English Privacy and Rebekah Brooks.

Rebekah Brooks and Phone Hacking

While the tentacles of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire stretches well beyond Britain, the phone hacking and intrusion of ‘privacy’ seems to be mainly concentrated in the Anglo world. Why, one could reasonably ask?

Well, one answer might well be our obsession with deliberately living lives that are hidden. This wanting to be hidden dates back hundreds if not thousands of years. Perhaps the pillaging, raping and burning by the Vikings on our soil left its inedible mark on our proud British heritage.  Our home is our castle and if it wasn’t for lack of money, everyone  of us would want to be surrounded by moats and drawbridges. We compromise and have blinds, thick curtains and 6 feet high fencing instead.

We like our privacy. It is the first word of preference when asked how we would like to live. Where is my privacy? This is often the primary requirement when moving into a new home. When neighbours apply permission to extend or build something next door, the possible invasion of privacy is often the reason for councils objecting to the development application. I sometimes wonder why we build houses with windows.

We like our gardens but don’t want to be seen in them. When do the Anglos do their gardening, at night perhaps? We put in outside furniture and giant turbo driven 8 burner stainless steel gas barbeques but, by and large, we stubbornly want to remain hidden and prefer to have all that in the back yard and not at the front, risking fully exposing snags and ourselves to the dangers of the outside world.

Now, with this almost universally well known need for the Anglos wanting to remain hidden, unknown, unseen and ‘private’ till the grave, it is baffling what we are so keen about in wanting to remain hidden. What goes on behind those curtains of privacy? What lurks behind that wall or fence? Are dastardly acts of the most hideous and perverted nature  happening? Are the Anglos whipping themselves into a frenzy of orgiastic delights unknown to the rest of us?

Phone hacking outside the British Empire would never have that attraction to readers because everyone knows that the French Prime Minister has affairs or that the Italian President has a penchant for rubbing coconut oil on nubile young girls. Continentals live their lives in the open and rely on openness and community values in keeping an eye out over each other. In fact, the scandals that the Brits so delight in would at best elicit a yawn amongst most of the rest of the world.

Of course, the neuroses to remain hidden don’t mean that we are not curious in finding out what others are doing. It is a double edged sword. Make something hidden and we will inevitably want to snoop around, if only to find out if others are like us as well. This is why people were paid to do all this phone hacking.

Finally it becomes an addiction, hence those awful Anglo Sunday papers revealing who is doing the latest stint in a re-hab., or who is looking suspiciously pregnant and not even married to boot. That close up, is it proof of a Brazilian wax, surely not?  Gee, doesn’t Andrew Beiber look a bit pale; I am sure he is back on the crack-ice again, is he?

For the Murdoch Empire it was a colossal and monumental opportunity of money making. It worked while it was going on. And now, the spectacle of Rebekah Brooks in Court with her lovely tousled red hair will be another one of those continuing sagas, raking in even more money. Go for it boys.

China Town

‘Most impressive’ is what I thought of last Monday’s ABC’s 4 Corners program on how China is transforming itself from a rural backwater into one of the world’s most formidable economies. It is estimated that it will be the world’s number one soon.  How do they do it?

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/03/22/3461200.htm

Is it education or has China always been a country of forward looking people? I mean, those hidden terracotta warriors and their horses were not there just by accident. It gave us a pretty good indication of an amazingly creative culture even at 200BC. Fancy, having the modesty to bury them. In Australia all we have managed so far is to have kept Phar Lap’s heart inside a bottle of alcohol. If it wasn’t for the Danish Vikings, our Opera House would never have been built either.

It’s no mean feat to build one city of 200.000 within seven years, let alone dozens of them. I have trouble getting my car’s pink slip done within the eight week time limit, or much worse, forgetting to do my zipper up after I have used the local men’s on the stroll to Aldi’s with a shopping list firmly clutched in my hands. “Don’t forget the toilet paper”, still ringing in my ears.

Slothfulness is not in the Chinese psyche. Meetings were held whereby the farmers were told by the village elder to change their thinking. Instead of hand ploughing the land and growing pigs they must develop a mindset of ‘business’ for the future and educate the children.

The children were seen root learning very diligently. Grandparents were shown to pick the youngsters up from school. Dad had foregone the hand-ploughing altogether and was working in Shanghai earning in one week what the wife would earn in one year ploughing and fattening pigs.

It was amazing to see, that despite the poverty, many still brought a mouthwatering arrangement of foods on the table, especially heralding in the Chinese New Year. When I see footage of the overfed but undernourished poor in Australia, slurping from Coke bottles and eating packets of chips, I get feelings of cultural doom and despair.

I could also not believe the leanness of the villagers. Was it a result of hunger and hard work or was it also their diet which seemed very much based on eating many greens. Everyone seemed well dressed. I mean, very clean and there was no rubbish lying about. I always wondered on how so many hundreds of millions lived, how did they survive?  How come they seem to be forever smiling and laughing?

The hacking away at the clay with a hand held hoe and the lure of earning big money didn’t prevent one husband from wanting to return to his farm. The wife refused, became stroppy and told her husband to keep earning money in the big city. The kids have to go to school, she added. There was more than a hint of marital whiplash about in that couple.

The one thing that seemed to shine through was their connection to each other and family and an indomitable will to make the best and succeed. Money making was the way to the future but so was their love of kinship and family.

Now back to those Terracotta soldiers. The facts are amazing. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over eight thousand soldiers, one hundred and thirty chariots with five hundred and twenty horses and one hundred and fifty cavalry horses, the majority still buried in the pits. Then there are musicians, comedians and other non-military figures. All are life-size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

We are always dazzled by the art of the ancient Egyptians and the influence of the Greek civilization on our western world… but the Pyramids and Parthenon seem to be somewhat insignificant compared with the history of the Chinese. Perhaps both are almost unfathomable in how it was possible to achieve such enormous heights during that time.

I wonder what will be dug up from our times, a large intact veneered Mac Mansion with Caesar-stone bench tops and tangled heaps of zinc alume, Chocó boxes, Apple tablets, and many leaf blowers with pebble-crete lawn edgers…