Our Senate is supposed to act

as the "states' house" and as the safety valve on the pressure cooker which is parliament.

Its role as the states' house has long since given away to one divided by party politics. It seems now it is no longer acting as the safety valve either. Yesterday one fiery Senator walked out when censured for remarks about Muslims, another called the same Senator and those who support her party "the filth of this country" and a third gave what can only be described as a sermon about Ramadan.

These things should not be happening in the Senate, or indeed in the House of Representatives.  The fiery Senator is known for those sort of remarks. She has been making them since she entered politics. The fact she keeps being re-elected suggests that many of those in her home state agree with her views. Her party appears to be making inroads in other states as well. The upcoming election in this state will be a test of whether it can succeed in becoming a viable opposition rather than simply the holder of a handful of seats. If they do win more than one or two seats then the other major parties need to look at what it is people are saying they want and modifying those views so they become reasoned and workable policies. 

I am less concerned by that than the Senator who quit the party which helped elect her and has turned on it and everyone else. She is also being deliberately provocative and is much harder to touch, let alone censure. To do so would lead others open to accusations of "racism" because she makes much of her 3x great-grandmother being an indigenous person. Her family apparently feel differently but it is ground on which others tread very cautiously and, likely, with good cause. As an "independent" she may not get re-elected but 2028 is a long way off.

The other Senator is very conscious of being Muslim and makes sure others know it. She does not however wear the hijab in the chamber. Her views are also provocative in their own way. At every opportunity she will bring up issues relating to Muslims and the Islamic faith and the problems associated with, as she sees it, being Muslim in a country which does not follow Sharia law. Her speech in the Senate related to Ramadan and what it is claimed to mean and how it is observed. It was delivered as a sermon might be delivered in a church or a synagogue. Her intention was clear. She was intent on educating the Senate. That may be no bad thing in itself but if a Christian attempted to educate Senators about Lent or a Jew attempted to educate Senators about Pesach I am certain they would be censured. 

All this suggests the way our Senate is intended to function is being undermined. It is interesting that all three Senators participating in that yesterday are women...or should that be, identify as women? 

 

  

A bag of "smiles" can have

a remarkably calming effect on small children...and even bigger children.

Middle Cat and I spent yesterday helping a friend at a "fibre feast". It is an annual day run by our friend. It brings together people who make yarn, sell yarn, use yarn, play with yarn and need yarn related items. Local guilds and clubs can come along and advertise their groups and more. For the last few years it has been run in association with a "street fair" and there have been plenty of people going through.

This year we were worried because the street fair, held out of doors, was cancelled because of the weather. The fibre event was not so easily cancelled because some vendors come very long distances and had arranged their small businesses around the event. It went ahead and we think most people were very pleased by their sales.

Middle Cat and I were caring for the "information" stall. People can try out various sorts of knitting needles. Middle Cat talks to them about issues they might be having with their hands and shoulders and backs as crafters. I talk to them about other yarn related issues and problems and encourage them to try different needles and "ergonomic" hooks.  

As most people want to be there it is usually a very good day. There are children of course and I took along the remaining "smiley faces" we had made for the Christmas tree last year to hand out. They were a hit. 

The first one I gave away would have made the entire day worth the effort. The recipient was a tiny three year old who was more the size of a two year old. I had observed the hearing aids and the fact that her mother had signed something to her. She was very shy so I asked her mother if she thought her daughter might like to choose one.  Oh yes. she would undoubtedly like one. She was about to explain when I thought I could do it myself so I looked directly at the child and asked her, "Would you like one?" I signed "you" and "like" and "one" and her expression changed to one of disbelief. She looked at her mother for permission and then chose one and gave me a smile and the sign for "thank you" without being prompted. Her mother told me, "She has never done that with a stranger before." I was simply relieved to have been understood without intervention from her mother. 

After they had gone on a woman trying out a tiny circular needle looked at me and said,"That was huge for her wasn't it?"  Yes, perhaps it was but it should not be. More people need to know more signs. I really know very little, far too little. 

I also gave another smile face to a very obviously intellectually disabled adult. He was being coaxed around by his father as his mother chose some birthday gifts. "Knitting keeps my wife from going mad caring for him while I'm at work" I was told. His son could not choose one from the bag so we put out two, one in orange (his favourite colour) and another in purple. Told he could choose one produced a huge grin and when he indicated he wanted to wear it like a badge we found a safety pin and his father pinned it on. He went off with the same huge grin. 

Yes, the rest of the day was busy and we were very tired at the end of it but those two incidents made all the effort we put in worth it for me.    

Small schools are something

I do know something about. I started my schooling at one which had just four teachers. It was actually considered to be quite a large school in a rural area. 

I should not have been there at all really but Mum was anxious to have me out of the house. She had my two year old brother and my four month old sister at home. I was four and a quirk of the system which said you could begin school the year you turned five meant I was eligible to go. It did not matter in the least that I would not be five years of age for another eleven months. I could read. It was time to start school. 

I did not particularly like school. For the most part I was bored by it. My "daily diary sentence" would be written down for me but the teacher would get impatient when I wanted "big words" even if I could spell them. Words like "extendable" (in relation to a ladder) and "thermometer" were not supposed to be in a five year old child's school reading vocabulary.  I was allowed to use them only because I could spell them. Yes, I must have been a very "difficult" child.

I only had a year at that school before the Senior Cat was transferred back to the city. I was sent to a big city school and in the infants you went from "reception" to "lower one" to "upper one" and "lower two to upper two". I was put in "upper one" because of my age. I lasted the first of the three terms and was put into upper two where I probably continued to be a nuisance. 

It was not until I reached what was then known as "grade six" that the Senior Cat was "promoted" to be the teacher in charge of a two teacher school. Mum went back to work then and she taught the first three years of school in one room. My father had everyone else in the other room. It meant the older children had to work alone sometimes. He had four "grades" he was supposed to teach and then the supervision of the correspondence school lessons for the "year eight" students. It says a great deal for the strength and stability of their marriage and their ability to teach that this arrangement actually worked. All the same it was not an ideal situation. The Senior Cat was aware of that but knew we were better off than the school with just eight children in it about an hour a way. There was another one in yet another direction with eleven children. Ours was a "big" school with the forty-four or five enrolled in it. 

At the primary school level these small schools were managed. Get a good teacher or teachers and they could even be good schools. Get a bad teacher or a lazy one and children did not learn a great deal. It was often seen as not being of any particular concern. The boys would go back on to the farm as soon as they reached an age where they could legally leave school. Some of them did not even do correspondence work and our Correspondence School, along with the School of the Air, was very good indeed. The boys though would sometimes repeat year seven twice or three times. Each year, before school had ended, they would be at home helping with the harvest. It was expected that the girls would, with rare exceptions, get married. It was only the children of the "floating population", those who were there for only a couple of years before being moved on, who were thought to be interested in doing more. 

The Senior Cat tried to change that and did succeed in seeing a couple of more able children sent off to board with families in a more distant town. Boarding school was not an option, people could not afford it in the most remote areas. 

I look back on it now, after reading a description by someone of their school days, and realise it was not a good education. Even the best teachers could not give a bright child a good education. You could get "doubly promoted" or "skip a year" and that was about it. My brother and I were fortunate in that the Senior Cat organised our membership of the Country Children's Lending Service and the librarians there sent out the six books we were permitted to borrow (they came as parcel post on the twice weekly train service) more often than was really allowed. He also encouraged us to listen to "the Argonauts", a children's radio program. We were always thrilled when our letters to Mac were read on air. 

We missed out on a lot of the resources available to city schools, or even larger rural schools. At secondary level I was never able to study a modern language. The Senior Cat gave me Latin lessons when he had the time. I had the textbook and was really expected to teach myself.

But there were two things which did happen. The first was that I had to find out how to learn alone. I had to learn without adult supervision. I am not sure it taught "self-discipline" but I had plenty of curiosity about the things which interested me. Did that help? Yes and the Senior Cat encouraged me and my brother. We had books and we were encouraged to do things, make things, find out about things. 

The other thing that happened was that, like all other children in the school, we knew that older children were expected to watch out for younger children. It was not just that you might have a younger sibling in the same classroom (and certainly in the same school) but out in the playground there was always someone watching. We might not even have been conscious of watching but we did, especially the girls. Disagreements were broken up quickly. If a small child fell then an older child would deal with it unless they thought an injury deserved adult attention.

I don't think that happens now. In big city schools the adults dealt with things we thought of as our responsibility. In rural schools I am told teachers are too worried about liability issues to let it happen the way it once did. It was part of growing up back then and we might just have been better off because of it. 

"Please make an URGENT appointment

to see Dr....." was the text message. Yes, alarm bells were ringing - for the wrong person.

I had a panicky call from a very elderly friend yesterday. She had just received the message asking her to make the appointment. She had no idea who the doctor was and she has not seen her own doctor since early January. 

"He didn't say anything was wrong. He isn't even there right now. He's taking leave."

I wondered if her GP had made an error of some sort and a locum had picked it up. "We'll get it sorted," I told her. I took a copy of the message and went off. Her doctor is a member of medical practice with multiple doctors. It is busy but they know me as I have occasionally been in when other elderly people have needed prescriptions picked up or there have been other issues which don't breach privacy concerns.  This time I was less certain but I told the nurse at reception what the concern was and then I asked, "Could you please just check it is the right person. There is someone else with the same name..."

It has happened before. It is a very common surname and they both go by the same given name. Yes, that is what had happened. The nurse at reception took a deep breath, thanked me and apologised. "If I get a chance I will call her later and reassure her."

I doubt she did it. There would be no time for that but the incident worried me and it worried the nurse. Someone had blundered somewhere. Possibly it was not catastrophic but it was still alarming.

I suspected because I have had something like that happen to me. My GP had started talking to me one day and I had to stop her and say, "Are you looking at my case notes or someone else's?" She stopped and swore and apologised and started again. No doubt the mistake would have been discovered when a prescription was printed out in someone else's name but it happened. Ever since then I have been acutely aware of the potential problem. 

The son of friends of ours was nearly given a second dose of warfarin when he was in hospital. He was just alert enough to realise what was going to happen and managed to stop them. In that case he had been transferred from a high dependency area to a lower one and the message had not gone with him. 

Mistakes do get made so when there is a story about overworked staff at one of the biggest hospitals I am concerned. My elderly friend was just sitting at the table waiting for me to come back. Yes, I could have tried to sort it out over the phone for her but the clinic is literally just around the corner and I could make the time.  I am thankful she was alert to a problem, that she could ask me to help. She gave me a rather shaky smile and I left her to her rather late breakfast and the paper she still has delivered.   

$180 an hour for a shower?

Oh yes the government "changed the way it works" recently, "it" being the assistance package some elderly people get to remain in their own homes. Prices were supposed to be "fairer" under this. They have gone through the roof to the stratosphere.

The late Senior Cat had a "package" which entitled him to three showers a week. It was all the assistance we were able to get. Yes, we paid for it... when we could get it. We accepted it because we were told it was "safer" for a "trained person" to do the job of assisting him and it was one less thing I needed to do.

The reality was very different. For a start we never knew who would be coming, if they came at all. They might be male or female, old or young, experienced or inexperienced, capable or incapable. They might, if we were fortunate, speak English. On one occasion I actually had to hastily print off a communication board I had written for another purpose so I could try and explain that something could not get wet (or we would need to change the bandage). The very young lad who came that day took the piece of paper away with him and told me "asante" (thank you) over and over again. We never saw him again. He had no idea what to do and his English really was minimal. I don't think his Swahili was that great either as he really spoke a related language. 

We had a Chinese woman come for several months. She was lovely, had some medical training and her English was good but she had to bring her young daughter with her during school holidays - and expected me to watch her. 

The Senior Cat was able to explain, to tell people how to help. He was however growing hard of hearing and, add in some heavy accents, he had problems understanding people. It worried him that he would upset them.

In the end we simply gave up. Middle Cat and I took it in turns. We also made sure he had a shower every day in very hot summer weather. It worried the Senior Cat that we were doing it but Middle Cat knew how to do things and taught me how to do it safely. 

Yes, I suppose it also saved some money but we were not being charged anything like the equivalent of $180 when other people came to do it. We could do a more thorough job in about half an hour - undress, shower, dress. (He could still shave himself with an electric razor.) People said we were "lucky" we could do it. No, we were not lucky at all. It was hard work but we felt infinitely happier about doing it ourselves because we knew it would be done in a way that made the man we adored feel safe and comfortable. 

This is the problem with the "in home care" system. There is no chance to build relationships, to understand how someone's needs can be best met. Despite claims to the contrary those doing the job are not well trained, if they are trained at all. They might get as little as fifteen percent of that $180 and are unlikely to get more than twenty percent even if they have a certificate. It is poorly paid work. 

There is someone I know working in the administration office of an organisation which provides some of this "care". She tells me the boss has just bought a new car and she will be in charge while he has an overseas holiday.        

Are "queers for Palestine"

really unaware that being gay or lesbian in Gaza is not acceptable? Are they aware that it could lead to their deaths if they openly acknowledged their sexuality in an Islamic country? Do they believe it does not somehow apply to them?

When I was very young homosexuality was still regarded as a criminal offence. My family actually lived next door to a male couple for a while. My memory of them is as perfectly ordinary, perfectly pleasant people who just happened to live together.  As an adult I wonder what sort of strain they were living under.  My mother certainly did not approve of them. We children were told not to talk to them. We did of course, children do. My very definitely heterosexual father was a great deal more tolerant and would often talk gardening issues with the older of the two men. 

Perhaps the interesting thing is that apparently nobody ever gave these men away. They were much more willing to accept what the older man gave away from the garden. I suppose he must have been retired. He seemed very old to me. He did not seem to go to work. The younger man did. He would ride off each day on his pushbike with his kitbag strapped to the back.

Although I cannot remember that much about them I do believe they would not have supported any political group like "queers for Palestine". None of the gay men I know, and I know quite a few, would support such a group. They come from across the political spectrum but none of them have time for this sort of "activism".  

It was only yesterday that one of them voiced his concern to me about the group as we waited in the queue at the Post Office. He spoke to me very quietly to say that a young lad we both know had been fortunate not to be badly injured in an attack on him by a group of youths. I had not heard about the incident. The boy in question is not gay. (He is, quite simply, just quiet. He has medical issues which in no way relate to his sexuality but do tend to keep him from the mainstream.) Apparently the mere thought this boy might be gay was enough for him to be the subject of an attack.

I have no doubt this boy's attackers believe they were justified and, given the opportunity, they would do it again. They have been taught to believe this. Are they likely to change? I doubt it. It will be deeply ingrained in their psyche by now.  

So why do groups like "queers for Palestine" exist? It seems to be such a contradiction. Do they also support wife beating?  

 

  

Mind your own children while

you are "having coffee" with your friends!

I am still feeling a little shaken and, perhaps, stunned by how fast I managed to move yesterday. Yes, I know it is a pedestrian crossing too but the small one on it was entirely alone.

We have a pedestrian crossing outside our shopping centre. It is one with constantly flashing lights which requires drivers to slow down and then stop and give way to pedestrians who are crossing. 

I was coming up to it yesterday when I saw a very small figure coming in the opposite direction. There were also cars coming on either side - and, for once, nobody else around. Fortunately the cars were moving slowly and about to stop. They had seen me. They had not seen the small figure already about a metre into the roadway. He was not exactly visible from their angle. He was from mine.

Instead of taking my usual cautious approach I put on speed and I grabbed. He wailed. He struggled. He screamed. He tried to bite. Someone else came to my rescue at that point. The drivers went on with long blasts on their horns. I am not sure if they thought I was somehow responsible. 

"Yours?" asked the other person furiously.  

"No. I saw him..."

"Look I have to go...that's my bus..."

"Put him in my basket...come on you can have a nice ride..."

One small screaming, wriggling child was put in the large basket on the back of my little vehicle. Yes, it is a large basket but it was still only just large enough to fit a nappy wearing toddler. I kept firm hold of him as he screamed at me and wheeled into the coffee area of the shopping centre. 

Yes, there was his mother. She was sitting at a table with another woman. It was not until I was all the way down the little ramp past the ice cream place and I was visible to her that this woman actually noticed her child had wandered off. 

Her reaction is something I still find unbelievable. "Oh, he was playing with the train thing there. I thought he was all right."

I did not say a word. I did not say anything at all. I was too shaken and too angry. It was the other woman who asked me, "Where did you find him?"

"Out on the road," I told her.

There was silence apart from the sound of small child screaming. Right around me people looked shocked...everyone, except the mother. She just put him down on a chair and distracted him with a piece of biscuit. 

No, I was not thanked. I am not sure I wanted to be thanked. I would just have liked her to show some concern for her child's safety.