Different views on Asia
Given our current Western obsession with the evils of the Middle East, it's stunning to come across such a different view as this one I quote below. It's well known that Muslim cultures were the intellectual elites of the time of the European dark ages, and thereabouts. They apparently saved the works of the ancient world, and made great advances in mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and the other fields of intellectual endeavour, and maintained an advanced and cosmopolitan culture. Here's proof in the words of Sir William Jones, who was sent to Culcutta as a judge in 1785. This is a recollection of "one evening on the journey out - at night standing on deck in the Indian Ocean, with India ahead and Persia on the left and a breeze from Arabia on its stern".
"It gave me inexpressible pleasure to find myself in the middle of so noble an amphitheatre, almost encircled by the vast regions of Asia, which has ever been esteemed the nurse of sciences, the inventress of delightful and useful arts, the scene of glorious actions, fertile in the productions of human genius, abounding in natural wonders, and infinitely diversified in the forms of religion and government, in laws, manners, customs and languages, as well as in the features and complexions, of men."
BTW, this William Jones is noted as "a fine linguist "he knew twenty-nine languages". He founded te Asiatic Society of Bengal on his arrival in Calcutta in January 1784.
Facing two oceans : Utopian Australia in European eyes, by Marilyn Butler. In The best Australian essays 2001, edited by Peter Craven. Melbourne : Black, 2001. p. 487-495
26 February 2002
Spinning on welfare
How often are Australian people in receipt of welfare payments identified by this govt as cheats? Frequently, you'd have to admit. So what is the real frequnecy of fraud? The figure of 250,000 is bandied around by ministers of the Howard govt with the implication that these are all welfare cheats. Actually, this is the approximate number of cancellations or reductions of benefit payments. We hear numerous reports of lost letters or phone calls leading to cancellations or reductions, so what are the number of actual frauds which are prosecuted by Centrelink, now our welfare payment agency. Centrelink's National manager spoke in a Senate Committee recently, and revealed that only 3,000 of the 250,000 are convicted of welfare fraud each year. That's about 1.2% by my reckoning. It doesn't seem to fit the picture we hear so frequently.
"Fewer than 3000 of the 250,000 people labelled as welfare cheats each year were convicted for frauding the system, a Senate committee was told yesterday. Centrelink's national manager for detection and review, Phil Richardson, said the agency referred fewer than 4000 cases of suspected welfare fraud to the Department of Public Prosecution last financial year." (Cheats just confused: welfare bureaucrat in Canberra Times 22 Feb 2002 p.7)
The actual total was 2,788 convicted cases of welfare fraud in the financial year. Richardson agreed that the other 247,000 cases wwere more a matter of clients becoming confused about completing forms and passing on details! Apparently, Family and Community Services MInister Amanda Vanstone had said earlier that month that the govt was saving $20 million a week by catching welfare cheats.
How often are Australian people in receipt of welfare payments identified by this govt as cheats? Frequently, you'd have to admit. So what is the real frequnecy of fraud? The figure of 250,000 is bandied around by ministers of the Howard govt with the implication that these are all welfare cheats. Actually, this is the approximate number of cancellations or reductions of benefit payments. We hear numerous reports of lost letters or phone calls leading to cancellations or reductions, so what are the number of actual frauds which are prosecuted by Centrelink, now our welfare payment agency. Centrelink's National manager spoke in a Senate Committee recently, and revealed that only 3,000 of the 250,000 are convicted of welfare fraud each year. That's about 1.2% by my reckoning. It doesn't seem to fit the picture we hear so frequently.
"Fewer than 3000 of the 250,000 people labelled as welfare cheats each year were convicted for frauding the system, a Senate committee was told yesterday. Centrelink's national manager for detection and review, Phil Richardson, said the agency referred fewer than 4000 cases of suspected welfare fraud to the Department of Public Prosecution last financial year." (Cheats just confused: welfare bureaucrat in Canberra Times 22 Feb 2002 p.7)
The actual total was 2,788 convicted cases of welfare fraud in the financial year. Richardson agreed that the other 247,000 cases wwere more a matter of clients becoming confused about completing forms and passing on details! Apparently, Family and Community Services MInister Amanda Vanstone had said earlier that month that the govt was saving $20 million a week by catching welfare cheats.
Privacy, PCs and the Web
Probably it's best just to accept that we have no provacy any more and get on with our lives. But none-the-less I get hot under the collar over provacy issues. The Howard govt ignoring privacy in private enterprise got to me, but then they had to back off at the insistence of a prviate sector which feared not being able to deal with European countries which demand some level of guaranteed privacy for their citizens. Naturally, the Liberal Govt's answer was simply self regulation, which is always rather open to abuse, but that's another issue.
But Monday's computer column in the local paper's computer pages reminded me of my concerns over privacy issues, esp in the corporate world. I quote:
"Microsoft has admitted that its latest Media Player software - suplied free with Windows XP - is keeping a log of the songs, and movies accessed by individual Windows users without their knowledge. The company changed its privacy statement on Wednesday, after inquiries by the Press, to notify customers of the technology. Although Media Player 8 creates a list on each computer that couldbe a treasure for marketing companies, Microsoft says it has no plans to sell the data" (Meagrebytes [column] in Canberra Times 25 Feb 2002 p. 16).
Let's hope that the capability in existing and coming IT power is not used by private or public sector to manipulate. But sadly, when a capability is available, it's often used, despite laws, best intentions, and the rest. No comment on meant on MS here, of course - this is just an example of the power, not of its misuse.
Probably it's best just to accept that we have no provacy any more and get on with our lives. But none-the-less I get hot under the collar over provacy issues. The Howard govt ignoring privacy in private enterprise got to me, but then they had to back off at the insistence of a prviate sector which feared not being able to deal with European countries which demand some level of guaranteed privacy for their citizens. Naturally, the Liberal Govt's answer was simply self regulation, which is always rather open to abuse, but that's another issue.
But Monday's computer column in the local paper's computer pages reminded me of my concerns over privacy issues, esp in the corporate world. I quote:
"Microsoft has admitted that its latest Media Player software - suplied free with Windows XP - is keeping a log of the songs, and movies accessed by individual Windows users without their knowledge. The company changed its privacy statement on Wednesday, after inquiries by the Press, to notify customers of the technology. Although Media Player 8 creates a list on each computer that couldbe a treasure for marketing companies, Microsoft says it has no plans to sell the data" (Meagrebytes [column] in Canberra Times 25 Feb 2002 p. 16).
Let's hope that the capability in existing and coming IT power is not used by private or public sector to manipulate. But sadly, when a capability is available, it's often used, despite laws, best intentions, and the rest. No comment on meant on MS here, of course - this is just an example of the power, not of its misuse.
Arab-Israeli hypocrisy by Western govts
A article in today's Canberra Times showed a lovely example of the uneven treatment we English-speaking western countries show to Israel and Palestine. Here are the words of John Howard himself, quoted in this article Firstly, Foreign Minister Downer described Howard as supportive of a "peace that makes equitable provision for both sides". 'After declaring himself "an unapologetic and long-standing friend of Israel" (who is asking him to apologise?), Mr Howard said the "first ingredient" of "a just settlement and a peace" in the region was the "right of Israel to exist behind secure and defensible boundaries". Later in the speech he acknowledged - presumably as a secondary incregient for peace - that the Palestinian people "do have legitimate aspirations", such as "a right to aspite to a homeland"' (Arab-Israeli hypocrisy remarkable by Simon Burchill in Canberra Times, 25 Feb 2002, p. 11) Burchill goes on to identify unbalanced reporting in the Australian Financial Review clearly supportive of Israel. Apparently, around the same time, Downer said to the State Zionist Council of Victoria "we believe that unbalanced creiticism and the singling out of Israel only for blame in teh current context are deeply unhelpful". Certainly, I am surprised by how often we hear reports from one side of this and other conflicts, ie, the side closer to our (conservative Australian/Western) viewpoint, which just seem to be accepted as a factual report, where the other sider seems to be more critically reported. Similarly, I haven't done a study, but my impression is that we hear and see more pictures of suffering Israelis than Palestinians, and far less of Israeli fighters than Palestinian stone throwers.
A article in today's Canberra Times showed a lovely example of the uneven treatment we English-speaking western countries show to Israel and Palestine. Here are the words of John Howard himself, quoted in this article Firstly, Foreign Minister Downer described Howard as supportive of a "peace that makes equitable provision for both sides". 'After declaring himself "an unapologetic and long-standing friend of Israel" (who is asking him to apologise?), Mr Howard said the "first ingredient" of "a just settlement and a peace" in the region was the "right of Israel to exist behind secure and defensible boundaries". Later in the speech he acknowledged - presumably as a secondary incregient for peace - that the Palestinian people "do have legitimate aspirations", such as "a right to aspite to a homeland"' (Arab-Israeli hypocrisy remarkable by Simon Burchill in Canberra Times, 25 Feb 2002, p. 11) Burchill goes on to identify unbalanced reporting in the Australian Financial Review clearly supportive of Israel. Apparently, around the same time, Downer said to the State Zionist Council of Victoria "we believe that unbalanced creiticism and the singling out of Israel only for blame in teh current context are deeply unhelpful". Certainly, I am surprised by how often we hear reports from one side of this and other conflicts, ie, the side closer to our (conservative Australian/Western) viewpoint, which just seem to be accepted as a factual report, where the other sider seems to be more critically reported. Similarly, I haven't done a study, but my impression is that we hear and see more pictures of suffering Israelis than Palestinians, and far less of Israeli fighters than Palestinian stone throwers.
Misinformation by govt
Misinformation, the word, seems to be a product of the information age, although the practice is far older. Hearing of the scandal over the the US Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence reminds me of someone I heard at a public lecture in the late 80s. Supposedly he was an ex-US admiral who was touring the world exposing misinformation by the US govt, esp the CIA. I don't remember his name, and he could have been peddling misinformation himself. But the interesting thing was that I had followed in the local paper, the Canberra Times, the very story which he described as a misinformation campaign. It was set in Africa somewhere, and was so successful that it developed for days or weeks, and was picked up by papers around the world.
I heard a discussion in recent days on ABC Radio National which spoke of the last big US govt misinformation scandal being during Reagan's time in office. That would have been around the time of my admiral above.
Two issues I think of in this.
One is the eternal US concern for the American people with a related, and seemingly innocent, disregard for others. Bush cans the OSI on the basis of concern for misinforming US citizens; the US constitution seems to ban misinforming US citizens, but is blind to misinforming others (perhaps unavoidable in a country's constitution); the commentator observed that by misinforming others, because the media is now global, it will inevitably misinform US citizens. Is there no concern for others? Where's the morality here? But this insularity seems so inevitable, and I calm myself by recognising that it's probably inevitable in any world empire, and the US is not the worst of those we've seen.
The other issue is a fear for democracy. Nothing too new here, but if you can't believe what you read, we're grist for the mill of demagoguery. It's a necessary mechanism for the maintenance of the very society we claim to value. We could discuss how you identify truth, or at least reliable observation and interpretation, but that's for another time.
Misinformation, the word, seems to be a product of the information age, although the practice is far older. Hearing of the scandal over the the US Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence reminds me of someone I heard at a public lecture in the late 80s. Supposedly he was an ex-US admiral who was touring the world exposing misinformation by the US govt, esp the CIA. I don't remember his name, and he could have been peddling misinformation himself. But the interesting thing was that I had followed in the local paper, the Canberra Times, the very story which he described as a misinformation campaign. It was set in Africa somewhere, and was so successful that it developed for days or weeks, and was picked up by papers around the world.
I heard a discussion in recent days on ABC Radio National which spoke of the last big US govt misinformation scandal being during Reagan's time in office. That would have been around the time of my admiral above.
Two issues I think of in this.
One is the eternal US concern for the American people with a related, and seemingly innocent, disregard for others. Bush cans the OSI on the basis of concern for misinforming US citizens; the US constitution seems to ban misinforming US citizens, but is blind to misinforming others (perhaps unavoidable in a country's constitution); the commentator observed that by misinforming others, because the media is now global, it will inevitably misinform US citizens. Is there no concern for others? Where's the morality here? But this insularity seems so inevitable, and I calm myself by recognising that it's probably inevitable in any world empire, and the US is not the worst of those we've seen.
The other issue is a fear for democracy. Nothing too new here, but if you can't believe what you read, we're grist for the mill of demagoguery. It's a necessary mechanism for the maintenance of the very society we claim to value. We could discuss how you identify truth, or at least reliable observation and interpretation, but that's for another time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
