The earnestness of an anti electric-car Prime Minister.

 

With the compulsory voting by punishment in Australia, it forces people to vote who haven’t got a clue. Or, if they possess any clues, they are most likely to have been spouted by the commercial world, especially the Rupert Murdoch world of inanities and plastic bubbles rolling around the sun-baked deserts of our suburban wastelands. You know how it goes; insincere policies are being uttered with as much sincerity as the shifty politicians can muster, this is of course then followed by an earnestness that can only result in becoming so boring that even  good sleep can’t make better or give relief to, it stifles all. We all know where the earnestness of politicians can lead to.

With Easter almost behind us, I can’t wait for normalcy to return, and with that a well-earned rest from chocolate bunnies and the proliferation of  multi-coloured aluminium foil wrapped chocolate eggs, row upon rows, and the kids are getting fatter. I wonder if the art of hand painting of real eggs is still being practiced? When I grew up our parents encouraged the colour-dyeing of real  eggs and hand painting them afterwards. I believe that the people from Eastern European countries were masters of that art.

We are still rummaging through the political scene that no doubt will return tomorrow together with the opening of all sorts of Royal Commissions of Enquiries with scandal after scandal renting the autumnal sky. The latest is the scheme of ‘water buy-backs’ where someone in the government has made a quick buck out of denying drought stricken farmers their entitlement to water that in rapid driven rivers flow past their properties. Farmer’s tear stained wives regaling on TV, husbands’ decisions to sell up the farm. Oh, this Australia ‘the best country in the world.’ We all know that Royal Commissions are guarantees for  non-action.

And then we have a Prime Minister warning us of the disasters to befall us if anyone would be as foolish and progressive as to buy an electric car. He said; ‘It will be the end of our Aussie week-end.’ ‘We will not drive our ute anymore and the price of electricity will go sky-high, he said.’ And to think we left Holland where the Government will not allow new petrol and diesel driven cars to be sold after 2030. In Norway fifty % of cars are now electric and China is starting up world’s biggest electric car manufacturers.

As for Helvi and I with those verging on their final years, getting concerned about ‘Aged-Care’, let me leave you with how CARE for the elderly is being tackled in Holland.

The Dementia Village

If I ever end up with severe dementia I hope I am fortunate enough to live in a village like this.

 

Unwelcome News.

Why is it that we receive news that ought not to be read?

“Teenage girl wakes from a coma having given birth.

Newly wed man throws wife from 21st floor on the cold coast.

Footballer charged with rape smiles to victim in Court.

Anita Board died in Perth junior dragster crash two days after becoming old enough to compete.”

Headlines like that ought to avert our eyes. They are such invasions of private lives and grief.  Those death and traumas are too sad and too private to be so recklessly  consumed by everyone. Is our capacity for the sensational so whetted that we are drawn to the misery and plights of cases that don’t concern us at all? Or do we assuage ourselves into a false sense of caring?

We were told that our political parties are now being hacked by very sophisticated experts. The simulated hackers are shown in the dark punching into a keyboard, infiltrating and corrupting data and face-book accounts in Australia.

Not a sliver of real news is actually forthcoming. A large stomached PM Morrison is shown peering suitable outraged into the camera, whipping us into fearing the worst, yet no factual damage or stolen items are reported despite the earnest looking Newsreader. Even so, this story maintains our fear, and to be used as a tool to win elections.

The real news is of course the dreadful plight of the elderly in our nursing homes. The Royal Commission already gives frightening numbers. Over 6000 reported cased of abuse in elderly homes reported in just one year. Malnutrition is suffered by a reported 50% of the elderly. Understaffing, underfunding and badly training are given as reasons.

https://www.agedcareguide.com.au/talking-aged-care/elder-abuse

Another Royal Commission has been agreed for the Disabled people. Again, case after case of reported abuse and mismanagement. Harrowing stories are being told of impossible situations that some parents suffer through the lack of care for their disabled son and daughter. Thousands of parents are suffering situations that could so easily be solved by simple care and compassion. A company with a Kangaroo Island beach shack get $ 420.000.000,-!  We have allowed for over 1000 people, and their children, who did no wrong, to be incarcerated for over 5 years in order to stop boats.

How is it possible to have pride and celebrate living in ‘the best country’ knowing how our aged and disability care can be so lacking and has so for decades?

How come our news turns to the irrelevant and hyperbole instead of the above mentioned serious societal misdemeanours that we, as proud Australian allow to continue?

Why are we not rioting or do some yellow shirting?

The art of genuflecting is disappearing

When political figures meet they often will shake hands. The recent climate change meeting or COP21 (Conference of Parties) showed endless footage of people facing the camera while shaking hands. I never understood that this has to be filmed. I mean; who thinks that shaking hands is so interesting that they actually want to see a film reportage of it? The Chinese leader was a bit bored by that conventional gesture. He looked as if a lemon had difficulty being accepted. Shaking each others hand and fingers interlocking seems a reasonable thing to do in accepting the other person as an equal. A kind of, let’s be friendly and acknowledge each other. The arms and hands are the logical tools to do that with. One could perhaps use legs and feet, but balancing on one foot would be difficult, especially for the elderly.

There are some cultures that have different methods of greeting. Here and there nose rubbing is normal and the ‘Dab’ amongst the young is also practised. See below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dab_(dance)

But, the gesture of acknowledging each amongst royalty remains stuck in genuflecting or curtsying. I am not totally sure of this ritual between royals but certainly in strangers or other non-royals we are supposed to do a bit of a dip on one knee and then, if done appropriately, might be given the opportunity to touch the hand of the Royal. It is supposed to be a sign of one standing above the other. I am not sure if I could or even would do this. Apparently, if one is lucky enough to meet a royal, many are urged to practise the art of genuflecting well before. No doubt, one could even do a course in genuflecting, a bit like when I took dancing lessons from Phyllis Bates’ dancing academy back in the late fifties. This was held above a milk bar in Sydney named ‘Spyros.’ At that time a malted milkshake could be bought for one shilling and sixpence. I had to make sure that the book was held between the teacher’s and student’s breast or chest. It is still a much revered achievement that I successfully managed to do that. I remember the title; it was ‘Of Human Bondage.’ Of course, holding a book between a royal’s chest (or breasts) and a ‘common’ while genuflecting would never do.

As for the spat between us and the nasty one; let me just put this one up as a response to a dear follower on my previous piece.

The person we feel is responsible to the threat that we should go and sell up, also has a thing about the Royal Family. When the English Prince Phillip was given a Knighthood by Australia, she fully applauded the move by our previous government. It was such a silly move that the government subsequently lost the election.
We joined in the chorus of most, in condemning and rubbishing the giving of Knighthoods and Dame hoods. However, the nasty neighbour is English and when she holds Court would bore us to death about her regaling the English monarchy to its minute detail. She hinted she actually was the illegitimate fruit of one of the many Prince Phillip’s amorous conquests, supposedly consummated in a swanky address along the Seine in Paris.
We finally had enough and refused to genuflect and told her off. She is silly.

https://www.amazon.com/Oosterman-Treats-Philosophical-Musings-vasectomy/dp/099458105X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473900528&sr=1-1&keywords=oosterman+treats

Royal Commission into Australia ( warning graphic images)

We went away for a few days, and all hell seems to have broken loose. An ABC ( Australian Broadcasting Commission) came out on television with a damning report on child detention centres in Australia. Within hours of our Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, having watched the program, he announced a Royal Commission. It would be held about the juvenile detention centres in the Northern Territory of Australia. Have a look at this link. Yet, those allegation with videos were known for a number of years

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-26/turnbull-calls-for-royal-commission-into-don-dale/7660164

Within hours experts on breaches of human rights are now clamouring for a Royal Commission to be a federal Commission instead of just a State issue. Abuse of children seems to be widespread. Royal Commissions held about systemic abuse seems to go on forever like ‘Days of our Lives’ or ‘Neighbours.’

People hold Royal Commission in high regard but I am not so sure. Those commissions are nice little earners for the legal fraternities. I remember reading about Royal Commission back in the sixties in the mental health care and conditions of Callan Park, Sydney. As is common, recommendations were made, the lawyers got paid, but business as usual. It is just a kind of Tiger Balm or Cough Elixer to keep us quiet. I doubt that the mentally ill are treated any better today as when in the time when my brother was treated so terribly at Callan Park in the late fifties early sixties.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-26/timeline-of-voller’s-mistreatment-in-detention-centres/7661788

Never the less, I wish the Royal Commission would be extended to the treatment of our refugees at Manus and Nauru Islands detention centres. One can just imagine the horrors and desperations experienced when people burn themselves to death in order to get some attention. The dreadful rapes, abuse of children and the despair that those refugees will never be allowed to go anywhere except to Cambodia or back to the countries where they escaped from.

I am not sure if my father made a wise decision coming to Australia. I am ashamed.

Ps. My brother is in good care and still alive, but…in Holland.