High Tide and Green Grass

Despite the title, this post has nothing to do with the 1966 Rolling Stones Compilation of the same name.
It’s about the transformational capacity of rain in the bush.
I’ve just come back from a few days’ work in the St George, Thallon, Dirranbandi area – cotton country. It rained after Christmas, and last week they had some really heavy downpours.
Prior to that, the Beardmore Dam (pictured) was at its lowest level in ten years, and things were looking grim for the irrigated cotton crop. Some farmers had sold out, and there didn’t seem to be any hope of a crop this year. Now they have enough water for two years and the place is humming.
Water is cascading over the spillway and will be for a few more days. This happens rarely, and I was lucky to be in town to see it.
There’s a whole new vibe in the town. Conversations in pubs and newsagents are invariably about the weather, but they have a cheerful cadence usually absent out here. Everybody swaps details of how much, when, and who got bogged. The vehicles have red/brown mud stains and great globs of dried mud litter the streets.
Car and tractor dealers are dreaming of sales and profits.
There’s a downside of course – there always is. Clouds of sandflies (midges) will make a meal of you if you’re not careful, and I have to be. I’m allergic to their bites and was hospitalized once with blood poisoning after 160 bites (I counted) scored on an ill-advised canoeing trip down the Black river near Townsville in the wet season.
I happily put up with the sandflies this trip.

Courage

Today I had the privilege of witnessing pure unadulterated courage.

I spent most of the day in the rehabilitation ward of the Royal Children’s’ Hospital with my brother and his twelve year-old son.

This lad had a medulloblastoma cerebral tumor removed on Anzac Day 2009, and after months of chemotherapy is now well enough to begin a period of intensive therapy to help him rehabilitate.

He is beginning to regain speech; his muscles, wasted after months of enforced inactivity are being made to work again, and he is setting off down the road of regaining maximum independence.

His absolute focus and dedication to the task is breathtaking. If determination and sheer dogged grit have anything to do with it, he will get there. It was an absolute privilege to witness the beginning of this journey.

The Undersong

"I heard the air, though not the undersong"

This quote comes from the poem “The Tomb of Lt John Learmonth, AIF.”
Apart from the fact that Manifold’s work is a brilliant piece of contemporary Australian writing, he also uses the term “undersong” in a very striking way.
“Undersong” refers to the subordinate and underlying meaning of a song or poem.

Examining the work of my fellow bloggers to detect their undersong would be an interesting exercise.

Let’s start with Boy on a Bike. His theme is cycling, but it isn’t difficult to detect that BOAB has a clear and defined view of how the world should work, and is less than chuffed when he observes situations that contradict this outlook. I put it down to the fact that he’s ex-military. A few years in uniform trains the mind (and the outlook) to admire good order and discipline, and that can’t be a bad thing, especially when you’re riding a bike through the congestion and chaos that’s called Sydney.

So BOAB’s undersong is about defying chaos and applauding order.

Somewhere in there is a major regard for family – but he hides it well.

Kev Gillett is also ex-military, but he acts more as a facilitator. He makes it possible for random spruikers like me to let off steam, and does so in an even-handed manner, although his own views are out there for all to see. Because he stands back and lets it all rip, Kev ends up with some very spirited (and entertaining) discussions. His capacity for organization and his concern for his 7RAR brethren also shine through.

His blog is one of the better organised examples of the genre in cyberspace.

Café-Grendel is all about Coffee. That’s a noble calling (being a Barista – just ask my youngest daughter) so it’s worth a visit if you’re into beverage appreciation. I am.

The undersong is difficult to detect, but I get the flavour (pun??) of a concern about disability support and ethical marketing in there somewhere.

With Kae (Bloodnut Blog), what you sees is what you gets, but I’m sure I can identify a frustrated political journalist. She doesn’t muck about when it comes to direct and clear use of words.

Cav, like me, came across from Telstra Bigblogs. It just took him a little longer to lose patience with that clunky setup.

His undersong, in my opinion is about cars, especially big Fords. He's also ex-infantry, and this comes through.

And so it goes.

But back to Manifold. He was an interesting bloke. He went to Geelong Grammar and Cambridge, can be called an ex-Communist, served in WW2, married a Pom and settled in Brisbane, and remains one of the few Australian war poets to be successfully published.

I like him because he was subversive in the sense that he was unafraid to have a go at national complacency. His work is gritty, and has an unmistakably Australian flavour. And he settled in Brisbane, the best part of this great state, with the possible exception of either Longreach or Herberton.

I'd like to live in Longreach in the dry and Herberton in the wet. In these parts, Winter and Summer are meaningless constructs.

Do yourself a favour and read “The Tomb of Lt John Learmonth AIF”. Preferably aloud. There is music in the language and the theme is uplifting.

No Australian home should be without a copy of the book illustrated.

Blot Wimps it (Again)

Andrew Bolt has squibbed it again. He posted an indignant piece about the media’s treatment of Lord Monkton, but isn’t happy to have his hypocrisy exposed.

He didn’t like the use of an unflattering image.

Fair enough – they did take the piss. Having said that, I found Bolt’s feigned outrage a bit hard to take when you consider the range of images he posted last year when he was objecting to people claiming Aboriginal heritage whom he considered not “black” enough. He’d scoured images to find fair-skinned Aboriginal people to make a point that that unless your skin is black, you don’t “deserve” to be considered indigenous.

In other words, it’s OK for Andrew to post a set of images reinforcing a stereotypical view of aboriginal identity, but it’s not OK for other media types to use stereotyping when dealing with Monkton.

When I pointed this out his moderators snipped it.

Note that my image is not the one used by Blot - just something scanned from the Courier Mail. I'll ignore the fact that it's not all that flattering. I did my best.....

From this, it can be deduced that Bolt expects a different set of rules to apply to him, different from those he applies to other members of the media. His arrogance is breathtaking.

He’s also not prepared to debate his position. That makes him a wimp as well as a hypocrite.

Monsoon in the West

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I headed westward again for the first time in 2010 to work in Roma and district.

I was looking forward to this trip for a number of reasons - one of them being that for the first time, my bride was accompanying me, and it was her reintroduction to paid employment after three years of “retirement”.
Jupiter Pluvius delivered a set of surprises.

The remains of Cyclone Olga blended with a front from the west, and they seem to have met up somewhere close to Roma.

We set out in two different vehicles. A new fleet car was mistakenly delivered to Warwick instead of Roma, and I was asked if I’d take it to Roma. The shiny bums in Q Fleet in Brisbane (or the distributors in Hyundai in Brisbane) obviously operate without benefit of a map, or a basic knowledge of geography. This was the first time I’d ever been asked to do this, and it meant we’d be travelling in different vehicles – not the best result.

My bride is not a confident long-distance driver, and the conditions were horrendous – B doubles carrying grain with about 300metres of spray following – but she came through with flying colours. Being one of eleven with five brothers probably prepares you for a range of challenges.

Once in Roma, conditions didn’t improve. We overcame the minor hassles of inside-out umbrellas, ankle-deep mud, and soggy files and equipment, and completed our school visits. We then attempted to drive back to the office to write reports and begin some follow-up.

The weather gods had other ideas. What started as a drive to the office ended up as a rescue operation. Bungil Creek had broken its banks, and the area where the fleet vehicles were parked was rapidly flooding. Because it’s possible to drive only one car at a time, all spare staff were rounded up to move the cars to higher ground. By this time the soil was so sodden that it had turned to mud. I discovered that Hyundai Santa Fes handle sticky mud much better than Holden Captivas. It’s got something to do with the way the traction control is programmed. Neither are genuine four wheel drives, despite the labels.

It rained most of the night, and my bride was unable to get to Injune, where she had work that morning. Apart from the fact that the road was dodgy, the school was severely disrupted as many of the teachers weren’t able to get to work because of rising creeks.

My second days work in town was much like the first, and by the time the day was through I had given up trying to stay dry, and my shoes were coming apart. In a funny way it reminded me of patrolling in Vietnam in the monsoon, where after a while you stopped caring whether you were wet or dry. The difference was that in Vietnam it didn’t matter how you looked – here it did. It’s difficult to give a good impression with hair plastered everywhere, and your shoes tied around your neck by their laces.

By Wednesday, the weather had lifted a bit, and we were able to return east via the Surat Development road (where we had work to do in schools along the way) without getting our feet wet.

As I write this, I am listening to local ABC describing further local flooding at Roma after another deluge overnight. There are minor evacuations and the SES is on the job.

I asked my bride whether she had enjoyed the trip. I had, after all, been explaining how hot and dry it was out west. She mumbled something about an “adventure”, but was smiling when she said it, so I guess she doesn’t think I’m completely barmy.

One of pics was taken in town - the other (the horses) much further west near Eromanga. I didn't take either of them - Roma office staff did and posted them for all to share.

I wasn't risking my camera in that lot.

Blot Gets Testy

I’ve been banned from Andrew Bolt’s website more often than I’ve had hot dinners, but either “banning” is temporary or he doesn’t have the resources to actually keep a record of those banned.
Given the drivel he posts, it would be a very long list.
Every now and again I get posted, and am usually abused roundly by his acolytes who obviously inhabit the feral end of the political spectrum. For these lost souls, Andrew says “jump” and you know the rest. Other references to the pre-ordering of excremental colour will be well understood by ex-soldiers.
It is amusing, and helps to pass the time.
Sometimes, some brave soul has a go at him, and occasionally – just occasionally, he responds. These responses are always shouty (bold) and often border on the apoplectic.
He doesn’t take well to disagreement – does our Andrew. His appearances on “Insiders” are characterized by the curling of the lip, aggressive body language, and frequent put-downs of the other panel members.
For your amusement see below. This is a sequential extract from a response by a brave soul called Naomi on one of Bolt’s (or is it Blot’s) rants about the stolen generation.
I’ve also included my post – which of course was snipped – but there’s a screen shot. Click on the image to enlarge.
The funniest part is how his spelling and grammar degenerates in the face of debate or disagreement. Or maybe the timing was significant. It was Saturday, and the typos could have had post-prandial origins.
Anyway – here it is. You won’t see it anywhere else.

Noami’s post –
The suggestion that no child was taken from a family who loved and wanted to protect him or her is an absolute denial of reality.
The only fraud I can see is that fact that you are called a journalist. I looked through a few of your previous columns where you have focused on Manne’s refusal to name ten names off the bat as an indication that ten children were not taken primarily because they were Aboriginal.
That he returned to you with some 250 names apparently was not considered. Instead, you appealed for help establishing that 12 of those cases were cases of neglect. Manne did not “fail” to answer you. He gave you a considered response which you basically ignored.
This is only one instance of your inability to engage in a discussion about the Stolen Generation in an informed and considered way. Your refusal to engage with the evidence before you on a meaningful level is not only blinding you to the fact of what occurred, but is patronising to your readers.
Just another thing - the idea that the “myth” of the Stolen Generation has left Child Protection workers reluctant to take away Aboriginal children away for legitimate reasons does not sit well with the fact that Aboriginal children in Victoria at 13.5 times as likely to be in out-of-home care if they come to the attention of Child Protection [Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, January 2010, p 46]
If I had the slightest inkling that you would actually like to engage in this debate, without childish arguments or a desire to actually debate, it would be worthwhile to systematically demonstrate every point at which you can be contradicted with evidence.
Naomi (Reply)
Sat 30 Jan 10 (01:54pm)

Bolt’s shouty reply – (Note the spelling/typos) -
Your first sentence is completely false. I say and suggest no such thing. Your second is just silly abuse. Your fourth is false - I’ve dealt with that several times, pointing out the list comprises children deemed by a court to have been neglected, children who’d been found sexually abused or suffering from sexually trams,itted diseases, and children who’d actually been evacuated (often with their parents) from the Northern Territory during the World War Two air attacks by Japan and had been later returned. Your fifth and sixth sentences are false, as are mopst of the rest. (In fact, I’ve quoted instances where children were left in dangerous - and somethings lethal - danger specifically because of fears of repeating the “stolen generation. The cases include the notorious one of a raped girl at Aurukun removed from her white foster parents by social workers citing the “stolen generations” and returned to her town, where she was pack-raped again.)
Please do me the courtesty, and truth the respect, of checking my claims before immediately assuming they are false.
If you really think Manne has provided as many as 250 of the names of children stolen just because they were black, please just give me just 10 of the names you think best contradict me. Just 10.
If you cannot, will you return and apologise?
Andrew Bolt
Sat 30 Jan 10 (03:34pm)

My censored comment (See the screenshot).

Naomi
Not only does Bolt demonstrate an inability to engage in debate on this issue - he censors anyone who disagrees with him, with a few exceptions (such as yours), which provide him with an opportunity to vilify.
The "Show me 10" argument is a complete red herring, as he knows that publicly naming anyone removed is legally perilous.
The scary part is that given the fact that he often loses it (in terms of spelling or keyboarding)
- trams,itted
do me the courtesty
somethings dangerous
these responses are obviously the product of indignant anger.
How dare anyone disagree with Andrew?
Cour-testy indeed!

Update
I posted another comment - see screen shot (censored of course). Naomi may enjoy it if she reads it. Meanwhile my post has attracted a vaguely piratical comment from someone called whitlam (lower case). Not censored - of course.

If you can't be bothered enlarging the screen shot, my comment reads -
Naomi
This won't of course be posted, but I can capture the screen shot for my blog - where it will be. I admire your courage, just as I deplore Bolt's cowardice and reluctance to engage on this issue. This person wouldn't recognise journalism if it jumped up and bit him on the bum.
And he still hasn't fixed his typos.
It must have been a long lunch.....

Possum Magic and Accommodation

I don’t usually use this site as a rental agency, but one of my sons needs to sort his accommodation hassles pretty soon.

Two people out of four he’s been sharing with have taken up out-of-Brisbane job offers at short notice, and left him and another guy with a lease on a house. The two of them (both twenties – both students) are looking for two others (of either gender) to share a four-bedroom house in Buranda in a quiet street near the PA hospital.

It’s a two-up two-down situation, (bedrooms that is) with a deck out the back and great access to bus and train. Fridge etc is already there. The deck is good for barbies.

Neither are smokers nor have vices that would make sharing accommodation problematical, unless computer gaming (with benefit of earphones so as not to disturb the neighbours) is an issue. Both are studying multimedia. They’re both pretty nerdy actually.

Rent is $220 per fortnight, with electricity and internet not included.

There is garage space for one car.

Pictured is another tenant – the resident possum.

He camps during the day in a space downstairs at the back of the house and doesn’t carouse at night – seriously. I’ve stayed there a few times and slept soundly, without a peep from the possum. Except for his tail being visible in the daylight, you wouldn’t know he was there.

If any Brisbane readers are interested or know anyone who might be, email me on 1735099@gmail.com and I’ll relay details to son.