VolaciousNet

It’s not often that I get quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Apparently Sydney University collegiate society is a breeding ground for rapists, drunks and misogynists. Or so the papers would have you believe.

The first article appeared a few weeks ago by a disgruntled ex-student Alexis Carey titled Lifting the Lid on College Life. In what many commented was a “completely trashy piece of journalism”, one ex-student tried to paint the entire collegiate scene as sexist whilst publishing stories about “allegations of rape”. Many people tore into her, the stories from people attending college at the time told an entirely different story about this “rape” and the attitudes of collegians in general.

Now over the past two days there have been several stories across the front pages of all national newspapers concerning this “pro-rape” Facebook page. Apparently these students were “proud” of membership of this page, which I find a bit of a worry if true. However, this story was broken by the Herald’s “Investigative Journalist”, Ruth Pollard. Out comes even MORE allegations. More rapes allegedly occurred. Allegedly? Ruth, a journalist of your experience should know the dangers of using the word “allegedly”. I hear that allegedly 20 babies are killed each year by investigative journalists. 20 babies, Ruth! You monster! In an attempt to either save Alexis’ reputation or break her own sensationalist story, Ruth has broken a sensational story with absolutely NO solid evidence! We can’t even see this alleged Facebook page and decide for ourselves! How did you know about it ruth if it was taken down in August and this story not printed until now? What kind of journalism is this? Quite ironic, considering Ruth, as a leading member of the MEAA, stated that she was concerned for the quality of journalism after Fairfax announced even more redundancies.

The ironic thing is the most solid and non-partisan piece of writing on this subject came from the Nina Funnell, from the NSW Rape Crisis Centre and a freelance writer. She writes that the enclosed cultures of a college society can cause one to be divorced from accepted behaviour. She even quoted a comment I left on Alexis’ article, whether in a positive or negative light I don’t know. I believe she used my comment as a way to frame “acceptance” or “denial” of the alleged behaviour of college students.

So as a result, let me give my readers an account of my life at College, and why I view all of this with a bit of skepticism.

I went to St. Andrew’s as a very confused young man, actually on a recommendation from a psychiatrist who warned that I had to get out of the family home immediately or risk doing harm to myself (another story in itself). I, like many others, knew absolutely nobody and O-week proved to be a real baptism of fire. Yes, there was drinking. Lots of it. I probably threw up once or twice. I endured belittling from the older students (I was a fresher after all), and I went through the initiation “rituals” per se. Keep this in mind – at no time was I ever forced to do it, but if you wanted to be respected by the other students it was just something you did. You got over it. The girls did it too, quite willingly. My year was the first year that females were taken in as residents, and they were very much outnumbered by the males, but they stuck together and broke into the male “bastion”.

Yes, the college was very male dominated. I understand many weren’t happy by the inclusion of females in our fresher year, but they were brought into line by the Senior Student and other senior college figures. By the end of my second year, girls were very much the norm and accepted in college life. I too felt a fair bit intimidated by the sporting “jock” society initially, and initially I was closeted whilst living there. During my second year I came out, and did not receive the lashback I had been fearing. I later learnt that I was possibly the first undergraduate to come out as gay at Drew’s. Now I hear there’s quite a few of them, and they blend in quite happily.

This is why I find it hard to believe that it would have gone that far backwards when it comes to tolerance. Now st paul’s is still the only all-male college left, and known for being full of “daddie’s boys”, with the elitist attitudes that go with it. However I never knew them as being disrespectful towards women. Certainly not “promoting rape” as the newspapers would have you believe. From the sources I have heard from, the name “Define Consent” was in fact the name of a social soccer team. Peurile and immature, yes. Insensitive, yes. But that’s teenage boys for you (and most ARE teenagers, after all). Actually SERIOUS about promoting rape? Well that’s what the so-called “investigative journalist” really needed to find out. As for the alleged rapes – well I can tell you stories like that would spread like wildfire amongst the college community. After all, it is a huge gossip mill. And don’t you think this would have come out far earlier? Yes. I would love to see one person come out and say “yes, I was raped by X and THEY made me cover it up”. If it is true, then yes these people should be punished to the full extent of the law but currently everything is speculation and heresay.

All institutions have their problems. But they are not limited to just college life – binge drinking and partying goes on all around any university in Australia. To say college life promotes binge drinking just points out the obvious that any group of young students living together will drink. The exception is that a college resident who fails their exams will usually get kicked out of college.

I really do hope that this sensationalist, TT / ACA style journalism does not hamper the college community as I believe it is provides students with an all-round education, socialisation and support that you just can’t get anywhere else. Let’s hope that Fairfax picks up its game.

BTW Yes, this photo is from my college days, right after the rowing regatta A well-earned beer if I ever saw one!

Click to Enlarge

You know, I’ve never thought much of Joe Hockey but his recent speech to the Sydney Institute labelled “In Defence of God” (of which an extract is printed in the Sydney Morning Herald made me consider that he may actually be deserving of some respect. I encourage you to read his entire speech here rather than the extracts.

In essence Joe comments on the state of religion in Australia (and the Western world in general), and how the essential messages of the various religions and being twisted and warped by literal interpretations and a “pick-and-choose” mentatlity to morality. Not a new concept I know but Joe gives a very succinct argument that I think that majority of educated Australians would agree with.

He is right when he says “The struggle to find meaning in our lives is one that is essentially individual and universal. It is also timeless.” – I mean, that is why religion exists, isn’t it? To explain that which we cannot, to give some form of meaning to our existence on this third rock from the star we call “Sol”.

I think it is very interesting how as education improves we do NOT see a move away from organised religion or fundamentalist bigotry, in fact people orientate one way or the other with even more zeal. Atheists too are coming under this heading, I recently watched Richard Dawkin’s “The God Delusion” and shook my head because as an academic he came across extremely biased, without solid proof of his arguments (which is ironic considering he is using the lack of evidence as proof for lack of God), and spouting what could almost be called “atheist doctrine”.

Joe sums it up very early on in his speech, with the statement “For me, religious experience should fundamentally be a personal one. “. Joe, I could not agree more. You argue in your speech that “For much of that history, poor levels of education and literacy did mean that it was the religious hierarchy that was the source of most religious doctrine. God filled a knowledge vacuum. If there was no obvious explanation then it was seen as God’s work.” These days of course we have the power of knowledge, of collaboration, we attend higher education and empower ourselves to think critically about all evidence put before us. We can determine our own core beliefs for ourselves and better empower us to disseminate truth from fiction, and better understand the meaning of the parable.

I leave Joe’s speech here to think about my own position, and in all honesty I find that no religion is right, and that includes atheism (which I now herald as its own religion, with its own fundamentalists). To be perfectly honest, it is completely arrogant of ourselves to believe we have the answers to why we are here, whether a God(s) exist, and if so which “God” is the right one. We can only disseminate the answers (and questions) available to us and make our own, educated decision. In that way, religion is very much a personal thing.

I have no intolerance of any religion, but I often ask WHY a person chooses that religion over another. If they have themselves thought about it and chosen that path for a good reason, then they have considered alternatives and picked what is right for them and I respect that. But if you follow something blindly, because your mother said so or because “it’s the done thing”, then I have no respect and think you deserve to be swindled by that tele-evangelist on late night TV who asks for your credit card in order to be “saved”.

Anyway, have a read of Joe’s speech. Quite enlightening for a Liberal politician.

Your thoughts?

One of my biggest misgivings about being out in the suburbs is being away from all the action, the liveliness of the city. Recently Adam and I have been a bit morose that our social life has been a bit lacklustre – mostly our fault I know but in a small way influenced by the fact we are no longer living in the city.

So when we decided to go out for a drink last night in the Cross, I was quite happy to get out amongst it once more. We had enjoyed a (mostly) enjoyable meal at the Victoria Rooms, and wanted to go out for a quick drink or two. But you know what? I’m starting to really wish I hadn’t.

First stop, Piano Bar. Nope, cover charge to get in, $15 is not worth it for 1 or 2 drinks. So we walk to a pub near World Bar, had a few seats outside in which to drink and watch the wildlife. The bouncer decided to make a fuss and ask us how many of us there were, eyeing us up and down to make sure the male/female ratio was right. Then there was the constant eyeing over of ID as though we were 14 years old and trying to pass off fakes. Wanker.

Tried to order a round. Nope. 2 drinks maximum per person. In a plastic glass. And can’t have it outside (as we had originally planned). DJ playing Ministry of Sound 2002 straight off the CD whilst 6 drunk girls floundered over each other on the putrid dancefloor in a desperate attempt to attract a teen pregnancy. Outside a bunch of “wannabe alpha males” were shouting at each other across the road whilst a few wogs in a kitted-out Hundai Excel yelled at a few drunk girls.

On the way back to the car we get heckled by some drunk bogans, and I couldn’t help feel just how much nicer things were in the suburbs.

It reminded me of a great plan I read about a NZ mayor wanting to offer bogans money to get them sterilised in order to reduce the amount of derelict bogan children in the world. A-FUCKING-MEN!

There’s nothing quite so scary as when your kids go missing. Again.

I was working up in Newcastle the other week when I got a late night call from a distraught husband telling me that Jasper was missing – he had broken through the back fence and couldn’t be found. This was more than a worry – the little tyke has got next to no road sense and we live moderately close to a few major roads.

I tried to do my best to console the boy, but I wasn’t there and there wasn’t anything I could do apart from encourage him to calm down and “think a teenage dog” in order to determine where he might have gone. 4 hours later at 3 in the morning, I still had a distraught boy and no dog.

Woke up the next morning – still no dog. Boy extremely upset now. Managed to get him to call around a few vets to see if they had found him – Success! The 3rd vet he rang had a runaway blonde labrador delivered to them last night.

Adam went to pick the dog up, and byu a sheer stroke of luck the vet was offering fairly cheap rates on castration, and better yet they could do it immediately. “What do you think, should we do it?” was the text message I got. An emphatic “yes, chop ‘em off!. That’ll teach him” sealed Jasper’s fate.

Needless to say we now have a sheepish puppy feeling a bit sorry for himself. Well at least he knows the punishment for running away!

I told Adam the same applies for him

The recent story about Balloon Boy has highlighted just how stupid it is to coerce a 6-year-old to keep a secret. It reminded me of an amusing story that happened to me not long ago.

I’m not sure whether I have mentioned before on this blog, but recently my mother bought a property near Bathurst (3 hours west of Sydney), where I’ve been going quite a lot over the last few months. About 6 weeks ago, I went up to the farm to stay the weekend with my mother, my brother & sister-in-law, and their 3 little anklebiters (aged 5 years, 3(ish) and 1 respectively). Adam stayed at home as he had things to do, but he did let me bring the monsters (pictured) with me so they could have a run around on the farm.

My boys, being labradors and thus extremely loyal, don’t like it when they don’t know where I am. One day I took off into town (to go to Bunnings, no less!) and on the way back my mother calls me and says “have a look for your dogs when you drive down, I can’t find them and think they’ve gone for a wander”. Oh well, no biggy, they could just be down at the river or rolling in a tussock somewhere, I’ll keep an eye out. Of course, they were nowhere to be found.

Level 1 – Concern begins, I get on the motorbike and take off around the farm calling out to them. After going around the farm several times, I come home empty-handed and we decide to escalate to Level 2 – Worry. If they weren’t on the farm – they have probably headed onto a neighbours place and out west feral dogs get shot. Whilst my two monsters look in no way feral (bright red collars and a goofy look), I don’t know the neighbours all that well either. So mother gets in the car and I get on the bike and we look further and up to the road. My 5 year old nephew thinks this sounds like an adventure, so he goes with my mother.

Still nothing, we are at Level 3 – Moderate Panic. It’s been 4 hours or so, no dogs and we’ve been everywhere. Snakes are abundant on the farm (we haven’t seen any but the area is known for it) so I am starting to wonder if they may have been bitten and how I would find their bodies if they had. AND if that was the case, I was thinking of my escape plan, to a remote island somewhere where Adam couldn’t find and kill me.

Anyway, we managed to find them – well a neighbour did and tied them up to his shed. We found them looking very muddy and sorry for themselves. At that point, my mother, brother and even his wife decided it would not be a good idea to tell Adam. They know my boy and know that he would be beside himself if he thought his fur children had been in any danger. The trouble was my nephew was there as well – so we attempted to teach him about what a “secret” was, and why we couldn’t tell Adam. He seemed quite agreeable to this – and we went on our merry way.

During the course of the week when I got back I thought how I was going to explain to Adam that I lost the dogs, because I knew it would be only a matter of time before he found out. My entire family knew. Then it so happened that we were to have dinner with my brother and his lot the next weekend with my father (who was in on the joke), and my nephew would probably not be able to help himself.

Before dinner we reminded my nephew that he wasn’t to tell Adam about losing the dogs. “OK Uncle Gus” he says cheerily. Sure enough later over dinner the topic of the previous weekend comes up (staying at the farm) and up pipes my nephew “oh, is that when the dogs ran away?”. I burst out laughing, as does my father, my brother and his wife, leaving Adam confused and bewildered. “What? Ran away? What is he talking about Gus”? I try and tell the story whilst chuckling at the predictability of my nephew.

So words to the wise here – if you want a secret kept, don’t tell the kids!

It’s rare that Microsoft can take a piece of the “cool” pie away from Apple. But that is what they have done with Windows 7’s Media Centre. I’ve been trialling it for the past 4 months, and I don’t know what I’d do without it. For what it can do, the level it can do it, and the price you pay, it is phenomenal.

So to give you a rundown on my setup, I took my old webserver “Xandir” (original host of this site and others) gave it a new case and a good cleanout, then ordered a few new parts from EYO and plugged them in.

She is now equipped with:

Believe it or not, it didn’t cost that much. I probably spent about $500 to upgrade the machine enough to make it an Media PC, the video card of course being the most important (only $150!).
Still seems a bit you say? But not when you consider what she would ordinarily replace. This is what she is capable of:

What impresses me most however is the UI. This is where most Media Centres fall down – the Win7 Media Centre has a brilliant 10-foot UI that is easy to navigate and uses Picture-in-Picture and opacity blending to look really really good! You can drive it using nearly any remote. Selection of a remote control should be easy – I made a mistake and bought a cheap one from Jaycar, it does work but it has a few issues and is very frustrating (electrical problems inside the unit. Ever known a remote control to crash?) I now use IntelliRemote and control the entire PC through my iPhone via WiFi (for extra geekiness).

Installation was a breeze – it’s built in to Windows 7, which worked out of the box. And can be easily extended with heaps of plugins to customise it how you want. I also like that I can use the computer normally (on a VGA screen) whilst the Media Centre app drives the TV.

So this is where I say Sorry Apple, you lost this one. Microsoft’s actually pipped you here and it makes your AppleTV look a bit plain and lacking functionality.

I’ve been looking forward to a setup like this for some time. As you can see from the photo, the Bravia sits on the feature wall in the living room, I love the white frame – it makes it look like a picture No cables to be seen either – all cables and inputs are taken out through the wall and into the cupboard behind – which is where the Media PC is. Beauty and simplicity – that’s what a good TV experience should be.

You know what? I honestly think that Twitter and Facebook are killing old-school traditional blogs.

HA! 5 years ago blogs were the forefront of “armchair journalism”, with amateurs shooting their mouth off to whoever would listen. Now it’s come down to “how can I fit what I want into 140 characters and make it sound interesting”. Well here’s something I’ve found… it’s not that interesting!

Now I probably sound like a grouchy old man, but I just don’t get this Twitter thing. It seems nothing more than a cheap way to illegibly proffer half-baked thoughts and ideas to nobody in particular. In reality I think it’s just a way for companies to do cheap market research. And now that KRudd, MalcolmT and every “clbrty”(sic) is caught up in this “tweet” fornication, it really just takes whatever sparkle it could have had and turns it into a marketing tool.

It’s even bastardised the Facebook “updates” from whence it came, making the mundane even more illiterate.

Sometimes I just want to shout out to the world If you haven’t got anything to say, don’t say it!. And if you do, do it properly!

Who knows. Maybe Twitter will become something of the past when Google Wave is launched.

Homer: (Homer is showing his family his new inventions.) This is my “Everything’s Okay Alarm.” (Picks up a device that looks like a smoke detector and presses a button. It starts beeping loudly.) (Homer shouting.) THIS ALARM WILL SOUND EVERY 3 SECONDS, UNLESS SOMETHING ISN’T OKAY!
Marge: HOMER, TURN IT OFF!
Homer: IT CAN’T BE TURNED OFF! (The beeping starts weakening, then stops completely.) But, it does break easily.

Y’know what I find the problem with blogging is?

I tend to only post when I’m trying to avoid something, and particularly when things aren’t going well. I need vent space. I need to bitch about something, or at least connect with others.

So herein lies the problem, things are going well, so I never feel like sitting down and nutting out a post!!!

I do so now not because things are bad, but because I feel guilty that my blog of 6 years is still here, still online, and I’ve got so many opinions and thoughts that I’m thinking “Gee, I really want to write a post about that!” but they never make it to that first keystroke.

So I’m going to write a batch of them. Most of them are opinion pieces, political rants, maybe one or two stories about my whirlwind life in the suburbs, and maybe even a gratuitous photo to keep you all interested.

Fellow bloggers please note – I still read your posts daily on my iPhone, but I lack the ability to reply due to the limitations of said phone and the fact that most of you use Blogger and it’s not particularly easy to comment. For your convenience, this site is now iPhone enabled, if you load with your trusty JesusPhone it will be styled for you to read easily I don’t know about comments yet – I’ll work on that

As for the happenings around here, as I said things are good. Adam and I are going well, our relationship appears to be getting stronger day by day, as corny as it sounds. Buying this house and working on it has really made both of us a lot happier, and our fights of old seem like a distant memory. Sadly several friends in long term relationships (think 6-7+ years) have decided to split lately, I try sometimes to find out what went wrong so I can look out for the same pitfalls but analysing other people’s relationships when you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors can be a real headache.

Anyway, please stay tuned, I might churn out a few posts today and post them day by day, please feel free to leave a comment so I know I still have an audience to rant to!

I’m in desperate need of breathing new life into my blogroll.
Bloggers, as we know, are fickle beasts and blogs tend to have a shelf life of about a year or two.
The you get the desperados like me who still run their blog on LiveJournal. Sooooo 2004!

What I need is new things to read. My blogroll on Volacious.Net.Au is grim only because the latest Wordpress update killed all my links.

So I’m rebuilding it and trimming out all the people who don’t post anymore, which leads me to ask my dear readers:

What are the good blogs you’re reading at the moment?

Link me!

Shelton and Jasper playing tug-of-war with a rubber chicken.

Only problem is that Jasper doesn’t play fair – he’ll suddenly let go, latch onto one of Shelton’s ears who drops the rubber chicken in surprise. Jasper lets go of Shelton’s ear, grabs the chicken, and scampers off.

Cheeky little brat