I’ve heard it said in political circles that women my age and older care fairly passionately about the health system, as we are finally exposed to it, having not normally needed to access hospitals much during our late teens and twenties.  How true this is.  And I am saying this, not because I have children, which is more common, but because my family has had something of an annus horibus with respect to health.  I’ve torn my calf muscle, my grandfather is finally too frail to look after himself and another close family member was diagnosed with a terminal illness.  I have to say overall that despite the bad press and the horror stories from both the press and my personal circle, we seem to have a good system here in Queensland, but there is much need for improvement.  When you’re dealing with sick people and their families, you really can not do enough for their comfort and information.

My first big gripe is actually our private health care system.  Private hospital costs are fairly well covered by private health care and Medicare still covers much of it.  But private health insurers really are selling us short by not covering doctors fees at all or the fee to be admitted to Emergency in a private hospital.  I was several hundreds of dollars out of pocket last year when I had surgery – my doctor charging almost twice the Medicare fee and only 75% of anaesthetic costs ever covered between Medicare and private health.  My terminally ill relative also decided to take a chance on going private with treatment for a bit this year after getting a wee bit fed up with the public hospital, and is still paying off the charges – pretty rich for someone who is on 75% of their income.

Coordination of treatment seems to go by the wayside when someone is being treated by a team rather than just one doctor as has been the case with both my relatives, and this was also the experience of a close friend of mine who had a parent pass away from cancer this year.  I have spent hours and hours frustrated and on the verge of tears trying to find out what was happening with my relative’s treatments and then trying to co-ordinate with more than one hospital is enough to make me want to take up Voodoo and curse the lot of them.  However I have discovered just recently that once someone gets into palliative care for their pain, that the communication between practitioners does get a little better.

And on a more practical note, hospital parking is a b!tch.  The last thing you want to do when you are visiting a sick or dying relative, or having someone visit you is to be hit for $12-$15 parking!  I can wear it as I work and I think my relatives are worth it, but I can imagine most people who have to be treated in the public hospital system may find it a stretch if they are visiting frequently.  And the thing is when someone is sick, they do need frequent visits.  Hospital is a miserable place, and I imagine it’s quite lonely sitting there by yourself in pain with little other than the telly to take your mind off it – if you want to pay the $10/day to watch.  I’ve been hit up twice today as I needed to go home for lunch and to sort out some other stuff I’ve got going on, whilst I am still on holidays.  The other thing that drove me nuts this week when taking my relative in to be admitted to the PA, is that once you drop someone off in Emergency, there is no where within an easy distance to park, meaning it’s at least 20 minutes before you can get to your seriously ill family member or friend.  That being said, whilst my family member was pretty sick and was admitted straight away, there did seem to be a lot of people in the waiting room who did not look particularly sick or injured (except the woman who was having her hand strapped up by the guy at the registration desk as he took down her details).  I realise the health system has to address people who turn up to hospital with ailments that could be addressed by GPs (upping the amount reimbursed by Medicare would be a good start), but having inconvenient parking and 2 hour time restrictions on parking in the area is not a good way to do it.  Also I find it a little disconcerting having to go through the pscyh ward to get to the main hospital from the car park.  I know that I’m safe, but I also know that that’s the ward that gives most of my friend in health care the most grief.  It creeps me out and borders on inappropriate planning.

And finally, a few points on strategy.  I can not believe how few (read: none) hospitals are going into new areas in Brisbane and other expanding areas in Queensland.  No wonder there is such pressure on housing and accommodation in older areas that are still well serviced – living in the outer suburbs you really wouldn’t want to risk something like cardiac arrest as you wouldn’t get into a hospital on time.  And secondly there really needs to be more done to address chronic illnesses before they set in.  And not just colour coding tuckshop food for children – seriously funding cooking classes, quitting smoking services, alcohol rehab, etc.

Recently, I've noticed quite a few items in the press talking about how much food waste we create here in Australia.  For example I have recently encountered the following:

• Food waste facts
• Sydney's food waste
• Cutting food waste
• Food waste tops $5billion
• Qld Food waste

When I first heard this I thought that journalism had reached a new low in looking for things to demonise when writing.  Also I thought that they miss the point that we are pretty lucky here in Australia to have enough food and to be fussy about which food we end up eating.  The last thing we want is to be like a developing country where people have to eat every last little thing as they can hardly afford to live, let alone put food on the table.

The other reason that I was subconsciously objecting came ot me when I read an article about lunchbox food safety.  The article repeats that tried and true mantra, "if in doubt throw it out."  The fact of the matter is that eating food just because it's there and it's wasteful to toss it out it is just silly.  Sure think about cutting down on what you buy or order (I am not advocating being careless with food resources) but there's no good reason to feel bad about throwing out old food.  I'm particularly fussy about this as I have an irritable system.  Something most people could eat safely will give me stomach pains, gas and be most unpleasant on the way out.

So, I am annoyed at pushing this food wastage agenda, it overrides more important messages like food hygene AND when it's advocates start saying things like, 'obviously food is too cheap if we are wasting so much of it,' I worry.  As we are very fortuante to live in a country where we can afford so much and should appreciate it rather than complain - the alternative is not very desirable at all.

The new proposed laws include glass bans and a 3am shut down time (rather than just lock out).  It’s not going to work either.

I often wonder why people drink so much and what on earth it is that has contributed to the problem.  It’s occurred to me that there has been a shift from people mostly socializing without alcohol to people mostly socializing with alcohol.  

Initially I’m tempted to put it down to something like the cheapness of alcohol or it’s availability.  But just because something is widely available or cheap does not mean that people will consume something, especially something like alcohol that has a lot of negative health impacts.  There is also relatively little advertising of alcohol products outside clubs and pubs – a few late night TV advertisements aside.

Alcohol, and excessive consumption of alcohol seems to be such an inherent part of our culture, that changing the cost, accessibility or advertising is unlikely to have much of an impact.  And we are at point where families are passing on an attitude that excessive drinking is desirable, fun and a good way to socialize.  So what is it then than has caused the change?

When I think about the older women in my family (the men for various reasons are best left out or I can’t comment upon), they hardly drink at all.  And they would never consider it right to be drunk at all – regardless of gender or situation.  So how did older generations socialize?  For a start churches were more of a focal point.  Whilst the majority of people are now agnostic or apathetic towards religion, the church, in the past, provided a focal point for social activity for people of all ages and interests.  Even now churches do not just have Sunday meetings and children’s groups, but often provide a variety of events and activities for people to mingle.  At least the ones that still have anyone under the age of 60 left in them.  One of the other things that I know my paternal grandparents liked was dancing.  And in the past dancing wasn’t just gyrating to extremely loud disjointed noise, it was quite an orderly refined affair.  A few years back I gave modern jive a bit of a go, and it was quite a lot of fun.  The classes were also full of tradie type guys, which surprised me, and it was a good way to spend a sober Friday night.  Unfortunately jive classes and a salsa spot at South Bank aside, there really isn’t much opportunity go dancing these days, especially if you don’t have a partner and aren’t signing up for 10 weeks of lessons.  In fact looking at newer suburbs, heaven knows where you would even go to participate in a community activity as they seem to be row upon row of brick boxes built up to the boundaries with little in the way of shops, churches, meeting halls, sports fields or pubs.  They are just devoid of community.

Now I could elaborate on the types of social activities people have engaged in during ages past, but I’m sure there is no need.  The point is that people now don’t seem to have too many interests and if they do they’re usually to facilitate drinking.  Even the few sporty people I know tend to go to the gym rather than joining in a sports team.  It seems that people now are so boring that they have to drink in order to have something to do. And of course you can spend your weekend drinking and hung over if you don’t have to attend anything or help anyone out.

The other thing that I have thought of recently is that people tend not to live with their family anymore.  There is a rise in single person households, and I’m sure it’s not just elderly people who have had a partner pass away.  But even share housing qualifies as people living as individuals rather than a family.  It’s like this.  When you live at home with your parents and siblings your life is more open to scrutiny.  It’s harder to be drunk, hung over, high, promiscuous or even just selfish and lazy (I qualify for the last two btw), when you have people around you.  Especially if those people think they have a say in what you do.  And as annoying as it is to have your parents telling you what to do, they do have some wisdom and experience.  The obvious exception is if your parents are often drunk, hung over or high.  Sadly there are many parents who are responsible for having children who are addicted to drugs or start drinking too early.  But I digress!  My mother always told me that I should not move out of home until I got married, and that’s how it usually worked in the past.  Especially for women who were paid much less than men.  And it was much easier to be kept in check and behave if you still lived under your parents roof.

And as if that weren’t enough, the excessive consumption of alcohol is quite normalized in most social circles.  In fact it is considered quite freakish if you don’t drink until you’re senseless.  I can’t really condemn drinking, I do it myself from time to time.  However I don’t take kindly to people egging me on, if others don’t want to drink, I tend to moderate myself so that they don’t feel left out and certainly don’t become violent, abusive or aggressive when drunk (I just fall asleep).  The problem is that until drunken behavior is frowned upon, discouraged and not tolerated very well by most of us, there really is nothing that we can do.

I haven't blogged about it before, but I am, slowly becoming more and more irritated with passive voice, ridiculous words replacing perfectly good words and general missuse of every day English by people trying to sound gradiose.  A blogger at the ABC has summed up my feelings perfectly.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/offair/2009/09/ongoing-targeted-change-outcomes-and-other-crimes.html

But one does wonder what is going on, especially with children.  I find it funny that the parents I do talk to often feel like they have to justify using discipline on their children.  Without going into a debate about what is and is not appropriate, this is really quite odd.  Children need to be given discipline, boundaries and a set of standards to live to.  They need to be able to make some decision, but not generally before they get to high school!  And I do wonder if it is a lack of boundaries and re-enforcement of those boundaries that is part of the problem.

The other issue that my mother has raised is that she believes some of the behavioral differences that she has seen amongst me and my brothers is in part due to childcare.  Many studies have shown that the younger a child is put in childcare, and the longer hours they are in child care, the more aggressive their behavior becomes.  Regardless of the quality of the care, it seems that the more it is used by parents, the worse it is for the child.  I also half wonder if this is part of the problem with some of the children in the news stories we see.  Perhaps they have been left to be brought up in childcare and school rather than have parents becoming involved in their care and education.

Also most of these children in the news attend state schools.  Now I can not say that the state system is entirely bad – I attended a very good state primary school.  But it seems that the state system is less willing to address student behavior and unwilling to accept that it has a very important role to play in imposing values, beliefs and behaviors on it’s students.  And this is the end result.

What surprises me most was flicking through the telly stations tonight was that they actually aired a farmer complaining about the cost of dismantling the industry that they have set up.  What the heck?  Does this guy think that just because he goes to the effort of setting up a farm, consumers are obliged to purchase whatever he decides to peddle on them?  We’re not.  After all, we still have a (relatively) free market, so it’s up to us to choose what we buy, put in our mouths and where we choose to eat.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/new-pecking-order-laid-out-for-eggs-20090814-ek4w.html

Earlier in the year I was assaulted in broad daylight at an inner city bus stop.  And without dwelling on the more emotional aspects of it, it was something of an eye opener for me.  The bus stop had several rather noticeable cameras, but at no point did any help arrive at all, leading me to think that they must have not been monitored at all.  I reported the incident to the police, who contacted the state government agency that runs the Busway facility.  Initially they claimed that there was nothing on their footage, even though it happened right in front of one of their cameras.  When I went into the station next, I was told that the image of the perpetrator was captured, but the image was too poor to actually make out the features of the person in question.

So all of this really does beg the question of what the point of cameras is?

My question was possibly answered when I read an article about how the state government and the Brisbane City Council were saying how wonderful it was that there were so many cameras in the city.  That they had provided footage of many crimes including rapes and a murder.  Whilst reading I had another one of those moments where I wondered if it was me or them on the crazy pills.  Having dubious footage of crimes is not a good thing.  The proper outcome of having more cameras should be intervention in criminal activity and the prevention of crime.  That didn’t even rate a mention.  No doubt as there was no one monitoring any of the cameras in question.

As time goes on I am less and less worried about so many cameras invading our privacy, because it would seem that they are completely pointless.  Unless something majorly goes wrong and is reported, it would seem that Big Brother is directing his attention elsewhere (possibly on funding more boffins to figure out how to take more of our money).

Is it just me and the places I go or is there a general drop in the standards of catering offered at most coffee shops and cafes dropping?

As you may figure, travelling lots I eat out a lot.  One of the things that breaks my heart is when any bread product is microwaved (ie. Sandwiches with melted cheese, croissants or bread rolls). Microwaving any sorts of bread makes it chewy!  It’s gross.  I will also veer off the topic to say that asking me if I want cake or muffins “heated” ie. Microwaved makes me wonder if it’s actually a bit stale. 

On Friday, during the lunch break I had after being served an offending croissant I walked into a carvery that is my definition of a place that should be shut down.  The food was caked on the sides of the bay marines – suggesting that it had been in there for several days – and when looking at the pre-prepared sandwiches the girl behind the counter commented about one lot that she’d made them that day.  I find pre-made sandwiches offensive enough, without wondering if the ones that she hadn’t pointed out had been made more than 24 hours beforehand.

I know that this is a bit of a rant, but bear in mind recent events.  I was about to jump on a plane that night in the wake of the listeria in Virgin’s chicken wraps scare.  I’m not an overly clean and tidy person, so if I can spot potential food hygiene disasters then they’re pretty bad.

The number one reason I have a car is for the convenience.  Public transport in Brisbane is not very convenient.  Now I don’t drive to work, I do take the bus or train for that, but I certainly need to drive in the evenings and on weekend.  Outside of peak hour there is very little transport and it’s also not very safe at all (I’ve been assaulted three times in my life, once was walking to a train station and the other time was at the South Bank busway stop.

When I first started working in town – about 4 years ago – I drove into work about two days a week.  This was because I had university in the evenings and by the time I finished at 8pm or 9pm my next bus was at 8:45pm or 9:45pm and I had no desire to wait in a poorly lit area near King George Square full of kids drinking just being invited to be assaulted.  It was actually quite affordable with early bird parking costing $15-$18 depending on where you went.  Since then King George Square has been dug up for the bus way (it used to be a car park) and at least two other parking buildings that I can think of have been redeveloped.  I don’t doubt that most of the people driving in probably lived in areas where public transport was rather inconvenient and they all now headed for the Myer Centre or the Wintergarden.  Last time I looked early bird parking was $30 and climbing.  Given that many smaller places to $40 a day max, it really wasn’t that much of a discount and for someone like me that lives 5kms out of the city it’s now cheaper to catch a cab.  It is really inconvenient that the council and the state government have allowed all the parking to be taken out of the city with no thought about the consequences, but I have noticed more than a few.  First of all the South Bank carpark that use to be $15 a day is now only that price if you’re there for a few hours as all the people who have to drive into town but now have no where to park have now headed there.  And the other thing I’ve found out is that people are now parking in at the Mater hospital as there is a busway station just down stairs.  It’s also extremely expensive, but it is convenient and I’ve had one relative not been able to get a park there for a medical appointment and another friend who has been quite generously given discount vouchers to park to visit her very sick mother.  However instead of seeing consequences like less parking in town = people using up parking for other places, I am pretty sure that the government has been thinking less parking in town = more people using public transport.

The answer to this is yes and no.  No because some people can not use public transport as it is infrequent, inconvenient, dirty, crowded and generally inaccessible for anyone who lives further out of town than I do.  Yes because there are just more and more people living in Brisbane than ever and not all of them can afford to drive.  It has annoyed me for some time that there are no car parks at my train station after 7:30am, even after being expanded a few weeks back.  And train stations like Park Road that would be really convenient to catch the train from, have only 10 parking spaces and the surrounding streets are in the Gabba 2 hour parking zone (which is not well signed and I only found out about this from getting a ticket).  Also most trains are standing room only by the time they’ve gone a few stops.  I wondered about this the other week, thinking it would be nice if they put more trains on, only to realize that between 7am and 9am there are actually about 5 per hour going through my station (plus some express ones I don’t get to catch).  That’s heaps.  And they already hold up traffic fairly significantly as the level crossing just in front of the station is over a main road.  (Don’t even get me started on level crossings).  Busses are more frequent for me, but hardly less crowded and definitely slower and dirtier.  I never really noticed until one of my friends who moved here from the states noted that it took her over an hour door to door to get to work.  Last week as well I spoke to a fellow at a rival firm who lived not too far from where I am who said he’d taken to jogging home as it only took 15 mins more than catching the bus.  (I’m actually thinking of walking one or two nights a week now!)

But the thing that really bugs me about parking at the moment is the suburb that I live in just seems to not have enough of it.  There are a lot of units in my area.  And most units are 2-3 bedrooms, occupied by 2-3 young workers, and has one garage for their 2-3 cars.  In my area I’ve also noticed we have quite a few tradies and cabbies, who have their private car, work car and usually a flat mate or two with their own vehicles.  Needless to say there is never any parking in the street for all the residents cars (fortunately I’m related to all of the body corporate members for my building so I get to park on the grass).  The street in front of my unit is highly prized parking and we frequently get people parking in the mail zone and also right up to the corner.  Some authority has responded by painting a yellow line all the way around the corner, making the highly prized parking space even more at a premium and the residents in my and the neighboring block now have to compete for parking in the side streets – which are also full of units with residents competing for space on the street.  And whilst the yellow line out the front has temporarily solved the problem of people parking where they shouldn’t, it does little to solve the underlying problem which has been created by not mandating sufficient parking in unit development and also that units have an increasing number of occupants due to extortionate property and rental prices.

So all I have to say to the state government and to the city council is stop trying to punish us for having cars!  You can do two things to help us, first of all ensure that there is more parking – in our residences, our city and out public transport facilities.  And secondly put some decent public transport in if you want less people to own and use cars.

I’m kind of disappointed that there are advocates screaming blue murder* about public service cut backs, and no salary increases for teachers and nurses and the like, but no one is thinking of we consultants.

Now I know that most of you probably think that we are a mob of sponging no-hopers, but the fact of the matter is most of us do very good work and our clients love us.  We are in essence corporate (or government) problem solvers and industry specialists and experts.  Not all organizations can afford to hire or train people to have the best or latest knowledge and not all organizations can cope with their workload, hence we help out.  I will also note that my company in particular provides functions like Internal Audit, Risk Management, IT security support etc, so it’s not completely pointless stuff.

One thing I have found out was cut in the Commonwealth budget and now in the state government is consulting fees.  And not only is it bad news, but it’s something of a false economy.  (Whilst it’s yet to impact my organization, I’m worried that it may.)  Many organizations like mine are hired to do project work and also because the government has chosen to outsource some or all of it’s IT, Risk and Audit work.  If they cut budgets to people like me, what are they going to do?

So would someone please think of the consultants?

* I have just wondered what the origin of this phrase is and have just looked it up.  The Yahoo answer seems to be one of those typical examples of why you have to be careful when using the net a source of information, there are almost half a dozen explanations of the origin of the phrase.  Most of them seem like BS.  I do like the Wiki.Answers explanation the best.  And I am wondering who on earth these people are who have never heard the phrase ‘blue murder’ and think that it’s a corruption of ‘bloody murder?’  What rock have you been hiding under?

Obviously I am in favour of the second system – with some safeguards – but to be honest I have found it hard to support many of the people who advocate it in political debates that I’ve attended.  They just don’t seem to be very compassionate or generous people.  If someone is going to advocate that people should give privately instead of allowing the government to inefficiently direct their funds, possibly towards causes that they do not support, they should be practicing what they preach.  If you’re not involved in and giving to rotary, a church group (or equivalent for your faith), volunteering for community organisations, helping with drug arm or soup kitchens, giving money to worthy causes, wearing legacy pins, reading the Big Issue, attending charity balls and fund raising functions and promoting awareness about your causes, then don’t tell me people will give privately to fund welfare.  And note that it would be wrong to include political and lobbying organisations in this.  At present most donations charitable organisations are actually tax deductable, up to $200 without receipts and more with them.  And when you think about it, if you’re on the highest tax rate of over 40%, then you’re getting almost half of the money you give back.  If you really believe in private charity, what’s stopping you?

I do have several problems with the socialist model as well.  For a start, government doing anything is an extremely inefficient way to achieve your end.  The government does actually take a fairly high portion in overheads.  Conservative estimates say that every $1 taken by the government would be approximately equal to $1.20 left in people’s pocket – so there is a minimum 20% premium to having the government organise any sort  of charity or welfare.  As most charitable organisations operate with skeleton staff and work to maximise what they do with limited resources, an additional 20% premium would go a long way to keeping people off the streets, or delivering meals to the elderly or even setting up community sports facilities.  Having our taxes taken, is done at arms length, and it’s allocation is done at an even more removed degree by a process that is baffling, confusing and quite frankly tedious for most of us.  The problem with it, is that it means that charity and looking after people in our community suddenly does not become our responsibility or even our concern.  The government is mean to take care of people, so why would we care if the parents of a child with cancer can not arrange treatment, that mentally ill people are sleeping in our streets or that there is little help for drug addicts to come clean?  To be honest I think that government intervention makes us less compassionate and concerned for others and that is never a good thing – we should all feel compassion for our fellow human beings and those in a position to help should often be moved to do so rather than be hardened with excuses.

One thing that amazes me about how society has changed over the years, even the recent years, is our lack of engagement in charity and volunteer work.  150 years ago most women, except for the very poorest, did not work.  Rather than filling the time with shopping and papering and other self-indulgent activities as many people who do not have to work do now, women were expected to be heavily involved in charitable organisations.  Even during the world wars women were involved in making care packages for soldiers – even if it meant doing something as simple as knitting a pair of socks or baking a cake.  My grandmother’s generation was involved in all sorts of things usually surrounding the local church such as cooking for meals on wheels, visiting sick people, helping elderly people in their community.  My mothers generation were probably less involved and my generation is hardly engaged with community organisations at all.

I’m not going to suppose that I can solve the problem of Australia becoming so uncompassionate and charitable.  I think that it is a complex problem and a solution will involve the government – either though less involvement or providing incentives to become involved.  But potentially getting it right could actually transform our society and make small government possible.

Initially I thought her music was interesting from a post modern perspective.  Media constructs including music are full of complex social cues that allow us to make predictions, understand their message and interpret them in the greater social context.  The instrumentals of Allen’s music seem to be more folksy, poppey or even a bit retro.  The message is not one that is consistent with this.  It turns our social cues on their head.

But then in the news she came out a little bit critical of Britain’s got talent sensation Susan Boyle.  Not that there was anything wrong with her having an opinion of the performers in the show, but it just seemed a little catty.  After all the only thing that makes here stand out from the myriad of other pop singers is that she sings in her chavy accent and her message is different.

But it was finally today that I was listing to her song charmingly named “F*** You.”  It really is quite nasty.  I’m not entirely sure that, “we hate you and your whole crew” is a message I particularly want to hear on the rare occasions I listen to the radio.  If it wasn’t so catchy I’m sure it would be seen as fairly despicable.  But the fact that the instrumental is quite catchy and bordering on childish made me realise that what she does is not post modern and clever, it’s actually quite childish.  Is someone who was teased quite a bit at school I was subject to a lot of taunts, including many in song.  What she’s doing is actually quite sad and pathetic – essentially she has not grown up from school yard taunts and bullying.

So Lily Allen, you sound like a bully.  And as someone who is reinforcing hate messages, I no longer like you or what you stand for.

In recent times the press has actively propagated the idea that some things possibly shouldn’t be on Medicare.  That if someone quite clearly has a habit that they shouldn’t partake in, then they should not be asking for public money.  However the more I think about it, the more I realize that regardless of whether you think smokers or the obese only have themselves to blame, the premise of the issue is wrong.

Medicare is a general health net there to benefit all Australians.  And all working Australians contribute equally and as such should be entitled to claim upon it based on their own needs.  Medicare, or even our hospital system funded by our GST has not been set up to treat or not treat specific illnesses – purely cosmetic procedures seem to be the only thing really excluded – it’s there for everyone who needs it.  The point is to ensure that all Australians have a high standard of living, regardless of their living habits.  As we are being taxed specifically for our health system (ie the Medicare levy) I would say that under the current system we are entitled to healthcare for anything making us sick.  And just incase anyone with a very far right view is reading, this is separate to the issue of whether the government should provide health care at all.  

Medicare premiums are set based on how much you earn, they are not based on specific risk profiles of those covered – it does not work like an insurance premium in that respect, and even our health insurance system does not work like that either.  My insurance premium is not lower for not smoking or higher for being overweight.  Equally if the government did not offer health assistance to those who do smoke, or eat too much, or take drugs, or indulged in binge drinking or required treatment as a result of any other issue, it wouldn’t mean that the half a dozen people in the country who have never smoked, drunk, taken drugs, over eaten or engaged in any sort of risky behavior have to pay any less in the way of Medicare premiums.

The other problem I have with these debates is that it comes back to government policy being applied to people based on morality.  Just like I think that it is wrong to pick on ‘the rich’ in terms of government penalties because they are painted as greedy, immoral, cut throat etc, it is wrong to pick on people because they smoke or have poor eating habits.  It is pronouncing a moral judgment on them.  It also seems to be based on the premise that people indulge in bad habits because they want to and they can stop any time, which is not true.  Smoking, for example, is highly addictive and people start smoking for a variety of reasons and find it hard to stop for a variety of reasons.  Poor eating habits come down to either being uneducated about food – I think until you are taught as an adult very few people really understand how all the kilojoules, fat, salt and sugar content indicators on food really makes sense – or not being psychologically equipped to exercise self control when it comes to food.  Equally if you put the shoe on the other foot, no one would ever advocating denying medical treatment to anorexics of bulimics, but over eating is just as much of an eating disorder and psychological problem.  There are also some other bad habits I listed above that have not become the media’s punching bag just yet.  People take illicit drugs by choice, why don’t we deny treatment for people with drug problems and part of the reason for that is when people have drug problems it affects their whole community.

 The other point I wanted to make, but will not go into depth about, is that the government really does nothing to educate adults.  And I think that other than some TV advertising there seems to be an attitude that adults can not be educated.  For Christmas I gave my dad Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food cookbook.  In it Oliver explains that during the war, so people knew how to eat well on their rations the government trained up women to go into every community group in the country and conduct cooking lessons – they were in schools, women’s groups, men’s clubs, churches and all sorts of places.  And people learned how to eat well and use their rations.  So if we need to educate people as part of preventative health we can, although society is much more fragmented now and people are less involved with community groups – especially as we have more singles and often both partners in a relationship work.  But this is a secondary point.

At the end of the day all of us have vices, all of us do things that are bad for our health both now and in the future.  It may be a bad habit, it may be several, it may be working in a job that puts pressure on our bodies or does not allow us to exercise sufficiently, it may be letting ourselves get stressed too much or it may simply be that we neglect ourselves and don’t see a doctor or allied health professional as soon as we notice a problem.  As some point we all contribute to our own need for medical attention in the future, and even though some do so more than others, under a universal health scheme we are all entitled to seek help and have the very best service and the greatest number of options possible.  We should never even think to exclude others from the system the have contributed towards.

When I arrived in the US the week before last there were a few reports on Swine Flu, but their news media was pretty much over it and their government didn’t really care.  They realised, as I knew before leaving, that it was a very mild form of the flu and more people die from other strains.

Needless to say I was really, really surprised when I got back to not be allowed to disembark until some bureaucrat from the Australian government in a mask boarded the plane and walked up one of the aisles looking for goodness knows what and I also had to fill out a health declaration.  Now I’m back and have seen the news I am in absolute disbelief that the government is reacting the way it is to a relatively mild strain of flu.  We have advertising, reported counts of people infected (labelled as a ‘toll’) and a ship of harmless holiday makers quarantined off the coast.

This flu is less harmful than normal flu.

And yet there is no mention that people with other strains of flu are going to be forced to stay at home and wear masks and take other precautions.  Really if we are going to make a big deal about an innocuous disease, have nightly updates on the news, and have health resources activated and devoted to preventing the spread of the disease.

But that’s not going to happen.

The only explanation that I can think of is that the government is manufacturing a situation that they want to seen to be taking care of – a problem that has been solved by our powers that be.  The only problem is that it’s not a real problem that needs to be solved.  The housing crisis, rising unemployment, Indigenous disadvantage, traffic problems, criminal activity, mental illness, rising drug use, incompetent hospital doctors, fire ants, infrastructure that is not able to carry demand for it’s use (ie rail, ports, water) are all real problems.  Many can be solved by government action, others better dealt with by less government action, but the are all things that the government can do something about.  Swine Flu is something that the government can do little about and that both the Commonwealth and state governments are wasting money on and quite frankly the public and press apathy seems quite palpable.

So if any level of government drags their handling of swine flu out at any point as an achievement, please, for the love of all that’s good, punish them at the polls and in the mean time in your responses to blogs, letters to the paper and talkback.

But my biggest objection is that the laws are completely redundant.  Organised crime is already illegal.  Dealing drugs, harming people, using unregistered weapons against others are all illegal.  So why do we need the new laws?  We don’t.

At the end of the day the governments implementing these laws have fallen subject to the “we legislate therefore we are doing something” mentality.  The governments legislate against bikie gangs, therefore they are doing something about bikies.  When in fact, all they needed to do to get tough on organised crime, or bikies or the like is enforce existing laws.  But for some reason it’s harder for governments to sit in parliament and pass a bill to give more funding to the police to combat organised crime than it is to pass a bill making the same stuff illegal again.

And the fact of the matter is in this instance bikies breaking current laws, are not going to start quaking in their boots let alone caring if they’re breaking a new law.  JUST ENFORCE THE CURRENT LAWS!!!

Unfortunately governments have something of a track record of the “we legislate therefore we’ve done something about the problem” approaches.  The number one that comes to mind here in Queensland is the 3am lockout.  It was perceived, thanks to the Courier-Mail, that there was a problem with people getting drunk and doing all sorts of anti-social things late at night in the cbds – throwing up in gutters, going home with strange men, beating each other up.  So after a couple of nights traipsing around with journalists, Peter Beattie decided a 3am lockout was in order.  Regardless of the fact that this meant that all of the drunks would be on the street at the same time looking to catch a very limited number of taxis, in order to tackle binge drinking and public drunkenness the government pushed ahead.  Sadly the net result is that is that as predicted all of the drunks are on the street at the same time and it is now almost impossible to catch a cab in Fortitude Valley between the hours of 2am and 4am.  But the government didn’t need to pass the laws.  All they needed to do was give the police extra funding to lock people up for the existing offence of being drunk and disorderly in public.  And the fact of the matter is, like the bikies, people who drink to all hours of the morning and go looking for fights still do so.

When you start to read current right wing and libertarian writing and philosophy, you notice it has a certain pattern.  It presents to you the current state of play and then picks away and analyses to reveal the truth of the matter.  This has become very apparent after reading Steven Levett and Stephen Dubner’s “Freakonomics,” and also Damian Thompson’s “Counterknowledge” recently.  Freakonomics uses economic reasoning and rationalisation to microeconomic problems to drill away and look at underlying causes.  For example they chip away at the dramatic drops in crime rates in the US in the last 10 years and are actually able to trace it back to the advent of legalised abortion (appalling concept to a Christian like me I know).  Counterknowledge is also quite similar in that it looks at a lot of the BS that is propagated in society (ie September 11 conspiracy theories, ‘holistic’ medicine and pseudohistory like that peddled in “1421:The Year China Discovered the World.”  The author looks at who introduced the theories, how they were propagated and how it stacks up to credible academic research.  The conclusions of their analysis is quite empowering and enlightening and is useful in looking at the underlying motives of those who regularly peddle falsehoods as truths to cut through their agenda.

As any self respecting Arts student or graduate like myself will know, is that the left side of thinking also has modes of analysis relating to debunking the underlying thoughts of any and all of our media.  Whilst it’s theorists may shy away from being labelled left-wing, they often relate their analysis back to power structures and other thinly veiled ideas relating to class warfare and tension.  Some actually relate it back to Marxist ideas as my “Approaches to Literature” lecturer Carol Ferrier did (and damn I hope that someone dobbed her into that inquiry into bias in academic teaching).  Much of the analysis of the left can loosely and possibly inaccurately to the advocates of the school of thoughts I am thinking of, be described as Deconstructionism.  Deconstructionism teaches us that every single word we use in every single sentence is a choice and a result of our myriad of underlying, unconscious ideologies, beliefs and values.  Those choices can be analysed to reveal things about the author and things in their discourse that they are not saying and relates back to power structures in the social and ideological spheres (a Marxist idea btw).  Even the words we use and images etc are essentially just symbols and they are by no means neutral, they are seeped in centuries and centuries of history and connotations and meaning.  One of my favourite commentators in this arena is Umberto Eco, who is most famous for writing “In the Name of the Rose,” I have previously recommended his essays, “Travels in Hyperreality” and have enjoyed “Baudolino” and am looking forward to getting into “The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.”  I also rather enjoy Fouccault, although apparently he has little credo at present – it’s still an interesting read.

However the main differentiator of right and left wing analysis in this instance is the value of truth.  To those of us on the right, truth exists and it has a high value.  And when you think about it, truth and knowledge actually play an important part in the functioning of a liberal free-market economy.  To the left truth has no value and does not even exist.  There are merely different ideological modes on the construction of discourse.  No left wing theorist would look at the decrease in crime in the US and search for the truth behind it’s cause.  It would be a matter of analysing the modes of discourse used by those in power (largely the government) to construct not just their reality regarding crime statistics but also how crime and youth have been socially constructed as a mode of control throughout history.  Isn’t it interesting to think these days that there are not just different ideological takes on an issue, but even on how to approach, understand and analyse it?

When I’d left school in 1997 there was high youth unemployment, but my 2001 I was surprised at how an increasing number of my friends easily found work after uni and it was becoming easier to get part time work.  I was not so sure about this John Howard fellow who was PM, he seemed like a bit of an old fuddy duddy, but basically a drovers dog was better as PM than the arrogance of Paul Keating. 

But then something happened that made me like John Howard.  It was that most quotable of all his quotes, “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”  It made sense, it was decisive and it resonated well with me.  It was mostly appealing because I thought that there were so many people in Australia that needed help, that is makes sense that we help them first.  Also fresh in my mind was the UQ Student Union using my money to stage a protest at Woomera detention centre where students actually helped people escape.  I had not sympathy for that as if someone has arrived not being able to verify who they are, they could be anyone – potentially criminals etc.  Also I didn’t like people being holed up in detention centres, not because I thought they weren’t criminals – I actually did think they were – but because it was an insanely long process.  No one should have to spend years and years whilst a government makes a decision about your stay or not.  I saw it as better to actually prevent people getting to a stage where they needed to be locked up for so long.

Despite several years of relatively few boats of people trying to invade us in the last few years, this has become an issue again.  And to be honest I’m not sure that my views have altered that much.  And living in a neighbourhood where many newcomers move to initially, I have to say dealing with the living habits of some new immigrants is enough to make anyone cynical.  I really think that the government can not do enough to make Australia undesirable for people who do not come here legitimately.  Really when you think about it, if the first thing you do when you get off a plane here (or in any country) is to unzip and urinate on the tarmac, rough up some fellow passengers, pull out some weed you had stashed in your luggage or steal a rental car and go for a joy ride, no matter what your background, no one would have any sympathy for you.  You’ve broken several laws and you’ll probably be sent packing either back to where you came from or to a courthouse.  Why do we not regard not having the correct visa in the same category of criminal behaviour?  Also Australia lets lots of people in – up to 1% of the existing population every year.  There is a lot of opportunity to come here.

I didn’t previously know a whole lot about the TPV, but now that it’s being raised again, it does seem like a good idea.  The alternative is being stuck in a detention centre, so the TPV becomes a compassionate option.  I’ve just read an article in the Australian as well where an Afghan refugee claims that it was distressing that his family could not come with him.  But reading the article made me realise what I don’t like so much about most of the people who come here as ‘refugees’ from places with conflicts by themselves.  They are complete cowards.  I don’t mean in terms of dealing with the immediate, physical conflict.  It is natural to want to escape that.  However it is a complete act of cowardice to leave your family and loved ones to fend for themselves in extremely dangerous circumstances.  I think this is also worse when people come from countries where women have a low status as they need their parents and husbands to fend for them more than most women do here.  And I found what the fellow interviewed had to say unconvincing as he knew that his family was in danger but placed more weight on staying in Australia to get PR/citizenship here than his concern to go back and help his family.  Even with the risk of being pressed in to armed service, if your family is that important, you help them.  He made that choice and had to know that there was a chance something would happen to them if they remained where they were.  Conflict in other countries is not the fault of our government, and we’ve already shown an enormous amount of compassion toward people that otherwise have no claim to stay in the country.  The man in the article also had no problem with supporting organised crime – if someone is smuggling people I don’t doubt that they could also be smuggling drugs etc, especially as opiates are Afghanistan’s major export.  This is also a fairly undesirable trait.

So good luck to Krudd and his cronies figuring this one out, especially as they’ve said that they do not support the TPV and for some reason think the only reason people come to Australia is the ‘push factors’ of undesirable circumstances in other countries.  All I can say is if they get it right they will (unfortunately) win votes and if they get it wrong I’ll be laughing (and possibly crying as well)

*On a related note is it annoying anyone else that the terms economic downturn/recession and the global financial crisis are being used interchangeably when they’re not the same thing!

I don’t mind reading New Scientist from time to time, it has quite a few fascinating articles to offer.  However a recent article made me think twice about the content of the site.  The article is about how some scientist have conducted a study into logical fallacies offered to them, and come to the conclusion that people will make logical fallacies if primed to do so.  This calls for an overhaul of the way children are educated to eliminate these nasty modes of thinking – the biggest one being that when people think like this they are more likely to be creationists.

You’ll have to forgive me for being upset by this, I am one of those illogical creationists.  But that’s not really why I’m particularly upset.

First of all I think the attitude that a scientist can determine what is logically correct and what is not is somewhat suspect.  Communication constructs are the domain of those of us that specialize in communications.  Language is used in a variety of ways, including ways that do not suit traditional rules of logic and reason, for a variety of purposes – it is not wrong, and no one field of knowledge should have a monopoly on it.  Secondly, creationism is not a scientific concept, it is a philosophical one.  And philosophical arguments and truths are quite different to scientific ones.  Science concerns itself merely with what can be observed (and should stick to it in my opinion).  Arts disciplines including philosophy, theology and the creative arts build their discipline on speculation, taking logical steps beyond what is and postulating about the world and life that can not be observed.  It is not scientific, and scientists should not conclude that because it does not fit into their little box, that it is wrong.  It’s just different.

That and the logic of those who have undertaken this study ie. people make logical mistakes hence they must believe in creation, which I think is wrong so they are wrong, does seem a little off as well.

I have to say I am not aided by the fact that there are a lot of theologians from a variety of disciplines that try to couch their discourse in scientific terms (and we even get some crazies claiming to be creation scientists etc).  That is equally wrong.  What we have is two different fields of knowledge, that, with a little open mindedness can be complementary – they give us understanding of different parts of life.

But I hate that any one group can say that they have the only way of understanding the world and that everyone should stick to it.  I will give credit in this instance for acknowledging that MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD DISAGREE WITH THEIR POINT OF VIEW.  One wonders why they persist in trying to inflict their views on the rest of us.

That being said, of course I think that my beliefs are right and correct.  However I’m still willing to engage with other beliefs and happy to have them around.  The only thing I really don’t want to have to tolerate is intolerance, and I have to say this article is one of the best examples of intolerance that I’ve seen for ages.