What's happening?

I watched ABC’s 7.30  last night when Julia Baird talked with John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC, about Donald Trump as a candidate as president for the Republican party in the USA. Last year, 3 November, Harwood had upset Trump when he had asked him if he was “running a ‘comic book’ version of a presidential campaign”. Websites around the USA took either Trump’s side or Harwood’s. 

Baird had previously also seen Trump kicking a reporter, the Fox News host Megyn Kelly, out from any interviews about his candidacy. Kelly had read a list of things Trump had called women – and he denied it, saying that she was reading her own list. He contacted Good Morning America and told them that he was “considering boycotting the debate”. 

Trump is worse than Australian’s PM, Malcolm Turnbull, but the public who support either of these guys don’t seem to care what they are doing, why they’re doing it, or how they’re doing it. Trump seems to have a huge support team who will vote him ahead of the other 3 Republican presidential candidates. Why? Turnbull seems to have a huge support team who will vote him ahead of any LNP candidates. Why? 

Across the ditch I’ve also seen this happening in NZ. We can read that John Key, the National prime minister, has been only in the National party since 2006, yet he was voted up to PM in 2008 and is still there, with no definite possible change. He treats NZ like a dump place – he just does whatever he likes, not at all whatever the whole country would like. According to stuff.co.nz, “the word 'poverty' has not featured even once in any of Key's state of the nation speeches”. 

Turnbull has taken on this business, continuing to do the same here that Abbott and his cronies were helping him to do beforehand. He’s put two very bad ministers, Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison, in very important positions: Dutton is the Immigration Minister and Morrison is the Treasurer. Neither of them have added decency into how they act – they simply act how they feel, not how they should be. For Dutton, shutting asylum seekers on Nauru or Manus Islands is bordering the “illegal” actions, and, for Morrison, his attempt to process a decent budget is just a sad future for the entire country. 

So why are these men standing for or working in their country? Trump’s a billionaire, Turnbull has more than $200 million (in Cayman Islands, I believe) and Key sounds pretty rich too – he previously, before election, had a job that paid him an annual salary of $2.25 million. How can being so rich work for them as the “leader” of their country? 

Is this why they are signing the TPPA or theFTPA and involving themselves with the funds that other countries will make? 

Last year SMH presented a list of far too many companies who had earned more than $1 billion in trading 2013-2014 and hadn’t paid any tax or much at all. One hundred companies showed up with over one billion dollars income. SMH said that “News Australia, which had a turnover of $3.9 billion between its Australian arms, had $97.2 million in net income last year and paid $4.2 million in tax.” Owned by Rupert Murdoch. Only 4% tax. Surprise, surprise. 

Trump loves guns and dislikes women, according to previous reports. John Harwood said he was watching Trump seeming to wrap supporters in his hand. Turnbull here in Aus seems to have done something similar with people who don’t see anyone else who could be the PM. There’s a growing disparity between Turnbull and Shorten on the polls – Turnbull has soared ahead. In NZ the same thing has happened with Key, who might, it seems, get in for a fourth time. (If you’re interested in learning how wrong this man is, read this website.)

Julia Baird spoke very openly to John Harwood. I think she sees a lot in Trump that I see. Perhaps she also sees it in Turnbull, and maybe she even sees it in Key. Why are we making decisions now which seem to allow very, very rich people to run our countries down? Where will these people go to live when each country becomes bankrupt? Who will actually live here and own our entire country, including all our houses, and set exorbitant rents which the lowest people on the poverty line can’t afford? 

What is happening to us???

Oh shirt!

My last post talked about ties - how old they are, and how "out of it" many of us feel they are. This time I decided I'd talk about shirts. I think these are.... boring!!

According to the history in Wikipaedia, mens shirts were used as undergarments centuries ago, and were considered "working class" clothes in the 19th century. They were "considered casual wear, for lower-class workers only" until the 20th century. Even now, the 21st century, they are much the same albeit in many colours.

These days it is considered "usual" to wear a dress shirt with a tie in your office, but even those who work outside and wear yellow (or orange) safety gear still wear very similar-styled shirts - sleeves with cuffs, collar which folds down, buttons up the front.

Yes, they bore me!

Even for those who don't wear a dress shirt and tie to work, pretty much all the shirts for gents are very today. So I had a look through the Google images and I found shirts which I like. I think these should be the fashion which men are wearing. Are you up to this, men? Pick whatever you like and wear THAT to work.... give up the old boring shirts with the old boring ties.

Go for it!

Take off your ties, gentlemen!

Very similar to my Dad's old tie

Many years ago my Dad had a collection of very different ties in his wardrobe. He wore cravats, he had a maroon satin tie with a gold embroidered butterfly, he had checkered ties, and many colours. Nothing from these days – he didn’t buy any new ones. I loved the maroon one and I wore that too. When he died I didn’t take any of his but I really wish I had. 

This morning I Googled to find information about the history of neckties. ABC Neckties told about 221BC, where a sculpture of Chinese human soldiers with neckties were buried with their first emperor, Shih Huang Ti. He had been convinced that the soldiers didn’t need to be killed but should be made into a “terracotta army” which would guard him in the future. 

Today I Found Out also mentioned them (the emperor's name was Qin Shih Huang in this one), and noted that the current Chinese army doesn’t wear the same necktie. 

Wikipaedia looked into the history of current neckties, which it said went back to the 17^th century, in the 1640s, under King Louis XIV. He named the neckties as “cravat”, after the Croatian mercenaries. According to Wikipaedia, “This new article of clothing started a fashion craze in Europe; both men and women wore pieces of fabric around their necks.” 

Tie a Tie said that King Louis XIV had made these neckties a “mandatory accessory for Royal gatherings”.  These ties stayed in fashion for 200 years, and by the 1920s had become what our men are now wearing. 

During the 60s and 70s I found very few songs which mentioned neckties, but they were sang by many entertainers – Maya Angelou had started in 1957 with “Calypso Blues” “Me throat she sick from necktie” ; “Who do you love” “I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire / I got a cobra snake for a necktie” was sung by Bo Diddley in 1957 and sung by at least 10 other groups I found; and six other songs had popped out – have a look through Lyrics. These days there are apparently many other songs which use the word “necktie”, but I’ve never even heard them! 

The Beatles started their music history wearing suits and ties, but lost their ties within a decade. 

Mormons had said “Members attending Sunday services will most likely be wearing their ‘Sunday best,’ which may include suits, sport coats, and ties for the men and modest dresses or skirts for the women. Children also typically dress up for Sunday.” That was – is - a very bad code, which never included women with ties, and yet a Quaker male didn’t believe in wearing a tie – he said “the tie is this symbol of male power” – he knew better than Mormons did. 

Fairly recently some real men showed how they felt about neckties. In January 2015 Tim Duncan, from the San Antonia Spurs NBA team, on a visit to the White House, refused to wear a tie. He looked very good - well done Tim Duncan. 

Will Smith’s son Jaden had apparently “admitted” that he had shopped for girl clothes. This article headline was bad: “Will Smith's son Jaden steps out in a woman's dress as he admits on Instagram that he has been shopping for 'some girl clothes' lately” – admitted?? Jaden wore exactly what he wanted to! No tie. It said “Underneath his eclectic frock were dark colored cutoff jean shorts for a unique androgynous look.” Well done Jaden Smith! 

Modern ties... boring

Very recently I had seen a video (which I now can’t find!) of a group of young males dressed as if they were on business – trousers, shirt and tie – but they were dancing in some sports field and singing about women! This, I think, was some religious (Mormon?) video which is not right. NO woman should be told what they should wear! 

Regardless of anything like this, neckties have become very boring. Every business male wears a tie. Pretty much every male - going to a function, attending a funeral, meeting someone ‘important’ - wears a tie. No cravat, no “old-fashioned” tie, no tie-less neckwear. Very, v-e-r-y boring. 

For me, men’s ties lived in somewhere like my Dad’s wardrobe, included cravats, included fancy or funny ties, included bowties, and men wore them only sometimes. Not always. 

And sometimes… never.

Farewell David Bowie

David Bowie (Jones) died on 10 January 2016, two days after his 69th birthday. According to his son, Duncan Jones, Bowie had cancer for the last 18 months which had been "hidden" from the public.

There is a long, well-written bio of Bowie in Wikipaedia. Mine is very short.

Born in Brixton, south London, on 8 January 1947, David Jones turned to pop in the 1960s, became David Bowie, and produced his first chart hit Space Oddity which hit the British top-5 in 1969. This was a song which lead people like me to follow Bowie.

In 1972 Bowie introduced his androgynous alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, which had a short-lived history. He produced the LP The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. From 1975 he was Bowie again, and the single Fame and the album Young Americans took off.

In 1980 he completed Ashes to Ashes and in 1981 he and the Queen singer Fred Mercury sand Under Pressure. Bowie's commercial success grew in this decade, some in films and some with his wide music styles.

In 1986 Bowie met Jim Henson who directed a movie, Labyrinth, which told of a 15-year-old girl (Jennifer Connelly) who had to follow the Goblin King Jareth (Bowie) to his strange castle in order to recover her infant half-brother. Most of the rest of the cast were puppets created by Henson. This movie didn't prove to be popular with the audience of those days, but over the years it has become almost as cult-successful as The Rocky Horror Show (1973) which was out before Labyrinth. The movie contained six tracks, five of which were done by Bowie: "Underground", "Magic Dance", "Chilly Down", "As the World Falls Down" and "Within You". The critique of Labyrinth has been re-written in the last couple of decades, reapplying it as "a fabulous fantasy".

Labyrinth wasn't Bowie's only movies, but, for me, is the one of the few I still want to watch.

In the last two decades Bowie experimented with the music styles of soul, industrial, contemporary and jungle. In 1996 he was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2002 he was voted number 29 in the UK BBC's 100 Greatest Britons. Throughout his life he produced 26 albums, including on his birthday, 8 January this year, Blackstar. 

On 10 January 2016 Bowie's Facebook page said "David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer."

RIP, David Bowie. You are and will be remembered.

"Suicide is painless..."

M*A*S*H had an intro song at the start of their program which said "...suicide is painless / it brings on many changes / and I can take or leave it if I please..." This program was set up as a comedy of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korea war many years ago. It started in 1972 and went until 1983 and was based on the 1970 film.

In February 1996 the Australian Institute of Criminology printed an information pdf which said "...suicide is a major social and public health problem in Australia. Since1990, suicide has become more common than motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death for Australian men." 

At the beginning of January this year, 2016, Damien Little drove himself and his two very young sons (Koda, 4 and Hunter, 1) off the wharf at Port Lincoln, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, and into 30 metres of water. It sounded like, from news articles with the family, that in the 2-3 years before this Damien had dropped into mental health problems, but no real change within his mind seemed to stuck with the family. 

Yes, they had noticed “a change”, but “you can't help somebody who can't help himself”, they said. 

The Sydney Morning Herald, SBS, the Australian and Daily Mail in UK  and many others printed articles about this, but they didn't really publish just about suicides. 

Suicide thoughts have entered the minds of far too many throughout Australia. 

• Lifeline, in Hunter, on 30 December 2015, reported the increase of their calls – up to 1,000 per week – just after Christmas. 
• Lifeline’s national website includes statistics.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project (ATSISPEP) on ABC on 17 December 2015 said that the season across Christmas and new year often leads to increased suicides.  
• Aboriginal website Creative Spirits said on 29 December 2015 “Appalling living conditions and past traumas have led to a suicide rate that by far exceeds that of non-Aboriginal people.” 
• On 30 November 2015, just 3 weeks before Christmas, 600 refugees in Manu Island signed a letter to PM Turnbull asking him to approve suicide.
• The Australian Psychological Society published “Insight into men’s suicide” in their InPsych magazine in 2012. That information should have been known by people who were thinking of suicide.
• On 29 December in 2011 UniSA chairman of mental health, Nicholas Procter, said “"International evidence indicates there are fewer suicide attempts than expected before Christmas and nearly 40 per cent more than expected after, especially on New Year's Day," and “self harm and suicide were more likely to occur in the new year, but more research about why was needed. 
• Wikipaedia said that “In Australia 48% of all suicides in 2000 were by 35- to 64-year-olds”. In 2013 2,522 suicides were recorded.
• Mindframe reports on “Facts and stats about suicide in Australia” on their website. There is a pdf file to download. 

ABC reported back in June 2015 about the potential to halve the suicide rate in 5 years if Australia used something similar to a recommended European program. Professor Helen Christensen from Black Dog said: "If we can pull together all community and health organisations to deliver evidence-based strategies at the same time, in the same location, then we have a good chance of reducing [suicide] rates in Australia by as much as 30 to 50 per cent, within four to five years." 

The National Coalition for Suicide Prevention started sometime back in 2014 (no date on their website) and has 33 organisations attached. On 3 December 2015 ABC reported: “A private donor will give a massive $14.7 million to fund Australia's first evidence-based suicide prevention programs, to be run by the Black Dog Institute.” Black Dog doesn’t sound like it’s connected to NCSP – will it still be good? 

NCSP, Black Dog Institute and any other suicide contact might be doing a lot of work, but it doesn’t sound like they were involved in Damien Little’s mental health problems. Perhaps they didn’t know about him. These organisations, and others, are the safety zone for any person who thinks suicide. Don’t ever just “notice” a change, especially if it has been going on for 2-3 years. 

Help that person. Call any suicide contact for help. Don’t trigger “Vale” in your own name.