Down in SOHO

Down in Lower Manhattan wedged between ChinaTown and Little Italy, I'm standing outside Starbucks using their wifi to write this amidst thousands of people walking past so this will necessarily be brief as it is also pretty cold. We've been asked 3 times for directions today so we must be starting to look like locals - at least we don't need to walk with a map in the hand anymore. Anyone need a genuine Rolex for $100? A Chinese gentleman has already asked me three times since I've been here - we must all look the same to him.
Walked over Brooklyn Bridge today and ferried over to the Liberty Statue yesterday so we are doing the tourist circuit as well as feeding well - great Mexican dinner last night in SOHO. My fingers are starting to freeze so I'll update again from a warmer spot. Tomorrow we go back up to Midtown for New Years and stay there till we head home on Monday.

Travelling 2

The boys checked through security and we won't see them now until we get home - very emotional saying goodbye to your children in a foreign country.
QF108 was due out to LA and Sydney at 6.30, then 7.30, then 8.30...finally Eam texted to say they had boarded at 10.35pm and only then did they get told that the connection in LA to Sydney was going to wait for them! This was after much stress for the past 5 hours with not knowing. Not sure how our young Russian girl hot on - we dropped her at Terminal 1 - hope she got home to Moscow ok.
Anyway - they're on the way across the Pacific now for home. Meanwhile...we were still at the airport till 5.30 and had to get back into Lower Manhattan to our next hotel. We weren't keen to trust to public transport after the 4.5 hour trip to get out to JFK and we were very lucky to walk outside and find a shuttle bus driver at a loose end (because there were no arriving planes) who was happy to take us downtown for $38 (I gave him $50).
Into hotel by 7.30...what a day!

Travelling in a snowbound NY

Well it was an education today about moving around in a snowbound city. Checked out of the Edison Hotel around 11.30. Paid $2.25 each for the subway from 50th St to Penn Station on 34th to try to catch the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) to Jamaica and then the Air Train to JFK. Well...the LIRR was completely closed. So, consulted the wifi MTA maps and found that the 'A' subway train line goes to Howard Beach from where we could still get the Air Train. So we jump on after waiting 20 mins (there are way fewer trains running). Why not just catch a cab? Because there are only 15% of normal services running so basically there are none to be had. Halfway out to Howard beach they announce they are not going to Howard Beach because of snow. Consult MTA wifi again and find if we get off at Broadway Junction and catch a 'J' train we can still get to Jamaica to catch an Air Train to JFK. Another young girl has joined our troupe and comes with us too with big bags. So...we exit the 'A' subway and go and stand in the freezing cold outside for 30 mins waiting for a 'J' train. Helped the young girl carry her bags - lots of steps transiting from 'A' subway to 'J' subway above ground.
Ok - still with me? It's now 2 hours since the hotel and we're about halfway to JFK! (usually a 30 minute trip).
The 'J' train was 13 stops to Jamaica except there was a 20 minute delay at the 9th stop because of a fire on the track! Finally got into Jamaica at 2.45pm to find that the Air Train to JFK had closed and not likely to reopen today. Went outside to look for a bus or taxi at what was a huge train station but there were none to be had. We waited out on the road in the snow and a guy pulls up in a pickup truck and says he'll take us to the airport for $40 each...I fight off the other waiting travellers and say yes. Our young girl comes too - at $40 a head the guy made a fortune from us but we made it! We only had to push another guys car off the road so we could get past the boys made it to the terminal 7 on time.

Snowing in NY

It has been bucketing down snow for most of today - an incredible sight considering we are at sea level. We are expecting up to 2 feet (60cm) of snow in this 24 hour storm - there has been lightning and thunder as well. When they do weather over here, they really do it big.
All JFK flights were cancelled from 2pm - hope it all clears for the boys to fly out tomorrow night.
It hasn't stopped people being out and about though. We subwayed down to South Ferry and there were hundreds of people queued for tickets to Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty.
Had a great Christmas lunch at Scarlotto's on 47th with David Harrison yesterday - it was surreal to meet a familiar face after so long away in such a far away place - good time had by all.
Tania went and saw Alvin Ayley dancers this afternoon while we boys saw "True Grit" at AMC theatre.

Christmas in NY

In lots of ways it is almost just another day in NY at Christmas - people out and about everywhere, most shops are open at least for part of the day, tourists being tourists everywhere. What an amazing place. Pretty cold at -3 degrees. Hit Macy's yesterday for shirts, belts, ties. T is still looking for boots but pretty hard to find leather, stitched, made in USA or Italy (everything is made in China).
It is a bit like living in a movie seeing sites from so many films - Bourne, 16 blocks- Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Central Park etc.

Just arrived in NY

Quick update - sitting in Times Square using the free wifi. There were only 1 of 6 BA flights out of Geneva into Heathrow and the one that went happened to be ours and there were only 2 out of 8 BA flights from London to New York today and again, ours was one of them! We had a dream run today. NY is so different to anywhere we've been so far. Am looking forward to exploring over the next couple of weeks.

a Zurich

I wasn't really sure what to expect in Switzerland. The shuttle from Chamonix back to Geneva was great and on time into the airport by around 10.00. After some friendly help from the train ticket man, we got tickets direct from Geneva airport to Zurich Hauptbahnoff for CHF 85 each for the three hour trip. Geneva is French-speaking and Zurich is German-speaking. The train was very fast, smooth and quiet arriving in Zurich about 1.30.
Changed some Euros into Swiss Francs at about 1.30 for each Euro. Lunch at the HB then 2 stop train out to Oerlikon station where we are staying at the SwissOtel. All the Swiss trains run like clock-work funnily enough - even the suburban trains are quiet, smooth and run every few minutes. Return tickets are valid for 24 hours (not just the nominated trip) as well as valid for train, tram and bus.
Took the train into zentrum this morning for a wander through the old town - beautiful old alleys, shops and kirches.
Lots of TV news about problems at Heathrow with cancellations due to snow and ice. The website for British Airways say our flights tomorrow are still good to go (Zurich-Heathrow-New York) so check-in tomorrow will tell us. We can't control it so we'll just wait and see.
Free wifi everywhere in Zurich - fantastic.

Living a Chamonix

Interesting place for a tourist town with very few shopkeepers 'choosing' to speak any English but it sure forces you to trot out the old school French. Though I think I did ask the mademoiselle if I could be an espresso the other day which reduced her to giggles!
We have had good snow falls on 3 days with lots of powder for the boarders. E, B and T have been to Les Grandes Montets, Courmayeur (favorite so far), and today up to Les Brevents. Some high altitude stuff here - up to 3300m. Mont Blanc still towers over that however at over 5000m.
Out to Zurich on Monday and then onto New York - Snow at Heathrow permitting. There is no doubt that the poms really struggle in snowy conditions - mass panic buying, accidents, services shut down, etc - whereas the Europeans just carry on - incredibly obvious contrast to the outside observer.

a Chamonix

It's been a few days since Pompei. The boys arrived safely and we had a couple of days in Rome (Coliseum, Vaticano, Navona and others) - lots of introductions for them into Italian food and drink. Went with RyanAir up to Milano - you must use RyanAir people. I have never caught a flight, landed, collected baggage and walked out of the airport 10 minutes before the plane was due to land!
Hectic couple of days here with Romanian relatives - wonderful people and had a great time expostulating on my best Italian - truly it is 90% hand gestures and the right attitude in the voice - also possibly helped along by copious Limoncello with Gigel!
Wish we had flown RyanAir to Geneva where we caught our shuttle to here in Chamonix. Flew British Airways and it was not good to the least - late, missed connections, lost bookings, etc. Anyway - long story - we're here now and boarding and skiing and it's wonderful.
Mont Blanc view from apartment window! As a school kid and uni student reading so much about climbing here, especially winter ascents in the Grandes Jorasses, I am humbled to be here sitting and wondering how Chris Bonington and friends climbed here with so little technical winter equipment compared to what's available today. I am in further awe if that's possible of what those guys did. It's -19 degrees here after all.
Ben did really well in school results - 89.75 ATAR - which I'm informed is pretty good! Writing this using my iPhone at the local McDonalds sipping reasonable Espresso using free wifi for the Internet connection. What a connected world we live in - I can hear American, English, French, Russian, and Italian accents without even really trying. Can you guess what the majority are looking at on their various devices? Correct - FaceBook! Sitting in a beautiful place with magnificent views and other people to talk to and talking to people on the other side of the world!
Cheers all.

A Pompei

What an amazing run we had today on Italian trains. Fast, cheap, clean, on-time and easy to negotiate even when you have 3 platforms coming off the 1.
Got into Pompei about 12.30 and found a hotel (Hotel Diana) recommended by the Lonely Planet. It has been very good as a guide to Calabria over the past week. Tania just copied the relevant pages from the book we bought earlier this year and used them.
Pompei is a tourist town though being December it's not too bad. The cathedral and the ruins themselves are stunning. The Greeks built a coliseum for Pompers before the Romans had built a bleedin' viaduct (say this in a Monty Python accent and it makes sense I think!). Easily spent several hours in the ruins and didn't see it all.

Diamante - our last Calabrian coastal town

Trained on from Tropea to another little place on the coast using the little bus-trains - they are really cheap and go everywhere. Diamante was another town with a centro-storico where we found a little hotel right on the waterfront called Hotel Stella Maris for Euro60 per night for 2 nights. Got in about 4pm and the place was packed along the promenade with people out walking and taking in the port views etc.
The centro is covered with murales from over a period of years depicitng all sorts of things including people, boats, local scenes, poems and so on - all hidden away in narrow alleys with washing hanging overhead across the alleys.
Sunday we took a walk up through a national park following a river up into the hills along a thoroughly Italian tiled walkway that went for kilometres. Ended up on top with a view over the town and with snow-capped peaks further on up ahead of us. We wandered back down some windy tracks and roads to town - all up about 3 hours on a clear winter day.
Dinner of spaghetti and pesche risotto rounded off a great day.
Off to Pompei tomorrow for a sticky at the ruins.

Around Tropea

Tropea has turned out to be a great place to slow down to the rhythm of life in Calabria. We are staying in Il Barone Residenzes in the old town at an apartment (called a 'suite in Italy'). Beautiful old stone place with very friendly owners and staff.
This part of Italy certainly goes by the siesta rule with nearly all places open 0900-1300 and then again from 1600-2000. Sure makes you slow down and fit to the rhythm of the life here. Lots of school kids here with 2 elementare scuola e 1 compresivo e 1 instruzioni intelligentia for the bigger kids. Great to see that kids are kids the world over - playing tricks on each other and generally having fun.
The coastline here is high cliffs punctuated by small beaches and some deep gorges running to the sea. The old town is built on a cliff-top some 50 metres above the sea - a railing at the end of the main street separates you from toppling over the cliff!
Food - settled into the calazione of pastry, bread rolls and coffee with fruit and yoghurt. This pretty much does you for lunch as well and then cena at about 1930 of spaghetti and house rosso to cap off the day. Also maybe a gelati at some point as well to keep the wolf from the door. We are the only foreign tourists here and there is very little English spoken by the locals which is great. Tiny lanes and alleyways through the old town with still lots of scooter and Fiat traffic though - Italians are in love with the wheeled vehicle as well as talking and texting at the same time as dodging pedonale and other cars and scooters. Kristina Keneally's hair would be blown out of its fixed position if she saw the traffic here.
Spent 3 nights here it was so nice. Off to either Pizzo or Diamante a domani.
Another thing we really like are the nibblies you get when you order an alcoholic drink during the day. We had a wine around lunchtime, which came with an antipasto plate of chips, pickled veges, crackers, olives and bruschetta. So it makes for a very cheap lunch. Food in general is delicous. Dinners are made fresh to order. Pat had sardines last night and this morning we walked to the harbour, where fishermen were selling them straight from the boat, so that was probably his last night. I've been enjoying the local pasta with a variety of sauces, (red onion, eggplant, mozzarella) washed down with the local vino.So food miles aren't huge here. But the gelatis are just SENSATIONAL! I have to limit myself to only one a day!

Around Calabria

It is not a touristy area in winter down in this part of the world but such a beautiful coastline and the train lines hug it all the way through the constant use of tunnels and viaducts. We got ripped off by a taxi driver from Reggio airport to our hotel (covered up the meter and charged a rounded figure of Euro 40) only 15 minute drive away. But hey, it was dark, crowded and us with very little Italian - after such a long day we were just happy to get somewhere. The iPhone is working really well for internet access - most places have wireless internet access (some pay like at the airports, some free like at the hotels) so we can read Australian newspapers, email and book hotels and check train times all from the hotel.
Stayed only one night in Reggio and then caught the local train system up to Tropea where we are staying 2 nights in a beautiful apartment right in the old town. The trains are like buses on tracks - single carriage diesels that run more or less to time, but mostly less! When they docome along though, they fly.
Tuesday we were in Scilla - a little village about 30 mins north of Reggio - staying in a hotel again in the old town on the beach. Southerly wind blowing a gale - but of course being a southerly in the northern hemisphere it was a warm wind. There is the obligatory castle on a hill, church bells ringing at all hours, churches everywhere - religious lot these Italians! Dinner is much later than we are used to - our usual 'dinner at 6.30' has turned into 'dinner at minimum 8.00' - we are of course starving by then. Had a seafood spaghetti with mussels and lobster last night and the house Calabrian wine - all very passable, very passable indeed.

At the castle in Scilla - windswept and interesting...

Today's (Wednesday) travel has been train waiting for much of it - trains seem to get cancelled quite regularly but no one seems to bat an eyelid - must be just par for the course.

Arrived into Tropea about 1300 and wandered down to the old town to look for a place recommended by the Lonely Planet guide book. Asked a few people and finally found it but no one around. Pulled out the trusty iPhone and Tarn pulled out her Italian phrasebook and we texted to the mobile on the door in our best Italian if there was a room for the night. Immediate response and here we are in a beautiful apartment with a terrace upstairs which overlooks the sea and the old town.

Back to Italy

It was -13 degrees when we left Riga and +14 degrees when we flew into Rome again today. Writing this at one of the airport kiosks while waiting to fly on to Reggio di Calabria. I am certainly proud to be Latvian and proud to be Australian - we live in a wonderful country people and don't forget it!
Got frisked at the airport because i set the scanner thing off in security - there was a lovely looking Italian lady and a big hulky fat Italian man doing the frisking - guess who I got?!?!?

Latvia

Well the place has changed a lot over the past 9 years since we were here in 2001. The EU funding has been put to good use restoring the beautiful Paris-style 6 storey buildings which seen no maintenance under the Soviet occupation. There is quite a bit of foreign investment especially from the Swedes & the Finns. The people still have 30% poverty in the Latgale {in the east} and further austerity measures are about to bite with an increased 23% VAT rate and reduced ability to apply for social assistance even though wage earners pay 30% social contribution insurance on top of flat 25% income tax. Unemployment is about 14% with average monthly wage of about LVL500 or about AUD$1000. I think though that they are better off than Portugal at the moment with 5% of the population living on food handouts. Very cold and snowy today and -12.

Minus 15 degrees does this...

How about some Gluhweine mixed with Riga Black Balzam? Not great really!

a Riga and surrounds

Flight to Riga was fine and taxied to Hotel Valdemars, where we stayed 9 years ago but it has been refurbished and is very nice.
Texted back and forth with Tante Solveiga who thankfully marshalled the interpreting and transport troops to meet us in Dobele today. Alfred, Vija, Ruta and Elza were wonderful and took us out to to mums house off Uzvares iela about 10km or so out of Dobele. So cold - minus 5 degrees and lots of snow but sunshine today and the house was showing its best face. The roof is ok and so are the walls. Just no doors on the two doorways and a pile of rubbish inside.

Mumäs place from 62 years ago...
Keyboard is all in Latvian and a little hard to type with so I'll leave it at that for the moment!

The whole house and nothing but the house...

Inside Dobele Castle

a Rome

Rome is so full of history that it is easy to be overwhelmed - imagine doing some gardening and finding a centurions helmet in your veggie patch! But we have taken it a bit easy and just wandered around the old Cite and dodged the crowds (even in November the place is packed!), the beggars, the touts, the scam artists. Food and drink and the way in which Italians do food and drink is exceptionally stylish. Sit down at a bar for a foot resting and a drink and get presented with drink and snack and watch the world go by.
Italian is vaguely improving though it is good that not many shopkeepers choose to speak much English as it forces you to dig deep.

Posting a letter here is a fraught with time danger as at home - wait forever in line to buy a stamp!
Footsore and well satisfied we move onto  Riga today and a bit colder Im guessing. Its been up to about 17 degrees and sunny mostly here in Rome.

Here we go

Well - here we are at the night before the day we go. Taking only 1x30 litre rucksack ( a waterproof BMW motorcycle one) with two trousers, a few icebreaker shirts and a spare pair of shoes. Got the paperwork elsewhere in my shoulder bag. Wearing streeeeetch trousers and a short sleeved icebreaker on the plane. Checked in online today (only allowed up to 24 hours before) for a pair of seats on a window side so only have to climb over each other to get to loo and walk around. Qantas want $80 per seat to book an exit-row seat - we gracefully declined. On the 0651 out of Springwood tomorrow - see I'm already getting used to the European 24 hour time - and have breakfast at the airport.
9 hours to Honkers and then 14 hours to Rome after a few hours break - always supposing that the Qantas planes and passengers behave. I saw HP7 on Thursday night and so of course now have to read the book to compare movie and story - a big book to carry on the trip but it should keep me occupied.
Have also got an App for the iPhone which will have me speaking like an Italian native by Tuesday (apparently!) so I'll look into that as well on the plane.
Ciao

Measuring stuff

Tania and I get talking about all sorts of things as we wander off for coffee at our local (La Montagne at Winmalee shops) and this time the topic of "measuring" stuff came up especially in relation to the NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) but it actually relates to lots of things.

I believe that as a society we seem to value content knowledge more than we value understanding for application ie. we value 'knowing about' rather than 'understanding what and how'. I don’t think we are curious enough about things and this is possibly because there is so much choice about everything. It is beyond us to understand everything so we choose not to. But is this the reason HSC exams only test content knowledge? I don’t think so – I believe we sacrifice the gifts of significance, relevance and complexity to the gods of the easily measured.

What are the consequences of only knowing and never really understanding? What about:

·         Computers - we know about using them for some things but because we don't really understand them, we only use a fraction of their capacity or potential. When they don’t function as we expect them to, we don’t know why and most often resort to turning them off and hoping they work when we turn them on again. The IT Crowd on the ABC have got that right!

·         Phones - we use a phone and just want it to work and often don’t understand all of the choices and fine print in the plans which gouge us for more money than we really need to pay eg. when our mobile roams onto the tower of another company we are charged more for data downloads.

·         Cars – I am continually struck by the number of new cars I see broken down by the side of the road – we just want to drive them but don’t understand that we still need to check basics (tyre pressure, service intervals, water and oil levels etc) to make them continue to function

·         Testing – we set exams about content knowledge because it is easier to mark validly and reliably ie. students either know it or they don’t according to the marking criteria. But what is the purpose of the test - to gain an understanding of what the student has learnt over the duration of a course or to ask them things that can be marked in a valid and reliable fashion?

All testing is exactly the same – the test writer asks questions and expects certain answers and these answers are articulated in the ‘marking criteria’. The most valid way to do this is to ask questions that have only 1 answer – this makes it easy to give a mark out of a100 for example. That’s fine if the purpose is find out how much someone knows about something eg.

1.      2 + 2 = 4

2.      Apply Bernouilli’s formula to this situation…

3.      Write a creative essay about the setting of Hamlet…

The type of questions that lend themselves to being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ are not really questioning for understanding and application but only really testing for pre-authorised and accepted knowledge. Even the ones that seem to be asking for a bit more than content regurgitation (question 3 above), aren’t really because they still marked by criteria which outline the content of an expected answer – hence what is right and what is wrong. What about the unexpected? Is it wrong?

Rachel Ward said once that she didn’t consider herself dumb at school (though she did poorly apparently) – its just that no one ever asked her about what she was good at. And I might add, certainly didn’t value it even had she been asked.

We hear in the media that curiosity, creativity, imagination and innovation are aspects most highly prized by business in the 21^st century. It seems to me that those aspects of a person have always been highly prized – some of the most interesting people you can talk to tend to be those that see ‘B’ while everyone else is seeing ‘A’.

I can’t see how the HSC (or NAPLAN or any other school testing exercise) helps measure curiosity, creativity, imagination or innovation. These are seemingly too hard to measure so we sacrifice them to the god of validity and the more easily measured – a test which is handwritten, paper-based, completed alone, takes 3 hours, with no feedback supplied except a moderated total  score sent in the mail some weeks later. Does this make a student more curious or creative?

Off to Europe again

I will get back to the constructivist view (see previous posts) but not yet.
With some Long Service Leave, Tania and I are doing a winter tour this time but not on the bikes. General plan is fly out to Rome on November 22nd and then onto Riga (Latvia) for 4 nights. Latvia is my mother's homeland and I actually own her old house there as well. We visited there in 2001 and I was the first of the family to return there since mum had left in 1948 so it was a very emotional time for me. It will be great to see what has happened to the place in the 10 years since especially the 2008 finance problems and with the country being so dependent on EU money to survive as a country.
After that, we're down to Calabria for a couple of weeks before meeting up with the boys in December for a meeting in Milan with Romanian relatives and then Chamonix ski/snowboarding for a week. Then onto New York for Christmas and NewYear and home by early January.

A 'Subjectivist' view of the "boat-people crisis"

If you remember, objectivism involves the object having an inherent meaning just waiting to reveal itself to you. How the meaning is revealed and what that meaning is, depends on the questions you use to represent the meaning that you suppose the object might have. The end result of this interaction with the object is that you reveal a particular meaning, and only one particular meaning, of the object. The ‘object’ I used as an example was the ‘boat people crisis’.

What about a subjectivist viewpoint?

Subjectivism is fairly different and somewhat similar except that the object has no inherent meaning until you impose one on it. Your imposed meaning does not come from any interaction with the object – it comes from the cultural heritage into which you were born which has already imposed meanings on objects before you see them. When you look at an object for the first time you might think that you have a ‘gut-understanding’ of the meaning of that object and thus impose your own meaning on it. But this is not the case – meanings are generally culturally pre-determined – it might just be the first time that you have actually articulated the meaning to yourself.

Now how is this helpful when discussing something like the ‘the boat people crisis’?

Keen readers will already see that if cultural heritage is how you gain meaning, how can you critique prevailing meaning? It’s a little like a gang mentality I guess. So if the predominant view portrayed in the mass media and among family and friends (include here anything that contributes to your cultural heritage) of ‘boat people’ is that it represents a "crisis", then a subjective treatment of that will be that your imposed meaning on the object of ‘boat people’ will be the same.

This is not helpful for developing a critical awareness of issues – this is uncritically accepting object  meanings at face value. Objectivist treatments ask ‘how’ questions while subjectivist treatments tend to ask ‘what’ questions and as a result, the types of 'solutions' offered by the ‘subjectivist’ treatment are limited in scope to the information provided by answering 'what' types of questions eg:

• What is the ‘boat people crisis’?
• “The ‘boat people crisis’ is typified by the almost daily arrival of boats filled with mainly Afghan and Sri Lankan people seeking asylum in Australia”.
• What do I already know about the boat people crisis?
• “I have seen on the TV that some of them have mobile phones and call 000 when they get near Australia”.
• What is being said about the boat people crisis by my cultural informants?
• “Family, friends, TV, newspapers etc – all say that the numbers of people arriving are too high”
• What meaning most closely matches what my cultural informants are telling me?
• “While I know that these people come from war-torn countries, I think the numbers of people coming to Australia and the manner in which they are coming is not good”.

You can see that subjectivism is not all that different from objectivism really. Objectivism is impossible to achieve in reality because the questions you ask (how) are subjectively derived.

So that’s a subjectivist treatment. Has that been helpful? The next post will look at a Constructionist treatment and see how helpful that might be.

How do we know that we know something - "Boat people" and objectivism

I am puzzled by media reports of 'facts' about issues - many of these I find a bit like 'advertorials' in magazines - you read about some medical wonder treatment thinking that it represents scientifically proven fact but then read the fine print to find that its really an advertisement for the treatment.
But see even in that little sentence, I've mentioned a phrase that is frequently used to describe discoveries which can be believed because they are "scientifically proven" - but have you ever wondered what that really means? And what makes "scientifically proven" better than "common-sense proven" or "experience-proven"?
So it got me wondering a bit further about how do we know things and how do we know when we know? I want to call this 'ways of seeing the world' and want to apply them to the current media-named "boat-people crisis".
Philosophically and epistemologically there are basically 3 ways of seeing the world:

1. Objectively;
2. Subjectively; and for want of a better term -
3. Constructively.

Let's have a look at each.

Objectivism
This is the view that things exist as objects independently of consciousness and experience - so things exist even if we don't know that they do. This bit makes sense but what about this next bit - some methods for knowing the true meaning of an object independent of its context include:

• verification - (Ayer and Wittgenstein) - no statement is meaningful unless it can be verified through sense data like "seeing is believing". This is a central thought in what is called logical positivism. Therefore things that cannot be sensed are not meaningful eg. various forms of religion - if they don't have measurable size, shape, capacity then they cannot be verified 'objectively'.
• falsification - (Popper) - scientists make a guess and find themselves unable to prove it wrong
• uncertainty principle - (Heisenberg) which is the basis of quantum theory - he refers to the idea that the very act of observation changes the behaviour of the object under scrutiny.
• counterinduction - (Feyerabend) - examination of objects and theories through comparison with external standards as well as the 'scientific' method.

In the objectivist tradition, a researcher will posit a hypothesis about an object and then, depending on their theoretical perspective and methodology, will proceed to prove or disprove it using quantitative methods of data collection and verification. Generally a separate reality is created by the researcher in order to find the meaning of the object. The underlying theoretical perspective is essentially positivist using methodologies from the scientific tradition of experimentation in controlled contexts with dependent and independent variables of analysis.

The positivist Thomas Kuhn questions the usefulness of the scientific method because of a tendency towards convergent thinking that tends to say more about the method than it does about the object and how to ask good questions to elicit data. 

Robert Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 1974, p. 273) is more direct:

"Traditional scientific method unfortunately has never gotten around to saying exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses. The scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past".

Let's see what might happen if we used objectivism as our reasoning guide in the "boat people crisis" as various newspapers are reporting the arrival of Afghan and Sri Lankan refugees by boat into Australian waters. 

(As an aside - it is interesting to see the language being used - "boat people" has become objectified as a "crisis". In Marxist terms, this is called 'fetishising' ie. the story of the boats arriving have become a 'crisis' because the various media have written about it in that way, not because it really is a crisis, but because it suits their object of selling papers or stories given that it becomes a political issue if they fetishise it enough. Note this technique applies equally across all theoretical perspectives about knowing - not just objectivism).

But let's return to objectivism as our reasoning guide - in order to know about the "boat people crisis", objectivism would propose that the "boat people crisis" is a product or object with no social history, but with inherent meaning waiting to be discovered through experimentation. This would involve the researcher (or you as the curious person wanting to know about things) taking an objective view (ie. no prior assumptions about the object or what might happen) by isolating variables to control and measure. The "crisis" would need to be reconceived in such a way as to be represented by particular artefacts which can be more easily measured and which probably suit the purpose of the researcher eg. 

• how many boats? 
• how much accommodation is available? 
• how many died on the voyage? 
• how long does it take to process each person?
• how does this affect the popularity of the current government policy?
• and so on and so on...

You can see that the objectivist reasoning guide is represented by lots of 'how' type questions. This type of question makes it easy to quantify the representation of the "crisis" because numbers are easy to count and easy to report and make comparisons with. This type of analysis is most often reported by the media outlets because it can be presented as 'fact'. What the objectivist reasoning guide does is certainly useful in a limited way, but of course only represents part of the whole story. The representation of the "crisis" as a series of 'how'  questions is reductionist and sacrifices the gifts of significance, relevance and complexity to the gods of the easily measured.
The objectivist treatment does not ask "why" questions because they cannot be verified or falsified using the tools of positivism. As a result, the types of 'solutions' offered by the objectivist treatment are limited in scope to answering the 'how' questions eg:

• "We can reduce the number of boats arriving by turning them back before they enter Australian waters"
• this has already been shown to be unrealistic with insufficient detection capacity
• easily verified
• "Christmas Island cannot provide sufficient accommodation to house the arriving people"
• no argument and easily verified
• "There is a need to move the people to mainland sites or create other off-shore processing centres"
• The mathematics of numbers makes this easily verified.

I could go on but you get the idea. As Pirsig points out above, the scientific method "...can't tell you where you ought to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past..." ie. answering questions of 'how' does not allow scope for a change of thinking as it does not allow a challenge of the original thinking of: 

• "the high numbers of boat people arriving in Australian waters is bad - how can we decrease the numbers arriving?"

It does not challenge that dictum by asking "why" type questions for example:

• why are such high numbers of people leaving their home country?
• why is Australia a seemingly preferred destination for at least some of the people?

Maybe a Subjectivist treatment might? The next post will look at how that might pan out.

Beaudesert to Brisbane

Wednesday 7th July:
Rest day at Beaudesert with Mum and Gerard. Coffee at Everyday's Cafe and catch up with changes in my hometown. Weather closed in again in the afternoon with some heavier rain. Got in touch with "Transit Queensland" (ph: 13 12 30) about how we could use public transport to get to Brisbane. The old train service is no longer in operation. There is a bus service (6.00am, 9.00am and 3.30pm - buy ticket at bus door) but it does not take bicycles. So we hoped that the weather cleared and we could ride onto Brisbane in the morning.

Thursday 8th July:
Beaudesert (7.20am and 0km) - Jimboomba (8.30am and 24km) - Moorooka (11.30am and 60km) - Ascot (1.20pm and 73km) - Brisbane Airport Novotel Hotel (3.30pm and 79km).
Ride time = 4hrs 46 mins
Trip distance = 78.76km
Average speed = 16.5km/h
Max speed = 52.7km/h.

Well the morning dawned fine 'ish and we headed off into cool grey skies and a great coffee shop at Jimboomba - can't remember the name of it Cascade maybe? - good coffee, scones. The road has a great verge to here and we had a tailwind all the way. The roads from here on have changed quite a bit. Just after the Jimboomba Creek, there is a Service Road that runs all the way to the Logan River bridge at Maclean and is traffic free. Back onto the highway for a few kms and then the new 4 lane road kicks in from Park Ridge onwards. Unfortunately the amount of glass on the verge for the next 20 km or so was astounding! Tania got a flat front tyre here - our first and only flat for the entire trip.
We followed Beaudesert Road all the way into Moorooka High Street for lunch at the bakery - excellent salad rolls. From here onwards, we used the footpaths quite a bit as our friendly wide road verge was now gone. This makes for much slower but much safer riding. We passed the "Clem 7 Tunnel" via a new bike bridge and continued along Annerley Road (as Beaudesert Road becomes) over the bike path on the Story Bridge on the Brisbane River and stopped here for photos.

Amazing how many apartments are now built along the river here - looks a bit like Glasgow.

We used footpaths to get across to Breakfast Creek and then Kingsford Smith Drive. We called in on Lynne's mum at Ascot for great conversation and a cup of tea before battling the traffic on the East-West Arterial Road to get to the Novotel at the Airport - great location and double-glazed windows make for a quiet room. Unfortunately they are the only place for dinner unless you have a car to get over to Hamilton or eleswhere - there are plenty of shops nearby in the DFO complex but all the food shops are only open for breakfast and dinner. DFO itself is open 10-6.
Met up with Vick and Nev for dinner and laughs at Hamilton Wharf (cinemas and restaurant complex) and hit the sack about 10pm. There is no shuttle bus to the airport (unusual for an airport hotel!).

Friday 8th July:
Up early to pack the bikes back into their bags and a relaxed breakfast at the Coffee Club - their House Toast is excellent value at $4.00. Checked out and ordered a maxi-taxi to take us to the VirginBlue terminal ($27.50!) to catch our flight back to Sydney (Virgin were 1hr late this time!).
A great trip though way too short - I was just getting some fitness into the legs and now its over until next time.

Hopkins Creek to Beaudesert

Tuesday 6th July:
Hopkins Creek (7.45am and 0km) - Border Gates (9.00am and 15km) - Cedar Lake (11.00am and 50km) - Canungra (1.00pm and 65km) - Beaudesert (3.15pm and 92km).
Ride time = 6hrs 10 mins
Average Speed = 15 km/h
Max speed = 71 km/h

Tough ride today testing legs and our ability to find somewhere for coffee! Not many shops between these two places.
Headed off from Hopkins Creek down the hill to the Numinbah Road and then straight into the 10 km climb up to the Border Gates to Queensland.

Gentle undulating 25 km of riding from here to the start of the Hinze Dam bypass where it gets quite hilly for 10km or so. Wouldn't have minded a coffee at Natural Bridge Cafe (closed!) and certainly at least a drink at Numinbah Valley cafe (also closed!) but we had to wait until the Cedar Lake Resort at the 50km mark at 11.00am for any sustenance - Gatorade and ice cream. Roads were good with little traffic and decent verge most of the way and great scenery - apparently the traffic situation however is quite different on a weekend.
From here we rode up past the Beechmont turn-off (another time we might do the loop around there) and made a left onto Clagiraba Road and rode over Mt Clagiraba - this has got a couple of decent hill climbs on it but cuts off about 4km than if you went right around to the Canungra turn-off just before Nerang. This road has also been sealed since last time we rode it which has made it easier to ride but it now carries a bit more traffic than I remember.
Turned onto the Gorge Road and rode the final 15km or so into Canungra - this road is again pretty hilly with one hill in particular about 5km out of Canungra just about got us off to walk! We were also starving and having coffee withdrawal symptoms so lunch in Canungra was fantastic. Tania had a Salmon Salad wrap and I had a Greek Salad at the motorbike cafe - excellent service and food with toilet attached.

As the weather started to close in a bit - some mizzling and rain along the 35km to Beaudesert. Took the Wonglepong turn-off (cuts off about 8km) to cut across to the Beaudesert-Beenleigh road - very little traffic, a short (1km) section of good dirt road and get to ride past where my grandfather used to own a farm here at Biddadaba. We used our front and rear lights all the way from here to Beaudesert as it was getting quite dark even though it was only around 3.00pm but the main road was pretty busy. Lots of trucks use both the Gorge Road to Canungra and the road into Beaudesert. At least the road verge isn't too bad.
We were glad to ride into my mum's place at about 3.30pm and get off the road - a great day's ride but pretty tough going at times.

Home to Hopkins Creek

Friday 2nd July:
Caught the 4.53 train with the bikes in their GroundEffect bags for the airport. The bags worked out well with partially dismantled bike and one pannier carrying helmet, pedals, tools, waterbottles etc. Checked in at VirginBlue and my bike weighed 19kg and Tania's weighed 16kg. We were going to have our second pannier as hand-luggage but checked them in as well as we didn't really need it on the plane. The check-in lady said that they are pretty lenient anyway with sports equipment up to another 5kg over the 23kg limit we bought with the ticket.

Got into the Gold Coast (45 mins late!) at about 10.45pm and caught a taxi to the Greenmount Resort - taxi situation with bikes was so well organised at the airport - there are staff there who call the taxis for you and line people up to suit taxis to destinations - brilliant!
The Resort room (1013) was very good as was the breakfast next day. The room was $150 for two with full breakfast in a "sea-view" room and I can recommend it with very friendly staff. Had a second breakfast with Veronica at the Surf Club next door because it had a great view up to Surfers Paradise.

Saturday 3rd July:
I assembled the bikes in the room while Tania went for a swim and then took various bike paths and coffee shops to get to Kingscliff - about 24 km. We went via Fingal Heads and Chinderah both of which provide some easy riding and great views.
Total Km = 27.47km
Average Speed = 12.31 km/h
Max Speed = 34.42 km/h
Riding between 10.30 and 2.00pm

Sunday 4th July:
Headed off about 9.30 and went via bike paths to Cabarita Beach and then over Clothiers Creek Road to the Art Gallery at Murwillumbah (11.30am and 34km and hilly at times but quiet roads). Scones and coffee for morning tea and a look at the picture window and then on towards Tyalgum (24km) along quiet roads again and very scenic around Mt Warning.

Stopped for an ice-cream at Flutterbies cafe - it was packed for late lunches (2.00pm) and then over to Chillingham by 2.50pm and up to the farm on Hopkins Creek by 3.35pm. 77km all up and quite hilly in parts and we were ready to stop. Great day's riding in beautiful country over pretty quiet country roads.
Route:
Kingscliff (0km) - Cabarita Beach (15km) - Murwillumbah (34km) - Tyalgum (58km) - Chillingham (70km) - Hopkins Creek (77km).
Riding Time: 4hrs 38 mins.
Average Speed: 16.52 km/h
Max Speed: 68.5 km/h

Monday 5th July:
Monday was a rest day at Hopkins Creek with Adrian and Lesley along with entertainment provided by Lochie and Mihaiela.

Mihaiela

Lochie

Food was also on the agenda of course!

And Lochie had a good play with the iPhone...

Katoomba and Sun Valley

Stayed up late watching the ever-so-promising, but ultimately grindingly-boring, World Cup game between Portugal and Brazil and so missed riding with Tania up to Katoomba this morning. The roadworks through Lawson can now be circumnavigated using new bike/foot paths but Wentworth Falls is still problematic. Cold and drizzly from there up but 2.5 hours up was pretty good going and a total of 73km.
I fitted the V-Strom brake pads and then did a hills run with two laps of Sun Valley and one lap of Endeavour Drive for a hilly total of 31km. The new Continental tyres are superb and finally I have a speedo which works reliably - its a Sigma BC1106 from CellBikes online. A wired one with good contrast for reading by my failing short eyesight.
We also did another test ride at night to the shops at Winmalee the other night to make sure all our lights are OK - Tania's Petzl helmet light is as bright as any car headlight.

Rear Brake Pad Replacement DL-650

Well it was supposed to be pretty straightforward - just follow the manual (free download) on page 7-69 - until some retaining spring fell out of the caliper housing and the manual didn't mention or show it in order to return it to its proper spot.

My somewhat blurred photo (sorry about that) shows where it is supposed to sit - this took me about an hour of testing different spots to find this but in the end it only goes in one way and works (I think) to stop the pads lifting under braking. I initially reassembled without it and went away and thought about it and then came back and had another go at finding where it goes.
BTW - the manual recommends only undoing the rear caliper bolt and leaning the housing forward to remove and refit the pads but this is how I knocked the retaining spring out in the first place in trying to refit the new pads. I thinks its easier (now that I've stuffed it up and fixed it!) to remove both caliper bolts and lift the whole assembly off, clean everything up, locate the new pads and then drop the caliper over the top of them. I also had to press the piston of the brake back out to accommodate the new pads - easiest way was to fit the outside pad, drop caliper on top and then press on the piston housing (the big circular bit labeled Nissin) until there is enough room to fit both pads).
I fitted EBCFA174HH pads for $55 from Western Motorcycles in Penrith.

The grubby world of politics - Rudd v Gillard

I think it was a very dark day for politics generally in Australia – the female side of things is not relevant except that historically men (who generally run the back rooms and are the power-brokers) put a women up to run the show when they can’t find a credible male. Thatcher, Keneally, Bligh are all examples of this. They are not expected to save the show really but if they do well that’s a bonus.

This seems to me to be more about grubby deals to try to hang on to power rather than an honest attempt to run the country better – if they spent as much time in running the country and consulting with the right people at the right time as they do in plotting to keep power, wouldn’t the world be a wonderful place?

The media has played a disgraceful role in the lead-up to this. The Sydney Morning Herald has seemed to run a hate campaign against the State and Federal Labor and has taken every opportunity to whip up frenzy around leadership speculation and poor performances on selected issues – building education revolution, roof insulation, and completely disregarding amazing achievements like financial management, health reform, tax reform.

I think Kevin Rudd was given a mandate by the people to make change and yet he was thwarted at every turn by the Senate and the procession of opposition leaders (except Malcolm Turnbull – I still fancy him as being a good prime minister). What this does is disenfranchise voters who thought they had done the right thing and said what they wanted and yet are thwarted by an unelected bunch of party power brokers.

Young voters – eg my 17 and 20 year old sons – are completely uninterested in any of this as they see it as being irrelevant to them – just a bunch of old fuddy-duddys who are over-paid and over-empowered (a bit like football players really!).

If we, as a country, are not careful, the federal government will turn into an impotent government because the whole system on which it is based is out-dated, unrepresentative and therefore irrelevant.

So what should happen? I think the representative system is failing our modern way of life and people (male and female) who are in the system are just fighting about power and not fighting for our country and the people who can’t fight for themselves. That’s why you are a politician – to help people who can’t help themselves!

Sorry for the rant but it makes me very angry that all people are focusing on is the female aspect which is completely irrelevant – it is the system that has failed and has been failing for some time.

And lastly – what about the loss of Lindsay Tanner? I have always fancied him as a person of high integrity and extremely well-spoken. I am pleased in some ways to see that he is not involved in any of yesterday’s grubby politics and will walk away but not pleased in other ways that the country has lost the skill and thinking of such a person.

Graham West – State Labor Minister for Jails etc – resigned recently and said that he was so frustrated by politics and that he felt he could achieve way more outside of politics than he could by staying. If that’s not an indictment of how the present government system is failing the people it was put there to support, then I don’t know what is.

Penrith Run today

We were up early watching the England-Algeria World Cup match (why did I bother? Honestly 0-0 is not worth the lack of sleep!) and so headed off soon after sunrise to Penrith for a spot of haircutting, good coffee and bike bits shopping. I test drove the new CellBikes nicks and leg warmers as it was about 3 degrees in Emu Plains as we went through.
The nicks were disappointing I have to say - there are seams in the seat pad where there shouldn't be seams and so ended up being quite uncomfortable. The leg warmers however were excellent once I worked out that the top part of them go underneath the leg-grippers of the nicks. My legs have never been so warm on a cold ride.
The new Continental CitySport tyres were superb - they really do roll quite a bit quicker than the Schwalbe Marathons - about 7km/h down a typical rolling hill so it is significant. I doubt whether they'll be as good on less smooth roads but we'll see.
Went to Anaconda Outdoor shop in Penrith and bought 4x26x1.25 tubes and finally got round to replacing my laces in the Shimano SPD shoes - they were still the originals after 6 years so not bad really. Found some 3mm purple climbing rope and got them to cut it into 2x2metre lengths - perfect laces.
Went on to Blackman's Bicycles and got some EBC green replacement rear brake pads for $35 (resin) - fitted when I got home as the originals were had it. Bought a spare Shimano XTR gear cable (teflon and stainless steel) as well $16.
Mitchell's Pass is a fantastic bike route down the mountain from Glenbrook now that it is closed to all traffic. We use it to go down and back from Emu Plains now - much safer and quicker than the usual Lapstone Hill route.
All up about 52km and with shopping in Springwood on the way home to see Ben at work we were home by 12:30.

Connecting with Uni of Fiji

I've got an opportunity to work with a friend in Fiji who used to work with me at Parramatta a few years back. He is now the Head of the Education Department at the University of Fiji and is keen to get some help with the Master of Teaching degree and the PostGraduate Diploma in Teaching course especially in relation to the Teacher as a Researcher - using Action Research and Technologies to enhance reflection by teachers when they consider their performance.
Still working out the details but it is very exciting to get back into some intellectual activity again. I'm keen to see how a blend of face-to-face and online supports might work to help students work through the course. I'd like to use something like Moodle to plan the program and then make it available to various people to test it as a pedagogy. Any volunteers?

Equipment Update

I've put the CitySport Continentals on and they look fantastic and very thin at 1.3. I need to get narrower tubes now to suit - the current ones are 1.75 and way too big. The Online Store at CellBikes came through with courier delivery of the order in 4 working days - its only coming from around Auburn somewhere so I'm not sure that its terribly swift but as I said before, the price is right.

The Queensland Tour July 2010

Its been a while but we at last have another ride coming. Flying with the bikes up to the Gold Coast - riding to Kingscliff, Hopkins Creek, Beaudesert and then up to Brisbane and fly home from there - about a week all up early in July and about 3-400km with some stiff climbs.
We have booked with VirginBlue and paid for 23kg of luggage (an extra $10 on top of a 'carry-on baggage' fare). I'll pack the bikes into the Ground Effect bags (called a 'Body Bag') we've had for a while - these are good because you can easily fit the bikes in (take off front wheel and turn handlebars) and upon reassembly at the airport, the bag folds up into about an A4 size to fit into the pannier ready for next time.
I've also found some narrower tyres to test out for this trip - we used Schwalbe Marathons for Germany and the Snowies and they were fantastic but slow. Tania's bike is going to use Hutchinson Protect Air Top Slick 2 front and back - they're a 26x1.2 and so quite narrow compared to the Marathons at 1.5. They're dearer though at $58 compared to about $45 for the Marathons. My bike is going to have a set of Continentals (Sport Contact) at 26x1.3 - these look pretty good and a bitter wider to carry my fatness! They are also dear at about $65RRP but through CellBikes they are normally on some sort of special at about $48. CellBikes aren't the quickest mail order mob I've dealt with but the price is right.
We arrive in the Gold Coast at about 10pm so we've looked into some lights for this trip as well. Tania went for the Petzl helmet light from Paddy Pallin in Katoomba for about $100 (become a member and get it cheaper) - she has used it for camping and riding so far and found it to be quite OK. She already has a blinking LED rear light. I went the cheap option from KMart for a headlight - its a Huffy brand white LED device that clips to the handlebar with a variety of flashing and still options as well as 'economy' mode. I haven't really given it a test yet so I'll await that before commenting. I also bought a Tioga rear light (Big Eye) and it is very bright and visible from a much wider angle than other plain LED rear lights I've seen. Lots of the rear LED lights I see on the road are best visible only when you are directly behind the light.
Doing some training in SunValley and the Hawkesbury Bends to get some hill work into the legs and looking forward to getting out on the road again. It is such a great feeling being able to use only leg-power to travel hundreds of kilometres.