.
Walking home after the event allowed time for messages and graphic images to expand and provide another reminder that safe road use is about attitude and an understanding of the consequences.

Talk about women in uniform is ill-directed

Discussion about the rightness or wrongness of women joining men in the violence of frontline military roles is seriously ill-directed.
It is neither, rather it is a conversation that avoids good sense and in being irresponsible is simply the confirmation of our infatuation with patriarchal views.

Rather than see women doing
 this, we would like to know
 why it seems we must fight.

Really, we should be discussing why we go to war and feel the need to fight at all – either men or women?
It’s easy to holler “yes, fight” and brandish a finger, as if it is a sword, pointing to moments, illustrated by libraries of books, in which we either fought or died.
Mankind has always preferred black and white solutions – simplistic kill or be killed-like answers – for despite claims of our sophisticated thinking, we are, in moments of crisis, less than intellectually adventurous.
And rather than adhere to that naive live or die tactic, we owe it to the human race, or more specifically ourselves, to expand our thinking, allowing ourselves to consider why we fight and what we can do to avoid such dilemmas.
Our societies have evolved to become behaviourally masculine, which, in particularly defined moments, has been invaluable.
Humanity, however, would never have emerged from the mists of its past without female love, care and nourishment being added to the mix, a subtle essential ingredient we are about to spill, and waste, on our battlefields.
The endurance of humanity depends upon many attributes, first among them being equality among all people and, importantly, men and women.
Stripped of all its finery, there is, therefore, no rational argument against women joining men on the battlefield – unbridled equality.
That supposition, however, overlooks two central questions about whether or not women should be allowed to die with their male counterparts on our battlefields.
Equality is about the notion of people generally, not exclusively men and women, having free and open access to the same advantages and, naturally, disadvantages.
Why, it must be asked, is it that humans appear to have a bent for bellicose behaviour that manifests itself in conflicts?
So rather than investing obscene amounts of money, time and effort into how we can subdue the other with violence, we need to refurbish our thinking, renew our philosophies and learn afresh that even though something might look dire, the best outcome will be arrived at through the embrace of collaboration, kindliness and sensitivity.
Equipped with such feelings and carrying only care and compassion in their hearts and reinforced by the principle of human well-being, the traditional idea of a soldier,  either male or female, would wither.  
Women seeking equality on the battlefields that the minds of men have wrought chase a chimera; their efforts, and time, would be better spent first understanding why we go to war at all.

A seminal year in Australian history

This is a seminal year in Australian history.
More Australians will retire from work in 2011 than will set out on their work-life journey.

CEO of the Committee for
 Melbourne, Andrew
McLeod.

And then, some 15 years later, 2025, there will be a whole raft of Australians retiring who have had superannuation all their work life.
Both matters will shape our towns and cities and are just two critical demographics being considered by the Committee for Melbourne.
The committee arose some 25 years ago from what was then a seemingly directionless city and since has been actively working to make the whole geographic organism that is Greater Melbourne a better place in which to live.
The idea that became the City for Melbourne was driven by who were then some of the city’s leading businessmen backed by some of Australia’s pre-eminent companies.
Those same ideas have spread to several regional Victoria centres and recently the committee’s Chief Executive Office, Andrew McLeod, said he and another from his team would happily visit Shepparton to discuss, and initiate the groundwork, for the establishment of a Committee for Shepparton.
Asked why such a committee would be different than an existing chamber of commerce, Mr McLeod, said such organisations have a primary interest in the commercial wellbeing and health of a town or city, while a Committee for Shepparton would have a more sweeping mandate.
Such committees consider all aspects of a city’s liveability, transport, the placement of residential areas and their density, services available in and to the city, access to and availability of leisure and recreation, and the creation of public spaces.
Considering the demographics of Melbourne, Mr McLeod said his committee anticipates Melbourne’s population growing to about eight million by 2060.
Melbourne had about two million in 1960 and according to Mr McLeod those of his parent’s generation had overseen the doubling of that number to recently see it voted as the world’s most liveable city. “Why”, he asked, “can’t we do that again”.
Talking recently with a group of architects, planners, urban designers and others involved in shaping our cities, Mr McLeod said it was critical to get people excited about the future and heighten their optimism.
Supported by business, the committee obviously leans toward projects and ideas that improve the city’s commercial life, but that is softened through membership and involvement by academia and a number of welfare organizations.
Such organizations, Mr McLeod points out, are free from the rigours of democracy in that the effectiveness of those involved is not time restricted and do not depend on fanciful populist impressions of those who elect them.
“Committees for” concern themselves with many things, among them social cohesion, which Mr McLeod says, is a rare and fragile commodity.

Public brutality brings on a personal death

Hold your breath, steel your heart and look away for one of our number dies today (Thursday, September 22).

Troy Davis

The U.S. pardons board on Tuesday rejected a last-ditch plea for clemency from death row inmate, Troy Davis. He will be put to death today at 9am by lethal injection at a prison in Jackson, south of Atlanta.
News’ readers may well be remote in geographical terms, but in a psychological sense, alarming close as if it is happening here in Shepparton, particularly if we allow ourselves to think about the rather brutal death of Davis.
Tired clichés about “state sanctioned murder” and “racial injustice” (Davis is black and the police officer it is alleged he murdered is white) leap to mind, but deeper issues about capital punishment warrant our attention, and thought.
Capital punishment had never troubled me much, one way or the other, until I read George Orwell’s “A hanging” and through that short essay he ignited in me a revulsion that another should, or could, die at my say so.

George Orwell

Orwell wrote about the “unspeakable wrongness” of hanging a man, in this case it’s a lethal injection, but the result, however, is the same.
An image from Orwell’s essay cemented in my thoughts emerges from a description of Orwell, then a police officer in India, walking to the gallows with the condemned fellow only to have the man step around a puddle to avoid getting his feet wet.
That very human thing was strangely important to a man who was just minutes from dying – that rich image lives with me, emphasizing the unnerving disconnect between what is human and death.
Capital punishment was finally abolished in all Australian states in 1984 and Ronald Ryan was hanged in 1967, finding a sad niche in our history to be the last to die at the direction of the state.
Considerable doubt exists about the guilt of Davis and even the former US president Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI have joined the campaign to spare his life, a life that ends today after more than two decades of legal manoeuvering.
Davis’s death will be witnessed by those required by law and with them will be the dead police officer’s widow and children.
As much as we might like, we can’t hide in the anonymity of the crowd as it is in fact the “crowd” that is putting Davis to death, not some impersonal piece of machinery.
Fortunately, Australians have shown the exceptional good sense to step aside from capital punishment and now, in another move that will further enhance our mental health, we need to consider our behaviour in the Middle East and how it equates with capital punishment.

We need to watch and learn from our front row seat

Goulburn Valley people, and their Australian fellows, have a front row seat to watch the removal of another rivet in the superstructure supporting the U.S.

America's President,
Mr Barack Obama.

U.S. president, Barack Obama, has argued for a package of tax cuts and government spending aimed at invigorating his country’s economy.
The package, worth about $US447 billion ($A421 billion), is ill-directed, being aimed at a return to business as usual and in doing so appeasing most Americans who see their comfort in living as they have for many decades.
Rather than spend the country’s wealth on a way of life that is unquestionably unsustainable, Mr Obama and those around him, should overtly embrace the hope, audacity and the idea of change that saw him elected in 2008.
America is staring at economic collapse; a societal breakdown that will end its world hegemony and is the natural outcome of what former political philosophy professor and noted author, Sheldon Wolin, has described as “inverted totalitarianism”.
Wolin sees decided danger in the dysfunctional marriage between government and the corporate world, a union that he argues has routed democracy leaving America with a militarized, industrial complex.
Survival of that complex hinges on an obedient populace, one, which in Wolin’s terms, is distracted and titillated by such things as sport, entertainment and discussion and debates about what are ultimately unimportant matters.
And so while democracy survives in name, what America has, and Australia trails along behind, is inverted totalitarianism – a facade claiming social equity, but which is really a process favouring a few.
Mr Obama’s plan does have tax cuts for both employee and employers and billions to prevent teacher lay-offs and hire more police and fire officers, and it would spend $50 billion to improve highways, railroads, transit and aviation.
Examined, however, through the prism of climate change and seriously depleted energy resources, the plan’s outline quickly becomes distorted and dated.
Rather than grasp at exhausted ideas, the Americans need to abandon what once worked, and failed, allowing them to embark on an adventurous and exciting new project that would fundamentally change the fabric of its society.
Such systemic change is resisted by an American elite that appears unable to comprehend the fraying of its empire and beyond that is so misled by its own beliefs and values, that its impending doom goes unseen.
Rather than rescuing flailing and failing companies, the U.S. should be advancing concepts that call for the localization of communities and employing the idea of late author and influential economist and statistician, E.F. Schumacher that “small is beautiful”.
America is the world’s biggest and most influential economy and as its collapse will render ours destitute; we need to watch attentively, and learn, from our front row seat.