Arthritis anybody?

I tried to call in on a friend on Saturday afternoon. She was not home. Her sister, who lives next door, was not home. As I knew my friend was not well enough to be "out" I assumed she was in hospital.
I tried again yesterday. She was not answering the phone - by her bedside - and her sister was not answering the phone either. I pedalled over and caught her sister in.
Yes, my friend is in hospital. She has been there all week. Her sister was supposed to let me know and forgot. I will put that down to her own medical condition - she has diabetes which is not as well controlled as it might be - and stress.
My friend, who is somewhat older than me, and I have known one another for almost forty years. When I scarcely knew her she called me one Sunday morning to say that her mother, then half a world away, had died and could she come over from her hall of residence to mine. Her mother also had severe arthritis. She was 73 when she died. History is repeating itself.
My friend is 72. She looks older than the Senior Cat does at 91. Pain is a constant in her life and it ages you fast. She can breathe in but it is difficult to breathe out. Every movement hurts. She has been living alone with someone coming in once a week to clean and help her do essential shopping. Someone else comes to help her shower.
She has Meals on Wheels three days a week - they do her for six days because her appetite is so small. She takes pain relief medication in terrifying doses and medication for anxiety as well - and who can blame her for being anxious when she cannot breathe properly and lives alone?
I know and she knows that she should be in a facility where there is more help available but I look at aged care facilities and know that they do not provide the other thing she needs - intellectual stimulation.  And yes, my friend needs this. She has a doctorate. Until her physical condition worsened she was back at university learning a language she has always wanted to learn. Now even using the computer is difficult for her.
This is the person who once belonged to a bush walking group, who has taught in three overseas locations and once patiently waited for me to negotiate the ins and outs of three Oxford colleges in one day looking for something she could only half remember.
Now she could not take a day trip anywhere.
There is arthritis and then there is severe arthritis. The former is something that most people will endure in a lesser or greater form as they age. Severe arthritis is something else. Endurance is not the word to use. I don't know what the word is but I find it extraordinary that, forty years later, we can still do so little about it.
I can't even hug my friend or hold her hand - it hurts too much.

I saw two magnificent "roadsters"

on my way home yesterday. I came through the back streets after attempting to visit a sick friend. (Friend was not home and I am waiting to hear whether she is in hospital.)
But there, being ridden in the back streets, were the two "roadsters" - or that is what the boys called them. They were billy carts, push-carts, flyers or whatever else you care to call them.
You know the sort of thing I mean I am sure. A home made wheeled vehicle you can rise on or in or pedal or....well, something.
These were extraordinary.
They were, for a start, larger than is usual. They were also the "pedal" variety - which, believe me, is rare. They had a timber base but the axles and the steering were metal and the seats were cushioned. The wheels were solid rubber affairs.
I suppose the ride was rather bumpy. I don't know. I was not offered a ride but I was told a good deal about them. I promptly forgot the details. They did not matter to me.
What did matter to me was that the two boys, eight and eleven years of age, had made these things themselves. Their father had apparently advised (and undoubtedly guided) but, they proudly told me, they had made these things themselves. Their father had "told (them) how but didn't do it".
I did not have to pretend to be impressed. I was genuinely impressed.
They had some questions about my tricycle too. "Cool". I could see them thinking about "three gears" and "hand" and "back pedal" brakes. And did it bother them to be seen talking to me? Not in the least. They had stopped me. They called one of their mates over to have a look. (Another interesting child.)
They were friendly, polite and obviously intelligent, creative young men. I left them feeling there was some hope for the future if even only a small number of children are doing this sort of thing.
I can remember too my brother and I constructing a flyer or billy cart. (We called it a "flyer" because that is what our grandfather called it. I think the local children called it a billy cart.) Ours was made from the wheels of a pram abandoned outside the town. There was a fruit box for the body. We steered it with rope and tried to pull it along with our child size tricycles. We had some fun with it but it was never very successful. Our parents had no time to help and in any case our mother did not really approve of such ventures.
But I pedalled off aware that what had just happened was all too unusual. It almost never happens now. I can hear anxious parents saying of the tools used to make them, "You can't use those things. You'll hurt yourself." I can hear them saying, "You can't take those out into the street. There are cars." Even riding them up and down the driveway would be seen as risky. The rider might ride into the garden or hit the wall or.... well, you know the sort of thing that might happen.
Oh yes, all that "might" happen, let's not take any risks. Life will be a lot less exciting. You might not learn anything - but you will be "safe". Or will you? What do you think?

When you next get a report from a war zone

told to you by a journalist dressed in a bullet proof vest ducking for cover as the sniper's bullets start flying - try imagining what it is really like to be there. Can you?
When we watch television there is a distance between us and the action. It never seems quite real.
We can look and say of the millionth Syrian refugee to reach Lebanon, "That's shocking" - and we may even feel genuinely disturbed and distressed by what we see but it doesn't feel quite real does it? The idea that half those refugees are children, most of whom don't go to school and many of whom are working to try and feed themselves and their siblings because their parents aren't there or can't help if they are there, is something we know at a "yes, I heard that" level.
It doesn't really register in our consciousness or our emotions that an entire generation of Syrian children has been affected by a senseless war or that girls in Afghanistan risk their lives simply because they want to learn to read. It doesn't seem quite real because we aren't there to experience it for ourselves and we have seen so much of it on television that really we don't quite believe it do we? We think the media is sensationalising something don't we....and yes, in a way they are.
But there are all the things they don't tell you either....the filth, the violence, the noise, the lack of water and any sanitation, the lack of food, children dying, adults dying, grief, anger, fear. It's all there - a lifetime of trauma even if things calm down, the war stops and they go "home" to rebuild their lives. And yes, most of them want to go "home". Many adults want to go to the past where things were different. The children just want to feel safe and go to school, kick a soccer ball, read a book or watch television.
And the aid workers who go in to help leave traumatised too. The images of distress are seared into their brains. They need to "switch off" in order to survive and go on helping.
And the journalists? They risk their lives too. One of the photographic journalists was killed in Afghanistan yesterday, killed as he covered the Presidential elections - the elections people are risking their lives to vote in. A colleague was critically injured. They are not the first journalists to be attacked and they won't be the last. Peter Greste is deeply unfortunate to be where he is in an Egyptian gaol - but there is still some hope for him. There is none left for the family of that journalist in Afghanistan.
So, next time you watch the news - can you try and imagine what it is like and try to understand the risks they are taking so that we can watch from the safety of a comfortable chair in front of the television set?

Today's front page

is sadly reminiscent of the old "News of the World" or the paper that was once published here called "The Truth" - the latter was, of course, anything but true.
There was more commentary about the way the latest horrific child abuse case was handled. Nothing is going to change there until attitudes change and different solutions are tried - and I doubt that will happen soon. "Rights" tend to be bigger than responsibilities in such situations.
And then there is the other "sensational" case. I would not be giving the idiot media space.  This is the bridegroom who allegedly turned up drunk for his wedding. The minister, rightly, refused to marry him.  I have to say "allegedly" drunk because the related offences have not yet been proven in court. I am not interested.
What did interest me was the complete self-interest of this character. It was all about him.
Oh yes, the bride-to-be gets mentioned. He wants her back. She is, apparently, still the love of his life. Really?
There is no mention however of how totally, utterly and completely humiliated she must have felt. It's all about him.
If the photograph is correct he didn't smarten up for his court appearance - t-shirt with a bird of prey on the front and non-brushed hair were the order of the day.  I think that says a great deal. I wouldn't want anything more to do with him.
I know of another wedding that did take place. It was very elaborate and very, very expensive. The wedding lasted less than twenty-four hours. The bride walked out. All she wanted was the wedding. She did not want marriage. Fortunately for the boy in question the media did not sniff the story out but he left the state and will probably never fully recover from the humiliation. She is apparently wondering why boys don't want to go out with her.
And then I wondered what would happen if you put these scenarios into a book - the same book.
I don't write "romance"  and I don't think there are "happily ever after" endings here. Would anyone find the story believable? 

I wonder where to start this

because I am still angry - and will go on being angry.
There is one of those sensational "human interest" reports on the front page of the paper today - of how two people have been sentenced to four and a half years for the death of a child, the daughter of one of them.
Now I am sorry but four and a half years for the death of a child? It was not an accident - although the final event has been described as such. The child, still a pre-schooler, was repeatedly made to "ride" a 50kg backyard "motorbike" - not because she wanted to do it but because the adults thought it was amusing to make her do it against her wishes. The injuries she sustained over the course of three days killed her. The adults in her life failed to call an ambulance until it was too late.
Prior to that her mother had failed to care for her properly. The reports in the media are, according to someone I know who has first hand knowledge, the "least distressing" aspects of the case.
People tried to get the welfare services involved. They were involved - briefly. Repeated calls to the welfare services however did not get this child removed from a situation in which she was in danger.
I know what the arguments will have been. Everything would "seem to be okay". The child would have "seemed to be cared for". The mother had "listened to advice and undertaken not to repeat the behaviour". And so it would go on.
There would be a reluctance to separate the child from her natural mother. There always is a reluctance to separate mother and child. There would be nowhere to place the child. There aren't enough foster parents - and some of those placements have proved less than desirable.
I don't know what the answer is - although I do think the child should have been removed in this case.
It seems to be a different story with a single father and child. That is seen as much less desirable.
The Whirlwind - the girl I am a substitute "Mum" for - has faced close questioning on more than one occasion by people who say they are concerned that a girl in early adolescence should be living - even just at weekends - with her father. She is well aware of what the questions are about. We had a long conversation about what people might be thinking, what they would say and what sort of questions they might ask.
Her father is excruciatingly careful. It worries him. It also worries her. "My Dad," she will tell people, "Is an absolute gentleman." And yes, he is seen that way by other people but some of them still see it as improper that he should care for her alone in the house. It has been suggested that she should not be a weekly boarder but a full time one - and that other arrangements should be made for the holidays.
Fortunately the school is more than satisfied with the care she gets at home and the relationship between father and child. Her father is more than satisfied with the care she gets at school. I have no concerns about the care she gets in either place or the relationship between then.
I am concerned by those who see nothing but potential problems. "Matron" at the boarding house feels the same way, "She can't wait to be out of here on Friday afternoons, to get home to her father."
Wherever he is they speak on the phone each day, a phone call she eagerly awaits.
"I'm so lucky," she tells me, "My Dad really loves me."
I wonder how the mother of the deceased child felt about her daughter. There is an assumption that all mothers love their children and will do anything to protect them. And yet, at the same time, there are suspicions single fathers who have lost a partner through illness or accident will abuse a child in their care.  The former is not necessarily true and neither is the latter.
 

Don't start cheering

yet over that decision in the International Court of Justice. The whales may be "safe" for now but this is only a battle in a war.
Japan has called a "halt" to whaling - not a stop. There is a difference.
Japan also plans to continue to be a member of the International Whaling Commission - for now.
Japan has also "lost face". It has been humiliated at the highest possible level.
The Japanese will not readily accept that. What country would? There will be consequences.
At the IWC they will attempt to get more of the smaller nations on side. If necessary they will bribe them with financial assistance. They will, once again, put a case for whaling on cultural and scientific grounds.
The IWC is not a very stable body. It may crack under an onslaught of such activities. Japan may yet get the IWC to agree that they, the Japanese, have the right to hunt and catch whales.
Then there is the "research" issue. Japan will almost certainly endeavour to redesign the "research" in a way which will make it impossible to deny them the right to kill whales.
There will also be economic consequences for Australia. Some tourists may decide to go elsewhere as an obvious first but there will also be less favourable terms of trade and other economic ties. Whatever our Prime Minister may say about our "strong relationship" with Japan the "free trade agreement" just got a lot harder to negotiate and the terms for Australia will not be as favourable. 
Australia can also expect a polite but cool reception at regional meetings - not just from Japan but from other Asian countries who see one of their own as being slighted and humiliated.
On the "up" side this was a first in that it is the first environmental issue to have successfully brought before an international court. It was an issue with bipartisan support here in Australia. It was an issue that had the support of New Zealand and other non-whaling countries. It paves the way for other environmental issues to be brought before the ICJ - though the bar for even partial success is still very high.
Australia likes to think of itself as "part of the Asian region". It is not of course anything of the sort and the decision is going to put that goal even further out of reach. I doubt it will ever be realised.
The decision to take Japan to the ICJ had majority support. Any negative consequences will be entirely the fault of the present government. The whales won't even be aware of these things - but I am still pleased to think they are safe, for now.

Yesterday this photograph

Until the mid-60s, the Aborigines came under the Flora And Fauna Act, which classified them as animals, not human beings. This also meant that killing an Aborigine meant you weren’t killing a human being, but an animal. — 

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appeared in my Facebook timeline. It came to me via two very well respected authors of children's books - one I know and one I do not know. I hasten to say that the one I know had issues with it, just as I did. I am not able to comment on what the other author thought although I was surprised she "shared" it.

The caption is absolute nonsense and it is a disgraceful piece of misinformation. Although there were some appalling acts of violence committed against them they were never able to be killed as animals.

Indigenous Australians have been able to vote in Federal elections since 1949 - if they were on their state roll or were a member of the armed services.  It should, of course, have been much earlier than that - especially given that there were men from indigenous communities who fought in World War One. If you are going to fight for your country then you should have every right to vote in the elections of that country. 
In 1967 there was a referendum which recognised the need to count indigenous Australians in the census and required them to be on the electoral roll like all other Australians. Many people confuse that referendum with "giving Aborigines the right to vote". What happened was that they ceased to be under the protection of the Crown and became subject to the Crown. Yes, it should have happened sooner. My paternal grandfather was one of those who had fought for the change.

The photograph has apparently been "shared" more than 6,500 times. It will have been seen by many thousands more. The vast majority of them are going to believe that caption.

It reminds me of another issue that is often raised in relation to indigenous Australians, that of the "stolen generation". This is the idea that hundreds - even thousands - of indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and placed in orphanages and elsewhere to be brought up away from the influence of their own culture. There was a long and very expensive inquiry into whether this actually happened. The conclusion was very different. No evidence was found for the claims which were being made. Yes, some children were removed - but for the same sort of reasons that other children in the community would be removed. They were considered to be "at risk".  My personal view here is that, like anywhere else, there is a possibility that a small number of children were removed through cultural misunderstanding. Mistakes were made.

I don't like the idea that mistakes were made. I feel for immense sympathy for those involved. It does not however make for a "stolen generation". Despite that the term is still used. It is used in the media. It is used by members of the indigenous community who still believe it happened. It is used by those who want to feel outraged.

The photograph was probably first shared by someone who wanted people to feel outraged - and I do. I don't like the idea that the photograph was taken. It distresses me. I don't know the circumstances under which the photograph was taken but nothing makes it acceptable.

But "sharing" it like that with information which is so misleading does nothing to help or heal. It hurts.