Getting vaccinated or avoiding it?

There was an article in our state newspaper this week about the way in which some parents are deliberately failing to vaccinate their children. They are also finding ways around the requirement for children to be vaccinated before they go to day care, pre-school, school and more. Some of them are boasting about their refusal to vaccinate their children and informing others of how they get around the rules.

The damage done by Andrew Wakefield and the false claim that "autism" was caused by the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is ongoing. There are still people who believe the completely discredited claim. It has apparently gone even further than that because another short article in the same newspaper was attempting to debunk the claim a common painkiller, Panadol, also caused similar harm.

The MMR vaccine was not available when I was child. We had to go through measles, mumps and "German measles" (rubella). Children died of measles. I went to school with someone whose sibling died. He may have been health compromised as well but had he not caught measles he may still be alive today. 

Brother Cat and I are too old to have had the MMR vaccine. Middle Cat had it rather late. Only the Black Cat had it at the time it became available. Brother Cat and I also went through the measles, the mumps, rubella and the usual influenza.  

I am acutely aware of the vaccine issue because my mother did not believe in vaccinations. This was part of her "Christian Science" upbringing. We had vaccinations that became available and as recommended entirely because the Senior Cat or my grandmother took us and my godmother (a triple-certificated nursing sister) informed them of when it should be done.  When we were ill it was my paternal grandmother who nursed us.  I suppose we were fortunate in that we did not become so seriously ill we needed to be in hospital with any of those things. It did not mean we would not have welcomed "Mum" being available when we felt so miserable.

I know Mum also claimed that her cousin was intellectually disabled because his parents had him vaccinated. This was not true but it was used as a more acceptable excuse than the reality. She had no contact with him. It is possible she genuinely believed he had died although he was much younger and outlived her by many years. Later  I came across another family who told others the same thing. Everyone said how dreadful it was that vaccination caused him to be intellectually disabled and non-speaking. In reality, like my mother's cousin, he had not been vaccinated until after his disabilities were evident. 

I have had various vaccinations since then. I could not have visited the Senior Cat without them. The same still applies to my occasional visits into aged care now.  I see far too many very elderly people (90 years plus) in the local shopping centre or the library or just around and about to risk passing something on. Our GP insists on Middle Cat and I being up to date because she knows we see so many older people.  

And it seems to me that it is the same at the other end of life. Very young children do not have the same immunity. Middle Cat still has not seen her youngest nephew-by-marriage for that reason. His mother, rightly or wrongly, is not having visitors until he has at least some level of immunity.

So why would you refuse to allow your child to be vaccinated? Are vaccines really that harmful? Sri Lanka is going through a measles outbreak right now. It is a disease which, like polio, could be wiped out. Do we really want children to spend seventy-three years of their lives in an "iron lung" because they have not been vaccinated? I think the recently deceased woman who endured that would say "Get vaccinated."  

Artificial imagination is

not a "thing". It does not exist. It cannot exist.

There has been more than one post about a magazine changing their publication policy. In order to save money they will no longer pay authors for short stories. Instead they will use "artificial intelligence" to write the stories and readers will be told they come from "the fiction team". 

Yes, it is possible to ask "AI" to write something but what will it produce? There is an enormous amount of material out there AI can draw on. Does this mean AI can produce something genuinely creative? Will it be the sort of writing people will want to read?

As mere kittens my brother I went through quite a lot of Enid Blyton and Biggles and other "series". We mostly borrowed them from friends because our parents were not keen on them. We read them because we read anything we could get. Did we enjoy them? Yes, of course - in an surfeit of sugar type of way. We grew into more serious writing very quickly. The Senior Cat made sure we could borrow from the Children's Library and then the children's section of the Country Lending Service. I will be forever grateful that he knew how important reading was and how much it meant to us.

I looked at a couple of Enid Blyton books recently. I was waiting for a friend whose daughter is young enough to be "going through that phase". Both the books I looked at did not appeal at all. The characters were flat. The action non-existent or ridiculous.  They might well have appealed to me as a child who was desperate to read but they no longer interested me. The same is probably true of many adults now. 

I suspect the stories produced by AI will be much the same as those written by Enid Blyton.  They will be written to a formula. They will be predictable. There will be variations on the "beautiful" and the "handsome" but they will still end "happily ever after".  

This is not good writing. It is not writing at all. It will not flow and take the reader along with it. I do not see how AI can ever achieve those little things which allow us to see the world in new ways.  All AI is really doing is drawing on what is already there. It cannot imagine. It may seem as if it can but it cannot. 

I know I am not explaining this well but I cannot help hoping AI cannot "imagine" my cathedral cats. If AI can do that then there is nothing left for us to create...and I think we were born with the capacity to create. 

There was an "outage" yesterday

and it seems there was chaos with it. A major communications network was "down" and it seems we could not cope. 

The transport system was badly affected. Some train services were not able to run. Buses had problems too. Traffic lights were "out" everywhere. (At least one lot was flashing red though so I imagine patience was what was really needed in many places.)

People could not make or receive calls, not even 000 was working. They apparently missed about three hundred and thirty calls. Yes, I do consider the latter to be serious. It is serious, very serious. At the same time I suspect many other phone calls could wait. This is the school holiday period so traffic was lighter than usual and not so many people were dropping their children off.

It was not possible to look at the internet on your phone on the way to work. No, it was not the internet that was down. It was the phone network. That is a problem. What on earth do you do? Sit on the bus and stare at the scenery? Read an actual book? Talk to your neighbour? I suspect most people just stared impatiently ahead of them. 

The supermarkets and other shops had problems because people could not pay for goods. Most people do not seem to have any cash. All sorts of other transactions were also halted. People could not phone an order to a business.

Yes, there were major problems and I do not want suggest they were not serious. They were serious. It was alarming to realise just how vulnerable we are when a major system fails. This is why the "renewable energy" ideal is not the answer to everything. When did you physically last check on someone during an outage?

For those of you in Upover, here is Spooner's cartoon showing our "renewable energy Minister" trying to dial the emergency number in Downunder. 

 

 

"Highly inappropriate"

does not even begin to describe the Prime Minister's words on that "podcast". He should not even have appeared on the podcast. It is not an appropriate forum for anyone who wishes to be taken seriously. 

I do not pretend to understand the podcast idea very well. I do not  "have the app on my phone" or "follow" any. Perhaps I could, perhaps I even should - but I don't. 

I did not even need to do it to learn about "what the Prime Minister said". It has been reported on television, on radio and in the press. I saw the incident on the news service I (rather reluctantly) watch. Friends in other countries, and not just English speaking countries, have inquired about it. 

Politicians know how to avoid answering questions they do not wish to answer. Journalists know how to ask those questions in an effort to make them squirm even when they know the question will not be answered. 

So, why did the Prime Minister answer the very inappropriate question in an even more inappropriate way? If he had simply avoided the question most people would never have known he was even appearing on that podcast. Was that why he did it? Did he want to be seen as a "good mate who just happens to like a very popular singer"?

Our Prime Minister keeps reminding us he "grew up in public housing" and did it with his "single" mother. That story is just a little more complicated than he makes it out to be. Most children in council housing whose mothers are on a "disability support pension" do not attend expensive fee paying schools. They do not go on to university without excellent scholarships and outstanding results. There is no evidence of these things here. He is unusual in what he has managed to keep quiet about. His emphasis on the council house and the single mother is what he needs people to concentrate on.

The remarks on the podcast have been described as "lewd", "crude", "disrespectful", "misogynistic", "vile", "embarrassing", "smutty" and "disrespectful" as well as "inappropriate".  They were all those things and more - and his "apology" has not gone down well. 

Our state newspaper apparently emailed every member of his party who has a seat in the Lower House for comment. Only one of them has apparently replied - and that was with what is described as a "cryptic, thumbs up emoji". Of course they have not replied. Some of them might be feeling uncomfortable, even very uncomfortable, but they are not going to criticise the boss. That they have demanded the resignation of members from other parties for far less is of course irrelevant. They believe "the other side" would do the same given the chance. There would be demands for a resignation or, at very least, removal to the back bench. 

In this instance I am not too sure about that. My radical left wing neighbour has just informed me he is "disgusted" but "he's a great man really". Really?  

 

 

Please look after your volunteers!

Yes, I know there is a "Volunteers Week" somewhere in the calendar of events. I know there are "volunteers" who get those gongs for "service to the community" and I know there are many people who put in more than ten hours a week "serving others". They usually get some sort of recognition.

There are also all those quiet volunteers who make things happen. They do the dirty jobs. They do the things nobody else is very keen to do. They work "behind the scenes". 

I am thinking of someone I was talking to yesterday. I innocently inquired about a group she belonged to and how it was going.

"I've left," she told me. It was said quietly and I was not sure I was properly hearing what she said to me. She had been there for years. I have talked to the group on two occasions and she was always the one busy in the kitchen, clearing up after the afternoon tea.

Recently she was in hospital for eight days. I went to visit her. (It took two trains in each direction.) When I got there she was out of bed and helping the person in the next bed with their afternoon tea. One of the staff told me, "She's lovely. It's been a real help to have her around."

Not one member of the group she has done so much for had even inquired as to how she was. Yes, they knew where she was because she was not able to get to the meeting. She had sent an apology when she left a message to tell them how to get the tablecloths and tea towels she had washed and ironed. 

I know this because I spoke to another member of the group last night. She was upset over the resignation and said how useful this person had been. 

"Did you ever tell her that?" I asked.

"No, but she knew how much we appreciated her," was the response.

Really? There are people in the group who have been given "life membership" for far less.  

The person doing the washing up and putting the rubbish out is every bit as important as the person running the meeting. Unless you say "thank you" they won't know you appreciate them.  

How hard is it to forecast the weather?

 The Bureau of Meteorology has a job to do. It is supposed to forecast the weather. 

Now I know it is an "inexact" science at the best of times but they have a lot of very expensive equipment, including a satellite or two, with which to do it. Surely they can give us a rough idea of what the day holds? 

As a kitten I can remember being taken to a weather station. The entire school, around fifty of us, were taken to the "big" town about a hundred kilometres away. This was done by crowding everyone into  the two school "buses" (a Kombi and a Ford transit type) and cars. It was the big excursion of the year. 

We were excited. We were going to see the weather station, the "School of the Air", the airport and the dock for the ships. I often wonder what the modern child would make of these things. We thought it would be interesting. 

It was.  We said "hello" to our mates at a couple of the "stations up the track". (No, not railway stations but big sheep farming properties.)  The teacher at the School of the Air had arranged that even though nobody was too sure what to say to each other. We saw a plane come in to land and were then allowed to have a closer look. We went down to the water and a couple of the boys found a dead fish. We had lunch on the foreshore and there was the big treat of ice cream for everyone. 

Then we went to the weather station. It would be quite different now but back then it was a fascinating place of "things" going around in circles and bars and graphs and a telescope we could look through. (There was no stars of course. It was daylight.) And then the man in charge of the station showed us "the balloon". It was black. It had to be inflated. He told us how it would help to predict the weather. Then he did actually inflate it and, at the correct moment, it went up. Now, he told us, they would be able to tell what sort of weather we were going to have.

Suitably impressed by this we left and made the long trek back to our little school.

The following day the Senior Cat did all the proper follow up lessons. He talked about the balloon, of course he did. We had all been rather impressed by the idea that a balloon might be able to tell us what the weather would be like. 

It all worked very well until one of the boys who was repeating the final year for the third time because he was not old enough to leave school said something like, "I told my Dad and he said to go and ask Grandpa because Grandpa always knows too." 

I remember the Senior Cat nodding and saying, "Yes. That is the next thing we need to talk about. How do farmers know what the weather might do?"

We went on to learn about "observation" and "experience".  Our BOM could do with some of that generation of farmers to teach them a thing or two. This year's "dry" year has produced more rain in a month than we get most years.  

It is expensive to study

in another country. I know. I have done it. It is not easy.

It was easier for me than it was for many other students. I went from one English speaking country to another, to one culture which was very much like the one I had left. I could walk into the supermarket and find familiar items, even familiar brands. 

Supporting myself was relatively easy. I tutored. I did not need to try and find a job in a fast food outlet or as a cleaner. Well, realistically I could not have done those things. Tutoring was about all I could do and I knew I was lucky to be able to do it. Later I had a job looking after a small library. I did more tutoring and supervision.

Most students I have tutored have been students from other cultures. For many of them English has been a second or even third language. They have varied greatly in ability. Some have been outstanding, others less so...and a few should not have been here at all.

It will be interesting to see then whether the twenty-five percent rise in student visa fees has any effect on the numbers applying or their motivation for doing so. A staff member at one of our universities has expressed concern about this.

"We are too dependent on those students," he told me yesterday. "They bring the money in and, so far, it has kept me in a job but is it a good thing?"

He is a member of staff at the "new" university. This is the university which is the amalgamation of two of the three we had in this state. It took a long time to recognise the population here cannot, even with the large number of students from other countries. support three universities. 

I have long been of the view that there are subjects and courses taught there which could be better taught in TAFE (technical and further education) colleges. There are practical subjects which are now "degree" courses. It seems everyone needs a degree now. It is quite unlike the teaching, nursing and farming courses my fellow students went into from school. I found the "handbook" for the time I was at teacher training college recently. It was interesting but it made me realise that most students went out into schools as teachers after just two years. Somehow they managed to teach and many of them did a very good job of it. I rather doubt that the new teachers going into schools are doing a better job simply because they now train for twice as long and have letters after their names. They actually spend less time in the classroom than we did. 

I wonder what we are really teaching people and what the students coming in from other countries are actually learning. Are we giving them value for the money they spend? Is the standard really high enough? Looking at some essays I doubt it. I know some students will be given a pass mark because the person marking the essay will not be permitted to do otherwise. I have even been told, "Just get them to pass something in that looks as if they may have written it."  

Will there be even more of that now the fees have risen? Is this what needs to happen to keep the universities open and all those compulsory units of "indigenous", "gender", environmental", "gene therapy" and other "correct" issue courses taught? I am not sure it is going to work - or will there still be students who will find ways around it all in order to actually learn?