A Free Man

Deep South Smack Talk continues this week as the hated Tennessee Volunteers roll out of the hills of east Tennessee and into an almost certain ass kicking at the hands of my beloved Georgia Bulldogs. Those of you who have been reading A Free Man for a while may remember the humiliation visited upon my entire clan last October by The Vol Abroad. This picture will certainly jog your memory. What started off as a bit of harmless expat trash talking, escalated to a wager and then to a full on feud. You can take the SEC football fans out of the South, etc. It all ended quite badly for Boy Z, Timmins and I.

Well, for the last 370 days I have been plotting my vengeance. But alas, it is not to be. The Vol Abroad, despite being a graduate of the University of Tennessee, is not a fool. She’s demurred on my challenge to repeat last year’s bet, so the world will have to wait to see Buddy in glorious red and black. She has agreed to write up a guest post, attempting to sing the praises of the hapless Tennessee Volunteers who have a date for destruction in Athens this weekend. 

Visitors get the first shot here, so let’s see what The Vol Abroad has to say in defense of her hillbilly orangemen:

My grandfather was one of the finest men I ever met.  He believed in temperance and civic duty and going to church on Sunday (and Wednesday) and looking a man in the eye.  And he believed in the Tennessee Volunteers.  I’m not so much on the church going or the temperance, but I managed to absorb the love of the Vols. And this is something I’m passing on to my sixteen month old son.

As a third generation graduate of the University of Tennessee on both sides of my family and with both my degrees coming from that hallowed institution, there was never any other place for me to put my fan love.  Cut me, and I do bleed orange.

But my British husband, who’s described on my blog as the Vol-in-Law, is merely a Volunteer by marriage.  He also has a family tradition in higher education.  He’s a third generation graduate of Oxford University.

So Buddy has inherited rival traditions.  Oxford on the one hand, and Tennessee on the other.  But what kind of love can a boy have for Oxford? As far as I know, their only major sporting event is the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. Go Dark Blues? Beat the Light Blues?   Sure, I guess it’s ok to dress up and stroll around the Thames with a Pimms in hand.  But that hardly compares to joining almost 100,000 fellow fans dressed in orange and singing Rocky Top, over and over and over again in a manner guaranteed to raise a migraine in the skull of any opposing fan.

But of course, as an expat, I don’t have the societal reinforcement of SEC football fandom, but I’m doing my best to raise him right. Dressing him in orange, teaching him to say ‘Go Vols’, trying to lull him to sleep with Rocky Top (bad idea), giving him little Smokey toys to play with and ensuring that he gets sufficient doses of Vol Network internet radio coverage.  He may be the only boy in the world whose baby album features a picture of the baby of a Georgia fan dressed in Tennessee Orange because his daddy lost a bet.  Before he attends his first football game at Neyland Stadium, he’ll know every word of Rocky Top, he’ll know about running through the T, and he’ll understand the Volunteer grumble in a bad season.  And he’ll hate, hate, hate Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

Yep, I’m raising my boy right.

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Maybe this isn’t the best year to be laying down the smack talk about football.  My beloved Tennessee Volunteers don’t seem to be having their finest season.   But as our fearless leader said only last week, we’re still a work in progress and I’m sure all the fine recruiting and two-a-days in the Tennessee heat will come to fruition this Saturday when Tennessee thumps Georgia. Again.

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And in reply, speaking for the home team, your underwhelming correspondent:

Like John McCain and the economy, you’ll note that The Vol Abroad doesn’t want to talk much about football this year. Taking her cues from the G.O.P. playbook, she’s trying to turn the discussion to family values. Well that’s just fine, I think we all know what’s going to happen on the football field this Saturday, so let’s talk about family.

My family is a wandering one. I always felt a kinship with gypsies growing up and held on to the dream of dropping out of mainstream society and running away with the gypsies until about the 274th time that some wild-eyed gypsy woman tried to bully me into buying a sickly geranium on the streets of Oxford.

My point is that my family hasn’t spent three generations in the same country, never mind manning the same moonshine still on some mountain side.  So for me, the University of Georgia was a choice that I made with clear eyes and a clear head. I wanted to attend the finest educational institution that the South had to offer, so there was no real decision to be made when I received an acceptance letter with an Athens postmark*.

Now, we’re half a world away from Old Georgia and chances are that Boy Z may not follow in his father’s educational footsteps in the same way that I didn’t follow in hos grandfather’s.  Boy Z may never walk under the Arches as a student, may never study in the shade of the oaks on North Campus, may never sit with his classmates in Sanford Stadium sweating in polyester gowns under the brutal June sun.

But I will guaran-damn-tee you two things. First, he will be the biggest Georgia Bulldogs fan in Australia, at least until he gets old enough to rebel. Even then as long as he doesn’t cheer for Tennessee or Florida, it’ll be OK**. Second, one day he will walk into Sanford Stadium with his Dad and watch the glory of the Georgia Bulldogs between the hedges. He’ll hear the roar of the crowd, the sound of 90,000 plus voices barking a kick-off, he’ll hear the Red Coat Band play “Glory, Glory”.

And on Sunday morning he’ll sit with me as we listen to the Georgia Bulldogs dismantle the Tennessee Volunteers.

Now, let’s talk just a little about the real issue: the game. It’s personal after the beat down that The Vols put on us last year and the humiliation that was visited upon myself, my son and my dog. Fortunately for A Free Man’s honor, it looks like a good year for revenge. Tennessee is 2 - 3 on the year with losses to a hapless UCLA team, a sub-par Auburn team and an overrated Florida team. Their wins have come against UAB and, in a squeaker, Northern Illinois. The Vols offense is ranked 107th out of 119 Division 1 teams. Now, admittedly, Georgia was not impressive against Alabama two weeks ago, but the boys in red and black have had two weeks to stew in their embarassment. Tennessee has taken us apart for the last two years and it’s time for revenge. If the Dawgs can’t get up for this game, then they just can’t get up full stop.

We’re doing all we can for the Dawgs from half a world away. As you can see in that photo above, Boy Z and I went out and made a sacrifice to Nemesis, the Greek goddess of revenge. That kangaroo was the closest thing we could find to a fleabitten, mangy coon hound. And if you listen carefully on Saturday afternoon, you’ll hear us singing:

Glory, glory to old Georgia!
Glory, glory to old Georgia!
Glory, glory to old Georgia!
G-E-O-R-G-I-A.

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Tennessee at Georgia kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (6:00 a.m. Sunday Adelaide or 8:30 p.m. London). It’s televised on CBS in the States. CBS offers the game for free online but ONLY IN THE U.S. Damn you, CBS! The Vol Abroad was working on a hack, perhaps she’ll let us know if she sorted it out. Otherwise, it’s internet radio for the expat fans.

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Ryan Adams’ “Demolition” is available from .

Vol fan in horror borrowed from Hey Jenny Slater (excellent Dawg site).

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* For sticklers for the truth, this is actually a longer story and thus not strictly true. The whole, longwinded tale can be found here.

** If he ever cheers for Tennessee or Florida or becomes a vegan, I’m kicking his ass out.

 

 Ryan Adams - "Tennessee Sucks" [2:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Some of you probably know that one of my jobs right now is teaching Biotechnology at one of Adelaide’s universities. I’m currently working on my next lecture, which is supposed to cover Comparative Genomics and Human Origins - evolution. By working on my lecture, of course, I mean working on a blog post about working on my lecture. This is not meant to be a controversial post. It is not a post about evolution vs. creationism, I’ve been there and done that and have the scars to prove it. Nor is this a post  about Sarah Palin and her fundamentalist beliefs, that all got a bit controversial. Nope, this post was inspired by my predilection to procrastination and stumbling on this post from Genomicron about evolution and creationism in the classroom. My interest piqued and justified by the vaguely topical nature of the post led me to this special issue of Integrative & Comparative Biology which in turn sucked up the bulk of my afternoon.

Before we get too far into this, let’s get some things straight. Science and religion, as Linda Kondrick points out in her ICB paper, are ways of knowing, ways of interpreting human experience, ways of defining ‘truth’. However, the two disciplines rely on entirely different logical approaches. Religion is deductive, beginning with a “known” - a sacred text or divine revelation - to explain what we see around us. Science is inductive, beginning with observations of the human experience and building a model to explain those observations. I’m not making a judgment on which approach is better, but I’m guessing most of you know where my allegiances lie.

Evolution at its most basic is descent with modification, the theory that the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution is not “just a theory” but a critical principle of biology. As Lovely and Kondrick eloquently put it in their ICB paper, it “is the backbone, the beautiful and efficient explanation for why organisms today are different from organisms in the past and why there is such an amazing diversity of fascinating biological organisms with awe inspiring lifestyles and body plans.” Evolution is basically the same kind of theory as gravity.

Creationism and intelligent design are effectively and legally identical. According to the creationist Discovery Institute, ID is the assertion that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” The courts have recently ruled that ID is essentially the offspring of “creation science”, which was outlawed from American public schools by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. Effectively, they are the same theory - that an Intelligent Designer (a Christian God) is responsible for the variation that we see in life. As Barbara Forrest reports in her ICB paper, despite claims by proponents that “ID is not based on religion”  they freely admit that their ”natural constituency” is Christians. Despite couching ID in pseudo-scientific language and making a cursory attempt to include some scientific data (generally taken out of context), ID is at its heart dependent on a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Science educators are increasingly finding it difficult to effectively teach evolution. The challenge that is presented to scientists and to science educators is that we are not effectively teaching and communication the principle of evolution to students and the lay public. As I wrote in my previous post, a shocking percentage of the American public doubt that evolution has occurred at all. Lest you think its an American problem, a 2006 Ipsos MORI survey in the UK found that only 48% of Britons thought that evolution best explained their origin and the variation of life that they see around them. High school and university educators increasingly report problems when it comes to covering evolution in their courses. Lovely & Kondrick write of a “wedge effect” among college students who come into a semester long Biology course undecided about evolution. At the end of the course, about half of the students shifted to a scientific viewpoint but the other half shifted towards a creationist viewpoint. So, despite being presented with overwhelming evidence supporting the principle of evolution, students are as likely to choose the invalid creationist viewpoint, even moreso when dealing with questions of human ancestry.

Clearly we are failing as educators when it comes to teaching evolution and we’re failing as scientists in communicating about evolution to the lay community. We can not assume that because we know that something is true and not a matter for debate that everyone believes that something is true and not a matter for debate. Forrest correctly points out that as scientists, parents and citizens it is our duty to counteract ID whenever and wherever possible. Our expertise is valuable whether it be in working with teachers, testifying to school board or local councils or wherever the opportunity arises. Scientists who are also educators bear a bigger obligation. The consensus of the ICB papers was that our current teaching methods, particularly in terms of evolution are dated and ineffective. Craig Nelson proposed the most sweeping changes, stating his belief that “traditional ways of teaching are inferior” and proposes the alternative approach of combining extensive use of interactive engagement and a focus on critical thinking in science to help students compare their initial misconceptions with scientific conceptions. Nelson supports a peer driven approach, with lots of student interaction and replacing “recipe” practicals with “inquiry labs”. This all sounds a bit chaotic to me, particularly if you’re unfortunate enough to be a high school teacher, but his point is well made and Nelson offers extensive resources to make changes toward “interactive learning”.

Kevin Padian proposes similar sweeping curriculum changes in his ICB paper. Padian feels that the biggest problem we face is with the textbooks available. For general biology in both high school and college, the most popular texts do not dedicate much space to evolution as a whole and even less to macroevolution. These texts often use non-controversial language such as “many paleontologists think that birds are close relatives of dinosaurs.” The fact is that virtually every biologist has known for at least a decade that birds evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic period. The use of “many paleontologists” and “think” introduces artificial uncertainty. Padian also proposes a change in the way that evolution is graphically presented and suggests a move to “evograms” (see below and click to enlarge) that show fossil, morphological and molecular evidence in a single illustration.

I’m not likely to make a major shift in teaching style between now and my next lecture nor find a perfect new textbook, but one suggestion that Nelson and others make can be incorporated immediately. Many of us take the approach of ignoring creationism and the controversy and conflict between science and religion when teaching evolution. Fair enough, astronomers don’t have to address astrology, chemists don’t have to address alchemy. But a couple of the ICB authors have proposed addressing science, religion and the controversy head on. Now, this is ground that needs to be trodden upon lightly. If we’re derisive or supercilious about religion then we do more harm than good. We reinforce religious students preconceptions of arrogant, godless scientists. Equally important, however, is not giving any credence to creationism as a valid alternative to evolution. It is not and should not be treated as one. Michael Reiss, writing in Studies in Science Education errs too much in the direction of giving creationism undue credibility.

So when teaching evolution, there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have (hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching) and doing one’s best to have a genuine discussion. The word ‘genuine’ doesn’t mean that creationism or intelligent design deserve equal time. However, in certain classes, depending on the comfort of the teacher in dealing with such issues and the make up of the student body, it can be appropriate to deal with the issue.

I think that Reiss’ proposals go too far, as too much discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of creationism would just help to drive that metaphorical wedge. Nelson proposes teaching that rather than the false dichotomy of atheistic evolution versus religious creationism that there is a broad interfaith consensus that acceptance of evolution is compatible with faith. Kondrick proposes taking this discussion even further by exploring the historical philosophical divide between religion and science going back to a compromise brokered by Thomas Aquinas in 1252. Aquinas devised a system for resolving the disparities between the two by showing them to be philosophically complementary.

Now, Thomism may be a bit of a stretch for your average hormone riddled teenager. But the most positive feedback that I’ve gotten from my students this term is when we came of the rails a bit in a lecture about medical genomics. We started talking, in a bit more casual way, about the ethics surrounding the topic. That deviation from the standard lecture and foray into philosophizing got the students really interested, really engaged. I haven’t tested that material yet, but I’d be willing to bet that they do better on it than on anything else. Maybe breaking up a dry lecture on molecular evolution and the origin of the human species with a discussion about science and religion and the nature of truth would wake up those laggards in the back row.

Or maybe the best way to teach evolution is for me to stop fannying about and write the lecture.

Web Resources:

Understanding Evolution

Panda’s Thumb

The Butler Letter

PBS Evolution

ICB: Evolutionism vs Creationism in the Classroom

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A Free Man favorites The Black Angels’ latest record is available from .

 

 The Black Angels - "Science Killer" [4:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Trying out some more Aussie slang today. Maybe one of my Antipodean readers can tell me if I’ve got it right.

I’ve always been a fairly cliched Gen X-er - sarcastic, cynical and suspicious of excessive earnestness. But nearly a year ago, with the arrival of Baby Z, the bulk of that sardonic skepticism got left on the delivery room floor. These days if you want to see me go all soft, see my eyes well up, see me get all gooey like baked brie, all you need to do is tell me a good evocative Dad story.

Like the one that I heard on a Radio 4 podcast this morning. A Ryanair flight (useless busses with wings) from Bristol to Barcelona lost cabin pressure at its cruising altitude. The oxygen masks deployed but did not dispense oxygen and neither the pilot nor crew made any announcement as to what was happening until they got down to a ’safe’ altitude of 8,000 feet. So the passengers on the plane were subjected to a few very frightening minutes during which they had no idea whether they were going to live or die.

One of the passengers was Pen Hadow - explorer, inspiration, environmental and motivational speaker and A Free Man’s new hero - was asked later by Radio 4 if he was frightened:

“Honestly, I don’t wish to sound sort of typically stiff upper lip about it, but for the first second or so I was sort of confused, it all happened so quickly. And then when I looked at my son’s face I knew what I had to do.”

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This got to me as well, for the same softie Dad reason. If I was still uncertain about what to do on the upcoming election day, this might be enough to sway me.

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Sometimes I think I’m a masochist. As I mentioned in my last politically inclined post, I listen to a lot of podcasts from all over the political spectrums. One of these is Bill O’Reilly’s radio program (The Bill-O The Clown Show,  if you listen to Keith Olbermann). Now, I should point out that I generally listen to O’Reilly for the entertainment value - I like it when he yells at people and calls them pinheads. O’Reilly is long on vitriol and short on facts.

As long as you recognize this, you can enjoy O’Reilly’s show for the humor of it and it is an indication of what’s going on in the mind of the Far Right. The problem is that a lot of people don’t seem to reognize that O’Reilly is one of the great comics of his generation. They take him seriously. They go to him for news and analysis of the news. That’s some kind of scary. It’s not the narcissism, you get used to that, it’s the repetitiveness. O’Reilly seems to subscribe to that idea that the Right has taken on recently that if you repeat something often enough it becomes true. No spin indeed.

O’Reilly’s ranting this week has been based a lot on the current economic woes. He likes to repeat the same accusations against his bogeymen - “the liberal media”, the “Far Left loons” and “socialist Europe” who offer “cradle-to-grave entitlements, big federal apparatus, high taxation, all the things that the Democratic Party wants to introduce here in the United States”. One of his shows this week was about taxes. How the Dems want to raise everyones taxes to pay for their social entitlement programs - standard Right Wing chatter from the “independent” O’Reilly. He cites the crippling tax rates in Europe and other “socialist” countries with enititlements like single-payer health care that prevents their citizens from dying.

A lot of what O’Reilly had to say this week didn’t ring true. I’m now paying taxes in my third different country and I’ve never really felt that there was that much of a difference in the amount that I pay in taxes in any of the three. So, I decided to do a bit of research into tax rates in various countries. I used my income as a gauge and compared the individual income tax rates in a “low” tax country like the U.S. with a “socialist” country like France and a couple in between - Britain and Australia - where the tax rate is higher, but government services are more plentiful. Things like single payer health insurance, government subsidized maternity leave and generous unemployment benefits. I’m not going to tell you exactly what I make, but let’s just say it would put me solidly in the middle class. When did that happen? When did I become a member of the bourgeoisie?

• In the USA someone earning what I do would pay 28% of their salary as federal income tax. Depending on the state in which I lived, I may owe up to another 10% in state income tax. Again, depending on the state, I would pay between 0 - 10% on all goods as a sales tax. For example, if I lived in Utah (god forbid) I would pay about 33% of my income in taxes before sales tax. If I lived in California, that pre-sales tax rate would be 38%.
• In Britain, I would be paying a whopping 40% of my income in tax as well as 17.5% on top of goods that I purchase (except necessities like food).
• In that bogeyman of the right, France, I would also be paying 40% income tax rate and 19.6% of goods and services, so similar to the rate in Britain. But as in the UK, health care would cost me virtually nothing.
• In Australia, I’ll be paying 26% of my income back to the government and a surcharge of 10% on top of goods. At my income rate, I add another 1.5 % of my income that goes toward the national health service - so a grand total of 27.5% before sales tax.

So, Bill-O’s got it half right - people in “socialist” France or “capitalist” Britain do pay more to the government - but depending on what part of the U.S. you live in, not much more. And if you tack on the amount you pay for health insurance in the U.S., the amount of money you lose when you take time off for maternity leave or are unwillingly out of work and the like, I’d be willing to bet that you’re paying more.

That’s the thing, I really resented paying taxes in the U.S. because it wasn’t clear to me what they were paying for - sure, I want to support the NIH, NSF, NEA - but in 2007 nearly 20% of the federal budget went to pay for defense and an equal amount went to pay down the national debt. In the same year in Britain the top two budget items were health and education. This is why, even though my tax burden in Britain was higher, I didn’t mind paying it.

Australia was a surprise. Before you consider any government “entitlements”, I’m going to pay less in taxes in  Oz than I would be in the U.S. Now, the Australian health care system is not as good as Britain’s or France’s. We may in fact, once Dr. O’C starts working, be required to buy private health insurance or pay an additional 1% of my salary in taxes. A Free Man, who is a big advocate of nationalized health services, was not impressed by this. Nonethess, the biggest budget item in Australia is social welfare programs. Unfortunately, number two is “general government services”, in other words the massive Aussie bureaucracy. So, Down Under, I’m paying less but maybe getting less as well.

The take home message? “You get what you pay for?” “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes?” I guess so. More importantly, be careful about what you hear, especially in this election season.  The other day, Bill-O was shouting about buying land in Ireland if Obama raised his tax rate to 60%. Now, I know you’re probably calculating whether or not it would be worth it, but let’s take a look at reality.

I looked at Obama’s website for information about his tax plan. Unfortunately, it is notably lacking in specifics, facts or hard numbers. So, Bill-O could be right as far as I know. But, the highest tax rate in the world is in Denmark at 63% and even though the Danes are the happiest people in the world, I doubt that Obama will be looking to Copenhagen for his tax policy. For comparison, I looked at McCain’s website and the Republican nominee is more specific. He says that he will lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% and will “keep the [individual] tax rate low”. These were the only numbers on either candidate’s fiscal pages. Unfortunately, McCain fails to point out that only the largest corporations pay a 35% tax rate.

The fact of the matter is that no matter who gets elected, most people will pay about what they paid in taxes last year. This is about what people in most of the rest of the Western world pay - plus or minus a few percentage points. What may be worth looking at is just what you’re getting for your money.

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Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Greatest Hits” is available from .

 

 Stevie Ray Vaughan - "Taxman": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The more observant (annoyingly retentive) of you may remember that I wrote a post a few weeks ago scoffing at, even mocking the Australian ‘winter’. I derided both the Aussie version of the bleak season and Aussies themselves for being fragile and delicate when the temperatures dropped below 15°C.

Well, I want to humbly retract that post. As I shivered my way to the bus stop this morning, grass crunching under my feet, I realized that Australia has a proper winter. For the last few weeks it has either been raining - and I mean raining, not drizzling, showering or sprinkling - or bright and cold. There’s no snow or bitter cold, but it’s tangibly winter. Short days, jackets, umbrellas, winter. It’s not that the winter here is terrible. No, I don’t get to the beach as I would like to, but it’s bearable. The problem is that in A Free Man’s world, winter never seems to ends.

If you’ll recall, having survived a fourth long English winter - the season that puts the blight in ‘Blighty’ - we left Britain just as the daffodils were starting to bloom. Just as the promise of spring was on the horizon, we were on a flight out of the country. After a couple of weeks in Sweden (as gloomy as Britain but with snow) and Florida (the closest I’ve seen to a summer in what seems like decades) we headed cross the equator into the Antipodean autumn. 

Eight or nine months of winter is one thing, but I’d like to argue that the ’summer’ of 2007 in Britain may as well have been a winter. It rained, rained and then, just for fun, it rained some more. The Thames came unstuck and Oxford was partially under water. Oh, and then it rained some more.  If you look at things in that glass half empty kind of way, it’s basically been winter for us since November of 2006.

As I write to you today, from my own personal Narnia, I’m beaten. I lay prostrate to the gods of winter. What will it take - a virgin sacrifice for Boreas? A snow temple to Skadi? Do I have to slay the White Witch? Because, I’m ready to do whatever it takes. Go on and get Papa’s slaying gear, Baby Z.

The good news is that there are only 39 days until the First Day of Spring. Glorious spring.

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Chet Baker’s “Chet Baker Quartet with Russ Freeman” is available from .

 

 Chet Baker - "Winter Wonderland (LP Take)" [2:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The normally reserved Dr. O’C speaks. This week, pregnancy…

So I am pregnant.  Without wanting to be.  I spend the next two weeks traveling around the U.S. for work.  I get back on a Wednesday, am expected in London for a meeting first thing Thursday, get out of bed, throw up, miss the train, go back to bed and spend the next 10 weeks feeling sick morning, noon and night.  This does nothing for my attitude towards impending motherhood.

My brain is programmed to eat when I feel nauseous. I don’t know why but it is. I found myself eating constantly. I would wake at 4 a.m., feel sick and go eat a banana or a biscuit. I called my sister, mother of two fabulous boys, told her my news (she was excited to be an aunt) and asked for her cure for morning sickness. The bitch (is that a bit harsh?) never suffered morning sickness.

I am still in shock.  I haven’t even been to see a doctor at this point.  It would somehow make it real.  When I finally do go she is a bit shocked I haven’t been to see her earlier.  Scans are booked and the pregnancy progresses.  My family is very excited by the news.  Some are shocked - one cousin said noone else getting pregnant would have shocked her more.  I am assuming she is excluding all male acquaintances and those well under child-bearing age.  We laugh and joke about this, and still the pregnancy doesn’t feel real.  We have the ultrasounds, see the heart beat, the hands, feet, head.  A little person on the screen.  The tears role down my cheek, but it isn’t joy, it is fear, a little bit of disbelief and realization that the pregnancy test wasn’t a false positive.

The next few months go by and I get bigger (at one point Chris uses the word huge, not something he will ever do again!).  I don’t really acknowledge the pregnancy.  Chris has started his blog by now and my friends contact him surprised at the news of my pregnancy.  It’s not that I didn’t want them to know, I just knew telling them would make the whole thing more real.  I continue to get up at 6:15 a.m. to walk/waddle the dog for 45 minutes.  I bike into town and back up the huge hill to our house whilst 6 months pregnant and nearly pass out as my blood pressure skyrocketed with the exertion. I work long hours and it becomes a struggle to fit my expanding waist line behind a microscope or a desk. Chris has to draw the line at me going on a work trip to Guatemala.  My mum flies in from Ireland to drag me shopping for the baby essentials. Apart from the pram, which cost more than my first car, I have no interest in pottering around baby stores and getting things like a cot or a car seat.

Chris dragged me to antenatal classes, and would bollock me on the way home for questioning the spaced out hippy who was conducting the classes in a ‘snarky’ way. When I made a ‘stork is going to bring me my baby’ joke, she didn’t even smile!I continue to push myself way too hard, ignore the fact that I am pregnant. Chris thinks I am trying to be a hero, one of those women who try to do everything just to show how hard they are.  I am not hard. I am in denial.  I continue to be in denial when my waters break walking the dog, 45 minutes after getting home from work, 9 days before my due date. Not sure how much longer this denial can last.

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Phantom Planet’s “The Guest” is available from and Amazon.

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For some time now  a number of you, have been asking to hear more from the elusive Dr. O’C. She pops into the comment stream now and again with a clever commentary. But, she’s been a bit reluctant to seriously put pen to paper (or fingertip to key), primarily because she’s rankled by my titular narcissism - “It’s afreeman.org , not ‘A Free person.com”.Well, after much cajoling, begging and badgering I’ve finally worn her down. Today marks the beginning of a (hopefully) episodic new feature here on afreeman.org- Dr. O’C speaks…

Chris has been hassling/requesting/asking kindly that I write a post for a while.  Most likely because he doesn’t have the time to keep you entertained now that he is a busy man tackling 1.5 jobs.  I warn you however - I am not a writer.  My school counselor strongly recommended that I give Year 12 English a miss if I wanted to get into University.  On a recent English quiz on the BBC I scored a pathetic 12/20 and had to have Chris (re)explain where apostrophes should be positioned at the end of words ending with ‘s’.  But, I thought I would tell you the story of my experience of motherhood so far.

I thought it was going to be hard and it is, but first let’s go back to late 2006. Chris and I had talked often about having kids, he wanted them now and I was always the one to hold off.  I loved my job, working and traveling and the baby-thing wouldn’t really fit into all that.  I also wanted my life to play out in a certain, pre-planned way and having a baby before we owned our own house or were in a country we both felt was home was insanity to me.  But somehow my sister, who works in an IVF clinic and a nurse who I went to see about refilling my prescription for The Pill, put a fear into me that it would take ages to have kids.  Two years was the time frame they were talking about.   And I thought ‘Shit, if it takes two years, I could be back in Oz with my own house, just in time to pop one out to get the $5,000 baby bonus.  I had better start cracking.  Chris, where are you?”.

I stopped taking The Pill in October 2006.  We went to Sweden for Xmas, the winter was miserable and in early January I was feeling increasingly sick and tired.  Chris came back from a trip to the US, I complained about having SAD and two days before I was due to fly to the US for work it clicked ‘Shit, I could be pregnant!’  Chris came home armed with pregnancy tests, the digital type which left no room for error.  I persuaded him to wait until the next morning when the tests are more effective.

There was one problem though.  I could not pee.  Normally my bladder wakes me up, but on this Saturday morning it wouldn’t work.  I drank enough water to overcome Australia’s drought problem but my bladder knew that I wanted to remain in denial.  If truth be told, I didn’t want to be pregnant.  When finally through risk of serious bodily injury (Chris was not impressed with my bladder) I did pee, the bloody digital stick took barely a nanosecond to light up ‘pregnant’.  Chris said “cool!” and I started to cry hysterically.  There goes my bloody plan!

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About the only two things that Tropidelic and Tafra have in common are the first letter of their names and the fact that I’ve had their records in my hands waiting for a review for far too long. Actually, one other thing that these two acts share - A Free Man digs them.

A reggae band from the shores of Lake Erie is, I daresay, a questionable prospect. So when I sat down to listen to the Kent, Ohio quintet Tropidelic, I was prepared to take their debut EP with a grain of salt. I love being surprised.

It’s not reggae, more of a dancey ska/punk hybrid with a heavy dose of Sublime. But it’s well crafted and well played music and it’s strangely addictive. I think it was the late 20th century history in the form of a ska flavored rap that is “War City” that sold me on Tropidelic.”Aquafire” is just a wonderful party track. Tropidelic isn’tbreaking new ground, but nobody is really, but they’re good at what they do and I really enjoyed the EP. A Free Man’s rating - 4/5 - go and get “Tree City Exodus” from the band for a fiver.

MP3: Tropidelic - “Aquafire”

Tafra is an entirely different kettle of fish. I got into this Swedish/Croatian Londoner during my trip to Sweden earlier this year but didn’t feature him at that point. The more I listen to his debut LP, “Why Even Bother” (Series Two), the more I am convinced that Niklas Tafra is a budding genius. He’s in the Jamie T./Jim Noir making-music-in-the-bedroom-with-a-shitty-synthesizer camp, but Tafra’s lyrics and monotone delivery set him a little bit apart. This is slacker music that makes ”Loser” era Beck look like an Harvard MBA student. He’s deliciously dry and charming in his apparent disdain for pop musical conventions. If you’re looking for something different, give Tafra a try. 4/5.

“Why Even Bother” is available for $13 (US) from Series Two.

MP3: Tafra - “Tired of London”
MP3: Tafra - “Cheesy Epic View”

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The Chapin Sisters, two of whom actually are sisters, are based out of L.A. They got a bit of attention with a cover of “Toxic” last year. What I’ve heard of their new LP “Lake Bottom” sounds pretty good - twisted Americana a la The Be Good Tanyas.

MP3: The Chapin Sisters - “Washed Away”

Speaking of Americana, the more I hear from Damien Jurado the more I am convinced that he’s one of the best songwriters around right now. This track, from his forthcoming LP “Caught In The Trees” is a perfect example. Golden.

MP3: Damien Jurado - “Gillian Was A Horse”

Clem Snide’s 2001 “The Ghost of Fashion” was a masterpiece and one that I’ve been waiting for them to improve on since. Clem Snide is gone, but Eef Barzelay has a new solo record, “Lose Big”, which ciyky sounds like Eef could be back on track.

MP3: Eef Barzelay - “Lose Big”

For those of you not in Australia, Triple J is a national radio station that is pretty good and seeking out new talent from Down Under. One of their latest contests was to find the nation’s best high school bands. Every time I here this track from Sydney trio (is), I’m just amazed that these are high school kids - and then I feel really old.

MP3: (is) - “Cult Romance” 

The Herbaliser has been making jazz influenced hip-hop out of The Big Smoke since the early 90’s. Their latest, “Same As It Never Was” sounds like it’s got a big old dose of The Big Easy as well. These guys are on tour all over the U.S. and Europe this summer.

MP3: The Herbaliser - “On Your Knees”

A little bit Pavement, a little bit Breeders, New York’s The Dig is making solid guitar based indie-rock and is out on tour suppporting their Good Luck and Games EP. They’re all over the East coast this month check them out in a town near you.

MP3: The Dig - “Lovesick Woman”

If what you are missing in your life is Sikh hip-hop, then A Free Man is here to help you out. Sukshinder Shinda is a Birningham (UK) based producer has been a major player in a scene that I never knew existed. He’s worked on over 200 records and “Living The Dream” is his fifth solo effort. I hope I don’t sound dismissive, because this is the most interesting music I’ve heard this week. Check it out if you’re a fan of M.I.A.

MP3: Sukshinder Shinda - “Aao Gidha Palay Eh”

I’ve heard lots of good things, and continually great tunes, from Seattle’s Throw Me The Statue. But nothing tickled the fancy of a self-avowed 80’s hater this week like their Huey Lewis cover. Their excellent LP “Moonbeams” is out on Secretly Canadian and look for Throw Me The Statue in Europe in October.

MP3: Throw Me The Statue - “If This Is It”

Another New York act, The Virgins, are making delightfully radio friendly funk-influenced pop. Their self-titled debut is out now on Atlantic. These guys are going to sell a lot of records.

MP3: The Virgins - “Rich Girl”

Closing things out this week is a duet from A Free Man’s favorite music scene. Portland’s The Old Believers are making sparse yet strangely melodic folk. They’re on a major tour of the Western U.S. this summer and “Eight Golden Greats” is out on July 10.

MP3: The Old Believers - “There It Is”  

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“It’s loud and tasteless
and I’ve heard it before
You shout it while you’re dancing
on the whole dance floor
Oh bop, fashion…”

-David Bowie - “Fashion”

Some of you may have thought that I’ve lost interest in Baby Z’s musical education. I’ve not done a Z’s Music Monday post in ages. It’s not that I’ve stopped playing music for him, quite the contrary, it’s just now that he’s mobile he doesn’t sit still and allow me to subject him to whole albums anymore. He also sleeps throught the night now, so there are no more Sunday pre-dawn listenings. He’s developed his Mum’s attention span - listens for a song or two and then heads off after the dog or a passing wallaby. I managed to sit on him long enough the other day to force some David Bowie on him. He bolted as soon as my attention was diverted, so it’s hard to know how much he enjoyed it, but Bowie got some chuckles during the howls in “Diamond Dogs”. That’s as close as we get to approval these days.

I don’t know what made me play him Bowie. I’m not a huge David Bowie fan. I certainly recognize his place in the musical pantheon. But really he was at his creative peak before my time. In the 80’s, when I became aware of Bowie, he was a megastar. Don’t get me wrong, he did some wonderful things in that decade, but even in my teens I had enough musical taste to recognize that his duet with Mick Jagger (and the accompanying video) was a crime against humanity. I never really forgave Bowie for “Dancin’ In The Streets”.

I got by happily for most of the 90’s with just the greatest hits compilation, “Changesbowie”, which spanned most of Bowie’s career from 1969 through the late 80’s. This compilation always makes me think of my time in Seattle in 1994 & 95. I had come off a pretty disastorous relationship, one that threw me around a bit emotionally (fragile flower that I was). After it ended, I made the decision to shake things up a bit in my life and try my hand at something I had always been vaguely passionate about - photography.

I started off shooting little known local bands, actors and the like for free or cost. I was not particularly good, but I tried hard and got a couple of breaks - magazine work and the like. Buoyed buy the taste of success and ample amounts of mind-altering substances I made the decision that the only thing standing in the way of me being the next Annie Leibowitz (other than male genitalia and a notable lack of talent) was my full-time job. I showed up one day, told them where to stick their job and walked out a bon-a-fide freelance photographer. I rented some converted warehouse space in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, hung a shingle and waited for the money to roll in. It didn’t happen that way.

Seattle in the 90’s was a hot bed for music, and I did a fair bit of work for bands, most of whom had no money. Getting paid in CDs, beer or pot was OK for a while, but it didn’t pay the rent. In an effort to branch out a bit, I stumbled into fashion photography. Fashion paid well, but was extremely competitive. For someone with only a mediocre talent, I still found myself short at the end of the month. I also found that I had no head for business. When I got paid I usually reinvested my paycheck not in film or equipment or advertising or even rent, but in the closest night club or drug dealer. When the party stopped a few days later I found I had no money and started from scratch again.

This lack of both business acumen and notable talent resulted in me sharing my studio with two other photographers. The ebbs and flows of the fashion business meant that at various times all of the three of us were working in the studio space and sleeping in bunks that we built above our darkroom. Our studio was sandwiched between a couple of gay fashion designers on one side and a tweaky crystal meth dealer on the other. See, if I had been a better businessman, I would have marketed a visit to the studio as a one stop shop for all your modeling needs.

David Bowie was one of a handful of tapes that the three of us owned and the only one that was really appropriate for shooting fashion models. (Some of the others included Alanis Morisette’s “Jagged Little Pill”, The Beastie Boys’ “Ill Communication” and Alice in Chains’ “Dirt”. See why we used Bowie?) So on the days when all of us were working we might have heard “Changesbowie” ten times. Even “Ziggy Stardust” gets a little tiresome on the tenth listen, nevermind that piece of shit “Heroes”. It’s a testament to Bowie’s talent that I can stomach him today.

Two of the three of us in that Seattle warehouse were mediocre at best. But one of us, the one whose photos I’ve used to illustrate this post, was an excellent photographer. After a couple of years in Seattle he made the jump to the big city. He’s been working in New York since the mid-90’s and from what I hear, and see, is doing pretty well. Check out more of his images here.

I know that I’ve drifted away from the stated theme of this post which, in case you’ve forgotten, was David Bowie. I now own a half dozen or so Bowie albums, particularly those early Glam/Sci-Fi records. Most of these have been acquired in the last two or three years. The first thing was hearing Seu Jorge’s wonderful covers of Bowie tracks in “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks? ). The second was living in Britain. My three years in the south of England gave me a greater appreciation for a number of British artists. I still can’t quite put my finger on it, but seeing the passion with which the apparently passionless English hold for some of their musicians makes you see them in a different light. This was certainly the case for Bowie. I still don’t class myself as a super fan, but there are days when nothing will suffice but “Aladdin Sane” and I certainly want the boy to hear Bowie when he was at his best.

Image credits: All photos are by Mark Veltman as featured in the New York Times.

 

 David Bowie - "Diamond Dogs": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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