"Suicidal empathy" might be

one way to describe what is going on in France and now, it seems, spreading across Europe.

There is certainly much more to it than our media is suggesting. This is not about school buildings or resources. It is not about class sizes or teacher training. It has very little to do with education at all.

"Oh but France has always had student problems," someone told me today, "I remember when we were in teachers' college they were rioting then."

There were some problems then. It was a long time ago. They were nothing like the current problems, problems which fuelled by social media and much darker forces which use it.

There is a young woman I have met. She works in the local supermarket. She is "converting to Islam". She now wears the hijab, long sleeves and a long dress. She was "a Christian" but her current boyfriend is apparently a Muslim. She is doing everything he asks of her and seems to be completely under his control. She praises the pro-Palestinian protest movement and more. 

I wonder what she thinks of the way in which Christian and Jewish people, groups and businesses are being attacked while Muslims are being left unharmed not just in France but elsewhere. Is she happy with the way our federal government has given millions of dollars to Muslim groups, including to the mosque where the preacher has been telling his congregation it is acceptable for men to beat their wives? I have no way of knowing this and I most certainly do not think it would be right for me to ask but I do find it of interest. I would be concerned for anyone who was doing just as their partner was demanding they do.

Is this part of a wider problem though? Are we really aware of how much we are all being told what to think, what to say, what to do. How many of us have blindly accepted "climate change" and "renewable energy" or that Ukraine should give up land forcibly taken by Russia in order to end that war? How many of those on the pro-Palestinian "protests" believe that Israel alone is to blame for what is happening there? We are being told "multiculturalism is good" and opposing bringing in more migrants and refugees makes us racist. What if we do want more migrants but only those we see as fitting in with our beliefs? What if we believe refugees should go home when the situation in their country changes? Do we or do we not allow more than one legal system into our country so as to accommodate different beliefs about how people should be treated?

One of my neighbours was asking these questions yesterday. He had seen the video clip of the shop keeper who was bewildered at the way some of the rioters had looted her shop. She was telling them "but I said I wanted you here..." His reaction was, "They should be grateful they were allowed to go there or that they can come here."

No, they will not always be grateful. There will always be people who are angry and will go on being angry. They will go on believing they have lost everything and they have a right to take anything they want from others. Any attempt to prevent that is likely to make them even more resentful. 

We are told we should be empathetic, kind, tolerant, understanding and much more. If we are then do we also need to understand that such empathy might not be appreciated? Do we need to tolerate that even at risk to ourselves? 

I have no answers to that but perhaps we do need to think about the harm "suicidal empathy" could do if we allow it. 

Barb is going

and some will miss her. 

Who is "Barb" you ask? Oh the owner of "that wool shop down near the beach".

Barb has been an institution for more years than most people would care to think about. According to the piece in the paper yesterday she is "pushing eighty". I suspect she is rather older than that. 

Barb had a wool and haberdashery shop in one to the little side streets off the "main street" where I once lived. I knew of it because I had been there. I frequently had to point it out to visitors, especially overseas visitors who wanted something to knit in the summer. I often wonder what they made of her. She was feisty! 

Barb sold wool in balls and skeins and on cones. She sold cheap yarn and expensive yarn. It came in all sorts of colours and weights. Ask her, as I did, for some lace weight yarn and she would argue with you about what lace weight meant and actually was. (She found some under a pile of other things. It was old and too "fragile" to use. She tried to sell it to me anyway - at a reduced price.)

Barb sold buttons, hooks and eyes, snap fasteners, elastic, the knitting needles and needles to sew the knitting up. There were patterns untidily arranged. Barb knew what was there. Some had been there so long they were getting dog eared.  She kept a knitting machine near them and tried to get me to take up machine knitting. I could not get her to understand that, for me, hand knitting was and is therapeutic. I tried to explain that hand knitting is a sort of portable mental health kit but she never understood that.  Barb preferred the machine. I wonder if she will go on with that now she is "retired".

Retiring was not the plan. She tried to sell the business but nobody wanted to buy an old-fashioned business that really kept going because Barb took in the dry cleaning when "that place around the corner" closed. She did repairs too. All the clothing shops along the main street relied on Barb for the sewing on of buttons and the altering of hems or the mending of a badly sewn seam.  

I went in there a number of times but not that frequently. It made no difference. Barb knew me, knew me well. I went on to help my friend P... at craft fairs. Barb did not like craft fairs. She claimed they took away from local business. Perhaps they did but what P... sold would never have appeared in Barb's shop. There I was though helping P or rather one of P...'s customers. Barb stood there and glared at me,

"Come and see me in the shop."

I lived on the other side of the city by then. I never did go back. Perhaps I should have but Barb's shop was untidy, very untidy. I would not have found what I needed there. I am more likely to find an interesting mill end, or bring in something from a remote corner of the world. Now I am not the student teacher looking for something I could afford to use.

Still, I rather like Barb. She is fierce. She definitely does not "suffer fools gladly" but she is one of those "characters" it will be hard to forget. I wonder what that area will do without her. Will people point the shop out and tell their visitors looking for yarn, "Well, there used to be a shop there.."?   

Why should the elderly "downsize"

just to suit the government's housing policy?

According to those responsible for housing us, too many "old people" are living in dwellings with one or more bedrooms which are not being used.  There are complaints about this. Apparently we oldies need to "downsize".  Apparently we are being "selfish".

My paternal grandparents lived in the same house for almost all their married lives. It was my home for a short time in early childhood. It went on to be the place where I felt safe as a teenager...and not simply because there happened to be a police station a little further along on the other side of the road. 

Location wise it was excellent. There were "the shops" just around the corner, an entire row of everything you needed from a post office and bank to the butcher, the greengrocer, bakery, barber and more. The doctor was on the corner. There was the strange shaped "A" church too. There was a "general store" next door and the big "haberdashery" place a bit further one. Grandma only went into "town" - the CBD where the "big" (department) stores were when she absolutely had to go. Her life was in the local area. She walked everywhere. She never learned to drive. She did not need to learn. There were the buses and the train service. 

It would be impossible to find something like that now but the reason my grandparents resisted moving anywhere else was because all that was there. They knew people. People knew them.

It is not quite the same now but it still matters. When Middle Cat and I realised I would need to move out of the family home we also knew that, if possible, finding something in the same area was important. It was not simply because being close to her was important. It was just as important for me to be close to the library I use so often, the shops I know and, most of all, the people I know. 

Yes, we looked far and wide. I was prepared to move to an entirely different area and try to start all over again. I know I would not have been able to retain many friendships because I am simply not mobile enough. If you do not drive a car then relationships are different.You do not simply "hop in the car" and go somewhere. I did not want to do it but I had faced the fact I might need to move. That I have not needed to move outside my familiar area is something I still find hard to believe. I know I have been incredibly fortunate.

I also know it is why many people do not want to move. My aunt lives not far from here. She wanted to move into something much smaller in this area but the Covid lockdown put an end to her plans. She now stays where she is as one person in a four bedroom house. She would like to move to a much smaller place in this area but it won't happen. It is beyond her physical abilities now and trying to find somewhere would be almost impossible. In just the short time I have been here the situation has changed dramatically. 

Older people do not want to move from what is familiar. Even when the garden is becoming "too much" they know the local shops. They still know people around them even if the new young neighbours have not even found time to say hello. They use the local services. Moving out of "the house" is not easy. Moving out of "home" is harder still.  

No, the Plymouth Brethren are not

a "cult" group. The "Exclusive" branch may be but even that is debatable. It is the "exclusive" branch under scrutiny at present.

Let it be said here I do not have a lot of time for any group that demands women wear skirts, head scarves, no make up and say they cannot have a cup of tea in my home. I have had some disturbing contact with them. The Senior Cat had problems with some of them in his last school. They try to socially isolate themselves and that cannot be good for anyone.

The "Brethren" are back in the news at present. There is a "joint committee into electoral affairs" (parliamentary) inquiry about their activities at the last election.  They are not required to vote. (They can claim that nobody but God has authority over them.) Some of them do vote, others do not.

It has not stopped others trying to suggest they attempted to interfere in the electoral process or that the church was behind some "stunts" which aimed to embarrass the Prime Minister. There is more than that.

I have also been quizzed by the same committee. It is a long time ago now and they did not much like what I had to say but thanked me and a small change was made as a result. I went in with actual evidence. There was no publicity. It is only when matters become controversial they make the news - or when what is being said might impact on the next election in the case of the electoral affairs committee.  This is what is happening here. Media reports suggest the group is "far right", that they are MAGA like. There have been suggestions that their leader is "like the Pope". 

The reality is that they are a very, very small group of people, around fifteen to sixteen thousand. Their influence on any political party would be minute - if there was any at all. Their leader may exert considerable influence but it is influence over the members of the group, not the wider community.

There have been attempts to claim that the behaviour of some members of the Brethren behaved in an intimidating fashion at some polling booths. That has been likened to the Spanish inquisition and religious persecution. The media loves this sort of thing of course. Their presence was evident at no more than a handful of polling booths and their behaviour was, according to other reports, no more or less intimidating than any other group. It suggests there might be other reasons for concern among those who hold very different but equally extreme views.

 

Do Michelin stars really mean

anything? Yes, I know that getting one or, preferably, more than one is what some chefs aim for but is the food really any better?

There has been some discussion about Michelin stars in our state media. Apparently the "guide" now includes some places in this state.  There has been outrage and amusement at the list.

I looked at the list. I am never likely to eat at any of these places. Even if I had the financial resources to go to one of them I do not believe I would want to do it. 

I am not interested in a "gastronomic experience" or the "creativity" of a chef with pretensions. At the same time I hope I can appreciate good food which has been well cooked. I do not want to "experience" an unusual combination of flavours simply because a chef has decided to put them together. I do not want a plate decorated with a swirl of something I cannot recognise and garnished with a single leaf of a rare variety of lettuce.  

I happen to like things like lettuce and cucumber. Tomatoes, celery and capsicum are welcome too. I do not want them smothered in some sort of "dressing". They can arrive "naked" and it is not simply because of my allergic reaction to vinegar. I am more interested in whether the "salad" is actually made from fresh ingredients. 

I had a potato yesterday. I had it with a dab of butter and some parmesan cheese and a vegetable salad. It was what happened to be in the fridge and it was quick to prepare when I was sorting out a work problem. It also so happens it tasted good, very good.  

Would a Michelin star chef approve of what I made or the way I put it on the plate? I doubt it. Does it matter? Of course not. I had still made it look attractive to me.

The Senior Cat was fond of saying "We also eat with our eyes." He was right in that what he meant was our food should appear attractive to eat. He did not mean it had to look "fancy". The swirl of something did not interest him as much as, "How did you get it....?" 

There is a tiny cafe in our local shopping centre. It sits between the supermarket I normally shop in and the newsagent. There are people who go there on a regular basis. The food is not fancy. It is not presented with any sort of "style". They take a genuine interest in people. Their food is fresh, well cooked, plain with just a bare hint of their own Middle Eastern origins.  You do get the marshmallow with hot chocolate or the little chocolate with your coffee but there is no fancy pattern on the surface of your drink. What you will get instead is a smile and an actual well made hot drink at a reasonable price.

I am not a regular there but they know my name. They know Middle Cat's name and the names of many other people. I know theirs. I have shared recipes with P... and jokes with A... If I needed a meal I would be happier sitting there than I would be in a Michelin star restaurant faced with one lettuce leaf and a swirl of something I do not recognise.  

  

No Ukraine and Iran are not to blame for

the record number of small businesses going out of business here. The government, particularly our Prime Minister, might keep trying to tell us that the wars in those places are to blame but are they really? Is the greatly increased price of fuel solely because there are wars in other parts of the world?

The figures tell us the Prime Minister is lying but he still insists it is not true. He is ignoring what is obvious even to a twelve year old trying to save enough money to buy a surfboard. 

"At the rate things are going we won't even get to Glenelg this year," his mother told me. I am not sure failing to visit that overrated beach would be any loss but I understood what she meant. The family has usually rented accommodation much further down the coast for a couple of weeks in the summer. It has been a cheap holiday but even that is looking to be too expensive this year. The small business they run is struggling. There is plenty of work and they can still pay their staff but they are taking home less than their staff. They should be doing well but all the additional expenses are strangling them. They have enough work to employ at least another two people but they simply cannot afford to do it under current conditions.  

It is not just the cost of fuel or power or even the cost of insurance but the costs of employing other people that are not related to the wages they provide. It is all the "occupational health and safety" requirements and the "training" requirements. It is a tax on any number of things that do not relate to the actual business and the increased council rates. The "paper work" is done at night after they have both the children in bed. 

On the surface these people appear to be doing well but a closer look shows the strain. Both parents are working in the business. They do far more than the hours their employees are required to do. They are also very conscious that their employees are doing unpaid overtime simply in order to keep their jobs. They do not like this. It worries them especially when one of their employees has Down Syndrome. They say they could not manage without him but they are very conscious they may be taking advantage of his willingness to "help a bit more". They do not see it as right or proper.

Our Prime Minister has never employed anyone. He has never run a business. He clearly has no concept of what it means to worry every day as to whether the bills can be paid. He is not concerned about the increasing price of power or raw materials and the cost of employing people or dealing with all the rules and regulations. He is not concerned about the effect tax increases and changes to trusts will have on a business because those things will never affect him. 

Perhaps all this can be said about any politician. Perhaps it is why so many people really enter politics. Stay there long enough and you get that pension for life. It does not matter how much harm you do because you can blame it on wars elsewhere. Taking responsibility for your own actions, your own failures, is not something you do in politics. 

I wonder if the twelve year old will get his surfboard or whether the increased expenses for other people elsewhere will always put it just out of reach. 

 

  

There are times when it is right to smack a child

before that horrifies you let me explain. Apparently about two thirds of adults in this country think it is reasonable to smack a child with a wooden spoon. An even higher percentage, ninety-two percent, seem to think it is reasonable to hold a child tightly by the wrist. This is apparently the finding in some research done by a university in this country. There were some other findings as well. I will not bother to list them as I have not read the paper itself.

What I will say here is that yes, it is perfectly reasonable to smack a child in circumstances where not to do so would potentially lead to greater harm.  Imagine the scenario where you are all at breakfast. Someone has put another slice of bread in the toaster. The bread gets stuck for some reason. It starts to burn and, in order to release it, someone sticks a knife into the while it is still turned on and plugged into the outlet. Dangerous? Possibly fatal? Yes, almost certainly. 

If the person with the knife is a young child with no concept at all of the danger do you try and "reason" with them or do you swoop and give their hand a sharp slap away from the danger? I know I would swoop and slap. I just hope I could do it quickly enough. There would be no time to try and reason with the child, no time to explain. The idea that you could be prosecuted for "smacking" a child in those circumstances is surely outrageous?

I would say it is equally true of a sharp slap on the leg of a child who started to run out into traffic. There is surely no time to reason in those circumstances. I just hope I would grab in time. The day I put a very young child in my tricycle basket I know I was almost certainly holding on firmly enough to hurt but it was for the child's safety. He had wandered off from his mother and was about to cross a road. 

There will be people who disagree with me. There will be people who read this and think, "Cat's wrong about that. What an awful person." I can handle that because I know very young children do not have the language needed for reasoning with them. Without the vocabulary and the experiences they cannot comprehend the danger. It takes years to develop the necessary concepts.

The idea we can always "reason" with a child no matter how young they are and that it is always wrong to "smack" is something with which I cannot agree. Even adults can do the stupid dangerous thing with a toaster and many often take risks crossing the road but responsible adults do not do those things. They do not allow children to do it. There are simply occasions when safety has to come first.  

Something called "Rocketreach"

appeared in my email this morning. 

I had never heard of it but I am alarmed by it. Apparently I was put on their "database" - without my consent. I researched and hope I have now been removed from it.

It seems that being on "Linked In" or "Facebook" or some other platform was sufficient for them to "harvest" the limited information about someone and use it without their consent. Whatever has happened to privacy?

There is a very strict policy among those I work with that their photographs never appear on the internet. There is a very good reason for this. It is a security issue. We also try to keep as much as possible off any public sites. This is also a security issue. I am intensely conscious if we let identifying information appear it might be the time that someone with a grudge will harm someone who has gone to help. Yes, it can happen. Not everyone has good intentions towards those going in to help. Recently, someone I was briefly acquainted with was shot. When people are risking their own lives then everyone else involved has a responsibility to do everything we can to keep them safe. 

So, I have done something about my "data" being "harvested". I do not know how long the material was available but they tell me it is no longer publicly available. Do I believe them? I have to hope that what they are saying is actually correct but I am still left with doubts. 

I have a presence on "social" media. A little of it is "social". I like to think what I do there is simply make contact with friends and, less often, acquaintances. I also have a presence on some other sites which are, supposedly, not accessible to anyone not involved. Would they be easy to "hack"? Some would, some would not. The only reason anyone would wish to do so however would be because they could potentially do harm. 

It is the potential to do harm which concerns me most. Give someone a hand held weapon and ask him to commit murder with it and very few people could do it. Ask that same person to push a button to cause harm in some faraway place and they are much more likely to do it. Distance matters in such situations. Data harvesting works in just the same way. It is also wrong.

 

There were children at the 90th birthday party

and they were all very well behaved.

I did not know them at all. They are the great-grandchildren and, until then, I had only come across grandchildren. 

I have since written a letter to one of the great-grandchildren. She is the one who is currently being home-schooled for medical reasons. She is also the one who loves to read and is reading well above her age group.

I had thought no more about the other, slightly younger, child. At the party I was told he was learning Auslan at school. His entire school is learning Auslan as their "other" language. When he came up to his great-aunt to ask something she told him that I knew some Auslan too. I signed a simple greeting to him and he looked surprised, very surprised. There was definitely more than a little disbelief there. With a nudge from his great-aunt he responded by showing me how he can sign the alphabet but the conversation did not get much further. What child wants to talk to a strange adult in a language he still knows very little about?

What I found of real interest however was something else. His great-grandmother was here for lunch as she usually is on that day each month. This time she said to me, "O... told his mother and then his grandmother about you and how you signed something to him. He thought it was very interesting you could do it."

"Interesting?" I have been thinking about that. I would find it very interesting to know why he was thinking like that. Does he believe that no hearing adult can sign - apart from his teacher? Is the idea of signing rather than speaking so different he does not see it as an actual language? 

I have known any number of non-disabled children who can sign or use an alternate or augmentative form of communication. They have done this because they have relatives or friends who use something. This child has no relatives or friends who use sign language and has quite possibly not seen it used outside the classroom or, at very least, the school. So, what was he thinking? Has he suddenly realised that signing really is a language and he can learn to use it?   

Sorting through the belongings of a deceased person

is not something I would do by choice. I have done it for my parents and helped to do it with my grandparents. Unexpected things have been found of course. 

I was always grateful my mother only had three days of "compassionate" leave when her mother died. I think it is fair to say there was only relief there. It was my great-aunt, her sister-in-law, who removed the most personal things from the house. Mum wanted nothing at all. 

"Not even her wedding rings?" my great-aunt inquired. Mum's response was "Throw them out. I don't want a thing."

My parents had no choice but to move into the house my grandmother had inherited from her husband but I know Mum loathed the place. It must have had some truly dreadful memories for her. When my parents finally managed to move into their own home Mum put her mark on it. The Senior Cat left it entirely up to her. I know there were things he would have changed but he wanted her to have her own space for the first time in her life.

I have thought of all that frequently in the last few weeks. For months I have been surrounded by boxes of goods belonging to someone else. I was not even really aware of what was in them. They were left with me when K... moved interstate with her husband. They were moving to be closer, much closer, to their daughter. K... was ill and had been told she had, at most, a year to live. The intention had always been to move back. The business she ran from home was closed. The stock had been run down over more than two years.

Her husband appeared at my door with box loads of what was left. He thought I already knew what was intended. I knew nothing. If I had been asked I would have said I could not do it, that I had no way of doing it.

I called K...to ask what she was doing. 

"Cat... I am giving you what is left. Sell what you can and use the funds for the children." She gave me no choice.

It has been sitting there for months. I went away and came back. S... was not well enough to help. More than one thing got in the way. S..., bless her, came and we made a start. It has been a lot of work. I spent most of yesterday working on sorting out a messy box of bits and pieces. Most of that cannot be sold on line. It can go to the local charity shop. People often go in for things like buttons. I think K... would approve of that.  

The funds are building up. Those most in need will be able to continue their education. Her husband left me a message late on Friday to say that "K...has left me - just went to sleep and didn't wake up." We both think K... would be happy. I don't mind the work involved. It just feels odd to do it.  

Someone still has to pay for it

if you shift a charge from one point to another. This is not taking a charge away. 

Our Prime Minister proudly announced that "your coffee" was going to be cheaper. He told us that prices would go down, that the price which was advertised was the price we would pay. 

There was more of the same. It sounded good. It is not true. Someone, somewhere had to absorb the cost of the card use fees and it was not going to be the person selling the goods but the customer. Of course it was going to be the customer.

The migrant couple who run the delightful little coffee place in our local shopping centre can only keep it going because their entire family is involved. They all work shifts. The young ones do it in addition to other work and the parents, who are both well over retiring age do the rest. It is hard work, very hard work. 

They did not want to raise their prices. They have a loyal customer base. They have people who see their little place as a sort of social service. It does not mean they can absorb the increased cost to them of the fees being charged. 

Their prices will rise by the bare minimum. Elsewhere in the shopping centre prices have also gone up. Adding fifty cents to the price of a coffee seems a lot but the way the change was implemented means that the price of everything else has also gone up as well. The grocery bill is going to be higher and so is everything else. 

Someone did not think about this. They did not think about the implications. If they did then they either did not care or they must believe it will be extra income for the government through the GST. I doubt the government cares very much at present. There will be reduced revenue for them in the future but they will put it down to other things.

And nobody has considered that anyone who pays cash is also going to be paying more for their coffee...and everything else. The card surcharge is going to affect everyone. No, you won't be paying less however you pay - you will be paying more.  

 

 

   

Performance cues and underscores

of the musical kind are part of a magician's repertoire. The music is as much a part of the entertainment as the illusion. Even in the earliest times a performer would have someone using music to help distract the audience at essential moments. 

The Senior Cat was very aware of the importance of music in the magician's repertoire. He was also aware of how difficult some magicians find it to build that sort of backing material for their performances. It was with that in mind he talked to someone who had an interest in theatre organs. He was then put in touch with someone else who performed regularly on both the organ in that theatre and on radio. 

Would this person be interested in developing some "music for magicians"? Could they work together on this? It was how the Senior Cat came to know someone else who died recently. 

The Senior Cat liked music but he was not musical. Does that make sense? He could, with difficulty, read the treble line and blow into a recorder. Mum would cover her ears. She was musical. Dad could not sing in tune. (I cannot sing in tune either but I know I cannot and there is a good reason for my not being able to do it.) At school dances Mum would warn the wife of the chairman of the School Committee (the chairman was always male back then) that the Senior Cat had "two left feet". Yes, he was that bad. It was a rather rotten family joke.

So how on earth did he manage to work with anyone on this? I came home on more than one occasion and there would be music issuing from the piano and "that car" would be parked outside. I knew B... was there and the two of them would be working on something. I would hear them discussing it. I would hear something be played faster or slower or with "more twiddly bits". I would hear it played up an octave or in a different key. 

"Got it!" "Yes that's it!" "What about this?" "How about we try this sort of..." and so it would go on. 

I would hear the Senior Cat saying, "Right...the patter goes like this and this is what I am doing....can you speed it up just a little...you're right that's even better..."

They worked well together. B... would give me a nod as I came in but he would not stop working until it was time to put the kettle on. I would make tea and leave them still talking. B...would take what he had recorded there away with him and make another recording in a studio somewhere. The result would be a tape for the Senior Cat and his fellow magicians to use.

It would all be done very differently now. Modern technology would make it much easier to use music from a wide variety of sources. It would not simply be a piano or theatre organ backing. There would be no tapes, not even a CD. 

I also suspect there would be many breaches of copyright. B... and the Senior Cat had permission for everything they used...and they worked for it.   

Do you remember when we had "department"

stores? You know the sort of thing I mean, one of those big shops which seemed to sell almost "everything". They were the sort of places where you could buy "bargains" in the basement and school uniforms on the third floor which you went to by passing the cosmetics and handbags on the first floor and the underwear and whatever on the second floor.

Our CBD had an entire street of them in the centre of the city itself. Women, dressed in a "good" dress, stockings, hat and gloves would spend "a day in town" and visit several at a time. It was where you bought what ready made clothing there was. It was where men who could not afford a tailor would go for their "Sundays and funerals" clothes. 

My maternal grandmother was among the first to get a "card" for one of the biggest of them. It was not a credit card as such but an "account" card. She would make purchases on it, often small purchases in the "habby" (haberdashery) area. She would have a fitting for her "corset" in the area which sold bras - always fitted bras - and other nightwear. Her Christmas shopping, such as it was, would be done there or in one of the neighbouring stores. At Christmas itself the footpaths would be crowded. Santa Claus was to be found in a "Magic Cave" - and elsewhere. Cars and buses could barely move along. It was our version of Oxford Street.

Then someone had the bright idea of turning the street into a pedestrian mall. Cars and buses were removed. The street was levelled and paved. Art work was put in.

And people went away. They went off to the "shopping centres" which were being built in the suburbs. The big stores tried to follow people there but they had to compete against the "chain" stores imported from America and Asia. 

Our CBD is dying. Whether it can be revived is anyone's guess. The mall might have seemed like a good thing but habits have changed. A very elderly friend who was here yesterday went into the city recently. She was wearing jeans and a casual jacket. She had no hat, indeed does not own one. She was wearing gloves but only because it was a cold day and she has issues with circulation.  We commented on how things had changed. She asked me when had I last been in to "the Mall". The answer was about three years before the Senior Cat died. I had to get him a pair of trousers and, after looking on line, I found a pair in one of those "department" stores...but it was no longer that sort of department store. It was one of many small stores within a big building. 

My previous visit had been many years before that and I felt lost. It was not a friendly place. It would have been so much easier to go to the place where he had bought all such things after his father was no longer working. They kept a record of every customer and their measurements. If you went in they would update the record. Their fabric and workmanship lasted for years. I had contacted them but it had all gone and that was their suggested alternative. Yes, good trousers but not as good as theirs.

It all seems to be like that. I know things change. I am not sure I would like it if things did not change from time to time but there are things I wish were still there. I have a voucher to spend in a little store in an arcade off that mall.  I am told it is a very nice place to visit. Yes, it probably is but I am not sure when I am going to get there...or even if I want to do it. Shopping is not the same now. 

Just when you thought it could not get any sillier

 or any worse a former Greens politician has come up with the idea that the government should run the supermarkets. 

Yes, you read that correctly he thinks it would be a good idea if the government took over the supermarkets and ran them. According to him it would bring prices down and make them more accessible and efficient.

If you have now stopped laughing...

We have Coles and Woolworths, Aldi and the IGA (Independent Grocers) as the main players in the supermarket game. Our local shopping area has three of those. They vary in what they have to offer. The clientele varies too.

I choose to do most of my shopping at the independent one. The prices are much the same. They offer a discount of 5% for anyone with a Senior's or pension card. They deliver locally at a much cheaper rate. The staff are generally very good indeed. I have the boys trained to reach to the top shelf for me if they happen to see me. If they are collecting trolleys and I am parking my trike they will hand one to me as they are going inside. They long ago told me to leave the trolley where I park the trike. "It's easy to pick it up on the way in Cat."

Now can you imagine having that sort of relationship with a government owned entity? No, neither can I. The idea that we would all have a greatly reduced choice hedged around with increasing regulations and the inevitable shortages and delays is something nobody in their right mind would want to contemplate. This was tried back in the early part of last century in Queensland. It failed. It is the sort of thing which has been tried in Communist states. It has failed every time.

And imagine now if the government also decided that they needed to do something about our diet and could do it through controlling what was available on a supermarket shelf. What if we were told "no more meat" or "some people are allergic to X so we won't be stocking it any more." For many people food is one of the pleasures of life. They may eat sensibly and frugally most of the time but they want to break out sometimes! 

I suppose it might do something for a black market and then the lawyers and the courts when people got caught...but if we were trying not to break the law but wanted to eat? Just how silly can things get?

The ambulance service is

something for which I have a great deal of respect - at least at the face to face level. I am less sure about the administration of it.

My first encounter with the ambulance service that I am aware of was as a very small child. Along with another child I was taken away in one with a kangaroo on the side. It was dim inside and I remember the officer trying to keep me calm. Why I was there is a mystery because there had not been an accident and I was not critically ill. It was alarming for a small child but I remember kindness.

I have gone on to seeing children under my care in a special school being taken away in an ambulance on more than one occasion. As staff we never knew whether we would see them again. The ambulance staff were kind and caring and competent.

I have been in an ambulance tearing down the wrong side of the road in peak hour traffic with the siren going. It was terrifying but the driver kept telling me, "It will be all right."  Much, much later the one dealing with the Senior Cat stopped me in the local shopping centre and asked how he was doing. (He recovered.)

I have had the ambulance service pick me up on their way through to a hospital when I was needed there to act as "communication assist" for someone who was not able to speak.  I have always been treated with courtesy. 

There was only one I felt was not professional. Many of them were volunteers because that is the way the system works. 

Management apparently does not like this. There is word currently going around that one of the volunteers has been stripped of his duties not because he had done anything professionally wrong but because he failed to call the ambulance service by that name rather than the district it works out of and failed to provide a vegan meal for an officer from another district. There were complaints he failed to find cover for all the rosters he was responsible for too. That those who do it are a small team of volunteers apparently was not taken into account. 

If the complaints are true then they are administrative rather than ability complaints. The local people would refer to the service by the name of the town or the district. It is what happens out there. How on earth was he supposed to know about a vegan coming in? He might well not know what "vegan" means - many people do not. If there are not enough staff to cover a volunteer roster is that his fault? 

I suspect those higher up the ladder, those paid to do their jobs, are unhappy with his criticism of their roles. He might be outspoken but I suspect it might well be with good cause.

What has happened however is alarming. You do not bar a volunteer who is doing a good job and who is respected and supported in the community simply because he criticises the management - a management which should be supporting you. We need volunteers. This country would not run without them, particularly in rural areas.  

  

So we are "nutcases" in a country filled with

"white supremacist institutions" which are driven by "hypocrisy and cowardice"?  If this is what you believe then why would you accept an invitation to speak at Writers' Week...unless you plan on using the occasion to say more along those lines?

I still believe this state's Writers' Week should be about writing. It was about writing once. I looked forward to that biennial event, to meeting friends, listening to writers talking about writing, publishers talking about publishing, people asking questions, discussions about the development of plot or character and any number of other issues related to the art and craft of writing. I was fortunate and I know it. I managed to learn a great deal about writing. My failure to apply it all is entirely my own fault. I still have the bad habit of simply diving in and then paddling like crazy until I hit the end. The result is often a mess but I still do it.

What I no longer do is go to Writers' Week. I have occasionally slipped in to the live-stream of a session at the local library but I have not been to the many open air events. They may be free to attend but, if I am to spend time there, they must be potentially worth my time.

The problem? These events are almost always not about writing. The week has gone from being about writing to being about "issues". The sessions are about social issues, woke issues, political issues. Some of those who appear as "writers" have not actually written the books themselves. The hard work has been done by others. The writing may be grammatically correct but it often lacks style or life. There are not many "issues" writers or politicians who can write in such a way I will remember their words.

I try to read a diverse range of material but when someone is being deliberately provocative and holds views that are potentially harmful then why should I use my limited time to read that writing? This is how I feel about the person who has apparently said we are "nutcases" and that the country is filled with "white supremacist institutions". Even the editorial in this morning's paper is calling for her removal from next year's program. Her inclusion in this year's program caused the week to be cancelled altogether. It says something about the line up that so many "writers" withdrew in support of her. The first to do so were likely those who had not written the books they were there to promote. 

A little controversy is a good thing. It can stimulate ideas and add to the discussion. I see no harm in that at all. I would, and still will, encourage it. I will not encourage someone who uses an event like a week supposedly about writing as an event to call for harm to others. I will not encourage someone who deliberately repeats propaganda designed to do that harm. 

How is it that someone who apparently holds these views is able to retain a Research Council grant and a position as a "Fellow" and "Researcher" at a university? There are people who have lost their positions for holding far less controversial views. There are people who have not been able to obtain research funding because they have not supported the "correct" thinking on unrelated woke issues. How can this happen and yet someone who holds views many find offensive and distressing is able to obtain not only research funds but be invited to speak?

Research funding comes with responsibilities. Freedom of speech comes with responsibilities too. Failure to acknowledge those things will cause harm. We all need to take responsibility for that.    

Driving without a licence

is something you expect young fools and drunken idiots to do. You do not expect people in their eighties who have been told they are unfit to drive to do.

I know someone who recently lost her licence to drive. It was not unexpected and should have come much earlier than it did. She is not willing to accept the decision and is currently attempting to demand the return of it "at least for the local area". She tells me, "I know I can do it. I know I am safe." 

She tells me this although the last "accident" she had was backing out of her own driveway into the car of the neighbour across the street. I have seen her back into a tree. She is not safe on the road.

Yesterday she phoned me ostensibly about something else. I listened, heard the undertone and wondered what she had done.

"Oh and I needed a couple of things from the supermarket so I got the car out and went. I needed to prove I can still do it. It was perfectly safe."

I tried reasoning with her. I pointed out all the potential consequences. She disagreed. She was "safe" and, if anything had happened, "It would not have been my fault. I was being very careful."

To say that I was appalled would be an understatement. To say I am worried would be an understatement too. What really alarms me is that she has a gopher she will not use. It would be the answer to her local appointments. She has reduced taxi fares for those further away appointments. It would all be cheaper. Yes. it is not as convenient but she has nothing else to do with her time. Other people do her cleaning and essential gardening. She spends her days watching television and doing jigsaw puzzles.

There is nothing I can do. I know she is not "my responsibility" but it does worry me when she tells me these things. Why does she do it?

I hope I can be sensible when I get to the "I cannot do this safely" point...but losing your independence is infuriating.   

Selling things on the internet

is not something I do. I am not one of those people who takes photographs, writes glowing descriptions of "almost new", "never been used", "no longer wanted", "only used once" items and places them none too gently on a website where people might find a "bargain".

As such I am more than grateful to my good friend S... who arrived fully equipped with the tools and the knowledge to do this. S...came yesterday afternoon and we began the task of, hopefully, moving the craft materials which have been left with me. Let me explain.

Last year I was left a large quantity of craft materials. The woman who left them with me no longer runs the business she once ran. She is dying and, with her husband, has moved interstate to be closer to their daughter. Rather than simply pass on the remainder of her materials to a local charity shop, places she does not care for, she told me, "I am giving these things to you. You can sell them for your Africans. I know what it is like there. Most people here don't really need it the way they do." 

It was typical of her attitude towards many things. K... told people rather than asked people. Indeed the first load arrived via her husband who asked me, "Do you know about this?" I did not. We looked at what he was delivering and decided not to upset her. I had vague ideas about parting with it all by delivering quietly to the local charity shop but of course she wants to know what I am actually doing with it.  

I put it off for months, went away, came back and let Christmas slide into Easter. S... offered to help as she is very experienced but she was also unwell. It was not until yesterday we started to deal with it. S... amazed me. I am in awe of her skills. She photographed. She wrote descriptions. She priced things. She was even kind enough to ask my opinion as she went ahead. 

After almost three hours we had made a start. S... went away with three boxes of things like metal bookmark findings, hair clip findings, wreath bases and beads. There are still things like unclothed dolls, paper patterns, acrylic blanks and bag making materials to go but we have started. I may once again be able to move safely around my little space. 

I hope people will want to buy these things, especially at those greatly reduced prices. K...will tell me we did not charge enough but people expect a "bargain" and it will simply be good to be rid of some of it at least. 

The best part for me will be seeing some money in the "school" account for the girls. An extra year or two of schooling can make a huge difference there. I am not sure I will ever understand how big the difference is but I will keep trying.  

Writing an essay without using AI

is apparently "difficult". I am not sure how else to put it but the two boys talking about it assured me this was actually true.

I was in the local "cheap" shop - the sort of place which sells the sort of things you can buy from companies like Temu or Shein but are there for you to actually see and feel before you buy. For me it is a useful source of things like glue and rubber bands and refills for the stapler. 

It is also full of "keen young people" who need part-time employment. This has been more so recently as the place changed hands. Currently it is a good deal tidier and, in some ways, useful than it was. As I was looking for what I needed I overheard the two boys stacking the shelf in the next aisle and talking. It was clear they were students.

"You know I could just have put some terms in and come up with an answer..."

"Same here..."

"And I reckon some of the others did. They all came up with the same sort of arguments."

"Same in my group..."

"Did you try asking..."

And so the conversation went on. I stopped trying to pretend I was not listening because these two boys really are very nice lads indeed. One of them told me to stay where I was and fetched me a trolley the other day. The other asked if I would like him to reach something from the top shelf. 

They saw me and guessed I had been listening. Then they told me they had both been in groups which had been set the same question. They had written answers without consulting AI and then by consulting AI. The differences were obvious. It is clear both boys are very intelligent and one of them in particular had tried testing AI to see how far he or it could go. 

"It looks like it's thinking but it isn't thinking. It sounded a bit weird ...if you know what I mean? one of them told me.

I think I do know what he means. I had to come up with a way of putting a counter-argument last week. In order to do it I had written notes and put them into a Venn like diagram. Then I wrote what needed to be written. It worked for me. Out of curiosity I then tried to see if I could get a similar result by putting the same terms into AI.  It might have been convincing if I had not known what I was doing but it did not come across in the same way.  As the boy put it, "it sounded a bit weird". It sounded artificial. It was artificial.

The problem is going to be training us to recognise the difference between the real and the artificial...and how we deal with it.  

"I  

The "Micawber rule " for financial

happiness or financial misery is one the current Prime Minister and Treasurer seem never to have come across.

For the few among you who did not study David Copperfield at school and have not come across the often quoted words here they are, 

 "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."

Or perhaps they have come across the rule and refuse to believe it. They believe, again Micawber style, "something will turn up". I am not sure what that "something" could possibly be but perhaps they believe it.

I doubt anyone else believes either man is the little eccentric but kindly man that Micawber is portrayed as being. Both men are politicians and power is important to them. They want to stay in power. They both have a lot to lose. 

The way the Labor Party works it is now difficult to dislodge a Prime Minister they have chosen. It would not be impossible but it would be difficult. That he needs to be removed must be becoming increasingly obvious. We are not due to have an election before May 2028 but another interest rate rise has not helped the slump in popularity. If, although this now seems less likely, there was another rate rise before Christmas it would cause even more problems. Add in a long hot summer with high power and fuel prices and the problems for the government could get even more serious. The popularity of a certain fire brand red head would not help.

It was therefore interesting to see that the other minor and more far left party has just chosen someone who appears to be more moderate when facing the media. His manner is less controversial and less emotional than that of two colleagues who put their hands up in hope of taking on the role. Clearly there is a belief this might work in their favour. The party is saying the "right" things about "climate change" and "global warming". It is all some people want to hear. At very least it means they are likely to retain their voter base. 

Daylight saving starts this Sunday. Parliament will not be sitting over summer. If there is another rise in conflict or a natural disaster somewhere else in the world and blame for that sixpence extra in expenditure can be placed on that the government may yet get another term. We will get more financial misery.  

I neither liked or disliked him or

considered him to be a "friend". He was simply someone I knew. I also knew he was lonely so I would listen when he spoke to me.

I had not seen J... around for several weeks. The thought passed through my mind that he had, despite the football season still going, headed off to spend some time in the country community where he and his partner had a house. I was not too concerned. The owners of the cafe where he would eat a sort of brunch did not mention him. They are used to people like J...  

People like J... are generally male. They have lost their partners. The shopping centre is where they eat if they are not comfortable eating in the pub. At least three places will give them a meal for about the same price as the pub. It saves them having to put something in the microwave at "home". One small cafe is particularly good. Without being told or being intrusive the owners somehow know there are people who need support. The should be paid them for it. They are performing a social service.

That is how it was with J... If he saw me he would comment about something which was going on. He would read the state newspaper and ask what I thought about something written there. He would spend four or five hours a day in the shopping centre. Brunch at the cafe would be followed by time sitting on a seat nearby or another coffee at the cafe at the other end of the building.

He was a football fanatic and a cricket tragic. When his partner was alive he would sometimes stay behind in the tiny unit they owned in the city just so as to attend matches. He would tell me, "You really don't understand that do you Cat? It's important."

Yes, it was important to him. Although he had been a teacher reading, apart from the paper, was not important to him.  His partner had been a school librarian for many years. She had been on the Senior Cat's staff at one time and he had always spoken highly of her. The Senior Cat shared my views about J... and, like me, would let J... talk. It was all we could do.

I suppose the death notice in this morning's paper should not have come as a shock but it was...shall I say a surprise. Here is another person I will not see in that sort of "casual but important" way. I will not have another conversation with him, the sort of conversation which is important. 

Too many of us can go through the local shopping centre and forget there are people who seek company there. Too often I have been guilty of hoping I can rush in and out without seeing someone I know, someone who needs to chat for just a few minutes. I am thankful I did stop for a few minutes on that last occasion - but did I do it often enough?   

No, the war is not to blame for

inflation or the underlying anxiety many people are feeling. 

The biggest driver of inflation is government spending. Those of us who know anything about basic economics are concerned by that. There are also concerns about the attempts to introduce increasing controls over what we can hear, see, say and do.

You cannot spend your way out of debt. We added to the debt mountain when Covid hit. That was debt it would have been difficult to avoid. We were not the only country to spend more than would have otherwise been spent in an attempt to keep the economy going. Yes, we probably did spend more than we should have spent then. That is not the problem.

Since Covid we have spent far too much, far too much on keeping a government with a massive majority in power. Some of that money has been spent wisely but more of it has been wasted. When I think of the money wasted on a referendum for the "Voice" I feel angry. All that referendum did was divide us. It would not have given the government any power to change anything. That would have required another referendum to change the Constitution. More than one constitutional lawyer of my acquaintance doubts a second referendum to try and do that would fail.

It cost over $400m just to hold the actual referendum. A great deal more was spent in the lead up to it. The "Yes" side spent almost three times as much as the "No" side - and "No" still won. The government was advised before the campaign started of the likely outcome but it went ahead anyway. They deliberately wasted a great deal of money for what they hoped would be their political benefit.

The same government has agreed to give our nearest northern neighbour a $600m grant over ten years for a rugby team. I firmly believe that the best form of defence for any country is the foreign aid they give other countries but funding a rugby team is not foreign aid. It is an indulgence. No matter how you dress it up this was not something that was "needed". The money could have been spent on programs designed to produce income here or there.

The cost of the NDIS has expanded...and expanded. It needs to be reined in but doing so will mean some people will lose "benefits", things they now believe they are "entitled" to. That is politically unpopular of course, unpopular among those most likely to vote for the present government. At the same time there are still people not getting benefits they actually need.

These are big items, the sort of items that appear in the news from time to time. There are other perennial issues like housing, transport and more. A government which wants to remain in power will design housing to fit the dream, not the reality. It will provide roads rather than rail because roads allow people to own cars and the transport industry to flourish.  The billions spent on indigenous issues are reported in a fragmented way. The money being used on the futile attempt to move to "net zero" using solar and wind power may be mentioned but the real cost is far higher.

Now we apparently need to be protected from reality. The government is attempting to bring in laws which will prevent us from knowing all sorts of things, including how much they are spending to prevent us from knowing.  The reason we are so deep in debt is, according to the Treasurer, nothing to do with this at all. It is because of the war in the Middle East. That has increased the price of our fuel. Really? I wish it was that simple. 

  

"He now owes more on the house than

the house is worth," is something I overheard recently. This morning's paper confirms that was almost certainly true.

The 5% deposit scheme dreamed up by the present government is not working. It was never likely to work, especially if house prices were associated with such schemes. 

No, I do not pretend to understand the economics. It just seems to me if you introduce a scheme which allows people to borrow money to buy a home with only 5% of the deposit then you will get more people involved than if you ask for a 10% deposit.

I went to see Youngest Nephew yesterday. He has recently moved back to this state and is now living not too far away. He is buying the place he is living in. His father, my BIL, has insisted his two sons need to own their own homes. Neither place is palatial or even particularly convenient but they are likely good investments for their long term security. They are not intended to be anything else. The repayments are undoubtedly a worry but they can manage them. 

Neither place is a single unit three bedroom dwelling on a block of land surrounded by a landscaped garden. They do not need it. They might like to have something like that but they do not need it. Middle Cat is concerned that one place has stairs but she is looking long into the future. I suspect it will not be a problem. Youngest Nephew will move out to a more accessible dwelling at some point. For now he is prepared to have what he can afford.

Is that part of the problem? A Dutch migrant friend recently said, "In Holland a bedroom has the bed and not much else. The room is much smaller." 

Yes, the bedroom there has what it needs - the bed. Here the bed will be surrounded by space. Space costs money when it is associated with housing. Unless you are using a wheelchair do you really need a wide walkway around the bed? 

The place I now live in is a generous size for one person and I still have more belongings than I actually need. That said I do not live in a three or more bedrooms house with a garden right around me. Would it be nice? Of course it would be good to have the space but I do not need it. It would be a costly responsibility in terms of both time and money. 

It is things like this which make me wonder if the "housing crisis" might be of much less concern if people were allowed to need less, especially less to begin their housing journey.  Not everyone wants a three bedroom house on a quarter acre block but are they being told this is what they need? Is that contributing to the problem?

  

Group projects are not

things I normally get involved in by choice. My working life has required a great deal of working in (mostly small) groups. I like to leave them behind when I am taking some time away from work.

But, I belong to a group of knitters and crocheters who meet once a month in our local library. They have, and continue to be, a wonderful group. They are friendly. They support me and each other. I regard them as good friends. A group project with them is something I can do.

We have done several now. They have been done for the "Christmas Tree Festival" which is held once every two years. It is held up the hill in the same building as the other council library. We have covered trees in blanket squares and turned them into charity blankets after the event was over. We made a lot of crochet "smiley" faces and hung them and then passed them out to children and others in need of a smile. 

We are already working on what we hope will be next year's tree. A tree made of knitted and crocheted "wind spinners". The spinners can be passed on individually later. I have provided most of the yarn in the sense I proof read a thesis for someone. I did not want to be paid for doing that as I felt the person needed support but the result was a very, very large quantity of cheap acrylic yarn appearing in front of me with the words, "Use it for your wind spinners. Is it enough? I could get some more." 

There is more than enough. I took most of it to the library yesterday and members of the group went home with almost all of it.  

We were planning on doing all the work ourselves but the person who is the "Community Officer" saw several spinners we had made and inquired about them. When we explained he was enthusiastic and a meeting with the man who is responsible for the "community shed" has led to a promise a collapsible tree frame will be made by them. They will provide the necessary timber. It is becoming more of a community project. 

And it is a community project. Anyone can join in. If someone does not have knitting and crochet skills then we will happily teach them. If they need woodwork skills then the woodworkers will help. The library staff like the idea and don't mind the few hours of mess once a month. Other library users will wander over to see what we are doing and play with the spinners. It is working as a means of bringing people together.

I know there might be some ups and downs before we get the tree up in late November 2027 but I believe it will happen. It will be good. It is not something we expected any sort of funding for, indeed did not ask to be funded. That a small amount of timber can be bought and turned into a tree frame for us is an unexpected but very welcome addition to the project. 

I thought of all this as I was reading through the list of community projects being funded by the current federal government. The multi-million dollar grant to the golf course in his electorate is just part of the problem. There are too many projects there which are not community projects. They do not potentially benefit everyone or allow for everyone to participate. I have just read the comments of someone who was trying to justify the way the money was being spent. The argument was that the projects would help migrants "integrate". We are being asked to believe just 94% of the funding has gone to electorates which favour the present government, electorates they naturally want to keep. Apparently that is "normal" and "acceptable" just as it is equally acceptable there is no means of applying for a grant. They happen by invitation only.

If the same sort of process occurred here at this level for the project our little group is working on then several of us agreed that we would have said we did not want to accept anything. It would take away part of the value of what we were doing. The Christmas Tree Festival is for everyone. You do not need to Christian or a church goer in order to participate. It is a community event. Any community organisation or group within the council area can join in. Anyone can join our knitting and crochet group. People have come along and done their cross stitch and their macrame before now and may in the future. 

We want it to be a real group project - one where everyone interested in it can join in to the best of their ability.  

I am tired of being lied to by

politicians and the journalists they pay. It is likely that the vast majority of people would feel this way if they were more aware of what is going on. They are not.

"The room was full..." we were told but we were not told the next three words "of empty seats". No, not all the seats were empty. Not even the most loyal journalist could report our Prime Minister talking to an empty room. They could try to make us believe that there were many more people there. It was apparently important to do that.

The reality is that the biggest international auditorium of them all was not full. There were more empty seats than occupied seats. Some of those seats were occupied by Downunder's own delegation. Almost all the rest were occupied by representatives of the countries who depend on aid from this country. They were there to protect their own interests. 

I have been unable to ascertain whether any leaders of those countries were present. My informant (who was there) did not see any but tells me "there might have been". That person was not in a position to actually look around. 

"It was what we expected but it was embarrassing. I think he genuinely does not realise how little people think of him."

As I pointed out several days ago the only person to meet our PM when he arrived in the United States was our own country's Ambassador. There was no US official there, not one. We did not get informed about this on any news service of course. What we got was the story about him meeting with one of the "big tech" people. I do wonder what that person made of our Prime Minister. I wonder what he made of our present government's attempts to control access to the media and the technology which powers it. How convenient to be able to keep the "hacking" story until such time as it would make the maximum impact - the maximum impact here. All this of course is designed to try and make us believe that the "Digital Duty of Care" legislation is not just desirable but essential to protect us from harm. Really?

I do believe AI is potentially dangerous. Of course it could be. In hands which wish the rest of us harm it could be very dangerous. It would also be dangerous to allow any government so much control over what we see and hear. People are already asking whether it means that discussions about issues like biological sex or climate change would be controlled under the proposed legislation. They are issues about which there are very strong opinions. Are we really in need of being told that only one point of view is acceptable? 

Our Foreign Minister has tried to describe us as a "middle power". If we are one then it is because our official language is English. It is not because of anything we do or say on the world stage. We may have a large land mass but our population is small. The idea that what we do or say can have any sort of major influence on the major powers is nonsense. We have little, if any, influence almost anywhere. It is why we fund football teams in neighbouring countries instead of projects which have actual meaning and value. 

Those "selfies" with the big names at that meeting mean absolutely nothing. If we want to make a difference then we need to start here and do some hard work. How many people really want to do that?  

Show some compassion?

A year ago a small boy went missing from a remote property in the north of this state. He has not been found.

Yesterday his parents appeared in a pre-recorded video appeal. It was part of the ongoing police investigation. There was also the announcement of a million dollar reward for anyone who was able to lead the police to find an answer to what has happened to the child.

Social media do your bit? Apparently not everyone feels sympathy for the parents. This is so even after the police have made it very, very clear they are not considered to be anything but victims in an appalling tragedy. 

The mother is "not crying" and that is apparently a capital offence in the twisted minds of some people. That she might be weeping at all hours of the day and night off screen does not seem to occur to them. Not everyone openly displays emotions, especially to strangers. It has been clear from the start that this family is a very private one. They live in a very isolated manner on a remote property. It would be a very hard life even if everything was going well. It must be almost unbearably difficult now. 

There are others who claim the transgender grandparent must be responsible. The police looked to them simply because that person was, we are told, present on the property and apparently inside the house at the time of the disappearance. They would not be doing their job if they ignored that. What else they know or were told is not something the rest of us are privy to and speculation is not helpful.

And the theory an eagle may have taken the child? It is unlikely in the extreme. He was four years old. He may not be very big but he was a great deal bigger than a baby. The idea he might have been "snatched" that way is so unlikely the police will almost certainly have rejected it. It is one of those wild theories beloved of conspiracy theorists perhaps but not helpful.

There are any number of other cases of children disappearing and never being found again. I do not think I can even begin to comprehend how difficult it would be to be a family living with this sort of situation. Their lives would be so far from normal any decent individual should only feel compassion.

Some years ago a large reward was offered for information about another event. I remember being at a conference. People were discussing the situation and saying how good it would be to get the reward. I looked at someone I knew and wondered how insensitive people could be. Her child had been murdered some years before. It had taken all her courage to leave her husband for a few short days to come to the conference. I did the only thing I could think of I moved over to her as she stood there saying nothing and said, "It's stuffy in here. Do you feel like getting a bit of fresh air?"

The fresh air was good. The silence was even better.  

 

 

If you try to hide information

or "misinformation" then it is more likely people will believe it.  Someone needs to tell the government this. Their "Digital Duty of Care" Bill is a disaster waiting to happen.

At first the Prime Minister tried to tell us that it was not about trying to censor what we can see and hear but he is now suggesting that "extreme" views could be considered "misinformation". As such they could be removed by no less a person than the Minister. The Minister would have the power to decide what should be removed too.

It does not matter how the government tries to explain this Bill or how hard it tries to wrap it in terms of "protection" it remains dangerous. It is, and always will be, censorship. 

We have censorship in this country, of course we do. There is what most right minded people would consider censorship of pornography, of violence and like material. The very making of such material will normally have other penalties attached to it if the creators are caught. This is not about that sort of censorship at all.

Does this Bill cover something like views about "climate change" the government does not approve of? We are being told "no, of course not" but the reality is that the Prime Minister said as much when he mentioned "extreme" views yesterday while in New York. Does it cover a view about "gender". We already have a problem with that. Does it mean that this can no longer be discussed? Do we all need to accept the current legislation without being able to debate it?

They are just two major issues we hear a great deal about but the Digital Duty of Care Bill would allow the government to go much further than that. It could prevent valid criticism of the government and debate about issues of concern.

Many people in this country are unaware of the fact this government is actually giving millions of dollars to media outlets. Overall it hands out $1.8bn to the media. Most of it goes to the ABC and SBS but there are still substantial amounts handed to other broadcasters. All governments have been required to fund the ABC and SBS is similarly treated. What is not the same are the large sums given to commercial interests. The idea that they are not expected to give back anything in return is ridiculous. An analysis of the way matters are reported, even when they are being critical, is enough to suggest  otherwise.

The reality is that the media needs government funding to function. It can no longer rely on people paying for their news or entertainment funded by those services. That is enough to prevent the media from being too critical. Bring in a Digital Duty of Care Bill and there will be even less criticism or analysis. The Bill needs to fail.   

"We looked you up on AI"

and it was all wrong."

There were two indignant young people looking at me. I looked at their father and he told me, "Lesson about not relying on an internet search."

He shooed them off to find actual books to read. Then he pulled out his very fancy phone and showed me the search they had done. If it was not so serious it might have been rather funny.

The children know me. They knew the answers to the questions they were trying to ask. I say "trying" to ask because they were asking their questions in a very straightforward way. They were doing what an adult who has no knowledge whatsoever of a topic might do. 

The first difficulty, that my name on the internet is slightly different from the one they know me by was explained to them by their father. He encouraged them to use that one so they would get some results.  He felt that was reasonable but, from there, he encouraged them to ask the questions. 

The two children found how they asked a question mattered as much as what they asked.  They discovered they needed to have some information before they started. They discovered what that information was could influence the answers they were getting. Staying on track and getting back on track when a question did not give them answer frustrated them.  Going down rabbit holes of other information was something that did not work for them. Their father moved them away from those. 

They were eventually left with some information about me they know is right. The older of the two has new ideas about how questions need to be asked. Both of them still have a long way to go before they can do a search which might lead to answers about anything. It was a lesson which will almost certainly stay with them. 

Their father and I had a quiet laugh. Apparently this blog is written from the perspective of a cat. It is not of course but we both think it might be simpler if it really was written by a cat. 

We are losing markets.

not the "markets" the economy talks about but the smaller markets we once depended on. 

Yesterday I saw the message about the Bowerbird market not happening in November without surprise. The reasons given were the increased cost of running it at the venue it has been held at for so long and the smaller number of people who were prepared to have a stall at it. 

I have no doubt both of these are true. There are also other reasons. There is a huge difference between running a stall at a market now and the sort of stalls which appeared at country fetes or school events when I was a mere kitten.

At the two teacher school I attended there were no such events or stalls but the "town" (in reality not much more than a hamlet) had an annual "Show Day". It would be held on "the oval". This was nothing more than a patch of land which had been marked out as one with the goal posts for the "footy" at each end. The boundaries were marked out from time to time by someone but it was a "make do" affair. The summer cricket pitch would get marked out at the beginning of the season and wiped out when the football season began. 

On Show Day there would be tractors and "utes" (pick up lorries) and pens with cattle and sheep on the oval. There might be new farm equipment on display. 

None of this was of any real interest to us children. We were much more interested in the single, small "show ride" that went round and round to some sort of tinny popular music and the stall which sold sweets.

The sweets were home made. They had to be home made. The women made them. There was nowhere to buy anything like that. The local shop sold a little bit of chocolate, "Life Savers" and a few packets of things like licorice. It was not unusual for them to have "run out" of all those things. The sweet stall was where we stocked up. We saved our pocket money for the stall. Would there be what we wanted there? Would we get there before everyone else?

Mum of course tried to prevent all this. She was largely successful. Our pocket money was severely limited. We did not dare spend the sixpence for Sunday collection the next day either. No, there was a limit on what we could buy. 

We tried to tell Mum that toffee apples were good for us. They were a form of fruit weren't they? Somehow we never managed to snag a toffee apple. (Looking back I suspect the apples inside them were not that good. It was hard to get apples. They came by train from the city and were grown in the hills behind where I now live. Bush kids did not get them daily.) 

There were "toffees" in "patty pan" cases. They would have "hundreds and thousands" sprinkled on top. We could usually get one of those. Then there would be "peanut brittle" made with the more butterscotch sort of toffee and Russian toffee, a sort of caramel made with condensed milk and there were marshmallows in square ice cream cones. There must have been other things but I know these were the things we wanted to buy if there were any left by the time we were allowed to get there.

There would be a "cake stall" as well. The women would make cakes and biscuits and compete with one another over the even sizes and the icing. The way an almond was place in the middle of the ginger nuts mattered. The "butterfly" cakes would have home-made jam and "cream" in them. We wondered how they were made because Mum never made cake like that. Cake was for birthdays only. She just did not have time for baking. We all hoped she would buy one of the luscious looking sponge cakes. Would she buy quandong  jam and make us eat it? 

I wonder what happens at country shows now. Do things still get made and sold? I suppose they must but there is almost certainly not as much of it. Peanuts would almost certainly be banned. There would need to be warnings on labels along with a list of all the ingredients. 

And what about the city events? I have not heard of cake stalls at school events in quite a while. Go to any other sort of craft fair where food is sold and there are so many rules and regulations I would not even consider being involved. We are told it is all about "safety" and making sure "allergies" are properly considered. If something goes wrong then the consequences can be severe. 

If you do have a stall of any sort it will be hedged around with all sorts of occupational health and safety regulations. Almost anything you make will be considered a hazard of some sort. There will be labels about environmental issues and whether items are "responsibly" sourced. Insurance, once never even thought about, is now an expense that needs to be factored in.  Even the age of those attending and helping will be an issue. Almost anything that can become an issue will be an issue.

Is it any wonder that big markets sometimes do not go ahead? The craft fair I once attended no longer comes to this state. It simply became too expensive. The venues built for events like that have raised their prices to cover their overheads. Prices spiral up and up and then the event collapses. 

I am fortunate I experienced those country shows and the country cooking. I cannot remember any of us being sick - except from more toffee than was good for us! 

 

There was nobody at the airport to meet him

but our Prime Minister was boasting about a meeting with a very senior figure related to AI. He has told us how important this meeting was. He has told us how that same person was listening to him say how important the new laws restricting social media access are.

Now our Prime Minister, popularity rating around thirty-two percent, is about to tell the United Nations this country needs a seat on the Security Council. This is the same Prime Minister who, just a couple of days ago, dismissed the problems of the care and well being of very young indigenous children as a "state issue, not a federal one". (Of course the issue of fighting fires was a federal issue rather than a state one when his then opponent was in power. We can ignore that...can't we?)

There are a couple of issues here. The first is that a seat on the Security Council means very little, if anything. The Security Council has no power. It can pretend it has but the decisions it makes mean nothing. Nobody has to abide by them. There was actually one of those rare unanimous decisions earlier this month. It related to Sudan and the effect of that decision on the ground has been zilch, zero, nothing at all. If anything the situation is worse than before. Recently an aid worker I had once written a communication board for lost his life there. He had spent a very long day trying to do something for severely malnourished children and was shot on his way to a few hours rest. That is how effective the Security Council is. A seat on it appears to be nothing more than something to boast about. It is not going to make any difference. Forget about it and do the real work, the hard work, elsewhere.

Then there is the issue of the attempts to stop under sixteens accessing social media. That sounds so good, so responsible. It is a real "look at us" moment.  I do not for a moment deny that social media harms but trying to stop young people from accessing it will not work. Trying to stop harm by curtailing their use of it and bringing in legislation to try and curb other types of "harmful" speech or "misinformation" is not going to work either. I may not like some, indeed many, things which are being said and done on social media but it is better it is out there. It is better seen by all so it can be countered rather than have it travelling at the speed of light through other channels. It is much, much better than giving any government control over what is seen and heard.

I suspect that, even among those who know who he is, our Prime Minister, is seen as being of no real consequence. He is seen as the little man he really is. He might appear to matter here but he does not have any real influence on the international stage. That he can fly to the other side of the world as leader of a supposed democracy, even a small one, and not get greeted by someone of importance says a great deal. 

Perhaps it was an oversight - but I doubt it. It is much more likely that others are looking at his moves to control us with some alarm.