Avast! Did Ye Know

ShipSide
Originally uploaded by Redgum

...that up until the 1870's, it was common practice to so overload ships that only a few feet, or even a few inches showed below the main decks, and that these ships were happily insured, no questions asked? That sailors could be sent to jail for refusing to sail in them?

Well these things were news to me when I read The Plimsoll Sensation, by Nicolette Jones. There is a lot more of course, including the struggles of our hero of the day, Mr Samuel Plimsoll, after whom those white lines on the sides of ships are named.

At least a passing interest in things maritime will help with this one, and I found it a little stodgy to read in one helping. I've found it's better digested in bite size peices.

More than anything else it's interesting to see how attitudes and politics have changed in the last one hundred or so years.

Inelegant mystery

How is it possible that these tomatoes, from Italy, can still be sold at $1.28 a tin, which on this particular day was a fraction more than the Australian product. Usually they are even cheaper than this, and the Australian product is more expensive. Italy is not a third world country! The only competitive advantage here are European subsidies. Regardless of competitive advantages, which have been in place for many years, the price of transport has gone up by degrees in the last year. How can tomatoes which have been shipped 15,971 kilometers still be sold at almost the same price as the local product?

Surely these costs will come to bear before long.

Cynthia is complete!

Finally Cynthia is complete! I'm calling my first attempt at using a vintage pattern with a substituted yarn a success because I can get the thing on. The pattern is sized for "width all around at underarm..34in."....hmmmm. Maybe I was when I started, but I'm not now. Hence it is a bit of a snug fit, so I'm not sure how much I'll be wearing unless I lose a couple of kilos. We'll see. Anyway, here it is in all it's glory! Now I'm off for a bike ride.

The Shock Doctrine

What a fantastically eye-opening book! I will quote from the introduction to show you what the book is about,

"This book is a challenge to the central and most cherished claim in the official story - that the triumph of deregulated capitalism has been born of freedom, that unfettered free markets go hand in hand with democracy. Instead, I will show that this fundamentalist form of capitalism has consistently been midwifed by the most brutal forms of coercion, inflicted on the collective body politic as well as on countless individual bodies. The history of the contemporary free market - better understood as the rise of corporatism - was written in shocks"

This book is absolutely compelling. The claims above are big ones, but they are well supported with documentary evidence. In fact part of what amazed me in reading the book was the extent to which some of these atrocities and corrupt practices were documented.

You may not agree with all of the interpretations which are offered here, although I believe the arguments are strong, but the facts are enough on their own.

For example,

"In 2003, the Bush administration spent $327 billion on contracts to private companies - nearly 40 cents of every discretionary dollar" (p301)

On Donald Rumsfield's refusal to sell shares in the company which owns the Tamiflu vaccine, for which his department - Defense was responsible for purchasing on behalf of the government...

"Rumsfield's defiance definitely paid off. If he had sold his Gilead stocks at the inauguration, in January 2001, he would have received a mere $7.45 each. By keeping them all through the avian flu scares, all the bioterror hysteria and through his own administration's decisions to invest heavily in the company, Rumsfield ended up with stocks worth $67.60 each when he left office - an 807 per cent increase"

And that's the tip of the iceberg! this is just an example regarding the Bush adminstration. The book also covers CIA torture programs, coups in Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, post soviet Poland and Russia, the IMF, World Bank...you really need to read it for yourself to get an idea. But be prepared, your hair will curl.

The Art of ironing avoidance

My recent acceptance of the fact that I have "an interest" in covered coat hangers has been a journey of self-realisation.

It stems, I believe, from the ultimate usefulness of the things, their primary value in my view being their importance to the art of ironing avoidance.

Those who, like me, abhor the iron and everything it represents, seek whatever means necessary to avoid it. If that means the covered coat hanger must live in my wardrobe, then so be it. Let me, let us, embrace the covered coat hanger, be it nylon or wool, for all have thier place.

We know that woolies and delicate are best hung on these to dry, but I have also discovered, that the cotton voile blouses I now wear often, when hung on these beauties of grandmotherly craftiness, need not be ironed at all. How wise they were when taking nylon lace to knitting needle!

Therefore, I embrace and love them and seek them out in the places they gather, op-shops, school fetes, and country market stalls. I have found some lovelies recently. The one pictured above is actually made of wool, on a small hanger, and it's quite dainty.