If it is possible to be shocked but not

surprised then that is how I felt when an email hit my desk last night. It was sent out to a group I am peripherally involved in. I just happen to be on the list of people who are informed about what is going on from time to time.

In this case however I also knew the person it was about. Perhaps in a way I also knew him better than most of those who get the information knew him. It was not intentional. It just happened.

He was a member of a caring profession. He was also "gay" but, when I knew him, he was not in a relationship. He saw it as inappropriate, not the sort of thing that those he cared for would condone. Those people were important to him, very important. He had chosen his role or, as he would have said, been chosen to do the work he did. It is not easy work. He saw his attraction to his own sex as a test. Could he put it to one side and concentrate on the needs of others?

I have no doubt he talked to his superiors. They must have talked to him. What they said to each other is something I of which I have no knowledge at all. I would not want to know. For me he was simply someone I saw occasionally and happened to like very much. I liked him because he was a gentle man as well as a gentleman. His first thought was always for the person he was speaking to. He genuinely wanted to know how you were feeling. 

I came across him because he was in training locally. He would sometimes call in to see the Senior Cat.  Their conversations would often take place out in the shed. He would seek advice from the Senior Cat. It was not about his caring role. They both understood that and the restraints it sometimes places on those who perform it. What he wanted to know was about teaching. At some point they would move from the shed into the kitchen and I would put the kettle on. 

The conversation would continue. Sometimes I would listen. At other times I would return to my own work. He would ask if I could talk about what I was doing that day and was one of those few people who really did understand when I would say, "Not really." 

The last time he came to see us was just before he was appointed to a new place. He was feeling very anxious and uncertain about it. It was obvious that he was trying to hide it from everyone he knew but the Senior Cat had made two things for him. He had asked for one but the other was something that meant infinitely more to him. He stood there holding it as if he would never let it go. The Senior Cat probably made well over a hundred of them in his life time but he made this, like several others, from a special piece of timber.

"Sit down," I told him, "I'll put the kettle on." He sat. He transferred the little thing from one hand to the other and continued to run his thumb slowly over it again and again. We talked about the thesis he proposed writing but I thought he would be too busy to write it. I knew it was unlikely we would ever meet again.

We did not. I was right about the thesis and I was right to be worried that he would find his new role very difficult. There were occasional reports that told me he was "liked", "good", "so kind", "a lovely man" and more but I heard that almost inaudible whisper of concern. 

It was all too much in the end. He did not see himself as worthy. Yes, I was shocked. It is always a shock but, sadly, I am not surprised. I am also selfish enough that I am glad my last sight of him was, as he was about to get into his car, the way he held up the small object in his hand and called out, "Thank you again. It means so much to me."

The Senior Cat saw religion in a very different light from that young man but he had given him a small "holding cross" made from olive wood from the Mount of Olives. He knew it would mean something to an uncertain young man. I hope it went on meaning something to him even if it was all too much in the end. 

Have we reach peak "wokeness" yet?

Is there anything which could be more ridiculous than the news that Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow has removed the mummies and the parts of mummies on display because...wait for it... the mummies did not give their permission to be displayed?

Yes, apparently now there is a need to ask the long dead for their permission to be displayed. How this could be done is something I do not understand but someone, somewhere must know this...or perhaps not. It is so obviously ridiculous that surely someone needs to speak up and say just that?

People who make these decisions are no more than attention seekers. They crave publicity. Issues like this are not about permission that could not possibly be granted they are about feeling a sense of self importance and power over others. I cannot see any other reason for it. 

I am not someone who believes passionately in "returning" artifacts to their places of origin.  It is all too likely if they had not been removed they would no longer exist. Yes, some might have been buried but the vast majority would have been destroyed. They would no longer exist. Museums may be filled with "stolen" objects but they are objects which have generally been carefully studied and preserved. They have taught us a great deal about the past. 

Of course history is not really about the past at all. It is about the future. If we pack the mummies away in a box and forget about them then we might not get that vital clue about a future problem. How many children have been to a museum, seen something like one of the mummies and decided on a career in medicine or chemistry or some other science as a result. There might not seem to be any relationship between the mummies and such things but taking away that opportunity leaves us just that bit poorer. 

Prowling around the British Museum last year I was struck over and over again by the thought, "these were made by people who lived at "X" or "Y" time...they had families and friends and had to eat and drink..."  It was the very "ordinariness" of some of what I saw that made me feel that way. It was also the out of the ordinary. That first known wood wheel clock must have hung in a home somewhere. It was there because someone needed to tell the time. They had gone from looking at the sky to candles to an attempt to build something. Now we have units of measurement which are far more precise but they came about because of that early need to know when darkness was going to fall. 

Mummies have led to develops in preservation, in medicine, in our understanding of diet and much more. The idea that we simply put them away because someone thousands of years in the past cannot give permission is extraordinary. Should we stop performing autopsies now if the dead do not give their permission? 

  

What happened to Helen Haines

is appalling and, like most people, I am very upset by it. I am also upset that something like that should happen in this country. We are supposed to be a "safe" country but I am growing increasingly concerned that we are becoming the opposite.

Whatever happens however this incident must not be used by the government as a means of demanding their "digital duty of care" act is passed by parliament. It will not make things "better" or "safer". It will do more harm.

It is not social media which is the primary problem. I know we like to think it is but it is the government itself when it has a "dirt sheet" about her sent out into the community. Don't try and tell me it was not deliberate. Of course it was. This sort of thing happens inside politics all the time but it has become much worse recently. The current federal government knows it is in trouble. It still has "an election winning lead" with around 25% of the first preferences but that is a long way down from the last election. Dishing out the dirt on anyone and everyone outside their own party has become the name of the game. 

They also see it as more important than ever to pass that "digital duty of care" bill. Indeed we are being told that what happened to Helen Haines would not have happened if the bill had been passed. That this is absolute nonsense is not something they are even prepared to discuss. All we apparently need to know is that this sort of thing could not happen because we would not know...anything. 

I wonder where all this is taking us. Will they succeed in turning us into the "communist" state some think. 

 The other major culprit here is the main stream media. The present government pays them a good deal. In return they are, despite attempts to deny it, shall we say "careful" about how they portray the government. There has been some criticism recently and the story of the "dirt sheet" on Helen Haines has come to be more widely known but it took an horrific act for it to happen. This is not "social media" at work. It is not ordinary, everyday citizens. Has the media finally started to wake up to the fact that the government wants more control in order to control everything we can know as well as say? Is it too late?  

Tone down the rhetoric?

Our Prime Minister is telling us we have to tone down the rhetoric... that the social problems besetting this country are our fault. Really?

Apparently the problems have nothing to do with not listening. It is apparently fine for him to say whatever he likes. He might try to camouflage it with words he believes are carefully chosen but he is still able to say what he wants us to hear. He does not want us to respond. There is no room or time for listening. 

"Look, it is what we have decided to do. If the electorate doesn't like it too bad. Give some of the biggest whingers a lolly to suck and ignore the rest. We can blame it all on that red headed woman," is how it apparently goes in our nation's capital.

Communication is a two way street. What is happening is not communication. It is dictation. Argument is not being tolerated. Dissent is not being tolerated "People have to learn..." 

Two days ago we had an incident of the most appalling violence. One of the members of parliament was deliberately hit by a vehicle driven by someone who is obviously not normal. It was not normal behaviour. I have not heard one person express anything but shock and concern over this. "If we want to change things then this is not how you go about it," has been the general view. 

The politician in question is an "independent". I may not share all her views but it seems to me she was doing a better job than some I actually know. Her life will never be the same again. Our Prime Minister said what was expected of him but he went on to use the incident for his own purposes. Now we are being told that "social media" is to blame for what happened, that this is why the government's "misinformation/disinformation" or "digital duty of care" bill needs to be passed. It needs to be passed "as soon as possible" to "prevent anything like this happening again". 

What absolute nonsense! This will make martyrs of people whose views differ from his own, that the government does not want expressed and most certainly not debated. It is an attempt to prevent healthy debate not stop those with extremist views making their voices heard. 

Social media gets inflamed by main stream media. "Protests" continue in part because main stream media encourages them with constant reporting of the events. The "climate change" message is constantly slipped into news reports. We are given the impression that bullies and murderers should be allowed to succeed in their efforts "for the sake of peace". All this is what we first learn through main stream news but it gets expanded and twisted in social media, often with encouragement from "leaders". Politicians use main stream media to "get the message across". It is a very powerful tool. Abuse it and you can do a great deal of harm. Try to stifle it and you can do a great deal of harm.  

The desire to control social media is understandable. It would make us much easier to govern. Is it possible? I think not. Communication is a two way street - and trying to stop the traffic flow will cause "accidents". Some people will aways try to find a way around it to do even more harm.  We need to keep the communication lanes open. 

"Suicidal empathy" might be

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barb is going

and some will miss her. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Come and see me in the shop."

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

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

Why should the elderly "downsize"

just to suit the government's housing policy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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