Of Unknown Origin

I won't tell you where this came from, but it had to be posted.

It is beautiful in its ugliness.

For the full effect, click on the pic.

WARNING - Don't stare at it too long.

The consequences could be dire, and I am in no way responsible.........

Poor Petal

 
Indeed, the Blot has a glass jaw.

He posted a critique of Katter's homophobic ad yesterday, and has been roundly trashed for it by some of the cross-eyed extremists that inhabit his blog.

He also saw fit to censor a comment of mine reminding him that the raison d’être of his website is the politics of fear and loathing - always has been.

For someone with such a rampant ego, he exhibits a fair whack of insecurity.

Poor petal.....

Toowoomba

Toowoomba’s a funny place.

It’s not a bad place to live – cheapest fuel in the country – agreeable climate (except for the week or two when the Westerlies blow) – lots of schools etc.

It is however, a hard place to move to.

What I mean by that tortured piece of prose is that if you move here from somewhere else – anywhere else, it takes a long time to be accepted.

I lived that when we moved here from Mt Isa in 1996. After living in North Queensland for a long time, where newcomers were always welcome, the narrow provincialism of Toowoomba came as a shock.

We’ve been here for sixteen years now, and I can’t walk down the street without being greeted by every second person. We’re still not “local” of course – that takes thirty years.

Nowhere is this provincialism reflected more clearly than in the local rag.

The background to this story relates to the very real possibility that Campbell Newman won’t win Ashgrove at the state election, but the LNP may win government.

Should this be the case, there is speculation that he would be parachuted into a safe seat. One of those seats is Toowoomba South, hence the Chronicle’s headline.

That headline reflects Toowoomba attitudes accurately.

Incidentally, I wouldn’t attempt to call the election results. Queensland is different.

All I would say is that you should expect a surprise, and don’t write Katter off.

He’s crazy in the same way a fox is crazy.

Of Parents and Kids

Working with children with the combination of intellectual impairments and physical impairments is enormously challenging for teachers.

For teachers, however, the challenge operates between 9am and 3pm. The remaining seventeen hours of the day are the parents’ responsibility.

Parenting these kids must be (to put it mildly) a challenge - there is so much more involved.

There are all the sleepless nights.

For most parents, this persists for a while, until baby learns to sleep through. For our four, it didn’t seem to take very long, with the exception of one recalcitrant who lulled us into a false sense of security by sleeping nights after six months, only to break out again with 2am wailing after two more months went by.

His behaviour resembled nothing so much as a series of carefully constructed nocturnal ambushes.

We survived.

Understand, for a moment, the exhaustion brought on by never sleeping through the night, always having to change a soiled nappy, and never being able to phone a regular baby sitter so you and your spouse can enjoy a meal at a restaurant or a show.

Think about the words “never” and “always”.

A routine visit to the barber, or for that matter, your GP, can become an event that requires careful planning, and perhaps (if the child is autistic) some coaching beforehand, in the interests of avoiding a meltdown.

All of this came back to me the other day whilst chatting to a parent who has two kids with major impairments. One is hyperactive, and charges around like the proverbial bee in a bottle, leaving a trail of minor destruction behind. The other is a very large child, who doesn’t move around because of a physical impairment, but has lots of obsessional behaviours.

Managing the two of them at once must be trying to say the least. I was asked to come up with a management strategy for the younger one, with a view to removing some of the obsessional behaviours.

What appeared to me was more of an issue, was this child’s tendency to “flop” whenever she was asked to do something she didn’t want to at the time. What was disturbing for me was the understanding of where this behaviour was heading gleaned through working with a child with the same disability years ago.

 This child from the past was much older and much heavier and over the years had used her physicality to “train” school staff to allow her to get her own way.

I had seen the end result of this chaining of behaviour. I didn’t want to see it again.

It was fraught with danger (risk of injury to both staff and student) and wasn’t going anywhere. I could see this result as an inevitability for the younger child after years of conditioning and unwitting reinforcement. The disability is very rare, and I guess most people see only one such child in a lifetime. Suddenly 40+ years of experience was handy.

Because this child was expected to complete a series of activities in sequence, staff felt obliged to make her follow this sequence, and the whole thing was degenerating into a clash of wills which was stressing and exhausting all participants.

What I decided to do was to list the activities, have the resources ready for each one, and let the sequence become far less important than actually completing them. As each activity was completed it would be marked off. At the end of the day, we’d see how much had been achieved.

This was what was written up as the management plan, and was what the staff were trained to follow.

In the end, once the pressure of sequence was removed, the programme began to work. Generally, the child was happy to complete all the activities, so long as she had some control over when they were done.

Simple stuff, really, and an application of common sense, but it made a big difference.

I’m sure parents use these kinds of common sensed strategies simply to survive.

I’m equally sure they don’t have to write management plans.

Pandering to Cliché

The final section of the official history of the Australian war in Vietnam Fighting to the Finish: the Australian Army and the Vietnam War, 1968-1975 will be launched by Peter Cosgrove on Tuesday.

Now if you were the editor of our national broadsheet writing about this, what do you reckon you’d report?

You could, for instance, write about the dogged efficiency with which the task force went about securing Phouc Tuy province, and how the success of the counter-insurgency tactics employed overwhelmed the local force VC units to the point where they avoided contact with Australians at all costs.

You could have described how a set of regular and conscripted soldiers were welded into a seamless fighting force that earned the respect of both allies and enemy.

You could have written about some of the notable actions that occurred during this period (68-71) including Operation Coburg (24 January − 1 March 1968), Coral–Balmoral (12 May – 6 June 1968), Binh Ba (6–8 June 1969), Long Khanh (6–7 June 1971), and Nui Le (21 September 1971).

Well no.

Cameron Stewart writing in The Australian on March 03, 2012 decided that an account of alcohol abuse by diggers entitled Vietnam War soldiers found 'solace in binge drinking' would be much more apposite.

I guess it panders to the stereotype of the Vietnam Vet as an alcoholic loser.

No wonder it’s called The Fart of the Nation.

I wonder where the figures of “equivalent of five to six cans per day for every soldier in the force” came from.

And I wonder who drank mine…….

A Toowoomba Curiosity

Southern Cross SC-1 Prototype

I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard of Southern Cross windmills.

These iconic products were manufactured at the Toowoomba Foundry during its glory days. They’re everywhere, and were responsible to a large extent for the survival of the business during tough times.

You’re probably less familiar with the Southern Cross SC-1, which is in fact an aircraft.

I’m not talking about Smithy’s redoubtable Fokker Tri-Motor of Trans Pacific fame, but a much smaller and prettier aircraft manufactured in Toowoomba in 1961.

Another view

Back then, quite a few companies (including Victa of lawn mower fame) tested the waters around the manufacture of a locally made light aircraft. The only project that really got off the ground back then was the Victa Airtourer.

Here in sleepy old Toowoomba, however, someone had a crack.

Unfortunately it came to nothing – the Southern Cross board wimped it.

The only reminder is the prototype displayed at the Oakey Museum of Australian Army Flying. Given the appearance of the prototype, it’s a pity it didn’t proceed. Apparently it had great flying characteristics.

Blurb at the display

It’s a beautiful piece of kit, and can be seen at the museum.

Take a look at it if you’re in Toowoomba. Jellybeans in the Jungle's on sale there too, of course.

Fact Vs Fiction

The Daily Telegraph's beat-up lies about asylum seekers in community detention got a run in the national media.

It's only fair then, that the truth of the matter should also get a run. That's why I'm posting this press release from the National Refugee Council of Australia:

 The Daily Telegraph Wrong About Asylum Seekers

The claim by Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph that asylum seekers are receiving furniture welcome packs worth up to $10,000 is untrue, the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) says. RCOA chief executive officer Paul Power said people looking to The Daily Telegraph for information were being misled by a classic beat-up in the tradition of the paper’s disgraced former UK stablemate, the News of the World.

“The simple fact of the matter is that some asylum seekers are being detained in furnished houses, as an alternative to locking up children and their families for months or years in secure detention centres,” Mr Power said.

“It is simply untrue to suggest, as The Daily Telegraph has done, that the asylum seekers ‘receive’ the furnishings in the houses where they are being detained, as these furnishings remain in the place of detention when the families are moved out when their detention ends.

“Australia’s community detention system began under the Howard Government in 2005, as a response to community outrage about the indefinite detention of asylum seeker children. This article is tabloid journalism at its worst, with what appears in print bearing little resemblance to reality. Readers of The Daily Telegraph should feel angry that they are being deceived.”

Mr Power said RCOA had long advocated for the end of indefinite mandatory detention, which was a very expensive and extremely damaging approach that was not adopted in any OECD country.

“While community detention is more costly than conditional release into the community, it is far cheaper alternative than leaving asylum seekers locked up in detention centres.

“In 2010-11, keeping asylum seekers locked up in detention centres cost $772 million, an average of $137,317 per detainee.”

Mr Power said the public debate on refugee and asylum seeker policy continued to ignore the reasons why asylum seekers turned to Australia for protection.

“We’re talking about people who have fled tragedy and horror who through no fault of their own happened to live in war zones or countries terrorised by the Taliban.

“Some of us can never comprehend the pain they have endured, of seeing loved ones killed and tortured or the despair of family separation.”

Mr Power said asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat in search of a level of protection that simply did not exist in their own country or in other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Very few countries in our region are signatories to the Refugee Convention. Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand do not extend legal protections to asylum seekers and refugees. Refugees and asylum seekers who work illegally in Asia to support themselves face the risk of arrest and in some instances caning. Faced with no work rights and no schools to send their children, what are the choices? If countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand can offer legal protection for refugees and asylum seekers, they won’t be forced to undertake dangerous boat journeys to Australia.”

“That is why Australia must continue to engage and encourage countries in our region to bolster protections for refugees and asylum seekers.”