I have been reading the Letters to the Editor

in our state newspaper with a growing sense of despair. 
The state now has the highest unemployment rate in the country. It has overtaken the smallest state, an island, which has long been the bearer of the wooden spoon.
I am not surprised by the unemployment rate. It will get higher before it gets lower. When the last of the car industry folds and all the subsidiary jobs go with it the official unemployment rate may rise to above ten percent. It's not good. I am genuinely concerned for people who want to work and don't have jobs,
To read the letters in the paper however it would seem it is "all the government's fault". Reading some regular columns in the paper it would also seem that "it's all the government's fault". Of course it depends which side of politics you favour whether it is the fault of the state or the federal government - or both.
It's never our fault is it?
I was talking to a bus driver yesterday. He was on his break and he asked me about my tricycle as I pedalled past. 
Bus drivers have a very stressful job. There are no conductors any more so they must sell tickets or ensure that people validate their multi-trip tickets or passes. They must tell inquirers where to go. They need to stop and start, pick up and set down passengers, handle abuse when late, put the ramp down and up on an accessible bus, and do numerous other things apart from driving a hulking great vehicle through traffic. 
It's not a nice job. It can be quite dangerous, especially at night. He told me that the union was thinking of strike action so that the drivers could get "more pay and better conditions".
And then he went on, "Fine. The fares will go up again. More people will go back to using their cars because they think it's cheaper. The job will get harder as the traffic gets heavier. Routes will be cut. Timetables will be "adjusted" again further adding to our stress. You know what? There comes a time when it's not worth it. We should stick with what we have. It might be a bit less but it will be a  whole bloody lot more."
It was the reverse of what I expected him to say. I wondered how well it would go down with his union mates. I remembered the complaints in the paper that morning. There have been more complaints this morning. They are still asking for "more pay and better conditions". I can understand it. For some people it must seem as if everyone around them has more than they do. It doesn't matter that possibly those people are even more in debt than themselves. The only thing that matters is that they have "it" whatever "it" happens to be. No wonder they want more with better conditions.
But perhaps the bus driver is right and a little bit less would actually end up being a lot more - for everyone. 
 

Friends of mine have a profoundly

disabled daughter. She can do nothing for herself. Her "guesstimated" mental age is around that of a two year old. She cannot speak but she will smile at people she recognises. Ask a simple "yes" or "no" question and you may be lucky to get an answer by her efforts to look up for "yes" and down for "no".
K and I actually get on rather well together. I have known her since she was at school. She seems pleased to see me.
K appears to like going out. She likes to watch people. They don't have to interact with her. She appears content to just watch them. 
Her parents are now both in their eighties. They have been caring for her for more than forty-five years. Only in the past few years have they had any physical help. That only happened when her father went into hospital and it was clear that her mother could not manage alone. 
Oh yes, despite their requests for help, it took that to happen. They knew the next step was going to be difficult but it had to be taken. They made renewed efforts to find K accommodation that she could settle into before they can no longer care for her at all. 
Several months ago they had  it sorted. K was moving into a "group house" not far away. They could ease the transition with frequent visits and showing the staff how things like feeding and dressing are done - and yes, people need to learn how to do these things when an adult cannot chew or swallow easily and cannot assist with dressing in anyway. 
All was going well - and then another resident was introduced to the group house. He's intellectually disabled. He's mobile. He's violent. He doesn't fit with the rest of the group. He attacked K. He attacked K more than once. There are physical marks on her.  He's attacked the other residents and the staff too.
Fearful for their daughter's safety K's parents tried to negotiate changes. They are not people who make complaints easily. Over the years they have had less help than many other families because they have been willing to put up with doing things for themselves.
They were offered a choice this time, put K in solitary confinement or take K home again. 
K's entire waking day is made up of watching and listening to people, of interacting in her limited way when they have time to stop and talk to her. Solitary confinement is cruel at any time and for K it would be inhumane in the extreme. Her parents have brought her home again. They don't know when or where she will have another chance to begin a new life away from home.
The violent boy is still there. He is still disrupting the group. He apparently has some understanding of right and wrong, certainly knows that attacking K was wrong. He's been allowed to get away with bad behaviour for years. They are now supposed to be trying to "train" him out of it but the staffing of those group homes is not constant. The staff don't have the behaviour modification skills that are needed to handle him. He will go on being disruptive. Other desperate parents will move their children out.
It is the boy who needs to be isolated for a time. He needs intensive one on one training to at least reduce his behaviour to manageable levels. He needs to be introduced gradually to group living. 
It won't happen. The resources aren't there. K's parents have been told "the money isn't available". That it will cost more in the end is not a consideration.
K's happy back at home. Thankfully she doesn't understand what the problems are but her parents are sick with worry. What happens next?
We closed the institutions - and yes, some of them were dreadful places - but we have made some people even more vulnerable than before.
 

We had snow yesterday.

It was a mere dusting of snow in the hills behind our house. I couldn't even see it from where I was standing but people still got excited about it. Snow doesn't often happen here.
It made the evening news. There was a small snowman sitting bravely on a plinth outside the shopping area in the hills. He would not have lasted long. 
There may be more snow this week because the weather is forecast for such events. There is an icy blast coming up from the Antarctic. China is experiencing a typhoon of massive proportions. It makes me wonder about global warming and those extreme weather events that are apparently part of it.
It also makes me wonder about other things. The homeless sleeping rough concern me at any time but how do they manage this weather?
I was talking about this to someone else when we met in the library. She had been trying to get her children to think about it but even she said, "You'd think they would try and find somewhere to live or go to a shelter or something."
No. Some of them won't. They are mentally ill. They don't want to be indoors. However bad the weather is they are frightened of "inside". They might shelter under a bridge or in a shelter they have made for themselves but they won't shelter in a building made by someone else. 
I don't like enclosed spaces. I will use lifts but I dislike them. I loathe going into the underground car park in our local shopping centre. The roof is low for such a building. The place is dark. When it was being built there were problems with flooding. It is probably perfectly safe now but I just don't like it. It isn't the same thing as not being prepared to go into a building at all. I hope I have a glimmer of understanding about how some people must feel. In all likelihood though I haven't.
The Senior Cat will prowl off to church this morning. Before he leaves I will give him the weekly food contribution collected to distribute to those in need. That food will go to people who are, in some fashion, housed.
During the week I will pass over some more to the local charity which has a van which heads out into the evenings to feed the homeless. There has been a request for tins of soup or the sort of soup that comes in packets and only needs boiling water added to it.
They will hand it out in throwaway cups. There will be bread to go with it, bread left over from the local bakery and the occasional contributions from other people. 
I know people who shrug and say, "It's a waste. They just spend what money they get on alcohol and cigarettes or drugs. They aren't going to make anything of their lives."
No, some of them won't but there are exceptions. I know of one man who now volunteers his time at the local charity. He has his problems but someone there helps him take his medication each day - at his request. He's functioning reasonably well. At his request I helped him fill out a form recently. He's applying for housing instead of the hostel he's been living in since coming off the streets.
"Don't want nothing fancy," he told me, "Just a room to sleep in and a bathroom place."
I asked if he wanted a little kitchen. He thought about it for a moment and then said, "Nah, just one of them microwave things. You can do soup in that. Soup's the best when it's cold like."
I don't know how he'll go but he's trying. Soup helps.

I understand Edinburgh has

a tram line again. I wonder what people think of that? Do the locals use it or is it seen as a sort of quaint thing for the tourists?
We have a tram line here too. It goes from a beach side suburb to the CBD and then a little further on to something called "The Entertainment Centre".
Although used it is not beloved by many of the locals. Downunder drivers tend to dislike anything they perceive as "getting in the way" of them getting from A to B as fast as possible. 
So why is the state government even considering extending the tram line to other places? The lines were there once of course. They were ripped up when buses became more common and were needed to travel to far flung places. 
Add to that the state government wants to extend the O-bahn, the guided bus track, a short distance into the city. It will, they assure us, save about three and a half minutes on the journey from the northern suburbs. The three and a half minutes is unlikely to eventuate because of problems with the traffic at the city end. Commuters are not interested. The O-bahn is not accessible to anyone who needs a mobility ramp and the extension would ruin a  much loved and well used section of parkland.
Because of the access issue I sent off a very short "submission" in the form of a question to the parliamentary committee which is investigating why and how the government made the decision to extend the O-bahn. I can see now I should have waited a couple of days and added the access to trams issue as well.
You see, the trams are supposed to be accessible. They are in some places but not in others. Trams simply should not block traffic for the time it takes to lower the ramp and allow one or more people to get on or off.  People with vision impairments do not want to step out into the traffic unaided. With buses it is different. Buses pull into the curb. People don't have to worry about traffic as they get on and off. 
I have already had requests to "say something" from a range of people with mobility and vision disabilities. But why should I have to say anything at all? Why is the government so  hell bent on making it more difficult for everyone to get around? 
I just wish they would do the sensible thing and extend the train lines. Everyone can use those, including me!

The Royal Commission into the

trade union movement may or may not be a "witch hunt". It may or may not depend on which side of politics you are whether you believe that or not. 
I don't really believe that governments spend $80m on a Royal Commission just to conduct a "witch hunt" against their opposition. It is possible I suppose but I think it is unlikely.
So far this RC  has uncovered less than was expected. Those opposed to it say this proves it has been a waste of money.
But has it? 
The Opposition Leader in the Federal Parliament asked to appear in front of the RC. He was, he said, going to clear his name. He was going to show he had done nothing wrong.
He has spent the last two days in front of it "answering" questions. His appearance has been an excellent lesson in how to "answer" a question without actually answering it at all. I won't go into details but, like many other politicians (of all persuasions) he is a master at the art of not answering questions he does not wish to answer.
While he was still at it yesterday afternoon someone arrived to pick up some things I had been keeping for her.
"I wish you were there asking the questions Cat," she told me. I must have looked rather startled because she added, "I think he might find it rather more difficult to obfuscate."
It is of course my job to ensure that people are communicating with one another. I am supposed to know how to ask a question. Teachers, and I was one once, are supposed to know these things. 
Would I be any match for a street-smart politician though? Probably not. He would be even more determined not to answer questions he did not wish to answer. His answers were carefully crafted. He had obviously been well briefed by his extensive legal team. (I find it interesting that people need extensive legal teams to appear in front of a RC where they are, supposedly, merely providing information.) When an unexpected question came up he took his time answering and did so in convoluted language.
I suspect that any politician at all, of any persuasion, would do exactly the same thing. It is an art successful politicians learn before they go into politics. It is why they belong to the debating clubs at university or are active in unions or local government before they head for the bigger debating chamber. 
The head of the RC was  not impressed by  the Opposition Leader's performance. He put it carefully but it was clear that he was rather more than mildly irritated by it. I suspect he wanted to thump the bench and demand the questions being put were answered. They won't be. The Opposition Leader may be recalled at a later date. If he is then he now knows what to expect. His legal team will be well prepared and he will be ready for the tricky questions. 
It's a game, a serious game but still a game to people like him.
You can't stop people lying by avoiding the questions put to them.
Maybe it would be fun to try and trip him up?

The sort of food we ate

when I was a very young kitten is very different from the sort of food I eat now - or is it?
I was reminded of this yesterday when our friend Polly sent me a thank you note and, with it, this:

EATING IN THE FIFTIES and SIXTIES

Pasta was not eaten in Australia.
Curry was a surname.
A takeaway was a mathematical problem.
A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.
All potato chips were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.
Rice was only eaten as a milk pudding.
Calamari was called squid and we used it as fish bait.
A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.
Brown bread was something only poor people ate.
Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking.
Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.
Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold. Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
Fish didn't have fingers in those days.
Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.
None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.
Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
People who didn't peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.
Indian restaurants were only found in India.
Cooking outside was called camping.
Seaweed was not a recognised food.
"Kebab" was not even a word, never mind a food.
Prunes were medicinal.
Surprisingly, muesli was readily available, it was called cattle feed.
Water came out of the tap. If someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it they would have become a laughing stock!!

But the one thing that we never ever had on our table in the sixties ..... "
Elbows or our phones.

And I was reminded of some other things. We lived in the bush so meat was provided by one of the local farmers. We had a "hind quarter" of mutton one week and a "fore quarter" the next in one place and much the same everywhere else. Lamb? What was that? I remember one of the farmers killing a steer once - but only after consulting everyone around him as to whether they too would like some beef. Bacon was only available from the butcher - an hour or more away by car. Most people never ate pork unless they kept pigs and slaughtered the pigs themselves. 

Every morning my brother would go to get the milk from the closest farm. It came straight from the dairy. It was not pasteurised. My mother would put it in big flat pans on top of the wood-burning Metters No. 5 - a bit like an Aga for those of you in Upover. It would cook gently. The cream would rise and she would skim it off so that we always had cream - and rather a lot of it.

We ate a lot of "stew" and chops with mashed potato, carrots, pumpkin, beans or peas. My father grew those because buying them all the time was far too expensive and you had to ask the only local "general store" to order them.

Bread was delivered to the store only on Fridays. All bread was square and white and my mother would ration it out so it lasted until the next Friday.  We rarely saw cake or biscuits in our house. My mother didn't have time to make them because she was teaching full time as well and she also had to clothe us because you couldn't just go into a shop and buy something. Even in the city there were limitations on such things. She knitted our jumpers and cardigans as she patrolled the school yard during playtime.

And there was that incredibly special treat if you travelled to the nearest place of any size - ice cream. The only available flavour was vanilla. It came in a round metal can which must have been a gallon in size. The shopkeeper would scoop it out into "single cones" and we would lick it at just the right speed to be sure it lasted a good long time but didn't melt.

I wonder about all this now. There is "no time" to prepare meals from scratch or make clothes. People are always on the move - and in a rush. It is all rather sad.

But there is something even worse. Ice cream isn't a treat any more. It is something harassed parents buy to keep the children quiet while they rush around the supermarket. I find that very sad indeed. 

The death of a football coach

has taken up many pages in our state newspaper and many minutes of other media time.
He was, allegedly, murdered by his son - who is now in a secure facility undergoing assessment. 
It is a genuine tragedy and should not be dismissed lightly. The remaining members of the family must be going through a peculiar sort of hell-on-earth right now. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like for them. I hope I never know.
It is also hard on the team he coached and it will take them time to adjust to playing without his guidance. 
But I still loathe the fuss made by the media. There were  no less than thirteen full pages made of this man's violent death on the day after the event. Six more pages followed the next day. And we are still getting coverage several days later. 
All that coverage must make it even harder for his family. Even if they aren't seeing papers and watching the news and the "footy" commentaries it must mean many condolences from strangers. 
I know "people love their sport" - and I don't. I know I am that rarity - someone who couldn't care less about sport. I know that, in one sense, sport is a form of modern warfare. People believe sport is important. 
There are much more important things. There was one small article much further into the paper about the situation in Greece. It wasn't very accurate. Nothing was said about the other potential disaster - China. These things will have a far greater impact on the lives of many people both here and there.  Next winter will be hard on many people in these countries and deaths will almost certainly result. 
The same fuss will not be made. We did not make the same fuss for the violent death of an outstanding heart surgeon, a man who had saved lives. 
So yes, it is a tragedy but there is another tragedy here as well and that is the over-reaction to his death. That it should be seen as more important than the deaths of many other people who have done as much in their own way and who have been equally loved by their families and friends is also tragic. 
All people matter.