17 December 2008
A new Women's Health Australia study suggests women aged 28 to 33 are in poorer mental health than their mothers or grandmothers, with almost one in five reporting a diagnosis of depression by a doctor, The Australian reports.
They reported higher rates of depression (18 per cent) than women aged 53 to 58 (13 per cent) and those aged 79 to 84 (10 per cent).
Study co-author Julie Byles from the University of Newcastle said the data understated the problem, given that 60 per cent of young women with depression were not on antidepressants. "It's only the tip of the iceberg," she said.
::View Article::
Why are younger women reporting higher rates of official depression diagnosis compared with older generations? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that depression used to be a taboo topic in society, not something you were inclined to talk about with strangers leading to a situation in which older women do not report depression to their doctors or people conducting these sorts of studies.
Perhaps, however, it has something to do with the contemporary Australian culture that has shaped the values and aspirations of women aged 28 to 33, in contrast to those epochs of Australian culture that women now aged 52 to 58 and also 79 to 84 formed their lives within when they were younger.
This is not to put forth the nostalgic proposition that everything modern is evil and everything old was good, but rather that certain values and aspirations that have moved to the forefront of what our society promotes are often less than fulfilling: materialism and the associated empty cultivation of need that stems from always feeling like something is missing, individualism and the decline in the communitarian or collective aspects of daily life, and perhaps also the self-centred attitude towards relationships which portrays happiness coming from one night stands and casual sex.
16 December 2008
A GAY activist from Sydney says his human rights have been violated by the human rights watchdog itself - because it refused to ban a "homophobic" Telstra ad about two men in a tent.
In the ad, two men on a camping trip become suspicious when their two mates disappear into a tent.
It later emerges they are simply watching cricket on the same mobile phone.
::View Article::
Some activists need to lighten up. Australians embrace humour and a part of that humour seems to be to not take ourselves too seriously, whatever our lifestyles.
This isn't to say poking fun at someone in a vicious manner is constructive, but rather that we can have a laugh at ourselves without it turning into a race to the court rooms. This is nice because it perhaps represents a lowering of the ego, or the collective understanding that all the different passions, desires and behaviours of human beings are pretty funny when considered from afar.
Why does this activist want gay people to be treated 'unequally' in this respect?
14 December 2008
European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas yesterday joined the call for Australia to cut emissions by 25 to 40 per cent — the overall target range scientists say is necessary to avert dangerous climate change.
In one of three speeches to the conference, Senator Wong warned it would be difficult for Australia to meet its long-term target of a 60 per cent cut by 2050 due to its growing population and energy-intensive economy, but said strong action would ultimately secure and create jobs.
::View Article::
Population growth in Australia is taken as 'a given' by politicians and bureaucrats. Any policy measure, any forecasting about the future, any public debate simply accepts, in areas where population is relevant (i.e. the environment, town planning including suburban sprawl and housing, transport, infrastructure, water) that it will grow - significantly.
But as the national population grew by as many as 336,800 new individuals in simply the one year to April 2008, the questions should be asked: Where has the idea of significant population growth been publically debated? Why is it never an election issue? Why is it an unspoken policy measure carried on by each succeeding government?
Carried on by each succeeding government? Yes...
See, 60 per cent of our national population growth comes from overseas migration, while only 40 per cent is due to 'natural increase' (domestic birth rates). So out of the near 337 thousand new Australians created in the year to April '08, either 'naturally' or via migration, roughly 202 thousand were migrants. Migration is a government initiative, a policy, even if largely unspoken. It is connected with the domestic religion of growth for the sake of growth.
12 December 2008
Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, popular culture increasingly insists on pretending that women are always as hot for it as men are.
A study by Girlguiding UK, released in June, showed that girls as young as 10 are anxious and stressed by the sexualising influence of popular culture.
Walking past a lingerie shop in Carlton I spotted an advertisement that turned my stomach.
"Hot Milk" targets pregnant women with the lie that its brand "celebrates the sensual, sexy woman inside the loving mother".
::View Article::
Our primarily commercial society operates via either creating or stimulating needs/desires that require (the purchase of) a certain product or service in order to be satisfied.
Sex/beauty/attraction is one area of life in which this practice is really effective, and, increasingly, it's not being restricted simply to women. We're told, or it is 'suggested', in marketing slogans and campaigns, that we are not normal if we don't hot ourselves up in a certain way by wearing this or that, by applying this or that, or by looking like this or that hyper-sexualised (read: narcissistic) gender archetype.
If people put too much stock in the commercial conception of ‘normal’ as narcissistic and hyper-sexual then this can be a breeding ground for insecurity, depression, and anxiety.
11 December 2008
The orthodox explanation for this alcohol-linked violence is that there is an underlying problem with Australia's drinking culture. In the face of liberal licensing conditions, we seem unable to control ourselves. In Finland, a country renowned for heavy drinking, a change in alcohol taxation in 2004 reduced prices and increased alcohol consumption. Evaluations found that the increase in consumption did not result in increased violence. In other cultures, it is not a fait accompli that more drinking results in increased violence.
In Victoria, the main response to alcohol-related violence has been to restrict alcohol supply. Alone, this strategy will miss the point. Violence is a problem with Australian men and their relationship with alcohol. We can rewrite the unwritten rules for drunken comportment and a good place to start is with the figure of the larrikin.
Changing some of these rules will be the most profound thing we can do to change the levels of alcohol-related violence in Victoria, perhaps far more profound than Hummers for the police or changing the closing hours of Melbourne bars and clubs.
::View Article::
Australian's have enjoyed a drink since long before Ned Kelly donned a helmet and Burke and Wills led an expedition. Aggressive alcohol related violence is relatively high at the moment in places around the country, not because of access to drink. It's because of certain values which too many drinkers hold.
The above article is good because it suggests that the violence becoming all-too characteristic of Melbourne's night life, for example, is caused by intangible 'things' like opinions and mental associations rather than the volume of alcohol being consumed or the degree of police presence on the streets.
According to the article, alcohol companies are employing marketing campaigns whereby the brand names of popular drinks are directly associated with contemporary 'examples' of the Australian cultural archetype of the larrikin - people who do, or who are perceived as doing, what they want when they want. If we want to curb the violence then we have to address these values which operate on a societal/collective level.
07 December 2008
JOHN Brumby has declared war on the "me" generation of out-of-control young Victorians who lack respect and fuel crime.
Mr Brumby's strategy will dominate the Government's social agenda next year.
A round table of experts and parents will meet to carve out a way to teach the young right from wrong.
Education ministers today are expected to declare a shared goal in Australia of better values among the young.
::View Article::
This will be interesting.
Communities, or a group of people bound by some sort of consensus, definitely need to address the content of their values. Values are those intangible, though important, things which link a community together to varying degrees in that people share some goal(s). The individual, the collective, material wealth, some religion or another, sport, pleasure, work etc can all become things that are valued by a society/community. The individual can benefit from valuing the collective and the collective can benefit from value being placed on the individual - so it’s very dynamic and not so clear cut.
It will be interesting to see whether Victorians and then Australians are able to reach a consensus on what values should be promoted to our youth. We live in a liberal, multicultural society: two social ideas which are not exactly allies to notions like 'shared goals' and 'common good' - unless what is shared and held in common is the promotion of different views on what is important in life and for society. Quite a confusing situation.
Cases like this, i.e. youth violence/superfluous individualism, only begin to highlight the importance of consensus in a community. War torn regions like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo drive the point home.
It's interesting to witness the paradoxes developing in large modern nations: how to maintain some low level consensus (order) in the face of ideologies like liberalism and multiculturalism which promote division.
06 December 2008
THE Victorian Government has all but given up on a long-standing pledge to contain Melbourne's urban sprawl, announcing another big expansion of the metropolitan boundary for new housing.
Six years after setting a "clear boundary" for the city in the Melbourne 2030 policy, the Government has succumbed to a booming population, a housing shortage and resistance to high-density development in established suburbs.
A separate analysis predicted that Victoria's population would grow by more than 40 per cent by 2036, with Melbourne alone adding 1.8 million people — nearly twice the number forecast in Melbourne 2030.
::View Article::
Even though it is three days old this is important news for Victoria. Why? Because it's evidence that despite spots of attention given to issues of sustainability here and there we have little control over our future in the face of the contemporary religions of growth and materialism. The population is growing with no end in sight and too many of us want the McMansion and the large block. Significant population growth, and the materialism championed by this population, represent human ideas which do not seem to correspond to a reality defined by finite resources and interconnected, dynamic eco-systems:
Just two days after the Brumby Government announced an extension of Melbourne's urban boundaries, the state-appointed Sustainability Commissioner has warned of serious environmental damage on the city fringes and called for the boundaries to be fixed.
Five years in the making and the first of its kind, the mammoth State of the Environment report by Sustainability Commissioner Ian McPhail also boldly contradicts other aspects of State Government policy.
It slammed Victoria's emission reduction policies as being too weak and peripheral, while the "ecological footprint" of the average Victorian was calculated as being three times bigger than the world average.
::View Article::
Enough generalising:
With more than half the state's vegetation already cleared and a further 4000 hectares disappearing each year, the state is described as the most cleared in Australia.
Yesterday's report said 75 species had become extinct from Victoria and a further 935 were rare or threatened.
::View Article::
No surprise here, surely. We might leave pockets of land uncleared in our rush to create land for housing and farming but this simply dices up wildlife habitats which need to be connected. Nature is not a collection of little isolated 'zoo's' dotted here and there but rather large, interconnected eco-system(s).
The State Government's tactic of withholding environmental flows from rivers to secure drinking supplies was putting river health at "serious risk", according to yesterday's State of the Environment report.
::View Article::
There are so many of us consuming water at such a rate and with so much wastage that our traditional water catchments and dams are becoming insufficient to meet demand. Thus we degrade more eco-systems (namely ones based around and dependent on rivers) by draining their lifeblood, sending it it via flows and pipes down to a thirsty city and surrounding suburbia. Creating dependency on rivers for our drinking water supplies is not smart if this contributes to their eventual demise.
A step change increase in the provision of public transport services is required, particularly in outer suburbs, to drive a shift from private vehicles," Dr McPhail says in his report.
Metropolitan Melbourne stopped (building new) public transport in the 1950s, when cheap motor vehicles and cheap petrol became available," Dr McPhail said.
::View Article::
Our dedication to lavish suburban living is pushing the geographical boundaries of suburbia outwards all the time, meaning that more and more people need to drive to get to key central locations like the city. This is causing more pollution, road congestion, and stress.
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This is a brief summary of the news surrounding the report and its findings: that Victorians are slowly but surely grinding down 'their' environment. Now why should we all, from environmentalists to industry leaders, care?
The Government was urged to accept that natural systems were the cornerstone of a strong economy, and was warned that Victoria's wealth would eventually suffer if the degradation of rivers and land continued.
::View Article::
Like the economic-centric argument which holds that a prosperous economy is essential to everyone regardless of whether your an ambitious capitalist or not, in that even artists, humanists, sports people (or any group) could not do what they do without an operational economy, the environment would seem to take an even more fundamental place in such reasoning.
The environment lies at the heart of the economy. If economics is essential to a multi-faceted liberal society then the environment is fundamental.
03 December 2008
The Federal Government has confirmed that a boat carrying 35 passengers and five crew has been intercepted off the coast of Western Australia.
The boat was spotted by a surveillance plane yesterday afternoon near Ashmore Island, and then intercepted by the Border Protection Command.
The Government says those on board will now be transferred to Christmas Island to be detained and processed.
::View Article::
We don't need to lock these human beings up for large periods of time without explanation or concern. However we do need to intercept them and send out the message to people smugglers and those considering coming here that we will determine our immigration intake and not vice versa.
At leat, we do if we don't want a situation developing in which naturally ambitious poor and struggling people from Asia and beyond, but also those who smuggle them, begin to get the impression that Australia would be a nice country to get to with our 'wealth for toil', relative national harmony, and generous welfare system.
Why? Well it has nothing to do with ethnic, class or political superiority. It's simply about the numbers. Asia, that large continent that we are separated from by a small stretch of water, has a population of around 4 billion (thousand million) people. According to World Bank Data the percentage of people living below the poverty line in Southern Asia is 30.84%. China alone has a population of over 1.3 billion people and about 28% live below the poverty line. India has a population of over 1.1 billion people of which 42.68% exist below the poverty line...
Australia itself has a population of just under 21 and a half million people and we are struggling to supply basics like water and housing as it is.
Now obviously all of these people would not automatically pile into rickety boats and make for main land Australia if we ceased to deliver the message that we care about border protection and domestic population issues, but more would and this could well represent a huge amount of people.
hink of it all - of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: "Are these times better than those?" The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, the sting of your poisoned pride! No matter who fell it were better to fight as they did when the world was wide.