Today daylight saving ended
My routine is mended
We won’t be up late
We’re in bed before eight!
Rejoice in the morning
A new day is dawning
Archive for March, 2009
Preparations
Incredibly, I am *still* sorting stuff out. P has confirmed his last day of work (12 May) and this has given us a real deadline to work towards. We have come to the realisation that our original plan to put our stuff into the granny flat and rent the rest of the house may be a bit limiting, so we’re now thinking that we will *store* our stuff while we’re away. Paying for storage is the ultimate test of how much you actually like something….. there is not much I am prepared to pay to store. So the sort goes on. Ruthless sorting through “memorabilia”. We’ve done a huge photo cull (from the days before digital) we’ve thrown out our wedding cards, and cards that were given to us when the boys where born. Hard to make that decision, but surprisingly easy to live with…. I mean really, do the boys want these? No. My next task is all the stuff I kept from before I met P. AARRGGHHH! I should have done this years ago! (like 20!)
Another book cull is on the cards…… I do this reasonably regularly, and I am always astonished that 12 months later there is a whole pile that I no longer want….. but must have decided to keep 12 months ago. Weird. I’ve done the clothes – again if I’m not taking it with me, it will have to be an amazing piece of clothing to be worth “storing”. So far I have put to one side a motorbike jacket, two long coats and an evening dress. Items that I never wear, but pertain to some dream life where I *might* need to wear them.
My preparations also include trying to dump some psychological baggage. Our financial situation shifted underneath us, and we are now going on a wing and a prayer, with unresolved business left behind. Let go! Let go! In discussion with a friend I disclosed my secret hope that T would start reading while we were away. While sympathetic to my angst, she felt I was probably aiming a bit low. She suggested an alternative purpose for the trip: to build an amazing strong family bond that can never be broken.
Thank you, thank you friends for keeping me focused on the big picture. She’s right of course. Why do we live this “alternative” life of homeschooling? Of course it’s easy to poke holes in the education system. But our aspirations are *much* larger than just providing a better educational option. We want to be together. How’s that for alternative?
Dispatches from the Literacy Wars
You may be unsurprised to learn that in that heated battle between phonics and whole language, I am on the whole language team. (I have previously confessed to being progressive after all). In my view, phonics is not useful… in particular when the language you work with is not phonetic. Also, I’m biased, as I learnt to read using the whole language approach (before I even knew I was a progressive!) and was subsequently bored to tears/frustrated beyond measure when they went through phonics at school. Evidence of my confusion was apparant to my friends when I became older and started verbalising words that I had never heard – only read. I could spell them and use them in context….. but I couldn’t actually pronounce them correctly. Didn’t matter of course. One correction and I had the pronunciation for life.
So subsequently I am yet again inflicting my world view on my poor deprived children. Now normally you wouldn’t find me writing about any of my kids so-called “achievements”. That is the last thing I would like to inflict on anyone because a) it’s mainly uninteresting to anyone but P & I, b) I really dislike the often competitive nature of parenting, schooling, and (I am coming to realise) homeschooling, c) I don’t subscribe to developmental timelines and d) worst of all, I don’t want to send anyone into a panic that my child is doing something that their child is not……
However for the purposes of sharing my discoveries on this topic you will need to bear with me. To alleviate any mounting anxieties, let me say up front that T is not yet reading. But the unfolding process is really interesting. I have not initiated any “teaching”. I read aloud and I write down things as requested for T to copy. (I think I maybe the only school where the first written words include poo, fart and penis.) Developments to date include several phonic-related understandings. T uses me as a “checker” for his understanding. Eg. He will point to a written word and ask me what it is/say it out loud – look for confirmation from me. In drawing his many superheroes he will check with me he has the correct letter to draw on their costume (eg, “R” for Rocketeer). And more recently, somehow I Spy has graduated from “I spy something red” to “I spy something beginning with B”…… and more often than not correct!!
Now, let me wallow for a moment and say that my child is amazing!! The great thing is, of course, that all children are amazing…. and when you let them be, be prepared to be amazed.
Morality, Freedom & Responsibility
Ok, more ruminations on political line-ups.
Here is an insight on morality that I would like to share with you all, as I found this quite interesting. This is lifted from the work of Jonathan Haidt, as reported by Don Arthur in “Policy”. According to Haidt, morality is intuited – and only rationalised afterwards - and moral intuitions rest on five foundations:
1) Harm/care. This flows from our ability to empathise and creates an aversion to seeing other people suffering. It generates feelings of compassion as well as approval for people who care for the vulnerable and protect those in danger.
2) Fairness/reciprocity. The foundation of judgements about justice and is associated with feelings of anger, guilt and gratitude. Fairness is about following rules that enable individuals to cooperate in mutually beneficial activities. When people believe that they or others have been treated unfairly they feel anger. When they feel that they have treated others unfairly they feel guilt.
3) Ingroup/loyalty. Is about putting the group first. To be loyal to the family, tribe or nation is to put its interests and welfare above your own and those of outsiders. It is associated with feelings of trust towards other group members and wariness and distrust towards outsiders.
4) Authority/respect. Is associated with feelings of awe and admiration towards the group’s governing institutions and leaders. It gives rise to virtues such as respect, duty and obedience.
5) Purity/sanctity. Is associated with the emotion of disgust. To do with an aversion to things linked to the spread of disease (rotting meat, pus). To be pure is to keep yourself clean and disease-free. It gives rise to rules about food, personal hygiene and sexual behaviour. A person who feels that they are morally unclean feels shame.
Social conservatives subscribe to all five moral intuitions, and see all of these as the basis for public morality and government action. Social progressives (libertarians and liberals) only subscribe to the first two intuitions, and think that the last three are matters of personal preference or prejudice. Hence the tension between the groups about what types of matters should be subject to government action, and differing views on issues such as gay marriage.
This helps to understand conservative angst about “post modern” morality, and their concerns that we are all going to hell in a handbasket as there are “no moral truths” anymore. Turns out they extrapolate that social progressives don’t subscribe to *any* of the moral intuitions, when in fact the first two remain a basis for consensus.
Now to the freedom bit. It seems there is a (class-based) argument from social conservatives that many people can’t cope with the personal freedoms promoted by social progressives. For example, not everyone has the personal and financial resources to cope with the fall out from easily available divorce. So, the argument goes, we restrict people’s personal freedoms in order to protect people from themselves/predatory forces (and not uncoincidently promote our own moral agenda at the same time.)
Now this is interesting to me, because isn’t this a version of the same (class-based) argument from social democrats/liberals that many people can’t cope with economic freedom? That is, they would not be able to negotiate their own conditions of employment, would not be able to plan their own retirement etc etc? So we restrict people’s economic freedoms in order to protect people from themselves/predatory forces (and not uncoincidently promote our own worldview at the same time.)
I’m not saying either argument is completely wrong….. and of course I support some type of safety net that catches people before they descend into hopelessness/homelessness/helplessness. But it’s interesting to think about how much freedom – and therefore responsibility - our ‘leaders’ think we, as individuals, as families, as communities, can cope with. And I guess my argument (as a freshly minted libertarian) is that they under-estimate us…… and thereby undermine us.
Domestic Life: the ups and the downs
The up. Today I was scratching around near the pond when I saw some weird jelly-like growths all over my water plants. Upon further investigation I realised it was frog spawn! Yay! I’m so proud it’s almost like I laid it myself!
The down. I spent *all* afternoon making vege lasagne as some family were coming over for dinner. I thought I’d do something that was completed before they arrived so I could relax in their company. It took *all* afternoon as I have a needy two year old who is in the process of dropping his naps and likes to “try” for his poo about 16 times before it actually emerges. Beautiful meal was finally complete just in time to receive the phone call that they couldn’t make it. So far, so somewhat annoying, as otherwise I would have spent my afternoon doing something else. But my overall levels of frustration peaked when T refused to eat it and I told him he was going to die because he didn’t eat his vegetables. And then of course had to hastily retract that injudicious remark. Normally T *would* be the appropriate person to be annoyed with that I had prepared a beautiful healthful meal that didn’t get eaten. But not in this case. I do wish he’d expand his vege repetoire beyond avocado (which is a fruit anyway), carrot sticks and bland tomato based pasta sauces. I think I’m doing everything right – P & I eat veges, we grow veges and T (sometimes) helps prepare meals, but no dice. Just won’t eat anything else. If I could wave a magic wand and change just one thing about our lives I think it would be this – that T ate everything I cooked.
Test your spiritual beliefs
I came across this quiz. (I’m a sucker for quizzes and surveys.) www.beliefnet.com and go to the belief-o-matic quiz. It asks you a bunch of questions about your spiritual beliefs, and then tells you how your beliefs match with a variety of religious groups.
Apparantly I am 100% Unitarian Universalist (which seems to be an American outfit designed to welcome just about everyone) 97% Mahayana Buddhist and 94% Liberal Quaker. I’ve always been intrigued by the Quakers, so based on this, maybe I should investigate them further. At the other end of the spectrum I am only 18% Jehovah Witness and 19% Roman Catholic. I’m also only 31% Mormon – which could be a useful bit of information to provide to the next round of door-knockers…… “actually, I subscribe to less than a third of your beliefs.”
Funnily enough, I found this link through a secular resource. (I’m only 70% secular humanist, so compared to my other results perhaps I should stop searching through secular resources!)
If you feel like sharing, let me know your results…….
Finding a niche
I write to report that it turns out I am not an anarchist. I think I might be a libertarian! Don’t you love it when you find a label that helps explain you to yourself? I owe this insight to the latest edition of “Policy” magazine. I’m sure you are all subscribers already, but I have only just discovered it (you see how my lack of newspapers is starting to manifest…)
So, a libertarian is someone who is socially progressive and also economically liberal – that is, believes in small government. I knew I was probably a libertarian when I read that it is “not a popular philosophy. It’s supporters have never controlled a major political party or created a popular mass movement.” Right, that sounds like the kind of forlorn hope I’d normally get involved with. At the risk of major over-simplification:
Belief in social control + economic freedom = conservative
Belief in social freedom + economic control = liberal
Belief in social freedom + economic freedom = libertarian
Belief in social control and economic control = …ummmm…. dictator?
Note to old friends who knew me in my Marxist days: this is a sad truth that came true for me: the older I got, the more disenchanted with government I became; there’s only so many years you can work for government and/or interface with them before you lose hope, and decide that the need for accountability inevitably leads to bureaucracy which inevitably leads to inertia, few outcomes, loads of unintended consequences and a bunch of self-important bureaucrats. But worse, it now appears to me that government is implicated in community breakdown – in that the more they take responsibility for the solution to social problems, the less responsibility individuals and community take. I’m still workshopping this in my own head, so feel free to howl me down.
Anyway, this is not to say I am about to cite “low taxes” as the answer to every possible social problem. In my view, the problem with “government services”, as with our our now crumbling capitalist system, is one of scale. When free trade as the ‘peaceful, non-coercive exchange of goods and services’ transmogrifies into faceless suits crunching together rebadging and selling debts, it’s not surprising when the whole edifice topples over. I recommend E. F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful”. I think I need to read it again, as I suspect it has the answers as to how we might reinvent ourselves through this crisis.
Insurance
Just a general gripe about the insurance industry. You know, those vultures preying on people’s fears and our litigious society, taking our money and then never paying out. I am continually astonished by their uncanny ability to phrase their policies in such a way that the particular thing that you wish to claim is “not covered by your policy”. Or another favourite, not offering insurance at all if there is a chance that the event might actually happen. Ie, you can’t get flood insurance if you live in a flood-prone area. I’m sure it’s a fab business model.
My hate-affair with insurance companies began when my work included liaising with insurance companies in regards to workers compensation. No doubt there are some “malingerers” trying to get undeserved payouts. But the standard heartless approach to any claimant was disturbing, to say the least. And a system that penalises honest people needs a serious overhaul.
So, as a matter of principle, we try to avoid buying any insurance. We’re self-insured, so to speak. However, we do have a car insurance policy, in case we crash into a Ferrari. Despite searching for a third-party only policy, the costs of these were equivalent to full coverage, so that is what we have. Of course, we have never crashed into a Ferrari.
However, last week we returned to the carpark to discover that our windscreen had been cracked. Ah, the joy – finally a return on all those premiums! But, wouldn’t you know it, we haven’t selected the “Windscreen Option”, and the cost of a windscreen is just less than the excess we would have to pay if we were to make a claim. How can their policy design be so perfect? After contacting the company and receiving this information, I reviewed our policy document, and found the Windscreen Option sandwiched between the Hire Car Option and the Choice of Repairer Option. Sigh.
P queried: “Well, what parts of the car does the policy cover?” Seemingly everything but the windscreen. I couldn’t see a Bonnet Option, or a Driver’s Door Option. But no doubt I will be referred to those if I ever wish to repair those parts.
Garden Update: March 2009
Brownie turned out to be a rooster and had to be despatched. He has been replaced by Henny Penny, a pullet from the local battery. Her deprived upbringing hasn’t cowed her and she now rules the roost here. The other week some friends came over and there was great excitement when four eggs were discovered. I had sort of forgotten about the egg angle, as I have been happy enough with the lovely garden preparation they have been doing. But now we are averaging one small egg a day. I think this is all due to Henny Penny at this stage – I haven’t witnessed Blackie do the deed.
Last night I found three large frogs in the frog pond! I had thought that we had had no luck with our tadpoles – but it seems that perhaps we had, but the frogs are cannier than us. They hide under a ledge that I didn’t even realise was there, and obviously emerge at night when all the rampagers have gone to bed.
Slim pickings in the garden at the moment, and more planting is needing to be done. Lately I just haven’t found the time. Today J harvested a red capsicum and three red chillies, but there is not much left to pick, other than herbs.
All the olive trees we planted along the fence are fruiting, but I don’t know anything about olives. I need to find out when they are meant to be picked, and will then see if I can source information on what to do next. I remember my parents preserving olives one year (not sure where they came from) and they were so salty that only my dad would eat them. I’m sure this was done in a spirit of defiance, rather than enjoyment!
Detox
I have just cancelled my daily newspaper delivery. I have been meaning to do this for a long time. I planned to do it after the 2007 Federal Election, then I planned to do it after the 2008 American election, and I have finally just done it, before I can be lured into the next news cycle.
Basically there is nothing happening (apart from relentless economic gloom). I think I was the last person reading about Peter Costello, and short of spearheading a military coup, there is now officially *nothing* he could do that might interest me.
I seem to have acquired too many hobbies recently, so it’s good to ditch such an unproductive one. No more trying to read the newspaper at a ‘breakfast’ that goes too long, and no more headspace devoted to letters to the editor that never get sent.
