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.  

There should be no need to protest

about women's rights or the right of women to women only spaces. If there are protests about this then they should not need a police presence to shield the protestors from others.

There was a gathering in a neighbouring state yesterday. I have been sent a couple of pictures. They are disturbing, very disturbing.

Have we really gone backwards so far it is necessary to shield women from being attacked because others object to their pleas, demands, requests (call it what you will) for safe and single sex places? Initially the police were not even going to attend the event. When it actually happened there were apparently some police in riot gear keeping others away.

My paternal great-grandmother would be appalled by what happened. Great-grandma was, from all accounts, more than able to handle herself, her family and the wider community. I am told there was many a supposedly tough man who meekly did as he was told when she was there. I often wish I had met her but suspect she would not be impressed by the fact I am not, according to my family, "nearly assertive enough".  That said, I do care deeply about the rights of other people.

It has been more than a century since women obtained the right to vote in this state. Great-grandma did not chain herself to the fences but, if the stories I was told are correct, she had plenty to say about a woman's right to vote. She also had plenty to say about a woman's right to work, to own property and be treated with respect. I know her views would almost certainly now be considered "conservative" in some ways but they were unusual then. My great-grandmother and others held views which were considered radical in their day. 

Now it seems, for some, it is wrong not to allow men into women's spaces. No, you do not need to "be transgender" in order to gain access now. All you need to do is say you are. A man can put on a dress and apply some lipstick and say, "I am a woman".  Views on whether this is right or wrong vary widely. I suspect my great-grandmother would have had strong views and they would not all have been related to the prevailing views of her time.

I am certain of one thing however. Great-grandma would not have protested in support of those who used sharpened umbrella tips to intimidate and harm others. If you need to resort to that sort of behaviour then you are on the "wrong" side of decency and respect for other people.  

You can think whatever you like

as long as you do not say it...and as long as you agree with me. You cannot be "apolitical" and I do not care what your politics are...as long as you come out and say you agree with me.  You have to support "the cause". You must go along with the only point of view there is.

I am only vaguely aware of who this Ed Sheeran person is. I know that may sound ridiculous but I am not one to follow any sort of popular culture. I may have heard him perform but I am not aware of it. I will not pretend to understand what the current uproar is about. I have a vague idea that someone else appeared on a stage at some sort of event with this man and said two words which were, and still are, regarded as highly political. They are words which are, like it or not, taking sides.  

Apparently the issue has been muddied by Mr Sheeran because he has refused to take sides, refused to acknowledge the two words and repeat them. He is being told he can think what he likes but he cannot stay silent. He has to agree with the other bloke and with a slew of other "artists". There is apparently only one point of view which is correct, only one way of thinking in all this.

Think on that please. It is happening elsewhere as well. We keep being told that there is only one "correct" way to think about all sorts of issues. There are the obvious issues like "climate change" and "global warming", "transgender rights" and the use use of "puberty blockers", "abortion" and "euthanasia" and then "refugees" and "immigration".  They are big issues. They are also complex issues, far more complex than most people believe. 

Despite their complexity we are all too often told there is only one "right" or "correct" way to think about the issue. If we do not think the way we are told we should think then there is something wrong with us. We will lose friendships. In more extreme cases we can be taken to court, fined and even sent to prison for simply disagreeing. We become pariahs. People don't want to know us.

Apparently Mr Sheeran has been told it is not possible to remain "apolitical" about the matter in question. He must come out and support the view espoused by so many of his fellow entertainers. It does not matter that a concert tour may no longer go ahead. All that matters is that he supports the view of the person who used the stage at a concert to make a political statement.  That it may alienate others is of no consequence to those who are demanding this. 

Yes of course musicians and "rock stars" get political. Writers and artists get political too. They all hold a wide range of political views. That is how it should be. Most of them will want others to know their views. That is how it is going to happen. It is when they demand others hold the same views as themselves that it becomes unacceptable.  

I don't have to agree with you but I will defend your right to speak providing you do the same to me.  

 

We have to stop spending

so much money. 

This country currently has a "AAA" credit rating. I am not sure how that happened or how the present government has managed to maintain it. We are, to put it bluntly, deeply in debt. 

That debt has risen dramatically since Covid but it is not, as the present government would have it, due to Covid. Some, perhaps most, of the measures were justified then. There are other expenses now and they cannot be justified in the same way.

We are supposedly heading towards the mythical "net zero" and the cost far outweighs the benefits. What we are really paying for is an attempt for our small population to be a big player on the international stage. It is not working. 

This is not about "climate change" or the debate about whether it actually exists. It is about what might actually work in a country which has a population much smaller than the population of California (39m) or Texas (31m). The land mass of mainland USA is only about five percent larger than ours. While the USA has some desert and more sparsely populated areas these are nothing compared with our most remote areas. We keep being told "nuclear won't work" and "nuclear is dangerous" and "nuclear is too expensive" and all those things combined. We sell coal to China, coal we cannot use ourselves because it might add to our "carbon footprint". It all adds up in end - adds up to more expense.

Under enormous pressure we brought in a scheme which was intended to show we care for some of the most vulnerable people in society. It should have worked but it was badly designed and many people with disabilities are missing out while other people (or those responsible for them) are getting assistance they may enjoy but do not need in the same way.  It has proved enormously expensive and taking benefits away from those who do not really need them is, for the government in power, an electoral nightmare.

For generations we have continued to isolate indigenous people on the grounds that we are preserving their "culture", their "languages". their "family structures" and "family values". In reality we are not doing those things at all even while we genuinely believe those things are important. We have put billions of dollars into all this and many indigenous groups are no better off. 

Now we worry about housing for future generations but still persist in the belief that a single unit of housing with land around it is how it should be done. The reality is different.

Last night's news was full of how anxious farmers and arborists are about bringing in the upcoming food crops. They rely on imported and cheap labour from overseas - the people who are prepared to work hard for short periods of time. Some of those people will be relying on this work to send money home to feed their own families. Acknowledging that does not mean we should not also acknowledge there are many younger, fitter and more able young people who could also help but do not want to work in or to the same conditions. They rely on tax payer funded benefits instead.

All those things cost money and they are just the big things. Taxpayers fund sport because it is seen as "popular". It is not doing enough to fund libraries or publishing or skill building.

We allow non-citizens who have committed serious criminal offences to appeal when their right to stay is rejected and many of those appeals succeed. It is a costly process which can take years. That is just one small part of a process of migration in and out of the country which needs to be reviewed for the sake of everyone involved. 

There is more of course. Those are perhaps the biggest issues, issues where money could be spent more wisely with better long term outcomes for all. Electoral popularity and staying in power for as long as possible will always win out. I just need to stop spending anything in order to pay for all of this.  

 

No you do not "opt out" of AI

using your creative endeavours to "train" their own "creative endeavours". 

Apparently our federal government is planning legislation which would require creative human beings to "opt out" of allowing a machine to learn "creativity" from actual people. This is being proposed in an effort to get those who are developing AI into bringing "data centres" into the country.

Has the world gone mad? Has the world gone completely crazy? AI is not creative. It uses data fed to it. It may appear to "think" and "create" but it is not creative in the way human beings are. AI does not have the same sort of imaginative powers. It cannot feel emotions. Yes, it might tell you it can do all these things but it cannot.

I do not longer how much longer we have before AI takes over. I still hope it will, despite the recent dire predictions, be a very long way off - or, better still, never happen. What I do know is that AI cannot "write" even the way I can write. It can be asked to try but it does not succeed. It may fool some people but someone, somewhere will pick it up. I know someone resorting to the old "card index" method to show her work is not AI driven. I know someone else who says it is much more difficult to "edit" AI created material. I know a musician who tells me that AI sounds "artificial" to him. AI can create a picture in the manner of Rubens or Rembrant but it cannot reproduce the actual brush strokes.

Creating anything worthwhile is hard work. Even this blog is "work" (although some people think it is "fun" and should be seen as such). Many hours go into researching a novel and writing it. A new song does not "just come" to someone. If a creative person wants their work to be used then they should be expected to grant permission, not withhold it.  

There should be no requirement to "opt out" here. It is most certainly not something which any government should require of creative people. It is government sanctioned "theft", nothing more and nothing less.    

Children as young as four being left

alone for not just a few hours but for days at a time?

If this was happening in an urban area and you were not "aboriginal" then your parent would be in court. You would be removed from their care.

If you are "aboriginal" and living in a remote community then apparently things are done differently. You might have older siblings or cousins who will see to it that you eventually get something to eat - if there is any food in the house - they might even do a bit of actual caring if you are lucky.

Someone mentioned the report about this to me and asked if I thought it really was true. Sadly and distressingly my answer was that it was not only true but it would not be an isolated incident.

I am commenting on this now, while I can. It is all too likely that saying something like this in the future will result in a demand to "take it down" or it will be removed and I will be unable to post anything at all on a blog. I may not even be able to have a blog.

Yes, there are two issues here. The first is the issue of the care of the aboriginal child. The second is the present government's attempts to take control of what we can see, hear and do on the internet. The claim they are only trying to remove the harm done by misinformation is nonsense. Misinformation? If the government does not like something does this mean it can be removed? Yes, of course it does.The idea of robust debate is not something any government relishes if it means they may lose votes. All those comments about non-competitive grants to golf courses would have to go. Any questions about "platinum" access to the lounge at the airport would be considered "misinformation" even though the vast majority of the mileage was paid for by taxpayers. 

Those are just two examples in the last few days. There has also been the refusal to even debate the urgent need to review the Act which has left women without rights to safe places.

Perhaps all of that pales into insignificance however when children are not being cared for because to do so might mean their removal from their families and their community. We are being told that they must remain there "because we cannot have another Stolen Generation". If you believe that then do you actually care at all? 

Recently I was directed to an article in a "reputable" newspaper on the other side of the world. If the article is correct then a mother now has a criminal conviction for the sin of allowing her four year old child to walk a half a mile alone - without adult supervision. Once the child would have walked twice that distance and done it twice a day. Yes, there were risks involved but the benefits were seen as outweighing the risks. I suspect someone allowing their child to do that here would also find their child was on an "at risk" register. A parent might well find themselves in court.   

In a remote community of aboriginal people it seems it is a different story. To do anything might mean taking the child away from their family and community. That takes precedence over the safety and well being of the child. We are told that the priority here is "family" and "culture". The reality is that, all too often, neither of these things exist in a meaningful way. Those responsible allow the lies about those things to continue but talk about them and the label "racist" is quickly applied. 

The person who directed me to the article is aboriginal. She wanted to know what I thought. Her views on the issue would get her banned from the internet - but they might protect children.  

Whyalla is dying

and whether it can be revived is the subject of the intense and anxious discussions by the spin doctors.

The answer of course is that it cannot be revived. More than a billion dollars of taxpayer funds have been poured into life support but the situation deteriorated anyway. 

Most people knew this would happen but there was an election to win so the money went in. A buyer was found. How the buyer ever believed what the government told him remains, and will remain, a mystery.

As a child at school I was taught that Whyalla was an important part of the state's economy. There were ship works there and the steel works were there. The ships went long ago. The steel works limped along like an old man who thinks he should keep walking but has difficulty in doing so. 

Now the furnace has failed. It was failing for some time but the government's "clean green energy" strategy was, apparently, going to save it. There would be a cheap and ever renewable source of power for it. This was going to save everything - except that it did  nothing of the sort. 

I think we all knew this, those in power certainly did. But, being in power is more important than making the right decisions. You make popular decisions instead. They often involved golf courses and motor-cycle races around the city. They are intended to provide opportunities to open hospitals which are too small or "expressways" to hide the lack of public transport planning.

Whyalla was one of those stages on the long journey to and from the remote location we lived in. It was where the sealed road started and ended. It rose dramatically out of the skyline as you crested the last low rise on the journey to the city. You could see the cranes rising into the deep blue of the summer sky and they grew clearer and larger as the car travelled towards them. 

We would stop in Whyalla. There was a place which sold milk shakes and we children would get out of the car and "just stand there" while Mum made sure we were clean enough and tidy enough to enter the shop. Once in she would have us sit at one of the two Formica topped tables and we would be allowed to have milkshakes before continuing on the long journey via the caravan park and "the facilities". We would go through Port Augusta and Port Pirie and onwards towards Clare but none of them seemed quite the same as Whyalla and the milk shakes. 

Whyalla was growing back then. There were schools the Senior Cat could have been sent to care for but we never lived in "the iron triangle". They were just places we travelled through. They were also places where people lived and worked. Now they live there but the work has gone.

How long will it take before we accept that the "clean green and renewable" dream is just that? 

The consumption of illegal tobacco

products is apparently on the rise again. It is said to be a major crime issue - and a health "addiction" problem.

I have never smoked. I have never tried to smoke. I have never even tried a single cigarette. I have also ingested far too much cigarette smoke from the cigarettes of other people.

Tobacco consumption is highly addictive. It also has serious consequences for the health and well being of those who consume it. Even more importantly it has serious negative consequences for the people around the smoker, especially children.

Our government has increased the tax on tobacco over and over again. It has been done in the vain effort to reduce consumption. It has not worked. Make something more expensive and then let people find another way to obtain the product at a lower cost? Of course they will go to the lower cost product even if they are purchasing something which is being provided illegally. It is a policy which makes no sense to me.

It makes no sense to the Police Commissioner either. He has apparently commented that there should be "consequences" for the purchase of an illegal product. Yes, of course there should be consequences. 

When he said this yesterday there was apparently an outcry. We were told that tobacco consumption is an "addiction" and it needs to be treated as such. 

My answer to that one if that it can be treated as an addiction but the purchase of an illegal product should still have consequences. It should have serious consequences. The purchaser is aiding and abetting a crime. There are legal, if more expensive, ways of obtaining the same product. That the government is not getting the tax on the product is not simply theft. It is encouraging a crime.

Any solution is going to present difficulties. There almost certainly needs to be a range of measures. Yes, you could reduce the cost of a packet of cigarettes but I doubt it would make much difference.  You could require the smoker to get a licence to smoke from a medical practitioner, a licence which would require them to attend classes. You could gradually increase the age at which someone could legally start to smoke. It might take ten to fifteen years to reduce the habit to almost nothing but I believe New Zealand has looked at that option.  Then there is the "confiscation" option. It would require policing but a smoker would have to be able to produce evidence the tobacco they are consuming is legally bought. Without that evidence then they would be required to hand over any tobacco not consumed. 

Yes, I realise the last option is problematic for many reasons but it might well reduce the problem to more manageable proportions. Of course the real problem is that the consumption of tobacco is still legal. It should not be.  

A friend died yesterday

and I am wondering yet again if it is possible to die from a broken heart.

The friend was my beloved Whirlwind's father. He was young, far too young at forty-six. 

I miss the Whirlwind, of course I do. She was an incredible part of my life. In many ways she was the child I never had but she was not my child in the way she was her father's child. She could never have been that.

When she died (and let us use that word "died") her father was never the same. It is something we say about people but it is also true. No parent should lose a child. Losing a child the way he did was  perhaps even harder. He had to agree for them to turn off life support, effectively kill her. His howls of grief as he clung to me at the hospital still cause me an indescribable feeling of helpless misery too. That I was the only adult he felt he could be with at that point is even worse. 

I like C... as a person. I loved him as the Whirlwind's father. We were not related in any way. He had no relations in the world apart from the cousin he lived with when he went to live in the nation's capital. I say "lived with" but in reality they saw very little of each other. Both of them were the sort of public servants who put in very, very long hours. For C... work was a way of trying to avoid the overwhelming grief of losing first his partner and then his daughter. 

Here his hobbies had been his garden, riding his bike with his daughter and putting a fishing line with no bait into the water so he could spend time reading or catching up on sleep. Ms Whirlwind would get cross with him for forgetting to put on sunscreen. 

He went to a place with no garden and rarely rode his bike. Once in a while he and his cousin would take long, silent walks in the parks. Most of his time was spent working. I sent books and he dutifully read them but they did not give him the same pleasure they might once have given him.  He returned here occasionally. After their home was sold I would meet him somewhere in the city and we would sit for several hours over coffee which grew cold and food he barely touched. 

He tried. He really did try to start living again but somehow he could not make it happen. The trips out of the country were not the same when he did not have to work out what time to call his daughter every day. 

I am not going to the funeral. There will not be one. He did not want one. His cousin will be here in another month or so. We will meet for a chat, a reminisce about what might have been perhaps. 

Yes, I am upset. I am sad but I am also relieved. He was not well. He was, despite trying, not happy. He was a hard working man, a very good father. He deserved better.  Rest in peace my friend. 

I am not going to take up another hobby

but I can still take an interest in things other people do as hobbies. There is a difference!

Recently a friend of mine spun some yarn for me. It is something she learned to do after she retired. She had planned to do this. Now, some years down the learning track, she actually spins very well indeed. She spins as well as people who have been doing it for many years. It was something she wanted to do and, being one of those highly intelligent people, she approached the task with thought and preparation. She went to classes. She belongs to a group. She enjoys the process. 

I think that's the entire point. She enjoys what she is doing. It really is a hobby. There is no pressure there.

Other people I know have other hobbies. They pursue them with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  There are people who have "taken up" an activity intended to be a hobby and let it lapse for a long period. Later they have gone back to it. 

Other people do not return to an initial enthusiasm at all. They have tools and other equipment languishing in their sheds and work rooms. The materials have been given away or thrown out.

The late Senior Cat had hobbies which he pursued with enthusiasm. His garden was important but so was his woodworking shed.  It was not just family who benefitted from the food he grew and the things he made. He loved handling timber and working with it. Designing and making conjuring apparatus was a challenge. Indoors he read widely and taught conjuring, study skills and English. He retained his intellectual capacities to the end of his long life and made the most of them.

I hope I can do the same. I do not see "writing" as a hobby. It is an essential part of my being, of my existence. That does not mean there are not days when the idea of writing a blog post does not appeal. No, sitting down to write one is a different thing altogether. It is not the same as writing about the "cathedral cats". I can think about the cats while I am pedalling out and about and I think I would miss them. Saying goodbye to other characters has been very difficult. 

I knit and I crochet. I do not claim to be an expert craftsperson but I enjoy it. I gave up using other people's patterns at around age sixteen. This was not because I am particularly good at knitting or crochet. It is because the challenge is in the design and "seeing if that works" and "what if..." and more. I want to make some buttons to go on the next projects. I have tried one or two ideas and I think I can do it. It won't be easy but that is part of the process. I am impatient to get back to them. 

The reason I have not? There was the state's "Show" and I had things planned for that. In all likelihood it is the last time I will enter anything. I also had the other project I wrote about a short time ago. It involved a hobby but it was done as a "thank you". Next week I will pass it on to someone else to finish. It is one of the rare occasions on which I wish I could sew and do the whole thing myself. Nevertheless it is done and I can think about buttons and other things.

And there is the project the knitting and crochet group at the library is planning. It will involve work but it is related to hobbies I enjoy.

In between I might manage to read a great many more books about all sorts of things...and I suppose I might find a new hobby?    

The High Court has refused leave to appeal

in the Giggle v Tickle case. It is effectively a ruling which leaves women with no legal right to female only spaces under the law.

Before you tell me this is "not true" let me try and explain. The High Court has refused leave to appeal. This means the court believes the law, as it is currently written, was correctly applied by the Federal Court. The court is not saying what the definition of a woman should be. 

The implications of this ruling are potentially catastrophic for women's rights and safety. It is difficult to see how it is now possible to prevent anyone claiming transgender status entering a space designated as being "only" for the gender with which they "identify". This could cover a wide range of services and activities. 

There are already concerns about transgender persons participating in sports teams for women. These concerns often relate to the physical safety of other participants. They are not simply about physical advantage. Who has rights here?  Recently a mother at the library told me how her daughters no longer want to play their chosen sport "because the boys are allowed to play too". Questioning revealed that a bigger and stronger "transgender" teen had been chosen and the rest of the team had been told that person had the "right" to be there. The girls no longer felt safe.

Not so long ago someone casually said to me, "Well if women didn't commit crimes they would not be in prison and they wouldn't have that problem."  What was "that problem"? It was a transgender person claiming the right to be placed in the prison of their preferred gender. The comment completely ignored issues like why the transgender person in question was incarcerated for violent offending against women. It also completely ignored the fact that the offences which land women in prison are all too often due in part to male aggression. Women were seen as the problem!

Given this ruling it will now be interesting to see which way the latest "chest feeding" case will go. A person who identifies as female claims they took measures which allowed them to lactate and chest feed an infant. Another person who took issue with this and raised concerns is now being taken to court for defamation. A judge has asked for more information about what was actually fed to the infant. There have been many questions raised about why someone would actually want to subject an infant to such a procedure. 

The High Court has, rightly, based the decision on the law as it now stands. That is the role of the court. The court is not ruling on "transgender rights". Whether parliament is prepared to review the law is something entirely different. I am not sure they will want to do it. 

 

CANZUK we do it?

There is a proposal being aired for a much stronger association between Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It appears in my main Twitter feed occasionally. 

If the figures are correct then support for the proposal is high in some respects and not others. The idea of "free trade" is one which gets very high approval at around ninety-five percent. Express travel through partner countries was lowest but even that was around fifty-six percent last time a survey was conducted. 

The biggest concerns were, understandably, around housing, health care and agriculture agreements. There are also some fears about those outside the bloc being able to find ways to abuse any such agreement. 

It comes at an interesting time. Migration is under the spotlight here. It is a topic being used to advantage by the red head who leads the party considered to be "far right".  What she is saying and what others like to pretend she is saying are not quite the same thing but there are issues which must be considered. 

"We need migrants but they need to be migrants who will integrate and find their place here. They cannot be people who bring their problems and prejudices here and expect us to change. Current migration policy is almost actively encouraging the latter and not the former," one former federal politician informed me recently. As a member of the party currently in power I found that point of view interesting. 

CANZUK is unlikely to become a unified bloc for all purposes with so many issues which would need to be resolved. Right now we even have a problem with a trade agreement between us and the UK. We are told this is because of concerns about agriculture. That is only part of the story. The present government here has endeavoured to craft an agreement which is politically advantageous to them too. It is not simply about what is good for the country. It is designed to retain power. There is nothing new in that but it is not something they wish the rest of us to know about.

I suspect it is all going to go nowhere, especially at the present time. We will learn nothing more about it while the present government is in power. There is still a widespread belief they can win the next election - with a reduced majority. A CANZUK agreement would not suit their agenda at all. 

The benefits of four countries which have English as at least one official language and similar governance and legal systems should be able to work closely together. This is not the European Union with diverse language and legal systems. It is something which could be much more cohesive. We could do with some of that in the present world. 

Blame the algorithm?

The federal government is attempting to push through more "social media" laws. This time they are asking for "opt out" laws to be passed. They are laws designed to give social media users greater control over what they see in their feeds.

That is the argument anyway. 

This is the same government which is, at least in part, blaming their own unpopularity on "the algorithm". It is also complaining the rise of our redhead's party is due to the same algorithm.

Here is our very own Minister for (among other things) Social Media complaining 

    "the power of online is so strong, the algorithm is so strong that it is overwhelming our public institutions and this is problematic for everybody". 

Really? It is all the fault of Elon Musk and X is it? Is this why there is apparently a wide spread belief the government, particularly the Prime Minister, is lying to us? It doesn't have anything to do with the actual, verifiable fact we are not getting lower electricity bills?

Wrongly used social media is a blight on everyone but demanding the social media giants control the content is wrong. Allowing the government to control the content will doe even more harm. The present government would be more than happy to both blame the algorithm and collect massive fines from social media for failing to  ensure that nothing which harmed the government's chances of re-election was made available. 

There are other things which could be done before that. One would be to require, as required by law, the ABC to actually observe their charter to provide fair, balanced and accurate reporting. It could demand the same of a good many the other media outlets which the general public relies on for news.

There is a good deal of information in the state newspaper this morning about the collapse of an inquiry which was supposed to uncover what would have been appalling instances of "racism" in a major football club. Had they been true then people would possibly be facing court. They were reported as true and kept on being reported as true even when the first doubts were raised. Now someone who was responsible for many of the allegations being made is facing court on a charge of the embezzlement of a large sum of money. It was money intended for indigenous communities.  He was also making claims that the indigenous players themselves have said are not true. Their fellow team mates say the same but the damage done is still great. They have been said to have been subjected to racism and some of the claims are horrific. Living with those claims and having to deny them may be almost as hard as incidents of racism.

The Prime Minister is claiming the purpose of the legislation is to allow people to be in control of what they see. Really? It seems very unlikely to me. The vast majority of people have no idea how such things work or how they are being manipulated. It will also allow the government of the day to heavily influence, indeed ensure, that most people only see what the government wants them to see.

It might be simpler if the government just banned social media for everyone perhaps?  Would that work? 

A school principal has lost her job

over her refusal to endorse  "Wear it purple day" in her school. She was the head of a school where the pupils are under the age of twelve.

"Wear It Purple Day" is apparently a day that encourages people to "create a safer, more supportive and more inclusive world for LGBTQIA+SB young people," according to its website. I had never heard of it.

The school principal felt those matters were not something which should be discussed at school. They should be discussed at home and inside the family. She felt it was not like ANZAC Day or even NAIDOC week where schools do discuss issues around war and racism. 

I will not go into the rights and wrongs of discussing these issues in school although I will admit I would not personally feel comfortable about doing so with young children who were not related to me. Is this really what school is intended to be about?

I know there are people who feel very, very strongly about these issues. They are much more vocal than they were even five years ago. There are court cases which relate to these issues. Some of those cases remain unresolved. People have lost their jobs over these issues. They have been shunned and banned. It has all become very nasty at times. I still do not believe that this is what school is about.

School should surely about giving students the skills and capacity to read, write, calculate, reason and argue? Am I wrong in thinking this? Perhaps I am. Have parents stopped discussing these issues with their children? Perhaps they have. Perhaps they do not have time to deal with such things?

I do not believe people should be losing their positions over these things. The principal in question is apparently just opposed to the issues being discussed in schools. I wonder how she feels about the continuing publication of books about these issues. The local library has many of them. One mother I know has complained to me that she feels it is not appropriate to have books about "gay grandfathers" on the shelves. I wonder if they are really necessary - or appropriate.

We do need to be open about these things if children ask questions but my guess is that most children do not. Why would they? They might think someone is "different" but such differences usually mean very little in childhood.  

It seems to me we are teaching children to believe something is far more significant than it might otherwise be. We are telling them that differences are more important than similarities. I am not sure it is a good thing.  

I have been making a book list

for someone and came across another list. The second list was intended for students in their senior year at a Catholic high school somewhere in the United States in 1965.

It is an extraordinary list. The books on it are books which even the brightest university students would now struggle to read. 

It begins with  four books to be read "before September" - presumably the start of the school year.  There is a book by Thomas Merton and I know nothing about that. Then there is Harper Lee's  "To Kill a Mockingbird" (now banned in some places), Antoine de St Exupery's  "Night Flight" comes next, then Ivan Turgenev's "Father and Sons". 

I have read just two of those and only glanced at the Turgenev.

It goes on to other books. The first on the list is Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a young man". When I was about ten the Senior Cat was studying that as part of his university degree and I remember him reading me the part where Stephen's mother is washing his ears. It is not the sort of thing most ten year olds hear about I suppose. I did read the book later.

The rest of the list covers some interesting material.  It ranges from things like "Lord of the flies" and "The thirty-nine steps" to "War and Peace" and "Crime and Punishment".  I have read Lord of the Flies and The thirty-nine steps but gave up on the other two. 

In between there is Paton's "Cry, the beloved country" and Shute's "On the beach". They are interesting choices for their time and were probably considered controversial as well. Willa Cather appears too, as does F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Le Carre.

It is a mixed list but there is serious literature on it. It is an interesting list because I have just shown it to the only neighbour I know who does any reading for pleasure. He looked carefully at it and then said, "Well, I have heard of some of them but the only one I have read is Lord of the Flies. It was a set text in my last year at school." This neighbour is twenty-two years younger than I am. His children have not read any of these books. He thinks they will not even have heard of anything on it. The idea of them reading four books on it before the beginning of the school year made him laugh.  "Not a hope," he told me.

I know quite a number of teenagers in their final two years of school and I have to admit that not one of them would be likely to read anything on that list by choice. They might read one or two of the shorter and better known books if they were forced to do so but most of those books would not be read except under duress.

So, what are they reading? Is that the right question or should I be asking, "Are they reading at all?"  I know some of them are not reading now. Hopefully they will go back to books when Year 12 has ended and before university begins.  

 

Ecclesiastical vestments are not

something I know much about. The subject is likely of no great interest to most people. I certainly never planned on needing to know anything.

As a child I went to Sunday School and, where there was no Sunday School, I was expected to "sit quietly" in church. I suspect I went more often than many children, often twice on a Sunday when we were in the city. I went to the Presbyterian Sunday School on alternate Sunday mornings and endured the Christian Science version on the other Sunday when we lived in the city. The Presbyterian one was something my brother and I actually looked forward to attending. Looking back I realise we must have had some exceptionally good teachers there. They were not "do-gooder" older women but young and enthusiastic people who provided activities.

But, for all that, the Presbyterians were a "black and white" lot. I do not remember anything colourful about the clothing worn by the Ministers or Teaching Elders. The only thing which marked them out were their plain "bands" and clerical collar. The same was true of the ministers who appeared out in the remote rural areas. There in fact the preacher was more likely to be the Senior Cat in his Sunday suit and tie. 

My brother and I found the occasional Church of England service "colourful" compared with what we were used to experiencing but the occasions were rare. I did not set foot inside a Roman Catholic church until I was an adult. Since then I have been to many others as well - for weddings, funerals, baptisms and more. I have been inside temples and synagogues too.

And most of these places have been more decorated than the very austere Presbyterian churches I knew as a child. It is always one of the things I find extraordinary about religion in general - the enormous amount of great art, architecture, music and literature religion can generate.

So, why ecclesiastical vestments? I never thought I would try to make anything remotely related to one. Next year however "the church on the hill" the Senior Cat attended is having their 175th anniversary year. Planning is apparently well underway for this. As I see and hear this from the oldest parishioners (I see them often in the local shopping centre) I know that they are concerned they might not be there to experience the year in the way they would most like to do. They want to participate but they may not have the ability or the energy to do it. 

I also know it is going to be a great deal more work for the priest than many of them understand. He is a good man. He works hard. He was a regular visitor to the Senior Cat. They spent hours discussing woodwork and teaching techniques. There was very little "religion" in those visits and I know D... got as much from them as the Senior Cat did. D... may have been given some timber from the Senior Cat's shed but I have always wanted to thank him in another way. 

So, I sat and thought and then I did some research. The result has been a "stole" - that long, thin scarf like affair that the priest wears over his white robe on Sundays. They come in different colours according to the time of the church year and some of the modern ones come in many colours and designs. Many of them are as beautiful in their way as the oldest ones from centuries back. Could I knit one with one hundred and seventy five colours in it? One for each year of the existence of the church on the hill? 

It had to be long, but not too long. There had to be a cross in the centre at the back and one on each end. I had to find something that would provide all those colours. I had to shape it so that it will not bunch up at the back. There were more challenges. 

The result has been something knitted from very fine weaving cotton and embroidery thread. The weaving cotton is green - for what D... will call "ordinary time" and a pack of cheap Indian embroidery thread provided the colours. As most of the greens (and there were a lot of them) could not be used I still had to experiment. I have made no attempt to sew or weave the ends of the single row "flashes" into the fabric. That proved impossible. The thread just slips out again.  Two days ago I pinned out something which is 2.8m long and 10cms wide. I sprayed it to keep it flat and it has been drying. When my friend M... gets back from visiting family I will pass it over to her to see what she thinks and, if approved of, then ask someone else to line it so it can be used.

Yes, definitely a challenge and I would do it differently if I needed to do another one but I have managed to learn a good deal on the way.

This is a not very good photograph of it. Now I can go back to other things instead. 
 

And now for a longer and much more serious

post. (And yes, I think I have managed to do that back up all by myself. I still think it is a complicated way of doing it but it seems to be done...and I checked that what I put there before starting came up.)

But, much more seriously, I want to say something about a very disturbing new website. It is called "Call It Out" and the purpose of it is to  provide " a simple and secure way for ANYONE to report incidents of racism and discrimination towards First Nations Peoples."

Now I have no time for racism but this site is saying the incidents have to be towards "First Nations Peoples".  The site mentions "stolen land" so I am assuming they mean the descendants of the people who lived here before white settlement. 

However that in itself is a problem. There is no actual legislation defining a "first nations person". There is nothing said about how you "identify" either. My friend M... always ticks the "prefer not to identify" box on a form if he has the opportunity. He sees no point in "being aboriginal". He sees himself simply as a person like anyone else. I hope I see him and his family and aboriginal friends in just that way. I try to do that. They have never made it difficult and we have shared some wonderful occasions together. 

It was M... who sent me the link to the website. He sent it along with the words, "What fresh hell is this?" He sees it as encouraging a belief in racism even where it does not exist. I suspect he is not far wrong.  He does not see it as being used by those who might have some real cause to believe it. In his view it is more likely to be used by those who "identify" on the flimsy basis of one great-grandparent or the like. 

And that is just part of the problem. This is just one way "racism". It does not cover the indigenous woman who, being given shelter in a women's shelter run by the Catholic church, told a nun who sat down next to her "get away from me whitey". The nun quietly rose and sat down again further away. Was the comment racist or not? Can racism work in one direction but not the other? It is a problem not addressed here and which never seems to be addressed elsewhere. 

And then there is the problem of how you define "racism"? Here is what users of the site are being told,  

" All reports of racism and discrimination can be made to Call It Out: anything that you feel is unfair or unjust towards First Nations People based on race can be reported (e.g. interpersonal or structural bias, prejudice, or discrimination). You can tell us as much or as little as you like in your report."

Is it racist to complain about Aboriginal flags flying at an event which is supposed to unite all of us? Is it racist to complain about "welcome to country" ceremonies when there are no visitors from another country present?  

I could go on. The site disturbs me because I think it is encouraging a belief in racism where perhaps none exists. If we have something like this (and we do in the Equal Opportunity Commission) then the definition of what racism is has to be much clearer. The problem is that I suspect it will not suit the activists who see racism and disadvantage at every opportunity - and they make it so much more difficult for every other person who sees things differently.  

Short post for now

 The computer needs to be backed up and I am on the laptop instead so today it will be a short post. I am going to try to do some clearing out now that I have finished my last project! Paws crossed.

Writing statutory declarations is

is something I have done more times than I care to think about. I know how to do it. I know where to find the various forms I need in order to do it. I know where to find a witness to my signature. Once in a while I have had to write one which I consider "personal" - in other words it relates to my personal affairs rather than my work.

I have just written one such declaration stating that the work I entered in this year's state show is my own work. I will go and get my paw print witnessed later this morning. Having to do this is something I should never have had to do. It is something I have never had to do in the past and I hope I never need to do such a thing again. It should not have been necessary. 

Anyone can put an entry into the handicrafts section state's annual agricultural and horticultural show. It is not difficult. You make something. You fill out the form on line and you pay your entry fee. Apart from one class in Knitting and another in Crochet it is even possible to put in something where the maker has followed a commercial pattern.

I do not use commercial patterns. Part of the challenge for me is to design something. I see no fun in doing what someone else is telling me to do. Perhaps that has led to part of the problem but I do not think so. 

No, I received feedback from more than one source that there were questions being asked about whether it was really my work. Upset? Yes, I am. I am upset. I am trying not to be angry too. I think I know what was behind the remarks which were made. It is one of the oldest things in the book of awkward social relations, jealousy. 

There have been emails backwards and forwards and an interesting offer was made to me which, while not an admission of guilt as such, is a strong indication of "yes, we were wrong". I have politely declined the offer as there is an alternative solution which is better for all concerned.  

None of that really matters though. What matters is that one person has not had the good grace to contact me early on and asked a simple question. It could have saved so much bother and done so much less harm.

Next time you think you know something negative about a person but are not sure ask about it first. It might save a lot of harm being done.    

Basic domestic economics

tells me if I have to pay more for something, but have no additional income, then I am less likely to buy it. For some things this will not matter but it will for others.

I have noticed this in the supermarket. The price of chocolate is double what it was a year ago. I rarely buy chocolate but it is hard not to notice the price when it is "on special" and sitting outwards on the end of the aisle. One of the staff told me "people are buying less of that and more of the cheapest bread". I am sure they are.

I am not too concerned about chocolate. It is not an essential part of our diets. (Yes, I know there are some who will disagree but...)

I am concerned about some other things, two in particular. The first is the rise in the cost of health insurance and the cutting of the "rebate" for older people. This is poor economics, very poor economics. It is older people who are most likely to (a) struggle to pay for private health insurance, (b) most likely to need it and (c) be a drain on other taxpayer funded services if they can get them. Why would you do anything which might add to the public waiting lists and cost more for everyone in the long term?  If I need a joint replacement and I have been paying into an insurance scheme to cover it then it might make sense to see I get it. It could, especially for someone like me, be the difference between independence or being a costly burden on the rest of the community.

The other is the slashing of funding to fee-paying schools. We all pay taxes and some of that money goes to education. There is surely an argument that all children should receive the same basic amount  of funding? After that, and only after that, should some children receive more - and many of those children will be children with special needs. I have no problem with paying more to help children with special needs. I do have a problem with saying, "Some children will receive less than the taxpayer funded amount given to most other children. The idea that "Your parents are wealthy and they can afford to pay for all you educational needs. The state does not need to contribute." is surely wrong? Quite apart from anything else there are multiple reasons why children attend fee-paying schools and their parents are often far from wealthy. 

There are many people opposed to any funding for such schools. They claim it is wrong but if all those schools were suddenly to close then the reality is that the education system could not cope.  

Not so long ago our government found the money to fund the start of a football team in our closest northern neighbour. Many millions of dollars have been allocated to this. More millions of dollars have been allocated to athletics in other Pacific countries. There are many dubious "environmental initiatives" and the current furore over a climate talk-fest in the Pacific. This is not money being wisely spent however much the government might try to argue otherwise but it is popular where it matters. Yes, other countries may well need help with respect to environmental initiatives but those initiatives need to be those which will actually assist. They must not be "climate change" programs which allow any other government to say, "Look what we are doing. Aren't we good?"

Perhaps the biggest problem however is that moves like this one are just playing into the hands of a certain red-headed politician...and that could be very dangerous indeed.  

There are five murders which took place

in this city between 1979 and 1983 which are called "The Family" murders. Only one person has ever been convicted of any of those murders and he is now dead. 

He died in prison last year and, if he knew anything, it went to the grave with him. That person knew he was dying. How likely is it that, if he knew any more about the others involved, he would have said nothing at all? He is described as having been a "psychopath" and "completely lacking in empathy". 

The murders happened at a time when a great deal more was going on in the community.  One of the victims was the son of a well known news reader on commercial television and, perhaps because of that, his case received even more than the usual attention. 

What marks the five cases out however is something much more disturbing, as disturbing as the murders themselves. It is the secrecy which surrounded them and still surrounds them now. Order after order was made to suppress evidence. Evidence was suppressed even during the trial. The prosecution achieved a guilty verdict even when there was evidence not put before the court. 

Yes, it is likely the evidence would not have resulted in a "not guilty" verdict. That was not the reason to suppress the evidence. The reason given was that it might harm the case of others the police were pursuing in relation to the murders. At one point a doctor was brought before the courts as a potential killer. He was released again because the evidence simply was not there. The charges were dropped even before the trial took place. 

We have been left with a situation where the suppression orders may still be protecting people who should have been required to face court. The siblings of those murdered are making one last appeal to have the suppression orders lifted - as their parents had tried before them. They say they, and perhaps the public at large, have the right to know who the suspects are. It is said most of the suspects are likely now dead. Those that are alive are likely very elderly.

One of the victims lived not far from where we living at the time. I did not know him. Brother Cat had "seen him around" but not had anything to do with him. I remember that it still hit us hard. Our parents were, rightly, very worried.  Many other parents were as well. Were their sons safe?

Two more things happened which I still wonder about. The first is that one of the local boys disappeared for some days. Nobody knew where he was. The media made a great deal of it. We knew the neighbours of this boy and thus learned more than most people from two sensible and concerned adults. All they could tell us was that the boy had appeared again. He was severely traumatised and quite unable to tell anyone what had happened to him. His injuries were very similar to those of the victims. His family moved out very suddenly, out of a home which had been theirs for more than twenty years. The father left work abruptly. Nobody knew where they had gone. The only other thing we ever learned, again from the concerned neighbours, was that several years later the boy committed suicide.  He had never been able to speak about what happened to him. Was it another death related to those murders? 

So yes, it is tempting to wonder who was being protected by those suppression orders and why they are still protected. There may be nothing in it. Those named as suspects who are deceased cannot defend themselves. The question of "right to know" has been firmly brought to the front again. If there are murderers still alive I wonder if they are worried by the latest moves or if they know they are still very firmly protected for reasons we know nothing about.