Diddling along in the silly season

It’s still the silly season here. It’s strange how a ditty jumps into your head and won’t leave. For me this week it’s ‘Diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John’ [1]. I don’t know why. Maybe there’s a deep Freudian meaning. Maybe not. To help me decide, I enlisted the help of Mr Google. First the word ‘diddle’. YourDictionary.com gives several meanings – including some sexual ones [2]. I doubted an 18th century English nursery rhyme would stoop to sexual innuendo. I then found an English nursery rhyme website that says ‘diddle’ is a corruption of ‘toddle’ (and ‘dumpling’ can mean a short fat child) [3]. That a dumpling toddles makes sense. Though the nursery rhyme’s literal meaning’s now clearer, its psychological meaning to me’s not. Nonetheless I moved my researches onwards – to words ending in ‘diddle’. A ‘paradiddle’ is a basic drumming pattern. Apparently in percussion, a ‘diddle’ is two consecutive beats played by the same hand (i.e. either RR or LL). And a ‘paradiddle’ is a 4-note pattern of the form RLRR or LRLL [4]. Listen to one here [5]. Isn’t that marvellous. What quick hands. The rhythm sounds to me like a train speeding up and then slowing down. Finally a ‘taradiddle’ is a fib, or a pretentious nonsense. Dictionary.com says it’s an 18th century English word whose origin’s unclear [6]. The ‘diddle’ meaning’s obvious. But I can’t find any ‘tara’ (or ‘tarra’) prefix. Oh well, our silly season’ll soon be over. Ho hum.

No Laughing Matter! Or is it?

Sometimes, indeed often, things are such that you feel like crying. They’re so absurd and irrational. And stupid. But then the thought occurs to you: crying won’t help. How can it? Wallowing in self-pity’s equally absurd and irrational. And stupid. So what do you do then? Well you could try laughing. Yes – laughing. Because humour can cut right to the core of things. To help us see things more clearly. It often takes silliness here to highlight silliness there.

Enter No Laughing Matter! It’s a shadowy comedy outfit. A google search turns up precious little information about it. I can’t find out when it started, where it’s based, or how big it is. And the ‘about us’ page of its website’s not very enlightening [1]. Though it shows us its motto/credo: ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you’. And its logo: (I think) a finger with hair and a smiley drawn on it. So far NLM!’s put out three short videos – ‘The One About Iran’, The One About Hamas’ and ‘The One About The UN’ – each with the same format: a woman interviewing a man. You can see the videos here [2] and the annotated scripts here [3]. They’re hilarious. And incisive. Satire’s indeed a powerful tool.

I wish you success, NLM! What you’re doing can’t hurt. And it just might help. It just might. I for one hope it does.

List: '10 Simple Google Search Tricks'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. I’ve known Sweetheart Vivienne for about 48 years. She’s given me so much to thank her for that it’d fill several years worth of daily Farmdoc’s Blog posts. Or more. I’m a truly blessed man. And today I have an extra reason to love her: she’s provided me with today’s list. Reading the nytimes.com website she came across this list which is in the top five most viewed pages on the site for the week 7-13 April 2010. It’s titled ‘10 Simple Google Search Tricks’. I’ve already known some of these Tricks. But not all ten. How many do you already know? Google’s search algorithm is literally astounding. And for users of the Google Chrome browser, like I am, it’s even better. Because you key searches directly into Chrome’s address bar, i.e. not into a separate search bar. Here in Farmdoc’s Blog the word ‘Google’ has been a Label in 11 previous posts. Any fewer and I’d be worried my blog’s unbalanced. In a similar vein, my commonest post Label is, you’ve guessed it, ‘Sweetheart Vivienne’. Excluding today’s post, her tally’s 72. The next highest is ‘ho hum’ which scores 59. Today’s post adds one to each: Ho hum.

Earth Hour 2010: A warm and fuzzy failure

Earth Hour 2010 – that’s EH10, if you must – was last night. Earth Hour started in Sydney in 2007. The idea’s to turn off all lights for an hour from 8:30 p.m. I didn’t turn mine off: First, on a practical level, my electricity’s solar, so turning off lights hardly lowers CO2 emissions. Second, on a symbolic level, my house can’t be seen from any public road or any neighbour’s house, so no-one but me (and Sergey and Larry via Google Earth) would know if I turned off my lights or not. And third, on an ideological level, my opinion hasn’t changed since I wrote this a year ago. Meanwhile the 15th UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, i.e. (forgive me) COP15, generated massive media hype but no real progress towards changing this graph. So apart from its feel-good effect – which though warm and fuzzy is of no practical import apart from swelling the coffers of its organiser WWF – on a bottom-line basis EH09 failed abjectly. EH10 will too. For though actions (and inactions) of individuals can do much to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and thus global warming and climate change, the necessary massive changes can only occur by the unified policies of all governments world-wide. But politicians need to be popular – because those in democracies want to be re-elected, and those in totalitarian regimes want not to be overthrown. So despite EH10 the CO2 graph will continue to rise – likely more steeply. Ho hum.

farmdoc's blog post number 662

This is Dave. A few years ago when he was the proprietor of Mole Creek’s Post Office, he decided to paint the building red. The same red as Australia Post’s letter boxes and mail vans. But according to Dave, Australia Post wouldn’t supply him with paint of the correct colour, or instructions how to produce it. So, undaunted, and being an enterprising fellow, Dave concocted a colour he thought was identical to Australia Post’s red. And, he says, since then this colour is officially known as Mole Creek Post Office Red. The last part of this story may be apocryphal – because a google search of Mole Creek Post Office Red produces no cigar. I thought of Dave (who now runs the Post Office in Strahan on Tasmania’s West Coast – I don’t know if he’s painted it red) yesterday when I saw here that Berger Paints is, for the first time, giving the Aussie public the opportunity to name six colours from the new Berger Premium colour range. Or to vote on names other people suggest. The prize is $500 for the person naming each of the six colours. The entry form’s here and the Terms & Conditions here. Entries close on 25 February. Luckily for Dave, the six colours don’t include red. So his beloved Mole Creek Post Office Red’s under no threat. Whew!

farmdoc's blog post number 536

Each year, the AFL Grand Final crowd’s mainly corporate, so the ‘people’s finals’ are a week earlier, i.e. the Preliminary Finals. Like it or not (and I don’t), in western countries large corporations are dominant institutions. Some multinational corporations are more powerful than national governments. Corporations thrive on their imponderable and opaque jargon and code-words. But they also assert proprietorial rights over everyday language. For example in 2000 Ansett Airlines’ slogan was ‘Go Your Own Way’. (In 2001 it did. Into liquidation.) Ignoring this slogan’s banality and speciousness, it’s beyond me how any corporation can trademark commonplace words. But they can. And do. Ditto symbols. The common or orchard apple, say. According to the electronics mob Apple Inc., nobody else can use an apple symbol without risking litigation. Including Woolworths (photo). I relish two corporate monsters fighting each other. I hope they both lose. Here is an illustrated account of Apple Inc’s jousting with several alleged infringers of its self-imposed hegemony over its eponymous fruit. Cor! I hope Apple and its apple symbol both rot. In hell. In contrast, I have no issue with unique corporate words. For example, ‘Xerox’ and ‘Google’ used as verbs. But Google executives prefer ‘Google’ not be used as a verb since doing so threatens its trademark. As sharefarmer Sharon says: ‘Here’s 40 cents – go phone someone who cares’.

farmdoc's blog post number 532

I’ve written here of the link between first name and occupation, personality and behaviour. There’s a curious correlation between surname and occupation too. For example Drs Killer, Hacker and Blood. And the Tasmanian Co-ordinator of Timber Communities Australia is a Mr Chipman. Then there’s Professor William C Dement (pictured) of Stanford University. Born in 1928, he’s a pioneering US sleep researcher, and founder of Stanford’s Sleep Research Center, the world’s first sleep laboratory. The surname/occupation connection? Sleep deprivation reduces mental function. If you doubt me, ask Sweetheart Vivienne or any of our darling daughters. They all have sleep problems. Indeed it was darling Meg who, whilst reading a book by Professor Dement, first told me of him. I feel sorry for those who don’t sleep well. Me? No worries. A night with disturbed sleep’s rare for me. So much so, I can drink a cup of strong coffee at bedtime, and five minutes later I’ll be in dreamland. Today’s the start of Sleep Awareness Week. It runs until next Saturday. It’s so low key that a google search turned up almost nothing. Maybe the organisers are tired. Like I am, because I had an hour less sleep last night after turning my clocks forward for the start of daylight saving. So ZZZZZZZZZZ

farmdoc's blog post number 472

In times gone by, social trends were fairly hard to determine. Finding out about them required expensive and complex instruments including surveys, focus groups and diaries. However nowadays it’s much easier. And free of charge. Courtesy of Google. Of course. Who else? In the USA, a massive 75% of the 10 billion internet searches each month, occur via google.com [1] That’s 750 billion Google searches; only in the USA; and only in a month. So it’s not a giant leap of faith to a conclusion that Google searches reflect society reasonably accurately. With this in mind, I’m fascinated by this 28 July Age item providing, in each of seven categories, Google Australia’s top ten fastest rising searches for 2009 so far. See what you think about the results. To me it confirms my theory that swine flu’s a scare mongering beat-up. But I can’t understand Australians’ pre-occupation with Susan Boyle (pictured) and Masterchef. And I find it incredible that the fastest rising website search is for the Australian Tax Office’s. One of the common criticisms of social inquiry is that it’s a waste of time because it’s all commonsense anyway. Well maybe. And perhaps too, the fastest rising Google search categories are of no practical use. But to me as a list-man, these lists are of curious interest. If nothing more. And they drive home to me that in this 2009 world, I’m a sheep man in cattle country. Ho hum.

farmdoc's blog post number 471

I’ve just finished Helen Garner’s 2004 non-fiction book Joe Cinque’s Consolation. It begins with a young law student, Anu Singh, killing her boyfriend, Joe Cinque. After drugging him with Rohypnol, she finishes the job with injected heroin. Then comes Singh’s trial, her manslaughter conviction, and her imprisonment – which is foreshortened due to adjudged diminished responsibility. Garner extensively interviews, and befriends, Cinque’s Italian-Australian parents. And she briefly interviews both Singh’s father and the trial judge. But the book’s diminished by Singh’s refusal to talk with Garner. And in the absence of first-hand interaction with the perpetrator, Garner filled the void – intentionally or otherwise – with herself. She plays far too big a part in her narrative. Indeed arguably she’s the main character. So it’s unsurprising that on the book’s cover (pictured), the author’s name’s written in a font 50% bigger than the title font. Perhaps Helen Garner’s Consolation would’ve been a better title. Thank you, darling Emily, for loaning me the book. If I’d paid A$24.95 for it, I’d have felt ripped off – though without doubt Garner can write, and her storytelling’s well above average.

farmdoc's blog post number 469

Plagiarism. Given my suspicious nature and my interest in forensics, it’s unsurprising that plagiarism fascinates me. A little about why people do it; more about how it’s discovered. I guess that pre-computer it mainly came to light by chance. However now it’s merely a matter of putting a phrase into a Google search box. And so to Tony Burke (pictured). Never heard of him? Well he’s the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Last 24 June he issued a Ministerial statement on preparing our forest industries for the future. I’d expect a ‘Ministerial statement’ – even from the Forestry Minister – to be impartial and independent. Others are less trusting and more sceptical than I. I don’t know, but they discovered this:

Ministerial statement 2009: ‘Construction of the mill and flow-on investment would create some 8,000 direct and indirect jobs spread across the trades and other areas.’

Gunns statement 2008: ‘Construction of the Pulp Mill and flow-on investment will create some 8,000 direct and indirect jobs spread across the trades and other areas.’

So Minister Burke’s been caught copying and pasting Gunns’ promotional material for his Ministerial statement. And Getup says many ‘facts’ he borrowed from Gunns are outdated, discredited or unsubstantiated. There are calls for him to explain [1, 2, 3] and resign [4, 5]. The plagiarist should do both. If not, the Prime Minister should sack him.

farmdoc's blog post number 449

I’ve previously written of ‘disease mongering’ – i.e. the creation of medical ‘diseases’ for commercial gain, aka the medicalisation of the human condition. In a letter in the May Internal Medicine Journal, disease mongering’s described as a ‘tripodal monster’ whose three legs are the drug companies, people eager to be patients, and doctors eager to be deities. The letter recommends any would-be doctor deity to link up with a politician to maximise publicity and thus influence. One of my nephews has swine flu. Because it’s a real disease, swine flu’s not a classic mongered disease. But it’s a cousin. Promotion of swine flu increases the demand for anti-viral drugs (Relenza and Tamiflu) and thus the profits of their makers; it turns public health doctors into media deities; and it allows politicians media coverage to issue forth on a topic they know little about, giving them a false aura of importance and competence. Swine flu is a pandemic, but geographic extent isn’t correlated with severity. This Google site shows that the number of flu cases in Australia this season’s no greater than in prior years. And I’ll bet you anything the number of flu deaths this year’s no higher either. Yet the media attention given to swine flu’s preposterous; and it frightens a public that has little or no grasp of what’s going on. In short, I think swine flu’s a beat up. But all this is not to diminish your illness, Ro. I hope you recover soon, mate.

farmdoc's blog post number 418

Google. I’m surprised the word appears in only 10 of the previous 417 Farmdoc’s Blog posts. For subjectively Google seems much more pervasive in my cyber life. Eight days ago I added this comment to blog post 210: ‘On 4 June 2009 Google launched its flu trend web page for Australia. Here is the article and here is the direct link’. Seems like a good thing. As does RabbitScan which uses Google Earth to provide evidence-based mapping of rabbit location and prevalence. This mapping’s intended to stimulate governments to develop and implement new rabbit control measures, now that resistance has developed to Calicivirus that was released in 1995, and rabbit numbers are growing again. RabbitScan’s founder, NSW grazier David Lord, said this use of Google Maps is being watched as a potential model for mapping other pests, and also weeds and wildlife. RabbitScan’s mapping campaign’s due to end in December. I’ve joined it. And as I did so I pondered Google – what I think of it, and my relationship with it. In a word, my relationship’s ambivalent. Whilst doing good and helping people, Google’s simultaneously getting bigger and more powerful. And more pervasive. I don’t know if my awareness of this will help. But it won’t hurt. And judging by this article in last Tuesday’s Age, I’m not alone in my circumspection.

farmdoc's blog post number 402

I’ll have to write to Sergey and Larry. Because I’ve found a question Google can’t help me with: How did the saying ‘pimple on a pumpkin’ come about? The closest I can get is that in a pumpkin competition, a blemish automatically disqualifies an entrant. Anyway I think you know the saying’s meaning, if not its origin. It jumped into my consciousness last weekend when I read in the Tasmanian Country newspaper that last Wednesday the Tasmanian Parliament passed the GMO Ban Bill, so extending the current GMO ban for five years. Widespread acclaim ensued: ‘A huge positive’, ‘Important to our meat producers’, ‘A good development for us as far as the clean green image goes’, ‘We knew that GMOs were never going to fly down here’, ‘The key to the Tasmanian brand’ and so on. Tasmania and South Australia remain the nation’s only GMO-free States. All good stuff. Very positive. Very encouraging. But very out of character for the Tasmanian Government – whose decisions typically ignore environmental concerns and the precautionary principle. Wait. Perhaps Tasmania’s farmers, agricultural companies and government really do think that introducing GMOs would be detrimental on economic grounds alone. In which case the Tasmanian Parliament’s decision wouldn’t be a pimple on a pumpkin, but rather as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

farmdoc's blog post number 5

Four Seasons is the shirt that made Gloweave a household brand name. It is also, some say, the most-recorded piece of classical music. It is the name of a chain of hotels though I have never stayed in one. And it is a brand of condoms and other adult paraphernalia, but believe me I only found this out courtesy of Google. Here in rural northern Tasmania where I live, the four seasons are so distinct that you can go to bed one night in one season and wake up the next morning in the next. If you were to ask me which is my favourite season here, I would think for several seconds, I would rub my chin pensively, and I would tell you I like all four. But then I would blurt out that I love autumn the most. Autumn where I live is cool, dewy and at times misty mornings – and similar twilights. It is carpets of crunchy golden sycamore leaves. It is lush green pasture. It is wispy curls of smoke from wood-heater flues. It is the signal to tilt up the solar panels since the sun is lower in the sky these days. And it is the time to plant the onions and garlic before the soil cools. Yes, Mole Creek in autumn is the place to be.