How to Combat Beach Crime

In The Australian, 13 Dec 2005, Paul Comrie-Thomson writes:

As The Daily Telegraph in Sydney reported on the day before the Cronulla riots, for years Bondi beach had experienced bashings of lifesavers and locals and intimidation of beachgoers, particularly of young women. The perpetrators were gangs of Middle Eastern background.

In January 1999, undercover policemen placed a gang of about 40 youths under surveillance. Troublemakers were identified. Uniformed police officers arrived in police trucks and ordered the troublemakers to move on because of their offensive behaviour. The youths refused and they were arrested. To the amazement of the police, beachgoers who had witnessed the arrests gave the officers a standing ovation. But that was not the end of the matter. As the Telegraph notes: "It took a concerted, sustained effort by eastern suburbs police, but by 2003 the gangs were gone."

It took four years to bring the rule of law to Bondi beach. Four years of persistent police work, at just one beach.

So that's what's required at Cronulla.

Race Riot in Cronulla

These are the headlines of the most-viewed articles in today's SMH.

1. Race riots spread to suburbs
2. Thugs ruled the streets, and the mob sang Waltzing Matilda
3. United in condemnation, divided over the causes
4. Worst possible outcome - vigilantes rip unity to shreds
5. 'What is Australian anyway?'
6. Strike force probes new hate alert
7. Locals talk of fear and disgust after violence of bloody Sunday
8. Ethnic tensions troubling the whole neighbourhood
9. Nasty reality surfs in as ugly tribes collide
10. PM refuses to use racist tag

"What happened?"

For years, groups of Lebanese youths have been causing trouble on Cronulla beach (a suburb in the south of Sydney): verbally harassing women, kicking sand at people; that sort of thing. It's the kind of trouble that maladjusted youths like to cause: not bold enough to get the police involved, but enough persistent niggle to get noticed, feel a sense of power, and make a firm statement that you have no intention to blend in. That doesn't need to be a racial blend, just some kind of cultural or social difference that can easily exist among people of the same race, like youths making a nuisance of themselves at a shopping centre, for instance. But it's easy (too easy) to pick on race as the key issue here. Cronulla and its surrounding suburbs are one of the last white enclaves in Sydney. The few youth of Lebanese or similar origin that live in the area cause no trouble and receive no trouble, anecdotal evidence suggests. But that's common sense anyway. If you live in an area and have your head screwed on right, you adopt the civil code of that area, which on the beach generally means enjoy yourself and be considerate of others. The troublemakers live outside the area but are connected by the train line or, of course, by car.

"OK, but what happened?"

Last weekend, a lifeguard was physically assaulted by – you guessed it – a gang of Lebanese youth. That's when the proverbial hit the fan, as it should. Lifeguards are an Australian icon: they volunteer to sit watchfully over the beach and rush out to assist those who encounter trouble in the water. An attack on a lifeguard is a symbolic attack felt by anyone who has enjoyed a day at the beach; that is, millions of people. It seems this fellow had asked this group to stop playing soccer so close to other people as the flying sand was a nuisance. For his trouble, he got bashed. Later on, of course, and by a group of about four men. The cowardly way that Lebanese misfits always behave. (Notice I said Lebanese misfits; it's only the misfits I'm talking about, not other Lebanese people.) Drive by shootings, gang rapes, and generally antisocial group behaviour are the first thing that comes to most Sydney people's mind when you mention the words "young male Lebanese". It is not racist of me to point that out; it is based on a long list of abhorrent crimes committed in Sydney in very recent years, and on first and second hand experience of these people. Anyone who loves multiculturalism, as I do, must be on guard against people who will seek to destroy it and give a whole community a bad name through their vile actions.

"For heaven's sake! Will somebody just tell me what happened!? This man is a raving lunatic!"

Sorry... OK, so that lifeguard copped a cowardly beating last weekend, which was the last straw. For the first time, the tensions on Cronulla beach reached the media. (I certainly knew nothing of them previously, and haven't been anywhere near Cronulla for at least ten years.) People were obviously fuming in Cronulla, and some text messages got out, and were reported in the media, suggesting that a demonstration be held in Cronulla "on Sunday" (i.e. yesterday) in defiance of these unwanted elements on the beach. The message was couched in racist rhetoric, and every night of the week the TV news had a story about or related to "that message".

Well, come Sunday, come trouble. Thousands of local men (teens to thirtysomethings), and some supporters from near and far, congregated in a grassy area early in the day and settled in for a festive, boozy day. I don't know what the mood was like or what people's intentions might have been, but you can't have a fight without an opponent. They were probably expecting that a large group of Lebanese men might turn up en masse, but that didn't happen. Exactly what did happen, I've no idea, despite reading all the reports I could. But for whatever reason, a handful of Lebanese people, or people of similar appearance, did come within reach of the mob, and were set upon. These people didn't come as a group and I don't think they incited anything. They may even have been locals. The mob's behaviour was disgraceful: they bashed whoever they could get their hands on before police could rescue the victim(s) and shepherd them to safety. Ironically, "safety" was a hotel, probably the same hotel that had sold a whole palette of beer that morning.

Other harassment included chasing two women wearing headscarves. There was no physical harm, but how low can you get? It demonstrates loud and clear that no matter how righteous the anger felt over ethnic pests on the beach, this over-reaction was misguided and set a real low for behaviour in Australia. The mob's hunger was not sate, and they invaded the train station in the belief that further enemy combatants would be arriving. They found two men inside a train (i.e., not disembarking) and beat them up. All the while they were flying Australian flags, singing Waltzing Matilda, chanting racist slogans and displaying racist messages on clothing.

A demonstration against pests (whatever their race) became a race riot, and Australia hung its head in shame.

The violence was caused by a lot of factors: resentment, the lifeguard incident, alcohol, sun, more alchol, large numbers of people, and more alcohol. These factors will make for a nasty mob, but I believe it took one more thing to ignite the violence: neo-nazis. Some people made a long journey to be in Cronulla yesterday, and some of those journeymen were neo-nazis, as confirmed by the police today. I believe that they were the trigger that caused a mob to set upon innocent bystanders. The mob themselves would have gladly started violence if a large menacing Lebanese gang had turned up, but it's a bit beyond me to believe they would bash people who were not looking for trouble. Maybe I'm wrong; either way, I hope the police can identify people from the copious news footage and make some more arrests quick smart.

To finish the factual part of this story, Lebanese gangs retaliated later, and in different suburbs. They roamed other beachside suburbs nowhere near Cronulla with baseball bats, smashing the windows on at least 100 cars. Arrests were made. These actions were repeated tonight, and more arrests were made. There was no further violence or significant mob gatherings at Cronulla today, but police maintained a presence and will probably be preparing for another round somewhere, sometime.

I'll quickly address two reactions in the press. The SMH editorial was extremely well written. Here's an excerpt:

There is no excuse for such violence and such hatred. The failure they represent is profound. No side emerges with credit - not the crowds of braying Anglo-Celtic Australians, waving the national flag as they beat up bystanders because of the colour of their skin, not the Lebanese community, whose young men have such difficulty in understanding Australian social norms and finding a place in Australian society, not the State Government, which has routinely dismissed calls in the area for a better police effort to combat the casual depredations, boorishness and criminality of ethnic gangs.

... Australia has changed suddenly and inexplicably into a darker, nastier place, and the whole population is struggling to understand why.

The one thing I disagree with there is the suddenness of the change. The "casual depredations, boorishness and criminality of ethnic gangs" has been going on for at least five years, and are a failure of an otherwise successful Australian multiculturalism, a failure which came to a head yesterday. The change isn't sudden.

Failures in multiculturalism slip between the cracks of people's understanding of civil society. Society doesn't work if people aren't nice, or at least civil, to each other. When many cultural groups mingle, there's more opportunity for incivilities to occur, because society as a whole no longer has the same broad set of expectations of civil behaviour. Moreover, it's not logistically feasible for police to settle every minor dispute and, as I wrote earlier, some misfits will target these unpolicable gaps to create trouble for their own amusement.

One example of this trouble was reported in The Daily Telegraph:

A YOUNG woman this week told a TV camera crew of the intimidation she has experienced on Cronulla beach.

"They'll stand over you while you're sunbaking, block your sun so they get your attention, then say, 'She's not worth doing 55 years for'," she told them.

For those unsure of what these lowlifes are referring to, it's the length of the prison sentence which was given to Sydney's infamous gang rapist, Bilal Skaf.

Sickening. This behaviour is as bad as, or worse than, the non-physical harassment meted out to the two innocent women during Cronulla's day of infamy. Yet we hang our heads in shame over that one day, while this other behaviour goes on every weekend undeterred by police and barely reported even now.

Only when the everyday actions of antisocial Lebanese and white supremicists meet the full force of the law will Australian society be free to celebrate its multicultural success unreservedly.

Update. Tuesday's news has more detail about what happened when and where on the day. I won't bother going into it any further. One thing is clear, though: the retaliation by the Lebanese that night and last night is just as despicable as the riot itself. (It's not being reported that way, though; surprise, surprise...)

Drug Policy

The recent execution of Van Nguyen in Singapore for trafficking 396g of heroin leads me to think about drug policies and the conflict between zero-tolerance and harm minimisation. I'm inclined towards the latter myself, strongly influenced by The Economist's excellent series of articles in 2001 recommending total liberalisation of all drug laws. The summary: people should have the right to do whatever they like to themselves, and the costs of zero-tolerance drug policies on society are too high. Let's break it down a bit.

What's bad about drugs? It's not that obvious. Without pretending to know it all, here's my take: heroin destroys people through its strength and addictiveness; marijuana can have bad mental health effects even when used casually; I've no idea about cocaine; LSD and speed seem harmless in moderation; ecstasy seems fine except when the drug contains some impurities.

OK, so I'm only vaguely well-informed, but one thing seems pretty clear: the various illegal drugs have little in common in terms of their ill effects. Therefore, it seems like bad policy to cover them all with the same blanket ban. Knowing the disastrous effects of heroin only too well, I can hardly say with a straight face "let people inject it if they want", but that shouldn't preclude rational analysis, and I think there are damn good reasons for saying just that. On the other hand, thousands of people take ecstasy and other party drugs all the time with only occasional casualties that could be prevented if the drugs were legal. How? If people could buy ecstasy through legal avenues, it would be quality-controlled, thus eradicating the main cause of illness and death associated with the drug. Just today, I read in The Daily Telegraph about a group called "Enlighten" which stands outside rave parties and uses high-tech equipment to detect dodgy chemicals in drugs. A great idea, no? No; it's illegal. While I'm not suggesting the police should turn a blind eye to the law, such a deleterious outcome for people's safety should cause the law to be reviewed. All the quality control in the world will not change the fact that a tiny percentage of people are so allergic, if that's the term, to ecstasy, and presumably some other drugs, that the best quality product will still harm or kill them. Well, the same goes for peanuts. In an ecstasy-friendly society, at least people could seek medical advice, and the dangers could be discussed and researched openly.

Conclusion so far: ecstasy causes such a small amount of harm that it should be legalised so that it can cause even less harm. What about marijuana?

Dope was a popular drug among baby-boomers in the 60s and 70s, but the product widely consumed now is thought to be far stronger than it was back then, with concomitant dangers. Medical research seems to be crystallising around the opinion that wacky-backy causes such problems as schizophrenia and depression, even when not consumed in large quantities. This concurs with my observation. Such harm is obviously a concern, and so the consideration of the legalisation of marijuana can't easily proceed along the same carefree lines as ecstasy. That said, it's not obvious that marijuana is harmful to everybody who goes near it, so a zero-tolerance approach is not likely to be satisfactory. For instance, people with certain illnesses should be able to access its medicinal benefits.

Legalising marijuana would have one of the same implications as legalising ecstasy: it would enable quality control and invite further research into the impact of the drug on its users. The former benefit might help alleviate the problem of dangerously concentrated marijuana being smoked these days, by labelling the strength of the product, as with cigarettes. Of course, criminals could still distribute harder stuff, but their market would be greatly diminished as casual and regular users appreciate the convenience of the legally-available product.

I won't analyse speed and cocaine because I don't know much about their health impact, but it's reasonable to assume that they lie somewhere between marijuana and heroin in that respect. So we turn to heroin. As I stated earlier, it's not easy to defend the legalisation of this drug when you consider the tragic effect it has on people's lives through its strength of impact and addiction. However, there are clear potential benefits to legalisation, and these must be considered. Consider also that junkies are generally among the most desperate people in society, and therefore their health problems extend far beyond heroin use. If they didn't abuse heroin, they would surely abuse alcohol or other drugs, and another grisly end, or grisly existence, would substitute for overdose.

OK, the benefits of legalising heroin include the familiar quality control and research, but don't stop there. By distributing heroin to those who want or need it, the opportunity is there to provide counselling and offer rehabilitation. Most addicts, I'm sure, would want a way out of their addiction. They may have access to rehabilitation now, but that would leave them without any control: the doctors assisting them cannot prescribe heroin. Perhaps it's not necessary for rehab, but put yourself in the addict's place. Would you willingly rule out any further use of the drug you are so physically and psychologically dependent upon? How could you possibly take that first step? If heroin were legal, a range of possibilities become available. An addict could be administered a regular low-strength hit to maintain them while at the same time they are assisted in performing meaningful work or community service, not as a criminal but as a valued member of society. Even if this hit had to be administered every day for the rest of their lives, their situation is far better than before -- and now. However, as their self-esteem grows and their other psychological problems are managed, it's likely that they will be willing and eager to take the steps required to banish heroin from their lives. The point here is that a heroin addict has in all likelihood reached rock bottom in life and is signalling a cry for help. The notion that they are a criminal aiming to do damage to society is cruel and absurd.

Another compelling reason to legalise heroin is economics. So much crime is committed in its name, from burglaries to raise funds for a hit to gang warfare over distribution rights. Some of the nastiest and most ruthless people in the world are involved in the drug trade. It's the very illegality of drugs that causes all this. Because drug smuggling is illegal and faces very stiff penalties, it's risky. People who engage in risky activities do so only in expectation of a rich reward. The availability of such illicit reward motivates organised criminal activity of such calibre it seems impossible to police. Van Nguyen met his maker last week for attempting to smuggle nearly 400g of heroin through Singapore on to Australia. The ringleaders behind the operation couldn't care less about him and will find another desperate and/or greedy "mule" to carry their illicit load. Such riches are to be made in the drug trade that they will stop at nothing, even threatening to harm the mules' families if they don't go through with it. And the more we and other nations prosecute the "war on drugs", the more riches there are to be made.

Legalisation would undercut these vile acts by allowing supply to meet demand as the free market intended. The cost of drugs would fall, meaning desperate junkies wouldn't need to commit so much petty crime (theft, break & enter, prostitution) to fund their habit. The reward wouldn't be there for crime gangs. I'd expect that the level of crime in society would fall dramatically. Of course, with financial and legal obstacles to drug use lifted, one would expect such use to rise. Would we see a huge increase in heroin use? I doubt it: what's so attractive about it that those not currently desperate enough to flout the law would go near it? I expect that a small rise would occur, but that the strategies we're using to suppress heroin use are exacting too high a cost. If people really want to use it, let them, and provide the support for them to rehabilitate.

The other drugs have the same economic factors as heroin, just with different degrees of risk and reward. Their use probably would increase, but the ability to assure quality would reduce the harmful effects, and the ability to run genuine research and education programs would help people to make responsible decisions. After all, we allow people to decide how much alcohol they want to drink, and that we allow cigarette smoking at all is hypocritical in the face of tough laws on other drugs.

I've tried to analyse the costs and benefits of drug legalisation. The costs may be much greater than I suggest, and the benefits may be illusory. But the current drug laws are not good enough -- at the very least, there should be different laws for different drugs, rather than ludicrously treating them all as equals. Good law, care for the afflicted, common sense for the party goers, and the fight against organised and petty crime all demand that we consider these costs and benefits properly and openly.

Postscipt. I just came across this great quote from P.J. O'Rourke. His Parliament of Whores is one of my favourite books!

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

Australian Executed in Singapore

A 25-year-old Australian man best known as "Van Nguyen" (I think his full name was Nguyen Van Tuong) was executed for drug trafficking before dawn in Singapore today. There has been much sympathy expressed in Australia over the last few weeks, and a concerted campaign by his lawyers, Australian politicians, and the general public to appeal to the authoritarian Singapore government for clemency. It was all useless, as that government refused even to let his mother hug her son before he was executed. After a personal appeal from Australia's Prime Minister, they were allowed to hold hands through prison bars.

In contrast to the outpouring of sympathy and grief, there has been a sizable minority view published in newspapers that he doesn't deserve sympathy because the 400g of heroin he was carrying could have killed 26,000 people were he not caught. This is absurd; heroin deaths in Australia number in the low hundreds per year. There's also a common viewpoint, which I share, that while he deserves great sympathy, he doesn't deserve clemency because the penalty for his crime was well known to him before he decided to commit it. Sure, the punishment exceeds the crime, and I wish he could have somehow gained clemency, but Singapore far from alone in administering capital punishment. He's got noone but himself to blame. Coincidentally, on this very same day the United States executed its 1000th convicted criminal since it reintroduced capital punishment in the 1970s.

This tragic event is interesting because of the moral issues that can and should be considered. Before examining those, I make the following condemnations of Singapore. First, not allowing the mother proper physical contact is inhumane in the extreme. He was not a dangerous criminal and did not need to be kept in such isolation. This punishes the mother for no crime of her own. Second, hanging is barbaric for the condemned person and especially for the family. It's not guaranteed to be a quick or painless death, and it physically damages the victim's face. Having been denied a hug, the mother is now denied a dignified display of the body at his funeral as his face will be purple and his eyes will likely be damaged. Why can't they use lethal injection? Third, while not outright condemning capital punishment (it's not sufficiently different from life imprisonment for me to get excited about it), I condemn mandatory capital punishment. If such a penalty is to be applied, it deserves the fullest consideration of an independent judge. But Singapore is an authoritarian regime, which is condemnable in itself.

OK, some moral considerations. How can I support Singapore's decision to execute him while considering execution a disproportionate punishment? That's quite simple: Singapore, and some other Asian nations, go to great lengths to ensure that travellers know the consequences of being caught with drugs. They have the right to consider drugs an important social problem worthy of the greatest imposable punishment. Having set that expectation, it's quite fair that they follow through with it. So while I would request Singapore downgrade the penalty for drug trafficking, I don't blame them for applying whatever punishment they've advertised.

Does Van Nguyen deserve clemency for the peculiar facts of his case? No. He did the deed to raise money to pay his brother's debts. Big deal; try legal means instead. He cooperated with authorities by naming other drug runners. I doubt any major arrests have been made as a consequence; the important members of drug syndicates will have ensured they can't possibly be named. In short, he was a desparate young man rather than a hardened criminal. But... what about all the warnings he ignored? Everyone knows that taking drugs into Asia is extremely risky. He was, in effect, trying to profit from precisely that risk. With greater risk comes greater reward, so they say. Well, if the reward doesn't come off, you can't expect others to bail you out. Besides, I don't entirely buy the whole nice-guy thing. Of course his lawyers would paint that kind of picture; however, his twin brother is a twice-convicted drug smuggler, and he was obviously hanging with the wrong crowd if he could avail himself of a drug smuggling opportunity.

So what about some other issues? There have been some incredibly bad instances of moral reasoning presented. I'll quote some sentences and questions from merely one day's (today's) letters to the Sydney Morning Herald.

To all those deploring the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van, will your reaction be just the same if Saddam Hussein gets the chop? Why should it be? The crimes are different; so should be the perceived reasonable punishment. Another target of comparison is Amrozi, the "Bali Bomber" who conspired in the deaths of 202 people, including 88 Australians. I've often seen it written that Australia needs to take a tough stand on the death penalty all over the world, rather than turn a blind eye as Amrozi is sentenced to death. Yeah, consistency is good, but Australia (diplomatically) and Australians (personally) are quite entitled to be more interested in the death sentences of Australians than foreigners. We simply can't get emotionally involved in everyone's state-sanctioned murder around the world.

I wonder whether 47 per cent of the public would be supporting the execution and the Prime Minister doing nothing to stop it, if it were a blue-eyed, caucasian woman facing the gallows? This appalling comment refers to: (a) Schapelle Corby, who's rotting in an Indonesian jail for trafficking marijuana which she credibly claims was planted on her; and (b) a poll showing 47% of Australians supporting Van Nguyen's execution. The problems here are that Nguyen's and Corby's cases are incomparable except they involve drugs, that the poll may be misrepresentative, and that the Prime Minister has in fact done everything he can to try to prevent the hanging. That people can write such pathetic rhetorical statements staggers me. I say the poll may be misrepresentative because poll results always depend on exactly what was asked. The letter writer has not shown enough logical ability for me to assume that he's using the poll results justifiably.

OK, so I've only quoted two letters, but already we can see some issues that are opened up when people examine this emotive issue. Probably the worst of the lot, though, is Piers Ackerman who is paid to write for The Daily Telegraph, Sydney's trashier newspaper. He wrote that instead of a minute's silence for Van Nguyen (as had been suggested), we should throw a party. What an arsehole. While I felt Van Nguyen got what was (unfortunately) coming to him, I still felt the utmost sympathy for him, and a great deal of sadness when and after his death occurred.

I hate to contribute to the canonisation of a drug smuggler, but I can't resist it: Van Nguyen, RIP.

Terrorism-Related Arrests in Australia

In the last week, nearly 20 men have been arrested for terrorism-related offences. About half (those in Sydney) were allegedly conspiring an attack and had allegedly procured materials to create explosives and recruited a suicide bomber. The other half (in Melbourne) were simply alleged to be members of a terrorist organisation. The arrests were conducted via raids on the suspects' homes, and were the product of about 18 months of police work.

Despite being alarming, this is a very positive development. It seems everybody expected it to happen sooner or later (either arrests or an attack), so the existence of potential terrorists in Australia was not apparently in doubt. While it's not pleasing to have this potentially confirmed, it's nice to know that police have been able to conduct an effective investigation. And it's especially good to see that the suspects are being hauled before a court instead of being dealt with in secret. There's a very real chance that the latter will become a reality in Australia, with worryingly draconian anti-terrorism legislation (with sedition charges and provision for secret detention) being debated in Parliament right now. The timing of these arrests couldn't be better: the suspects will be tried under existing laws. If they receive a fair trial and a just outcome is achieved, then it will help to demonstrate that the new laws are not needed.

A good opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) last week argued that Muslims feel less threatened in general, now that arrests have taken place and the courts will be handling the cases, as opposed to the situation before last week where the occasional raid would occur without arrests and without explanation. In other words, it's not possible that the latest raids were politically motivated because there's too much political risk in bringing the suspects to court. The writer was a regular contributor to the SMH on Muslim affairs, and is a moderate Muslim, and I'm struggling to remember his name. Anyway, in light of that positive piece, it was annoying, and predictable, to hear that the Lebanese Muslim Council protested recently about the police apparently targeting Muslims, blah blah blah.

What really inspired this blog posting was a letter in the SMH. Last night, I submitted one myself in reaction to the Lebanese Muslim Council's ramblings. It wasn't published, but a similar one was. I'm glad, because the one that was published said everything I wanted to say but much clearer and wittier.

Complaints about Muslims being targeted? Next thing it will be drivers complaining about being targeted for breath tests. Why shouldn't we concentrate where experience tells us the problems are? —Paul Frederick, Mosman

Anyway, I hope the suspects get a fair trial, and have no doubt they will.

Music: Three New CDs

I bought three CDs yesterday, and I challenge you to buy three more different CDs in one day:

• Kanye West, Late Registration (hip hop/rap)
• Frenzal Rhomb, Sans Souci (expletive-laden satirical punk/thrash)
• Tex, Don, and Charlie, All Is Forgiven (roots/blues/country)

Kanye West is a US artist; the other two are Australian.

Kanye West has two well-known songs on the radio at the moment: Gold Digger and Diamonds From Sierra Leone. The first is based on a Ray Charles vocal riff, the second on the James Bond Diamonds Are Forever theme, and the use of these sums up the appeal: catchy musical backgrounds with great rhythmic vocals on top. This album was awarded 5 stars by Rolling Stone magazine, a time-honoured accolade I respect even though the magazine no longer holds my interest. I've only listened to it once but thought most of the songs were of very high quality. I'll have to create a copy of it without all the boring "skits" that pollute nearly every hip-hop album.

Frenzal Rhomb are a noisy band I've never been interested in. But when I saw them play a couple of songs once, and heard a longer live set on the radio, I realised they're not meant to be taken seriously, and are actually damn funny. When I got a craving for a couple of their songs and couldn't let it go, I had to get the album. It's a good litmus test for a person's personality type, beyond the mere musical style, in that it's deliberately very offensive. With song titles like Stand Up And Be C*nted, World's F**kedest C**t, and a song whose main chorus line is "At least we know Russell Crowe's band is a f**ken pile of s**t", it's hilarious if that's your sense of humour. And despite being a nice guy, it's definitely mine.

Finally, Tex, Don, and Charlie. That's Tex Perkins, solo artist and leader of The Cruel Sea and The Beasts of Burbon; Don Walker, songwriting supremo behind Cold Chisel (classic 80s pub rock band); and Charlie Owens, longtime collaborator of both. Having mastered hard rock and surfy groove, Tex Perkins has trodden a more mellow path in recent years, and I'd like to get some of his solo stuff. Don Walker wrote fantastic rock songs for Cold Chisel, and has basically been a little-seen blues artist since. This collaboration is a genre album, predictably the common denominator between the musicians' current styles. After one listen, it seems that it's quality rather than inspiration that distinguishes this trio: they're not breaking new ground, just crafting good material. Of course, my impression may change. Their first album (Sad But True, released about four years ago, I think) is apparently a landmark release in Australian music, but unfortunately I haven't heard it. No complaints about this one.

Anyway, three completely different styles purchased and listened to in one day. Most enjoyable!

Mathematics: Two Public Lectures (Oct 2005)

Subjects: Ramanujan; Applications of Mathematics.

On Thursday (27 Oct 2005) I attended a lecture at Sydney University about The Life and Notebooks of Ramanujan. Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician who worked in England with the famous G. H. Hardy during World War I, and he ranks among the most intuitively brilliant mathematicians ever to have lived; probably the greatest. Merely to hear or read of his achievements is inspiring. In the lecture we learned:

• He grew up in the southern area of India, showed incredible interest in and aptitude for mathematics by the age of 12 (by devouring an advanced university-level text and answering all its problems).
• He loved calculus and hated geometry, and ignored non-mathematical subjects, causing him to get a poor mathematics mark and fail most other subjects at university.
• He worked in isolation on a piece of slate, economising on paper, which was expensive, by recording only his results (i.e. without proofs). He was confident that he could reproduce any of the proofs from memory or intuition. I think I’ve read that he didn’t place great value on proofs – which Western mathematicians and probably most others consider essential – but perhaps this isn’t true.
• He wrote to a few English mathematicians with about sixty of his results. Most foolishly ignored him; Hardy recognised potential genius and wrote back asking for proofs. Ramanujan wrote again without proofs but with another hatful of results!
• He travelled to England to work with Hardy, against the precepts of his Brahmin doctrine, but with the eventual blessing of his mother. Despite this supportive act, she was in some ways a shrew, blocking contact between him and his wife while he was away.
• His time in England was mathematically incredibly productive, but deleterious to his physical and mental health. The privations of war made it impossible to satisfy his diet, and his loneliness in a foreign land accelerated the illness that killed him in 1920 aged 32. If you can imagine Einstein being killed in his prime, you can imagine the impact of Ramanujan’s illness and death on mathematics.
• While working “publicly” by publishing papers with Hardy, he worked “privately” by recording results (again, no proofs) in a series of notebooks. His life’s work apparently consists of over 3,000 proved theorems, so that sounds separate from his notebooks. The notebooks probably began before his work in England, because they are two-thirds original. I.e. by working in isolation, he “discovered” much mathematics that was already known by others. Anyway, his notebooks are an inspiration for current mathematical research nearly a century after their writing.
• Ramanujan’s wife (whom he married when she was 9) died in the 1980s aged 94. The lecturer visited her once or twice and determined some threads from her life. She worked all her life sewing clothes, if I remember correctly, and despite being very poor gave away half her income to charity.

The man delivering the lecture (insert name here) has spent 20 years, with the help of PhD students, integrating into mathematics the contents of … wait for it … one chapter of one notebook. By “integrating”, I mean finding proofs for the results that Ramanujan wrote down.

The lecture included many photos but, sadly, very little mathematics: this was one of several lectures he delivers on Ramanujan, so the mathematics is obviously presented elsewhere. The lecturer strongly recommended the book The Man Who Knew Infinity for more information. In fact, reading the reviews of that book on amazon.com is likely to be more educational than reading this blog post. I'll certainly read the book if it contains some insight into his mathematics.

The second lecture was on Friday 28 Oct 2005 at Macquarie University. Bob Anderson of CSIRO gave the sixth Moyen lecture, in honour of Joe Moyen, who wrote a very influential paper “Quantum Physics as a Statistical Theory”, or some such, in the 1940s. The subject of the lecture was Applications of Mathematics. It was entertaining and informative, with several sub-messages such as “In a crisis, you don’t rise to the occasion; you sink to the level of your training.” (I.e. it’s worth acquiring a lot of knowledge.)

Bob was delivering the lecture because he was awarded the Moyen medal for distinguished contribution to mathematics, physics, or statistics. He has clearly been involved in a lot of mathematical modelling in industry, and dwelled on the following examples:

• determining which grains of wheat are soft (good for pasta) and hard (good for biscuits);
• restricting the strings in the Stuart and Sons piano to vertical movement, thus providing a richer, purer sound than other pianos; and
• analysing the genetic geometry of cotton in an attempt to increase its yield.

All examples made use of sophisticated mathematical modelling to gain an understanding of the physical aspects of the objects under investigation. He convincingly demonstrated the importance of mathematics to these advances in technology, and aimed his talk at a reasonably general audience rather than highly-qualified mathematician. The only suggestion I’d make to Bob is to wrap up each example better, summarising the problem, the mathematics, and the solution.

An ulterior message was clear: significant technological advances can’t be made without people applying difficult mathematics to problems. That obviously can’t happen without lots of people being trained in mathematics, which makes the current decline in high-level mathematics study in Australia, both at high school and university level, rather alarming. It’s a problem that feeds on itself: less qualified mathematicians today means less (good) mathematics educators tomorrow, which means even less qualified mathematicians the day after. Once the impact of this problem becomes clear, it won’t be possible to ramp up production of mathematicians.

Perhaps that’s not a problem. Perhaps we have all the technology we need and can cope with declining research and development for a few decades, but I doubt it. The grain and cotton problems above are good indications of the problems we may face without such research: a reduced inability to improve farming and food production techniques in order to feed and clothe the world.

Book: Dirt Cheap

Dirt Cheap, by Elisabeth Wynhausen, is an Australian journalist’s record of her one-woman social experiment: to spend about a year in minimum-wage jobs and see if she can live solely on her meager income. I was immediately attracted to the book when I saw it at the library, but thought it would be recording other people’s experience rather than her own. While her experience is interesting, it’s not entirely genuine, as she does rely a little on her savings (she had little choice), and she is sometimes confrontational in the workplace, knowing that she’ll soon be leaving of her own will.

This experiment is not unique: it was inspired by a similar effort by an American woman, Barbara “Somebody”, and has been followed up by a TV show featuring Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame) doing the same thing for 30 days. I’m not entirely surprised that more than one person is documenting minimum-wage reality: despite all the information available to us in modern times, we’re probably less aware of how other people really live than we ever were. As Alain de Button told us in Status Anxiety, once upon a time everybody knew their place in life and accepted it. Now, with opportunity in theory extended to all, I think we tend to guard our life experience a little, as our friends and neighbours can seem to be our competitors in the rat-race of life. As work is the foundation of most people’s lives, if you don’t work with wage-slaves, you’re unlikely to know any. Of course, we all think our experience of life is more or less the norm, but of course it isn’t. Anyway, when I last worked in an office, I saw the cleaners doing their nightly duty and wondered what their life was like. I even conversed with a couple of them on the odd occasion, but of course never gained any real insight. Thus I’m grateful for Wynhausen’s book, and, though I haven’t consumed them, the work of “Somebody” and Spurlock as well. Many people would likely find themselves more grateful for their standing in life if they took advantage of these insights into the lives of others.

Turning to the book itself, I found it a compelling read. At about 300 lightly-worded pages, you can knock it over pretty quickly. It describes about six jobs she had, each lasting a month or so. She covered a lot of geography – two cities and a rural area – and paid for accommodation from her earnings. Occupations include: sandwich hand; an egg-packing factory; office cleaner; nursing home attendant; hotel breakfast attendant; checkout operator; and … that’s about it, I think. There are a wide variety of experiences with bosses, customers, and co-workers. The conclusion that each chapter seems to share is that the worst aspect of the low-wage existence is the lack of dignity afforded by employers: the low value placed on your time, convenience, and morale. Readers: when you deal with low-wage people in future, remember that they probably take crap from bosses, customers, and even workmates; do they really need to take it from you too?

It’s a book worth reading. I would, however, like to see a book that documents the lifestyles of genuine wage slaves, who lack the options Wynhausen could fall back on. One thing’s for sure, however: I’m less bitchy about the relatively low teachers’ pay I’ll be collecting next year.

John Simon on Criticism

Just a quick quote from Newsweek (September 26, 2005), in John Simon's piece Criticism in an Uncritical Age. Simon, apparently, recently published three volumes of his theatre, film, and music reviews. That such reviews are considered worth reading long after they were written is an achievement. His short piece in Newsweek examines the art and relevance of criticism in an age where everyone's a critic. Anyway, two quotes.

Like any self-respecting critic, I have always encouraged my readers to think for themselves. They were to consider my positive or negative assessments, which I always tried to explain, a challenge to think along with me: here is my reasoning, follow it, then agree or disagree as you see fit.

And later:

I have always maintained that a critic has three duties: to write as well as a novelist or playwright; to be a teacher, taking off from where the classroom, always prematurely, has stopped; and to be a thinker, looking beyond his specific subject at society, history, philosophy.

These are inspring words. I read lots of opinion pages in newspapers and magazines, and thoroughly dislike strong opinions being voiced without strong arguments being made behind them. (Opinion writers are merely critics of society, so Simon's words should apply.) Worthwhile critics invite the reader to disagree with them by laying out their reasoning instead of bludgeoning the reader with unrepentant ideology. The most enjoyable analysis of politics, policy, and society is sparklingly well written: enjoyable to read regardless of the content.

So thank you, John Simon; I'll look into your three volumes of reviews with pleasure.

Riot in Ohio

On the news tonight two black rallies were reported. One, in Washington DC, was a 10-year anniversary of a million-strong march. I don’t recall the original event, and don’t know anything more about it (yet). The news report highlighted one speaker decrying racism in America, and the reporter (unfortunately) linked this to Hurricane Katrina. Whether the speaker or assembled masses intended such a link I don’t know, but I don’t really doubt it.

The other rally was a negative and less planned event. A white-power group staged a planned rally, and a large number of black people revolted. It got ugly, with rampaging and looting; even a vehicle that looked like an ambulance had rocks hurled at it. The reporter said the conflagration really started when police, who didn’t do anything about the “illegal” white-power rally, arrested or perhaps just interfered with a black person who was reacting to it in some (presumably anti-social) way.

Now, what to say about all this? Firstly, the white-power group is a disgrace and deserves strong condemnation for its beliefs and its public display of them. Secondly, the contribution of the black crowds to an ugly situation is understandable. The anger would be real and justified. Thirdly, the spreading of that ugly situation to include the destruction of public and private property – the property of people who had nothing to do with the rally – is disgraceful, and a poor reflection on the black community in that area. The neo-nazis are human trash, but they are a tiny minority and represent noone but themselves. The black community that rioted, however, represent misbehaviour on a grander scale. Although it’s suspected that much of the damage was done by smallish gangs taking advantage of the situation, it was the actions of the entire mob, presumably, that allowed the situation to escalate. The worst thing is that this display of black power, as it were, is self-defeating, because it’s the exact response that the neo-nazi animals probably wished to provoke, as if to prove a point.

How should the community react to a white-power rally? Well, if it’s illegal, as the news reporter said, it should have been forcibly stopped by police. It’s understandable, if regrettable, that the black mob took matters into their own hands because police didn’t act. However, one can take a step back and consider a different response: ignore them. The Nazis want a response; the most frustrating thing for them would be to not have an audience. If the community could rally together, as it were, and show these scum that their existence is not worth noting, let alone reacting to, then perhaps that would be the best outcome of all.

The other option is to perform a John Belushi move a la The Blues Brothers, in which Jake and Elwood Blues were held up by the Illinois Nazis marching on a bridge. Messrs. Blues were in a hurry, and … if you haven’t seen it, you really must.

Note: this piece was written without access to the facts of the case, and offers a general opinion only. There were probably more factors at play than I’ve accounted for.

Richie Benaud, King of Cricket Commentary

Richie Benaud is 75 and still appears on Channel 9’s cricket coverage. His voice is weaker than it once was, but he continues to provide warmth, authority, and a soothing tone to the soundtrack of the Australian summer. As a mate of mine put it, he’s the only commentator who you never argue with. I think that’s stretching the point a little; there are two others whose words I greatly respect: Tony Grieg and (a recent discovery) Mark Nicholas. Further, during an Australia–South Africa Test match about 10 years ago, Richie let slip about the stupidest thing I’ve heard on television: “And here we have a kite … possibly motorized.”

An interesting facet of this great man (great player in the 1950s and probably 1960s; great commentator for decades) is his incurable old-school charm. He has an enormous amount of consideration for the person watching, wanting to be entertained by and informed on the great game. In two interviews I’ve read, he mentioned the great responsibility that comes with being invited into viewers’ living rooms. He spoke of the value of opinions he receives in the streets, despite the hassle of being so well known. And at the end of a radio interview recently, which I missed but which I gather was aimed at promoting his new book, he sounded most sincere as he thanked the host and her listeners. His modesty is his greatness.

It’s also his mystery. He lives a simple life, except that he lives comfortably in three countries (Australia, England, France), has a dream job, and has a cosy relationship with Australia’s richest person, Channel 9 boss Kerry Packer. Packer is a fierce, but fiercely loyal, employer, and will be genuinely grateful, not merely commercially grateful, at the decades of service Richie has provided.

I thought he was planning to retire a few years ago, and summer after summer have been relieved to find it hasn’t happened. It now appears he intends to keep going until he “falls off his twig” (his words), or his two career advisers (Packer and his wife Daphne) tell him it’s time to pull up stumps.

Mark Nicholas has shown public gratitude to Richie as a mentor in a newspaper column, and I think he’s the right person to front the next generation of cricket commentators. He employs the same economy of expression, highlighting the themes of the day’s play rather than the minutae. And his voice has a similar relaxing quality. The only problem is that he’s English: we’ve only heard him on Australian television because of Australia’s recent historic stouch with the old – and renewed – enemy. But if Richie made a career of following the summer between Australia and England to provide his expertise wherever it was required, I don’t see why Nicholas can’t do the same. There’s still a few years to pass on the baton.

Reason Magazine

I'm putting a permanent link to Reason Magazine on the side of this blog, because it's such an interesting read, and no-one I know has heard of it.

It's a US magazine that covers a range of issues in society, politics, and economics, with a libertarian bent, and always in a well-written, well-argued, and interesting style. The authors are all independent, and you'll occasionally find differing perspectives of the same issue among them.

I used to read The Economist, a more well-known UK publication, every single week for more than two years, and still have all the issues I bought. It's a terrific magazine, or "newspaper" as they call it, with a similar ideological slant to Reason, but perhaps more appeal to authority. I stopped because I could no longer afford to buy it every week, and the amount of text in each issue was kind of overwhelming.

Anyway, both publications provide a valuable service: a set of well-written and well-argued opinions against which to test your own. I commend them both.

Music: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is my favourite musical outfit at the moment. They dropped the "Jon Spencer" from the name for the latest album Damage, and I'll adapt eventually.

Their core style is a perfect meeting of rock 'n' roll and blues. Not the sad blues, but the drivin', jivin', dancin' blues. Guitar sometimes sounds like early Stones; vocals often sound like Elvis; but they're derivative of neither. The best of their music makes movement involuntary. It's about all I've been listening to so that I can wake up enough to plough through another day of uni assignments.

These are the four albums I have, in release order:

• Orange. Many consider this their masterpiece, but I consider it dated. It's raw, playful, energetic, but somehow shallow. Still a great album, mind you, but I don't play it often.
  
• Now I Got Worry. I consider this their masterpiece. The most bluesy by a long shot, with a great cameo from recently retired blues legend R. L. Burnside. Full of drive.
  
• Plastic Fang. Underrated, in my opinion. Not every song is killer, but none stink, and many are killer. What's more, it's their most consistent album in style, that style being full-bodied rock 'n' roll. When you're in the mood for it, it delivers a whole album's worth.
  
• Damage. Only got this recently and I'm still evaluating it. It doesn't grab you straight away, but has been warming on me. This is the "other" side of Blues Explosion, the experimental side. A range of styles on this one, but fortunately it includes some standout rockers.

They've got about nine albums in total, I think, and I gotta get some more.

I first got into this band in a pretty straightforward way: I bought Now I Got Worry simply because I liked the name of the band! The concept of blues exploding was one I could anticipate with relish. They certainly didn't let me down.

Introducing Midnight Rambler

Cool! Every time I add a post I'll have The Rolling Stone's Midnight Rambler in my head. Can't ask for more than that!

Midnight Rambler is a blog that will discuss music, words, education, mathematics, politics (not slanging matches), and other things as they come up. If there's an overarching goal, it's this: to document abuses of logic and common sense in public discourse.

If there are any readers, welcome. Drop me a line!