Racial slurs

are not acceptable. They must not be tolerated. 

I have a very good and obviously indigenous male friend. I have known him almost all my life. If we see one another we will normally hug.  The only thing that has ever stopped us is Covid19. 

We met unexpectedly in the city one day and he gave me his usual bear hug. I returned it.  A complete stranger objected to all this in a very racist manner. M.... and I looked at one another - and then hugged each other again. 

We have had a few looks of surprise, dismay, disgust, and more over the years. M... tries to shrug it off. He's been living with this all his life. It still hurts though. People do treat him differently because of the colour of his skin. It doesn't matter that, in his employment, he rose through the ranks of the social welfare system to the point where he had many staff under him. It doesn't matter that he is still consulted even though he officially retired several years ago. There are still people who think he is incapable, that he only got to where he did "because he's aboriginal". They believe he didn't earn his way up the ladder through sheer hard work, extra hours and much more.

I miss his mother, R....  R... was like a second mother to me. I wept when she died. I wept my way through her funeral and barely managed to say the piece I was asked to write. I loved R... I love M... and his sister. They have been and still are the best of friends.

M... and I  have discussed the issue of racial slurs. He is of the view that society needs to look a little further at name calling, that it is not just racial slurs that need to be addressed. He is of the view (and yes, I asked him whether it was okay to say this) that the attention being given to the issue of racism now is making the problem worse, not better. 

"We aren't entitled to any more or any less than anyone else," he will tell you, "But there are now people who believe they are entitled to special treatment because they see themselves as different."

M.... worked for years with teenage boys in trouble. Most of them were indigenous and, as he put it the difficulty was, "Getting it through their thick heads that they are nothing special and they need to behave and work for it." Of course he came across racial prejudice in the police force but he was of the opinion that, if you were behaving yourself, you were not generally going to attract attention.

"You are entitled to special treatment only if you cannot do something for yourself or so that you can do something for yourself," his mother R... used to say.  (I was as much the recipient of that as her own two children. She once threaded a needle for me - but she made me sew the button on myself because I could do that.) 

R... made sure we understood we needed to treat ourselves with respect in order to be treated with respect by others. That in itself won't stop racial slurs or insults about disabilities but it can provide a sense of self worth that helps us deal with it.

Quarantine or croissants?

Apparently there were "queues around the block" in another state, not for Covid testing or Covid jabs but for croissants. This was in the capital city of another state at a time when people were supposed to be staying at home except for a few essential reasons.

I really am puzzled by this. You would risk everything for a croissant? Perhaps it is because I do not actually like croissants. I don't much care for brioche either. Both are too rich for me. I certainly would not be queuing up for either at any time.

But why on earth would you queue up for a croissant when you are supposed to be in lock down? Croissants are not bread, certainly not the sort of bread I prefer. I like whole grain breads, breads with seeds, breads which have some taste and texture. Croissants rate along with the cheap, square, white sliced loaves in my book. 

Yes! I know! I am sorry if you like croissants but I would rather have a bread roll. 

There is a cafe not far from here where they sell "ham and cheese croissants" and I know people who say they are "the best". On a rare day out several years ago I had lunch in the cafe with someone else. They had the ham and cheese croissant. I had an egg and lettuce sandwich made from very dark rye bread. It was so filling I could only eat three of the four triangles. The person I was with ate the fourth triangle. I wondered how filling the croissant was. It was also more expensive than my sandwich. 

But, back to queuing for the croissants? Well is a croissant more important than your health? Is it more important than the health of other people? 

I know the police were out and about. Did they move any of these people on? Did they tell them to go home? I know they fined some people in other parts of the city. Did they do it there too?

Now yes there is a problem with all this. Bakeries were permitted to be open. Bread is considered to be an essential purchase. Was the bakery selling bread as well? I don't know. I do know that people were not queuing for bread. They were queuing for those croissants. It all seems very strange to me. 

Our local bakery is on the outer part of the shopping centre. They have had strict rules in place about  how many people can be in the shop. If someone tries to violate those rules they will be politely but firmly told to leave. If it has lost them some customers it has gained them others. It's a popular place. They don't need to make "the world's best croissants" to do well. 

People don't need to buy "the world's best croissants". I am sure they are very nice - if you like that sort of thing - but they are not essential.  I think I will stick with the appropriate "social distancing" and good bread. You can have my share of croissants.   

Wearing a mask

does have an effect on the way we communicate with other people.

"I can't tell what people are really thinking," someone on my regular pedalling route told me yesterday. I had stopped to drop off some empty jars for her marmalade making. My plan had been to just leave them at the gate as she requested but she was collecting her bin from the curb so we chatted for a moment.  

Knowing she is quite deaf I had stopped a suitable distance from her but looked at her so she could see what I was saying as well. Yes, I know it is a problem for people like her. I think (and certainly hope) there is more awareness in the community about the difficulties people like her face when people are wearing face masks.

But it does affect the way other people communicate with each other too. I have noticed that conversations in public places tend to be much shorter when people are wearing face masks. Some people seem to be more impatient too. A friend asked me, "Why is it like that when we are face to face but it doesn't seem to happen when we are talking on the phone? We can't see faces then." That's an interesting question too.  

When I go in to see the Senior Cat I have to wear a mask. In his room I remove it so he can see what I am saying. That is within the rules but the staff working there are supposed to keep their masks on. The Senior Cat can understand some of the staff, not others. Those who come from other language backgrounds and for whom English is a second language are the most difficult for him to understand. He would find them difficult to understand anyway but he admits he loses a lot when he is unable to see their faces. He is getting far more information than people realise from being able to see not just their lips but their entire face.

I know I am relying more on people's eyes to judge how they are feeling or might be reacting to what I am saying. As another friend complained to me, "You can't see a smile behind a mask!"

You need to work harder at communicating when someone is wearing a face mask. I know that. But I also know that people often wear other masks. They aren't always visible. They hide all sorts of emotions. I hope that all this physical mask wearing has reminded me of the emotional masks we all wear so often. That "Are you okay?" question seems even more important right now.  

$300 to get vaccinated

is now being suggested by the leader of the Opposition. Good idea? No. 

We should not be paid for doing the right thing. Yes, it is the right thing to get vaccinated if we can. It protects us. It protects the people we love and the people with whom we come into contact. It also protects that small minority of people who are genuinely unable to be vaccinated because of medical issues.  

I don't really need to say any of that because most people know it already. The problem is that some who do know that still are not making any effort to get vaccinated. They shrug their shoulders and say they will wait. They let the Opposition make political mileage out of it. 

And now the Leader of the Opposition is actually encouraging people not to get vaccinated. That's right, not to get vaccinated - yet. He is telling them, "Wait until after the election. We will be in power and we will pay you to get vaccinated."

It is irresponsible in the extreme. I know there have been "incentives" in other parts of the world too. There have been lotteries, cars, food, holidays and more. "Come along and get vaccinated and you have a chance to win...."  

I am far more in favour of the idea of some sort of vaccine registration - passport if you wish. If you want to go to the footy or the cricket, if you want to travel interstate or overseas, if you want to work in certain areas of employment - then get vaccinated unless there are genuine medical issues against it. 

The Senior Cat's residence requires people to have had the annual 'flu jab if they want to visit someone living there. Middle Cat and I complied. We would have had it anyway but I am more than happy to comply if it helps to keep vulnerable people safe. It's the responsible thing to do.

The anti-vaccination crowd don't see it this way. They believe their rights come before the rights of other people. Yes, that's been said in plenty of other places too. I'll say it again though because I would like my family and my friends and even the people I don't know or don't particularly like to be as safe as possible.

Now I admit that $300 would be useful. Money is always useful but my health is more useful. Surely most people must think that way? 

It makes sense to preclude people from activities if they refuse to get vaccinated. It makes no sense to pay them. What is more if everyone was given $300 to get vaccinated it would cost the country around $6bn in the end - and that would come out of our taxes. 

Is it true?

I did some research yesterday. It was real research. I talked to several people who have first hand experience of the problem I was looking at. I asked questions of them. I looked at some research papers where other people have asked similar questions. I looked at their sources of information.

When I had finished doing all of that I sent off two emails to the two people who wanted to know what I thought we might be able to do about something which is related to the first problem. I told them what I had done. Both of them expressed surprise at the way I had answered their question. I responded that I felt it might actually save time.

Now I have to confess that I don't normally go to these lengths. There simply isn't time. Like everyone else I have to rely on the honesty of other people when I am trying to inform myself. It is not easy.

I have been "trained" to do "research". In other words I went to university. I was "taught" to "think" about a problem and how answers to it might be found. I found out about things like "sampling", "questionnaires", and "statistics" in the social sciences. All this was supposed to help me to answer questions and search for information.  And yes, it does - up to a point.  

I still have prejudices. In this case it is the belief that many people with disabilities need more help with communication skills. Yes, I do have concerns about the review which is about to take place and my research yesterday confirmed my concerns. There will be people who say that my own research was designed to confirm that belief in the need for more help and perhaps it was. What I hope is that I made a convincing case for it. I hope that people will say, "Cat thinks X because she looked at "A" and "B" and "C". She talked to people."

It's the best I can do for now. I could do an entirely new piece of research  if I had the money and at least two years to set it up. I would need to do things like read more of the research from the last thirty years, set up a new questionnaire which takes account of the changes in communication technology and the influences of social media. I'd need to try that questionnaire out on a small sample and then on the population in question. The results would need to be analysed and more - all before I could write anything that might be of value to other people. 

No, I am not going to do that. I am going to leave it up to other people. What I will do is ask questions when they make vague generalisations or they tell me something which does not accord with my beliefs and my prejudices. When people tell me something I am going to ask them, "How do you know that? Is it true?" 

Flying the flag

should not be a matter of controversy - but it seems it is.

One of the local councillors is stirring up controversy by saying that we need more flagpoles at the site of a war memorial. He says we need them because the indigenous flag should be flown at all times.

This is not how returned men see the issue. It has also divided the community.

Our flag is loved by some and hated by others. There are people who feel it is a representation of who and what we are. For others it is a symbol of our colonial past and they say we should be rid of it. 

When I was a mere kitten in primary school we had a weekly "saluting the flag" ceremony. We all stood there in rows and recited words which were supposed to impress on us that we all belonged under one flag. We knew what the history of the flag was. We could draw the Union Jack and then add the stars. I can remember being told how it brought us all together even if some people had been here much longer than most of our ancestors and some people had not even been born here.  We sang the national anthem of the day which was "God Save the Queen" and one or the other of our national songs. 

I don't know how much good all this did but it seems to me it was preferable to being faced with more than one flag and being told that one of them represents some of us and not others. That is divisive. It is not doing anything to prevent racism. It simply encourages it.

An indigenous friend of mine grew up knowing that two of his family fought in WWII. They risked their lives for their country. At the funeral of one there was a national flag on the coffin and the leader of the local RSL spoke very warmly about his friend. He regretted the way he had been treated immediately after the war but he went on to say that L.... had still been very proud to serve his country under the flag on the coffin. 

I may be wrong but I suspect that a good many other returned men who have indigenous heritage would feel the same way. They were not fighting under an "indigenous" flag. They were fighting under the national flag.  

My late friend R... would be appalled by this move. She saw the movement to expand the use of the indigenous flag as divisive. "That's not going to help us all rub along together", she once told me.  I think she is right. There's nothing wrong with the indigenous flag being flown at indigenous events but it is not our national flag. 

Our flag should represent our past and our present - and it does. As far as we can foresee the future it should also represent the future - and it does.  It's an interesting flag. It tells people something about us. That's the way it ought to be.  

Who needs Latin?

Oh come on! Who needs Latin? It's a dead language isn't it? Nobody uses it any more do they?

I am old enough that Latin was a compulsory subject if you wanted to go into either Law or Medicine. The Senior Cat studied Latin, English and History for his degree. (We worked under something like the more broadly based Scottish system at the time he did it.)

I grew up with lists of Latin vocabulary stuck to the shaving cabinet and the Senior Cat muttering the words as he wielded the razor each morning. He would sometimes say something to my mother in Latin - if he did not want us to understand. He had to stop that when I was about nine because both my brother and I had started to guess what was being said. 

We knew that the Catholics "talked Latin" at church. We thought the Pope talked Latin all the time.

When I was ten we went off to live in a then very remote community. My parents were the two teachers in the two teacher school. The Senior Cat decided it was time to teach me some Latin. 

I was not terribly impressed by the just published text book, "An Intermediate Latin Grammar" by JP Giles and EN Pfitzner. The Senior Cat knew both authors. He had actually spent a lot of time with Giles discussing what should and should not be in the book. I should have been far more impressed but I was not interested in soldiers and spears and war. Farmers were mentioned but where was all the useful vocabulary that would let me talk about sheep and wool and wheat? 

The Senior Cat persisted. He kept telling me, "It will be useful one day." 

He was right. Over the years I have used my Latin. I have, like so many Law students before me, used it to understand the meaning of a Latin phrase. When reading a medical report preparatory to working with medical personnel on a communication board I have used  it to understand a medical term. Occasionally I have come across an unfamiliar word elsewhere and understood it because I have recognised the Latin root. It has helped me understand languages like Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish. I have seen written Sardinian and wondered if I was reading mediaeval Latin. 

A friend of mine who is a monk, while thoroughly approving the move away from the Latin mass to something people understand, also regrets not being able to walk into a Catholic church anywhere in the world and participate fully in the service. He has spent time in the Vatican library and is perhaps more fully immersed in the joys of Latin than anyone I know. For him Latin is a living language.

There is a move in England to reintroduce Latin into some state schools. Of course this has produced some fierce arguments but is it really any more a "waste of time" than teaching students a bare minimum of Chinese or Japanese, Thai or Korean? I suggest it is less a waste of time. Learning Latin can teach us a lot about our own language. It can prepare us for learning other languages. There is now far more awareness of the need for a vocabulary outside soldiers, spears and war.  

Professor Mary Beard has been advocating for a return of Latin to classrooms. She has also recognised the need to update what is taught and how it is taught. 

And, if you want some fun, go hunting for "Minimus Mouse" adding the search term "Latin" as well. Barbara Bell and Helen Forte have created a wonderful family of Latin speaking mice - and this Cat is becoming rather fond of them.