Happy endings are not always

the best ending to have.

Brother Cat called me last night. We speak to each other on an irregular but reasonably frequent basis, usually around once every two weeks. The other week he will speak to Middle Cat. 

This is not the way it was when the Senior Cat was alive. There were very regular weekly calls on Sundays and, thankfully often, there would be a call sometime during the week as there was something they wanted to share. They did not write letters to each other the way Mum wrote letters. Neither of them felt the need for that.

Now we "keep in touch". Sometimes it is a quick email but we also talk. It is Brother Cat's preferred means of communication. 

He has not been well lately. Part of it is a litany of ageing but some of it has been the side effects of a severe infection he picked up following ankle surgery.  It was more serious than either he or his partner realised and Middle Cat was of the opinion he was lucky not to lose part of a lower limb. Yes, that serious. He has ongoing medical issues. It is a happy but not perfect ending. We may not like it (I certainly do not) but it is life. 

So, we talk...I mostly listen but that is the "big sister" role. When I can get a word in I will ask about his two children (doing well) and his five grandchildren (also doing well even if three of them are sports mad). It is two of the grandchildren who have just been in a youth theatre production of Hans Christian Anderson's "Little Mermaid".

"You know the story?" Brother Cat asked me, "They changed it of course."

Yes, of course they did. You cannot have unhappy endings in a Disney based production. Really you cannot have unhappy endings in anything. It is "just not done". It is "wrong". 

I suppose, for the most part, I agree. We go to the theatre, to see a film or read a book to be entertained...and to be given some hope. The ending does not need to be perfect but if something has been dark then we need some light. 

It is when we do that and change the message of the story that I start to be concerned. In our library I look at the books for children on a regular basis. "Happy endings" are all over the place there but they are often unrealistic endings. It is no exaggeration to say most of the fiction I see will have a "happy" ending. I looked at eleven new books recently, all fiction. All of them dealt with "social issues" and all of them had the obligatory happy ending. They were also designed to make the person with the "issue" the winner and the rest of us feel "guilty".  

Are such books really about "happy endings" or are there for another purpose? Perhaps we need to start thinking that happy endings are not always the answer to everything.     

The Labor party is having their

"gabfest" here this time. The place is being over run with their supporters. I saw a few passing by yesterday. 

These things happen on a regular basis. The "good" and the "great" of the party get together to decide on changes to their "platform". Speeches are made. Decisions are made. Arguments okay, tempers rise and fall. It is all, supposedly, "democratic".

Being "Labor" the union movement is there. The union movement is there in a very big way. It might even be said that "Labor" is still the union movement itself.

Union membership is down dramatically in this country. The old days of compulsory union membership have gone. People are no longer required to be members of any union. There are some areas where not being a member of a union means you might not get employed or you will be under constant pressure to join but this is no longer legal. There are other ways and other means of ensuring your employment is fair and legal now.

The union movement, particularly the more militant sections of it. seem not to have recognised that. Their demands are still strident. The leaders seem to believe they have the right not to simply ask but to demand or even dictate policies across many areas. 

The "Manufacturing Workers Union" is making many such demands. They want a "republic" of course.  The referendum failed "back then" but apparently it would pass now and that is reason enough to do it again. They want the "Union Jack" removed from the flag. It is apparently a "symbol of oppression". They want all the "colonial statues" removed from public places. These are a reminder of our shocking past apparently.

Their demands have gone on from there to changing the date of our national holiday. That is an issue which has been made contentious by activists. We are told it should be a "day of shame". 

The same people want the failed "voice to parliament" revisited. That it failed to get up at a referendum too but apparently we should do it again. It apparently should have got a "majority of people in a majority of the states".  It is a pretty high bar to pass but they think they can do it. All this is couched in high sounding language about indigenous recognition and rights and how the rest of us are "racist".

There are also calls for the "recognition of Palestine" and those who control it. This may actually be impossible under international law but why let that get in the way? 

There is "climate change" of course. Apparently we should be spending a great deal more on that than we are.  It should not be difficult to do.

They want a four day week for the same pay as they are now getting for a five day week. At the same time they want "better working conditions and increased wages". They want "the rich" taxed even more than they are now. 

These things will apparently come up for discussion at their meeting today. They may well get adopted.

Membership of unions in this country has risen slightly since I last looked. It is now around 13.1% of the workforce. It is around 14.0% for women and 12.0% for men. Among the younger generation, those in the  20-24yr group the figure is 7.3% and about 3.7% below that. The AMWU numbers are even smaller of course.

Yet it is these people who will dictate the direction in which the country goes. It seems they are not concerned with the dire state of manufacturing in this country. They apparently believe in some sort of utopia which would be possible if everyone else did as they demand. 

Even in my idealistic teens I did not believe in "communism". Socialism still does not appear to work but they believe it will. I wonder where that leaves the rest of us...and whether they would like it if what they demanded actually happened.  

Yes domestic violence is a "two" issue

but perhaps not quite in the way some people think.

The red headed politician some of us love to loathe said something about this yesterday and was immediately castigated for it. She was saying DV is a "two way street" - that women are also able to commit domestic violence.  

Yes, that is true. It is something which is often overlooked. It may not even be recognised. Women are generally smaller and not as strong as men. The form the violence takes can be different too.

But is throwing a pan of hot chip fat or hurling the iron at someone really any different? There are women who have done that. There are women who have assaulted their parters, who have murdered them or their children.  It may not, thankfully, be nearly as common but it does happen.

I thought about this after hearing the complaints about what was said. I thought back to a family I knew in my childhood. He was the only policeman in a small country town. She was his shrewish partner. As an adult I can recognise that the marriage was not in good shape. The children were not well cared for and frequently had bruises from the beatings given them - given them by their mother, not their father. Divorce was much more difficult then and the children would have been put in the care of their mother, not their father. The couple stayed together and the children suffered the consequences. I met one of them years later and none of them had made a success of their lives.

I wonder how different it is now when it is the woman rather than the man - or even perhaps both of them - who are the perpetrators of the violence? What about the children? It is surely a "two way street" then...so called adults and the children. 

Not all women are natural mothers, nor do they want to be. They do not "love" their children. The children happened. They wish they had never had them. They do not want the responsibility for them. 

As a teacher I actually had mothers who told me that. "I'll be glad when they are off my hands" was said with the sort of vehemence that tells you it is actually true. Their children are fed and clothed but they are regarded as a nuisance, something that gets in the way of what the adult wants to do.  They can cope with the financial "burden" but giving up time as well is too much. In the worst cases it leads to physical violence and even death but, for many, it is the emotional violence which does so much harm. Yes, it is violence if you are constantly being told you are not wanted, a burden, or someone cannot wait to be rid of you. 

Adults saying that sort of thing to one another as well is another form of abuse. It is very harmful both to the person it is directed at and to those around them. It is a type of violence but because nobody shows any physical signs it is too often ignored.

Relationships are of course incredibly complex things but castigating someone for saying domestic violence is a "two way street" is to ignore the harm done - and how it can be done. I remember the policeman's children and how the harm done followed them into adulthood. Was it then directed on to the next generation? Quite probably it was.   

There are more complaints about the "night life"

strip in this city. Apparently it is "run down" and the "lock out" laws are harming business. There seem to be a plethora of "massage parlours" and "illicit tobacco shops", to say nothing of the "convenience" stores.

I have not been "down the strip" for a long time. I have had no need to go. There is a very nice bookshop at the far end but I can deal with them on line. The woman working there actually advised me not to come in. "It's a bit rough around here."

Yes, it is. I used to go backwards and forwards along it for one year of secondary school and then in my three years at teacher training college. Once in a while, when I was feeling rich, I would stop at the only place in the city which sold some very nice lemon gelati. That place has long since gone of course. 

There are some odd little eating spots. I would not consider eating at most of them. There is often the distinct smell of "pot" about them or on the street. You need to be aware of where you are walking because there are syringes lying around.

The owners of the "places of the night" want the area "cleaned up". They want the "lock out" laws done away with altogether. They would like a greater police presence - but just to be there as "visible", not to ruin business. They want to be rid of the "trouble makers", those who have had too much alcohol or are in the grips of a violent drug episode.

Reading all this I am reminded of the story the Senior Cat used to tell about his only run in with the police as a teenager. As he told it he and a group of mates, including my godfather, were carrying a heavy double bed across the old swing bridge over the river near the docks. It was dark and they, as teenagers will, were making a bit of noise. A police car stopped them and wanted to know what they were doing. Why were they carrying a bed?

It was of course one of the props for a play the PFA (Presbyterian Fellowship Association) was going to put on. They had borrowed it from somewhere. They were making their own entertainment - and entertainment for other people. It cost them very little. It taught them a lot about each other, about working together, about all the things involved in putting on any sort of entertainment. The vast majority of the marriages in that group lasted too.

I wonder what would happen if we did away with all the "night life" of this strip now? It would of course have a very big negative economic impact on the "entertainment" industry. We would also have a generation of "bored" youth who would need to be taught to entertain themselves. The generation which came after that might be a little more able to look after their own interests but I suspect it would take more than that. 

We might be trying to deny under 16s access to social media but that is not going to teach them to entertain themselves. The bright lights of night life on the strip beckon as soon as they are old enough to be out without parental supervision.  We need to teach children to entertain themselves so that teenagers and young adults can do it too. I doubt we are doing that. 

Changing the name of an electorate

may or may not seem important to most people. It might come down to whether you live in the electorate or know how to spell the new or old name for it. Ask some people and, even in a country with compulsory attendance at the ballot box, they will not be able to tell you the name of the electorate they live in. Yes, this is true. I have heard people telling electoral officials they do not know. These people have simply arrived at the closest polling station. 

Then there is the other cause of confusion, a name change. Why change something which people know? 

This has just happened in this state. The geographically biggest electorate has had a name change. It was done without any consultation or discussion. It has simply happened. It will no longer go by the name of a former governor of the state. It will now go by the name of an indigenous activist.

There are many people who will see this as right and proper and a good thing. Certainly the person it will now be named after did a great deal of good in her lifetime. It is no bad thing to see her honoured in some way but was this appropriate? There is a suburb in the nation's capital named after a late indigenous person. Was that appropriate?

Our national multicultural and indigenous news service give a warning at the beginning of a news story that might contain the image or name of someone who has died - that is, the name or image of an indigenous person. If that is so important then why is the electoral commission changing a name to that of someone of such importance to the indigenous community if that person is no longer alive? 

The suburb in the nation's capital was named for a man who was also a Senator. There are other suburbs named for similar reasons. Some might want to say it was named for someone who was indigenous but it was his service as a Senator which was honoured. That is not the case with the other name change. It is being done to recognise her service to indigenous issues. Whether that is right or wrong is a separate issue but the proposal should, at very least, have been put to the indigenous people who live in the electorate. 

Our local council has gone ahead with name changes which supposedly reflect the indigenous history of the area. Local history is being lost to names many people no longer recognise, do not know and cannot spell. They do not know how to say them. We are told that these names are the original, indigenous names for places and that changing them is being done out of "respect".  The reality is that nobody really knows what the original names were. Is that respect or is it something else?

Name changes may sometimes need to occur. In this instance it might have been better to wait until an entirely new electorate was formed and then used that name.  

There is more than one sort of "multiculturalism"

and it is time we recognised this and discussed it.

Talking about "multiculturalism" and how wonderful it is has been one of those "big" issues recently. The government loves to tell us how wonderful it is. Others are being a bit more cautious.

I came across the idea that not everyone lived the way we did very early in life. One of my early memories is of being swung high in the air by a "black" man who, at least to me, appeared to be very big. He wore a "skirt" and he spoke a little differently.  He had "talked in church" and now he was with us for Sunday lunch.  He was of course a missionary. He came from Tonga. My brother and I thought he was fascinating. He was good with children, full of interesting stories. We met him several more times over the years as he came backwards and forwards for various purposes. He taught us a lot.  

The same church, of which Grandpa was an "Elder", sponsored a considerable number of migrants from Holland in the fifties and sixties. These were people who had been traumatised by war. They had very little. The role of the church was to see them provided with housing, the basics of life and work. Grandpa must have called in many favours in and around the docks.  

Their ability to speak English varied but, with adults, they made the effort. My paternal grandmother, with just three years of schooling herself, took on the role of accidental teacher of English as she introduced the women to the shops and other services.  That they needed to learn English and do it quickly was never questioned. At home they spoke Dutch. If we visited they would speak to our parents in English. We children were spoken to in Dutch, just as their own children were spoken to. We were permitted to respond in English of course - their own children did!  

The food was a little different. I remember staying with them and being given, as a very special treat, appelbeignets - apples fried in batter. There were other little things, like removing our shoes before going inside, that made them "different" but I simply accepted it all just as I accepted the Serbian woman who lived next door to us would point to something and ask "You say?" and I would tell her the English word. She always wore a headscarf. It would be tied behind her head at home and under her chin if she was going shopping. 

Those migrants kept their language at home. They expected to speak English at the shops or in the workplace. Their children "picked it up" at school. They had traditions. Our Dutch friends celebrated more on Christmas Eve than Christmas Day and we found that interesting but we were not expected to do it ourselves. Gradually they became part of daily life. There are still the occasional reminders of where their families come from but they have blended in.

And there is the other sort of "multiculturalism" brought in by people whose backgrounds are so very different from mine. They also speak a different language at home. Where I understood some Dutch simply because the language was so close to English I did not and still do not understand any Vietnamese or Chinese or any of the languages of the Indian sub-continent. Their food and their traditions are very, very different. It is all fascinating. We can buy some of those things in shops. Some of the most common items, such as rice noodles, can be bought in the supermarket. 

Middle Cat often goes to a Chinese grocery store because they stock a particular brand of soy sauce and several other items which are useful.  If you go in there you will rarely hear English spoken apart from what is absolutely essential in order to do business. These people are polite but it is clear their world is not our world. They see no need to speak English as our Dutch friends did. They do not need it. They have their festivals and family occasions and see no need to integrate the way the former migrants did.

And now we have more migrants from other places, many of them refugees. Some of them mix even less. There are some who speak no English, who rely on the many interpreter services. They are keeping as close as they can to their language, their traditions, their food and their old way of life.  For some of them I suspect it is because, for all they have been told they are welcome, they are homesick. This is still a strange country for them. They want it to be like "home" but it isn't.

I wonder how much allowing, even encouraging, them to keep all this is helping them. Should more be demanded of them? As someone asked me yesterday when we were trying to sort out a problem, "When does multiculturalism divide us?" 

Losing your licence to drive because

you are no longer fit to drive is not something that happens often. It should almost certainly happen more often than it does.

Someone I know has just lost her licence. She is eighty-two and was asked to undergo a practical test. That has just happened. She failed the test. 

I knew about this in advance. I also thought she would fail the test. It is very likely she should have ceased driving several years ago. She has had several "accidents" which were clearly related to her abilities - or lack thereof.

Naturally this has upset her a great deal. It is more serious for her than it is for many people because she also has a serious mobility disability. She lives alone and lives some distance from most of the services she needs to access. Even before the loss of her licence someone else was taking her to do her shopping.  Now she will need to make more arrangements and use taxis more often. She will get half price fares for now.

I am both relieved she is no longer driving but concerned because it will isolate her even more.  Although she has staff from a nearby nursing home coming in each day to check she does not seem to have any friends. Her days are spent "gardening", doing jigsaw puzzles and knitting while listening to radio or watching television. She lives too far from me for me to visit. I tried to work out possible ways of getting to her using public transport but the journey is just not realistic. We talk on the phone quite frequently...at least, she talks and I listen.

Each time the driving issue came up for her in the last few years I have thought of the Senior Cat. I will be forever grateful he had the courage to make the decision to hand in his licence when he did. He was not a "good" driver but he was no better or worse than the vast majority of people who get behind the wheel of a car. He did not enjoy driving. It was simply convenient. He switched to his "mini-car" - his gopher. It allowed him to go to church, to the doctor, the library and the shopping centre. Middle Cat and friends and taxis did the rest. 

The problem for the person who has just lost her licence is that she has none of those things. She could still ride a gopher. There is one in the house which belonged to her husband. It has not been used for some years. The battery would need to be replaced and the rest of it checked over but there is no reason to believe it could not be used. I have suggested doing it but nothing has been done. It is like getting a mobile phone. She started that process but has not completed it. There is a computer in the house that has not been used for a decade and is probably not able to be used now. Other things need to be dealt with but she procrastinates. Well all procrastinate perhaps but her procrastination is chronic.

Her BIL, the only "family" she is in touch with, tells me her place is much untidier than the way the Senior Cat and I lived...and we were not "tidy" people. I am not a tidy person but I do like cleanliness and things do eventually get put away.  Her place is littered with things and I suspect the effort of putting them away is just too great.

I also think she is depressed although I doubt she realises it. The lack of a licence is not going to help that.  

She likes to read. The next time I speak to her I might mention the library service which delivers books on a regular basis...and I must make the effort to phone her more often.