I have about a week to go before my MS Swimathon, and haven’t yet heard the voice of the public on whether I should go the full Tony in my post-event photo. I’m going to set the default to “No”, and require five Yes votes, accompanied by $20 (or more) donations to change that.
If you’d rather give to an activist cause, I’ve been asked to advertise Esther Gyorki’s half-marathon run supporting the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
I’m doing another of my fundraisers, this time for Multiple Sclerosis. I’m in a team of six people who will do a 12 hour swim relay in a couple of weeks. So, I get to swim two hours, which I’ve never done before. I’m a bit worried about foot cramps, which tend to be the biggest constraint on my swimming (apart from my appalling technique). But, if that happens, I’ll do the two hours in separate stages. So, you can be fairly sure of getting your money’s worth.
As an added inducement, anyone who donates at least $20 gets to vote on the “Tony Abbott question”. Should I post a pic in budgie-smugglers after the event. Feel free to debate, but only those who donate get a say, just like in real life politics.
Form letter, with details, over the fold
I’ll be at a session of Brisbane Writers Festival tomorrow talking on Advance Australia Fair (inequality and all that).
Also, with about 50 000 others, I’ll be running Bridge to Brisbane on Sunday.I haven’t got around to setting up my charity page for this, but please give to the good cause of your choice.
More events soon.
Like others, I’m mystified by the “ice bucket challenge” in which, as I understand it, people agree to have a bucket of ice water dumped over their heads, rather than giving money to charity. This is reminiscent of the famous Piranha Brothers’ “Other Operation”, in which they threatened not to beat their victims up if they did not pay them the so-called “protection money”.
Still, it seems as if there is some interest in variants on the standard fundraising challenge in which you pay money to charity to encourage friends, bloggers, C-list celebrities to do difficult, painful or humiliating things. It’s struck me that my upcoming participation in the Sunshine Coast 70.3 Triathlon provides a nice twist on the ice bucket challenge.
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I ate at my local Italian restaurant just now and, as often happens, the credit card call didn’t go through, so I signed instead of using a PIN. Given that the banks have announced this won’t be possible in a few months time what will they do about this fairly common problem? Any experts out there?
Another Anzac Day. A solemn occasion to remember the heroism and sacrifice of those who died and to recall with horror the waste of young lives in a war of rival empires. Australians had no quarrel with Turks, nor they with us. And, in the Middle East, as elsewhere, the war achieved nothing and resolved nothing, but rather generated and inflamed conflicts that continue to this day.
For quite some time, I’ve been saying that research effort into the economics of happiness would be better devoted to researching unhappiness. I’ve now presented this argument in the excellent online magazine Aeon, with the takeaway
So, perhaps we need a new research programme, to examine how unhappiness really works. Does hunger, or unemployment, or the loss of a family member to preventable illness make you a stronger and better person? Is striving after more and better possessions more fulfilling than satisfaction with what you have? It’s obvious from the way I’ve posed these questions what I believe the answer to be. But genuine research into the economics of unhappiness might yield some surprising answers to such questions as these, and reveal new questions that we have never before considered.
Salon magazine reports another instance of CP Snow’s observation that all ancient traditions date from the second half of the 19th century. This time, it’s the Tooth Fairy. As you would expect, the Tooth Fairy turns out to be a codification and modification of a bunch of older local practices, many involving a mouse or rat.
This seemed like a good time to rerun one of my posts that stirred up plenty of trouble at the time, making the point that we are “now living in a society that’s far more tradition-bound than that of the 19th Century, and in some respects more so than at any time since at least the Middle Ages”.
I’ll just add that CP Snow was writing in the 1950s, pretty much equidistant between the late 19th century and the present day, strengthening my observation that the “invention of tradition” is now something of a traditional concept (though the phrase itself, due to Hobsbawm and Ranger, is a mere 30 years old).
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Also, reposting this petition appeal from Alanna Skelly, who used to comment here as “Alice” and “Alanna Hardman”. Please keep discussion thoughtful and civil
Hello!
I’ve started the petition “Tony Abbott: Stop all our banks accommodating BITCOIN transactions.” and need your help to get it off the ground.
Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here’s the link:
http://www.change.org/petitions/tony-abbott-stop-all-our-banks-accommodating-bitcoin-transactions
Here’s why it’s important:
Please stop BITCOIN in Australia because our youth are using this method to buy drugs from online sites across the globe. The drug sellers are mushrooming becausing BITCOIN is operating a tumbler style of making the ultimate recipient of the drug money untraceable. Our children are dying. Children in the US are dying. Please support this petition because I have just lost my twenty one year old son to the online drug trade. Its not the little fish the police need to go after. First stop BITCOIN from hiding these criminals. Make it illegal for any Australian financial institution to deal with BITCOIN accounts. Without the might and IT expertise of BITCOIN these criminals who despatch toxic substances can not hide themselves. The beautiful kind hearted boy in this photo has died before he should have. This petition has been written by his mother.
You can sign my petition by clicking here.
Thanks!
Alanna Skelly
Long-term readers of the comments section will recall Alanna Skelly, who posted here as “Alanna” and “Alice”. Yesterday, I received from her the sad news that she had lost her son to an overdose of drugs, purchased online using Bitcoin. Alanna has started a petition on change.org, asking that banks should stop facilitating such transactions by accommodating Bitcoin.
Readers will have different views on the policy issues, but this isn’t the occasion to discuss them, so there will be no comments on this post. Those who would like to support the petition can follow the link above.
Regardless of our politics, I’m sure everyone here will join me in extending to Alanna and her family our deepest sympathies.
John Quiggin 