*Mates Rates 2. My protest involves letters to editors, the government, the Ombudsman etc…. and this public notice in several newspapers:
“Are you fed up with excessive increases in rates?
Many people regularly pay well above the average increases, while many pay less than the average.
Over the last 8 years my council rates have risen 110% (more than double the average), and my regional levy is up 155%.
I first complained about this unfair winners and losers system in 2013.
Perhaps a protest is needed. Mike Vincent”
*Mates Rates 3. “Freedom” of the press (snigger). At least one “community” newspaper says it won’t print my public notice because it’s “political”. What, an immoral rates system isn’t political? That’s right-wingers for you. Oh well, there’s more than one way to skin a rat.
*Speaking of which, winners and losers mentality is typical right-wing ideology that has no place in a civilised society. Only sociopaths think like that. And like all loud-mouth bullies they easily influence weak people.
*Speaking of which, “Ratesgate” has added more evidence to my decades of observing right-wingers’ modus operandi. It can be summed up: “Do unto others what decent people wouldn’t even think of doing”.
*Speaking of which, my region has some of New Zealand’s most polluted rivers but – apart from the usual shallow-as-a-birdbath lip service – the majority attitude is basically “Tell someone who cares. Such as a tree hugger”. Their grass is green but it’s not their favourite colour!
*Speaking of which, right-wingers (especially in rural areas) hate taxpayers’ money being spent on welfare, but when they themselves suffer hardship (eg, droughts) wow, their shrieks for taxpayer handouts are piercing! The word hypocrites springs to mind.
*Speaking of which, I’ve seen city folk rally to help their “country cousins” many times over the decades during tough times, but unfunnily enough I’ve never seen the reverse.
*The pre-recorded Mastermind quiz challenge between Donald Trump and North Korean leader what’shisname won’t be shown on TV. It ended in a nil-all draw after each president was asked 40 questions, and neither could get off the mark. And then in the tie-breaker Trump was unable to name one person smarter than him, while what’shisname stuck a finger in both ears so he couldn’t hear the question. The producers say it would’ve been the highest rating TV show ever, but it’s probably best (and kinder) to forget it ever happened.
*Speaking of which, we know the internet has many wonderful easily-accessed knowledge-improving resources (if we can be bothered to look!), but goodness gracious me it seems to be aiding and abetting the dumbing-down of the human species.
*Mates Rates 4. I’ll write the following to my local council before they set their 2019 rates:
“Since I’ve been in the LOSERS category for the last 8 years with my rates increases more than double the average, I’d like to reserve a place in the WINNERS category and pay less than the average. Perhaps previous WINNERS can carry some of the load”.
*Melodramatic Media. Whenever a right-wing government is about to be booted out of office (usually because voters have had a gutsful of blatant cronyism) its media mates launch a last-ditch hysterical the-sky-will-fall-in scare campaign. Of course, the sky doesn’t fall in. More fake news. Wouldn’t it be nice if the media just – oh, I dunno – reported actual news instead of making it up. I’d keep an eye on the sky though, with Mother Nature becoming increasingly irked.
*Right-wing fantasyland. My local council increased its rates 4.97% and its right-wing politicians bragged about their promise to keep rates under 5%. Goodness gracious me. The word delusional springs to mind, bless them. Apparently ratepayers are so dumb they’ll see a chasm in .03% and will rush out into the streets clicking their heels and singing “Happy days are here again”. Good old right-wingers – mean and tricky. They’re clever but not smart.
*Speaking of which, most of us (thankfully) live in countries that have left, centre, and right politics. Imagine living in the world’s most powerful nation where your only voting option is right-wing v. right-wing.
*Just when you think you know absolutely 100% what the worst-ever song is, along comes “Magic in the Hamptons”. It’s so fingernails-on-the-blackboard excrutiatingly awful I’m fairly sure it’ll be a Grammy contender.
*Dear reader. I’m one of the world’s worst typists and although I proofread my observations some mistakes slip through and may cause furrowed brows. I apologise. Please don’t think it’s clever cryptic writing by an intellectual giant who’s over your head. I entered journalism in my late teens and you’d think the first goal for anyone with a brain would be to advance beyond two-finger typing. But then, I am an Aussie.
*Speaking of which, here are some of my favourite jokes:
A typical Australian 7-course meal is a meat pie and a 6-pack of beer.
A new Australian health study says when you feel like you need more exercise, lie down until the feeling wears off.
Australia’s finance minister says there are three kinds of economists – those who can count and those who can’t.
A new study reveals the favourite past-time of 94% of Aussies is watching TV, and quite often they like to switch it on.
*The bad news about right-wing media windbags: there’s an endless supply of these ignorant destructive narcissists.
The good news about right-wing media windbags: their egos are so out-of-control they eventually crash and burn.
*The mystery about right-wing media windbags: how they get a mainstream job. Obviously their bosses love them because they parrot right-wing ideology, but it’s at the cost of half their readers/viewers/listeners who can’t stomach uninformed extremism.
*The hypocrisy of right-wing media windbags: if they were honest (snigger) they’d declare their conflict-of-interest in detesting governments that quite correctly cancel outrageous tax cuts for rich people like them. But of course they’re not.
*Gambling ads that begin “When you play……” should be changed to “When you give us your money with virtually no chance of getting anything back…..”.
*Watching beloved Joanna Lumley’s travel shows on Japan, Russia and Greece I wonder why we can’t have world leaders of her quality. What a beautiful mind and heart. People everywhere love her warmth, respect, sincerity, intelligence and gentle humour. She’s an Earthling who would inspire kindness and unity, in contrast to vulgar jingoistic nationalists whose only “talent” is to inspire hatred and disunity. I want Joanna to be World President!
*Racists who vent their bigotry with a smile – as if they’re only joking and think this will soften their evil – are more offensive than those whose faces are distorted with hatred. At least the latter aren’t two-faced.
*Forget Black Holes, there’s a bigger mystery! How can a nation of more than 300 million people consistently produce some of the world’s best in science, medicine, technology, the arts, and sport – but some of the consistently worst in politics?
*Speaking of which, how can a deeply religious nation produce so many immoral people in politics and business?
*Speaking of which, how can a nation with serious character flaws send so many people to other countries to preach morality?
*Maybe there is karma. 7 observations ago I finished a mini-series on right-wing media windbags. Minutes after emailing them to my grandson Alex in Liverpool to add to the website I saw this news story: “Alan Jones and his radio station to pay $3.75 million for defamation”. Jones is Australia’s vilest right-wing loudmouth who once claimed that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s dad died of shame because she’s a liar, and that she should be dumped in the ocean in a sack! Obviously the station should have sacked this creep years ago, but he would’ve been replaced by another reptile. The good news is – only 3% of Sydney’s population listen to him, and a mere .2% of Australia’s population watch his pay-TV show.
*There’s a lot of psychobabble about getting a good sleep. Some experts suggest switching off our brain when we go to bed. I don’t think any of us is capable of switching off the world’s greatest computer! I assume they mean don’t think. All those people who grace reality-TV must find it easy to sleep soundly.
*Pots and kettles. The private sector loves to sneer at the public sector and its frustrating bureaucratic ways. But how many times do we try to get answers to simple queries from businesses and experience red-tape jargon such as “We can’t do that, it’s not our policy”. Ideologies (left or right) are all the same – simple-minded.
*Speaking of which, two of the worst political offenders in my lifetime were Reagan and Thatcher with their sound-bites “philosophies”. Sure, they won elections – but at what cost to the survival of the human species.
*Speaking of which, Mother Nature and her beautiful Earth will still be here long after humans have gone (if we are determined to commit mass suicide). She keeps knocking on our door: “Hullo! Is anybody home? I have some urgent information”.
*Even if you can’t grow a moustache you can still join the police. Every police station has a drawer full of fake moustaches.
*Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But mostly it’s plagiarism. I adore The Doors but they got what they deserved when sued for imitating The Kinks’ “All day and all of the night” with their hit song “Hello, I love you”. Vivaldi’s part-10 of his 300-year old masterpiece “The four seasons” has obviously been imitated in movies such as “Psycho” and “Jaws”, and it’d be a lovely gesture if the Vivaldi family were back-paid some of the royalties.
*Right-wing ideology (personal experience). I did the top-rating (somewhat satirical) breakfast news on an Auckland radio station in 1992 and – among other things – called the Finance and Social Welfare Ministers “the gruesome twosome” because of savage spending cuts (which didn’t affect the rich of course). But when New Zealand’s biggest company – a notorious corporate raider – bought the station I was sacked. A coincidence? Police detectives don’t believe in coincidences. Being a solo dad I contacted the Social Welfare Department for help and was asked if I had any money. About $2,000, I said. Well, spend that first, then get back to us. (Insert a gobsmacked sound here). Perhaps I should’ve said I was broke and put the money under my mattress, but of course politicians can’t stand dishonesty. Fortunately I had a friend at a radio station in my home-town Adelaide (a forever thanks, Neil) and had enough money for my 14-year old son and me to travel to Australia. There are millions of PERMANENT victims of immoral ideologies around the world.
*Speaking of which, it’s extraordinary the number of right-wing politicians who grew up in poor families. Have they such a huge chip on their shoulder that they want to make others suffer? And of course the weak are the easiest targets for bullies. Or perhaps they always were nasty sociopaths.
*Many people think J.S. Bach is the greatest composer. I like some of his music but I love Bach because of his enormous and generous admiration for my favourite composer Vivaldi. Ditto Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, Bob Dylan and Neil Young for similar heartfelt feelings about Jimi Hendrix. It’s no surprise though. That’s true artists for you.
*Speaking of which, The Rolling Stones are the most legendary artists ever, born in 1963 and still getting big crowds to their concerts 55-years later in 2018! There’s a delightful TV interview with a polite kid-next-door Mick Jagger in 1965 when he expressed amazement that his band was still around. As it turned out 1965/66 sealed their greatness with several no.1 singles and the no.1 album Aftermath.
*Speaking of which, it was hilarious watching all the copycats emerge, thinking they were in the same league as the greatest rock band ever. “Our guitarist is as good as Jimmy Page and our singer is as good as Robert Plant”. Obviously they weren’t and even worse were their knucklehead songs, chalk v. cheese 2D v. 3D compared with Led Zeppelin’s decade of clever creative interesting intelligent songs and stunning sounds. Being up yourself can only go so far.
*Statistically, every 7th house in any street has a sociopath. Among other things they have no empathy, so it doesn’t bother them if their dog barks incessantly. Our neighbourhood has such a dog but mercifully it lives half a kilo-metre (not kilOMetre) from my place. It’s claimed dogs can have similar traits to their owner, so this owner must be a highly-strung idiot. I’d love the owner to knock on my door one day to ask a favour so I could use my favourite Larry David line “Nah, I don’t think so”.
*Speaking of which, how disrespectful, pronouncing it HiROSHima. Why not be consistently offensive and also pronounce it NaGASaki, in honour of the 105,000 men, women and children in those cities who were nuked by America on August 6 and 9 in 1945.
*I live on my own and only go out once a week so I really appreciate my DVD player displaying “Hello” when I switch it on each day. I’d love my TV, stereo, microwave, toaster, shaver, electric toothbrush and washing machine to also greet me, preferably by speaking. My first-choice greeting would be “Ahoy there sexy”.
*Watching televangelists, we clearly don’t have to be Christians to oppose and even fight evil. I’m sure that’ll count for something if there is a God.
*Speaking of which, if anything bad happened to me because of my Mates Rates campaign, I hope police detectives don’t suddenly change their minds and start believing in coincidences!
*There seem to have been a few duds in The White House in recent decades, with many people thinking “Oh oh, we’ve got four years of this”. Voters never really know how a candidate will turn out, so give them more choice on election day. What about offering several terms on the ballot paper, from the usual 4-years down to 1-year or even just 6-months? A trial period. If a candidate only got 6-months but did a good job, they could be given longer at the next election. Sure, it’d be terribly expensive if you had elections every 6-months, but anything would be better than the current system of 4-years of unrelenting stupidity.
*Speaking of which, I like the idea of throwing out a government after only one term. Keep politicians on their toes. They get too comfortable, too arrogant when re-elected.
*I mentioned Hiro-shima and Naga-saki six observations ago. The U.S. president who was the first (and so far only) leader to nuke a city was Harry Truman. Wow, what a rush, so he nuked another city 3-days later! Like a true man. What creepy irony, having that surname. For thousands of years true men have been butchering people. We humans perversely call ourselves Homo Sapiens (wise man). Yeah I know, it’s a chuckle. Come on, let’s stop being silly and change it to Homo Dumbo.
*Pulling out all the stops (depending). Governments frantically digito extracto when rich people’s money is threatened, such as when banks and other corporations shoot themselves in the foot. That good old market-forces ideology quickly gets shoved out of the way! They’re too big to fail! But Mother nature isn’t.
*Some people think my observations can be obscure. I guess that’s a communication failure by me, although many people generally like to connect their own dots.
*”May God have mercy on your soul” seems too lame for those string-’em-up judges in America’s south when handing out the death sentence. I can imagine them snarling (as they spray spittle over their bench) “May the Devil feast on your eternal stinking rotten carcass”.
*Global Warming. Donald Trump thinks it’s a gigantic hoax invented by hundreds of thousands of scientists who have been bribed by Greenpeace. But because he’s an incredibly smart guy he has contingency plans from A to Z, and more. His favourite is an air-conditioned indoor golf course (18-holes) so he and his pals can still play if it’s too hot outside.
*Speaking of which, people keep predicting that “Humpty Trumpty will have a great fall” but I actually think he could be re-elected, especially if Hillary Clinton runs again. It’s a shame she didn’t defeat Trump so her husband could revisit the Oval Office (the OO) and reminisce about all the good times he had there.
*Speaking of which, when you read about all the good times that have gone on in the Oval Office, goodness gracious me imagine all the DNA samples they’d find there. OO.
*Mates Rates 5. The good news is – our region’s only daily newspaper and 2 community papers have published Stage 1 of my public awareness campaign about our immoral “winners and losers” rates system.
The bad news is – 4 community papers ( community?) have refused to publish my succinct documented revelation. They say it’s “political”. They wouldn’t even allow me to pay for a public notice! Meantime they give free space to the offending councillors to express their apparently non-political spin. See what I mean about right-wingers being clever but not smart. Instead of fixing an obvious problem they pour petrol on the fire. Ideological fanatics. I thanked the 4 papers for giving me even more material (eg. censorship in a “democratic” country) for my rates campaign, and also for The War On Dickheads.
*Global Warming. An apology to my darling grandchildren. I am ashamed of my generation. They’ve been given decades of political opportunities to help Mother Nature in many simple ways, but have basically declared IDGAF. Yet they become apoplectic when there are changes to screening times for their favourite TV shows, especially Coronation Street! This generation will happily selfishly cynically leave you a colossal stinking mess. Please remember there were many people with good hearts who did try to do something.
*Many high-achievers who go into politics after glittering wealthy careers turn out to be duds. Perhaps it’s because they are used to focussing on numbers not people, and fail to understand they can’t just represent a favoured few. Voters eventually spot the fakes. Politics needs pragmatic people from humanitarian vocations. We need wise people with a heart, not Flash Harrys/Harriets.