After the AFD dust's settled

‘When the dust has settled.’ Dictionary.com says this idiom means ‘when matters have calmed down’, and it uses ‘dust’ in the sense of turmoil or commotion – a usage dating from the early nineteenth century [1]. Three days on, it’s reasonable to think the dust’s settled on April Fools Day 2011. In last Friday’s post I sallied forth with a brief AFD rant, rating its humour somewhere between adolescent and undergraduate. I didn’t take a huge amount of notice of AFD 2011, but to the extent I did, I feel vindicated. Gizmodo wrote of ‘The most diabolical pranks of the year’ [2]. I found none of them remotely funny. Or clever. Then GigaOM had a go – starting with a bit of interesting AFD history and then seguing into its ‘Favorite April Fools’ Pranks, Japes and Tomfoolery [3]’. They’re all tech oriented, and to me slightly funnier than gizmodo’s offerings. But still pretty feeble. Each year Google Chrome’s blog comes up with an AFD post. They usually show imagination. This year’s was no exception [4]. Titled ‘Improving finger dexterity for faster web browsing’, it starts seriously as if trying to fly in under the reader’s radar. But line-by-line it gradually degenerates into overt farce. It didn’t cause me to chuckle, but my face muscles did move slightly towards a smile. Also I found the Wikipedia ‘Words per minute’ link fascinating [5]. So that’s AFD for 2011. My final verdict? I think this guy’s right on the money [6].

Not on the same page(r)

I levelled yesterday’s rant – sorry, post – at Australia’s Federal Government. Today I take aim at the Victorian State Government. Black Saturday – the most apocalyptic bushfire day in Australia’s history – was on 7 February 2009, i.e. 473 days ago [1]. The inevitable resultant Royal Commission began on 20 April 2009, i.e. 401 days ago [2]. And still, reportedly, Victoria’s Country Fire Authority brigades remain not just under-resourced, but lacking basic equipment including functioning pagers [3a, 3b]. What use is a well-trained firefighter who’s not fighting fires because of pager issues? The Minister responsible (N.B. not necessarily the responsible minister) is Emergency Services Minister Bob Cameron. Said Education Minister Bronwyn Pike [4] (pictured) – to her and her government’s shame – the issues are being ‘worked through’. Not good enough, Minister. The public at large, especially people in fire-prone areas, don’t want endless inquiries and insouciant and peremptory ministerial pettifogging. Rather, they want action. Appropriate and immediate action. Each year the government coughs up over A$50M to underwrite the loss the facile and crass Australian F1 Grand Prix racks up. How far would A$50M go to upgrade CFA equipment? Far further than a F1 race, I reckon. And that’s but one year of government F1 profligacy.

P.S. I’m blessed to be a volunteer firefighter in the Tasmanian Fire Service whose brigades are all well, but not extravagantly, resourced to do our job.

Sense, sensitivity and S plates

We live in an age of icons, favicons, emoticons, badges, logos and many other symbols. Each has one purpose, i.e. to convey a message pictorially. We’re bombarded with messages. Overloaded. So we respond to them reflexively – because they’re shorthand in an ever busier world. It’s reflexive: Look then act – mostly without intermediate thought. And so to today’s rant. In this item in last Sunday’s Age [1], a consultant pharmacist – of all people – proposes drivers older than 85 should be subject to a raft (don’t you love that word) of measures aimed at making them safer drivers. On the raft are home visits by pharmacists (of course) to check prescription drugs aren’t impairing their driving, and zero blood-alcohol behind the wheel. Also – here’s the rub – senior citizen ‘S’ plates. To her credit the article’s writer, Jill Stark, presents the pros and cons of the S plate argument. I intuitively agree the major cons are stigmatisation and thus road rage elder abuse. Old people have enough difficulty living their lives without the risk of that. In summary, the statistics are persuasive that elderly drivers are a high risk group. So something must be done to reduce this risk. I agree with all the proposed interventions – apart from S plates. I’d add annual driving tests – when medications could also be checked. But subjecting elderly drivers to the indignity of, and risk inherent in, displaying S plates is abhorrent to me. And I’m still 22+ years from my 85th birthday.

farmdoc's blog post number 310

In the US some years ago, on TV I watched some sessions of stand-up comedy by Dennis Miller (pictured). His specialty’s the rant — a stream-of-consciousness diatribe monologue railing against whatever’s currently bothering him. Miller’s rants typically begin with ‘Now I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but...’ and end with ‘...of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong’. As regular Farmdoc’s Blog readers know, my favourite rant topic is motor racing, and especially its highest profile variety – Formula 1. So here’s another F1 rant: I think F1’s so blighted, immoral and anachronistic that nothing done in its name can be divorced from commercial rapacity. Following the Victorian bushfires earlier this month, last week the Australian Grand Prix Corporation has changed its 2009 marketing slogan – from ‘Melbourne fires up’ to ‘Melbourne gears up’. I think it’s a transparent and pathetic attempt to feign a social conscience, by an organisation that couldn’t give a tuppeny hoot about the societal impact of its activities. Does the Corporation think it’ll gain Joe Public’s respect and approval – and patronage – by changing its slogan? Sorry, that’s question’s rhetorical. And what’s London’s Science Museum doing putting on an exhibition titled ‘Fast Forward: 20 ways F1™ is changing our world’? It’s sold its soul to the devil. Shame on it. Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.