I do not understand football

and I understand the passion some feel for the game and "their" team even less. I suppose I should say I do not understand the passion for any form of competitive sport or the support of any team. I really am not interested. I am of Mark Twain's view that golf is a good walk spoilt, that physical competition of any sort is good exercise spoilt. 

This is not simply because I have never been able to participate in any form of competitive sport myself. That is not even quite true because I have been required to throw balls at certain times in my life. I have even done so quite successfully. Did I enjoy the experience? No. It was simply something which I was required to do so I did it. I have also been required to score for netball and softball...and had difficulty not yawning while doing both.

My interest in any form of sport starts and ends with the game of cricket. I cannot pretend I understand the game but the psychology of it does interest me if there is nothing else going on. I would go to a cricket match with some knitting and a book.  

I know. I am absolute heathen when it comes to sport. I cannot even get interested in the medal count for the Olympics.

So the current uproar about the footballers who allegedly behaved "inappropriately" towards a woman who had agreed to attend their celebrations at their request leaves me wondering yet again about the whole sorry business called "sport". Yes, "sport" is a business. It is not a recreation. It is there to provide "entertainment" to the masses but it is also there to buy and sell a commodity and make a profit. That commodity of course is the individual player. A good one can be bought and sold for an extraordinary sum of money. This is a human being we are talking about but how many people actually think of the player in those terms?

The idea of the selling and buying slaves in the old Roman market place is abhorrent to most people. It should be abhorrent. Buying and selling slaves to and in America was even worse. We tell ourselves how bad "white" people were for doing this while conveniently forgetting that there were any number of African "kings" and "chiefs" who were also complicit in the trade. That the same thing is now happening in sport is something we do not recognise as problematic.

Perhaps that is part of the problem. Do the players themselves have an inflated belief in their worth? High on adrenalin after winning a match shouldn't someone have kept them together and watched them? How can they be responsible human beings when they are also being told they are a commodity worth a great deal of money to someone, especially when they have won a game? Those who "own" the players are no better than the "whites" who bought them to sell to plantation owners or the "kings" and "chiefs" who sold them to those whites. 

If we stopped paying people to play what should be normal, ordinary exercise an entire industry would collapse - but would we really be any worse off?  

There was always going to be an appeal

in the "Mushroom" case. Men are much more likely to commit murder than women. Men commit 85% to 90% of known murders. It is also interesting to note women who commit murder almost always do so in an "intimate" setting. In other words the victim is likely to be a partner or family member. 

In the case of Erin Patterson, the woman found guilty of murdering three people by feeding them beef Wellington containing death cap mushrooms,  extended family members were involved but the intimacy was at one step removed. That alone makes it a little more unusual. 

I am not watching the appeal as such. Most of what goes in a court of law is, to be blunt, dull. It is not "exciting" in the way a television series will try and suggest. I am, for the benefit of some students, keeping an eye on what is going on. So yesterday I looked at the grounds the defence is making their grounds for appeal.

There are apparently seven grounds for appeal by the defence. These are things the defence thinks are "wrong in law" or "not fair" or "a mistake". The defence is raising several which relate to the actual evidence presented. I do not know enough to comment on those, nor do I wish to comment. I can comment on a couple of issues.

The first of these is the claim the jury should not have been staying in the same hotel as any of the prosecution or the media.  The thing to note here is that there can be no communication between them. The defence is attempting to argue that it is a "fundamental irregularity" and that "it has fatally undermined the integrity of the verdicts".  More than once a case has been thrown out of court because a juror has discussed, searched and even spoken to someone they should not have spoken to but it has to be shown to have happened. It cannot be a matter of "we think having them the jury and others involved in the same case in the same place influenced their decision".  Jurors who are sequestered are kept separate by court officials and the matter was raised at the time of the trial. Will that succeed as a ground of appeal? It is unlikely. If it did then it would not be cause for the case to be dismissed but could result in a retrial. 

The other interesting thing being argued as a ground for appeal is that the defence is arguing the defendant's right to silence was "compromised". Why are they arguing this? A defendant in a murder trial does not have to give evidence. The defence is arguing that the prosecution attempted to bring in evidence that was ruled inadmissible. The defence now says they had to bring in that evidence instead. They are claiming this forced the defendant to give evidence in her own defence but they apparently agree the evidence itself was of a speculative nature. Yes, the defence can sometimes bring in evidence ruled inadmissible for the prosecution to bring in. Choosing to use it as a ground for claiming the defendant had to give evidence may alone be enough to cause this to fail.

The treatment of the defendant in the witness box is being appealed too. There is a suggestion here of "here is this poor woman being accused of murder and you are being nasty to her". That is not the way the law works. If you give evidence in any trial you have to expect to be treated harshly by the side which has the most to lose. You can be sure the KC working for the defendant came down hard on every member of the prosecution's team.  

There are other matters also being claimed as grounds for appeal. They relate more closely to the case. 

There are three possibilities here/

The appeal succeeds and the defendant is found "not guilty". This is highly unlikely.

The appeal succeeds and the defendant is granted a new trial. This is possible but there will be serious issues with this. Finding a jury without a knowledge of the case would be well nigh impossible.

The appeal fails. The defendant stays in prison. That might lead to an attempt to find a means of appealing to the High Court. The issue of the sequestering of the jury might have some possibilities there but again it would likely result in an order for a retrial.

And on the other side the prosecution is appealing the sentence. Thirty-three years or life? 

I wonder about the other family members - especially the two children.  

 

 

"There are 350,580 recipients with autism"

 I was told in the email sent to me. I had queried something and the figures were sent to me in a chart. 

"The NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) is not working." I was told and the person telling me this was clearly angry and frustrated.

 I was concerned from the start that some would take advantage of it and this is clearly what is happening. Below are the figures for "disability" in this country. We are a "crook" lot aren't we? The numbers are through the roof...if you believe them.

Much of the problem lies in the first line. The idea that 44.9% of recipients need funding because of "autism" as their primary disability is something we need to be investigating urgently. I can almost hear the "but you don't know..." and "you have no idea..." coming at me right now. But I do know and I do have some idea. How many of these are children who are not diagnosed with any other disability?  

Let me start by saying that severe and profound autism are severely and profoundly disabling, not just of the individual but of everyone around them. Those with the condition and those who care for them need financial, physical and emotional support. It is a twenty-four hour, seven days of the week issue that can impact an entire family.

Now, let me go on. A child who is "fidgety" or has a problem attending in a classroom or whose behaviour does not always meet the standard considered acceptable is not "autistic". That child may or may not have a problem but it is not a disability. It is an issue which may need to be addressed but it is not a disability. Just because your little darling is not top of the class (and would not be top of the class even if they were doing the work) does not mean they are disabled. There is every chance your child is within the normal range of ability and is not paying attention. They would prefer to be doing something else. Be thankful if that is the case because the parents who have children who are not within the normal range of ability are often feeling overwhelmed.  

Yes, the scheme was started with the best of intentions but it has been hi-jacked by some who see it as an acceptable way of explaining why their child is not top of the class and not always well behaved. The idea that their child might not be because they are in fact "normal" is not acceptable.

I looked down that list. The numbers receiving assistance for other disabilities is about what I would expect but I also know there are still people who are not getting all the help they need and some who are not getting any at all. 

We did away with "special schools" and "opportunity classes" on  "inclusion" grounds - and to save money. We have attempted to reduce the number of people on disability pensions. The NDIS has taken over from that and the cost has exploded. It was a mistake. All it has done has made some people see "free money" and take advantage. Getting NDIS money is not supposed to be "easy" and for many people it has not been. Once on the scheme it can be addictive too. The child has progressed or a permanent solution to an adult problem has been found but money keeps coming. Monitoring all that is impossible. 

Yes, I know all that. I hear from parents and other recipients. I still do not believe that there are 350,000 something individuals with such severe autism they need the level of support they are likely getting. Let's work on this so that those who really need support are getting it.   

Someone has stolen a teddy bear

from a child with Down Syndrome. It might not seem like much to most people. "Oh, just a retarded kid. She'll get over it" attitude is the one which seems to prevail amongst a certain class of people. Others have been much more concerned. They have offered to buy her a new bear, an identical bear. Thank you but no thank you.

The child's mother is absolutely correct here. She does not want her child to be given a new bear that looks like the old one. She wants the old bear to be returned. Why? Because Down Syndrome or not the child knows her own bear. 

I am with the mother on this. I am with the child on this. It has to be the original bear. This is not a "lost" bear. It is a bear which was stolen. Someone took it away from where it was looking out across the fence. It was tied to the fence. Someone had to come along and cut the ties and take it away. Why on earth would you do that?

Years ago now I found a soft toy rabbit in our local area. It was obviously much loved. I looked around for "lost" notices. I put up some "found" notices. I mentioned it in any number of places.

And then I got the phone call. Did it have.... Yes, it did. Can we come right now and get it? Yes, they could. It took about twenty minutes for them to get there. The small child who owned it looked as if he had not slept for a week. His parents looked much the same. I handed over the toy and the small boy began to cry. One hand held the toy by the leg and the other was clutching my trouser leg. We all three hugged. His parents wanted to reward me but there was no reward on earth better than seeing the joy on the child's face and hearing the sobs of equal joy.  

The Senior Cat showed the small boy how to do a very simple "magic trick". The small boy's father quickly learned it so they could teach the rabbit and they went off - a complete family again. 

I saw them several times over the next few years before they returned to their home country. The toy rabbit was the last thing the little boy's great-grandmother had made for him and she would not be there when they got back. The child would never know her but his parents did. Yes, that toy was part of the family. I suspect it still is. 

It is remembering that and the way my mother gave our toys away as we moved from one place to the next which makes me so aware of how important that bear is. Mum did not do it intending to be cruel. She simply had no reason to feel sentimental. That we might did not occur to her. I would still like to have my train set.

Anyone with any conscience at all would give that bear back.  

Hunting for a lost parcel

is something which irritates, annoys, infuriates me. 

A friend in the United States had sent me "something". She did not tell me what the "something" was or how large or small it was. No, it was to be a "surprise". It was a "thank you for the hours of work you put in". 

That was nice of her, indeed of the whole team behind her. I was more than happy to help. There was a small boy who was going to be a lot less frustrated as a result of a team effort. All I had to do was direct things from afar...and at odd hours. 

No, that was not the problem. I had ordered from the company in question (yes, yarn of course!) and they had my old address. The dear friend who ordered the yarn used my new address but the system somehow rejected it and went back to my old address.

How do I know all of this? Because my friend sent me an email yesterday saying it had been delivered. She had just checked the "tracking" and there it was saying "delivered and left in a safe place".  Oh. I thought about this.

I have never wanted to go back to where the Senior Cat and I were living. It brings back too many memories and reminds too strongly of how much I miss him. I know the people who live there now have changed things and that the street is changing too. The neighbours across the way have told me that. 

But...would they have the parcel? It was supposed to have arrived on Thursday. They might have returned it already if they had been out and about. If it was small it could go in a post box with "RTS" on it for "return to sender". 

I swallowed hard and put on my bike helmet. Armed with a note for the people now living there I pedalled off. 

They were home. They saw me through the window. They have no curtains. We were told to take the old curtains down and they have never replaced them. 

The mother came to the door with a smile on her face. Yes, she knew who I was. I explained about the parcel. Yes, they had the parcel. They had been away for two nights and it was there when they came home. 

The parcel was duly produced and passed over. Did I want to come in and see what they had done to the place?

I declined. It would have felt intrusive and I really did not want to see how different it is now. 

We were told that they were likely living there as a temporary measure. That they would move on and renovate yet another property. There have been changes to regulations since then and they will likely to stay a lot longer. 

As I was leaving the mother said quietly to me, "We like it here. We have heard a lot about you and your father. It has helped us get to know the neighbours. Thank you."

I was the one supposed to be thanking her but I pedalled off feeling a bit more comfortable. The new regulations may not be to everyone's advantage but I hope they might provide the new family with the same good neighbours we had.   

"Jason Arday is dead"

came the blunt statement from someone I know. I knew who he was and I knew some of the story. It is a very upsetting end to the story for him but it is by no means the end of the story. 

As someone else pointed out Arday was primarily responsible because he was not honest but the university was also responsible for not doing a thorough check of his credentials before employing him. The government there can be held responsible for the demands they are making about "diversity, equality and inclusion". The rest of us are also responsible for going along with all this and not speaking up. 

There are similar problems here but they have not, so far, resulted in suicide that I am aware of. We have a "professor" of "indigenous agriculture" who, despite his claims to the contrary, is not a member of any indigenous tribe. Research by more than one person outside academia has shown his ancestry is in no way related to any "aboriginal" tribe. He still holds the position of professor and still continues to make the same nonsensical claims about aboriginal "farming" and agriculture and ways of living. He is being permitted, indeed encouraged, to continue teaching this to students. They are being expected to regurgitate it - and they will if they want to pass. 

One university has introduced a compulsory subject for all students which touches on all these things. No, you do not dare to disagree. 

There are "subjects" being researched and taught here which do not have any basis in sound research. They are there to satisfy the demands of "diversity, equality and inclusion".  They are not there to satisfy any sort of academic rigour.

Yes, we are supposed to be a multi-cultural country. If we are to be one then "diversity" is a given.  For me "equality" and "inclusion" are a given. It is what any normal, ordinary and decent person does.  It means equal opportunities and inclusion based on those opportunities. It does not mean excluding others just to make way for those who are less able or less qualified. If an equally qualified and able person satisfies all the other requirements then it may well be a very good thing to appoint them if they meet the demand for "diversity" but they need to be at very least as able and as well qualified but ability and qualifications need to be the first consideration. Failing to do put those first is not doing anyone any favours.

Arday did no favours to his fellow "black" academics. He has actually done a great deal of harm. The university did no favours either. It is going to take those responsible some time to regain the trust of others - if they can at all. It has left many more people with a low opinion of what happens inside universities and yet more opposition to demands for diversity, for equality and for inclusion simply for the sake of those things. 

Something good may come out of this if we can start to think of people as individuals first and members of any group second.  

 

So you want to write a history

of the local area?

Our local council is looking ahead to the 175th Anniversary of the council area. It has therefore been announced they intend to spend $190,000 of rate payer funds on producing a history of the area. Sounds good?

There are local history groups and they are apparently expected to work together to make this happen. It all sounds rather lovely doesn't it?

There has been an immediate backlash suggesting it is a waste or ratepayer funds. My opinion has naturally been sought by a few locals who oppose the project, are bewildered by it, who support the project but not in the proposed form and so on. 

What has not been mentioned in the press is that there are already two books about the area which were written by a trained historian as well as some smaller works. I happen to know about them because my parents were involved in a small way in the research for the second. That book is a history of the church on the hill behind us but it covers much more than that. It covers more than that because the church was there first and it was effectively the place which governed the community before there were local councils. The history of the settlement of the area does not extend very far back when you compare it withe so much history in the United Kingdom.

The current proposal does not seem to involve a trained historian. It involves volunteers and a "coordinator". Will it work?  I know some of those who will likely be involved. They are intelligent people but they are not historians. Chemists and bankers do not necessarily know how history is researched and written,

It is also intended to fund a $10,000 grant to "indigenous" people to cover the history before white settlement. I do not understand the purpose of such a grant. Speaking to other people they do not understand it either. It would appear to be a political gesture designed to make us believe that there is a way of accessing some special knowledge not available to the rest of us. 

I suppose it is both these things which leave me wondering just what the project is intended to do. At very least the work which has already been well and carefully done should be used in any future endeavours. This is not just a suggestion aimed at saving time and money it is because, while the work needs to be updated, there is a great deal more material that did not go into the original book. There were some interviews conducted. Many of those people are no longer alive but some are. They are also elderly, very elderly. I doubt the groups have the skills to interview them quickly. Going through original materials also takes time and care. There is a need to be alert to clues as to where more material might be found. You also need to know when to stop gathering material. I could go on but most people will see genuine problems here.

The other grant with respect to indigenous people is a waste of money. There is no written history prior to white settlement but that is only part of the problem. There is nobody alive now who has such a strong genuine connection to the past that they can add to what little we have been told we know. Even that is doubtful. The grant is going to a plains group. As far as anyone can tell their history and culture is quite different from that of the people who lived in the hills. They did not mix much. They were not disposed to be friendly towards one another. There are no documents recording their history. We can say people lived in the area. There is a little that can be picked up or guessed at through a few artefacts but anyone who attempts to say "this is the language they spoke" or "this is what their stories were" is simply lying or being fooled. It is a problem faced by archaeologists and cannot be solved by giving grants to political groups who claim some indigenous heritage.

History is important. We can learn a great deal from it. The Gaelic proverb  "cuimhnich air na daoine bhon tàinig thu" or "remember the people where you come from" is one I found when helping my father's cousin with our clan history. It seems to me that we could all pay more attention to it - but it must be done with care and skill.  I am not sure it is going to happen here. 

The little darlings skipped school

yesterday. They went to "protest" on the steps of the state's Parliament House.

I was supposed to attend a meeting in the city. It was cancelled because of the "event". 

The person who cancelled informed me about the event later. He had to get into the adjacent building and was booed and heckled on the way in. That he had nothing to do with the protest was apparently the point rather than not the point. According to the protestors he should have been joining in their revolt. Anyone passing should have been joining in according to some of them. The people they were protesting about are, according to them, that dangerous.

These young people were using their "right" to "freedom of speech" to call for another group to be banished. I cannot say "banned" but many of those in the group may well have agreed with a ban if such a thing were possible. That group is political party. It is not a radical far right group attempting to bring in a different legal system or espousing anti-Semitic views. It has a homosexual person in a prominent position in the party. It is not, despite reports to the contrary, anti-immigration or opposed to all environmental measures. 

So, what was it they were protesting about? They do not like the "policies" of that particular group? That is up to them. I happen to think the so-called policies lack any detail and are likely unworkable. I would not vote for the party myself and I know surprisingly few people who will admit that they might. There are other ways of getting my own views across. They don't include attending expletive ridden rallies organised by a student who is a member of an extreme left group.

The person I was supposed to be meeting went into his office. He could hear what was being said. He is most definitely not a fan of the political party being protested about but he has seen many protests come and go. He accepts they are part of student life. 

This protest? "I would like to have taken some of them in, sat them down, chatted to them. I would like to know whether they really believe the drivel they were being fed. My guess is the majority of them were not thinking at all. They were caught up in the thrill of the protest, the time out of school." 

Yes, I suspect he is right. It is said most students were university students or from the two city high schools. There were about a thousand of them. That is all. They did not come in their thousands from all over the state. There were far more people who protested the Vietnam war when I was that age. I suspect we might, even without the benefits of easy social media communications, have known more about the issues we were concerned about. 

The "leader" of the protest is a young radical with ideas that often appeal to the young until they think about them. They appeal until how they might be implemented and what the consequences might be become apparent.

The little darlings will be back at school today. Some of them will be enthusiastically informing those who did not go how much they missed by not attending. I hope they discover they also missed an important lesson or two or three.  Late yesterday afternoon I also overheard one who apparently had attended saying it was "boring".  Hopefully more of the attendees will feel that way and work towards being able to actively and positively participate in the future of this country.   

Transgender athlets who compete

on women's teams are again in discussion. The football people have just cleared a transgender person to play on women's teams. There were, and still are, concerns because this person is considerably larger and stronger than others on the same team or the teams they play against.

Comments are now being made by well known figures and not just those who are required to play on the same or on opposing teams. I have also heard a good many other comments from local people. The general consensus is that this person should not be allowed to participate if others are at risk.

Some clubs are now saying they would prefer to forfeit rather than play on or with teams who include trans players. Those at the top are demanding they continue playing.

Somewhere along the line we seem to have lost something called "common" sense.  This is something which would say, "some people are different" and "it is not always possible to be inclusive". It would recognise potential harm to the majority. 

There are some things it is not possible to be inclusive about. Is the exclusion of this person really any different from excluding a blind person from driving a car on the roads? The blind person may want to drive but the safety of others demands they do not. 

I am a short and not very mobile person. I have a poor sense of balance. It would not take much to knock me over. If I had wanted to play basketball in my childhood I would have been told I could not. This would not simply have been because I was hopeless at such things but because it was considered "dangerous". I would have been knocked over. There were some rare occasions when the team did include me. I would be the person with the ball at the very start of the match. My instructions would be to "throw the ball to X... and then get off the court". Even so there would be an adult there ready to grab me and get me off safely. The opposing side was pretty good about it too. They knew the game was going on safely without me. It was the team and the game which mattered.

Now it seems that the individual matters more. In this case it is an individual who has all the characteristics of a sex with whom that individual does not "identify".  Teams are being asked to consider the individual before the group. That can be important but in this instance the individual does have alternatives. They are not barred from playing. It is just more appropriate and safer for everyone else if they do not play with that group. Is that exclusion or is it something else? 

    

Farming is not an occupation

for the faint hearted or the lazy. It is not "easy". You do not simply fling some seed into a machine and drive up and down a field or a paddock and hope the seed goes in to the right space at the right time. You cannot just leave it there to grow either. Cows do not milk themselves. Sheep do not shear themselves. Fruit does not pick itself.

I have never lived on a farm. I occasionally visited on one as a child. Whenever we did my brother and I were expected to help with the work in just the same way as the children who lived there. Brother Cat could drive a tractor at age eight because it was expected he would do just that when he spent a weekend with a friend. He had just one lesson and then he was, slowly but carefully, taking the tractor down the rough lane to where it was needed. There was no "mucking about". This was serious adult work done by children because there was nobody else to do it. I was left behind to feed calves and the family  hens, collect the eggs and help in the kitchen. Sexist? Perhaps it was but it was, and still is, essential. 

I could still feed a team of shearers. Their work may not be quite as onerous as it once was but it is still hard work and I was taught to appreciate that. They need to be well fed. My paternal grandmother taught me that.

My paternal grandmother came from a farm and she came into her marriage with a work ethic that never left her. She knew how to make the most of every cut of meat and just how far it would go. The fruit trees in the garden were there to feed the family all year round, not just when the fruit was in season. There would have been hundreds of women like her who could do just the same things. They had to do them or the family would not have had enough to eat. 

Yes, they may have been farmers but they were not "rich". The idea that farmers are "rich" is probably one of the greatest falsehoods ever perpetuated. The farm land may well be "worth" something but that something does not translate into actual wealth. 

It is these things that governments seem to willingly misunderstand. Governments want to dictate what can be planted, how it can be planted and when it can be planted. They want to charge for allowing it to be planted and they want to tax the fuel and the fertiliser being used. They will tax the money obtained for selling the crop while telling you how much it can be sold for and to whom you can sell it. 

All these things will supposedly come from a "department of agriculture" where the "experts" work. They are the same experts who told the farmers to plant the wrong sort of clover which caused the sheep eating it to drop the lambs too early. They advised one sort of wheat which brought in lower yields and was prone to a disease. There are gluts brought on by their advice and market demands.  Farming now requires computer programs - and not just to work out how much hay to give the cow in the milking shed. 

Perhaps it is good we have moved on from the "shoe box record keeping" of the farmers of my childhood but the idea farming is "easy" still exists. Farming is not easy. It has never been easy and the new tax regulations are just making it harder. If politicians thought about where the food for their "business" lunches came from would it make a difference?  

   

It is Census day

and we are all supposed to be counted. I have filled out the form on-line and most people probably will do it that way. It will make putting the results together and analysing them much faster...but will it really tell the government what it needs to know?

A census is supposed to assist in planning for the future. The most famous census in history was supposed to do that...and tell the Romans how much they could expect in the way of taxes.

Yes, it is important to know how many people were in the country on the night...and whether they are residents or visitors. The form does not ask you about residents who are out of the country on the night.

The form asks you which languages you speak at home. It does not ask if you speak another language elsewhere or if you can use another language. 

The form asks you for "sex assigned at birth". That's a fair question. It goes on to ask how you "identify" with respect to "gender". Was that really necessary? Are we suddenly going to have ten or twenty percent of people deciding to identify as something other than their assigned sex and is that so important that it has to be part of the census? 

There are other questions that could be simplified. There was no category for "Christian" in the question asking about religion. There was one for "no religion" and there are some very public figures who are currently trying to encourage people to use that if they no longer go to church, chapel, mosque, temple or synagogue. That people might believe something and not attend a place of worship is apparently not something of importance to them. It might also be said nothing was asked about "Sunni" or "Shia" in relation to Islam, 

I went on through the form and finished feeling as if the really important things had been left out. There was no question about undertaking any sort of physical activity. In this sports mad country that might be very useful to know.  Did you play sport in the past week or go for a walk or ride a bike or swim? Do these things matter? We are told they do.

And there was the other question they did not ask....have you used you local library. There are figures from elsewhere that the use of libraries is far higher than the government wishes to acknowledge. They are the most used resource in the community, far above even the beloved ovals and courts of sport. We should have been investigating that.

Instead of these things the "gender diversity" crew had their questions included. They will now use the results to demand more specialist places and services while telling us how we need to be inclusive. 

I just wish the census had been a bit longer and a bit more inclusive.  

Unschooling?

There are apparently around three thousand children in this state who do not attend school. Some of them are being "home-schooled" but others, according to something I have just read, are being "un-schooled". 

I had not heard this term before but apparently around seven hundred or so children in this state are not on any sort of regular time table. They are apparently deciding what they will do and when they will do it almost all the time. There is supposed to be some sort of "learning plan" but they are exempt from the other requirements.

I wonder how that works. Are they actually learning? I suppose they must be but what are they learning? 

According to the article the unschooling approach accommodates children with autism and ADHD.  Perhaps it does.

I have a friend who, due to a disability, did not attend school until she was thirteen. She had a range of people who helped her learn but she largely taught herself. I say that advisedly. A... was a self-starter. She wanted to know things. From a very early age she was curious about everything. She was reading at two and has never stopped. I know people think it has all been easy for her but in reality she has worked extremely hard. There was a timetable of sorts. It was flexible. It had to be because her teachers were not always available.  A...found school frustrating. I remember her complaining about the amount of time that was wasted there changing lessons, waiting for a teacher and for the rest of the class to catch up. She ended up at a very well known university. There she has written books and her lectures are popular. The latter surprises many people. It does not surprise me. She understands "learning". I often wonder what would have happened if she had gone to school from the usual age of five. "Unschooling" suited her.

I wonder how many children "unschooling" really suits though. The problem is that the rest of the world does not work that way. Most people's work involves routines. There are regular tasks that need to be done and done at certain times.  If you have gone through your school age years not needing to do that then how do you cope? 

 

Old family photographs can be

interesting, frustrating, infuriating, dull and matters for debate. Who is the person third from the left in the front row? Is that Uncle S.... in the back row? Which one is Aunt J... and which one is Aunty R....?

Brother Cat came across a photograph last week and sent it on to me and Middle Cat to see how many people we could identify. He could remember the occasion but could only name a few in the extended family photograph. 

I have not heard from Middle Cat. She has probably only glanced at the photo as she is in the middle of helping the sister of the man who died last week.  I only found time to look at the photograph last night. Brother Cat had named the few people he knew correctly but, quite rightly, assumed I would know more.

The event was the family gathering we had to celebrate the Golden Wedding Anniversary of my paternal grandparents. Both of them came from large families. There were eleven in Grandpa's family and nine in Grandma's. Not all of them were there of course as some were no longer alive and others had moved a considerable distance away. Those that were there must all have been living in the city by then.  

I found the photo disturbing. Yes of course many people in the photo were elderly even then (my grandparents married rather late) and I did not expect them to still be with us. It is what you expect with a very old photograph and this one was taken half a century ago.

It was not that which disturbed me as much but two other ideas. The first was that so many marriages do not last a great many years now. I was talking to a teacher recently and she mentioned that just over half the children in her class are from "single parent or blended families".  Her school is in a "good" area. I could not help wondering what other schools might be like.

The second thought I had was that the photo was of a family occasion - the sort which does not happen as often now. Of course that relates to the breakdown in so many marriages. It also relates to the smaller family sizes. I am one of four. Both my parents were one of only two but that was exceptional at the time. My paternal grandparents wanted more children but my grandmother was unable to carry them to full time. My maternal grandparents would have stopped at one if the first had been a boy. They did not really want children at all. It was all so unlike the eleven in my paternal grandfather's family and the nine in my grandmother's. And Grandpa's family was particularly close and supportive. Even my generation maintains contacts within it.

I wonder what will happen if people come across photos fifty years from now? Will they know any of those people? Will they recognise others? Will any contacts have been maintained? What sort of society will they be living in? 

Does anyone else find it disturbing? 

Speech and sign language or....

just speech? The perennial issue came up in a discussion on a website yesterday. There are strong views on either side when discussing the education of the profoundly deaf.

I am in the "speech and sign language" camp. I have been right from the first time I met a profoundly deaf person. She was a girl about my own age. We managed to maintain a sort of friendship for as long as the long bus journeys back to our homes in the country took. 

It was very clear to me even then that lip reading cannot do all the work for the vast majority of people born with a profound hearing loss. Lip reading requires intense concentration. No two people speak in quite the same way. It is impossible to lip read some people. To ask a person with a profound hearing loss to rely on nothing but speech is unreasonable. It adds immensely to the stress of their lives - and often the lives of those around them.

Of course the argument is made that allowing the deaf to sign from a young age means they will not make the effort to lip read or communicate with speech. It is an argument I have heard many times. I disagree. Other people feel differently.

I was not really involved in the discussion yesterday. I was much more concerned with trying to sort out something else. Despite that I was trying to keep an eye on what was being said and eventually found a moment to add something that is not being addressed in most discussions. 

It is this. Deafness is a very, very isolating thing. It is even more isolating if you do not have spoken language learned naturally as a child. The acquisition of sign language can be just as important here. Older people need stimulation just as much as younger people. A profoundly deaf person who cannot sign also has to make a far greater effort to communicate. If they do not have the capacity to use a sign language they are at even greater risk of developing dementia because they are not getting the same level of stimulation.

Age related deafness is of course common. Many people mask it well. They unconsciously learn some lip reading skills among people they know. They rely on other cues as well. The problems associated with all this should concern all of us but they are not the same as the problems are for a person who has always been profoundly deaf. We need to be aware of that. Wanting a child to be "only aural-oral" may seem right to parents and others but it may not be the best thing for the child, especially later in life. If both speech and sign can be achieved might that not be a better option?  

There was a violent altercation

in the street yesterday. Two boys from the local high school were pounding each other and another, much smaller boy, was sitting on the footpath with blood streaming from his head.

I was about to stop (very cautiously) when someone else came running up. One of those fighting ran off and the two who were left were being questioned by someone who obviously knew them. I left them all to it.

What was going on I do not know. I suppose I do not want to know but I am aware that there has been more of this sort of behaviour since the Covid lock downs. There is less tolerance. 

The one sitting on the pavement obviously has Chinese parents. That might have been enough. There was an article about the origins of Covid in the paper and it might, if a parent had said something, caused a teenager to say something to a younger and more vulnerable child.

It could have been anything else at all. The young one sitting on the pavement may not have been blameless. That two more were fighting in a serious, hard way was what I found so disturbing. There were the occasional physical altercations at schools I went to but I was never aware of anything quite as serious as yesterday's violence,

Yes, it was violent. I found it quite frightening. I have been left wondering whether the amount of violence seen on screens has left us somehow believing that this is how we now settle arguments. Is there any room left for discussion and negotiation in our lives?

It is not helped by those in authority who appear to condone violence even when they appear to be condemning it.   

"No you may not go and protest"!

Apparently school students are "going out on strike" to "protest" next week. They are "protesting" against "racism".

Now I will protest against "racism" too. Nobody should ever be treated as any less or more worthy on the basis of their identity. I could not care in the least what colour your skin is or where you come from. My only concern is the colour of your thinking and how you care for other people.

Does it mean I would go out and "protest" like the students are being urged to do? Absolutely not. 

The protest is supposedly about a far right political group, one currently (and alarmingly) popular in the pseudo-polling done by the so-called "polling" companies.  The protest is being organised by the leader of the national student union. That person is a member of a group called "Socialist Alliance". It is about as far left as it is possible to get without actually saying "old style Communist". It is inevitable the two will clash. 

Students, many of them secondary school students, are being "encouraged" to walk out of classrooms and attend the "rallies" being organised. All this can now be organised via social media.

We could not have done anything like this as teenagers. There was no social media. We would not even have considered doing it. The closest anyone came to anything like it were the few brave souls who skipped school for an afternoon.  The reason they did it was to see the plane carrying the Beatles land at the airport. There were not many of them who did it. I did not know anyone who did it,

We were kept firmly in school. Our Latin teacher had an alarm clock with her. It rang at the moment the plane was supposed to be landing.

I was asked last night what I would do now if students left to attend a protest. My answer was, "Nothing."  I would say nothing. I would instead have set a series of short tests which counted towards final marks in the subjects they missed. I would inform them of my intention. I would tell them the tests would not be repeated. They would tell me it was "not fair" and I would agree that life is "not fair".  I might suggest they write me a piece about the issues they were protesting about, why they felt so strongly about it and how protesting had helped. When they had done that then we could discuss it...actually discuss it.

Of course I would almost certainly be overruled in all of this by a school principal worried about the potential publicity, one who might even believe they should be protesting. My fellow teachers would be equally and possibly vehemently opposed to my proposed actions. I would perhaps even be accused of supporting the far right. After all if you do not support the far left you must surely support the far right? That there might be a much more reasonable and balanced position somewhere between them is not to be contemplated.

I am grateful I am not the school principal who will have to handle this. I also wonder how the student organising all this is doing in their studies. 

  

"When did you retire?"

is a question which may not be asked quite so often in the future.  The idea of continuing to work beyond the "usual" retirement age - now sixty-seven - was apparently being explored on a television program last night. 

I did not watch the program. I was working. I have not "retired". 

That said, I do not do the excessively long hours I once did. I am more willing than I once was to hand on work to younger people. 

"But you have time to do it!" I am told. Perhaps I do, although I have less time than many people realise. Time is not the issue. The issue is making sure that people younger than I am are ready and able to take over. 

I worked hard all through the Covid pandemic. There were not nearly so many people going out into the crisis and disaster zones for the sort of purpose which might need a communication device. There was an opportunity to train up other people, encourage them to take over where I was leaving off. In a way Covid did me a service.

But I saw the advertisements for the program aired last night. There was someone in their nineties "still working". Someone else said they could not afford to retire or they would be homeless. Someone else said liked working so much he saw no need to retire. 

I was taught Leaving (approximately old style "O" level) mathematics by a man who was seventy-seven at the time. This was in a church boarding school. He was not the only older member of staff and, like at least one other, he should not have been there. He was not a good teacher. If it had not been for a mathematically brilliant student the rest of us would have been lost. I am forever grateful to that boy. He was aware of how poor the teaching was and he would give anyone who wanted it another quick but much better explanation in five or ten minutes at lunch time.  I knitted him a football beanie in return because he gave the rest of us so much help.

The Senior Cat "retired" in name only. He went on teaching until two days before his death. He did it differently though. Instead of restoring order to problem schools he taught individual pupils. One of them stopped me only yesterday and said, "I wish your father was still around. I'd so like to him I've been promoted." It would have delighted the Senior Cat. His idea of retirement was to take it a little more slowly and enjoy the challenge of helping someone who found learning difficult.

I wonder about other people though. A real estate agent Middle Cat and I both know has just retired at eighty. Her house selling record was extraordinary but the firm she worked for was taken over by another company. They do things differently and she was not comfortable with the idea of a "hot desk". When we met in the supermarket she told me, "I suppose I am old fashioned but I liked the idea of knowing I had my own space organised the way I like it." 

Perhaps then this is one of those things which will cause people to retire. The nature of work will change. It will change to a degree where older people no longer feel comfortable with the way things are done. I have long since adapted to computer based work - but can I adapt to AI?

Like the Senior Cat though I have other things I want to do. I want to write other things. I want to make things. I want to go on helping some of the much younger students with their essays - and give the occasional able but unmotivated student some encouragement. There is a huge gap in my life left by the Whirlwind but there is another young one who needs support...and the Senior Cat would encourage it. 

I hear people say they will do "this" or "that" in retirement. Sometimes I wonder whether they will do anything at all. Is it why they sit for hours over a "coffee" in the local shopping centre? Is it why they "go for a walk" but it is really just a bored stroll around the block? Do they have hobbies or are they really spending hours watching sport and scrolling on their screens?

Today I have a friend coming. She will turn ninety at the end of the month - and looks ten years younger. She takes a lively interest in the world. If I suggested she was "retired" she would smile and say something like, "Not really. I just don't get paid the way I once did." 

  

Identifying a body is not

a pleasant thing to do. It was something Middle Cat had to do yesterday. As a retired physiotherapist and because it was someone we both knew rather than a family member it was less disturbing than it might have been. Still, despite all the problems he represented, we both felt saddened by the death of this person. 

S...was morbidly obese. His death at the age of sixty-four will not surprise anyone. Middle Cat and I are actually surprised he did not go at least ten years ago.

My association with his family stretches back to my time in teacher training college. I knew his sister there. She was one of those students "everyone" knows. Her lovely Greek name would have been enough but she also had (and still has) a lively personality to go with it.

I met her father later, one of the many "old" Greek men in the district. He was the sort of man I greeted in Greek, not English. He spoke English but a sort of politeness dictated I use the Greek "kalimera" in the mornings. 

And then, still later, I met S...  Middle Cat sent him over one day because I was having computer problems. 

"S... should be able to fix it. He's very, very good at fixing that sort of thing. I will just one warn you though, he's very overweight." That was an understatement. How Middle Cat managed to get him to visit us is something of a mystery. He avoided strangers. He shopped at the very beginning or the very end of the day. There had to be as few people around as possible. The rest of the time, apart from visits to the doctor or his "computer mate", he hibernated at home. He did on line courses to keep up his Centrelink payments but the reality was that nobody would consider employing him. He was on and off "sickness" benefits and alternated them with "unemployment" and occasional "disability" benefits.  He would do a bit of remote work from time to time...and he would come to visit me and the Senior Cat. 

We all tried to get him to diet but nothing worked. He had no will power at all. His eating habits were wild and unpredictable. His sleeping patterns were equally unpredictable. Knowing I would be up (and almost certainly working) he would phone me at six in the morning. He would eat breakfast with us. I would restrict him to just two slices of homemade bread.  He would accept this, do whatever he had come to do or wait for me to read the seemingly endless forms he had to fill in.  Those things done he would hoist himself in to his beat up old car and go again until the next time. In between he would phone me with questions about things which were worrying him.  Yes, he was distinctly odd. 

Last year and the year before he spent time in hospital but it did nothing for his weight. He phoned me from there one day as the afternoon tea trolley was going around and complained there were no biscuits and no bananas. Once home again he was back to old eating habits.

His clothing had to be made for him. His sister, who lives in another country, would order it for him. 

The house was, and still is, full of things he would order on line. I am not tidy but Middle Cat says are homes look sterile compared with his. You had to negotiate your way through. 

Yesterday my BIL was on his way out when he saw the police cars there and an ambulance just arriving. Knowing the other neighbour who has done so much to help was not home Middle Cat went over to say she was one of the people S... used. She was asked to identify the body lying on the floor. Hopefully it was a quick death but there has to be an autopsy. At least his sister did not see him like that. 

I thought back to the last time we talked. He had, as always, phoned me at a very early hour. I had told him what he needed to do and left it at that. Now of course I wish I had spent a little longer listening to him. He was a lonely man, a very lonely man.  

There was another death on the party strip

on Saturday night. It was not the first and it will not be the last.

The "party strip" I am referring to is a street in the CBD which is famous - or infamous - for the "night clubs" along it. It also has the alcohol, drugs, sexual abuse and violence which go along with those things. 

It is all magnified by the fact there is not just one of these night clubs - there are at least least six - but there are also other "late night cocktail bars" and "live music" venues there and just off the same street. A policeman of my acquaintance tells me that policing it all is a nightmare. It is not a popular shift.

Several years ago we were out for some family occasion on a Saturday night. Brother Cat was driving through the city to get us home. It was after eleven in the evening, probably closer to midnight. My brother has had years of experience driving in one of the biggest cities in the world. He has dealt with all sorts of traffic conditions. There was no choice but to pass the end of the party strip. He was waiting at the red lights and we were watching many of the young people, most of them in their teens and some in their early twenties. They were "all over the place". There is no other way to describe it. They had apparently left the strip. More than one of them was severely intoxicated. At least one of them was on a drug induced high. 

Some of them had waited for the light to change in their favour. Others were simply weaving in and out of the traffic. The traffic had slowed dramatically - to accommodate these pedestrians. The light changed in our favour. Brother Cat moved forward cautiously and then braked sharply. He came within perhaps twenty centimetres of hitting someone who ran out without looking left or right. There was a mouthful of abuse from the person my brother almost hit. My brother swore but swore quietly. We moved on and several blocks away when it was safe to pull over for a moment my brother stopped and said, "That was too close. Haven't they got anything better to do on a Saturday night?"

I thought back to Saturday nights when we were that age. I was mostly trying to catch up on study because the day would have been spent at a residential school for the deaf.  What did my brother do?  He spent more time out but it was almost always spent with a small group of friends. They would gather at someone's home with their guitars and, occasionally, a set of drums. If they had the money they would go to see the latest film. To drink alcohol you were supposed to be twenty-one and, for most, it was too expensive to even consider getting it illegally. A few of them smoked but most of them could not afford it. There was the occasional "dance" or "disco" but most of the people we knew did not attend them. No, they were not "wowsers"  as the non-goers were sometimes called. They simply had other things to do.

I know nothing about the incident on Saturday night. The lad who was hit may have been sober and doing nothing wrong. Was his attention simply distracted? Was the driver of the car sober? Was he distracted? What about the driver of the second car? 

We have to leave all that to the police and the statements given to them by those unfortunate to witness the incident. It would have been the sort of thing police going on duty would dread happening. 

I just wish the lad in question was getting out his guitar and playing with a group of mates next Saturday night.   

Hamas will not disarm

in Gaza. They have no intention of doing so. Anyone who really believes this is a fool. 

Hamas is a military style terrorist group. Their stated purpose is the annihilation of the state of Israel. Nothing less will do. 

I have been listening to what is being said in the media. I have heard some of those involved in the "negotiations" talking about the "progress" being made. 

I am also reading the sub-text and it does not make happy reading. How many people read "Hamas" and "disarm" and went no further? 

This is of course exactly what some of those speaking about the issues and some of those reporting their words want people to do. Oh yes, there are "warnings" about the "complexity" and the "long road ahead" and "the other side agreeing" and much more.  

It is all a bit like fighting all the little spot fires around a major wild fire and not fighting the fire itself. To fight a major fire you need major resources, resources which are not forthcoming as yet, if ever.

The "pro-Palestinian" groups which like to claim how much death and destruction has been done by the opposing army are not being honest with themselves or with the rest of us. Let's be clear about something very rarely mentioned. Hamas has been siphoning off resources for many years. The Hamas leadership has been controlling not just the flow of aid into Gaza but the way in which it has been used. Food is a weapon used to control people. Access to education is a weapon used to indoctrinate the young. If you believe the stories in the media it is the opposing army which has destroyed the access to water, to medical services, to employment and just about everything else. Nothing is said about the way Hamas has ripped out the pipes to make weapons. Nothing is said about the way in which the consequent lack of clean water has caused so much illness. Nobody mentions how Hamas controls the markets that the lucky few buy their food from and, inside Gaza, you do not mention the way in which Hamas controls how external aid which enters is so rigidly controlled by them. There is nothing said about the "labour" used to dig the complex network of tunnels or what happens to the "labourers" when they cease to be useful.

I will not say anything else except this...do not believe what you are presently being told. There is no "agreement to disarm".  When this "agreement" fails who will be held responsible? 

Saying harmful things about

other people is as old as our ability to speak. Things said cannot be taken back. They can hurt and they can do harm. It is why we have laws about defamation. It is why truth is supposed to be a defence against defamation. It is also why there are standards imposed on all of us, particularly anyone making a public comment about anyone else.

The past few weeks have had me pondering this. Learning that one victim of a particularly vile but supposedly "comic" skit on television is now taking the perpetrators to court pleases me. Yes, this person can afford to do it. Taking perpetrators to court can be a very expensive business. 

I would be even more pleased if the entire issue is not settled by "mediation" but a court case and the perpetrators lose. The perpetrators in this instance are paid by the tax payer and there is increasing disquiet even among their supporters that, this time, they have gone too far. 

Those of you who live in Downunder will know what I am talking about but I am not going to repeat the vile remarks which were made about a very wealthy woman.  They were completely and totally inappropriate and the "apology" given was not an apology at all. As I write the material is still available on line. It was not funny. Contrary to the statements made I do not believe it was meant to be funny. 

This case is just as harmful in its own way as the three "discrimination" cases currently in the media. The first I knew about was the one which was brought after a person who "identifies as female" was denied entry to a "women only" space. The second is the one where another person who "identifies as female" was referred to by their biological sex and claimed damages for "hurt". The third case involves a person who "identifies as female" being denied access to a group which is only for female pole dancers. 

The first case is now the subject of "leave to appeal" to the High Court. The appeal in the second case failed and is being reviewed. The third is in the more early stages of what could be another protracted battle. 

Not one of these cases should ever have been brought before the courts. The legislation intended to protect women should have protected them. It does not. 

Let me be clear here. This is not about the rights or otherwise of  transgender people. It is about the right of the majority of those impacted to safe places. I have absolutely no problems with people who, as adults, choose to dress and act in ways which vary from the sex they were assigned to at birth. That is their choice. I do have a problem when they demand access to all spaces which vary from the sex they were assigned at birth. 

There is growing evidence that not everyone who is identifying as the opposite sex is doing so with good intentions. That the cases above lead naturally to men being able to access shelters intended for women and into prisons intended for women is alarming. That it means that people with a distinct physical advantage can cause not just physical but psychological harm on the sports field is genuine cause for concern. When it means that women who have been abused and are seeking help have no safe place to turn to then all the work done to provide those places has gone for nothing. 

There is a "men's coffee and chat" group run by one of the local churches. Not all the men who attend are church goers. I am told it is a place where the sort of discussion rarely available to men is available. It is a "safe" place for them.  It is somewhere they feel supported.  I do not know any woman who would believe it was appropriate to attend it. I would not even consider trying to push my way in. Why should it be any different for a women's group?

Restricting access does not always mean that discrimination is occurring.  There are places all of us cannot enter at times. This can be on safety grounds, religious grounds, security grounds or other grounds. There are other things we do not allow on age and safety grounds. Is there any reason to suppose that, despite these things, all spaces must be open to someone who chooses to identify in a manner at variance with some physical reality? So far the law is saying there is reason to grant someone the right to enter these spaces but it might be that this is the detriment of us all.  It may end up doing even more harm to those who identify "differently" as well. Do we really want that?