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Invasion Day, Social Events, Essays
Jan. 26th, 2020 11:50 pmThat well-known body of fair-minded thinkers, the Institute of Public Affairs, have released an opinion poll that argues that 75% of Australians want to celebrate Australia Day on January 26. Other opinion polls say that most people don't care what day it's on, as long as there is an "Australia Day". Less than half the population even knows why it's held on January 26, including the Sports Rorts former minister Bridget McKenzie. I describe the choice of date in some detail in an article I wrote three years ago about Invasion Day). So it seems that most people still want to "celebrate" this particularly insensitive choice of date, at least for the time being: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice". If anyone thinks that this campaign is going to go away, they are sorely mistaken. You may as well be celebrating Columbus Day.
This is not to suggest that I do not take advantage of the public holiday (indeed, I suspect that is the most important component for most people). Damien B., had a birthday lunch on Saturday and afterward we went to see Jojo Rabbit, an impressive humour noir of a fanatical and delusional pro-Nazi German boy's perspective as WWII comes to an end ("It's not a good time to be a Nazi", his friend Yorki helpfully explains). The evening prior visited Brendan E., and watched half the first season of The Mandalorian, which is really quite well done. Also, I now understand the Baby Yoda memes. I'm quite up-to-date on popular culture, you know? In two other major social events, played RuneQuest Glorantha today, where I shamed a ghost over holding onto powerful items that it couldn't use and argued with Dwarves over the rightful owners of an iron and gold fallen star (we got to it first, so the World Machine had decreed was clearly ours). Thursday night was a session of Lex Occultum where we got into the spirit of things with the collective production of French food for dinner, and dealt with weirdo Jansenites and a traditional Fronde-like rebellion.
I also managed to complete the third chapter of my MSc dissertation yesterday which discusses Methodology and Selected Methods. I had a few harsh words to say about those who confuse methodology and methods, which unfortunately includes my supervisor who is obsessed with structure and doesn't comment at all on content. Still, at this rate, I will have the draft done before my self-imposed deadline of the end of the month. What remains of this month will also see me completing two submissions for the Isocracy Network and the Victorian Secular Lobby respectively, the former on the state of homelessness and solutions in Victoria and the latter on the proposed "religious freedom" bills that the Federal government is determined to introduce. Should also have the next VPAC book, Sequential and Parallel Programming with C and Fortran out by the end of the month as well.
This is not to suggest that I do not take advantage of the public holiday (indeed, I suspect that is the most important component for most people). Damien B., had a birthday lunch on Saturday and afterward we went to see Jojo Rabbit, an impressive humour noir of a fanatical and delusional pro-Nazi German boy's perspective as WWII comes to an end ("It's not a good time to be a Nazi", his friend Yorki helpfully explains). The evening prior visited Brendan E., and watched half the first season of The Mandalorian, which is really quite well done. Also, I now understand the Baby Yoda memes. I'm quite up-to-date on popular culture, you know? In two other major social events, played RuneQuest Glorantha today, where I shamed a ghost over holding onto powerful items that it couldn't use and argued with Dwarves over the rightful owners of an iron and gold fallen star (we got to it first, so the World Machine had decreed was clearly ours). Thursday night was a session of Lex Occultum where we got into the spirit of things with the collective production of French food for dinner, and dealt with weirdo Jansenites and a traditional Fronde-like rebellion.
I also managed to complete the third chapter of my MSc dissertation yesterday which discusses Methodology and Selected Methods. I had a few harsh words to say about those who confuse methodology and methods, which unfortunately includes my supervisor who is obsessed with structure and doesn't comment at all on content. Still, at this rate, I will have the draft done before my self-imposed deadline of the end of the month. What remains of this month will also see me completing two submissions for the Isocracy Network and the Victorian Secular Lobby respectively, the former on the state of homelessness and solutions in Victoria and the latter on the proposed "religious freedom" bills that the Federal government is determined to introduce. Should also have the next VPAC book, Sequential and Parallel Programming with C and Fortran out by the end of the month as well.
