Rewind and Remember

And so it comes to be, this time of the year, that the compact cassette turns 50. Such mundane anniversaries and obituaries are a press staple now, with technologies streaking across the scene at furious speed in the last few decades. There have been sentimental accounts praising and mourning the floppy drive, the compact disk, the typewriter, the Walkman, the instant camera, and many, many more bits of tech ephemera. 

The cassette was an interim stage in music storage and playback, it served our needs until it didn't. We make much of these things not because of their special qualities, but because we feel bits of our own past receding. The cassette is what media scholar Sherry Turkle calls an evocative object. For many like me, it prompts images of the '80s, of flimsy plastic cases, of glossy brown tape unspooling, of sticking little fingers into the middle to stretch it taut again.

Philips first showcased the compact cassette at the Berlin Radio Show in the annus mirabilis of 1963. But it didn't become a widespread consumer technology until much later, especially in India, because of import restrictions. Their rarity is what made the standard Gulfie or Canadian immigrant dream of the two-in-one stereo even more alluring.

It's hard to imagine how radical and democratising the tape must have been then, how it anticipated many of the current anxieties around digital copying and sharing, around the manipulability of media, and whether you could trust your own ears and eyes. 

The tape recorder welcomed regular users into the musical experience,All the latest Releasing film Products in small size and in resumable. like nothing else before it. You could record or erase, you could assemble an album at home and pass it around, leading to waves of corporate panic about the "death of music". It also made the consumption of music much more private and portable you could carry your tape player or Walkman around, listen to it alone. Mass producing cassettes was much easier than vinyl records, allowing younger and poorer listeners to own music.

I did not know that the pint-sized athletes on television started doing backbends in the womb; this is not a sport you begin as a teenager in the midst of puberty. Yet in spite of a lack of training, strength, skill, flexibility and focus coupled with the reality of being built like a basketball player I blundered forth, hoping that perhaps daydreams alone could hurl me over a vault.

Neither did I consider this was a sport that involves a uniform that could double as a bathing suit, which, in the midst of various poses and flippedy maneuvers, has a tendency to, um, creep upward in the wrong places. I also did not know that while pacing along a 4-inch apparatus known as the balance beam, scoring deductions can and will be made for releasing ones uniform from the wrong place. 

And after earning the affectionate nickname of Melvin, I never would have dreamed my sole goal would be to last an entire routine without any unladylike mistakes. I had already tried various remedies to no avail: extra sticky hairspray, glue, different sized leotards. At last I settled on affixing a strip of double-sided tape to my backside, a suggestion I later learned was made in jest.

And then, somewhere between my side leap and somersault, the thunder of cleats echoed off the gymnasium floor as a herd of football players made their way, very slowly, from the field to the locker room, snaking their way around my precarious pedestal. That was about the moment the tape gave way, and I felt the familiar sensation of flesh being pinched and contorted. 

Yet I stood undaunted, posing before my final pass. Fingers flayed and wrists bent, I smiled at the judges, then glanced toward the bleachers. There they were, the cheerleaders, snickering and lathering on lip gloss. One of them held up a camera and snapped a shot. They giggled.

I glanced down at my side and saw the tape hanging there, flittering under fluorescent lights. At that moment, in the midst of end-of-the-world humiliation that can only happen in high school, I made the decision to sacrifice a tenth of a point for a fraction of dignity.

The following year I tried out for the softball team, mostly for its modest and more forgiving uniforms. And I thought of cheerleaders every time I swung a bat. 

In this election campaign we have seen a greater focus on small business people than at any other election. Both of the main parties have made strong promises to address key issues around support services, red tape, competition policy and contract law. The only area which has been mainly ignored is workplace relations. While disappointing, it is something to focus on with the incoming government and opposition and those controlling the Senate.

Small business people are by their nature confident,Online supplies a large range of double sided tape. optimistic and constructive; otherwise they wouldnt go into business. The current issue for the small business community is a lack of confidence plus uncertainty about the future. This should be a concern for all the parties C we are after all the engine room of the economy.

So after the election we want small business people to get back the confidence they need to help focus on their business, to develop their plans, to improve their marketing and communications and develop new products and have continuous improvement in red tape relief. Then they can take advantage of what an incoming government should bring, particularly around certainty for the future.

So who do we have in the party rooms that will ensure the small business policies and changes are implemented? A significant strength of the Liberal Party is Bruce Billson,My way of applying kapton tape to Glass. the member for Dunkley. Billson is highly regarded and well respected by small business groups and supporters. He is disliked by the enemies of small business people, particularly the Shopping Centre Council and the Franchise Council. This is another sign of his pedigree as both those organisations prefer business models where they are protected from litigation and where they can use their power to protect their own interests at the expense of small business people.

Billson is passionate about small business and understands the real issues that we face. He understands that we are people first and we know he has the ear of Tony Abbott and will present arguments and fight hard for our rights. Importantly he has ministerial experience and would also be sitting at any Coalition cabinet table. He gives us confidence that we will not revisit the Howard years, where promises were made to small business people but big business needs and influence won out. 

An example of where we expect some fight from Billson is over the recent announcement by Joe Hockey that some of the good policies of the Rudd/Gillard government C the instant tax write-off, the vehicle depreciation and the loss carry back C would be removed by a Tony Abbott led government. The reason for this is that the MRRT will be scrapped and all the programs that were to be funded by the MRRT will also be scrapped. We understand that savings need to be made but this move is counter-productive and a disincentive for small business to invest, adding to their confusion and lowering their confidence. If Tony Abbott becomes prime minister we hope he will reconsider this decision. We certainly expect Bruce Billson to fight to have the policies remain in place.
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