Is being "shy" such a bad thing?

I was a "shy" child. I hid behind books. In the "adventure" stories I read I could be all the things I was not in "real life". I had no shortage of imagination and I was, I think, as happy as I could be in the circumstances in which I found myself.

I was not an "isolate". I had "friends" at school - at least the other children talked to me. I was chosen to be on teams when there was any sort of classroom work to be done. I did not expect to be on any sort of team in the playground but I was sometimes kindly told I could do things like "hold the rope" when "skippy" with the "long rope" was being played or watch to make sure that people did not go "outside the lines" when playing "hopscotch".  I did not get into trouble for "talking/whispering in class" either. 

But if there was a large event at school I did not want to be there. I did not like crowds. I still do not like crowds. I did not want to go to the houses of other children. My mother did not like any of us to go to birthday parties or other social events. This was almost certainly because she would have felt impelled to return the invitations. She might have been a teacher but she did not really like children, especially outside of school hours. There would be some other event that prevented our attendance at such things. I can remember handing over more than one "present" at school because I could not go to the birthday party of the child who had invited me. Mum said it was "polite".

I still find it difficult, very difficult, to go somewhere if I do not know anyone. Even going somewhere with someone else is difficult unless I trust them - and I do not trust people easily. 

Middle Cat and I are going on holiday in September. I know that there will be occasions on which I will feel embarrassed because she will "talk to anyone". She is not at all "shy". I will say "hello". I will sometimes have a brief conversation with someone on the train. I know it is almost certain that at the end of their journey or mine that will be the end of the interaction. It is fine with me. I have met some very interesting people that way. 

And yes, I have friends. Someone commented that I had very few "friends" on Facebook. The people I "know" there are people I have actually met or have had other interaction with and with whom I want to maintain a relationship. I actually know (and have worked with) someone who has hundreds of "friends" on Facebook. She also has what she calls "real friends" - a handful of people with whom she feels comfortable. 

All this surprises some people when they learn the way I feel. "But you wrote all those letters" and "you volunteer at..." and "when you were the guild's librarian you were always available to help".  Writing letters can be done at a distance. I know the people I volunteer with but the first year I did it was genuinely frightening".  As "librarian" I was in my comfort zone I suppose. I knew the books. I had spent hundreds of hours familiarising myself with the contents and I wanted other people to feel comfortable about their knitting. 

I make myself talk to people. I have volunteered at information stalls and worked for my friend P... at craft fairs but going into a room full of people I do not know is outside my comfort zone. If I can avoid it I will. Perhaps this means I am "shy" and "unsociable" but is it really such a bad thing? 

Now it seems that "shy" children need to have "therapy" to overcome their "shyness". Yes, there are children who have a serious degree of "social anxiety" and they may well need some help and support. I am less sure about children who are perhaps naturally "quiet". They do exist and perhaps their need to be quiet should be respected. If the report in this morning's paper is correct however then "shyness" might soon be added to the list of unacceptable differences among us.  

So you can do more in four days a week

than you can in five? You can also prevent the sexual abuse of children in day care by having a "national" register of those working with children? Oh and do not forget that anyone under sixteen is too young to use social media but the day they turn sixteen they will be old enough to vote.

I have just been looking at some of the plans of the returned Federal government and some of the demands being made of it. It leaves me wondering where some of the insanity is coming from.

Unions apparently want a "four day" week even though our productivity levels are, to put it kindly, already low. Unemployment rose at the last count and what counts as "employed" is already a low bar to have to reach.  Many years ago I remember feeling acutely embarrassed when I realised unions pulled people out of work more often here than they did in the UK. 

Union membership was high back then - because it was effectively compulsory. It is now down to around fourteen percent of the workforce. Despite that the union movement is still powerful. It runs the Labor party.  The union movement is making moves for that four day week. They claim productivity will increase under such moves. I do not know how working a smaller number of hours will mean greater output. 

I do know that many people have no idea what to do with their "free time" even now. It is not going to solve the problem of the frantic dash to get the kids to day care and school and the after-school rush to get them to the activities where they will be "safe" and "supervised".

And then yes, there is the question of "are they safe?" Apparently this is not the case. We are being told we need a "national register" to keep them safe. I have no problems with a national register if it is used for that purpose and that purpose alone. It might prevent one or two who should not be anywhere near children entering the system but it won't stop those who have not yet been caught.  

The ban on under sixteens using social media will almost certainly come into effect. What it will mean is that everyone else who uses social media will find they are also being monitored. It will not stop determined young people from finding ways around the ban outside school and, as I said elsewhere, there is the magical day they turn sixteen and there will be pressure to allow them the vote just as the UK Prime Minister wants to allow young people to do. In a country like this where attendance at the ballot box is compulsory and the majority of people unthinkingly vote for the same party all their lives that could have disastrous consequences - unless of course you are a far left socialist.

All these things do not address the real issues of education, welfare, housing, health, migration and productivity. We will look as if we are doing things but will we? I suppose Communist China will be pleased by the result - apart from the four day week.  

Suing someone for $10bn

is something that could only happen in another country. An attempt to do that here would be thrown out of court. It may still be thrown out there.

I am of course talking about President Trump's attempt to sue the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for printing an article about a birthday letter he is alleged to have written. Whether he wrote it or not is not something I can comment on. I have not seen the evidence. All I can say is that the WSJ would have reviewed the evidence and taken legal advice before they published anything of that nature. They would also have looked at the evidence of a relationship between the writer of the letter and the recipient. 

I do not know if the Epstein files exist or not. I have not seen those either. I do not know if Epstein committed suicide or if his death was "assisted" in any way. Anything is possible. Most people would, at very least, be willing to believe he was not a "nice" person. Any powerful person would not wish their name to be associated with him. 

Thinking of all that I thought of another case I am personally aware of and the impact it had on him and his family. He was falsely accused of the sexual abuse of a child. He was dismissed from his job. He kept protesting his innocence and being told to plead guilty in the hope of a lighter sentence. He refused. The matter was about to go to court when the girl who had laid the complaint withdrew it. She admitted that it had been made "for a dare" and that she and another girl had resented being failed an assignment on which they had cheated and been found out. 

Although he is in no way at fault he can no longer get a Working With Children (WWC) certificate. He cannot work as a teacher. He cannot even work as a tutor. He has a labouring job which he is not really fit to do but only because someone knew the story from the girl's family. The girl got away with no more than a reprimand and a change of school so she could "start again". Several years later she is now at university - and planning on working with children. 

There is no way this man can sue. The girl has no assets. He cannot even get his legal costs returned to him. It is just fortunate that it did not reach the press.  Some of those most in need of being paid "damages" will never get a cent. 

Sixteen is too young to vote

and allowing young people of that age to vote is wrong.

I know there will be many people who disagree with me. The UK Prime Minister is one. Keir Starmer claims "if you are old enough to work and pay taxes then you are old enough to vote" and that "you should be able to have a say in your future".

Sorry, no. You are too young, much too young. You simply do not have enough experience of the adult world. 

I was one of those idealistic teenagers who thought I could change the world. I am now "old" and I have not changed the world. I have not changed the world even though some people might believe I did achieve something. 

In the library this last week one of the librarians said to me, "I took a book up to the other library last week, the "Famous People's Favourite Books".  He gave me a smile as he said it. I groaned.

The book has a "dedication" to me in the front - for the more than eight thousand letters I wrote to people around the world asking them to support what became "International Literacy Year". 

"Utter madness D..." I told him. He smiled again and we talked for a moment about "purpose" and "process". 

ILY took a decade out of my life. It did not change the world. It may have changed the world for some people but, if anything, the whole thing did me more harm than good. Yes, I was "the person who wrote all those letters" but I was still not considered to be "employable". If anything I was even less employable than before. The Prime Minister of the day made that very clear. He used "experience" as an excuse - but there was much more to it than that.

I thought about this as I read Starmer's comments. What would he have said in the same position as our Prime Minister. Would he have said I "lacked experience" and used it as the excuse not to employ me in the position? If he had done that would he still be able to justify giving young people with almost no experience of the adult world the vote? They are not old enough to do some "adult" things like drink alcohol and buy a lottery ticket. They cannot be sent to fight for their country. There are moves here to stop under sixteens from accessing social media. The legislation is supposed to come into force at the end of the year. The "adults" in the world want to prevent that but they still think that something magical happens on a person's sixteenth birthday and that makes them experienced enough to vote?

I had to be twenty-one before I could vote. In fact I was twenty-five before I voted for the first time because I was not in the country until then. When I finally did vote I was old enough to at least read more than the flyers left in the letter box. I actually knew my local representatives at both state and federal level. I doubt many sixteen year old voters would know their representatives. Too many of them will, like many adults, vote on the basis of the slick advertisements on television. They will not be "informed" votes. It is one of the many problems with compulsory attendance at the ballot box as is the case in this country.

I never thought I would find myself agreeing with anything Nigel Farage said or did but I do find myself in sympathy with the idea that sixteen year old students will be influenced by their teachers. Many of their teachers will perhaps be "left wing". It may well help entrench governments of that persuasion but, like anything else, politics needs balance and politicians need to be accountable to more than the electorate they represent. Research in this country suggests that many people vote for the same party all their lives. If they start to do that without any life experience at age sixteen then it may be that there will come a time when there is no real "opposition" - and most of us know "communism" does not work. 

  

Using a telephone in prison

should be a privilege, not a right. So how do some prisoners manage to torment their victims by using their phones?

This is more than mere curiosity on my part. The report in this morning's paper included the case of a man who tormented his partner while in prison and then, on release, took his very young child away murdered her and then committed suicide. 

It was an appalling incident that has left someone I very briefly met in a state of severe anxiety and depression. I am not sure what the relationship between her and the man's partner is. It is none of my business. All I can say is that you would never recover from something like that.

In "Midnight and Blue" Ian Rankin has Rebus in prison and using a hidden mobile phone belonging to another prisoner. It is of course the only way the plot can move forward. At the time of reading the book (which I thoroughly enjoyed) I wondered how easy it would be for perpetrators of domestic violence to continue tormenting their victims while behind bars. 

It seems it is all too easy. Prisoners can apparently simply give their victim a false name, put their victims on another inmate's call list or use a third party to communicate with them. Some will even use children to communicate with them. As long as they have a means of communication they can continue to harass them and put pressure on them to drop charges of abuse and violence.

When I was still at school I had a teacher I grew to know well. On leaving school I remained in contact with her. She was past retiring age but still teaching part time. She needed the money because she had left a violent and abusive relationship. There was no no-fault divorce back then. Getting a divorce was a difficult and messy process and she had never been able to do it. Her husband lived in another state and, forty years after leaving him, she was still looking over her shoulder and moving house on a regular basis. He was still harassing and threatening her whenever he found her. 

This woman had a son who was very protective of her. He did what he could but twice in the time I knew her she had to leave her home in fear. This man was "smart". I cannot say intelligent because intelligent people do not behave the way he did. He was "smart" though because he knew exactly how much he could do to harm her and get away with it. Their son once told me, "I wish Dad was inside and not able to communicate with anyone."

It would not have worked that way of course. Even before the invention of a mobile phone some men found ways to harass the partners they had abused and lashed out at.  

Of course there is also the problem that so many victims believe they are the people in the wrong. "He really does love me..." is a statement which has been uttered too many times in an absolute belief that the perpetrator really does love the victim.

There is  no chance we will see a situation where prisoners are not permitted to have any phone calls at all. Not all phone calls can be monitored either. Prisoners will still have illegal access to some mobile phones too. 

But perhaps there are things which could be done. All the possible solutions to reduce the risk I can think of would undoubtedly seem unduly harsh. The idea that anyone caught making an unauthorised phone would have their sentence automatically doubled  would not go down well. Using a child for the purposes of harassment and abuse could perhaps result in no contact with the child. Yes, hard on a child who believes they love their parent but the very fact their parent is in prison is hard. Monitored and recorded video calls so that the victim of abuse knows who is calling and a third party cannot be used might work for some. Loss of all visiting privileges would be hard and not help rehabilitation but perhaps it might prevent some of the worst abuse. And perhaps all calls should be recorded apart from those to their legal advisers?  

But those who want to leave their partners and start afresh somewhere else are going to find it much harder than before. There is too much information out there for that to be easy.  It was not easy before, It is much harder now  

We are spending too much money

as a country according to the economists. Our productivity is down and our expenses are up. Taxation has risen and wages have risen to try and cover the increased cost of living. And all that leads to inflation. 

I think anyone who thinks about these things knows that. 

My bank balance plummeted yesterday. I bought a new mobile phone. It is not something I wanted to do but the old one has died. It will no longer work. 

I liked that phone. It was an old "flip-top" phone. It was about sixteen or seventeen years old. As it was working on "4G" I tried putting a new battery into it but that did not solve the problem and "the man at the phone repair booth" eventually shrugged and said, "You need a new phone."

I sighed and went off to an actual shop. I went with Middle Cat as she knows a great deal more about these things than I do. Yes, I had done some hours of "research" online but it had left me more confused than connected. 

Part of the problem for me is the fact my fine motor skills are quite definitely not as good as those of most people. I explained this to the nice young and enthusiastic salesman in the shop. I also explained I did not want to go into debt for the next one hundred years. He gave me the sort of look which said, "Yes, I know what you want but it does not exist - yet." 

But, he really was a nice young and enthusiastic salesman. He actually smiled and actually said, "There is no need to spend thousands but you do need to spend a bit - unless you want this."

He produced a small, Barbie-pink phone. His smile told me he knew I would not want that. "We sell a few of these to younger teenagers he said. Now, what do you want your phone to be able to do?"

Middle Cat and I explained about the upcoming trip away but, apart from that, I really only need a phone for making and receiving calls. I do not want to spend my time outside my sleeping mat in looking at a screen. I hope I never want to do that. 

He listened. He was also sensitive enough to let me try the "touch" of several screens and showed me a slightly easier way to do something. "It's a trick most people don't know about."

I ordered what we thought would be best and today I might just be in possession of a new phone. It seems more like a mini-computer to me but I am told there are much more complex phones. 

To me the cost of this was high. I would have stayed with the old phone if that had been possible but I had the money in the bank. I could pay for this new "toy" outright. I did not need a loan and I will not be paying an exorbitant amount of interest. If I had needed a loan and been able to get one I would still have bought a phone because there is no "land line" here. It is, for safety reasons, desirable to be able to get help if I need it. It is, for reasons of mental health, good for me to be able to make contact with my family and friends - and to make sure that some people I know are okay. 

What it is not like is spending a lot of money on something I really did not need. I know the trip overseas in September seems like that but I have budgeted and saved for that. It has been more than twenty years since I even had a holiday and Middle Cat and I need some time away.  My BIL wants both of us to go. Brother Cat has said, "About time you went." I am trying to see that, and the phone, as something I really need.

What I won't need, even if I could afford it, is a five start hotel and Michelin rated restaurants. Even if I could I don't think that is any way to enjoy myself. It is just a pity our national and state governments seem to think differently - and that they are still pursuing the impossible dream of an economically and environmentally responsible "net zero".  

  

So AI is making us dumb?

Oh that page three report today! Apparently students are now getting "digital amnesia" because they now use things like ChatGPT and CoPilot to help them check grammar and spelling and plan their essays. They turn to such tools to research their essays and refine the ideas in them. Their parents are sent emails from the school written by AI so the teachers have time to use AI to write lesson plans...and more. 

In the supermarket recently I stood still for a moment trying to remember something I needed. I knew there were eight things I needed but had only remembered seven. The next alarming thought, just for a moment, was "I am getting too old for this. Perhaps I ought to start writing a list." Then I remembered what it was I needed and went back to believing I can and should remember these things.

I don't write lists. The physical act of writing, as opposed to using a keyboard, is too slow and laborious for me. I need to remember instead. I have not written a supermarket list in years. My supermarket shopping is organised - or I like to think it is. I always start at one end and work my way to the other. If the supermarket staff move things around I do not like it. A lot of other people do not like it either. If I start at the end away from the check out area I can usually go around without back tracking.  I like to think of it as an efficient way to shop. I remember what I need to get. It is a good memory exercise. I hope I can continue to do that.

At university I took very few lecture notes. Right around me people would be writing page upon page. I would be writing single words and the occasional phrase. It was not because I wanted to work this way but because I had to work this way.  My late statistics lecturer, a lovely and very patient man, would sometimes stop speaking and look at me to make sure I had something he knew I would need to get down. All my other lecturers just expected me to listen and remember. 

I have forgotten most of what I knew then. I do not need it any more. That is one of the things about that sort of memory use. It is possible to retain it for as long as you need the information and then forget it. But the point is that I could retain it and use it to pass exams, even pass them very well indeed. 

There is actually nothing very remarkable about this. A blind person would learn law in much the way that I did and would have the additional problem of someone else reading so much material to them.  My friend J...., a mathematician who could not hold a pencil let alone use one, could do complex calculations "in his head".  It was possible because he was a highly intelligent man who could not do such things any other way and he wanted to do those calculations. 

In a sense we are the lucky ones but now I find that I do not know phone numbers. They are programmed into the phone when once I would have remembered many of them. It surprised me recently when, quite recently, I was asked if I knew someone's phone number. I actually said it but I did it without actually being completely aware of what I was doing. Somehow I had dredged it out of my memory but, if asked five minutes later in a conversation about phone numbers, I doubt  I could have repeated it. The number is there in the phone put there by some sort of technological magic which seems determined to do me harm.

Yes, we need to be active learners if we are going to remember things accurately and when we need them. We need to actively think about what we are learning and try to actively understand and assess it. AI cannot do that for us.  

Ooh our PM is in China!

We are supposed to be cheering about this trip. It is going to bring about lots of lovely more trade opportunities. He is going to "repair" the relationship so "damaged" by the previous government. The Chinese are going to love us again. Really?

The first of our Prime Ministers to visit China was Whitlam. He was a man of the same political flavour as the present Prime Minister of course. He was Communist-Labor to the very core of his being. I met him more than once. The first time I met him was when his wife introduced me with the words, "This is Cat and be polite to her." Yes, he was that sort of man. He could be extremely rude to people he considered unimportant. 

I did not like him. The only good he ever did me was the very large sum of money his government spent on putting more books into all school libraries...and his wife Margaret was behind that move anyway. We talked about it. 

I asked her about the China visit and she was much less enthusiastic. It surprised me but I think she saw the dangers in cosying up to China more clearly than he did. Yes, we have done a lot of business with China. It could perhaps be said that places like the modern industrial Shanghai are built on the back of our mining exports but it is a lop-sided sort of affair. More than a quarter of our trade is directly connected with China and more occurs indirectly. It is our biggest trading partner and, should they decide we will no longer do business with them we will be in even worse financial straits than we are now. 

China dictates much of how we do business with the rest of the world and how we do it. This is an unpalatable fact and nobody in the current government or any previous government of that flavour appears to be willing to do anything about it. Why should they? We have a ready-made market. It may not be on the best possible trading terms but "it's the same for everyone". China is simply too powerful to ignore. 

This is the message we are now getting from our Prime Minister. He is making vague statements about the status quo on Taiwan and agreeing to trade deals in China's favour. He is offering tourist packages to wealthy Chinese as part of that. He might try negotiating the end of the lease on the port of Darwin but, whatever the outcome, it will not be in our favour. The same wealthy Chinese can still buy property here and send the dairy and meat products from the vast tracts of land back to China in increasingly one way trade. China is simply too big for us. We have no negotiating power when all they need to do is say "No, this is not how it will be done."

Under our present Prime Minister it can only get worse. He is too weak. He is not being "diplomatic". He is simply doing as they wish, He will come home saying the visit was a "success", that there have been some new opportunities. No, they are not new opportunities. They will simply be what his masters in Beijing have decided.

We desperately need to work on new markets. They will be small compared with China, very small but they could be grown over time. We need to start doing business with the rest of the world - if it is not too late.  

  

Disappearing letter boxes

seem to be becoming more and more common. 

I have been sent numerous photographs of "letter box toppers" recently. These are knitted and crocheted people, scenes, animals, gardens, boats and whales - and almost anything else you can think of - being put on the top of letter boxes in England. They are fun and, for the most part, it seems they are not vandalised. Some of them are individual efforts and others are joint of community efforts. 

We could not do that here. Letter boxes are disappearing. The first one I noticed was the one which was very conveniently just around the corner from where I previously lived. We used it a lot and so did other people. It suddenly disappeared without warning. I inquired. "Oh, there will be building going on at that location. It will go back when the building is completed." Of course it never was. We needed to travel further afield to post a letter. 

Then the letter box at the next most convenient location disappeared. It was suddenly no longer there. No warning was given. Was it used? Yes, it was. Those of us who had lost the first letter box were using it along with those who had already been using it. 

And now, in the past twelve months seven more letter boxes in the surrounding area have gone. In order to post a letter you need to go to the letter box outside the post office in the shopping centre. Even that was not there for some weeks. The excuse was it had been "vandalised".  The reality was that some young idiots had painted their "tags" on it. It could have been cleaned in situ but that was apparently not what the powers-that-be wanted to do. I suspect (and so did the regular staff) they were trying to see how much of an outcry there would be.  It is a busy post office but there are still attempts being made to close it. That would make the next available post office some distance away and neither of them are open on Saturday mornings. 

We keep being told "people don't write letters anymore" and "everyone uses email". In my kittenhood there were eleven deliveries a week. Now there are three one week and two the next. There are businesses which will no longer send "paper" mail because it is considered not to be environmentally friendly.  Perhaps it isn't but we still need a mail service.

Three weeks ago I sent something that could not be emailed to a person about twenty kilometres away. It was sent by registered post to a business address. It took seventeen days to get there. Why?

There is something very wrong with out postal service. It should not be there to make a profit. It should be there to deliver the mail. Perhaps we need to write more letters.   

Eating at the table

is apparently a thing from the past for some families. 

There is a very witty but also rather sad article about this by one of the regular columnists in today's paper. It is also something I was thinking about several days ago.

I was thinking about it because someone called in and remarked, "Oh, you kept the good table and chairs."

The "good" table and chairs happen to be those that we kept in what we called the dining room. This was the space immediately adjacent to the kitchen on one side and the "living area" on the other. We also had a kitchen table and chairs. Yes, we had the space and we used both. The kitchen table and chairs were for every day use. The dining table and chairs were for the times we had visitors or we needed to spread something out. The dining room table could be extended from seating for four to seating for six or even eight. I have not yet extended it here but I might because I also used it to set out other projects. Mum used it as a cutting table for her sewing and the Senior Cat would put her machine up there because the natural light was much better.

Now I eat at the "good" table. I do not eat watching television or a phone screen. I read books. It is something both the Senior Cat and I did at times. For years he read the paper as he ate his muesli and drank his instant coffee. He could read rapidly which was probably just as well because breakfast was always a rushed affair when he was still working and not much better when he "retired" to do other things. 

At the evening meal though we ate as a family. To do anything else would have seemed strange. If one of us was unavoidably absent Mum did not like it at all. A hot main course might be kept in the oven but that was the only thing she allowed. We were expected to be there and be on time. 

Our meals were not silent. Events of the day were discussed. We kittens knew that school matters were never ever discussed outside the house. Quite often there would be a young teacher at the table with us and we would remain silent as some teaching issue was discussed. There was never anything said about individual students but I could often guess there was much more to an issue. It was all good training for my later working life when I have signed more confidential documents than I care to think about.  

But eating together was more than that. Mum could watch over what we ate of course but lessons could be discussed and the homework we were required to do. Mum would test our spelling and our "times tables". If there was a school test coming up she would make sure we were prepared. The Senior Cat would help with a project but he would also try to steer the talk away into thinking about other things. 

I had no idea what other families talked about. I assumed every family was like ours and was amazed when I eventually found out their conversations were about sport (something never discussed in our house) and the latest popular songs (my parents would never have heard them) or some other local event. Local events were only discussed if we were involved in them.

When Mum died things did change. I kept meal times regular because of the Senior Cat's medical issues but we discussed books and politics, current affairs and philosophical questions, religion and more.  Mealtimes were something we enjoyed as a chance to talk to each other. 

I think it is one of the things I miss most. It might be why I read as I eat - and do both rather slowly. 

Losing your job

is devastating for anyone even if you have advance warning that it might happen. Even if you do not like the work you do to suddenly find yourself with no income at all is frightening.

It gets worse than that for some people. A much younger friend completed a university degree last year. It was in an area where there are employment opportunities and she was optimistic about her chances of finding work.

For the past seven months she has been "volunteering" in a work place. It has supposedly been to "get experience". She has worked as hard, if not harder, than the people actually employed there. For this she was being paid the equivalent of the unemployment benefit under a government training scheme. When I met one of her workmates, the person delegated to "train" her, she was enthusiastic about this girl's ability to do the work, fit in and take initiative when necessary. She would, I was told, "be a great addition and we'd like to have her". 

That was the feeling of everyone except the person in charge. As everyone else was leaving last week he called her into his office. He then told her she need not bother to come back on Monday. The job application she put in has not succeeded. She was to take her things with her immediately and was not to return. He did not thank her for the work she had done or for the extra hours she had put in. There is a major report coming out shortly, one which this girl has done most of the research for and much of the writing. She will not be there when it all comes out.

The person who had been responsible for her training was the one who told me what had happened. She wanted to know if there was any way to help her. "I have seen the draft report. Her name is not even acknowledged."

I wanted to know why the boss was behaving like this. She shrugged. "I don't know. He isn't interested in women so it isn't that. If I rock the boat then I don't know what he'll do next. Word has it that he has appointed the person I thought was the least suitable to the position. I'll be expected to train him up of course."

Yesterday I had another call, made outside the office on her personal phone.  The new appointee is somehow related to the boss. Yes, he has the paper qualifications for the role. He has no experience. He is apparently not even particularly enthusiastic about the work but "it's a job".  I wonder how well he will do. 

It is another example of "who you know" I suppose. I just hope someone I know will raise some questions about this.  

Banning beehives in

"residential areas" is the latest proposal from a council in the hills behind me. It has come about because some of the "city slicker" residents have complained about bees, roosters, pigeons and livestock kept by their neighbours.

Sorry, you have moved to "the country". It was your choice to move out of the urban areas into what you thought was the idyllic countryside. You expected it to be all clean and fresh and quiet. You expected it all to just be that way without any work on your part too. 

Many years ago a very close friend of the Senior Cat moved his family on to a twenty acre block in the hills. We thought it was a crazy idea at the time but they were English migrants who had fallen in love with the idea of living in a rural location. They had done their homework. They knew it was going to be very hard work. 

Even with the amount of research K... and his partner had done they still found it much harder than they had anticipated. They worked very hard at teaching full time during the day, preparing lessons at night and then spending snatched hours during the week and all of the weekend in developing the land. It was made possible only because they allowed someone else to keep bees at the far end of their property and they had no other livestock to care for.  The bee keeper was a professional apiarist. 

Their decision to move there was made at a time when they had no immediate neighbours. The services available were limited. They needed two cars to get to work and to get the children to school some distance away. 

There is still no public transport but the nearby "town" has grown to the point where there is now a medical centre, another school, a shopping precinct, a nursing home for the aged and more. It is becoming more like a suburb of the city in the plains below it. 

Therein lies the problem. People have romantic ideas about "living in the country" but they want all the amenities associated with living in the city. They really have no idea what actual country living is like. They do not have the skills they need to live there. They do not want to put the time in to caring for the property they have so gleefully bought. Many of them start with the best of intentions perhaps but they simply do not know.  

There is also a tendency to forget the lack of public transport and the time it takes to get to work if they still work in the city. Yes, there are now some buses although some of them are just express services from a larger area along the "freeway".  Many people do not want to use those. They are not as "convenient" so they use cars and complain about the traffic, the speed limits and more.

Once back at home they want to "relax". Someone else will come in and mow the lawn they have planted and prune the "natives" they have planted in their "easy care" garden.  They have no desire to care for a hive of bees - the very wonders who pollinate the plants which provide their food... and how dare a rooster crow in the morning!

I wonder if it would help if these "we want to live in the country" dwellers had to pass a stiff exam before they actually moved in. "Living in the country" is not romantic. It is smelly, dirty, noisy and very hard work.   

A "Minister for Loneliness"?

Apparently one in six of us feels "lonely" and, each year, around 900,000 people around the world die from loneliness. That is according to a WHO report. 

I suspect the figure is far higher than that. In a world which is "more connected" than ever before we actually interact less. There are people who "work from home" and live alone. They do their grocery shopping on line and pay for it on line. They pay their bills on line. If they do travel they go in a car alone or swipe a card on public transport. They may go to the gym but once there they exercise alone. If they go to the library on their way home they can use the self-serve check out and then, having forgotten to add milk to their home-delivery from the supermarket, they can pick up a carton and use the self-serve checkout without speaking to anyone.  Of course if the self-serve checkout is not available and they go through a staffed checkout they can keep watching the screen of their phone so there is no need to talk to anyone. 

Who wants to talk to people? Why on earth would we bother to talk to anyone we do not know? We all know the world is full of dangerous and evil people don't we? It isn't safe to talk to strangers is it?

We isolate ourselves by our own behaviour and then isolate everyone around us in the same way. If you talk to strangers, even just casual comments in passing, some people think you are "weird", "a bit odd", "bonkers" and more. No, you are not "crazy" but there is definitely something a little different about you. You are not supposed to behave this way. It makes other people feel uncomfortable. They are not sure how to respond. 

You're lonely? "Go and join a group," they tell you. Find a common interest group. Get involved. 

No, it is not as easy as that. The "time" issue is likely no more than an excuse because the real issues are having the courage to go along to a group. If you do get that far do other people make you welcome? Are you willing to participate, really participate? Do you actually know how to interact with other people any more? It is easier just to look at a screen isn't it?

One of my regrets is that I have no friendships outside family forged in childhood. We moved too many times for that to happen. My mother did not want other people's children in the house. She saw children all day in school.  There is nobody with whom I can share the memories of playing games of imagination outside. 

For some people that is different. I knew two women, both now deceased, who met on the first day of school and remained friends for the rest of their lives. They had over ninety years of shared memories. I wonder if that could happen now. 

It will take more than a Minister for Loneliness and some sort of government policy to combat loneliness. We need to change the way we live.   

Is it true or is it

a skewed view of the author or is it fiction made out to be true or is it something else?

I have just read an article about a book called "The Salt Path". It is one of those "true" stories which are about "overcoming a situation". The only problem is that the book is not true - and the author of the book knew it. Somehow she managed to get it past Penguin and they published it. 

It is not the first time this sort of thing has happened - and it will not be the last. In 1995 the Miles Franklin Award was won by someone who called herself Helen Demidenko for a book she called "The hand that signed the paper". It was supposed to be fact but it turned out to be fiction. 

I do not care how well either book was written I object, and I object strongly, to them being published as "true" accounts. They are not even skewed views of something which actually happened. They are fiction. Those of us who buy the book believing it to be, if not completely true, at least something which actually happened are being defrauded. 

Should the author be required to repay the money? Is the publisher in any way liable? In all likelihood the author has already spent any money they have received. Can a publisher really be held liable for the lies of the author? Does the issue of "due diligence" really apply? What about those who, simply because of their family, are the subject of some fascination? Should "Spare" have been written at all? I think it should not have been but others would strongly disagree. 

A journalist's unease is what eventually exposed the author of "The Salt Path" - but not before a film was made as well. Will Penguin need to bear the losses of recalling and pulping the books still available for sale? I would assume they will.  

There is a book I did enjoy which is probably not as accurate as the author would have us believe. It was written by a Winifred Stegar. The book, "Always Bells" or "Life with Ali" is about her life and her marriage to an Afghan cameleer in our "outback". She made a trip to Mecca with him in the early half of last century and that can be shown to be the case. The book is no literary masterpiece but it is interesting. Yes, there may be some "embellishments" along the way but she spent the latter part of her life in a small country town where the Senior Cat met her and talked to her about people they knew in common and stories about her that he had heard from them. Yes, the evidence for her story is there. In the hands of an expert story teller it probably would have had a much greater impact. Nobody pretends it is some sort of accurate history. 

There are any number of "life stories", biographies and autobiographies out there which may be rooted in fact but still almost fictionalised accounts of lives of the rich and famous. The market for such things exist because those people fascinate at least some of us. There are also many well known people about whom very little is known. When people wonder why "So and So" has not appeared on "Who do you think you are?" it might be because there is very little which is dramatic or interesting enough for a television program to be made about that person. Writing a book about them would be equally difficult.

This is an issue I have had to face. I could have kept all the correspondence I amassed over the years I spent working on what became International Literacy Year. It was tempting, very temping. There were thousands of letters, some of them from people who could only have been described as "very important". It would have been easy to use them and make a name for myself - perhaps. Would it have been the right thing to do though? In the end I had to be honest with myself and say "no".  Do I regret destroying them? Yes but it would have been selfish to do that. I really only had a very small part in the whole thing. It was not my story to tell.The real story came from the people who worked so hard on projects which made a difference. 

There are some stories we do not have the right to tell, 

   

I am wondering how a murderer

feels when a jury returns from deliberations and announces a guilty verdict. 

My reasons for wondering of course are to do with the guilty verdicts handed down in the "Mushroom" case. This is the case where a woman named Erin Patterson cooked a meal of "beef Wellingtons" and three of her four guests died after eating death cap mushrooms in the meal put before them. She claimed it was a "terrible accident" but the jury decided otherwise.

It took a week for the jury to come to their conclusion on all four counts - three of murder and one of attempted murder. I am trying to imagine what it would be like to be waiting...and waiting for the verdict. 

"They can't have been too certain," someone said in a line in the supermarket.

"It has to be a unanimous decision," someone else said, "There might have been someone trying to hold out against that."

We will never know because jury members are not allowed to talk to the media and share their views. I said nothing but I suspect that the jury was being careful. A good jury will go through the "evidence" put before them very carefully. Their decision will have a very big impact on everyone involved. It does not matter which was they go in deciding guilt or innocence there are going to be losers. In a murder trial everyone loses. There are no winners.

I think we forget that. I wonder how her family was feeling, particularly her two children. Unless she wins an appeal she will spend at least the next twenty years of her life in prison, quite possibly longer than that. She will get very little sympathy or support there. She is not like a woman who has killed to protect her young. She did not lash out in anger and then admit and regret it. The jury has concluded she planned to kill people who had done her no harm and carried out that plan.

I wonder what she thought as she waited for the verdict. Does she still know or believe she has not deliberately harmed anyone?  Does she wish she had done things differently? If she had been found "not guilty" would she have been thankful or would she be gloating? It is impossible to know.

The view in the line in the supermarket seemed to be that Erin Patterson is guilty and that she deserves to be locked away for life. Nobody seemed to be wondering how she might feel. Although one person expressed sympathy for her children the general view was "they are better off without her".  

I said nothing at all and prowled off as quickly as I could. There are no winners when murder is committed.  

"Multi-culturalism" does not work

as some sort of panacea for all our prejudices and ignorance.  I am more than ever convinced of that.

Another synagogue was damaged over the weekend. This time there were people in it who should have been enjoying a Shabbat meal. Instead of that they had to leave hastily out of a rear entrance. There were children present.

They have caught someone they believe to be the perpetrator but what sort of punishment will he get? An acquaintance here suggested, "A slap on the wrist. He will come up with some sort of story about a relative in Gaza."  It is likely both the perpetrator and the acquaintance share some prejudices even if they do not appear to do so.

In another instance a business owned by a Jewish family was damaged in the belief they are somehow involved in providing weapons to the Israeli Defence Force. Apparently the perpetrators believe they have some sort of right to harm a business here because of a war on the other side of the world. They believe they have some sort of right to do that even though they had no actual proof for their claims. Even if they had proof this was no way to go about it. There are other (much more effective) ways to protest.

For months there have been "protests" here about the war in Gaza. They have had a great deal of media attention. Yes, there have been protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, about the attempt to obliterate the nuclear facilities in Iran and more. We do not however hear too much about those or the much smaller protests and concerns about human rights abuses in China. We get told about the appalling conditions in Sudan and Somalia and Yemen and there are references to "rebels" when the media mentions these conditions. Protests about these things may not even reach the news or, at best, they are a thirty second clip of a small number waving placards outside an embassy.

But the other protests are apparently part of our "multi-cultural right to protest". Really? Is there such a right? Are such "protests" really a right conferred by our "multi-cultural" society.  Many, I suspect most, of those who attend such protests do so out of a desire to protest. It is "exciting". It gives them an adrenalin hit. If they were actually offered a free trip to Gaza to fight they would not want to go. It is easy to protest from a distance, especially when full possession of knowledge of the actual situation would harm their firm belief in what is "right".  We believe there is some sort of democratic right to voice our opinion in this way. Perhaps there is but it should be informed by facts. It is not a "multi-cultural" right to divide and harm.  

   

"Farmers feed us"

I told a woman who was complaining about the price of beans in our local supermarket.

She looked at me in disgust and said, "That doesn't justify the price."

I moved on and left her discontentedly picking over the beans. At $35 a kilo I was not going to buy them but that was because I cannot afford fresh beans at that price. I also know that the grower would not be getting very much at all. Someone else will be making the money. 

If I wanted beans I would be going to get a packet from the frozen food section. The farmer gets about the same amount there for the effort of growing them if you buy the "local" brands.

Perhaps I am a bit more conscious of the sources of our food. I spent most of my childhood living in rural and remote areas. My parents always made sure we knew that the field of wheat we were passing was where our next loaf of bread came from. (In my case this was literally true at one time because there was a mill just outside the town in one place.) 

I knew about vegetables from a very young age too. I knew because the Senior Cat grew them in the back garden. Without his efforts we would not have eaten nearly as well as we did. Even when he was teaching and studying for his degree part time he was growing some of our food. Mum would remind us of the "market gardeners" to the north of the city too. 

Out in rural areas we were also made aware of the problems farmers and market gardeners faced. We knew about "good weather" and "bad weather" about the "wool cheque" and the "wheat cheque" - the payments made to farmers for their efforts.  When some young fool who was speeding crashed into a stand of full milk churns waiting to be collected our concern was not just for the young fool but for the dairy farmer who had lost the milk. (There was no refrigerated vehicle back then. The churns were simply loaded on to a lorry and taken to the nearby dairy for processing.) We understood the need to get the harvest in before an impending storm, something which could drastically reduce the value of the crop.  If the older boys were not at school for a week then that just had to be accepted. The rest of us knew it was about feeding us.

As I grew older I became more and more aware of the stresses of being a farmer. It is far from being any idyllic life and it was even worse in my childhood. There were no air conditioned cabins on tractors and other farm vehicles. Shearing was still being done with old fashioned shears in some places. There were arguments about the use of wider combs and more.

The woman who complained about the price of the beans and how much she believed farmers were getting will almost certainly never read this. I hope though that I never prowl through the supermarket and forget that the food in there is the result of hard work by someone somewhere.   

We had a referendum to decide

on something called a "Voice to Parliament" - a body for indigenous people to have a say over their own affairs. At least that is what the original idea was. 

It ballooned into other demands. There were demands for a "treaty" and for "truth telling" and "reparations" and seats in parliament. During the campaign leading up to the referendum there were wild claims made on all sides. Communities and even individual families were divided over what the intentions were and the outcomes would be.

We have tried this in other ways in the past. It has always failed. This time it was supposed to be different because, eventually, the outcome would have a constitutional base. It would have had to return to yet another referendum to change the constitution. If there was ever a demand to remove it then there would need to be another referendum.

Constitutional change does not come easily in this country. It needs a majority of votes in a majority of the states and a majority overall. Our "founding fathers" knew what they were doing. There has to be a very, very good reason to change our constitution. 

Which is why moves by the states to bring in their own "voices" to state parliaments should be of grave concern. This state has a "voice" to parliament. Only "indigenous" people could vote for the members on it. Voting for them was not compulsory and some of those eventually "elected" did not even reach the quota. Put simply I suppose it can be said many of the indigenous people in this state were not interested enough to vote even though they were given every opportunity to do so. 

My friend M..., an indigenous man, was asked but refused to be involved in the process. He was, and remains, opposed to the idea.

There are multiple reasons for his opposition but, having talked at length to him and some other elders, I can understand their opposition.  These are people with a strong indigenous heritage. Their views are not what I first expected. I thought they would strongly support any such moves but they do not support them. They see such moves as divisive, very divisive. M... has a very strong work ethic. He never received any form of unemployment benefit. He has always worked. His wife worked. His children are still working. His father always worked and ended his working life in a position of some authority. His mother was a remarkable woman who commanded immense respect. Yes, they were unusual perhaps but they worked hard and being "indigenous" was sometimes difficult but it did not prevent them from succeeding. 

This is part of what bothers M...  "They all seem to want something for nothing," he has said more than once. "They seem to think they have some sort of right to it even when some of their own ancestors were the perpetrators of the injustices they are claiming."

I listened to some of the demands being made by a member of the "commission" in a neighbouring state. They want a "voice" there and there were financial demands with it, far more than that state can possibly afford even if it was justified. While any person identifying as "indigenous" could have nominated to be a member of the commission the reality is that the people who were on it were the more outspoken people. They see "injustices" everywhere. Their view of history is very different from the accepted view of my school days. The latter view was skewed but it does not make the former view the "correct" one either. 

I wonder, as does my friend M..., what would happen if people were told there would be no chance at all of any financial compensation and, in order to be considered indigenous, you had to be able to actually show you had (at very least) a great-grandparent who was recognised as "full blood" at the time. The demands being made might be very different.  

"My wife died."

The words were quiet and resigned but the emotion behind them was obviously still raw.

I had not seen this man since before Christmas last year. Prior to that I would see him and his wife in the shopping centre most Thursday mornings. It was just one of those casual relationships where recognised each other - or so I thought. We might exchange a few words about the weather or some major event. They seemed to me to be one of those many pleasant couples with a very good relationship with each other. Yes, a happy marriage.

I always noticed how well cared for their clothes were. The clothes themselves were nothing out of the ordinary but always spotlessly clean and well pressed. I know I joked once about how M... managed to keep him so clean and tidy. She laughed and said something like, "You should see him in the garden." 

I suppose that was what alerted me to something being wrong. He was still spotless but the ironing was amateur.  He had obviously tried but it looked wrong. 

"I haven't seen you for a while," I said after he had greeted me. It was then he told me his news. 

"I wanted to tell you," he said, "But I had no idea where you lived. I haven't seen you going backwards and forwards."

I explained I had moved. I had not moved but it was too far. There was no reason for me to have informed him. They were a couple who were perfectly able to care for themselves.  They did not even live on my actual pedalling route at the time but a little further up one of the streets. Obviously I could be seen from there. My movements had been observed.

His news gave me one of those small, unexpected jolts. M... was younger than I am, about ten years younger. She had seemed perfectly fit and healthy. They did a lot of walking together. Yes, it was very sudden. "She was gone - just like that. I didn't expect it at all. I thought she would be home the next day."

I listened. I tried to understand his obvious grief but how can I? I was not married to her for over forty years. 

Eventually we both knew it was time to move on and it was then he surprised me by saying, "You know M... and I always hoped we would see you. She was so pleased when you sorted out that knitting thing for her."

The "knitting thing" was a pattern. I remember it well. It was one of those patterns where the instructions did not appear to match the photograph. M...and I sorted it out between us. He has a wonderful Aran style pullover as a result.

"I don't like to wear it.  If it needed to be washed I might ruin it."

"Wear it," I told him. "If it needs to be washed take it to the dry cleaner and tell them it is pure wool. Think of it as a hug from M..."

"A hug from M...." he said. His voice sounded rough as he hurried off.  I hope he has many hugs from M... She would want him to wear it. 

The horrific child abuse

case currently in the headlines has thrown up something which has long puzzled and worried me.

The present case involves a young man currently charged with more than seventy offences. There is also a need for over one thousand two hundred young children to be tested for STDs. 

Yes, this man worked in "child care". He had passed a "working with children check".  These things raise questions which need to be answered.

Many years ago my mother was the headmistress of what was known as an "infants"  - now "junior primary" - school. She was posted to several such schools in her career and at one of these she was told by the Education Department they would be appointing a young man to the staff. (The Education Departments decides such things here rather than the school.) 

Up until that time only women were on the staff in the infants school. Now, or so they were told, men had to come in too. Children needed "male" figures. My mother and many others were prepared to cooperate, indeed had no real choice, but they were concerned. The parents were informed of the arrival of the new teacher in the school newsletter in the usual way.  That was on a Friday.

On the Monday my mother had a small "delegation" of parents who informed her that they knew the new teacher. He had been the "leader" of a church based youth group and been asked to leave. No action had ever been taken because there was no "proof" but there were good reasons to believe his behaviour was, at best, "questionable". He had disappeared from the church and they had lost sight of him. They were unaware he had chosen to train as a teacher of very young children. 

My mother had the unenviable job of reporting this to the head office. There were no "working with children checks" back then but even one of those would not have thrown up any issues. There would not have been any police records to suggest there might be a problem. The concerns had never been reported to the police. The church people thought they had solved the problem when he left. There was no "mandatory" reporting that might have led to an inquiry. 

I thought about this some time ago when I had to get a working with children certificate. All the volunteers at our state's main agricultural show had to get one even if we had no actual contact with children. It seemed a bit "over the top" but my first thought was, "Well at least anyone who knows they have a record won't try to come back." My second thought was, "But if they are that way inclined and they don't have a record then nothing is going to show up. They will still get a certificate."

There is of course no absolute answer to this problem. It means that the rest of us need to be constantly vigilant, especially when we are around vulnerable people.  And, for all we might want to believe in "equality" or the need for "male role models" there might be places where males should not work except under extremely close supervision. There will be people who will argue with me over this but I think of that young man who claimed to "love children". Some years later he was fronting court because of that "love". 

  

Car parking spaces are

supposed to be for the residents. This is what I was led to believe when I moved in here. It seems that this is not the case with respect to me.

I do not own a car. I have never owned a car. I cannot drive a car. There is a space labelled with the number of the unit I live in but it seems I do not own that space.

This is not what I was told when I moved in. I was told that the space labelled with my number was my space. I was even told there was council approval to put a roof over the space - at my expense. No, I have not bothered to find the very large sum to do that. I park my trike on the tiny front "porch" instead.

Now it seems that the space can be used by everyone else except me. Even if I wanted to park my trike there I would be expected to move it to make way for any number of "commercial" vehicles doing "maintenance" and for other residents who have overnight visitors or just people coming in to visit.  

A friend came to visit recently. She has difficulty walking more than ten metres. I wanted what I thought was my space to be vacant for her to use. No. It wasn't. There was a van there. Two men were sitting in it eating their lunch. I explained the situation.  No, they would not move.  They had to "carry stuff" and "you can only use it if it is your car". Really? 

Someone else parks there on a regular basis. The car is often there when I have left to do something in the morning. I have tried leaving polite notes saying someone is coming and that the space is needed. They are ignored. 

Yesterday the man who "mows" the lawns used it - and blocked in the girl next door as well. Fortunately he had gone before she went off to her shift at the hospital.  I only know this because she came several days ago and apologised for using "my" space when someone else had parked in hers. After the lawn mower man had gone another van turned up and used the space. The van was there until lunch time and then it left. Another van moved into the space.

I heard the argument when the first van driver returned and found the second van there. They were "working" there! 

This morning I looked out and yes, someone is parked there yet again. 

"Get used to it. You haven't got a car. That means anyone else can use it," the car owner told me as he climbed in and drove off - presumably he was going to work. 

I have a very elderly friend coming to lunch. I hope she arrives and finds the space vacant and that she can park there. I hope the "maintenance" vans arrive and find they cannot park there.

Would I say "yes" if they came and asked? I probably would if they did it nicely and I was not expecting someone with a mobility issue to visit. Is it my car parking space though? I am beginning to wonder if I have given up the right because I do not have a car.  

LGBTQ people have rights

to be themselves. They should not be discriminated against because of who they are. I will repeat that. LGBTQ people have rights to be themselves. They should not be discriminated against because of who they are. 

That does not give them the right to flaunt their sexuality or demand that they be given additional rights because of it. Notice please I have said "additional" rights.  

My only first cousin is "gay" and married to his partner. They have been together since university days. His partner is one of the nicest people I know and he is very definitely part of our family. I know other people in same sex relationships and consider them to be good friends. None of them expect "special" treatment. They do not attend "gay pride" marches or fly "pride flags". They feel no need to do these things. 

Other people obviously do feel that need. I do not know why. Perhaps they do not feel as secure as my cousin, his partner or my other friends. 

What does bother me however is the radical cohort who dress and behave in a much more extreme way and expect not just acceptance but to have the right to indoctrinate others, particularly the young.  I don't know if I am wrong, perhaps I am, but it seems at very least to be unnecessary.  This is a very small minority of people who are demanding a great deal of time and attention and "acceptance". How genuine are they? It's a question I cannot answer but it causes me concern. I do not believe that further confusing very young children about sexuality is right any more than I believe that, apart from very very rare instances, prescribing "puberty blockers" is right.

Someone in England has just been sentenced to thirty years in prison for sexual abuse of minors.  Prior to being charged he was a leader in "gay pride rights" and he advocated for puberty blockers to be readily available. Now questions are being asked about how many other sexual deviants are hiding in among the "rights" movement.  They are questions which need to be asked. 

I have always thought of sexuality as a private thing, or at least one which should not be flaunted but quietly accepted. It surely should not be about which bathroom you can use or how you dress or which prison you should go to if you break the law. Those things should not define you as a person. 

I know there are people who will read this and disagree strongly but when I see "pride" marches with the participants carrying not just "pride" flags but Palestinian and Iranian flags and demanding "freedom" for Palestinians and Iranians as well then I wonder. Do they realise that if they did these things in Palestine or Iran they would be condemned for their sexuality?