Ooh! It’s Bright Out Here!

Well, here it is on the first day of spring,2009, in the southern hemisphere.

Like all good polar bears, we have been conspicuous by our absence for the whole winter.

Affairs in Australia still go on with their uninterrupted stupidity, insensitivities and disregard for members of the public.

Now, we must test whether you, the readers of this cranky site, would like to go on being subjected to dogmatic ramblings and barrages of criticism by our trusty team of harping, hard-done-by authors.

What we would like you to do, is to post a short comment, using the “comment” facility below this article. In that comment, which may be as short as a word or two, or as long as one of our usual rants, signifying whether you would like this Blog to continue, or whether you would like it shut down, never to bother sensitive, caring individuals again.

It is up to you, dear readers! Let’s have it with both barrels.

Crankyfella

Should Priests Talk Religion?

Let us be frank with each other, as I do not want to make a Blog issue out of what I have to say.

We have all come to expect nothing but the most profound wisdom from our politicians. Their speeches in the parliamentary chambers, of which, there are more than enough in Australia, are indicative of members who are erudite and thoughtful. However, yesterday, we were treated to an enlightened discussion, the dazzling glow of which would send a blind person into writhings.

The subject under discussion in the Australian House of Representatives was the setting of carbon dioxide emission targets and the cancellation of an enquiry into alternative policy directions related to such emissions.

During the discussion, the learned government accused the dim-witted opposition of turning global climate change into a political issue. What a dreadful thing!

What on earth does the government think is an appropriate issue to be discussed in parliament? They are our elected representatives. They are what we call, in not too technical a turn, politicians. They represent us, the polity. We put them there to discuss issues that affect us all and which are proper issues to be discussed by politicians. Politicians are paid by us to represent us in a political arena, and there to discuss political issues and only political issues in a political manner.

Imagine a householder having called in a plumber to fix a broken water pipe. The plumber explains that some digging will be necessary, and that pipes may have to be replaced. Imagine the cerebral spinning in the plumber’s head if the householder were to say,”I’m sorry, but you just seem to be turning this into a plumbing issue.”

Imagine a patient going to a doctor, and having described a whole host of signs and symptoms. The doctor then discusses the possible diagnoses, implications and treatments. Imagine then, the poor doctor’s haste in contemplating seeking an appointment with one of his colleagues specialising in the field of psychiatry, when the patient admonishes with, “What are you on about? You are trying your hardest to medicalise my problem.”

It may be a crazy, mixed-up world, but it is still a world in which plumbers give plumbing opinions, doctors give medical opinions, and politicians should give political opinions.

Get Those Kids Off the Street

We are very fortunate in Australia to be governed by more politicians per voter than any other country on earth.

We are doubly fortunate in that all of our politicians are very intelligent and well educated. They are capable of insights and problem solving that most of us lower forms of old-fashioned emergers from the slimy pond of life could never even aspire to. Many of their decisions seem to be nothing short of sheer genius.

The latest contagious political thinking in the Land of Oz, is that the school leaving age should be elevated from fifteen years to seventeen years. The leaving age was, in New South Wales, set at fifteen years by the Public Education Act of 1880. The fifteen year mark seems to have worked reasonably well ever since. Of course, those young people who had the necessary ability, and who also had parents with the monetary wherewithal, could remain at school for another two or thee years in preparation for higher studies. Many students were quite content to leave school at fifteen years of age or shortly thereafter, to pursue careers in fields that ranged from requiring no further formal training right through to requiring higher technical or university training. Most of this further education was gained whilst the young people held down full-time jobs.

There were inequities in the old system. Some of the very brightest of students were not able to continue at school, let alone attend university or the like, because they were urgently required to assist in the support of their families, or because there simply were not sufficient family funds to support them through further studies without their earning of supplemental income. At the other end of the spectrum were the students from wealthy families, who either did not want to pursue further studies or who really did not have the requisite intellectual capacity to handle or benefit from further studies, but were kept at the educational grindstone for motives of family pride or family notions of social superiority.

The goals of the Public Education Act have worked quite well, overall. The school attendance years between the sixth and fifteenth birthdays represented a good compromise. They kept most children out of full-time labour and channeled them through the most difficult portions of pubescence.

The overwhelming majority of them entered the full-time workforce as literate, numerate and socially engaged individuals who were keen to become productive members of society.

When push comes to shove, there is really no need to have Year 10 to Year 12 classes at our secondary schools. Let our young people leave these super-parental institutions at approximately fifteen years of age, having completed a good basic educational curriculum, and receiving a testamur acknowledging their accomplishment. Put them out of the super-parental door, but make other free educational doors open to them. Let those who seek to pursue additional academic nourishment attend non-parental senior colleges for Year 10, Year 11 and Year 12, or, if they prefer, let them attend technical training institutions. As well, offer free university places to all Year 12 leavers, all technical training graduates, and all mature-age people. Allow people a considerable freedom to choose the path of productivity that most appeals to them. In this way, we can come to respect all contributors to our society regardless of the path that they have chosen. That way, we will have some hope of truly becoming the “clever nation” that our politicians have been urging.

Unfortunately, the current push by our politicians to introduce compulsory school attendance until the age of seventeen years, is not motivated by any carefully considered strategy to advance our “clever nationhood,” nor is the actual capacity of most of our politicians insightful or intelligent. Rather, their capacity is that which we have sadly come to expect of politicians; it is subterfuge, obfuscation and expediency.

The raising of the school leaving age to seventeen years is not designed to increase the cleverness of this country, and, indeed, it will not increase the cleverness of this country. What it is designed to do, and what it will no doubt achieve, is the protection of official unemployment statistics by the stroke-of-a-pen discounting of many of our sixteen and seventeen year old people.

Battler

My Left Foot; My Right Foot

Years ago, in another life, before tattoos appeared on every square inch of male and female flesh, I saw a well-tattooed man with black lettering on his feet. The lettering on the left foot was very appropriate. It was “MY LEFT FOOT.” The lettering on his right foot was different, but just as appropriate. It was “MY RIGHT FOOT.”

I pondered on this at the time, thinking that if the man were a genuine sufferer of word blindness (in which the sufferer cannot tell the left side from the right side) and if he were, or held the high ambition to be, a member of the armed forces and wanted to be able to step off on the left foot in unison with his comrades-at-arms, then it was a sad waste of time because when he would march, he would be wearing hefty boots and would not be able to see his clever bit of tattoo artistry.

Many years have too quickly slipped by since I witnessed that particular demonstration of futility. Despite this, the underlying thinking must have really caught on. Today happens to be Australia Day, which is a calendar label that doesn’t exactly endear itself to many of us that dwell on this smallest of continents or largest of islands (depending on whether we subscribe to the half full view of life, or the half empty view.) Anyhow, this day is rather deservedly despised by many of our indigenous citizens who feel that it excludes them, and that, like myself, feel that it would be more appropriately labelled “Invasion Day.”

This particular day of the year seems to act like a giant poultice applied to the Australian landscape. It seems to draw out of the boil of the earth, an enormous amount of people who probably don’t know their left feet from their right feet. This rather harsh judgement that I make is evidenced by the fact that man, woman and child have to make equally futile labellings. They label their bodies with Australian flags (white Australian flags, that is), they apply stick-on Australian flag tattoos to their arms, faces and bodies, they fly Australian flags from their mitts, from their cars and from their houses. They wear Australian flag hats, caps and even shoes. Some even picnic on Australian flag tablecloths spread on the park lawns.

Perhaps there is a variant of the word blindness ailment. Perhaps it is geographic blindness; the inability to tell whether you are at home or abroad.

Really, I think that I preferred the man who labelled his feet, to these modern-day exhibitionists who have to adorn their world with reminders of where they are at the moment. At least the foot man did not insult people by his labelling, and did not make many of his fellows feel excluded.

Unfortunately, the flag waving, wearing, hoisting mob may well be symptomatic of something far more sinister. Their actions could well be seen as outright declarations of jingoism, nationalism and ethnic arrogance. Many of us are old enough to remember where such thinking can lead a populace, and what it can incite them to do to others who do not share their world view. However, this article is not about Nazi uprisings, it is about marching in unison.

 

Battler

Polly Put the Kettle On

On 11 April 2008, our Australian Minister for Broadband and Everything Else Magical, Senator Stevie Conrod, made a big announcement that requested proposals for the roll-out and operation of a new, open access, high-speed, fibre-based broadband network. 

Since that announcement was made, I have had close to 3,000 cups of tea, and have tried many, many times to say “a new, open access, high-speed, fibre-based broadband network” ten times rapidly in succession. Now it has been suggested on numerous occasions, that I have such a marvellous gift of convoluted speech and obfuscation, that I should seek a career in the noble realm of politics. (Well, one cranky school teacher actually advised that on two different occasions.) However, I have not been able to get my tongue around that. Worse still, though, I have not been able to get my brain around it. 

There is an old saying that a week is a long time in politics. If that is so, then nine months is an enormous amount of time. In fact, it is long enough to incubate even a potential politician. Despite that passage of a seeming eternity, the good minister has not attempted to use any of the marvellous electronic media gadgetry to convey to us members of the public, just what it is that he had in mind when he made his call for proposals. 

Generally speaking, if a person calls for proposals, that person has, at the very least, some sort of model floating around in that grey matter that populates the cranium, which represents just what it is that is required, how it will work, and who will work it. Since, in all of that time, our good minister has not made it in any way clear just what it is that he is after, and what it will be all about, we must get just one tiny bit suspicious that he, himself, doesn’t actually know. If that is the case, then how are the proposal drafters supposed to know? Perhaps, the potential proposal producers are highly psychically gifted. Even an inveterate skeptic would be alarmed if the whole matter involved the blind leading the blind. 

The whole ambition is a mystery. One can take a guess at what is meant to be conveyed by any of the beautiful adjectives in the call-to-arms, but guesses they will remain until such time as the good minister gets a sudden burst of insight and a burning desire to clearly verbalise such insight. Just what does he mean when he says “open access?” Does he mean that when this thing, this marvellous piece of infrastructure, is actually built, it will be open to every wild Internet service provider with a six-gun in his hand, to jump on and run his service on the new thing, and charge us little members of the public fees, and thus make profit, at our expense, on the use of our own infrastructure? Would it be a certifiable psychiatric condition to think that perhaps the good minister means that every Aussie mum, dad, school kid,  business woman, adults of all shades and sizes, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all will be able to use the thing for a nominal fee, or, dare I say it, for free? 

Meanwhile, we ignorant members of the great unwashed public continue to enter into one and two-year contracts with Internet service providers for access to services that are certainly not as well adjectivally endowed as the scheme that the minister announced. 

How many cups of tea will we have before the minister or the tea leaves gives us some hint of the future?

 

Crankyfella

Will Australia Have a Weak End?

Can you remember the song that went, “Everybody loves Saturday night”? 

Well then, can you remember when those words were meaningful and appropriate? 

I can! 

Sometimes, old-fashioned, even seemingly over-restrictive ways of doing things, turn out to have not been too bad, after all. 

Saturday night used to be a time when, irrespective of your age group, you could often mix socially with your friends and enjoy yourself. Most people did this, of course, without needing to resort to mind or mood altering drugs except nicotine and alcohol. Most single young folk did this without the crutch of either of those substances. 

People who worked in essential services, such as police, prisons, ambulance, hospitals and public transport, were required to work on weekends. However, with respectful rostering techniques, they were still able to have the equivalent of half of their weekends off. That was, and still is, a reasonable situation. The people who enter those fields, do so in full appreciation of the essential nature of their jobs. The people in these jobs used to be the exception. 

Most of the other workers enjoyed a full weekend off every weekend. They would knock off on Friday afternoon or evening, and only return to work on the following Monday. Even most of those who worked in retail shops, enjoyed a weekend extending from Saturday lunchtime to Monday morning. Some people who worked in food services were more akin to essential services workers. 

When a public holiday abutted a weekend, most workers enjoyed (and greatly appreciated) the extra day that made what was referred to as the “long weekend.” 

The important thing is, that the weekend was a time when families and friends could look forward to seeing each other and enjoying each other for a reasonable amount of time. Week days were for work, and the weekend was for play. 

One of the major differences in those days was the statutory regulation of trading hours. Retail trading and hotel bar services were quite restricted. Nowadays, of course, most things are de-regulated in terms of trading hours, or so liberally regulated that they are virtually 24-hour-per-day businesses. It is bad enough that with only a smidgen of knowledge, one can navigate between hotel bars virtually around the clock, but as well, most retail stores have long daily trading hours seven days per week, and some of them even open all the time. 

One major consequence of virtually open-ended trading hours, is that more and more workers are having to work at hours that restrict their normal social intercourse, and even consume their weekend hours to the point where they do not enjoy a true weekend. Worse still, it means that those workers, and their friends, whether or not their friends work other than Monday to Friday hours, are denied the opportunity to socialize and relax together. 

As with numerous other “social advances,” the liberalization and even de-regulation of trading hours has had unintended social consequences. Perhaps it is time that we swallowed our pride, shouted “enough is enough” and went back to the restriction of trading hours. After all, people have only one income to dispose of; they cannot spend without limit. 

If we do not remedy this situation, then the social consequences may be dreadful, and Australia may indeed head for a weak end.

 

Battler

I See the Light

That Old Year, 2008, was a bit of a fizzer, as we used to say of crackers that failed to go off with a bang, but rather, went “Pphhhsssstt.”

This New Year, 2009, is going to be a bobby dazzler. 

Whom are we kidding? 

Once again, the government of this colony that pretends to be a state, New South Wales, has set an inappropriate, ridiculous example to its citizens and to its youth. Last night, at 9 pm, and again at midnight, to usher in the New Year, our brilliant State Government funded fireworks displays to the tune of five million Aussie dollars in Sydney, alone. 

We saw five million Aussie dollars go up in smoke from the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and other sites around the harbour. It was all the more insulting to have involved the dear old bridge, as it represents magnificent infrastructure built by the sweat and ingenuity of Aussie working men. It represents the era when seemingly impossible works were designed and doggedly brought to existence. It was a feat that we can never repeat, because we have lost too much will, and far too much expertise. 

Currently, the brightest of our brightest, those enlightened upholders of all things ethical, moral and good, our State parliamentarians, have proclaimed hard times, and have consequently put on indefinite hold, infrastructural works such as a passenger train line to service the people of the north-western region of the Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area. Other important infrastructural works that are in progress, have been slowed because of a shortage of money in the till from which progress payments are required to be paid. 

Our social institutions, such as hospitals, schools and universities are rapidly transmogrifying into shadows of their former operations. We are desperately short of doctors, nurses, and especially dentists, in our health system. We are emaciating former professions such as school teaching and university lecturing, and our police force is becoming a skeletal system comprising the few older, experienced people trying against the odds to lead a vast pack of newcomers who, despite their training, rapidly become disenchanted and abandon the job that they once thought would be socially valued, intellectually and ethically challenging and a reasonably well-paid career. 

Any one of these ailing, failing essential services of the State would have welcomed and put to good use, a cash injection of the five million Aussie dollars blatantly wasted in providing fleeting visual gratification for the very few who were able to attend the harbour fireworks sessions. Surely, the traditional joining of hands and singing Robbie Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne” was a cost-free and far more meaningful way to farewell the old year and usher in the new.

 

Crankyfella