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?