This Boomers Life.

Welcome fellow baby boomers! Welcome also our admirers and fellow travellers to This Boomers Life, your new global blog about this wonderful and crazy life, queerdom, aging (dis)gracefully, politics and trying to stay on the left side of the culture wars. These are the themes that will thread this blog together.

We Boomers have stories to tell, experiences to share, human rights victories to trumpet. And we all have more battles to be won. I hope this blog can serve as a pitstop on the remarkable journey of Boomers to remake the World into a more inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and safer place - a point of reference for inspiration, motivation, humour, and for the love of god - lots of f**king bad behaviour. A place not without risks. Absolutely not! But certainly not a place where violence, predatory behaviour, intolerance, or bad manners will find a home. That said, back in the day many of us cut our ‘political teeth’ in the rough and tumble of community politics that at times resembled a blood sport!

Where it was not unknown for some to eat their own.

View fullsize

Coalition politics circa 1970’s

I have lived and worked in some of the toughest and most wonderous places in the World, since leaving Australia in 2002 to work for the United Nations. I retired in 2019 after having started my adult life in the 80’s as a youth advocate, a gay and lesbian coalition activist, and a community organiser. I am passionate about life and human rights for all – and in all places around the globe – and for all cultures and sub cultures older and new – and for Indigenous and blended – and for those settled and for those on the move.

I have stories to tell, many of which are true and almost all of which are embellished.

View fullsize

Bear Pool Party, Bangkok, 2019

Like many of you, I wonder if I am becoming too comfortable, too complacent and far too respectable with age. I am also becoming somewhat obsessive about the ever-evolving cultural wars and how to stay on the left side of the debates without sounding like an ‘oldie’ or worse still, a right wing git. “Okay Boomer, please be quiet, you have well and truly sucked your lemon peel dry.” Sigh! At times I feel how a kangaroo might feel, frozen in time by the glare of the lights of an oncoming truck. But bugger that Boomers, let’s hop on along and have some fun!

Let the journey continue.

I acknowledge that I occupy land of the Gadigal people and pay my respects to their elders past and present and those emerging. Always was always will be Aboriginal land.

Cheers, Bruce

PS … the term baby boomer/boomer is just another label of many. We can wear it with pride, or we can wear it as a hat, or we can stick it up our arse, or we can choose not to wear it at all. But, we can certainly have fun with it, without seeing ourselves in opposition to other age groups - particularly those further down the food chain.

PSS … All contributions welcome. Drop me a line, pen a post, share a snap or a joke. Keep it simple and in keeping with the themes of This Boomers Life, otherwise the politburo may need to be consulted, and they rarely respond.

Boomers, please don’t lock me down.

Dear Boomers, is our complacency one of the reasons many of us are embracing notions of greater social control by our benevolent democratic leadership, competent or otherwise? With one new case of COVID-19 community transmission reported in Queensland on the weekend and another in NSW the following day on Monday, 15 March, please for the love of god, may we be spared calls for border closures and lockdowns.

In the throbbing heart of NSW we had the liquor lockdowns from 2011 - 2021 with the history books showing no mass revolt against this foolishness by Boomers. It was primarily the millennials and their ilk that led the revolt. Although of course some Boomers did their duty, and then some - looking at you Dame Julie Bates!

Now lockdowns are seen as a welcomed fortress against the latest public enemy # 1 - Covid-19!

Don’t get me wrong! Lockdowns have their place but as WHO advises, not as an ongoing response. Lockdowns were proposed as an emergency measure to ‘flatten the curve’ with the aim of buying time to allow for health systems to be strengthened to deal with the carnage that the pandemic would bring, including to strengthen testing and contact tracing.

Back in the day when HIV/AIDS was the major culprit lurking in our midst, I recall greater resistance to harsher measures that were called for by the well intended as well as by the malevolent who meant us harm. Calls to restrict rights and movements such as those banning backrooms and saunas and other venues were swiftly and efficiently batted away by our then glorious community leadership. Maybe it is a bit of a long bow to draw, but I wonder about the role of complacency and comfortability in our response to lockdowns and their associated restrictions on movement.

Then again, maybe this is not complacency at all, but more about survival because the greater our age the greater our chances of getting serious ill and possibly dying from the virus. Not an unreasonable reason I suppose. But there is a down-side of course, just survey any group of people in their 20s, 30s, or 40s! Unnecessary lockdowns have shattered dreams, destroyed livelihoods and futures. And this is just in Australia. The UN reports that millions of people have been forced back in poverty because of unnecessary lockdowns and their impact on the world economy and trade.

Despite a chaotic and slow rollout of the vaccination programme here in Australia, vaccinations will most likely be our bridge to a post COVID-19 world - shoot me up baby, I can’t wait!

In the meantime, lets resist calls for future lockdowns, particularly if community transmissions are very low. Instead, lets ramp up our calls for governments to make increased investments in the health systems’ capacity to do its job and then lets trust in the system to do so - unless of course you are in the the Sate of Victoria, but that is a story for another time.

Gladys.

Maybe Gladys Berejiklian, Premier of NSW, should be given a knighthood for her management of COVID-19?

I can hear a loud noooooooooo from some. But hear me out. We have seen big investments in the health system to handle the pandemic, open borders, open businesses, limited and tightly targeted lockdowns and related restrictions on our freedoms - a traditional John Locke approach to liberalism for sure.

They are noteworthy, particularly when compared to the lazier and chaotic approaches adopted by a number of other States - at home and globally.

Sure, there have been missteps -the Ruby Princess and the untold misery it caused for many families, for one.

Still, she can beheaded for a litany of other crimes but a knighthood first for her handling of COVID-19 might just be in order…

Retirement.

When I seriously started thinking about retiring in mid 2017, before making the jump in March 2019, I read heaps of books, articles and posts. A fun but surprising deep analysis of the joys and pitfalls of retirement is How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, by Ernie J. Zelinski. Ernie offers inspirational advice on how to enjoy retirement to its fullest. The key to achieving an active and satisfying retirement involves much more than money.

“A meaningful retirement requires sufficient funds to live on and sufficient things to live for!”

— Ernie J. Zelinski

Here is some of the wisdom I harvested from the writings of Ernie and others.

1. The thought of retirement should put a permanent smile on your face. Otherwise don’t do it unless you have no choice.

2. There is no right time to retire but you should not put it off any longer than you want to.

3. It takes courage to retire, particularly if you don’t have to and also if you have a high paying job.

4. The luxury to do things at your own pace should be celebrated and not ignored.

5. The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure.

6. A meaningful retirement requires sufficient funds to live on and sufficient things to live for!

7. You can work, play and sleep. Improve your mind. Improve your health. There are no other options.

8. Self learning is our route to happiness.

9. Something is boring me. I think it is me! said Dylan Thomas. The key to conquering boredom in retirement is taking full ownership of it.

10. If you don’t take care of your body, where do you intend to live?

11. Not only is exercise required but vigorous exercise is key.

Oh such woe is me. Bye bye my little blue UN passport. “No one compares to you, but there is no you any more except in my dreams tonight” Lana Del Re

1 March 2019

Israel Folau & the book.

There are many aspects of the Israel Folau saga that are disturbing but for me his quoting from ‘the book’ is not one of them.

Human rights are like a dance. My rights end where yours begin and your rights end where mine begins. It is not a winner takes all endeavour.

On a personal level I find religion, in all its manifestations, disturbing and deeply believe that more needs to be done to limit its influence in society. I do not believe in invisible friends and can’t fathom how someone can believe that their invisible friend exists but that their neighbour is a fool or an enemy for believing in a different invisible friend. All invisible friends are created equal me thinks!

However, when I step back and look at the issue through a human rights lens, I am reminded of the need to be more tolerant and to be more accommodating and respectful of the religious views of my family members, friends and most of the world’s population. To them freedom of religion is core to their identity and to how they see and interpret the world and their place in it. Even in developed countries such as Australia, many believe that this freedom is under threat.

Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion i.e., you can believe what you want and should be able to practice your faith without fear - but to do so without infringing on the rights of others. This brings me to my main concern which is the aims of The Australian Christian Lobby ACL, an avid supporter of Israel Foula.

The ACL seeks to advance Christianity by seeing Christian principles and ethics influencing the way Australia is governed, does business and relates as a community.

View fullsize

Like you, I find this mission offensive and a direct attack on my rights. It is a direct threat on my right to freedom from religion. The ACL is entitled to promote and protect the rights of Christians. That is a noble and worthy cause - but not to seek to have these beliefs enforced on me. The ACL and its fellow travellers have opposed gay law reform, reproductive rights, a women’s rights to choose and so on, and so on. This is what we should be seeking to curtail: not someone quoting from a book.

The book clearly says that many types of people, including me and my nearest and dearest will be going to hell in a pink handbag. It is a fact - according to the book. The book also says that snakes talk, virgins give birth, owning slaves is ok, a menstruating women should not pollute a house of worship, nor should a person with a disability, and so on and so on. It is not a very nice book in parts but it is the book.

As the French writer, social commentator and philosopher Voltaire is quoted as saying, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

This is a founding and enduring principle of human rights and although we have qualified it somewhat - Yes you can say what you want so long as it is not legally slanderous or inciting vilification or hate…

As noted earlier, human rights is a dance. How unpleasant it is for me to be sharing the same side of the dance floor with Folau supports, characters such as A Jones and M Latham - people I distain and whose motives I abhor.

This post was originally published in June 2019. For those of you with manageable dementia you will recall that the issue was that in mid 2019, Israel Folau, a famous Rugby player, launched an anti-gay tirade on social media claiming that “Hell awaits you” to anyone who identifies as homosexual in comments that were labelled unacceptable by his employers, Rugby Australia. He was eventually sacked. He occasionally resurfaces seeking employment back in Australia.

In The Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.

I am in rapture with this book. Its telling of the Catholic Church and the war between conservative gays within the church and the more liberal wing is truly remarkable. We all know sordid tit bits about predatory popes, Swiss guards, Italian hustlers, and bad catholic bankers, but this book pieces it all together. A real shocker and well researched.

One of the wonders of this book is how it explains the link between the hypocrisy of the church, homosexuality and the abuse of women and children. The key argument is that within the church, large numbers of clergy are comprised because they are either closeted practicing gays (i.e., rooting around with other men inside and outside of the church) or closeted non practicing gays (that is right: they stay true to their vows but are gay nonetheless). These men live in fear of exposure or ridicule or explosion. They are silenced by their compromised state - see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil! Is it no wonder that the abuse of women and children became institutionalised within such a toxic environment?

It is well known that abuse, inappropriate and illegal practices and unethical behaviours are more likely to thrive in institutions and businesses that have bad human resource practices and that promote silence over open dialogue. In the case of the Catholic Church, this situation is compounded of course by what appears to be a genuine lack of care or compassion for the people it serves.

“That this is all predicated on lies and denial is in part because the Vatican is a gerontocracy, still run by men who grew up when the priesthood was almost the only career open to a homosexual youth in Europe or the US and priestly celibacy offered a sanctified escape from what would otherwise have been a crippling shame. But the price of this compromise was paid in uncountable twisted lives” (This is quote about the book but sorry but I can’t recall from whom).