What's natural about the natural order?

I started life as a teacher of English and History. One of the first classes I taught was feudal history to Year 8 students and I clearly remember the order of society was on the syllabus.  We learnt about  ‘a society based on status and prestige, a society based on the division of orders according to one's function -- those who work, those who fight and those who pray. ’ (http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture23b.html) and looked upon this as the natural order.

My students in early settlement Mount Druitt loved building castles and learning about the warfare, but even in their government relocated status, were really not that connected to believing that if their parent was a garbo, so would they have been expected to be, because that was how god wanted it .

I’m frequently jolted into understanding that what I take as normal in the world is often not so – there seems to have been a lot of sudden bumping against other people’s reality of late. 

Not the least of which has been the world of Cory Bernardi and his notion of ‘natural order’.

Julia Gillard tried to warn against the anti abortion lobby rising like a phoenix under the conservative old school tie. Who would have predicted it would stick up its Medusa head quite so soon.

One of the things this particular political strain is good at is language and rhetoric. Bernardi’s reference to pro-choicers as ‘pro-death’ and abortion as the ‘death industry’ leave no doubt that he has achieved his aim that he is : ‘not going to hide behind ambiguous words’ (ABC Interview http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-06/cory-bernardi-says-pro-choice-is-pro-death/5183852). 

Ambiguous? 

No indeed. 

Highly charged, emotive, provocative, offensive language?

Hell yes!

I’ve listened to him railing about his right to speak out against political correctness claiming it stifles debate. Yet for mine he lambasts political correctness so as he may proffer intolerant, discourteous, unkind, bigoted, inconsiderate, faith based ideology that masquerades as the ‘natural order’. 

I suggest, dear senator,  that you do a bit of Googling to see what the natural order actually consists of.

Having not insulted enough of the population he takes on single families, same sex relationships, green philosophy and Islam claiming:

“You can't tamper with tradition and not expect there to be adverse consequences.”

Mmmm does that mean that traditions like child abuse; female genital mutilation, stoning of adulterers; infanticide should be left alone? 

You can’t have it both ways Father Bernadi.

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The Bony Rabbit

I’ve been a bit of a slacker in the blogging department of late. What with finalising a research project, completing enough Fans of Idle Hands products to take to the holiday markets, and the lead up to the festive season, all thoughts of writing have fizzled into the dust. If only my indignation had likewise!

At the end of 2013 I had still not been polled. Despite my constant bewildered and befuddle state, the world refuses to change and the bony rabbit blithely appears on television saying nothing more than that he is winding back to the Good Ole Howard era and how everything that has occurred in the last six years or so will be reviewed, dismantled, stomped on, revised or chucked into the nether reaches of a Mad Max movie. 

I have not become endeared to the Liberal regime as it rolls out its activity of deconstruction and am surprised that I can find no one who openly admits to having voted for this melange of wedding and sporting event attendees. 

What I do wonder is what has to happen for a general incensing of the Australian public – I don’t mean the incensing  that used to waft out of thuribles in Catholic services – that, incidentally, probably eroded the hairs of my nose so it is now sensitive to every bit of pollen that appears in the air. No, I mean the mass disgust and displeasure that led to a Russian Revolution or the overthrow of Napoleon. OK, that’s probably a bit extreme, but you get the picture.

I figured that if the US could survive Bushe’s squared and other right wing conservative movers and shakers, that Australia could probably limp through until the next election when someone, somewhere, will recognise that we need a leader with vision, guts, social conscience and integrity. I don’t care what their politics!

But I’m beginning to doubt our chances of surviving relatively unscathed:

• Marine parks dissolved (not quite literally just yet) and the door open for reef mining,
• Agreed science questioned (‘What is this climate change thingy of which you speak?’)
• Women backfooted, (Virginal white dresses, Julie Bishop and Sophie Mirabella…need I say more!
• Gonsky gonskied (Just what is our policy today Christopher?)
• The Disability Insurance Scheme at risk (I hear of the large number of people who applied in Canberra from the association of the blind, only one person was granted the benefit – if this is true, when did blindness move off the disability list?)
• $6 tokenistic medical tax for visits to doctors and emergency departments (Hmmm… public policy about get active, undertake preventative medical practices, work harder and longer = more visits to the DR= ‘over servicing’= tokenistic medical tax???   Again I ask, where is the understanding of equal and opposite consequences  laws of physics?) Just an aside, my suggestion is put a hefty tax on absolutely elective cosmetic surgeries – I read that Australians paid over $665 million on these services last year.
• Shut down of information so that there is no transparency of government.
• And, of course, pissing off our allies by eavesdropping on their families and pilloring the ABC for reporting the scandal..

I’m beginning  to wonder what our democracy will look like when we at last put the rabbit brained schemes behind us and awaken from our politically induced coma

Happy New year everyone! 

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ART WORK OF THE WEEK
All creative energies have been temporarily suspended having exhausted them in pre-christmas tea cosy mode and in food prep for the celebratory season's functions.

Quizzing the Quandry

This week I am in a quandary – confused and bemused by the rhetoric and pseudo expertiseism (deliberate coinage) of politicians and journalists – but hey, what’s new?

I don’t claim to be an expert on international diplomacy and the friends who I have that do, advise me that the standard line is: We do not make comment on matters of Australian security hence  the repeated quote by John Frydenberg,  Chris Bowen, and Kurt Campbell on Q&A last night. And it obviously accounts for Tony’s reluctance to explain the actions that have so upset Indonesia.    

If one takes the views expressed by Julian Burnside and Tara Moss (Q&A panellists as well) that the dilemma with Indonesia is about phone hacking, and not spying, then the whole thing takes on a different perspective. 

This is a manners problem: you do not hack people’s phones – especially those of your friends and their families. It’s just impolite and disrespectful, and it deserves an explanation.

Equally I am perplexed by the Productivity Commissioner’s floating of the idea that we should all be working until we are 70.  That’s all well and good provided one remains physically and mentally active and capable of performing one’s duties effectively.

 But more than that it depends on workplaces that see post 45 year olds as valuable contributors – sure there are exceptions, but I hear repeated instances from friends and acquaintances that once it was revealed in the workplace that they were nearing 60 the questions began to be asked about why they were still working, when they were planning to retire, and many were not too subtly levered out. 

 

The last boss I had in my permanent work life actually said out loud: I love bright young things – they are so enthusiastic and I would rather have them around me. Not an affirmation for those who were beyond the first flush of youth.

I’ve had to look up Crispin Hull’s credentials given his opinion piece in Saturday’s Canberra Times regarding the decline of literacy and his championing of Kevin Donnelly and the phonics movement. His bio reveals he was a journalist with the local paper from 1972-2002 when he began to lecture in journalism at the local university. He had a short three months stint in the UK during that time, and completed a law degree in 1977.

So, I ask you, where is his legitimacy as a literacy expert and his credible data to support his claim that teachers are choosing to teach literacy using ‘post modernist claptrap’ ( Donnelly’s description of the  whole language approach) because it makes life easier for them.  What a load of twaddle!

My experience after 33 years as a teacher and education advisor is that in the teaching of literacy, as in all things, different methods work for different students. One of my children learnt to read using the phonics method, one the whole language approach. Both, now adults, are capacious readers, meticulous speller, excellent writers and grammar Nazis. 

Mmm Crispin: data that refutes your argument!

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Art Work of the Week

Perhaps Tony could work it out over a nice cuppa?

On Quiche and Cream

I’ve been checking the phases of the moon, the alignment of the planets, the leaves at the bottom of my tea cup and have stopped short of sifting through the entrails of a sacrificial chook to determine why the world is out of wack.

Brutus ,the intermittently laying hen, has been down in the mouth for a week refusing to move off the nest and reluctant to get to her feet. I think she heard me checking out the sharpness of the tomahawk and has come to her senses –she’s now upright, trying to look chipper– reprise number two, and more to the point of this post, no innards to decode.

But  let’s get back to a world gone crazy. I’ve seen no falcons being killed by owls, or horses turning wild and eating each other as they did when Macbeth fell of the perch, but there has been plenty of the heavens rumbling their belly full, spitting out great tennis ball sized hail stones and spouting rain – to paraphrase Lear.  And, I’ve read the Canberra Sunday Times.

Some weeks back the ACT government passed a law about community groups having to appoint a qualified food safety officer if they were holding barbecues or food stalls more than five times a year. Of course, well meaning volunteer groups who cook a good sausage to support local causes have been up in arms – as they should be, and Bunnings is wondering who is going to man the Saturday morning shop front  breakfast. 

I thought this was government gone meddlingly mad – but they weren’t finished. I went off to the coastal clime of Coffs Harbour for a few days and returned to find that there are now even more fingers in the pie, so to speak. A local school fete has been banned from serving a number of foodstuffs – most particularly the popular quiche- because as a health spokesperson put it:

 ‘dishes that might contain food poisoning bacteria  were considered potentially hazardous and included casseroles, rice dishes, quiches, spring rolls and any food containing meat, dairy or moist cereal products or ingredients’…… Oh, and ‘cream and custard’.

One of my roles in a past life was to manage issues that arose in local schools and the media. I cannot recall a single time in the eight years of my tenure where someone complained of being/or was actually, poisoned by enjoying the delights of a dairy drenched dainty.

Last year I had to confess I held some similar views to Mark Latham, and that was painful for me. Now I have to make an even bigger admission to sharing the Bostonian views about government getting their noses out of things that don’t concern them.

I’m happy to buy a nice spring roll, a cream oozing jam sponge, a custard tart, a takeaway dish of curry, or even a dollop of rice with a couple of bacon bits sprinkled through without thinking it may be my last meal.

And if that wasn't enough maddness there was the article on “Reclaiming the Vagina”.  Surely there are enough things for a girl to worry about than whether her bits are attractive and whether she should have surgery to get them neatly nipped and tucked. 

 I’m reminded of the scene in Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café where Evelyn, in a bid to ‘find’ herself so she is more attractive to her boofhead husband, joins a women’s support group. She had wanted to belong, but when the woman said that next week they should all bring a mirror so they could look at their vaginas, Evelyn never went back.

I’m with Evelyn. 

Give me a world full of sane responses.

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Art Work of the Week.

The activity has been very lean over the past few weeks so have had to dig in the archives: a fleshy pink Coffs Harbour Lilly might do the trick!

Acrylic on canvas 78x56cm

Big Fat Zero

 It has started.

 I read a memo that circulated to Australian Government departments a week or so ago about freezing recruitment and not renewing contracts as Tony lunges towards his promised 12000 job cuts to Public Service.

I was bemused as they rolled out the old chestnut  rhetoric about “no cuts to services” as a result of the staffing reductions.

So, if that’s the case, why is it that a document I requested (and paid for already) which should have been delivered ‘within 30 days’ is now nearly 2 weeks overdue? And more to the pint, why is it that my email inquiry about where the job is up to has been answered with a computer generated message that gives me a number for the inquiry and says: ‘We aim to respond to inquiries within 30 days’.  

Now I have two numbers: the original order number and the inquiry number, but I still have no papers, no answers and no service. 

Mathematically you are on to a winner Tony.

Here’s my reasoning.

Let “No service in the first place” =0 

Let “No cuts to the original service” = 0

Therefore 0-0=0 = no reduction in services

Bingo!

Gotta love weasel words. 

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Art Work of the Week 

This week's work has not been realised - an indication of what could happen if Tony's policies applied in my world- no artist; no art!

Of Tim and God

It’s been a Tim Winton sort of week -the man of the muted Hawaiian tea shirt, sand swept shorts and tied back pony tail-  master of the Australian language and psychic of the landscape.

'For while Perth had bulldozed its past and burried its doubts in bluster, Fremantle nursed its grievances and scratched its arse'

Tim is God- literally- omnipresent at the moment.

He’s been on my bedside table; on telly; in The Big Issue; on the stage; in my weekend magazine; across the screen; and talking to a middle aged,  middle class melange at the ANU last week where the theatre booked out and he was beamed like Scotty into the adjoining spaces.  

Someone asks him if he keeps notes or a diary and he responds that he ‘sort of does’. I’ve seen what a writer’s notes look like: scraps of paper torn off the ends of monthly bills and junk mail fliers with snippets of observations, crumpled and crinkled and poking between brick stacks of newspapers and sniffed and thumbed magazines – a mind map in chaos.

I’ve had Eyrie since the day it was released, but I have been resisting the temptation to open the pages as I want the ‘time to be right” – the time when I can put everything else aside and just read from cover to cover, immersed again in a world drawn by a master craftsman with his pencil and paper manuscript.  

The Turning is playing at the Nishi building with it’s challenge to completeness – fitting given Tim’s reply that he doesn’t need a story to have a nicely tied ending. Here the scaffolding is the building, the timber cut-offs the substance, is it coming or going or being?

The Western Australian government site says that: Travelling to Wittenoom presents a public health risk from exposure to asbestos fibres which may result in contracting a fatal disease, such as mesothelioma, asbestosis or lung cancer.  But the ghost town is in the news again with proposed changes to legislation to allow asbestos related disease sufferers  to make a second compensation claim on their illness. And I’m back to Dirt Music – the words and the music, its verandah wines and the bone in the bed. 

And I wonder is that is Lucky Oceans playing with his back to the camera framed in a doorway sliding up and down the frets?

Maybe it’s the vastness of the landscape, the fury of the sea, the remoteness  and ruggedness, the sense of coming into being, a place where escape, forgottenness and isolation is still possible, that produces the likes of Tim Winton, Archie Weller, The Pigram Brothers, Robert Drewe, the Waifs.  

My granddaughter came back from One Direction gasping for air – Tim’s writing does it for me!

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Art work of the Week

The Nishi Building New Acton