Category: Humor Publisher: Continuum Australia
ISBN-10: 098082883X
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 252
Copyright: July 1, 2011
ISBN-13: 9780980828832
Childhood is meant to be a life stage not a life style choice.
Childhood is meant to be a life stage not a life style choice. 'Leaving Neverland' weighs up the costs of a culture of perpetual adolescence, keel hauls a few adult sized 'lost boys' & offers contemporary Rites of Passage as a timely way for us to leave Neverland ofr our sake, for our children's sake, ffs.
Excerpt
Chapter 1:
A Little About Little Boys - An Introduction (by Daniel Prokop)
The Global Financial Crisis was smugly brought to us by designer suit wearing boys behaving badly. They convinced suggestible authorities that they should be left in charge of the banking cookie jar. Of course they helped themselves to our cookies because “self regulation” to a child means “quick grab every cookie you can and hope we don’t get caught.” The only real surprise is that people are surprised at the empty jar. The IMF estimates that the total cost to put the cookie jar back in order is over $US4 trillion dollars (that’s a lot of cookies).
Different little boys were left to play in a warm, deep bathtub called the Gulf of Mexico. Even though the water was way, way over their heads the boys said that they didn’t need any supervision. They boasted that their expensive toys were so safe that they were happy to bet the lives of their workers on them. Unfortunately their biggest toy caught fire and sank to the bottom of the tub. It cost 11 men their lives and for spewed 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The oily ring on the tub may never come off and the combination of oil and dispersant is affecting the flow of the North Atlantic Current BUT cutting corners on safety could also have resulted in increased short term profit.
The naughty little boys didn’t even say “Oops” at first. Their first response was “What oil leak?” and then “Oh, um… right, a plan to stop that trickle? Gosh what a good idea! Have you got an Emergency Response plan without walruses drawn all over it?” It was not an isolated or unprecedented incident. There are many examples where similar childish behavior has created messes that rarely get a column inch of international press coverage, especially when they happen in remote or poor places like the Niger Delta, Ecuador or Papua New Guinea.
It is rare that the overgrown children that often run big corporations are flushed out of their ivory boys clubs and separated from a sycophantic crowd. They are not used to being held accountable for their salaries or the preventable human and environmental suffering caused by the operations they are vastly overpaid to run on a take no responsibility first and take no responsibility last basis. Apparently, when you run a corporation that has an economic output greater than most countries you expect to be treated like royalty, only better. (In 2008, ranked by revenue, 65 of the top 100 world economies were corporations¹.) Under critical public scrutiny they cannot hide their callous lack of compassion for the great unwashed, the workers, the common folk or as the Chairman of BP refers to them - “the small people.” They also do not seem to have much regard for the environment: “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp.”
If you are alarmed, pissed off or just concerned with what is happening in many parts of the world then this book is for you. If you think that it is time to say “Just drop the cookies and back away from the jar,” then this book is for you. If you are interested in a solution for Leaving Neverland that can be rolled out rapidly using the existing education infrastructure then, yup, this book is for you.
We live in an adolescent society where Peter Pan is hailed as a hero and growing up and taking responsibility is seen as bad, boring, even stupid. Why would any culture worship perpetual childhood? If there are no adults then who will take responsibility for the environment, for ensuring a fair and equitable financial system, for keeping people safe, for helping those not able to help themselves, for keeping communities strong? Oh…
Never growing up seems more the norm than the exception. Little boys wearing expensive suits and adult bodies should not be allowed to run big corporations. They shouldn’t be allowed to run governments, armies, religions, small businesses and charities either and just quietly, they make pretty shabby husbands and fathers too. Mankind has become Pankind and whilst “lost boys” abound, there is also an alarming increase in the number of “lost girls.”
Finally, finally, the appalling arrogance of spoilt über boys and the avoidable suffering that they have caused is generating a global wave of anger and frustration and about time too. We can ride this wave of frustration right into growing up and right out of Neverland.
It is time for us to grow up. It is actually that simple. As healthy responsible adults working together we can create solutions to the social and environmental challenges that we face. Some of the little boys that have not been playing nice will have their big toys taken off them and some of them will be told they need some ‘time out’ in special sandpits called prisons. We can expect quite a few tears before bedtime, some impressive tantrums and that some of these perpetual boys will try to take their bats and balls and play in places where no one can stop them. A few are going to become very, very angry and quite vicious, well, even more vicious
Professional Reviews
The style, pace and delightful skewering are reminiscent of Hunter S Thomson!
"An insightful depiction of the dangers we face in having the perpetual ‘boys’ of this world in positions of power - incomplete men with arrested development. The style, pace and delightful skewering are reminiscent of Hunter S Thomson!" Rex Finch, Finch Publishing.
Very witty and pointed
"Very witty and pointed. I found myself going "hahaha ... ouch. I do that." Clever eye-opening connection between the personal and the problems of the world." Owen Rigby
You really cracked me up
"I have had one great hell of an afternoon enjoying reading Leaving Neverland. You really cracked me up - I couldn't stop laughing. My husband, who was painting the dining room popped his head in and honestly thought I'd lost the plot. And I was suppose to be helping him - oh well, I can always blame you for giving me such an such an entertaining read.
You are so clever and spot on in the way you brought up some serious issues, such as the oil spillage cover ups, the deep global troubles that our magnificent Earth is in, and of course the fat-cat bankers… You keep it light, with fantastic humour…
K. K. Jones author of “Hens from Hell”
