Senior Driving

 

What the stats say. Pic courtesy of ABC news.

A recent tragedy in Victoria has highlighted the issue of senior drivers and safety.

This is personally relevant, gentle reader, as at age 75+ I need an annual review of my licence. In my case, my GP demands a optometric assessment. This doesn't bother me, and I reckon he's simply being thorough.

He is, or should be, expert on my general health as it relates to driving. He's been my GP for about thirty years.

I first rock up to my optometrist who provides a through assessment (including skills relevant to driving such as state of visual perception). Armed with that, I head to the GP who checks me out for muscle power, coordination, cognitive function (including attention, comprehension and reaction time). He is in the best position to compare any decline in functionality because he's been observing me for thirty years.

He then issues me with a signed chit which I laminate and carry in my car. Interestingly, my state issued driver's licence, both plastic and digital, carries no reference to this. I guess that's because my age is obvious, and my date of birth is on the licence.

It seems strange to me that Victoria doesn't follow this process. Perhaps that's under review.

To be honest, I'd have no objection to compulsory testing once a driver is 75. The medical assessments don't necessarily translate to the real world behind the wheel.

I've done, over the years, three different training programmes. The first was to make sure I was up to the task of training teachers to drive the various
Toyota Coasters my schools ran, and the other two were sessions in Mount Isa and Toowoomba respectively dealing with driving in the outback.  

Coaster

At age 78 I'm still learning, although much of that is about mastering the various driver assistance technologies installed in modern cars. To be frank, I'm not sure that they help. Touch screens really should be outlawed in favour of buttons.

Once you have learned where the buttons are, you don't have to take your eyes off the road to activate them. Touch screens - not so much....

Quarantining Care

 

Pic courtesy UQ research.

Disgust and outrage as a response to reports of child abuse in day care centres is completely understandable.

It is also justified, but I strongly doubt that the disgust and outrage will, in the long run, make any difference.

A possible royal commission is offered as a solution, and tightened regulation and enhanced supervision will no doubt result from this tragic set of circumstances.

Unfortunately these measures can be dismissed as knee jerk responses, and they follow whenever a vulnerable section of the community is abused. This holds for seniors, people with disabilities, unemployed people and refugees.

The NDIS is a novel institutional response which has tried to put one specific minority in a position if power when it comes to decisions about quality of life, but it has its own failings. Unscrupulous individuals have used it to fill their pockets.

Frankly, I don't see much difference between fraudulently cashing in on a scheme like NDIS, and paying child care centres taxpayers' money through the CCS scheme.

There is a fundamental flaw in taxpayers' money being paid to parents and caregivers for a service which in Australia in 2024 is simply essential.

Forty years of experience in special schools, where the most vulnerable children are supported, taught me that child protection is fundamental. This was in a publicly funded organisation where the motive was learning, not earning. As soon as an organisation supporting the vulnerable is run for profit, it creates the risk of putting that profit ahead of care. Care and protection are simply incompatible with making money.

This very simple proposition ought to be obvious, but given the history, it clearly isn't.

Any organisation created to care for children cannot safely be used as an earner. After all, profit depends on minimising costs and often cutting corners.When Child Care organisations become investment vehicles, it becomes obvious where the priorities lie.

There is one very simple solution. We need legislation that outlaws care for profit. If we haven't learned that from the tragedies that have dogged aged care and child care, we never will.

The child care industry should be nationalised. That is the only sure way of quarantining it from the profiteers.

The Follies Revisited

 

Pic courtesy Political dictionary

Those of you, gentle reader, who are of an age that remembers the war in Vietnam, will recall the Five O'Clock Follies.

This was a daily press briefing that was given by the US military in Saigon (most often at the Rex Hotel) providing a consistent narrative of success in the conflict.

We all remember how that worked out.

I've always believed that Americans, whilst members of a supposedly well educated community, have  a blind spot when it comes to understanding history. 

This blind spot, when coupled with what is called American exceptionalism and nationalistic fervour,  distorts their appreciation and understanding of historical fact to the point where very little of what is officially published is credible.

One of the clearest examples of this was reporting during the Follies of the destruction of the Ho Chi Minh trail. Certainly, the trail (basically a series of dirt tracks) was bombed incessantly, but what was destroyed were a series of these tracks. The VC simply created a new detour, often in hours or days, and the flow of armaments and personnel would resume.

The more primitive the infrastructure, the easier it was to rebuild it. Eventually the American public saw through the notion that "destruction" was temporary rather than permanent, and along with the shock of the 1968 Tet Offensive, they withdrew whatever support they had for the war.

I'd be very surprised if the long term outcome of the attacks on Iran will be any different. 

Elsewhere

 

The media/political/international relations scene is depressingly chaotic.

With that in mind, I'm confining my blogging to more cheerful content until things settle down - if they ever do.

Start here.

History Rhyming in Images

 

Los Angeles 2025

This post, gentle reader, is a montage of images.

Half were photographs taken in Europe during the second world war.

Auschwitz 1944

The other half were taken in Los Angeles during the last couple of days.

Los Angeles 2025

They're posted without comment, except to point out that in each case one minority group was targeted by government.

Berlin 1943

Warsaw 1942

Los Angeles 2025

During World War Two those targeted were Jews.           

During the last few days, the people targeted are undocumented immigrants.

You can come to your own conclusions.....

Malice or Bitterness?

Pic courtesy CAWA

No doubt, gentle reader, you came across the reporting of shouts of abuse directed at a Welcome to Country introducing this year's Anzac Day dawn service at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance, and at a similar ceremony at King's Park in Perth.

It seems that there was a degree of organisation behind the Melbourne disruption, but the Perth incident was not planned.

Cries of outrage were heard from a range of sources, both directed towards the disruptions, and the place of Welcome to Country rituals at Anzac Day commemorations generally. Ex-service community social media networks lit up, again displaying strong feelings and abysmal ignorance.

The controversy highlights currents of malicious chauvinism that have simmered below the surface in this country for at least a century.  

The first of these currents relates to Anzac Day. The day is simply a commemoration after all. It is not a celebration of national pride, or a glorification of the warrior class - whatever that is. The men who died are not honoured by the screams of outrage directed at the inclusion of Welcome to Country ceremonies. Their memory is demeaned by it.

Anzac Day belongs to the whole nation, and is essentially an inclusive tradition. Welcoming attendees to a dawn service is simply a manifestation of this.  

The ignorance revealed by objections to all Welcome to Country ceremonies, not just those on Anzac Day, is another issue entirely. In the first place, given that indigenous Australians comprised over five hundred  distinct clan groups, welcoming people to country occupied historically by that clan by an elder is an entirely authentic process.

 "Country" does not refer to Australia in this context, something entirely ignored by those who mistakenly believe they are being welcomed to 2025 Australia. Various ex-service organisations made a virtue of declaring that nobody had the right to welcome them to the country they had fought for, completely forgetting that none of these clans have ever claimed to represent the whole country.

Then there are those who take offence because the elders who conduct the ceremonies are usually paid for the privilege. I find that strange, given that one of the hallmarks of a successful capitalist community is its willingness to pay for ritualistic expressions of symbolism. 

It matters not whether putting money into a collection plate at a church service or paying for admission to a football match is payment for witnessing a form of social ritual, these practices are very much part of contemporary mores and have been for a long time.

Frankly, I believe that anyone who would object to a gesture of welcome has been very poorly brought up. As my mother would have said if she had been alive to witness these objections - "They need to grow up!"

  

Karma and the Voice

 

Image courtesy Om Swami

Karma (as it appears in the AI overview in my Google search) is defined as "the ultimate consequences of an earlier action. Essentially, good karma leads to positive outcomes, whilst bad karma leads to negative ones".

The Coalition had a dose of bad Karma on May 3rd, and I'll attempt a quick analysis which I reckon informs the result. I'm no political commentator, but there are patterns in the results that are pretty obvious.

Peter Dutton used the Voice referendum as a wedge to both unite his party with the Nationals, and discredit the ALP. In both those strategies, he was successful, and plenty of pundits forecast that his negative campaigning leading up to the referendum would be poisonous when the country next went to the polls.

So let's see if there's any truth to that notion.

Here's a list of seats that the Coalition lost to Labor -

Banks; Bonner; Leichhardt; Sturt; Bass; Braddon; Deakin; Menzies and Moore.

Quite a few of these seats recorded a better than 40% "Yes" vote in the Voice referendum. Here they are -

Bonner; Sturt; Deakin and Menzies.

Then we should take a look at the so-called Teal seats and other Independents recording better than 40% "Yes" in the referendum -

MacKellar; Warringah; Kooyong; Ryan; Curtin and Clark.

In fact, all of these seats with the exception of Fowler, Indi, and Kennedy, recorded a majority "Yes" vote.

The fact of the matter is that the strong swing recorded against the Coalition on May 3rd was led by voters who supported the Voice. The evidence is clear when you look at the electorates Labor won and the Independents held.

It's completely likely that they carried their disgust about Dutton's campaign to the ballot box.

What goes round comes round..... 

Update -

The Coalition has broken.

Remember how Dutton followed Littleproud in kicking Blackfellas.

More Karma?