Australian exceptionalism

I was thinking about the 2005 Asian tsunami today, and specifically my own brush with it. For our first overseas holiday, my wife and I had planned to go to Phuket, but instead decided on Sabah, in Malaysian Brunei. We were lounging on a beach there on the day that Phuket, Sumatra, southern India and any number of other areas around the Indian Ocean were levelled.

In Australia, we are a proudly agnostic nation, where aggressive atheism is often considered a part of our natural charm. Yet we share a strong faith and that is: bad things don't happen here, not the way they happen elsewhere.

Sure, we're not entirely insulated from reality. We have car crashes, floods, bushfires, drownings and bankruptcies. The very mundanity of those events, however, goes towards the ultimate thrust of our belief. There are no terrorist attacks in Australia. (Not entirely true, but true in effect.) Our soldiers go overseas, rough up the natives and come back largely unmolested. Our economy might labour at times but it rarely goes backwards. Our worst earthquake, in 1989, was the result of mining subsidence and killed about thirteen people.

So we instinctively feel that, here, we are safe, or as safe as one can be in a soft, pink, infinitely breakable body. The obverse of this belief is that once we transgress our national borders, we live under an unfamiliar shadow of danger.

This mindset has its most outstanding example in the Bali bombings. Australians were shocked - shocked! - that anyone would want to carry on their nasty foreign politics in a way that might hurt Australians, let alone in Bali, which because of the number of bogans wandering its beaches had been adopted as an honorary part of Australia. So upset were we that we couldn't help but adopt Indonesia's tragedy as our own, wearing our horror at the death of 88 Australians shamelessly while completely disengaging from the significantly larger number of Indonesians murdered.

It's a big part of the reason the world has started to regard us as louder and more drunken Ugly Americans - this air of bulletproof freedom from consequences, the feeling that anything happening to us is a lark rather than a real event, that the rest of the world is a mere amusement park for the cynical atheists of Australia.

But what is this attitude if not faith?

It's an easy argument to make that this shared belief is a truer and deeper faith than that of the average churchgoer. Separate from societal expectation, and without any real reason to do so, we accept that the world is run in a specific and benevolent way for our own benefit.

It's an odd position for a nation built on genocide to take.

Child protection laws and the ineffable NSW Government

The NSW government will change the child welfare reporting laws to stop DOCS being crippled by the volume of trivial complaints (here), but will there be any examination of how things reached this juncture? Perhaps policy has been made thoughtlessly in response to headlines and spin rather than with careful consideration and development? Either the current reporting laws should never have been introduced, or the funding and structure should have been put in place right away to ensure they could be implemented successfully. A government that cared even slightly about good policy rather than polls would ensure that its agencies, particularly those of such immediate human importance, were fixed before they fell apart, not after.

Even more irritating for me personally has been the budget debacle. It seems Nathan Rees only goal is to keep the budget in surplus, regardless of any consequences to the state, at a time when any halfway competent government would be posting significant deficits. In a state choked by aging and inadequate infrastructure, caught in the fierce currents of a global economic downturn, after that state has posted surpluses for years consecutively, choosing to throw out spending for the sake of balanacing a one-off budget is baffling.

I refuse to believe that an individual could scale the heights of public administration that Nathan Rees or any of his ministers have without acquiring so basic a level of economic understanding, so that leaves only one explanation for this behaviour, that deficits poll badly and surpluses test well. The irresponsibility astounds me.

The Labor government in NSW has worked this way for over a decade, so it's unlikely to change anytime soon. All that really has changed is that Bob Carr, the man who was actually made it all look good, is gone, and the machine men who use the state government as a machine for milking developers of dodgy campaign contributions have advanced increasingly incompetent front men in attempts to extend their cosy situation. If Barry O'Farrell wisens up and avoids actually appearing in public or allowing any of his MPs to speak to the media before the next election, I might even find myself accidentally voting Liberal in a state election in the next few years.

False premises

Gary Kamiya has an article on Salon.com that got me agitated about one of my pet peeves, the accepted wisdom amongst progressives that the US (and by extension everyone else) should withdraw from Afghanistan, that somehow this war is morally on par with Iraq. (article here)

While this article and the commenters make some good points, it ignores some important facts about the situation in Afghanistan.

First is the state of Afghanistan before the war. The bombast and propoganda of the right over the last seven years has made it difficult to retain clarity on this issue, but the fact is the Taliban were, between 1996 and 2001, the most brutal and repressive regime on the planet, and that they were allowed to rage through Afghanistan unchecked should shame us all. When Gary Kamiya and apparently almost the entire left advocate abandoning Afghanistan, they advocate leaving over 30 million people in the hands of a system of deliberate evil. At least for the sake of 15 million Afghani women, troops must remain in Afghanistan.

Second is the fact that terrorism does, in fact, offer an existential threat to democracies. There is no more compelling proof of that than the de facto repression of free speech, imprisonment and torture of the innocent sometimes unto death, and disregard for constitutional rights allowed by the electorate in the United States over the last seven years. Because of a single terrorist attack, liberal democracy was dormant if not dead in the nation where it should have been strongest of all.

Or consider the depopulation of half of Israel in July 2006 in response to the Hezbollah rocket attacks, as vast numbers of citizens became refugees. Democracy depends on the calm rationality of the citizenry, and that is exactly what terrorism targets.

Third is the enormous progress that can be made in the internationalisation of the conflict. Anyone with real knowledge of what is going on in Afghanistan knows that great strides have been made as the military of the UAE have engaged. The tribes whose insular, tenacious and warlike nature, and ironclad laws of hospitality, made winning the war impossible for the US alone, are being won over with the help of these valuable allies.

Although saying it induces reflexive cynicism, the international coalition MUST stay in Afghanistan until the government of Afghanistan can defend itself from the mainly foreign extremists who insinuated themselves into the national life.

The most valuable thing Bush and the neoconservatives stole from the thinking left when he politically capitalised on national disaster was not freedom, compassion, or peace, it was clarity of thought. Barack Obama is approaching the situation with neither the concept of American exceptionalism and pre-determined victory that caused the right to bungle the job, nor from the ideologically blinkered corner the left has allowed itself to be pushed into, but instead from the direction of making policy based on reality, needs and results. Now that the shadow of an imperial presidency is contracting, it's time to examine our preconceptions and start to apply knowledge and logic rather than college campus ideological assumptions.

That magnificent beast, the financial media.

See it wallowing in its own importance. Its audience, which lends it an undeserved air of sobriety and professionalism, is the staid world of the investor, which thrives on detailed analysis, consideration and caution. Yet like all merchants of news the financial media must strive for relevance, so they sow fear and panic. Stocks never subside, they must crash; if they don't quite crash, they may instead collapse. On the way up, they surge or rally, rather than rise, and the two must never be examined together in context - a crash one day and a rally the next is not a correction, it is some sort of Manichean drama, where the mighty totems of the bull and bear do battle and one emerges victorious.

The rush to predict "market meltdowns" on Tuesday was a perfect example, as alarmist headlines were splashed all over television channels, eventually producing the fearsome figure of... a rise of fifty points. The unmentioned but undoubtedly sheepish removal of the "market crisis" from the news banner on the Sky Business Channel around midday was a masterpiece of comedy.

By market close, this was being laid at the door of an interest rate drop, yet the recovery came well before the announcement. In this way the naked emperor clothes himself. Is it any wonder that large parts of the markets are swept up in the narratives and short-sightedness of the moment, speculate rather than invest, when they are constantly steeped in this sensationalism? With great self-seriousness and regard for their own expertise, these talking heads only ever manage to produce truisms and the accepted wisdom of the echo chamber.

Competing in the new media environment

The job cuts at Fairfax demonstrate that they, like most major old-media corporations, fundamentally fail to understand the new media environment. The consequence of the growth of the internet is the springing up of myriad news sources, with as many agendas, standards and business models.

There is still a place for the venerable broadsheet and the local newspaper, but it is as an arbiter of quality, a centre for debate and a beacon of trust. However, the soulless businessmen who make these decisions have resolved on the route they find most intuitive, that of cost-cutting and vivisection of what should be timeless institutions. What they fail to realise is that anyone can plug an AP line into a
collection of opinion pieces and a thick slathering of celebrity gossip; to survive, print media needs to be more, not less.

The SMH in particular needs to fund real, hard-hitting investigative journalism, and forget about the divas, of both Hollywood and opinion page varieties. Until then if I want the classic feeling of a broadsheet, I'll hold my nose against the smell of right-wing hysteria and read The Australian. At least those Tories aren't trying to shove Paris Hilton down my throat.

Exploring the Inner Geek

Well, it turned out my article did suck and no one wanted to publish it, so here it is.

In the year 40 000 AD there is only War


I was quite apprehensive leading up to my foray into the world of fantasy gaming. I had previously turned away in cowardice from a basement gaming hall in Melbourne, and it took me a couple of casual stroll-bys to get myself into the Newcastle Games Workshop. On top of my usual crippling social anxiety was the added fear of judgement by nerds – I imagined a room full of tightly knit high school geeks glancing uncomfortably around at the presence of a stranger, or the hateful glare of judgement of a Comic Book Guy. The normal social awkwardness of the nerd can make us ruthless when disturbed in numbers within our natural habitats. Nonetheless it had to be done, so wearing a Penny Arcade T-shirt, and armed with a notepad and a faint stutter, I tramped off to the games store.

In fact the lad running the store was a very friendly guy who looked to be late high school age but was in fact working there full time. I would have reacted to his inclusiveness and friendly patience towards a n00b by angrily revoking his nerd credentials if it were not for the unfortunate facial hair, and encyclopedic knowledge of units, terrain, and armour classes he quickly displayed, and the revelatory “ahhhh!” sound he made when displaying his favourite leaden space marine for my approval. His significant weight problem was also a big tick in the “nerd/expert” column.

The decent-sized store was filled with immaculately painted metal figurines, two decent-sized gaming tabletops elaborately set out with miniatures and plastic fortifications, two smaller tabletops and a round table surrounded by benches for model painting. A heavy metal band whose lead singer was apparently the Cookie Monster thrummed through the background noise.

While a much more Comic Book Guy figure, identified by the shop assistant, Tom, as one of the part-time staff loudly and expertly wrangled some newly pubescent youths through a three-a-side game, Tom sat me down with four squads of the store’s miniatures and gave me a short game while explaining the rules. I commanded two squads of Ultramarines; one helmed by an immaculately painted Sergeant whose involved backstory I immediately forgot. Tom commanded two squads of Tyranids, one of pistol-toting dinosaur-like Gaunts and one of four-armed drooling Genestealers. (Or, to the layman, some aliens.)

On a 2’x2’ green board (full size being 6’x4’) Tom took the first turn, using a tape measure to jump his six inches forward (full turns, move, shoot, then assault, he told me briefly). After rolling his dice for five attacks from his Gaunts, I was in the driver’s seat.

I immediately wanted to wipe out the guys who had been shooting at me, using both squads to attack the Gaunts, but Tom gently informed me that the primary threat was the Genestealers, who would tear my Space Marines apart if they got close. Bowing to his authority, I cautiously edged forward just four inches and turned all the guns of my first squad upon them, under the guidance of Sergeant Whatsisname, and with a roll of three dice and some more complicated stuff for my flamethrower and the Sergeants’ plasma pistol, destroyed four of the five Genestealers. Chuffed by my success, I had my second squad open fire on the Gaunts, destroying three with my rocket launcher and another one with my other marines, leaving an alien from each squad.

Reckless in the presence of defeat, Tom had his remaining miniatures rush forward, their six inches of movement getting them just inches short of my Marines, and fired his only remaining distance weapon, scoring a hit, but deflected by my armour saving roll. At this stage, I think it’s done, I’ve won, but I’ve forgotten about the assault phase, which I now learn allows Tom’s figures to advance a further six inches to engage my marines in hand-to-hand combat. Luckily five-to-one odds translate to a fast victory.

So ended my first game of Warhammer 40 000, a half-hour affair where a series of lucky dice rolls for myself allowed me to beat one of the most experienced players in the Newcastle area with no losses. When I suggested that the scenario was unbalanced for the benefit of new players, Tom denied it, saying that in fact if the Genestealers had managed to engage before being wiped out it could have been one-sided in the other direction. Earlier, Tom had compared Warhammer 40k to chess, but while chess is a game merely of logic and gamesmanship, clearly the dice introduce a big element of luck. The initial experience reminded me of high school days of earnestly exchanging 3.5” disks in the playground, and the players I met brought back strong memories of how my friends had been then, and more unsettlingly, the awkward and out-of-place teenager I had been myself. More unwelcome again was the revelation that one could not even begin to engage in the Games Workshop hobbies without an initial investment of at least $135.

Still, I found myself fascinated, and when Tom handed me an in-store flyer containing a list of upcoming events, I identified two to attend, not quite sure whether I wanted to go so I could write about them or just to be at them. The inner geek was stirring.

Frustration and Maladaptation

The first of the two events I had set out for myself to attend was the Thursday games night, which was also to be a preview night for the fifth edition of the game. When asked about the extreme youth of the crowd in the Games Workshop on my first go-round, Tom had said the veterans played on Thursday. Arriving at 4pm, I found that this was nearly true – while the number of true adults had gone from one to four, they were severely outnumbered by the 20-odd teenagers present. The cookie monster and his band were still supporting, but there was now a pitch of pre-pubescent squeals and trembling post-pubescent hollering adding to the mix. The painting table was packed and I wandered around the store and watched a game being played.

I quickly learnt that my initial enthusiasm was unrealistic. There may indeed have been some compelling gameplay going on; I couldn’t have judged, since I found myself a good ten years too old to listen to death metal while surrounded by screaming teenagers. I hovered, watching the end of a hard-fought game and checking out some models. I also met Tom’s lean and slightly unpleasant off-sider, who said the preview I had come to see wasn’t going to start for half an hour and implied I was old when I mentioned my interest came from playing Milton Bradley’s Space Crusade in primary school. The serried ranks of tiny grizzled warriors on the boards still appealed to something deep inside me, but not enough to keep me around. After three quarters of an hour I faded away, discouraged.

Creativity and Near-Redemption

That could have been the end of it. I had given it a damn good chance, I thought, and had comprehensively proven a developmentally normal 25-year-old could not walk in and start playing with inch-high models for the first time and actually enjoy himself. Warhammer 40k was for a certain moment in some people’s history, the smell of energy drinks, fried chicken, water-based acrylic and escapism combining with the “Metal for the Insecure” soundtrack to create a lot of fun at the time, which could be held together by nostalgia later on, but could never be captured afresh by someone who was never beaten up for their Space Marines.

Still, I wanted to do the thing right, and I decided to show some follow-through by going to the last event I had chalked up for myself. Each Sunday Games Workshops hold introductory sessions, which allow newcomers to come along, play a simple game with one of the staff to get the basics, and be walked through painting a miniature. I didn’t anticipate this painting aspect appealing to me much, as I’ve never been much for visual design – colour schemes, as far as I’ve been interested in them, are a good way of telling when driving through an intersection will cause honking and crashes.

The Games Workshop was much as it had been on the Thursday night, only not as dark and less frenetic. Tom offered me a black-sprayed Space Marine, a palette and some brushes, and set about teaching me miniature painting.

Oddly, I found myself enjoying the experience. As Tom led me through dry-brushing, layering and lots of other miniature-related jargon, I realised that I was doing something which modern life and living room rarely afford – the chance to focus on one thing, to the exclusion of all else, and do a job right rather than fast. I met some of my fellow painters, including an aircraft technician who collected Orcs and a couple of moppets who earnestly informed Tom that he was much nicer than the guy running the military disposals store where they bought their miniatures. An hour later I had a meticulously (for me) painted Space Marine, and my first unalloyed positive experience of Warhammer 40k.

Conclusion

So ended my experiment. The verdict? Well, two positive experiences against one negative would seem to indicate a qualified victory. I was starting to appreciate why it was a hobby and a crowd one could choose to spend big portions of free time with. The 40k’ers are refreshingly unpretentious and forward, nerds without irony.
On the other hand, the barriers to entry are impressive; the significant initial and ongoing monetary cost combined with the very specific culture and, most of all, hundreds upon hundreds of intricately worked rules of which an effective player would have to have a detailed understanding make for some daunting obstacles. It’s hard to call this a deal-breaker though – the barriers of entry to, for example, yachting, are a lot higher, and also involve exposure to yachting toffs, yet that seems pretty popular.

Ultimately, though, for me, being at least ten years older than most of the players was insurmountable. Listening to death metal and screaming pre-pubescent voices while drinking Red Bull in an all-male environment might make a 15 year old feel alive, but at 25 it’s plain unpleasant. The game, or more specifically the Games Workshop, was not for me.

One aspect of the hobby, however, I found taking deeper roots within me. I ordered myself a model painting kit, and have been dedicating a little bit of time to sitting in the breeze and the sun, painting tiny warriors. The singular degree of focus cools my mind when it is fevered by multitasking in a way that is otherwise hard to find.

So all in all, my first venture into nerd gonzo was a positive one. I met some people, got a free Space Marine, had a little fun, and came to a conclusion about what seemed like an open question – should I be in that store, rolling those dice? Well, no, but maybe I should be painting those miniatures.

The Inner Geek

Well, it’s been ten months since I posted here. I would like to say that it was because I was reveling in the “lazy” part of my moniker, but in fact it’s probably been about the busiest and most diverse ten months of my life. Since September last year I’ve been shuffled sideways when supervisors thought I was at the point of violence, completed an online university course, experienced a spiritual awakening, seen the mosques of Istanbul and the Baha’i Shrines of Haifa, been robbed by sleight of hand and nearly arrested by the Turkish police for same robbery, been hospitalised and nearly died from a kebab gone wrong, flown a jet fighter, nearly fallen out of a helicopter, scored top marks on a university entrance test and become an integral cog in the machinery of governmental waste and corruption. Now, I think I’m ready to come back and write snarkily for the entertainment of myself and the odd exceptionally bored web surfer.

I want this post to act as an entrée to a series I will write wherein I explore my own nerdiness. As a young man growing up in country Australia, I was highly nerdy and eventually had a friendship group of other highly nerdy individuals, but much of the machinery and support structures of nerdery were missing. There was no comic book store, no Games Workshop, no computer club and no film club. Combined with my exceptionally narrow horizons and limited resources (perhaps a dollar a week until I was about fifteen) many lines of interest open to the metropolitan nerd were firmly shut to me. Essentially I managed to be nerdy enough to avoid kissing a girl until I was almost old enough to buy her a drink, but not nerdy enough to retain significant nerd pride as I grew older and the kind of people who hate nerds in high school grew more unemployed and pathetic.

So with this series I will throw myself into a few of those things I think I could have loved if fate had given me the chance. Things like D&D, World of Warcraft, and medieval re-enactment that sing to the more embarrassing parts of my soul.

First up – Warhammer 40 000.


UPDATE:
I completed the piece, but I'm submitting it for publication (despite the sinking feeling that it kind of sucks), so I can't publish it here. Rest assured that if it does suck, and no one wants to publish it, I will put it here, and libel the wise men who knocked it back in an attempt at humour.