Your Story : How We Play the Game of Life

I heard about the Greenhouse Effect in the early 80’s and I’ve been waiting to see when the general public would start to get the picture, and now we have. Now we have a debate but it’s only a public debate the scientists all agree (all but the few) but the public isn’t listening to the scientists, the tens of thousand of educated men and women who study and know all the background information that has led to their opinions.

The general public listens to the popular and noisy commentators who aren’t as educated or have vested interests elsewhere.

However… Maybe the scientists may be wrong… Sure, nothing is for certain. Look at the panic caused about the Y2K problem. Fizzier wasn’t it? What a waste of money. Although, have you ever wondered that maybe all the work done because of the concern that was created may have averted the problem so it never happened and now we have the benefits of no problem, just a few dollars spent.

Well what if the same situation plays out with global climate change?

Here is the best way I’ve come across to explain it.

It’s happening again. I’m doing my best but I’m frustrated by the technology. I’m wanting to set up a wordpress blog onto my domain name yourstorypodcast.com but I don’t have the knowledge that the servers expect you to have and then they don’t have the information to self educate yourself so I’m frustrated and I still don’t have a site.

I’m not here to learn to be a geek, I want to produce a great podcast and the interviews and the post production is what interests me not the geeky stuff.

I just want to get the podcast out.

ARGHHHHHHH

It’s election time again in Australia and the government is on the ropes with the first real opposition in over a decade. This time there is a real threat of them losing.

With the last couple of elections the government has been given and taken the opportunity of finding an enemy for the masses to focus on and to take there minds off the other political issues that might be of any embarrassment to the government.

First it was to join our comrade in arms George W. Bush and go and fight the new menace of terrorism which threatened the very nature of our society(of which Iraq had nothing to do with), then it was the invasion of our precious country by the Arab Hordes including men, women and children in leaky boats traveling from Indonesia hell bent on invasion (no, probably just survival).

So it worked in the last couple of elections, so what will it be this time?

I’ve noticed that as the time is getting closer, nothing has arrived in the form of a natural or man made calamity for the government. They have used an event in the past to help them distract us from the real issues so what will they use this time? The date that an election must be called is fast approaching so what will be the created menace that will surface?

If it doesn’t develop naturally it’s possible to create it, just follow the formula.

Choose a healthy bunch of some minority, preferably one with little or no voting base and significantly different in some way (sexual, religious, ethnic or culture). Ensure that the rest of the Australian community has little knowledge of and is ambivalent about them. Find a point where they could be in conflict with some aspect of the general community no matter how tenuous. Pick on the issue identified and beat it up out of all proportions and show that it is of national importance. Then show a proactive attitude towards this issue as if the Government is the only ones who can solve it and let it go on and on and on in the media . Hopefully it will blowup into a huge ruckus and everyone will be distracted from the real issues which will be swept aside as the election is played out and the masses will buy that the Government is protecting us from a non existing threat.

Imagine the brain storming that went into it.

“Ok guys we need a minority to pick on, who do you recommend?”
“The Asians?”
“No we need their votes and trade.”
“The gays?”
“No we need there votes and there are too many now.”
“The Arabs?”
“Nope used them last time, they won’t fall for that again.”
“I know lets chose a minority that is so small we can lose their few votes, one that is physically and culturally different to us, one with a different religion and one that the rest of the country doesn’t know or care about. Lets pick on the Sudanese…”
“The Who?”
“The Sudanese. They come from Africa, their black and there isn’t many of them. Now the angle???”
“Have any of them been in trouble?”
“A couple but no more than any other portion of the population.”
“Great that’s the angle. Cultural differences cause Sudanese to not fit Australian Values.”
“Brilliant!”
“Now we need a patsy to bring this up in the media, not someone too high profile in case there is any fall out and some one we can distance ourselves from if necessary?”
“Hey does any know Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews number?”
Link

It’s around us everywhere. Violence, destruction, mans inhumanity to man. We’re told not to go out, to barricade ourselves like a medieval fort from the barbaric hordes that are about to descend onto us. But sorry I don’t see that around me. Sure it’s on the box and in the papers but I live in a peaceful community where everyone I know isn’t threatened or harmed. Am I naive?

Well it looks like I may be right just check out this TED presentation by Steven Pinker and you may get why I don’t feel fearful. It’s just not there. The points that Steven makes at the end of his talk about empathy rings profoundly true for me.

I’ve always thought that we probably don’t live in particularly violent times but there is still some violence going on and I feel that the lack of empathy is why we continue to allow it.

As I mentioned in a previous post it is my goal with this podcast to allow people to develop some empathy with others through their stories so that we can see that we are not that different from them.

Recently a good friend of mine has asked me to get involved in helping him roll out his new product. Ok, it’s not a high tech product but we all still have to live somewhere and this is for the building industry.

Brett has developed a much needed system for quickly installing a vertical stainless steel balustrading. He has done a lot of research on the concept and has found a much needed gap in the market for vertical wire balustrades as the existing systems involve complicated tensioning systems often involving many expensive stainless steel fittings and complicated installation systems.

What I think he has come up with in the Sentrel Balustrading System is a neat, visually light product that resolves the problems of horizontal cable systems and the dangerous climbing foot holds they present while maintaining the prevention of penetration from some one through the balustrade.

When he showed me the finished panels I was surprised that they look so neat and this I found was due to the hardwood railings being pre-finished before assembling so there is no need to paint after the cables are installed.

The reason I’m mentioning this is Brett has asked me to show this around and I’m hoping that the income from this will help to enable me to spend more time on Your Story Podcast which is ultimately what I want to achieve. I will be having a conversation with him at some stage so you will hear about this when you listen but also many years ago he had an amazing life changing experience that I would like him to share with you.

If your interested in contacting me regarding Sentrel Balustrading contact me at ian@sentrel.com.au