Tag: life

The Vegan Dilemma

Many of us in our youth took to the streets if we felt civil protest was the only way to change governments or  Legislative powers for the good of living conditions of our fellow workers or democratic rights were challenged. 
The vegan protest philosophies  however, do not fall into that category in my view and are based on core beliefs on how humans should exist today compared on how we got here over evolution. 
To be clear from the onset I am not and never will accept animal cruelty, but we have to accept the fact  the food chain exists and right down to the basic kitchen gecko chasing mosquitos to lions chasing gazelle we humans come from  carnivores and changing that will never happen, but like all beliefs be it spiritual,  political, or society changing we are entitled to have them, even live by them , but we are not entitled to force them upon others in their own homes. 
I feel invaded when people turn up wanting to convert me to their beliefs as do many, but that does not stop the right of those people holding them but forcing them by invasion is not the way to go. 
I feel deeply in  todays world animal experiments should be a thing of the past, our science should have expanded past that age, but we cannot change the way we evolved, agreed not pretty in places but to be brutally honest we as humans do much more damage to each other in daily life physically and mentally on this planet than we do to when we take to survive and maybe that’s where our own back yard would be a good place to start to clean up first. 

Invisible People with Invisible Disabilities with Invisible Support.

I wish to raise a subject on behalf of people beligned by our present society by the broad term of dole bludgers.

I agree some people use the system out of pure laziness often stretching back generations however there are some very desperate people caught up in broad perception projected by our politicians that are living a life in abject poverty and can do nothing to break out.

They are the physically disabled, the mentally ill, the ones that just can’t work and do not transition to a disability pension or are in transition or cannot get through the NDS mazes alone.

Support Services for these people has been cut or does not exist so they are left in their houses or rooms if they are fortunate enough struggling to pay rent, food and usually medication last.

Suicide rates among these people is high unfortunately but suits the government data on unemployment hence low on the priority list.

Luckily some medics are sympathetic to this group but the social stigma stays when they have to venture into main stream population to get medications not on the PBS and struggle to pay at the counter.

This issue is not about raising the New Start allowance, although that would help greatly it’s about defining the people who are invisible in the present system.

This issue is in the too hard basket for many politicians regardless of allegiance.

The real issue is getting classification, getting approved or rejected then getting them into care be it NDS or Disability options, not letting them slowly fade into natural attrition.

We are supposed to have a surplus if we listen to the spin so let’s give the least able bodied people some life saving support.

Atheist Point.

As a onlooker without a alliance to any religion I am troubled at the way the Kiwi Tragedy is being handled by social media and the media in general.

If we are to be consistent with reporting and coverage news their is no need to give the perpetrators religion a mention or ensure that when a unfortunate event happens call it equally.

However we  consistently read and view the Islamic faith linked to events by fanatics but rarely do we see the word Christian leading a headline when they impede. 

Hard Right Wing has blazed the headlines not Hard Right Wing Christians Fundamentalists for example which truly identifies those who hold that view but rarely identified in the media or any platform. 

I concede Christianity hold approximately 60% of Australian faith but that should not stand in the way of balanced reporting as that imbalance leads to false impressions and feeds divide.

Calling it as it is sometimes upsets and could threaten income streams of some news outlets but I suppose it comes down to journalistic ethics and brave editors to keep us well and truthfully informed.

Spot the Differences

Time for a Life Rethink I think.

As I sit here listening to my wife laughing and talking at a garage sale next door selling crap we just don’t need at our age or we have grown out of the habit or been outdated I do reflect on why I am here this morning and not at my beloved golf course as I have done in various tracks like Rosewood’s and Laidley every Saturday morning for about 30 years.

Yep off to golf, home and review the day, it’s ups and downs my performance and others, what to improve and what to do to improve. All in a bid to lower my handicap and give me some sense of pride in my ability to compete at the highest level I can.

Today I am asking that question about weather I have outdated the lifestyle of golf and all its glory and if golf now should be a pastime instead of the lifestyle it has been for decades.

I look at myself as a sportsman. A fair and honest sportsman. A person who wants to perform at the game highest level on my ability, a person who played off single figures for a short time but mainly hung around 10-13 for decades and shook cages in both B and A grades.

Now as I age, 69 this year and a bit of a lung issue, I find myself drifting out and not enjoying the fact that age and health are slowing me down. I don’t enjoy coming home shagged for two days. I don’t enjoy not performing and knowing I can do better but ….. I have challenged myself with equipment that probably does not suit my age group but I love the personal challenge fo dealing with something tough on the competition field and winning in some way even if it’s only self esteem.

I cannot except the fact it’s fun to have more shots on holes than anyone else. It’s not fun to underperform and be rewarded for it by letting your handicap slide out. That’s not how I play now or ever.

Old mans game and old mans thinking is not what I enjoy and I know the game caters for the majority of people at all levels, it’s my standards, my personal standards I respect more.

Maybe that attitude has been in my blood since I first started playing sport in football competitions back at 10 years old and have carried that in my playing and coaching career, later my trade and business career and now my ageing career.

I guess I’m looking for a new challenge. I think.. I love sport, I love the people who play sport, I love my fellow club members and their company but with time on this place getting shorter by the day I feel it’s time for rethink for what I can challenge myself to.

I have considered re entering the Football Coaching field as a advisory, a caddy for some youngster, a manager for a sportsperson, just to name a few and as you are aware I love writing and politics, which I might add gets me into a bit of strife at the club some times but is talked under hands when I leave.

We have bought a new Subaru Forrester Sport, the most challenging vehicle I have ever driven, and that’s saying a bit as I have driven heavy vehicles, 4x4s, buses and some sporty Mercedes Benz, all with different personalities but this one is special. I reminds you you are the driver and your expected habits compared to your actual habits.

It will upset those who know it all but embarrassing them might just save their life if they choose to take notice. It’s all about choice and ego I suppose.

Any way this is not solving my issues but I am enjoying the off-road trips and visiting places where wildlife is a little more natural. Both of us enjoy that freedom of just stop and listening to the silence and song of nature, and change from living on a main road drag trip at times.

Anyway I’ll still keep playing golf and with this drought going on that too is a pain as tee up takes another level of skill away from my toolkit and I get no jollies from teeing up driver on fairways at all. It’s embarrassing to the integrity of the golf course and inflates faulted egos.

In my football career which extended in semi pro coaching , when you beat a player and he has time to get up and bite your legs it time to consider retiring, you’ve proved you point but the game is catching you up and you will be only remembered by your last game… and I don’t want to be remembered as a old man who played who manipulated a system.

It’s a pastime now nothing more and let the battle for honour boards begin.. without me.

Grumpy old fart aren’t I? And proud of it too. 🖕🖕🖕🖕

PS Hope the garage sale is going well, if not she will be as pissed Ruby the dog is looking over the fence at them….

Our Women Set the Standard

Tis the time of the year to review 2018 and in sport no one could deny womens sport and sportswomen have carried the banner for our youth to follow.

The male contribution across most codes has been less than admirable and although the press may choose to overlook the facts but our papers and reports are littered with cheating, domestic violence, drug abuse, corporate deception,  and general grubby behaviour from our so called professional athletes and clubs  and yet not one life ban imposed. 

The fact is, compared with professional players worldwide our lot has far too much time on their hands. Overpaid and overrated compared with players who compete overseas where 3 games in 11 days and sometimes less times is common. Imagine the cry’s of our prima donnas if their schedules similar, and just maybe they would not have the time to misbehave as they would be under constant scrutiny publicly and privately. 

Secondly of greater concern is the influence of betting organisations are having on our sporting culture. Codes are selling their souls to these parasites with scant regard to what message they are sending to our future  sportsmen and women inviting corruption into the sanctity of developing minds.

We have a lot of work to do to tidy up the shop in 2019 if we want to meet standards our women have set on the world stage don’t we? 

 

Gay Bashing Reignited by the Good Christians.

This nation and our LGBTQ’s community was dragged through the mire of hate and recriminations, with the referendum to appease the what turned out to be a distinct minority of people who wanted SSM to be outlawed in this country.

Not satisfied with that result that all should be treated as equal the LNP immediately commissioned Ruddick to deliver a slanted outcome to compensate the proportion that voted NO, then proceeded to hide it for It’s political reasoning.

Well Zannits cartoon in today’s QT has regenerated the non acceptance of those have no control over who they are and is a total disgrace. We as responsible adults should have a obligation to teach and live acceptance, but obviously some of the good church going hypocrites feel kids and teachers will infect their pristine views on who and who isn’t fit to be educated in private schools.

It’s gays this time, then will it be blacks, asians, if they don’t fit the pristine model?

In a culture that has hidden, supported, criminals who destroyed children’s lives for decades world wide and still ongoing have the audacity to point the finger and discriminate at those who through no fault of their own are dealt a hand that is different leaves me breathless, and surely the QT should make it clear on its stance on such a toxic ,unfunny and divisive piece of trash disguised as a cartoon

See below

Osaka Trumps Williams Stunt.

Cartoonists are supposed to reflect thoughts and reflections of events with a touch of candid humour so sometimes can see a different perspectives so I can understand why some are upset by the Williams imaging particularly in America. I understand comparison with a historical cartooning would make Mark Knights depiction could upset however I do not think it was intentional to be race related but it was, now that angle is spinning worldwide.

After watching the event I believe Williams knew she was in trouble and wanted to cause a incident to take the momentum away from Osaka and when the wick was lit she made a calculated move and it came undone. She lost full stop.

Yes it well known women in tennis are regarded as the inferior side and that’s unjust but rules are rules and you can’t play the gender card during a match unless you know your outclassed and then your point can be made on the world stage.

The real sad thing is Williams stole Osaka’s moment to prove her point, supported by the worlds most ignorant crowds in regards to etiquette and ethics, a habitual occurrence in all international events hosted in America.

I fully support all aspects of Women’s equality be in on and off the sporting field but destroying a persons highest achievement to increase ones profile or cause would not be the way most fair minded Australian people would accept.

The Youth 16 Vote Comes with Conditions.

With the suggestion of the voting age being dropped to 16 I’m sure we will hear the arguments of maturity and political awareness be put to suit the whoever think they will profit or loose from its expansion.

Looking back in my life as a baby boomer I was a apprentice bat 15, a union member at the same age and yes with the education from my parents I was pretty well versed on both sides of the divide and it was up to me to decide and like many our kitchen table became great parliaments at times..

Fast forward to today how we have changed and I was part of the problem we have with todays youth.

Like all boomers we put our kids first when it come to our family priorities and Parents we secondary unlike the our parents who struggled through the war and depressions with nothing other than survival in mind. We had to share when we acquired, our parents were the most important for our survival and we knew that and respected it.

We thought we were doing the right thing changing the family priorities for the kids sake but we did them and our culture a terrible injustice. We lost that respect we gave to our parents over time and now we cry our kids have no respect, they know nothing about life, government,or they live in a technological bubble.

We boomers took our eye off the ball, handed them everything we never had, sparing our youth the experience of working and waiting, and in many cases handed over parenting to schools and our protective services.

So yes if we can use this voting age change as a catalyst to claw back self responsibility earlier, if we can encourage big picture dialogue and civic responsibility then it must be a debated, but we as the grown ups need to improve our parliamentary behaviour as that example again does nothing for the case of maturity by example.

Let’s Get Apprentices Earlier

Discussion Paper. Subject Apprenticeships

As a kid who left school in Junior level, that is 15 years or about’s and started a trade in the January of 1966 I was a naive, scared, and totally oblivious to anything other than not upsetting anyone in my workspace.

Plucked from the schoolroom I knew nothing about life skills other than those I had learned on the sporting grounds and family discipline.

Looking back that was not a bad thing as I listened and consumed everything my Master, my Tradesman, and technical teachers imparted sometimes to the letter.

Being a kid in a mans world can be confronting but as you mature you you learn quickly how the world really works.

My Boilermaking trade at the Shipyard and Kangaroo Point gave me a understanding of other cultures, customs, from all walks of life as it was within walking distance from Yungabah Hostel a entry point to migrants to Australia and often a job for those men and women starting a new or escaping their past.

My eyes and ears were open to their experiences, expectations, good and bad from their homelands and often was privileged to their cultural traditions, broadening my education in life.

All this was happening before I was old enough to get a car licence at 17, have a beer legally at 21, or go to war at 19.

I was lucky but the system was such that when you are at a age, naive or not you can start to shape a personal profile of experience where maturity comes a dam site earlier that today’s youth.

Today kids are encourage to stay in the school system even though they may not be suited. In school apprenticeships have pluses and minuses but basically protect the kid from reality of the real workforce where it’s get to work yourself and learn your trade, please your Master and employer.

That position of Master has been disposed of as he or she was totally responsible to ensure the apprentice was not exploited, learned ever aspect of his trade, and respected his superiors status.

Yes my Master was not backward of putting a smart arse on his arse with a backhander or straight left if you misbehaved, and was supported by the union rep if it was warranted.

Imagine that today!! Mummy and Daddy delirious with uproar for someone doing what they should have done earlier in childhood.

Apprenticeship today on a 4 year time delivers 22 to 24 year olds specifically trained only on what phase of the trade they have been in contact. Often employers see cheap labour till they get too expensive then flick them, and the system allows that, where before employers and the boards were legally bound to find a apprentice a job at his or her level if the firm went broke.

Some 4th year apprentices can be married with kids and expected to live on those wages, no wonder they are leaving.

Mid life apprenticeship are a result of the system not doing its job earlier, selling the trades, and paying the wages. Yes the Unions must share the blame proportional but the fact the culture of subcontractors has destroyed the standards of all trades for the magic dollar.

I know a few tradesmen that have kept their contract and turned out magnificent tradesmen, fully equiped and experienced to handle any job set before them but sadly on completion they must expand their knowledge and move on.

This often causes bad blood as often they will go out in opposition to their former boss.

In my case on completion I was handed my indentures and told to move on or get sacked and would be welcomed back after about 3-4 years somewhere else.

I did, moved to structural steel and finally left the trade about 8 years later.

Cutting to the chase what I’m saying is we need to get potential apprentices early, when they can absorb everything, in a environment and culture where they see they can have a future, and prepared to cop a little pain early in the game to reap the benefit on completion.

We need to have manufacturing industries and start building things here, as it’s cheaper in the long run to have them paying tax, buying stuff than keeping them on the dole or in part time farcical jobs that make the working poor poorer.

The crunch is coming and believe me infrastructure will be our way out and the shiney arses will be the first casualty.

Dr. Google, a Dangerous Consultant.

How would it go if when you took your car to the mechanics with a problem then proceeded to tell him how to do the job stand by while he did it, what parts to use how long to would take and then just leave the pricing to him?You’d probably complain about the price too and ask for a concession on using your knowledge even though you have never trained, in fact lifted a spanner. 

So imagine how Doctors must feel when they get a patient who thinks they know it all thanks to Dr. Google.

Yes diplomacy skills go into overdrive for the professionals when experiencing the online super graduates rants on their self diagnosed problems and woe is them if they dare to challenge the preconceived outcome or expectation of the patient.

Dangerous ground I feel as then we have to ask is the GP or Specialist actually using his experience and training or are they just conceding and sending them on their way feeling good about their own expertise without any confrontation. 

Knowledge is power and alternately Dangerous in the wrong hands. 

Dr. Google is a dangerous consultant in my book. Most Doctors have a set process of elimination follow by ongoing tests, checks and counter checks leading up to a educated guess, yes guess as they too are only human. Then it comes down to faith in that primary diagnosis and proceeding.

That tradesman mechanic is likely to just tell you to go somewhere else to fix those brakes, or fix them yourself and good luck but the doctor is not quite that abrupt but the result would still be the same come crunch time. 

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑