Oh No - Not Coathangers!

Much of the outrage media is best ignored, but this demands a response.

Reading the bigoted responses of many posting on the Shockjock blogosphere reminds me of the sound track of "Til Death Us Do Part".

If the silly buggers took a deep breath and had a quiet logical thought (unlikely of course) they'd quickly realise that community detention is a great deal cheaper than banging asylum seekers up in godforsaken compounds offshore - but the outrage media has never let the facts get in the way of a good tantrum.

The piece of cartoon above is probably the best response, but Crikey (where the pic originates) puts it well.

More Likely?

My son posted this on Facebook.

I don't know where he found it, but it makes a great deal of sense.

National Anthem

 

I don't know about you, but after years of singing "Advance Australia Fair", usually with school kids, I'm finding that it eventually begins to resemble a dirge, rather than an anthem.

Without casting scorn on the sentiments contained in its words, the tune, let's face it, is nothing to write home about.

Have a look at this. I don't care much for Adam Hills, but the treatment of the song - well it works, sort of.

To be frank, I would always have preferred "I Am Australian".

Then, of course, there's always this. They're obviously enjoying it -

Coming Down to Earth

This report, about a wheels-up landing that caused chaos at Brisbane airport last night reminded me of an incident I observed when we lived in Townsville during the late eighties.

I had taken my sons (then aged 8 and 10) to an air show at Clare, near Ayr.

We arrived early and had plenty of time to watch aircraft arriving to participate. There was a great PA announcer who described - in amazing detail - the type and origin of every aircraft as it arrived. He announced the names of all the pilots and their point of departure as they were on short finals.

For one unfortunate participant who had flown in from PNG in a Piper lance, this level of detail later became unwelcome.

We watched him come in making a perfect approach after what had been a long flight. The aircraft had  retractable undercarriage. It was retracted, and remained so until the point at which it touched down on the grass strip, whereupon the whole aircraft disappeared in a cloud of dust and small stones.

The motor stopped quickly, as did the forward motion of the aircraft, and everything went very quiet for a second or two. Some wags in the audience applauded. The three people aboard were then seen to evacuate the ship very quickly indeed.

This incident stuffed up the organisation no end, as it took a couple of hours to make the situation safe and remove the by now second hand looking Piper from the strip.

I don't know if the pilot ever lived it down.

My sons were sure the whole thing had been laid on for their amusement.

The video has nothing to do with this incident, but the cloud of dust at the end is not dissimilar.

Blackhawks in Roma

Blackhawks in Bassett Park (Roma) on flood duty - I took this on Tuesday on my way back from Injune

It's been a tough week for folk living in Mitchell, Roma and St George.
I had been scheduled to do a sweep through Roma and St George this week, and then to head West to Charleville. Very little of this has been possible. The best I could do was to work out of Roma for a day or two. the motel I'd been originally booked into still has all its furniture in the street waiting to be dumped.

 For me, this is a planning inconvenience. For many of the people with whom I've worked for the last five years in these areas, these floods are life-changing.

Mitchell Spa in better times

Mitchell was always a pretty little township on the way to Charleville, although I haven't worked in either of the schools there for quite a few years. The best pies in the South West were available in the Mitchell Bakery.
Not any more. The bakery is a stinking mess. The insurance isn't paying, and damage (as far as it can be calculated) is over $400000. The owner (it's a family business) is talking about walking away.
The water came up so fast that many people in Mitchell were lucky to get out with their lives. Three quarters of the houses in town were inundated. Most of the main street went under, and the only place you can get a feed in town at the moment is at the one pub that stayed dry.

It looked threatening - near Yuleba

About the same number of homes were flooded in Roma as Mitchell, but Roma's a much bigger town, and there were large areas dry, so immediate help was at hand. In that sense, Roma was slightly better off, but they still copped it. One woman (whom I had met through my work) was drowned here when her vehicle was washed off a causeway. This has hit the place hard, as in a town this size; everybody knew her and her family.
The rain was unprecedented this far west. The influence that caused it had all the characteristics of a coastal low - but it lingered three hundred Kms west of where these things are usually found. It stayed for days, and the countryside, already waterlogged after three major wets in a row, couldn’t absorb the volume of water.
The rivers run north-south, and the Maranoa, the Warrego and the Balonne, all combine and eventually flow into the Darling. Every town on each watercourse (Mitchell on the Maranoa, Charleville and Cunnamulla on the Warrego, and St George on the Balonne), was threatened.

Then down it came

Through history these rivers have shaped these townships, and in this flood, almost destroyed them. Charleville’s levy saved it with centimetres to spare, and two thousand St George residents were compulsorily evacuated, with the Balonne topping out today – almost a week after the rain event, with practically no margin of safety. It looks as if people will be allowed back in tomorrow.

The rivers run north-south

Dirranbandi (also on the Balonne) has a good levy, but it looks like it will be isolated for at least two weeks. I won’t be going to Thargomindah. It’s accessible only from South Australia, and likely to be cut off for a month.
Many people on properties will be stuck for months. They generally plan for this, and are, as a rule, happy to put up with the inconvenience with the knowledge that there will be good feed around for a while. Cotton farmers aren’t so sanguine, as their crop is ruined if it rains at the wrong time. I’ve heard, however, that much of the cotton had been harvested.
So know the cleanup begins. 6RAR were trucked into Mitchell today and are already hard at work. They’ll move on to Roma, once they’ve done with Mitchell.
Everything out this way happens on a large scale – droughts, floods and generosity. Despite everything that’s happened in the last week or two, I wouldn’t work anywhere else.

In time, the Blackhawks will leave, 6RAR will return to Enoggera, and you will be able to buy pies at Mitchell. It takes more than a flood or two to set these people back.

Beaut Ute

My kids are always shifting house.

Sometimes I think that it’s just a ritual demonstration of continuing dependency. Whatever – possession of a Ute is a powerful advantage when it comes to shifting.

I don’t, of course (own a Ute – that is). When I was making decisions about what form of transport I’d require for retirement, I thought leisure and pleasure, not shifting sprogs.

A roadster is not terribly useful at times like these.

So, there have been a number of occasions when I’ve needed a Ute. Once or twice, I hired a Japanese one-tonner (Toyota Hi-Ace or some such). Each time it did the job, but didn’t feel right.

The steering was numb, the ride woeful (especially when empty) and it always seemed to be working hard. It also had a fly-off handbrake.

Now fly-off handbrakes were invented by the Brits. They are one of the few things the Brits invented that the Japanese didn’t improve.

In fact, they made the stupid things worse – if that’s possible.

My brother-in-law has a BA Falcon Ute (pictured). He bought it at a government auction. The BA is familiar territory to me, having owned (or rather leased) an SR version a few years ago. I’ve since disposed of it, but the memory (fond) lingers.

BIL’s Ute pulls like a train, is comfortable, comes free (although I always return it with a full tank of juice, and a bottle of plonk), and is comfortable and easy to drive.

It doesn’t have a fly-off handbrake.

Now if I can persuade one of said sprogs to buy a Ute, I could, in a manner of speaking, have my cake and eat it too.

Thoughts on the Millennials

They're a different breed

It’s great to be back in harness again.

Last week I worked in a rural “High School Top”. These schools are generally large primary schools in townships lacking the population to warrant a separate secondary department.

Usually, they work well with the primary section of the school, as there are resources available (such as science labs and home economics facilities) over and above primary schools.

I have two students on my caseload at this school, one of whom uses crutches to get around. The school is typical of many in the Queensland bush – built on concrete stumps with elevated walkways linking the various blocks.

A few years ago, a lift was installed which gives this student (and any others who might turn up in wheelchairs) access to the upper floor classrooms.

Unfortunately, this particular student’s home classroom is separated from the lift (and the rest of the school) by a small flight of stairs – three steps in all. This student has to negotiate them, and can do so because they have handrails each side, but there is a risk in this that has to be managed. The student is ataxic, which means that she has a fair bit of difficulty establishing stability relying only on her crutches.

Her Physio has shown her a method which involves her giving the crutches to another student to hold whilst she goes up and down the stairs using the handrails. When I took her through the process the other day, accompanied by a couple of her good friends, I was given a lot of advice by one of them.

This was interesting, and is indicative of the self-confidence exhibited by youngsters these days. I actually found it useful, as this kid was smart, and she had lots of good ideas. She was careful how she put them forward, usually prefacing her suggestions with “I’m not a professional, but……”

One piece of advice I rejected was that her friend with a disability use the handrails only when going down the stairs, as falling up the stairs was less dangerous than falling down. I guess when you’re eleven years old; the whole W H & S regime is a foreign country.

it’s very real, and litigation often follows any student injury at school.

These kids look after each other very well, and it’s a credit to their maturity and the way they’re managed at school. I hope they carry these attitudes on into adulthood.