Old roads

On my V-Star in 2009, visit at Nimbin

A few years ago, between 2005-2011 after we'd moved to Aus and joined the Mt Lindesay Ulysses riders group, Stan and I had ridden our motorbikes along many old roads around the SEQ Brisbane area. Today I decided to go over some of the old roads and see if I remembered them.

At the start, I drove the back way from Waterford to Park Ridge – a road which I'd already done years ago. We got into Park Ridge and had to head north along the Mt Lindesay highway because there was no road I would remember which would have taken us to the BP. We got off the highway at the Greenbank exit, went under the highway and got back onto it heading south.

I took Jordie to the dog wash at the BP which is just off the highway – possibly it's called the Regents Park area. A few years ago, when I used to take Jordie and my English bull terrier Bundy there, after their bath we used to walk from the BP a short way north, then up onto the footbridge across to the other side of the highway. Jordie seemed to remember the area, and her bath cooled her down. Even though I used the drier, I'd taken some towels to wipe her over with – they were needed!

The Browns Plains – Beaudesert roads didn't look any different than they had years ago as we drove on roads I had ridden on. It wasn't quite lunch time, so we didn't stop in Beaudesert; I'd only previously had a stop at a pub for lunch, very little that I'd seen anywhere else throughout Beaudesert.

We drove on to Tamborine and decided to go up to the top. That place I've been to a few times in my recent history, but this morning we drove around the South Tamborine instead of the North Tamborine I had been through years ago. We stopped at what seemed to be the main village, and I shouted Jordie a bottle of water and an ice cream. We didn't taken the main village road because I knew that would be very busy during holidays. I had seen cafes and wineries where I wished I'd been able to stop, but I couldn't leave Jordie alone in the car – in the heat!

As we passed another pub I'd been to fairly recently, I wanted to go down the very steep road to the Gold Coast road but decided to go back the way we'd come up. I felt pretty good about my own driver behaviour - I sat in 3^rd, little braking necessary, going down that hill behind a car which was probably automatic and needed lots of brakes.

At the bottom was the Dragon pub, where I'd been around 2008 and had my pic taken with a snake hanging over my shoulder! Nowhere there that I could have taken Jordie, and no shady parking, so we kept going.

The roundabout looked like it had changed. Years earlier, I had already driven on the Waterford road, so I chose to go on the Tamborine-Beenleigh road. I drove some old roads, thinking I'd never been on them, and yet after I saw a bridge going to Yatala from that road I knew I'd been there – years ago with the Ulysses group I'd ridden across the bridge from Yatala and turned left to head towards Tamborine! I went through Windaroo too, which I hadn't remembered from my history, but I saw an old yellow building which was a cafe with a carpark which we (the Ulysses group) had already been to – which I can't even find on a map! (Had I imagined it?)

Beenleigh looks very familiar, mostly because I now live in this area and have very recently driven around Mt Warren roads. I drove today for nearly 3 hours, and I knew how to get us back home. I hope to do this sort of drive again, because reminding myself where I've already been is ongoing recovery for me. Jordie and I enjoyed it.

Regret the Error

 

A couple of days ago I bought a new set of shelves for in my bedroom/office, and decided to sort out the excess books on my lounge bookshelf. I moved some of the women's writings, and some writings which interested me – including “The Stories that Changed Australia” - a 50-year look at 4-Corners, Jane Caro's “Destroy the Joint” and Richard Dawkin's “The Greatest Show on Earth: the Evidence for Evolution”. Another one I found in my lounge was “Regret the Error” by Craig Silverman. It was published back in 2007 and I bought it some time after that, but it sat in my bookshelf and I hadn't read it. I started this week.

This book seemed to be close to information I had already gotten from Snopes: “rumour has it”. Founded by David Mikkelson in 1995, Snopes has grown since then because it is “widely regarded by folklorists, journalists, and laypersons alike as one of the World Wide Web's essential resources.” Often, when I found something which didn't sound right, I'd check it out in Snopes. (I also used to check facts with the ABC, which now doesn't seem to be doing what they used to – the most recent I found was 1 July 2016.)

Craig Silverman's original website was regrettheerror.com. It's now part of Poynter's, which advertises as “a global leader in journalism”. Silverman's last issue was in March 2015 and the Regret the Error page in Poynter leads to some issues written by other writers as late as August 2015. Whilst Poynter says about themselves that “[t]he Poynter Institute is a global leader in journalism. It is the world’s leading instructor, innovator, convener and resource for anyone who aspires to engage and inform citizens in 21st Century democracies”, Silverman is now the media editor on BuzzFeed in Toronto.

Reading his book intrigued me. Checking other websites he mentioned, I found FactCheck, which is a “Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center” and says “We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.” NewsBusters is a Trump supporter website, which says they are “exposing & combatting Liberal media bias”. PolitiFact is “a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics.” Why don't I believe NewsBusters? Perhaps Politifact are more believable because they don't simply say they support one political party.

Two other websites in the book don't seem to be available online – at least, not for me today: NewsTrust.net and StinkyJounalism.org. 

Silverman looked at early publications of newspapers by Hearst and Pulitzer during 1897-1898 which fought a writing war, saying “That time is commonly viewed as a low point in journalism, a period when the two press magnates sought to outdo each other with the most lascivious, outrageous, and attention-grabbing reporting possible. In the course of trying to destroy each other, they came close to destroying the reputation of the press itself.”

Later, throughout the book he provided sections called “The Corrections” where newspapers, who had themselves printed incorrect information, reprinted what could have been classed as an apology. The sections looked at various issues, and I've printed some that amused me. Have a look.

“Multiple offenses” (p87): “A brief report incorrectly referred to Nottingham as the gun crime capital of England and the least-secure university town with a third students beings victims of muggings (University crime, August 17). In fact, the first description is untrue, the second was based on statistics for the whole of Nottinghamshire, not just the city, and the third was a national statistic. - Times (UK)”

“Names and titles” (p98): “Wednesday's editorial about the lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave the wrong name for the President of Gabon in one reference. It should have been President Bongo, not President Gabon. - New York Times”

“Typos” (p107): “A review of Wikinomics on Tuesday should have said, “This is not another book about profitless Internet start-ups.” The word “not” was inadvertently omitted. - USA Today”

“Fuzzy numbers” (p128): “Any number divided by zero is undefined, not zero as reported last Sunday in a Starship article about the number zero. Zero divided by zero is also undefined. The Star regrets the error. - Toronto Star”

“Death by media” (p181): “Because of incorrect information provided to The Sun, an article about Charles Village in Sunday's Maryland section reported that Precious the Skateboarding Dog had recently gone “to the great skateboard in the sky”. Precious is still alive. - Baltimore Sun

This correction was printed in June 2006. Precious, unfortunately, only lived for a further month – see the article at the bottom.

“Misidentifications and personal errors” (p203): 

 

A picture on the cover of the Real Estate Section Friday was incorrect. The picture was not the gangster Al Capone, but the actor Rod Steiger playing Capone. - Newsday (New York)

“Strange and sublime” (p249): “For the Record... In the December issue, we mistakenly ran the box cover art of the first “Swallow My Squirt” from Elegant Angel with our review of “Swallow My Squirt 2”. Here's the correct box. We swallow our pride and apologize. - Adult Video News”

If you read this book, enjoy it. If you don't, then take notice of what you read in newspapers or online – errors happen every day. I hope there are many editors or publishers who, for errors in their newspaper or online, will say that they“Regret the Error”.

Call the Midwife!

ABC had a 2015 BBC program advertised as “Call the Midwife: Christmas Special” on TV last night. I hadn't watched the program before – or any maternity programs for such a long time. I didn't, at the time I watched it, realise that it was from last year, but it wound my memory back. This program introduced an event involving one woman giving birth to twins, and a second woman giving birth to the baby she didn't even know she had! I'd known I was pregnant, but my birth was so different to this!

Call the Midwife was set at the end of the 1950s and into the start of the 1960s. Wikipaedia has a history of it, very interesting to read. During the 50s and 60s my mum had produced our family in the Waikato (Hamilton, New Zealand) hospital. Midwives had helped, but Jane Stojanovic (RM, RGON, MA [Applied], ADN) wrote:

 By the 1950s birth took place in a room very similar to an operating theatre, under very similar conditions to a surgical operation. These procedures persisted; in the 1970s, as a student midwife I remember spending a lot of time acquiring the skills of sterile technique, learning how to cover the woman correctly with sterile drapes which, of course, required the woman to remain in a horizontal position and that necessitated the use of the lithotomy position and ‘stirrups’ to hold her legs in place.

 My brother was kept separate from his new mum each night in his own cradle in a “sleeping room” filled with babies. I don't know if this happened for me and my sisters in the 50s. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any photos of the Waikato Hospital back then but I do remember the old ward when dad took me and my siblings to see mum and my youngest sister born in the 60s.

This again changed a lot by the time I was pregnant in the early 1980s. By then, in the Elizabeth Rothwell Building, (based in the Waikato Hospital) there seemed to be no midwives unless you had chosen them. For some reason, midwives had disappeared. I had a back injury which annoyed me so much that the anaesthetist gave me an epidural in my back – I had a very easy birth. I had my daughter in the Taupo hospital, but they didn't allow epidurals. I could have chosen to go to Rotorua hospital, but my mum had come to Taupo to look after my son while I was in hospital so I didn't want to leave her. I screamed so much during my birth; I even remember just wanting to get up and leave the hospital and I'd be okay outside! Of course, that didn't happen... Yet I cannot remember midwives in either of my births in either hospital.

Midwives are now back full time. The Ministry of Health page lists Waikato Hospital as a supplier of “teritary maternity facilities”, and the other 9 facilities throughout Waikato are called “primary maternity facilities” - although “[y]ou can choose where you have your baby – at home, in a birthing centre or small maternity unit, or in hospital.” 

For my own birth and for the births of my children my memory has its own story, just very briefly mentioned here. Anyone who watches Call the Midwife might never have been to London, but for me it was a good reminder of my own city when I was little. It also intrigued me enough to look up more information about midwives then and now.

I think I might watch it again.

Waikato Hospital, Hamilton NZ

What does it mean to you?

Sunny... or snowy? Hot... or cold? Where would you prefer to be at Christmas? Can you go anywhere throughout the world where you'd like to be?

Or are you stuck, now... forever... in Australia. Because you're on Newstart or DSP. Maybe homeless. Maybe no family in your area, and very few friends?

Erin Stewart, Sydney Morning Herald journalist, wrote an interesting article on how she felt that Australia is the “best place to celebrate Christmas”. She had been to Britain before and saw how brown it was. Not white. Not even colourful. At the Christmas meal the dinner plate, apparently, reflected “brown”. And yet the pics in this article were very colourful – and the non-colour was mostly what people wore!

Pictures and explanations on the WorldPic site showed different celebrations throughout the world – including Russia (picture 4): the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7^th, not December 25^th! In India only 2% celebrate the Christian reason for Christmas, yet the entire population celebrates a national holiday! And in Italy the witch La Befana distributes presents to children on 5^th January, the eve of Epiphany – I wish all witches were treated so well as there!

Have you every thought of Mexico? And piñatas? According to Marco Polo (voyager b1254 d1324) they were from China and used for their own New Year celebration. Mexico still uses them now, but the use has seemed much more commercial.

Or how about Venezuela? Seems to be the most colourful place to be! And every morning, before the church services from 16th-24^th December, the roads are closed from 8am just to let people roller skate!

If any of you have the world to choose from, good luck to you! Christmas, for me and for thousands others, is just here. ABC's “Splash” site showed a video of the celebration of Christmas in Australia in 1861 (Chapter 9), and that looked, to me, like how Christmas should be today. Back then “simple gifts made by hand” and wonderful family feelings made Christmas. These days, for those of us who either don't celebrate or will be alone, watching this video made me feel so calm.

Homeless and poor people are helped wherever there is a charity which feeds them. These events happen because of wonderful charities which exist for people in poverty - “Basket Brigade” of the Magic Foundation, Mission Australia (they're running a picnic in WA's park), Exodus Foundation in Brisbane, Manna – also in WA, Samaritans, the Smith Family and so many more!

At the start of this period, when you've planned your celebration or heading overseas (or both), please remember the people who can't celebrate here – too poor, alone, very, very depressed. Donate, if you can – especially if you are going overseas, because if you can afford that, you can afford a small present for someone in need.

Have your own Merry Christmas.

 

Dyspraxia

Did you know that Daniel Ratcliffe (Harry Potter) has dyspraxia? He admitted that back in 2008, but I hadn't read this about him until now.

When I had my stroke in 2014, I was told I had aphasia – a problem with my language. It took me a long time to understand that, and two and a half years later I am still working through it. Sometimes it seems like it's my 'new' life. I was at PA Hospital for my surgery, and I was kept in BIRU (Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit) because of my stroke, for six and a half weeks working with the speech pathologist. After discharge I moved up to the Redcliffe area and went to the CBRT who also provided me with a speech pathologist. Recently, looking through my old papers, I found the report that CBRT had written about me two years ago. Even though I had read it earlier, I only now saw the word “dyspraxia”, which related to my brain injury.

I started to look up information about this condition. One website, Listen and Learn, said this about it:

“Dyspraxia, like many developmental disorders, is neurological in origin – that is, it has its basis in the brain. The brain is a network of neural connections that allow us to process the information we receive. Dyspraxia is a result of weak or disorganized connections in the brain, which then translates to difficulties with motor coordination.”

I knew that all of my problems were to do with what had happened in my brain, but how can I continue to “recover” from them? Listen and Learn has a fairly long article of information of dyspraxia. Read it, if you can, because I think you might understand a lot more of it than I do! However, there are problems with Listen and Learn and other websites – dyspraxia is recognised as a problem with children.

I'm not a child, so I researched websites which would talk about how this affected adults. I found a few. In 2012 an article written by Maxine Frances Roper in The Guardian told about how she had suffered dyspraxia.

“Dealing with dyspraxia has been a practical and emotional challenge for me in different ways throughout my life. Unlike celebrities Daniel Radcliffe and Florence Welch I wasn't diagnosed as a child and went through years of sporadic speculation that something was wrong without knowing what.”

According to Roper, 2-6% of the population will suffer this, and 70% of those people are male. (Aus statement. The Telegraph in UK said that over there up to 10% suffer, and males are 4 times affected as women.)

The Health Direct in Victoria said:

“Dyspraxia is a disorder of movement and coordination that is often identified in early childhood. It can also come on later in life after an illness or an injury. Dyspraxia can affect verbal, oral and motor skills. While it cannot be cured, regular therapy can help improve the disorder.”

The first mention I found about the result of stroke was on Brain Foundation, with whom I had followed ever since my stroke. I wouldn't have looked dyspraxia up if I hadn't had it mentioned to me. BF said that dyspraxia:

“... can result from acute damage to the brain (as might be caused by a head injury or stroke)...”

and acknowledged that:

“[t]he outlook for people with dyspraxia depends on the severity of the disorder, its cause and the availability of early intervention. People with dyspraxia may be able to learn the skills necessary to circumvent their difficulties and lead normal, productive lives.”

Mine, according to the CBRT report, is somewhere around moderate, relates to speech, and can increase when phonemic sequence increases. I have only very recently understood it. Recovery from my aphasia is being able to talk, and from my dyspraxia is understanding what I am saying or reading. I feel pretty good most mornings, that it (usually) only seems to be the worst when I am very tired. Unfortunately, I get very tired in the early afternoon. And, unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any organisation which treats dyspraxia in adults.

On the CBRT report the speech pathologist said I had been given a “Home Exercise Program (HEP). It's two years after I was apparently given that, and these days I can't find anything that seems to use those words. I can't even remember what was on it/in it, what it would have done to help me, and why I was supposed to be using it myself. I don't really think that CBRT would even answer my question – not that they're a bad team – they were really very good – but it's two years after I had the report, two years after I “finished” with them, and more than two years since I've been on my own.

Like far too many other people, I live alone looking after myself with aphasia and dyspraxia (I don't personally know others who do that, but I'm sure they exist). The article from Maxine Frances Roper sounded very much like me. She said:

“Typically for a female, I was labelled odd rather than disruptive, and tried to hide my weaknesses and play to my strengths... Hero-worshipping other people was a way of taking the spotlight off my own weaknesses and winning approval.”

Roper succeeded in her own life with writing. Writing is my life. It has to work for me.

 

Animals or people in poverty?

I don't believe that any person is an “animal”. Many people I've read about have been called “animals”, yet people are not animals. Even – especially – politicians are worse than any animal could be. Cutting benefits isn't something that an animal would do – or could do.

Live Science said that “We lie, cheat and steal, carve ornamentations into our own bodies, stress out and kill ourselves, and of course kill others.” This behaviour isn't in comparison to animals, but according to Live Science it is compared with most animals. I don't know any animals who do any of this sort of thing other than killing others – that is their food, they have to kill it!

But animals don't have benefits which they can cut.

Live Science listed 10 of the “destructive human behaviours”:

1. We lie
2. We crave violence
3. We steal
4. We cheat
5. We cling to bad habits
6. We bully
7. We nip, tuck, plump and tattoo our bodies
8. We stress out
9. We gamble
10. We gossip

Out of those 10, for me there are only seven destructive behaviours: number 7 is your personal choice to get any of that done to you, number 8 isn't behavioural – it can be short-term, long-term or chronic – and number 10 is social (although it can be destructive if it is verbal bullying). I might write about those in the future. So let's go through the others.

People lie. Many do. Children tell wee lies when questioned by their parents. That is simply what they are learning. Older children tell small lies when they are questioned about something they shouldn't have done; that also is learning. Adults, young or old, tell lies when they are asked about a crime they might have been involved in, or when they make their own choices, or when they don't want people to know what's happening to them. Learning how to tell lies – or how not to - happens years before people really grow up; adults who lie haven't still learned.

Lies, when they are picked out, can cause a lot of grief. Adults should be aware of how lies can hurt your family, friends or workmates – and should care. Have a look through Dawson's Blog, How to Stop Lying, or through the Uncommon Help website for suggestions about how you can recognise these problems and, hopefully, fix them.

Politicians should learn how lying hurts too many of this population. Why do they do this? Maybe they just don't care.

People crave violence. This suggestion demonstrates how humans fight to live. The law relating to parents physically reprimanding their children changed somewhere in the last 50 years, saying that hitting your child is violence. Too many children I see these days who have had no reprimand and behave extremely bad, yet most people don't crave violence until too many changes have hit us.

ABS reports about violent assault which includes domestic violence, yet too many assaults are from a stranger. Australia doesn't have a “war” within our country, but politicians send soldiers overseas to fight someone else's war. Do they really need to? Do soldiers crave violence? Maybe we would all crave violence to fight to live – after all, it started with “Mad Max” in 1979... was that too early? Or too late?

Just stop cutting the benefits – very low benefit income will send too many people into crime and violence.

People steal. Do they do this in need, or for the thrill? Do children learn throughout their young age what stealing is? Do adults steal for fun? In Australia crime goes up when benefits go down. Be sure of that – it's not planned, it happens because benefits reduce. The reduction of the benefit has pushed people too far into poverty. If you can't eat, you would steal. I'm not just making that up; it happens. In Italy, apparently, it is not a crime, thankfully.

Why do Australian politicians keep making access to the benefits so much harder? Do they decide that crime is okay? They should start to really think about how and why people will steal. Stealing to eat is real. Stealing to sell something to live on that income is real.

People cheat. This is just what the politicians have blamed beneficiaries for. Apparently many of us aren't even eligible for a benefit. Maybe we don't get to job interviews. Maybe we don't really have a brain injury. Maybe we should work even when we have children to love, look after and support.

In May this year ScoMo provided cuts to far too many programs to “save money”, including reforming the “Work for the Dole” program (saves $494.2 million over four years from 2016-17), “ongoing administrative efficiencies” in the Department of Human Services (saves $80 million over four years), changes to the Medicare benefits (saves $56.5 million over four years), ceasing the Job Commitment Bonus from 31 December 2016 (saves $242.1 million over five years) and so much more. Saving?

Do you know what the NDIS is? It is a National Disability Insurance Scheme which has been supported by the government, yet to support this they have cut welfare benefits. By $27 billion. I have attended two meeting from NDIS in Brisbane, but I still don't understand how this organisation would help people. Why are we supporting this? The government is cheating us.

People cling to bad habits. Personally, I think this is because bad habits seem to work for us... until we actually find out otherwise. According to news.com.au, our bad habits have taken over in 25 years. For people my age, that makes sense. As a kid I lived a very good life. Then Maccas came along, followed by KFC, Burger King and so on. As a kid, later as a young adult, these things were treats, not “every day” food, yet by the change of the century the price worked for beneficiaries because they could afford this. Takeaways were starting to cost our health. Maybe Maccas et al should be taxed for the bad food preparation.

Smoking has been taxed... and taxed, and taxed, until it's too expensive. Why does the government charge people who do not smoke against the law? By increasing the percentage of young people who don't smoke (age 12-15, had never smoked, up from 53% to 77%) means that the adults who still do will always pay more tax. Why charge them that, if there is no real proof that smoking will kill you? I don't believe that smoking causes breast cancer, or prostate cancer, or dementia, or stroke, or brain tumours, or diabetics. Don't say that sort of stuff, because you can't prove it!

People bully. Very recently a young gay boy, Tyrone, killed himself. He had been bullied far, far too much at his school. I know other people who have tried or committed suicide because they have been bullied more than they can handle with it. Three weeks ago that happened to me.

The Australian Human Rights Commission wrote on their website:

“Bullying can happen anywhere. It can be in schools, at home, at work, in online social spaces, via text messaging or via email. It can be physical, verbal, emotional, and it also includes messages, public statements and behaviour online intended to cause distress or harm (also known as cyberbullying). But no matter what form bullying takes, the results can be the same: severe distress and pain for the person being bullied.”

According to the Bully Zero Australia Foundation, “[v]erbal bullying is the most common form of bullying in Australia”. Bullying is happening from politicians who seem to believe that heavy-handed or disgusting verbal treatment of people who are on a benefit will send those people to work, even though those politicians don't understand that there are not enough jobs.

People gamble. Have you played the machines in the local pub or RSL? Do you know why they are there? Or have you been to a casino – a large, glamorous casino with hundreds of machines, card tables and too much other stuff? There are 12 casinos in Australia, spread out between every state and the two territories. There are 974 RSLs throughout Australia, and more than 5,500 other pubs or clubs which carry pokie machines. When Gillard was the PM she introduced reforms to deal with the gambling addiction problems (115,000 were usually low-income people – figure that out), but that was dumped by the LNP and state governments which “introduced changes to make life easier for serious poker machine players”.

Why make life easier for serious poker machine players? Why include that sort of thing in pubs, clubs, casinos, RSLs? Why make it too easy for beneficiaries to get into those places, when they are desperately trying to get more funds than the government gives them?

Why not increase their payment, rather than cut it?

As I wrote this, I felt worse. Sicker, maybe. Politicians never take real attention of how people on a benefit will live. Or whether they will live. Poverty is unreal, but it is definitely happening here in Australia. Most people aren't bad; they simply don't have a choice when they are dumped from their previous employment. Most people on DSP should be on DSP, because disability isn't what they chose. Penalties for the unemployed are unfair; why are there too many “jobsearch” contractors who will always get paid for cutting the benefit to almost everyone they see? Why are the politicians cutting benefits? WHY are they cutting benefits?

Every politician should have to live on a benefit for four weeks when they are elected. No other assistance. Every politician needs to understand how people way down there in poverty – or so close to it – live. We did not ever choose poverty.

Politicians would never choose that either.

And real animals never have to.

What happens next??

I was born in 1956. The entire world only had a population of 2.8 billion. I had a wonderful childhood and lots of friends. It increased in 1961 to 3 billion, but it didn't bother me. I could work, both before I left school and when I left school. By that stage it had increased to more than 3.7 billion. By the time I got married it had increased to 4.5 billion, and by the time my marriage ended in 1991 it had gone up to 5.3 billion. Did I pay any attention? Nope.

My second husband and I moved to Australia in 2005, and the world population had increased to more than 6.5 billion. Within my 10 years here it had increased to 7.4 billion. Did I pay any attention? Yes, I did now.

Back in 1804 the global world population hit the first billion people. Maybe that would have been a great celebration! It didn't even increase to 2 billion until 1927, 123 years later... perhaps another celebration instead of the war that had finished very recently. The third billion, which I mentioned in my first paragraph, was 1961: 34 years. Recently it has run through its next billion every 12 years. If you don't know how quickly it increases, have a look at the UN Worldometers – that goes around far too fast but it shows how many people just pop into this world and are counted. (I personally think there's a whole heap of people who aren't even counted...) By 2020 the global population will be either just under or just over 8 billion.

To look at country populations, go to the UN page called “Population by country”. The first three in the world are China (1.382 billion), India (1.326 billion) and the USA (324 million). Where is Aus? Well, this country is number 53. We've only got 24 million – so why does Aus think they can take on world global FTAs? I'll get to that soon.

Donald Trump won an election in the USA in November this year. That has been protested against by many, many people from US who understand how badly Trump works/talks/appears/acts/cares. He's very little different from Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's PM who worries more about his own money than how people within the Australian workforce cope.

Very recently, within the last 3.5 years since LNP won the 2013 election, Australia has lost jobs, lost apprenticeships, buried too many construction workers, bombed in the deficit budget, cut funds from domestic violence, homelessness, medical issues and too many more. They've cut off the manufacture of Holden, stuck their middle finger up at the rest of the world against the climate change which so many sensible people think is essential, cut the tax paid by rich people so they can get richer, approved too much taxpayer funding within the coal area (look at the global smog caused by burning coal!) and walked away from the Reef destruction. They condemn unions but don't prosecute builders, they've increased politicians superannuation and 6-year service lifetime flights, funded private schools but not public schools, spent far, far too much on refurbishing offices in Canberra.

And this government just doesn't care about ordinary Australians.

Why has this government signed FTAs? In September 2015 the ninth round of negotiations with India took place; whilst there's no report on the final meeting, the trade with India has happened for a number of years, so why is an FTA needed? We've already traded with them – from $6.8 billion in FY2003-04 to $15.2 billion in 2013. What would we do with an FTA?

ChFTA with China was signed on 20 December 2015. The FTA refers to trading between Aus and China, yet any Aus company which only trades within Australia isn't included. Unfortunately, the FTA doesn't actually benefit the workforces since the government has spoken about cutting wages – and some people simply think of $2 a day (Gina Rinehart)! Maybe that won't (shouldn't) happen, but in some of the countries where Aus has FTAs, that sort of extremely low pay is already seen. More people being pushed into poverty?? Too many billions on this planet.

The US-Aus FTA is, according to DFAT, “a key pillar of the strong and multifaceted partnership between Australia and the United States.” That agreement came into being in 2015, again after the LNP was elected. This particular FTA refers mostly to investment rather than trade - “The United States is the most significant investor in Australia, accounting for 28.4 per cent (or $860.3 billion) of Australia’s total foreign investment stock as of December 2015.” That's also on the DFAT page. Why does this agreement get rid of tariff? Why do any country in this globe even charge tariffs? Or taxes or customs?

The use of tax, tariff, duty, VAT, GST, customs and whatever they're called elsewhere, seems to appear in almost every country. Have a look through the Wikipaedia pages for information, including a bit of history. There's too much for me to include it in here, but there's one thing which frustrates me: the use of a Border team – for instance, the Customs and Border Protection in the USA (started 1 March 2003, original Border Patrol dated back to 1924), Border Services Agency in Canada (started 12 December 2003 to replace 3 Canadian “legacy agencies”), and, in Australia, a very bad name – Border Force (started on 1 July 2015, previously the Customs and Border Protection Service started in 2009). It seems that wherever they're set up, they do similar to what the Australia Border Force does: seizure of goods, working out if the people weren't complying, and civil and criminal penalties against involved parties.

These sort of teams seem to have really started since the FTAs did. And do you agree with these “thug” teams? How about you build a wall, as identified by Quebec University expert Elisabeth Valle and reported in the UK Daily Mail back on 22 August 2015. There's apparently 65 in the process of being build now...

 

What do you think the population will be in 2020? Do you think it'll hit 8 billion? Do you think that governments which have set up FTAs, border teams and low pay will keep doing it? What would happen to the job seekers which governments call “dole bludgers”? What will happen to anything in any government budget which supports rich people and ignores absolutely needed people? Would anything in the politics of any country end up in a world war? Do you believe in what this government does, or what any government anywhere in the world will do? Why? Or why not?

What happens next??

Asbestosis

Many years ago, when I rode with Ulysses, I met one of the women who worked at James Hardie in Carole Park, Brisbane. She was only in the office and no doubt did not have asbestosis, but she knew about it. I didn't ask her why she chose to work there. I wish, now, that I had.

One of the gentlemen in our village died last night. He had asbestosis, but many people within the village didn't even know about that. I did. He'd shown me the documentation from his lawyer. He had a claim which wouldn't even have been paid yet. He was the second person I'd met with asbestosis, and both of them had the 'disease which does not have a cure'.

Asbestosis is described by Oxford Dictionary as “a lung disease resulting from the inhalation of asbestos particles, marked by severe fibrosis and a high risk of mesothelioma (cancer of the pleura).”

According to the Australian Asbestos Network, the problems with the milling and use of asbestos started in the 1880s when asbestos was firstly used in Australia, but Australian asbestosis court cases didn't begin until the 1960s. They grew throughout the 70s and 80s as more workers were discovered with asbestosis, and some had mesothelioma. The website gives details of many of these cases. I recommend you read and become aware of this disease.

In a case study, “James Hardie and Asbestos”, LawGovPol (a reference site for teachers and students) noted that James Hardie had been aware of the issues with asbestos in the 1960s, but didn't introduce warning signs which had to go on their products until 1978. They didn't stop production of asbestos products until 1987. The case study lists some people who were diagnosed with asbestosis, took James Hardie to court and won their compensation. One person, Bernie Banton, who got $800,000 compensation, had been described in a disgusting manner by Tony Abbott, then the Federal Health Minister, as 'a “gutless creep” whose motives were “not pure of heart” '. Banton died very soon after his court case. I'm certain that no-one else would have thought of him as a 'gutless creep'.

James Hardie's history page on their website only mentions asbestos twice – after 1951 they “built up a diverse portfolio of building and industrial products businesses including a wide range of asbestos-based products” and “[i]n the mid-1980’s, [they] pioneered the development of asbestos-free fibre cement technology”. It read like they were just discussing with potential shareholders.

The LawGovPol case study said: “In 2004 the NSW State government held an inquiry into the company’s actions. The inquiry found that having pocketed the profits from asbestos product sales, James Hardie had a responsibility to pay all compensation claims, which may total as much as $2.2 billion. James Hardie executives, union representatives and governments began negotiating a plan to fund future compensation claims. In 2007 the company agreed to provide an additional $1.55 billion over 40 years.” By 2015 ABC wrote in their article that “James Hardie's contribution to an asbestos victims' fund is expected to fall by a third, even as the company posted a 12 per cent rise in profit.” It seems that James Hardie doesn't feel shame.

I believe James Hardie should have made the involvement with asbestos and asbestosis public on their history page. James Hardie still exists in Carole Park, Brisbane, today. So sad that people who ended up with asbestosis are dying, and James Hardie never acknowledges them.

I'd met Dom 4 months ago, when I moved in to the village. He told me when we met that he had asbestosis. Very soon he had what I called a PTSD – because I didn't, at that stage, know about his bipolar. He spent a couple of weeks lying on his bed, each day, every day. When he finally got up he seemed fine except for his breathing. He spent a lot of time in a wheelchair. I did quite a bit of PC work for him because his hands, especially his right one, shook far too much. Too much medication, I thought. Last month he was taken up to PA hospital and was kept there for just over a week. When he came back I only saw him once. I thought he'd gone to his daughter's home to stay for a while. She'd come in a couple of times, I thought, to pick up some of his clothes.

Last night I saw the ambulance parked outside my unit and I had an uneasy thought that they were back here for Dom. I watched outside my window as they put him on their stretcher. I didn't want to go over there to see how he was – I could see heaps of little blue spots all over his chest which were wired up to the heart machine. They wheeled him off, put him in the ambulance and drove him away. That was the last I saw him. This evening I was told by another friend who had been told by someone else who....

Vale, Dom. I miss you.

Corporate philanthropy and SOHK

Do you know what corporate philanthropists are? According to a textbook I'm reading, they 'make gifts of money, goods, or time to help non profit organizations, groups, or individuals.' (Kotler et al) First I've ever heard of them, especially in Australia. This textbook has more than 874 pages, yet all I could find in there were some small articles on McDonalds, Nike and Google.

The pic on here is one of the quotes from my website page. That was published in one of my blogs before I ended up in hospital, and back then I'd had a good feeling about my future when I got my GradDipOHS. It vanished when I had my stroke, but often now I feel close to it.

As the administrator of the BASA Facebook page, last year for Brain Foundation I had done two applications to SunSuper 'Dreams for a Better World', with a video I'd produced. The first application was to the Open Round and the second was to the Health & People. We didn't get to the finals.

I had tried twice, through 2015 and 2016, to raise funds to get my own books published. The First Person Singular was advertised on the project website, Pozible, got funds and was published. I did two well-attended launches in the Redcliffe area. My second, Aneurysms with Aphorisms was also advertised on Pozible with another video I'd produced. I should have met with donations from the group BASA, but didn't, and as I ground my teeth and slid through depression again, I didn't know how I could have gotten any funds. That book is now available on pdf. For my third book, I wrote..., I decided not to even try for funds, because I don't know how to do the marketing which seems to be essential... and expensive. I'm on DSP, I can't afford it. It's available on pdf too.

This afternoon I googled “corporate philanthropy australia” and found a website for an organisation called Philanthropy Australia. Looking throughout their website was difficult, but what turned me off was going into the Fund Seeker page, looking for a list of the non-for-profit grant-makers, to be told that there is a fee of $165: 'The Essentials for Not-For-Profits subscription offers you almost $200.00 of value for only $165.00 '. For access to Directory of Funders, the cost is $99.

I went on to Our Community website. Looking on the Grants & Fundraising page (which says it's for non-for-profits but doesn't mention that it's not for individuals), I was taken to another website, Funding Centre. Clicking on Donations, a “Help” column was on the left hand side of the page. It kept mentioning groups. The next column was about “Training” - How to Win Grants and Influence People. Really?? Apparently you have to win your grant, and it would cost you $160 per person.

So I still didn't have any real explanation about what “philanthropy”, or corporate philanthropy, was in Australia. Funding Centre had a rather large panel which said “Get Donations”, and sent us onto Give Now. Get donations? Give now? Again, I was dismayed with how this was set up, but I clicked on the page called What's On just to see what they had throughout November. The week 19-27 November ad intrigued me. The ad was called Social Inclusion Week, something which I thought would work for me. I went into their website... and found that I'd just been into the page which spoke about the choir I have very recently joined – School of Hard Knocks!

I don't know what corporate philanthropy means, but now I understand what philanthropy means! According to Wikipaedia, it's the love of humanity. It means caring, nourishing, developing and enhancing what it means to be human. The SIW home page says: “Created by Dr Jonathon Welch AM, Social Inclusion Week aims to help ensure all Australians feel included and valued, giving everyone the opportunity to participate fully in society. It’s about connecting local communities, workmates, family and friends in order to build and strengthen relationships and networks, addressing isolation and exclusion by supporting people who may be unable to help themselves.”

Perhaps I shouldn't have become intrigued with some words I'd read in my textbook this afternoon. SOHK may not be corporate philantrophy, but, for me, it certainly means love of humanity. I need that.

Project Xan

 Leigh Sales' 7.30 show on Thursday night caught me as I was sitting at my PC. I'd previously listened to it rather than watching it, but when I saw Xan Fraser I had to stop typing on my PC and sit and watch and listen. This show was something I could relate to.

Rape.

Xan Fraser was raped in 1981 when she was 12. I didn't know anything about her until Thursday night, but I felt, during the 7.30 show, that she was so similar to me way back then. My rape had happened in 1973, 8 years before Xan was raped. She was 5 years younger than I had been when I was raped. After my own ordeal I had felt so much like Xan said she had felt, but I didn't get pregnant straight after that. I built a wall within my mind to forget about it. At the end of 2012, suffering PTSD, I wrote the website which is still online, www.itsokaytobeangry.com.

Watching the 7.30 report on Hellie Turner's project play was something which sent a shiver down my spine. This play is difficult. It tells women's rights, but also tells how young girls / young women / adult women don't have rights if a court will not find for them. Xan was a child. She did not have any adult ability to consent to what happened to her. The court found the three men guilty, but only gave them probation. Not jail. Let's go a step further... if she had been an adult then she would still not have consented when she was unconscious, so any man who did this to her when she was a child or when she was an adult must be found guilty and must be sent to jail.

My other blog, http://itsokaytobeangry.blogspot.com.au/, talks about rape, and this is where this blog should have been, but today I feel so angry about how rape is "forgiven", how too many women can't get justice, and how too many women can't get over what happened too many years ago. Like me. I chose to put the rape and the current play with Xan Fraser on this blog so that anyone who reads this - who might not ever read the other blog - understands what rape is, and why it is extremely wrong not to send a man who did this to jail. Read my last post on that other blog - it's entitled "Rape - against the law but it still happens".

This legal bullshit which lets a rapist off with no jail must be changed. Women have rights. Women should never be raped. Men should never think they can get away with this.

Well done, Xan Fraser and Hellie Turner. Such a good, such a sad play.