Today I am going to speak up

- or I  hope I am. I have asked to be given the opportunity to say something - more than one thing - at a meeting.
If I am given that opportunity I will have the responsibility of saying what needs to be said in as positive and succinct a way as possible. I am not looking forward to it. I'll admit I have even lost some sleep trying to work out how to say what needs to be said in the minimum amount of words without ruffling some sensitive feathers. I am not a politician.
There is a Senator for this state who seems to feel quite differently about those things. He started out running for our state parliament. He got in on what amounted to a single issue at the time - an opposition to "pokies" or gambling machines. He made much of it and ran all sorts of odd stunts to get publicity. People thought it was a "good" thing and voted him in. We now have even more pokies than we had then. It doesn't seem to be an issue now - although, given the harm they have done, it should be. 
He stayed for a while in state politics and then declared that the real power to get things done was in our federal parliament. Although he hadn't seen his term out he announced he was resigning to run for federal parliament. He managed to get a seat in the senate. At the last election he even managed to get a couple of mates in on his team. Now, with a cloud hanging over his eligibility to be there at all, he has announced he is resigning - long before his elected term is up - resigning so he can run for state parliament. This time he is angling for a seat in the lower house - and he wants twenty of his mates to join him there. 
The media has said a lot about this. The media seems to think this man is fun and funny and that he gets things done. I see the situation quite differently. I see this man as someone who likes media attention - and will do anything to get it. He has breached his contract with the people more than once. You are, barring death or disability, supposed to see your term out as a politician. 
Yes, he can negotiate - up to a point. Some of his policies sound good - but they are probably unrealistic. He didn't succeed with the pokies that originally made his name - and a little thought would have shown everyone that he wouldn't. The government gets too much revenue from those.
I thought of all this last night as I printed off what I want to say if I am given the chance. I've tried to be positive, put the blame on myself rather than other people because perhaps I could have done something differently, and I have about six hundred words there covering several different but related and important issues. I'd actually rather not be saying anything at all. 
I was once asked to run for parliament. I said a very firm "no" (and it is as well I did because the first candidate died before he could actually be elected and the second got in - that would have been me). 
I am not a politician...and I don't care for the sort of publicity that the soon to be ex-Senator seems to thrive on.

I am pondering loyalty

this morning. It is a timely thing to do.
Yesterday I was talking to someone who has decided to return "home" after living in Downunder for  sixteen years.  I had always had a suspicion that he wasn't really happy here. He went back "home" every year. 
He came out here as a teenager. His parents migrated - and brought the family with them.  This man and his siblings didn't want to come. They were all in their teens. It meant leaving behind everything they were familiar with, leaving their friends, their hopes and dreams of life in what they considered to be "their" country. 
This man's brother went "home" about ten years ago. He has set up his own business and is, apparently, doing well. Their sister has married and lives in another country altogether. This man has an academic job to go to and is looking forward to being able to communicate more easily with his colleagues. They will now be in a similar time zone. He will also have much easier access to the resources he needs. No, not everything is available via the internet.
His parents are still living here. They are appalled and, it seems, angry that their children "for whom we gave up so much" are not staying.  They say they are going to be "lonely" and that their children will not be there for them in their old age".
I've met his parents, indeed met them before I met this man.  It worries him that they feel this way. He has talked to me about this before. He was offered another position almost three years ago and turned it down under pressure from his parents.
This time he has decided to go. He doesn't have a partner or children to consider. 
"My parents say I am just being selfish - that I lack loyalty," he told me. 
I am wondering who is being selfish - and what "loyalty" actually means in this case.

Photocopying - or the

art of following instructions.
Now, it should have been a simple thing. I transferred the files I wanted copied onto a nice  bright yellow USB thingy.  I put the nice bright yellow USB  thingy into the little pocket on the front of my jeans. I put my bag with my other things on the  back of the trike and I headed off to the photocopy place. 
This involves a train  journey and the crossing of a major highway - twice. I do not like this journey.
The problem is that there are around 500 pages that need to be printed off. My home printer is not up to that sort of thing when most of the pages are densely packed and will take a lot of ink. 
Yes, I know - I should keep all this information on line. The problem is that I can't work that way this time. I need to have pages and pages laid out in front of me. I can't go "splitting" the screen into up to twenty pages.  I also need to be able to mark things in more than one colour - and more.  Yes, yes, I know I am wasting paper and polluting the environment and....
At the photocopy place I hand over the bright yellow USB thingy and explain that I want a copy of each file. There are five of them. I want them in black and white. There are about 500 pages altogether. The instructions are simple and clear.
The girl tells me that  they can do it. It will take about ten minutes. Good. I go prowling off to the stationery area of the shop to buy some paper for another task.
I come back. Someone else is just putting my printing on the bench. I pay for it.
On the train on  the way home I look for one page in particular. It isn't there. Then I realise an entire file is not there. I have paid for it  but it isn't there. Another file isn't there either - although I don't seem to have paid for that.
It's too late to go back - and too late to phone them.
So, this morning it will be back to the same place..with the bright  yellow USB thingy. I will ask what happened to the file I paid for as it is almost 100 pages long and I don't want to pay for it twice. I will get them to copy the other file. (And, before you wonder, the paper they use is slightly thicker than the paper I put in my printer so I was fooled into thinking the stack of paper was about the right size.)
I will stand there and check before I leave.
I am also a very cross cat!
Yes, it is partly my fault. I should have checked before I left the shop. 
But why would I when I thought I had actually paid for it? 

There is no "right" to own a gun

although I know many people would disagree with me. There are people here in Downunder who would like to see the same sort of gun ownership as there is in the United States. They would give you the same sort of reasons too - "safety", "self-defence", "terrorism" and more.
Guns don't make people safe.
I can still remember how shocked we children were when we went on a trip interstate with our parents. In a small country town we stopped to get that day's supply of food and a police officer came into the shop - wearing a gun. 
Police officers in our state didn't wear guns then. We knew farmers had guns - mostly used for putting injured animals out of distress and for the purpose of "spotlighting" or "rooing" (hunting kangaroos at night because they were/are seen as vermin). My brother had reluctantly held an air-rifle - and refused to shoot it - but the rest of us had kept even further away from guns. The Senior Cat is, as I have said elsewhere, almost a pacifist. He loathes weapons. He has brought us up the same way.
Seeing the police officer wearing a gun was an eye-opener for us.
I didn't feel comfortable.
Since then of course our police officers have started to carry a fire arm as part of their uniform "gear". I hope I never see one being used. I haven't felt comfortable when they have come into the house wearing their weapons - as one frequently did when he was getting the Senior Cat to make him some conjuring apparatus. 
I don't know what the situation is now in England but, when I was there, the London "bobbies" were armed with no more than a  baton. I imagine it is different now - and much more dangerous because of it.
John Howard, a former Prime Minister here in Downunder, did the country an enormous favour when he tightened gun control laws after the infamous "Port Arthur Massacre" - the only event on our soil to even begin to equate with what is becoming far too common in America. 
Of course the laws he helped to bring in won't stop someone determined on mayhem and the destruction of as many lives as possible but they have reduced the potential harm with respect to gun violence. That can only be good. 
I want the next generation to grow up feeling as "safe" as they can in the world they live in. I don't want them to be like so many young American children who are fearful of the possibility of a gun attack - and who believe that they need a gun in order to protect themselves. 

The five principles of sentencing

are to (1) punish the offender, (2) reduce crime, (3) reform and rehabilitate the offender, (4) protect the public and (5) make reparations.
A judge needs to take all these things into account when handing down a sentence - and many other things as well.
Someone posted a query on social media about the sentence handed down to a university student in the UK for stabbing her boyfriend. It was suggested in more than one article that the sentence was too light and that she had "got away with it" because she was white, pretty, intelligent and rich - and that someone who was black, not good looking, of lower intelligence and poor would not have received the same consideration.
Now, up to a point that is true - but it is also false. On the surface it looks like a clear miscarriage of justice. The media made much of this saying the perpetrator should be behind bars and much more.
Look a little more closely though and a different and much more complex story emerges. Perhaps the person who should really be behind bars is a drug dealer - and, in all likelihood, he is still plying his filthy trade. 
 The other thing that has not been recognised by the media is that the person who committed this crime is going to pay for it for the rest of her life. She was a medical student but she will never be a doctor. Isn't that punishment in itself?
The consequences of being sent to prison can vary greatly between individuals. Punishing someone by sending them to prison isn't an end to the matter. For a person of low academic achievement and no job it could mean a real chance of rehabilitation if we would only put into place the sort of help they need. The problem is that we don't spend the enormous amount of time and money they often need. There are many good reasons why the "recidivists" are back in prison and they often relate to intelligence, literacy levels, employment, and support networks.
For a person of greater academic achievement who has had a job and made some poor - even downright stupid - choices the chances are that they have also lost their job and may have difficulty finding another. Or, as is the case with the girl who stabbed her boyfriend, they won't finish their training and will spend the rest of their life effectively being punished for that one act.
Now, don't misunderstand me please. She did the wrong thing. She needed to face up to the consequences of what she did and do something about it - which apparently she has. But, how much further do you want the courts to go? Do you want the courts to judge her more harshly and punish her even more severely simply because she  is  who she is? Or do you want to hope that she can turn her life around and, although she may never be a doctor, still do something useful with her life?
It's a fine balancing act. 
When judges are criticised for the sentences they hand down it is often the case that the media - and thus the public - don't know the full story. They won't be in full possession of the facts or understand the things the judge must take into account.
And, in this case, it is also possible that an important sentencing precedent has been set. That could do much to help many young people.

The former Prime Minister was headbutted

recently. I mentioned this elsewhere.
This morning there is an article in our state newspaper "celebrating" the fact. What it is celebrating though is interesting. It celebrates the fact that our previous Prime Ministers don't, generally speaking, go out with a security detail in tow. 
I know that's not the case with previous Presidents of the United States or some previous Prime Ministers, Presidents, Chancellors and the like in Europe. 
We apparently take a different view Downunder. I say "apparently" because, despite what the writer of the article had to say, it isn't quite as simple as it appears to be on the surface.
But it does happen here - and in the UK - more often than people realise.  I have chatted to a former Governor of this state in the bank. She was actually the Governor at the time - but she had the  habit of standing in the queue with everyone else. It allowed her "to talk to people". I have met other VIPs in other (almost) unexpected places - like the law library and in lifts. My encounters have usually been brief and involved  nothing more than social pleasantries. 
And there was that elderly gentleman who walked through some university grounds in London every morning at about the same time as I would arrive. I mended the cuff on a cardigan for him once - and had no idea that he was actually a member of the  High Court. He didn't tell me. I didn't need to know. When I did find out we still just went on talking about the weather - as the British do. 
I have told people the story since then - not to name drop but to point out that the apparent security detail isn't always there and, even if it is, it isn't always apparent - unless perhaps you know where to look. 
For some years a former Chief Justice of this state (a very very distant relative)  lived alone in a tiny house in the city. It didn't appear to be anything special. If you looked very closely though there were a few discreet security details that were not on other properties and, oddly, there was often a police car parked somewhere in the street. In it there would usually be a couple of officers on an apparent break. I was invited to go there once and the police car was in evidence. They nodded me in after I had pressed the buzzer on the gate and announced myself. They knew full well who I was and what I was doing there.  To anyone who didn't know though it would just have been "a couple of cops having a break" and "someone ringing an entry bell" - and that's the way it should have been. 
Most of the time the same Chief Justice walked the city (he never learned to drive) apparently alone. He liked to do it that way - despite the security risks. It meant he could talk to people if he wanted to do so - and he liked to talk to people. I have seen other high profile public figures do the same.
And that's the way it should be. Yes, the former Prime Minister got headbutted by an idiot but it is better he gets headbutted by an idiot than all former Prime Ministers travel in armour proof vehicles with armed motorcycle outriders. 
And, if it hadn't been that way, an elderly man who was grieving for his late wife would never have had the cuff of the cardigan she knitted for him mended. I'm glad that a "lack of security detail" meant that could happen.

The "wrong" team won

- according to the local crowd.
Yesterday it was incredibly, unbelievably quiet around here. 
I had to go and pick up a book at the local library. That lovely place is open on Saturday afternoons and normally it is busy. There was almost nobody in there. It was a "football free zone". 
It was a warm and sunny spring afternoon but nobody was out gardening or mowing their lawns. They were all, it seems, inside and watching the "big" match.
And the wrong team won - according to the local crowd.
Now I really genuinely do feel sorry for all those people who were disappointed. I've never felt like that about a sports match or athletic competition in my life. 
Even at school I didn't feel enthused about my "house". Oh yes, I participated in a limited sort of way. I won "house points" for academic work and other things. I never won them for sport of course but I was made to study for (and pass) the umpire's examination for soft ball. I can't remember even how to play the game now. It was just a game - and one I was not at all interested in. 
The Senior Cat is equally disinterested and unaware. I had to stop him from phoning someone during the match because, as I pointed out, it would be rather like interrupting a church service. Sport is that important here in Downunder. 
Middle Cat is sports mad. If the game has a ball attached she has played it. She knows the rules for everything. She can discuss tactics and passes and techniques. She was the "trainer" for a major football team for years. Even with all that behind her she did not watch the big match. She went off with my BIL and cleared out a shed instead - and yes, it was her choice to do that. 
The whole business had reached a point where even Middle Cat no longer cared. There was, even for her, just too much hype surrounding the whole thing - pages and pages in the paper and hours on television. No doubt there  are multiple postmortems taking place now and more to take place later. 
But, as I said, I do feel genuinely sorry for those people who had invested so much time, money, and emotional energy into the match - only to have "their" team lose. It must have been devastating  because they didn't just lose, they lost by a wide margin...even I can work out the difference between 108 and 60 "points" (whatever "points" are). It's a lot.
I also feel sorry for the players...perhaps even sorrier for them. They were, before the match, made out to be some sort of heroes and full of courage. I don't doubt they tried their best - and they failed. It must be humiliating. They are going to be subjected to great scrutiny and no doubt there will be some "changes" and loss of jobs. They will be reminded of the financial loss they have incurred too. Their supporters will also have things to say - and they won't always be kind.
And all this bothers me because - isn't it really just a game?