Happy Invasion day Australia!
Hopefully by this time next year we will have acknowledged
our Nation's first peoples, said sorry, awarded compensation
to the Stolen Generation, put full Medical, Dental care in
place, created more schools and appointed more teachers,
built more homes, provided more running water and electricity
given more jobs, supported more mothers and lifted the pride
and life expectancy of these wonderful nations.
Then I may consider ( ESPECIALLY) if they change the date to
something like 'Sorry Day' ( 26 May) for "Australia Day" instead of
26 January when the English declared this 'empty land' for
Britain!
Bah!
(BTW Computer has been kaputt for nearly a week. Finally
retrieved it after handing over a substantial amount of
pension and have now to get the printer port fixed. That can wait.
Now put on all the Blogs that have disappeared along with the
old hard drive. Blah!)
For all those who want to know what Australian men are
really like, here are a few tips on Australian 'etiquette'.
(Vale Heath Ledger. Sad sad sad..same age as my eldest daughter.
Sad!)
Australian Etiquette.
IN GENERAL
1.. Never take an open stubby to a job interview.
2.. Always identify people in your paddocks before shooting at them.
3.. It's tacky to take an Esky to church.
4.. If you have to vacuum the bed, it's time to change the sheets.
5.. Even if you're certain you're included in the will, it's rude
to take your ute and trailer to the funeral.
DINING OUT
1.. When decanting wine from the box, tilt the paper cup and
pour slowly so as not to bruise the wine.
2.. If drinking directly from the bottle, hold it with only one hand.
ENTERTAINING IN YOUR HOME
1.. A centre piece for the table should never be anything
prepared by a taxidermist.
2.. Don't allow the dog to eat at the table, no matter how good his manners.
PERSONAL HYGIENE
1.. While ears need to be cleaned regularly, this should be done in private,
using one's OWN Ute keys.
2.. Even if you live alone, deodorant isn't a waste of money.
3.. Extensive use of deodorant can only delay bathing by a few days.
4.. Dirt and grease under the fingernails is a no-no, it alters the taste of
finger foods and if you are a woman it can draw attention
away from your jewellery.
DATING
1.. Always offer to bait your date's hook - especially on the first date.
2.. Be assertive. Let her know you're interested: "I've been wanting to go out
with you ever since I read that stuff on the dunny door two years ago."
3.. Establish with her parents what time she's expected back. Some will say
11:00 PM, others might say "Monday." If the latter is the answer, it's the
man's responsibility to get her to school on time.
THEATRE ETIQUETTE
1.. Crying babies should be taken to the lobby and picked up after the movie
ends.
2.. Refrain from yelling abuse at characters on the screen. Tests have proven
they can't hear you.
WEDDINGS
1.. Livestock is a poor choice for a wedding gift.
2.. Kissing the bride for more than five seconds may cause a drop in your
popularity. (Excessive use of the tongue is also considered out of place)
3.. For the groom, at least, rent a tux. A tracksuit with a cummerbund and a
clean football jumper can create a tacky appearance.
4.. Though uncomfortable, say "yes" to socks and shoes for the occasion.
DRIVING ETIQUETTE
1.. Dim your headlights for approaching vehicles, even if your gun
is loaded and the roo is in your rifle sight.
2.. When entering a roundabout, the vehicle with the largest
roo bar doesn't always have the right of way.
3.. Never tow another car using panty hose and duct tape.
4.. When sending your wife down the road with a petrol can,
it's impolite to ask her to bring back beer too.
My god - ess
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Sunday, 20 January 2008
Connection?
Call it an obsession of mine but I have been interested in psychology and
mental health since being a nurse for the profoundly mentally
retarded in my youth.
Once I had children the interest compounded.
I found these two articles this weekend in two main papers.
Separately they were of interest to me, but together, I wondered
if they could be in some way connected with time and study.
I have cut and pasted the most interesting sections and given
due recognition to the authors.
I am posting it here as I want a record of it somewhere
for future reference.
Russell Meares, 71, is emeritus professor of psychiatry
at the University of Sydney and head of the mental health
sciences unit at Westmead Hospital in western Sydney.
He has developed a new way of recognising and helping those people
with Borderline Personality Disorders (BPD).
Before WW1 (It) was suggested that the feelings of warmth and intimacy
at the core of the sense of self flowed from the interplay between a baby
and its mother or carer.
These ideas were cast aside at the time of World War I, when there
was a shift to a behaviourist approach in psychology, Meares says.
The behaviourists distrusted what couldn't be measured as change.
Ideas about things as nebulous and unruly as feelings of warmth
and intimacy went right out the window and James
(the proponent of this idea) became a footnote in the history of psychology.
However, when Meares was investigating borderline personality
disorders, he went back to the idea that the sense of self was not
a given but a kind of consciousness of ourselves and our place
in the world that grows out of the proto-conversation between mother and baby.
His patients seemed to have been deprived of that interplay or
to have suffered a series of psychic shocks. These traumas, as
psychiatrists call them, are most obviously caused by physical
and sexual abuse, but may also result if children are subjected to
chronic disparagement.
Yet the reverberations of these painful experiences
will cause a disturbance of the sense of self.
"Instead of the warmth there's a painful feeling of
emptiness, which is not in the standard definition
of the borderline condition," he says.
"The condition can cause desolation for the individual,
wreckage for the family and huge consequences to the
community in terms of costs of mental health," he says.
Steve Biddulph is a psychologist and the author
of Raising Babies (Harper Thorsons).
In 2000 the province of Quebec, populous and progressive,
took the bold step of providing universal day care right down
to newborn babies, at a cost to parents of $5 a day.
It was a well-intentioned attempt to come to terms
with a large increase in the number of families where
both parents were working, which had almost doubled in 30 years.
Three economists, Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber and
Kevin Milligan, seized the chance to evaluate what happened
in real time. They had the rest of Canada as a control group,
and a large study in place tracking children across the
country to provide detailed data on their development.
What they found was astonishingly clear cut in a field usually
littered with carefully worded reservations and ideologically
filtered reporting. The scheme was a disaster.
But the human cost was the most significant.
There were marked declines in child wellbeing;
on measures of hyperactivity, inattention,
aggressiveness, motor skills, social skills and
child illness, children were significantly worse off
than their peers who remained at home.
The family suffered, too: parent-child relationships deteriorated
on all measured dimensions. There was a significant increase in
depression rates among mothers and a deterioration in couple
relationships among affected parents. None of these changes
was minor. The hyperactivity increases were in a range of
17 to 44 per cent; the skills decline was between 8 and 21 per cent;
childhood illnesses rose by 400 per cent. The study is littered
with adjectives researchers are usually careful to avoid: strong,
marked, negative, robust, striking. Yet it did echo,
though more strongly, similar findings in the United States, Britain and Europe.
The evidence points to only one possible solution: paid parental leave.
In the end, paid parental leave is the most equitable way
and the best value for money.
It is certainly the best for babies. Love, after all, can't be bought.
(Steve Biddulph
January 19, 2008 in the Sydney Morning Herald)
mental health since being a nurse for the profoundly mentally
retarded in my youth.
Once I had children the interest compounded.
I found these two articles this weekend in two main papers.
Separately they were of interest to me, but together, I wondered
if they could be in some way connected with time and study.
I have cut and pasted the most interesting sections and given
due recognition to the authors.
I am posting it here as I want a record of it somewhere
for future reference.
Russell Meares, 71, is emeritus professor of psychiatry
at the University of Sydney and head of the mental health
sciences unit at Westmead Hospital in western Sydney.
He has developed a new way of recognising and helping those people
with Borderline Personality Disorders (BPD).
Before WW1 (It) was suggested that the feelings of warmth and intimacy
at the core of the sense of self flowed from the interplay between a baby
and its mother or carer.
These ideas were cast aside at the time of World War I, when there
was a shift to a behaviourist approach in psychology, Meares says.
The behaviourists distrusted what couldn't be measured as change.
Ideas about things as nebulous and unruly as feelings of warmth
and intimacy went right out the window and James
(the proponent of this idea) became a footnote in the history of psychology.
However, when Meares was investigating borderline personality
disorders, he went back to the idea that the sense of self was not
a given but a kind of consciousness of ourselves and our place
in the world that grows out of the proto-conversation between mother and baby.
His patients seemed to have been deprived of that interplay or
to have suffered a series of psychic shocks. These traumas, as
psychiatrists call them, are most obviously caused by physical
and sexual abuse, but may also result if children are subjected to
chronic disparagement.
Yet the reverberations of these painful experiences
will cause a disturbance of the sense of self.
"Instead of the warmth there's a painful feeling of
emptiness, which is not in the standard definition
of the borderline condition," he says.
"The condition can cause desolation for the individual,
wreckage for the family and huge consequences to the
community in terms of costs of mental health," he says.
("On the Frontier of Self" Elisabeth Wynhausen
January 19, 2008 in The Australian.)
January 19, 2008 in The Australian.)
Steve Biddulph is a psychologist and the author
of Raising Babies (Harper Thorsons).
In 2000 the province of Quebec, populous and progressive,
took the bold step of providing universal day care right down
to newborn babies, at a cost to parents of $5 a day.
It was a well-intentioned attempt to come to terms
with a large increase in the number of families where
both parents were working, which had almost doubled in 30 years.
Three economists, Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber and
Kevin Milligan, seized the chance to evaluate what happened
in real time. They had the rest of Canada as a control group,
and a large study in place tracking children across the
country to provide detailed data on their development.
What they found was astonishingly clear cut in a field usually
littered with carefully worded reservations and ideologically
filtered reporting. The scheme was a disaster.
But the human cost was the most significant.
There were marked declines in child wellbeing;
on measures of hyperactivity, inattention,
aggressiveness, motor skills, social skills and
child illness, children were significantly worse off
than their peers who remained at home.
The family suffered, too: parent-child relationships deteriorated
on all measured dimensions. There was a significant increase in
depression rates among mothers and a deterioration in couple
relationships among affected parents. None of these changes
was minor. The hyperactivity increases were in a range of
17 to 44 per cent; the skills decline was between 8 and 21 per cent;
childhood illnesses rose by 400 per cent. The study is littered
with adjectives researchers are usually careful to avoid: strong,
marked, negative, robust, striking. Yet it did echo,
though more strongly, similar findings in the United States, Britain and Europe.
The evidence points to only one possible solution: paid parental leave.
In the end, paid parental leave is the most equitable way
and the best value for money.
It is certainly the best for babies. Love, after all, can't be bought.
(
Thursday, 17 January 2008
Feline Finds Fishing Fine
All this fishing is exhausting!
Time passes Life happens.
Distance separates.
Children grow up.
Jobs come and go.
Love waxes and wanes.
Men don't do what they're supposed to do .
Hearts break.
Parents die.
Colleagues forget favours.
Careers end.
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Monday, 14 January 2008
Another Year..another loss.
Flowers on the grave...January 2008It is three years since my dad's funeral. Friday was the anniversary of me holding his hand and singing him to Death. Today is the anniversary of the public goodbye.
My sister and I shared some memories.
Here are a couple:
My Sister remembers -
- whistling....whistling...I Added -
- digging...digging....soft, moist, damp earth smells
- "pooh! Facory"!
- passionfruit, tomatoes, swedes, chokoes, mulberries, silkworms....
- soapy, boiling linen
- budgeriegars
- South-West-Rocks and Crescent Head ("I can see the sea!!!")
- fish, scales, guts, chooks, feathers, guts....
- fairy-rings in the grass
- telephones made from jam tins and strings
- brown paper and string kites
- picnic......chop, chop collecting wood
- Henry Lawson....Banjo Patterson......On Our Selection......
* Stories stories and more stories
* Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington
* Trombones and drums
* his laugh, his big belly laugh
* his wonder of nature and continual curiosity of it
* loving mum, loving mum
* being held out to wee on the grass at night
* Lying on the floor in the lounge room with the big
old radio in front of us listening to the Goons
* Having the fire so hot he would sit watching TV in
his singlet.
* the smell of his sweat after being in the garden,
that was always mixed with the
scent of chemical fertiliser and cow poo.
* His hands washing mine in the sink with lots of soap,
sloshing and slippery...
* Singing singing singing
So much much more each one of these has a story of its own
and each one evokes
in us a smell, a touch, a time very much connected to dad.
So tomorrow there is another little loss...the palm trees
are coming down.
A gift from one child to her father.
I am sad to lose them..they represent my dreams,
my Bali Hai, my personal dream.
But it is a gift from a child to her parent.
Who am I to complain?
It is to be done.
Sad, private, quiet sadness for the tree-lover, me.
Nothing quite like the moon filtering through the fronds.
Nor seeing the baby birds ( doves, lorikeets, fly-catchers,
swallows, galahs currawongs) nesting, feeding,
flying hiding, sheltering under its nut cases.
So "lighten up Polly"...yeah right.
Nothing shows a hard heart like that comment!
Well 'bugger off' to anyone who thinks caring is intense.
Another Year..another loss.
It is three years since my dad's funeral. Friday was the anniversary of me holding his hand and singing him to Death. Today is the anniversary of the public goodbye.
My sister and I shared some memories.
Here are a couple:
My Sister remembers -
- whistling....whistling...I Added -
- digging...digging....soft, moist, damp earth smells
- "pooh! Facory"!
- passionfruit, tomatoes, swedes, chokoes, mulberries, silkworms....
- soapy, boiling linen
- budgeriegars
- South-West-Rocks and Crescent Head ("I can see the sea!!!")
- fish, scales, guts, chooks, feathers, guts....
- fairy-rings in the grass
- telephones made from jam tins and strings
- brown paper and string kites
- picnic......chop, chop collecting wood
- Henry Lawson....Banjo Patterson......On Our Selection......
* Stories stories and more stories
* Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington
* Trombones and drums
* his laugh, his big belly laugh
* his wonder of nature and continual curiosity of it
* loving mum, loving mum
* being held out to wee on the grass at night
* Lying on the floor in the lounge room with the big old radio in front
of us listening to the Goons
* Having the fire so hot he would sit watching TV in his singlet.
* the smell of his sweat after being in the garden, that was always mixed with the
scent of chemical fertiliser and cow poo.
* His hands washing mine in the sink with lots of soap, sloshing and slippery...
* Singing singing singing
So much much more each one of these has a story of its own and each one evokes
in us a smell, a touch, a time very much connected to dad.
So tomorrow there is another little loss...the palm trees are coming down.
A gift from one child to her father.
I am sad to lose them..they represent my dreams, my Bali Hai, my personal dream.
But it is a gift from a child to her parent.
Who am I to complain?
It is to be done.
Sad, private, quiet sadness for the tree-lover, me.
Nothing quite like the moon filtering through the fronds.
Nor seeing the baby birds ( doves, lorikeets, fly-catchers, swallows, galahs
currawongs) nesting, feeding, flying hiding, sheltering under its nut cases.
So "lighten up Polly"...yeah right.
Nothing shows a hard heart like that comment!
Well 'bugger off' to anyone who thinks caring is intense.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)