Basic domestic economics

tells me if I have to pay more for something, but have no additional income, then I am less likely to buy it. For some things this will not matter but it will for others.

I have noticed this in the supermarket. The price of chocolate is double what it was a year ago. I rarely buy chocolate but it is hard not to notice the price when it is "on special" and sitting outwards on the end of the aisle. One of the staff told me "people are buying less of that and more of the cheapest bread". I am sure they are.

I am not too concerned about chocolate. It is not an essential part of our diets. (Yes, I know there are some who will disagree but...)

I am concerned about some other things, two in particular. The first is the rise in the cost of health insurance and the cutting of the "rebate" for older people. This is poor economics, very poor economics. It is older people who are most likely to (a) struggle to pay for private health insurance, (b) most likely to need it and (c) be a drain on other taxpayer funded services if they can get them. Why would you do anything which might add to the public waiting lists and cost more for everyone in the long term?  If I need a joint replacement and I have been paying into an insurance scheme to cover it then it might make sense to see I get it. It could, especially for someone like me, be the difference between independence or being a costly burden on the rest of the community.

The other is the slashing of funding to fee-paying schools. We all pay taxes and some of that money goes to education. There is surely an argument that all children should receive the same basic amount  of funding? After that, and only after that, should some children receive more - and many of those children will be children with special needs. I have no problem with paying more to help children with special needs. I do have a problem with saying, "Some children will receive less than the taxpayer funded amount given to most other children. The idea that "Your parents are wealthy and they can afford to pay for all you educational needs. The state does not need to contribute." is surely wrong? Quite apart from anything else there are multiple reasons why children attend fee-paying schools and their parents are often far from wealthy. 

There are many people opposed to any funding for such schools. They claim it is wrong but if all those schools were suddenly to close then the reality is that the education system could not cope.  

Not so long ago our government found the money to fund the start of a football team in our closest northern neighbour. Many millions of dollars have been allocated to this. More millions of dollars have been allocated to athletics in other Pacific countries. There are many dubious "environmental initiatives" and the current furore over a climate talk-fest in the Pacific. This is not money being wisely spent however much the government might try to argue otherwise but it is popular where it matters. Yes, other countries may well need help with respect to environmental initiatives but those initiatives need to be those which will actually assist. They must not be "climate change" programs which allow any other government to say, "Look what we are doing. Aren't we good?"

Perhaps the biggest problem however is that moves like this one are just playing into the hands of a certain red-headed politician...and that could be very dangerous indeed.  

There are five murders which took place

in this city between 1979 and 1983 which are called "The Family" murders. Only one person has ever been convicted of any of those murders and he is now dead. 

He died in prison last year and, if he knew anything, it went to the grave with him. That person knew he was dying. How likely is it that, if he knew any more about the others involved, he would have said nothing at all? He is described as having been a "psychopath" and "completely lacking in empathy". 

The murders happened at a time when a great deal more was going on in the community.  One of the victims was the son of a well known news reader on commercial television and, perhaps because of that, his case received even more than the usual attention. 

What marks the five cases out however is something much more disturbing, as disturbing as the murders themselves. It is the secrecy which surrounded them and still surrounds them now. Order after order was made to suppress evidence. Evidence was suppressed even during the trial. The prosecution achieved a guilty verdict even when there was evidence not put before the court. 

Yes, it is likely the evidence would not have resulted in a "not guilty" verdict. That was not the reason to suppress the evidence. The reason given was that it might harm the case of others the police were pursuing in relation to the murders. At one point a doctor was brought before the courts as a potential killer. He was released again because the evidence simply was not there. The charges were dropped even before the trial took place. 

We have been left with a situation where the suppression orders may still be protecting people who should have been required to face court. The siblings of those murdered are making one last appeal to have the suppression orders lifted - as their parents had tried before them. They say they, and perhaps the public at large, have the right to know who the suspects are. It is said most of the suspects are likely now dead. Those that are alive are likely very elderly.

One of the victims lived not far from where we living at the time. I did not know him. Brother Cat had "seen him around" but not had anything to do with him. I remember that it still hit us hard. Our parents were, rightly, very worried.  Many other parents were as well. Were their sons safe?

Two more things happened which I still wonder about. The first is that one of the local boys disappeared for some days. Nobody knew where he was. The media made a great deal of it. We knew the neighbours of this boy and thus learned more than most people from two sensible and concerned adults. All they could tell us was that the boy had appeared again. He was severely traumatised and quite unable to tell anyone what had happened to him. His injuries were very similar to those of the victims. His family moved out very suddenly, out of a home which had been theirs for more than twenty years. The father left work abruptly. Nobody knew where they had gone. The only other thing we ever learned, again from the concerned neighbours, was that several years later the boy committed suicide.  He had never been able to speak about what happened to him. Was it another death related to those murders? 

So yes, it is tempting to wonder who was being protected by those suppression orders and why they are still protected. There may be nothing in it. Those named as suspects who are deceased cannot defend themselves. The question of "right to know" has been firmly brought to the front again. If there are murderers still alive I wonder if they are worried by the latest moves or if they know they are still very firmly protected for reasons we know nothing about.

Some day care centres are closing

at a time the government is claiming the sector needs to grow. Why? I suspect there are many reasons and those reasons may be more complicated than the media is suggestion.  

I was interested in what a father had to say to me yesterday. His partner has been visiting day care centres with the idea of sending their child to one so that the mother can return to work.   

"Mummy" is  a teacher. I have not met her. The parents are not married and they do not live together. (Yes, it is one of those complicated modern arrangements.) The father is actively involved in the child's life but there are things he feels he cannot do. He would not attempt to dictate whether a return to work for the mother was a good thing.

The mother knows what to look for if her child is going to be cared for by strangers. Finding those things is proving very, very difficult. I am not surprised.

Childcare, good childcare, is not something it should be possible to make a profit from if you charge the sort of prices parents can afford. It costs a great deal to build a safe environment, fill it with the best toys and equipment and staff it with well trained staff at an acceptable child-staff ratio. There will always be things which are not "right" but a parent will accept if they feel that strong urge to return to work.  I say "strong urge" rather than "compulsion" because it is still possible to be a "stay-at-home" parent. What it may mean is that you will not have all the material goods you are looking for and the house you want to buy may not be possible.

Recently I heard someone in authority say something which went like, "Yes, I do know "people are struggling". I will be told "you don't understand" and "we don't have a choice" and "everything is so much more expensive now". Perhaps those things are true but what is more important - the house or the child, your job or the child?" 

The statement brought me up with a bit of a jolt and I thought, "Yes, where are the children in all this? They are being treated rather like a commodity people feel they must have rather than human beings who are wanted. Is this why some people choose to have pets they try to humanise rather than children? 

Recently I was interested to discover that, in Sweden, it is illegal to leave dogs and cats alone all day. Dogs must be allowed out and walked within a six hour period. Cats must be actually checked on at least twice a day. Putting food and water out for them is not enough. It led me to wonder what would happen if a similar law applied to children. What would happen if you could not leave your child in the care of others for more than six hours? I suspect child-care options would change dramatically. Would it be a good thing? 

Renaming things, places and even people

is apparently becoming more common but renaming Lake Ontario? Will future generations need to be taught "Some Men's Horses Eat Apples" instead? (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and America rather than Oats?)

"Renaming" has been going on rather a lot around here too. It is a sort of "political correctness" phase we seem to be going through. I am not sure it works.  Local people are still referring to the library complex in the hills behind me by the old name. I suspect they will go on doing that. It is simple, easy to remember and say. The "indigenous" name given to it is not simple or easy to remember and almost nobody knows how to say it. Other things have also been given "indigenous" names. I put the word into inverted commas because there is nothing certain about the correctness of the words used and the language they are in belongs to a plains tribe, not a hills tribe. The majority opinion appears to be that the renaming is more about the political views of a tiny minority than any deep felt need to change the name.

There has been some discussion about naming a small street or lane in the city centre after a nun who rose to fame some sixty years ago for her rendition of the Lord's Prayer and her work with domestic violence victims. Sister Janet never sought fame. She just went on being a nun. Renaming a short lane after her might cause some people to ask about her in the future. I am not sure how she would feel. My guess is that she would feel embarrassed. 

I am told that there have been calls to rename the Nashville Airport the Dolly Parton Airport - or something of the sort. The dear woman is dead but it might not hurt to remind people of how much good she did. I might not have been too keen on the sort of music she is associated with but I am very keen on the way she did so much to encourage a love of reading. I just wish I had kept the letter she hand wrote to me before International Literacy Year.  Honouring someone in that way is renaming that can be good. 

Our capital territory has a policy of naming only those who are no longer here but worthy of recognition. Anyone who cares to do so can learn a great deal of history from those names. That is the intention. School students there are perhaps a little better informed than most people. 

Recently we renamed an electorate here. I am not sure that should have been done. I admire the work of the woman it is now named after but it has also obliterated and important part of our past. We need to think about whether this is the right thing to do.

And that of course where the problem lies in renaming Lake Ontario and calling it Lake America.  Ontario is not an English or French word. It is a word which was used by the native North Americans. It is far older than white settlement in either country. It means something like "great lake" or "shining/sparking water". It does not belong to American culture or Canadian culture. It belongs to the people who were there before that.  Retaining their name for it was long ago seen as the right thing to do. Renaming it will do nothing for the relationships between two countries. The name does not belong to either of them.  

Banning someone from Facebook

 at the "request" of entitled parents who have failed to make their little darlings understand that actions have consequences? I suppose it can be said that filming the little darlings and putting the result up on your political party's FB page also has consequences.

I mentioned the "protest" a little while ago. The action has escalated. I suspect the parents are still intending to take the member of parliament in question to court. It will be interesting to see how far it goes.

I have no time for the MP in question and I will never be voting for him but did he have the right to do it? That is the question which has to be asked. 

It will be for others to answer it but there are some interesting ideas here. When is it permitted to film others who are publicly protesting? What is the point of protesting if you are not there to be seen and heard? When does it become an "invasion of privacy"? Are some forms of protest able to be filmed and not others? Is where a protest taking place a political act (in this case the steps of the state parliament) or something more private? Does the age of the protestors (or just some of the protestors) mean they cannot be filmed?

They are just a few of the many questions which immediately come to mind. Opinions on all this seem to vary widely.

Footage of the protests held on the same day right around the country was shown on television. It is still widely available on the internet because it was "reposted" over and over again. The MP who has been barred from FB is by no means the only person who filmed what was going on. There were others, including the protestors themselves, who filmed what was happening. The protestors have shared the footage. I have been shown some by students who attended the protest and by others to whom it was sent. Apparently it is reasonable to film each other and pass it around but when the MP whose party they were opposing films it and posts it then it becomes an offence which is labelled abhorrent. He is accused of paedophilia because some of them are "minors" and he "caught" them "kissing in public". 

All this of course is about denigrating the political party in question. Those protesting will consider it even more urgent now that the same party has apparently just won a resounding win in a by-election. 

Will all this go further? Quite likely it will but I wonder if those who protested and their parents have considered it might not have quite the effect they were hoping for? 

I hope I am wrong because the possible consequences alarm me. 

I found this below in my time line this morning. It seems relevant right now.  

Translated from French

We will broadcast, via television, numbing entertainments, always flattering the emotional, the instinctive. We will occupy minds with what is trivial. With incessant chatter and music, to prevent the mind from questioning, thinking, reflecting. Günther Anders

"On diffusera, via la télévision, des divertissements abrutissant, flattant toujours l'émotionnel, l'instinctif. On occupera les esprits avec ce qui est futile. Avec un bavardage et une musique incessante, pour empêcher l'esprit de s'interroger, penser, réfléchir." Günther Anders

"Emotional support" animals

are not "assistance" animals. There are people who might like to claim that emotional support animals are vital to their well being but it does not give them the right to have their animal enter every establishment.

I am writing this because apparently someone has taken a small, community owned and run cafe in Scotland to court because the cafe refused to allow her to bring her "emotional support" dog into the cafe.  I do not know all the details. I only know what was sent to me to read. 

If the reporting was in any way accurate this appears to be a case of someone wanting to have special consideration in circumstances where it was not justified. She wanted to take her dog, an animal of which she is fond, into a cafe which does not permit dogs which are not assistance dogs to enter.  It sounds perfectly fair and reasonable to me.

I happen to like dogs. I may not like them as much as I like cats but I get on pretty well with dogs. I am not like Middle Cat who will engage in "conversation" with a dog at every opportunity but I do talk to dogs who are tied up next to where I park my trike. I acknowledge dogs. For the most part they respond with wagging tails and eye contact. I only pat with permission and if I sense they are looking for it. I am wary of dogs who do not respond in a friendly manner. I do not interfere with dogs who are assistance dogs. They are trained and they are working when I see them.

But dogs who are not assistance dogs are not trained. An assistance dog may give emotional support to a war veteran with PTSD but their role goes much further than that. The same is true of a guide dogs for the visually impaired. An assistance dog has been taught how to behave in a shop, on public transport and elsewhere. The owner of the assistance dog will know what the dog's role is. They will know it is not merely their "friend" who gives loving licks. A working assistance dog is not a friend at all. It is a partner, a trained partner.

I have seen similar problems here. There are entitled people who believe they can bring their dogs through the shopping centre and even into the supermarket. Recently someone had their dog in the child seat of a supermarket trolley and got upset when told that this was not appropriate. The manager of the supermarket happened to be a short distance away and came over. The customer was politely told to shop elsewhere. The customer went off in a huff but the other customers applauded the manager. Some days later a local woman with a guide dog was in the same supermarket and one of the staff was willingly helping her reach something she could not find. The dog was standing there quietly waiting. It was working.

A friend of mine has a hearing dog. My friend  is profoundly deaf. It is her second dog. Early on there were issues with her first dog but now people in her local area know about the dog and to what it can alert her. She can go into the local shops with it and, like a guide dog, it will sit quietly and wait. It is trained and it allows her to be safely alone during the day, do the shopping and occasionally enjoy coffee with a friend on the beachfront. She came to see me recently and travelled by train to do it. The dog came too and there were no problems.

Recently I was told I could no longer park my trike where I had been parking it at a community facility here. Things had changed and it was now a safety issue. I did not jump up and down. I accepted the decision. A week or so later I had an email saying "can we talk about this because we think we can accommodate you in another way?" I really did not expect that and I appreciate it. If I had complained and threatened legal action I don't think that would have happened.

 I wonder what the woman complaining about the cafe not allowing her dog in believes. If the reporting is correct it could lead to the cafe closing for good because of the legal costs. Will she say "serves them right"? Will she feel proud of her actions or will she find other people shun her for them?

The Nepalese and Tibetans I know

here are genuinely lovely people. They have all made a lot of effort to fit in to the community around them. They volunteer. They have made the effort to learn English. They expect their children to be polite and work hard in school.

These people have come from one of the most beautiful areas of  the world. It is also one of the most dangerous.

I am not sure the rest of us really appreciate this. Tourists head off with the idea that it will be interesting, perhaps even exciting. They think they know it will be "different" and that they will "experience another culture". There is an idea there that somehow they are being courageous in going somewhere so different. One or two of them might try and learn a couple of words in what they believe is the "local language".  They will usually travel in a group. 

There are also the "spiritual" travellers. I will not call them "tourists" because many of them are Nepalese who are returning for genuine spiritual reasons. Among them there will be a tiny number of other people, often "Westerners" who are genuinely in search of an experience which can be impossible to explain to other people. They are not those caught up in some sort of mystical belief imposed on them by an experience at a temple somewhere but those who have spent years trying to come to some sort of limited understanding of the world they are experiencing. 

And there are aid workers I work with who go in and out for limited periods of time who, like the spiritual travellers, may experience something a tourist will not experience.  They know there are risks but something drives them to go anyway. There are schools, hospitals, bridges and roads to be built. Nothing happens there the way it happens in their comfortable western existence. They need to be prepared to learn as much as they must be prepared to teach. Their work is nothing like the work of those who go in with aid organisations. Aid organisations have teams of people who can work together and support each other. They will have equipment and more.

Yesterday I sat down with three people who know the disaster region well. We went through the old communication boards. We updated them. Phone calls were made. Emails were sent. Funding for air tickets was found. There are people we know who have now packed their backpacks and are on their way. They will help the local people with rebuilding things like bridges in Nepal.

In Tibet it is a different story. The Chinese government has so far not asked for assistance and has actively denied entry to outsiders. The Tibetans need help too but will they get it?  Think of them too please.