Overlooked posts in 2020 that I consider worth a look

These are the posts which don’t show up in the list of top posts that I consider are worth a further look:

• Reflections on War
  Growing up as a kid, my favourite Uncle was a man (Uncle Clive) who had a gentle sense of humour. Unlike the other rellies, he would never push a joke too far, whereas the others would not notice when something had gone from funny to upsetting. He also had been what was derided as “a choco” in Papua-New Guinea (PNG), at that time an Australian territory (two, technically), during World War Two - a chocolate soldier, or member of Australia’s Citizen Military Force (CMF), what is now generally referred to as our Reserve Army, which is the way a small standing force is enlarged during times of war.
  He had a joke about his time in the CMF as well. After they finally got tin helmets (they were underequipped and undertrained, partly because they were initially allowed to go to PNG only for non-combat purposes - so they were meant to build roads, defences, etc, but they were not supposed to actively fight, but that decision was taken away by the Japanese  invasion of PNG), he said they should have two, because when they went  into combat, their face was buried so deeply in the mud their backside was what stuck up most, and it should have a tin helmet of its own.
  He was, in my view, a lovely man, and we kids all loved him.
  He also told me that they “didn’t always bring back prisoners” during their time fighting in the jungle.
   . . .
• Some brief thoughts on change, protests and repression
  Building on my previous post, there have been violent protests in a number of places around the world of late - you can see maps of this here, and in various human rights reports.
  To egregiously over-simplify, typically a despot or authoritarian person who is s*** scared of difference or anything which even hints of disorder, let alone chaos, does something repressive (say, arrests an opposition figure, or sets police onto peaceful protestors, or weakens or denies democracy in some way), possibly does that for many years, and those being repressed, being human, may snap and react out of anger, hate, or fear.
  We are currently rehabilitating a dog that was egregiously abused by her former "owners", and she sounds aggressive in any circumstance that she feels threatened or unsafe in. It is a reaction akin to the military notion of "offence is the best form of defence", and is something that happens to some people when they are afraid.
  That is, in fact, one of the fight, flight, freeze, or network and nurture responses, after all. (It is amazing how many men refuse to include that fourth aspect - is it too far out of their repertoire of responses? If yes, they should never be allowed to have a relationship or any children, IMO. * )
  This is also part of the responses by the lyin45ettes (my term for supporters of POTUS45) - incidentally, on them, see here.
  Such reactions are human ... and as ineffective as the incompetent (non)responses I wrote about in my previous post.
   . . .
• More thoughts on human rights
  Recently, a staggering incident of duplicity and/or racism was exposed when a court was shown CCTV footage that may clear an Indigenous man of the assault police had charged him with - footage the police claimed did not exist. If it was not duplicity or racism, it was an equally staggering level of professional incompetence. Given that state's history of racism generally, I doubt it was incompetence. The article on that incident is here. The man has been bailed, and the court case is continuing - with the judge having questioned the conduct of police and prosecutor.
  In contrast to that, activities for Human Rights Day at my company included circulating this link, to a splendid and inspiring video on inclusion and diversity that every single police officer in the world - everywhere - should be compelled to watch multiple times every day.
  Next, a couple of calls for new human rights.
   . . .
• Backlash and other thoughts
  One of the many problems of the world relying on minorities to fight their own battles is that we do not have the resources to fight the bigger battles - things like ensuring students in school are EFFECTIVELY taught anti-racism, the truth around gender variety, how not to be sexist, and so on.
  I want to be perfectly clear on that: if a child continues to be racist, sexist or transphobic, their education has been a failure - this is not one of those situations where it is about expressing a different opinion: if children grow up with racist, sexist, transphobic or other failings they are morally as much of a failure as a mass murderer, because that is what they are often doing.
  If you doubt that, look at police killings of people of colour, the murders of women that are misnamed "honour" killings, and the abuse of transphobic people that leads to suicide.
  Teachers need to disabuse themselves of the notion that they are only passing on intellectual skills and abilities: they are active influences on children
   . . .
• Why can't a woman . . .
  There is an infamous line in the play and film "My Fair Lady" where the main antagonist, the at-that-stage still misogynistic Professor Higgins, asks:
  "Why can't a woman . . . be more like a man?"
  It was a patronising, paternalistic remark that sums up many of the problems in society - and I'd like to touch now on how that applies to engineering.
   . . .
• Some thoughts on governance
  Let’s begin this with what would seem to most people to be an absurdity: a family that is run as a business is.
  In this absurdist example, children are not cherished and nurtured, they are “held to account” for the amount of profit they make - they have to reduce their costs, and generate increasing amounts of income. Children are not a joy: they are a burden to be brought to productivity as soon as possible. The profit does not stay within the family, it goes elsewhere - maybe previous generations living in other houses, or, if we were to extend this analogy to include takeovers, those who owned the family being considered in this absurdist example (i.e., slaves).
  It would be psychologically abusive, unhealthy, destructive, and - to use a weasel word - “inappropriate”. It would not be a family,
   . . .
• A draft proposal for a "gold standard" for inclusion and diversity
  I've had some time to do some thinking of late, and have a few posts lined up. This first one is, as the title states, a draft proposal for a "gold standard" for inclusion and diversity. I've come across the term "gold standard in a wide range of contexts, but it basically means (in the sense I'm using) the best of something - specifically, in this instance, inclusion and diversity for organisations.
   . . .
• A (non)reaction problem: "testimony" by "Mellissa Carone"
  This week saw some - in the words used a fair bit in the more rational and credible sections of the USA - "testimony" by someone named Mellissa Carone that was "lacking in credibility". Actually, I think the phrase was "utterly lacking in credibility".
  It did, indeed lack credibility, it harmed whatever #45 thought his team would do, and it was a waste of everyone's time.
  The unfortunate Congressperson trying to deal with this infantile behaviour was generally praised - certainly in everything I've come across. Personally, I think he looked a bit like a stunned mullet - it was, after all, a bit like turning up to a launch of a Saturn rocket and having someone say "the flames won't hurt me - they're all fake", and then stand right underneath just before the engines ignite while everyone else is kilometres away.
  But the problem is, she is not alone.
   . . .
• How does one distinguish the baby from the bathwater?
  Sounds ridiculous, put like that, doesn't it? And yet it is a useful saying: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. It means: don't overreact, don't get rid of what is good while also addressing a problem.
  In real life, however, the problem is that distinguishing what is baby, and what is bathwater, is not necessarily clear cut.
   . . .
• A new term: FBU - Flummoxed By (the) Unfamiliar
  I've written up a definition of a term I will probably start to use more (created for my upcoming autobiography). The main listing is on a glossary site of mine at https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2020/05/fbu-flummoxed-by-unfamiliar.html , and the text is below.
   . . .