Not so Green after all

Jaguar electric car goes on show at a preview event for the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

The study was commissioned by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, which is jointly funded by the British government and the car industry. It found that a mid-size electric car would produce 23.1 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, compared with 24 tonnes for a similar petrol car. Emissions from manufacturing electric cars are at least 50 per cent higher because batteries are made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed.

Many electric cars are expected to need a replacement battery after a few years. Once the emissions from producing the second battery are added in, the total CO2 from producing an electric car rises to 12.6 tonnes, compared with 5.6 tonnes for a petrol car. Disposal also produces double the emissions because of the energy consumed in recovering and recycling metals in the battery. The study also took into account carbon emitted to generate the grid electricity consumed.

Greg Archer, director of Low CVP, said the industry should state the full lifecycle emissions of cars rather than just tailpipe emissions, to avoid misleading consumers. He said that drivers wanting to minimise emissions could be better off buying a small, efficient petrol or diesel car. “People have to match the technology to their particular needs,” he said.

source

Some food for thought for those who think that the way to a low emission future is to have more electric cars…

Cheers Comrades

At Chez Hall we love modern tech

Well we needed the bacon…

one of the many uses of bacon

Now perhaps I should just give  a fond farewell to Socky.

As Ray has pointed out the character was never more than a bit of a lark and only a certain cadre of malicious idiots ever cared about who is creator was, like all attempts at humour he did not always hit his marks but he was a lot of fun while he lasted and through his writing here at the Sandpit I was sometimes shocked, often very amused, but always happy to hear a voice from a different political perspective.

I have not a single regret about Socky’s sojourn here at the Sandpit, not one. To see my most strident critics having conniptions about the very existence of a fictional character and their herculean efforts to “expose” or out him made me literally roll about the place in fits of laughter, fortunately most people got the joke and just went with it and looking back upon the archive of Socky’s posts you will see  good humoured mockery and satire more  than anything else. To be brutally frank there were times when I did not like the spin that Ray gave Socky but I always gave him complete freedom to play the character as he pleased and the result was more hits than misses by my calculation.

It comes down to this I think that the best discussions and debates about politics happen when you get people form all viewpoints discussing the issues. when you just have people from just a narrow part of the political spectrum chanting the same songs together  it is fundamentally rather dull. Now I write this blog for my own personal entertainment and as a place where I can vent when I see what I think is public stupidity from our politicians, a place to share those amusing snippets that I come across as I trawl the net and generally just as a place where I can hang out in cyberspace.      My vision for the Sandpit has become one where we can have pieces from a variety of perspectives that inspire  spirited discussion with a sense of good humoured fun. I will continue to welcome comments from all comers as long as they meet the criteria of my comments policy but by the same token I would still write if any regulars decide to play elsewhere.

I write this blog for me and the fact that it gets pretty good traffic these days is arsenic in the lattes of those strident critics who seem to be eternally hoping that I will just fade away. The Sandpit is here to stay and each new day will find me posting something that I hope will amuse our readers and get them thinking about the world that we all share and how we can all try to make it a better place for the future.

Cheers Comrades

Update

I am happy to announce that Ray Dixon has decided to accept my offer  to post here at the Sandpit in his own name. This is something that we have been considering for sometime, well at least for as long as the bacon has been curing.

Cheers indeed Comrades

We may not be doomed after all

It is a continual amusement to me just how willing so many latte sippers are to buy in to millenarian doomsday cults like the climate change cult. They exhibit almost no confidence in the ability of life forms to find a way to not only survive but also thrive  no matter how  hostile their environment may be . Maybe this is a vestige of  folk tales of “the flood”, which was no doubt generated as a primordial “scare them straight” story.  Personally I have come to the conclusion that humanity is a very resilient species who have found a way to survive and even to thrive  on the planet and there is no reason to believe that we could not survive even  in a world where the most dire predictions of the climate alarmists  come to fruition.

With this thought in mind I read this in the Daily Mail:

Expert: Curnoe, the author of the article, is a leading light in evolution and human anthropology

click for source

Now doesn’t that make you have brighter thoughts of the future?
The alarmists keep telling us that we are all doomed if we don’t perform the appropriate self-flagellation and chant the correct prayers to Gaia, if we don’t pay to Caesar the right climate tithe we are told that we don’t care about the future of our children. Hmm maybe the best way that we can ensure a future for our children is to help them develop good general skills with tools rather than making them into good little consumers…

Cheers Comrades

Creation myth, how it happened

I just love a lot of Jewish humour about God and the contradictions of the Bible, it is at once deeply affectionate for religious traditions but also deeply aware of how silly some of them are. Anyway something light hearted for this cold and damp Sunday morning here at the Sandpit.

Oh and for the assistance of those commentators who wish to post You tube clips in their comments all you have to do is post the vid’s URL on its own line and it will automatically embed.

Cheers Comrades

Germaine Greer thinks that girls should not kiss their dads

Well as a father of a daughter I’m offended by the crap that Greer sprouts here and I think that it just proves what a hate filled misandrist she has become!

Cheers Comrades

Sing if you’re glad to be Gay Straight!

As I understand the argument put by many Gay activists, a person is homosexual because that is the way that they are born. So it comes as some surprise that a Gay bar thinks that the sexuality of their patrons is so mutable that the presence of “predatory women” is enough to make them straight!!!!

Click for source

Hmm methinks that this is either a logic fail or the claims of immutable homosexuality are somewhat overdone…
Cheers Comrades

Our brand washes whiter!!!!

There can’t be anything more serious for the god-bothering set than the business of trying to improve your brand recognition

click for source

As an atheist I find the way that various religious types go about marketing their brand holy soap powder rather amusing. The now defaced billboards are a case in point. From their pronouncements it would appear that the Muslim group paying for these claim that they want to improve the public image of Islam. I think that they are failing to do that, but on the other hand it is probably better that they waste their money on futile ads here rather than sending it to some “Islamic charity” that is a front for the Jihadists. But that  is by the by and not the point of this little post. My point is to note the very clever way that this billboard has been defaced so that it now gives and entirely different religious endorsement. OK I know that defacing the sign is illegal, yada yada yada, but in the battle of rival soap powders we all know that what is important for a good wash is not the detergent but the the water…

Cheers Comrades

Time to guillotine Gillard

The carbon tax is toxic, the boats keep coming and the mining tax is still unresolved, yet Julia Gillard just wants some positive PR.

 

I just found out that Gillard is going on 60 Minutes with Tim Mathieson this Sunday, where they will apparently talk about their relationship, possible wedding etc.

To me this confirms how desperate she is.

Just this year, she has done all of the following in order to try and get people to like her:

1) Appeared solo on Q&A after announcing the carbon tax

2) trotted out Bob Hawke the other week

3) and now, 60 minutes

Surely all this, in the first year of her term with no election yet on the horizon shows how desperate she is? My wife reckons that Gillard may even be contemplating marrying Tim just so that she can boost her popularity. Given how desperate she is I wouldn’t put it past her.

I’m fed up with this. This is getting beyond a joke. Let’s have an election and get rid of this circus.

 

Going Public on Abortion

There are few issues that inspire as much ire as abortion and to be honest I find the way that both sides try to prosecute their positions rather interesting for example this effort from the USA takes the idea of using public shaming as a deterrent for abortion to a new level.

click for source

I take particular note of the fact that the billboard does not name the woman in question, which is fair enough but of course this does not mean that the woman’s family and friends will not know precisely who it refers to here. So the ethical question becomes to what extent does the father of a child ,who has been aborted killed at the request of its mother, have a right  to publicly protest at the killing?

Fathers have no standing in law when it comes to the decision to kill the unborn, I am in two minds about the virtues of this but one thing that I do believe is that no one should be prevented form trying to persuade others that an abortion is a bad idea. To this end I support any argument that reminds those women contemplating abortion that the act they desire is the killing of a human being (rather than “a bunch of cells” or any other euphemism )  and that a man has the right to make public his grief at the loss of his progeny.

Respect Comrades

Lollipops, lattes and ripe bananas

In my younger days I had ambitions to be a professional artist, I devoted a great deal of time and effort in developing my skills as a painter and to that end I also devoted much of my time at university to trying to understand the nuances of communication. My reasoning was rather simple, namely that any art making is about communicating ideas and reflections on our existence to the viewer of an art work.

So I did the rounds of the “scene” I went to exhibitions and openings and I developed friendships with a few people who were playing the game of ingratiating themselves with the art buying public. And eventually I came to the conclusion that the most important tool that any artist needs in their kit bag is a large trowel, with which they can lay on a substantial layer of bullshit. To “succeed” you need no talent and certainly no technical skill, you don’t even need to have anything profound to say, all you need is the right line of patter to sell yourself as an “artist”.

No where is this more the case than when it comes to abstract expressionism. Now I am just as impressed with the pretty patterns that can happen when someone throws some colour onto a panel or canvas , heck such a panel may well make the décor of your living room look really swish but when it comes down to it such “art” has absolutely nothing to say, it is entirely decorative  and probably only worth the cost of its materials . So I am naturally dismissive of the story about a four year old “artist”  that is doing the rounds:

Click for source

 Of course every parent loves the “art works” that are produced by their four year old but I can’t help thinking that the parents of this little girl are actually guilty of a type of child abuse here by using their child to make a quid or two from the gullible “art world scene”. Yeah the pictures are cute and even sort of pleasing but really do they have anything to say?

Look now to the picture at the head of this piece and tell me is that Art?

Come on does it have anything to say about the human condition either?

To my mind this sort of thing is rather like our celebrity culture ; its all about spin and propaganda and there is no subculture in our society that exhibits a greater ratio of spin to substance than the “art world”. We have government departments  and quangos devoted to the development of “Art”and they really collectively produce very little of substance , but they certainly do keep a whole class of idiot savants in lollipops and Latte, worse still the public have been lead to believe that we should bow down to the idea that the value of an art work is entirely dependant upon how much money successive idiots are  are prepared to pay for  coloured mud   spread on canvas. Likewise we are fed the myths  that certain individuals should be seen as some sort of  mystic visionary for producing works such as the one done by Aelita Andre or any other piece of “modern Art”  for that matter .

However if you take a moment to scrape the bullshit away from your eyes you may just appreciate that the picture at the head of this page was painted by a Chimpanzee and that the one done by the four year old is not substantively different,  maybe we should consider  that sobering thought as we laugh at the idiot who has paid  $24000 an  Aelita Andre painting…

Cheers Comrades

Ineptitude thy name is Labor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMxJtMoTnx8&feature=related

I know That I have done the asylum seeker issue to death here but you can’t blame me because the Labor party’s naivete, stupidity,  and wilful blindness to the consequences of their rule changes are so bad that they just beggar belief. Now it looks like the nearly three hundred arrivals since the announcement of the “Malaysian solution” may not be part of any deal So it has come down to this The Gillard government will make a really bad five for one deal with Malaysia which will see boat arrivals sent to be processed in a country  that uses the cane, has not signed the UN convention ect ect  just so that she can claim that she is not going to go back t0 a system that works?

There comes a time when just admitting that you are wrong and going back is in fact the better choice (as my short sojourn in Ozblogistan taught me) Now you may cop a bit of flack in the short term but in the greater scheme of things belatedly reversing a bad decision is still better than making a bad decision worse by making an even worse decision to try to “solve” the problem that you have made in the first place.

It is with this in mind that I note that Tony Abbott is on his way to Nauru to personally inspect the facility there and I am pretty sure that the visit will show that compared to the fate that claimants sent to Malaysia will endure that it will be “luxury”…

click for source

You would have to think that doing a Mea Culpa on this issue would be the best way for Labor to get out form under the problem, sure they would suffer a great deal of short term pain but really they are already so low in the public’s estimation that they can’t go substantially further backwards anyway. For a mob that do politics as their profession they seem to be incredibly inept. Oh and one more essential to solve the this problem and that is to reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas because as long as claimants can look forward to permanent residency they will continue to take to the boats even if they end up at the Nauru holiday camp for a while.

Gillard won’t do this most sensible thing though because of her stubborn pride and as a result the opposition will continue to beat her government up on the issue  and it will win more support from the electorate….

Hmm which means that supporters of the coalition will be able to sit back and enjoy the train-wreck that is the Gillard government rather like Gomez Adams   playing with his trains…

Cheers Comrades

Well that explains it #Latte

Readers of the Sandpit will be well aware of just how often I take the piss out of those strident inner city Lefties  by making note of their beverage of choice, the Latte. So today I give you a very cute story form the Daily Mail by way of a light hearted start to the day:

Click for source

Who would have thought that eh?

Too much Latte makes you prone to Hallucinations ?

Cheers Comrades

(hmm must be time for more Coffee   )

Bob Carter does the Business

This is a very simple post intended to offer this presentation from Professor Bob Carter to the readers of the Sandpit.

click for audio and slide show

With very big hat tip to “Gig Diary” who sent me the link.
Cheers Comrades

Just say yes rallies

Given its officially winter now maybe the low turnout is due to the "Gore effect" Photo courtesy of Andrew Bolt's blog

To a large extent our friends from the “climate movement” are a perfect example of a triumph of faith over reason. They keep turning up to events like thsi and their Profits keep preaching precisely the same liturgy that they have been chanting for ages as one Adelaide  climate activist blogger describes it:

We have been doing rallies like this – on various issues be it (pro-peace, pro-tolerance, pro-planet) – for a long time. If they worked to build a movement that grew, learned, organised and won, then, well, we would Be “There” by now. But we’re not. (Footnote 1)

The rally followed an entirely predictable format. After some music, there was an entirely competent introduction, followed by three speeches of variable audibility and interest. Nobody said anything that the people attending didn’t already know or agree with. People had no opportunity to communicate what they didn’t know, what they thought could be done, what they wanted to happen next with the campaign for a climate safe Australia (which is a much bigger issue than just a carbon tax/emissions trading scheme)

source

The climate movement are suffering precisely the same sort of issues as any other religious movement, namely they are having trouble convincing  a sceptical public that they can do what they claim or that the tenets of their faith are a real and a valid underpinning for life as we progress through the coming century. What is certainly clear in any survey of what the public thinks on this issue is that the deeply pious climate fanatics are going backwards and I think that it is only people being reluctant to give up  the sort of “motherhood ” (Well we all think the planet is worth saving don’t we?) positions that they have  announced to friends and family that has stopped a total collapse of the Warminista faith.

click for source

Anyway lets spend a couple of minutes considering the questions posed by that same Adelaide activist rally attendee shall we?
I will try to unpack the problem with the cold hard light of truth and reality

Why gather 2000 people who have knowledge, ideas, passion and commitment and have them listen to 30 minutes of music and 30 minutes of speeches telling them what they already know

Because the faithful have to be prevented from backsliding into doubt and the best way to do that is to regularly recite the catechism of the faith in an environment where the truth of the doctrine can be reinforced by the congregation.

Why gather 2000 people and disempower them by having them listen for an hour, as if they are simply empty vessels to be filled? Or sheep to be shepherded? I am sure that the organisers don’t think that, but their actions create that impression. I looked at the faces of people during the speeches, and they were bored and irritated. That’s not the way to enthuse and engage and encourage

Because the Profits of the faith want a compliant congregation who will act in a sheep like manner, blindly following where they are lead.

How many of those who attended the rally will be able to tell a mildly skeptical friend or neighbour “yeah, it was exciting and inspiring, you should come next time.” (That, to me, is a key definition of success.)

All of them, because they know that the faith is not based upon facts or objective truth it requires nothing more than a belief in the liturgy and the catechism.

Why not give permission to people to mingle and meet with those stood around them. How else are we to create the loose networks of people across the city?

This one has to be answered with a question: Who needs permission to chat and mingle?

Why not structure some of the hour so that all the people who are teachers, or health care professionals or students could gather in different parts of the park, just to exchange names and details.

Oh I love this one , and I bet some burglars would too! Just image what a resource would be for the criminal underclass, the location of good targets guaranteed plenty of up-to-date electro toys to steal b and the knowledge that they would be out of the house when ever a revival meeting/rally was on

Why not structure some of the hour so that people from different parts of the city could mingle based on where they live. For example, when I was walking down my street about to start putting the “conversation” letters in post-boxes, I met someone who had also been at the rally, and we had a really useful conversation. That was a happy accident. The organisers of the rally could have created many more of those happy accidents.

Because it just adds to the amount of Junk mail put into people’s letter boxes which is actually bad for the environment.

Why not have a a space after the rally where people who have questions about the science of climate change could talk with experts face to face, and get impromptu lessons. It would make people feel more confident in their (inevitable) dealings with the small number of vocal denialists. It would give the experts valuable experience.

Because no matter what the “experts” tell you you can’t sell a faulty product to a public who can tell when they are being lied to.

Why not have a “suggestions box” so that people can submit their contact details and ideas for what the movement could be doing to improve its power?”

Because it is unnecessary as there already exists enough on-line resources that do precisely this (and I thought taht “activists were right up there and across the WWWeb thing….

Why not have an agreed post-rally meeting place for those who want to talk more over a coffee or a sandwich?

Since when did a latte sipper need permission to partake in their drugs of choice?

Why not have a “video booth” where people can record brief comments that could then be posted on youtube, showing just how many people outside the “latte-drinking inner-city professionals” demographic want action.

Because anyone with a Camera could do this but it would make for very dull You tube viewing, akin to the innumerable “funny kitty” vids there already.

All quotes above from this source

OK that is enough of me taking the piss out of the climate change Missionary types. The grim reality for anyone who believes in AGW is that they have to get over a couple of rather significant hurdles, in the first instance there is the not insignificant matter of actually testing the AGW hypothesis, and secondly demonstrating that the proposed panacea can be made to happen or more importantly actually do anything for towards addressing the “problem” without all three aspects of this  trinity being  addressed activists like our friend from Adelaide is pissing in their own pockets in the rather deluded belief that they are doing something for the planet. Then again it has always been the tragedy of millenarian cults that so many of the followers are sincere and acting form the best of intentions as  their Profits grow fat on the efforts of the  believers .

Cheers Comrades

Zane Trow AKA Eric Sykes AKA Clint Barton AKA ???????????

Zane Trow: picture from his personal website

I try very hard to be entirely fair to those who decide to drop in to the Sandpit especially when it becomes clear that they have political views at odds with my own. However its hard to be entirely sanguine when some one starts to bad mouth me personally both here and elsewhere with claims such as this:

“I really don’t get why you are so pissed off with me. Is it just that you are incapable of appreciating that there is more than one way to understand the world and the machinations of politics? (Iain)”

My response to this would certainly not be “generally civil”, so using words I have used here before I think you are a bottom dweller and you talk complete rubbish most of the time. And your complete ignorance of your own stupidity and prejudice makes me laugh. Most of the discussion here is just so dumb that the lure of your site remains, throughout even the busiest of days. The other site you and little Reg refer to also makes me laugh, so I will continue to post there as well, especially when I am not feeling “generally civil”. OAO, have a good weekend slobbering over right wing propoganda(sic).
source

Now Trow seems to spend a bit of time around the Lefty political traps, usually he posts under the screen name of “Eric Sykes” and I only know his name because one day he decided , unprompted, to post some comments here under his real name ,  it was his choice .

  Under the Eric Sykes moniker   you get  comments such as these:

Eric Sykes

May 25, 2011 at 7:37 pm | Permalink

London has ceased to fund the arts. Yes indeed, hard to believe right? “No arts organisations are to be funded by London Councils beyond this summer…”. It seems to me that this is also bound to happen in Australia; and Brisbane the most likely place to go first. I could be wrong, I often am…but all the indications are there for anyone who cares to look. I give it five years. I am sure there are many who will find it hard to imagine; this bleak state of affairs. Local Government arts funding seems so much part of the wallpaper; those of us that remember or have bothered to study how hard it was to get Local Governments in Australia to even consider the arts will have no trouble envisioning the down turn. We’d better campaign better, for sure. But we’d also better get ready for the inevitable and find ways to survive…and by that I do not mean we should all turn into businesses or “extend our corporate partnerships”. I mean we need to get back to basics and stop taking the corrupt State for granted.

http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/32247/london-councils-withdraws-all-funding-to-arts

This comment is actually rather self-serving given the fact that Trow works for an Arts organisation

Eric Sykes

May 16, 2011 at 6:30 pm | Permalink

“nobody is suggesting that in order to avoid becoming the victim of a glassing, you may want to consider avoiding pubs”….

I haven’t been to a pub for the last 15 years for exactly this reason, other than on a Sunday for lunch with the kids amongst other families. Even then things can get ugly. Pubs are very dangerous places in Australia and I suggest that they be avoided at all costs. That’s a shame, but it’s real.

Having said that I agee(sic) whole heartedly with – “the way to stop sexual assaults is for people to a) find out whether they have consent, and b) care about the answer….”. This will need an esstenial(sic) shift in overall Australian (male) culture, and that is going to take a while. As men, we’ve just got to keep at it, and not let sexism pass when we are confronted by it, ever.

Trow has obviously caught a severe case of gender self-loathing , and here in relation to the “Slutwalk” nonsense we find him uncritically accepting the notion that men as a gender must for ever be held to account for the acts of a very small number of evil individuals.

Eric Sykes

May 19, 2011 at 9:43 am | Permalink

“It is a filthy, sexist and dishonourable argument which condemns all men, and all decent people, with the violations of a few rotten men.”

This (kind of) retort, (in my experience) often (not always) emerges when one is (broadly) critical of (male) culture(s) overall. The culture (very often) frames the individual (of course), but one can (I believe) discuss the frame without (attacking) the individual. So the discussion of the frame is not personal, it’s not about (my) father, (my) sons, (my) grandads(sic), (my) brother. But it is about what fathers, sons, grandads(sic) and brothers are.

However, challenging sexism is (also) about the individual (& the culture, the frame..phew), it is about challenging your father, your son, your grandad, your friends, your workmates and whoever…whenever the misogyny appears. It is hard work, and sometimes it can be dangerous (one gets the old self rant hate for example, or one is ostracized(sic) by male peers, and rarely, but occasionally physically attacked) but in the long term it is worth the effort….(for example) I do not want (my) (or anyones(sic)) daughter to live in fear ….

Here the gender self-loathing is given full flight Trow has bought the trendy Feminist meme about the innate evil of the male gender and while his personal commitment to fight against misogyny is in one sense admirable, but  the entirely one sided view that he is endorsing actually does a disservice to humanity. There is a great deal of misandry inherent in feminist  ideology; A more balanced position is of course desirable  but unlikely from Trow.

Eric Sykes

Posted October 19, 2010 at 3:01 pm | Permalink

One wonders then why anyone would seriously bother about “charts” any more? And why a metal band that only sells 3600 CD units is somehow…newsworthy? Plenty of bands sell more digital units than that…sheeesh, even I sell more than that. Does that mean I’ll get on the cover of Rolling Stone finally?

Angst about a cruel music buying public not recognising Trow’s “musical genius ” maybe?

Eric Sykes

Posted June 10, 2010 at 2:52 pm | Permalink

Paradise Motel have always been such a great band IMHO, a rare and beautiful moment of character in a characterless landscape. So glad to hear they are still pushing it. All power to them.

He likes this band

Eric Sykes

on November 17, 2010 at 1:11 pm said: [Edit]

Well Ray that assumes that elections have anything whatsover to do with what people actually think and feel; and further if the options presented to them have any actual meaning for them at all. Thus the shift towards THE AGENDA has been progressively growing since the turn of the century. You can play King Canute on tha(sic) beach all you want. But the actual evidence is clear – social change is rarely if ever introduced by elections or by governments. Again, not rocket science, just history.

What is it with the right and history?

Translation: Come the revolution you will see the futility of democracy and the glorious triumph of the vanguard party …

From his commentary you would have to assume that he is pretty much your standard far left arty type and when you do the inevitable google search of his name you will easily find his personal profile (its on the first page of the google results)  While perusing his personal website (which is rather dreary) I was trying to find out some substantive writing to get a handle on just what his actual political philosophy is. His writing page is a great example of how not to create a portal to your prose (no matter what the subject). Of the ten items cited only three of the links actually go to pieces that can  be read by the casual visitor, the rest go the index pages of Arts magazines and then to read the cited pieces you are required to either buy the hard copy or pay to read the material on line. Of the three pieces that are accessible one is a piece at Crikey (under his Eric Sykes pseudonym) about George Telek  and the other two go to pieces he has had Published at On-line Opinion [1] [2]

IN the first of his Online Opinion pieces we find Trow bemoaning the state of “the Arts”

They are always reasonably successful at this since they are the only ones (apart from touring rock stars and movies) with anything remotely like a marketing or advertising budget. After a while you get used to seeing them next to the cinema ads everyday in the paper. Then you gradually forget that anything else might exist: you’ve been subliminally conditioned into thinking the Queensland arts industry only ever produces art from somewhere else. And what’s wrong with that? At least it’s entertaining. And because the visibility of contemporary Queensland culture is so low, the big boys get to behave as if they are, in fact, the only art around; they are the “ARTS”, luxuriating on (yet another) South Bank just like in London … or Melbourne, or Adelaide or … well … any city with a river and a cultural inferiority complex really.

It is twisted but true – when government says it is going to increase “the ARTS” budget, usually what it means is it is going to extend (or build, or develop) new bits of the buildings it already owns, to get the staff that already work for it to do what it says. Spending money on itself. Very clever, and easily mistaken for an investment in culture.

Our culture doesn’t develop in buildings, it breathes through the city like a mutating virus and it is never, ever in line with a government policy. But like David Byrne once said “I’m a tumbler, I’m a government man …” and the government arts staff will try their best to pull it into line.

The line that I have emboldened in the quote above is very telling indeed when it comes Trow’s attitude to the arts, he clearly thinks that it has to be transgressive and at odds with the wider society yet he wants support from the public purse for its creators.  This strikes me as either being naive or profoundly hypocritical but worse still he seems to have nothing but disdain for the common people who might, gasp, just want to be entertained.

His other piece at Online Opinion is in a similar vein but it is very revealing about his attitude to accountability for the public money that he thinks should be spent on “the Arts”

What can be done? I would advocate the small but highly effective Australian independent arts centre sector as a model.

The independent centres have grown out of communities not been imposed on them. Always governed by independent Boards of Management elected at AGMs by members, they have, almost by default, much more diverse, contemporary programs because they are linked directly to their local community. They are always friendly places to visit even though they are falling down, and most of all they are able to pick and choose their programs and their staff (and their architect if they get to afford one) on the basis of knowledge of the arts and response to audience demand rather than response to some twisted colonial bureaucratic compliance.

So I would hand over all the civic arts centres to community elected Boards of Management, while insisting that operational funding from government remain the same – with a regular injection of capital funds to compensate for all those civic centre capital works dollars drawn down from other than arts budget streams that assist in cyclical maintenance; all the money the independent sector hasn’t got – which, by the way, is why the civic arts centres always look clean and new and the independent ones are dirty and falling down. Or even if (God and Her Royal Highness forbid) the independent Australian centres were funded at the same level as the government centres they would also be able to advertise and market themselves far wider than they can at present*. Which is why of course “mainstream” Australia, especially the media, has never heard of them – and why contemporary Australian culture is always so controversial when the mainstream stumbles across it. It just doesn’t look like “arts” because “arts” is what we have in our performing arts centres isn’t it? All that opera and ballet and that merry happy go lucky third rate Broadway with the occasional Pink Floyd or AC/DC tribute band thrown in to show we aren’t afraid of popular culture. (Hey! Did you know that Queensland Orchestra did a gig with that really groundbreaking Australian rock band Kiss a while back? Wow! Talk about orchestras getting new audiences and public money going on Australian culture – fantastic!)

The use that public arts centre money is put to could be decided by the public, not government. This is not rocket science. Most arts funding in Australia is government funding government. The independent Australian arts centres have been around a long time (well over 30 years in some cases), and rather like the Australian community radio sector they are directly and heavily supported by real people with real wants and needs: large audiences who feel culturally connected to the art that is presented to them.

*My bold

Like so many of his oeuvre  Trow is very much a cultural elitist (see his derisive reference to  “Pink Floyd or AC/DC tribute band(s) “ above) who seems to think that the primary purpose of any “Arts” entity is to maintain the lifestyle of its proponents all of his writing on the subject that I have managed to access on line entirely ignores any critique of what the social goals of any art practice should or can be (apart from his clear belief that it should always  be at odds with the government agenda). Nor does he even consider the question of what makes something “good art”. By his choice of career its obvious that  Trow thinks that the arts is an industry and that organisations like the one that employs him should get more money and be less accountable for the way that it is spent. Gee you would not guess that he is a lefty now would you?

This quote from the Diary page of his website is very telling:

12 May 2011

Well the USA has managed to kill OBL without even a hint of anything remotely resembling the “rule of law” they say they are so fond of. And the Australian Labor Party has managed to set about punishing those on welfare because they are on welfare. And I am captivated by a book on Malcolm X that clearly shows the issues that drove him have got worse not better. I also note that the free jazz musicians of the day were actively involved in social action, alongside X and others. The “radical avant garde” then meant something quite different from using the latest stomp box in (all be it) unusual ways with the factory pre-sets on your soft synth.

I am a great supporter of Mr Assauge in his efforts to re-invent the underground, I suspect he and Malcolm would have got on like a house on fire, literally, and he has cheered me up immensely this week with the following little quote.

So it has to be reasonable to assume that the rule of law is important when it comes to dealing with the worlds most wanted man but a hindrance  to any artist who wants to make art on the public purse.  He eulogises the “underground” and anyone who he considers a “revolutionary”   Well the overall impression that I get is that he is a man with lots of unfulfilled ambitions who seems to be rather bitter that life has not recognised his talent or given him the affirmation that he so clearly desires , the comment above where he praises a computer hacker and an anti Semitic black activist is deeply worrying If anything from my interactions with him here he reminds me a great deal of the central character in the 1980′s comedy “Citizen Smith“  but with far less charm than Robert Lindsey brought to the show.

On one aspect though he is not like the character of Wolfie Smith, Trow  does appear to have some musical ability. He  is a musician who makes “ambient music”  listen to his music  here or here although you might soon  feel that it is a waste of time and your internet  downloads to spend too much time doing so because after checking out a few tracks I was struck by a   lack of variation there is in his output. Certainly not to my taste  but it might please some in much the same way as piped music in public places does, and as he tells us he has met  “been in the same room, twice” with John Lennon 

I started to research this post because I was curious about the chap who has developed a very negative opinion about me and I was rather keen to find out why. I’m now a bit closer to understanding what sort of political viewpoint he is coming form. It seems to me that he is really little more than a  Marxist/Leninist disappointed that the revolution won’t come and that the evil capitalists won’t continue to finance his revolution (through Arts funding) or the recognition of his musical “genius“

Cheers Comrades