Old Koreelah

Parenting is the most important job we’ll ever do, but there is no training and certainly no accreditation process- any damn fool can have kids! We all know people who should never have been allowed to breed. The best parents show a good example to their kids, keep open the channels of communication and allow their offspring to wear the consequences of mistakes. From an early age, kids want to contribute, to do their bit, to show what they are capable of. Our urban society frustrates this natural urge; a leading cause of kids’ going off the rails.

Over the ages as the human brain got bigger, the female pelvis had to adapt to ever-larger newborn’s heads. Some didn’t fit thru. Death in childbirth was common until recent times. Now many are delivered via caesarian. Our species may soon become dependent on them.

That lame old argument in support of state aid has been trotted out for decades. Very divisive debate which nobody will win. If governments reined in some of the appalling rich private school rorts there’d be more for the needy schools- private snd public. A country that prioritizes new sports stadiums ahead of it’s childrens’ education doesn’t have a rosey future.

So true, Jerry. During my four decades teaching in public schools I spend lots of my spare time building, installing and raising money for gear we needed- basic stuff which our private school competitors seemd to have in spades. This poor girl has a diagnosed behaviour kid in her class, but little support. My little grandie has befriended the boy concerned and tries to keep him on the rails, but sometimes he just trashes the room. I am immmensely proud of her attitude to this; she’s confided in me, but doesn’t want her parents to know how bad things are- she says they have enought to worry about!

My grand kids have been in a public school that adds more demountables each school vacation. The playground is getting smaller and classes are enormous. Our ten year old does her best, but a couple of misfits regularly disrupt the lessons. The kids report that the poor teacher often retreats to the storeroom to cry. Lately, they have had a series of casual teachers. If this is how The Clever Country educates its kids we’re buggered.

Crickey Nev! Baby boom days I guess. I recall our biggest group was born 1972- the children of Boomers. I was fortunate to have much smaller classes: my biggest was 33 but most were low twenties- an advantage of small rural schools. Some senior classes dwindled to half a dozen. That’s where I got my best HSC results, even teaching two different courses in the one room.

Some of Red’s nostalgia resonates, but I also remember classes of forty- where quite a few kids fell by the wayside and left school with little more than bitterness. Where poorly-trained teachers were overwhelmed and resorted to violence in order to survive. During my decades as a schoolteacher, I enthusiastically joined the kids in playing this anthem:

Since 1788 our indigenous brothers have been, in general, far more welcoming of immigrants of all types (including white fellas) than non-Aboriginal Australians.

Spot on Clint! After years of driving past our local monthly court crowd I once had occasion to join them (to challenge a charge of riding my Guzzi with too much enthusiasm). The education I received was worth the small fine. All the usual suspects lined up before the world-weary magistrate. Uncontrolled dogs, neighbourhood disputes, domestics and a bloke shooting up his brother’s place. Also plenty of petty theft, which was probably not petty to the victims. What’s wrong with the wallopers adopting a more pro-active approach. Get out of the Police vehicle and get on yer bike. Cops on bicycles can appear anywhere in an urban area and surprise the miscreants. And another thing: why don’t we see more graffiti criminals cleaning up their bloody mess? A spot of public humiliation would be far more efective than the limp punishments currently being doled out.

It’s easy to get stupid people to support you; just give voice to their worst prejudices. Trump has mastered this.

Perhaps they got the idea from Kadaicha Man slippers, which left a trail no tracker could follow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdaitcha

The USA is apparently the only developed country without a national health system. The recurring theme when Americans explain this, is that they would rather pay a much higher price for private health insurance, than contribute to the care of people they don’t like; read that as the poor, blacks and other minorities. I presume this attitude has been cultivated by the powerful for-profit health industry. They seem to have tapped into an underlying streak of meanness in the culture.

Reminds me of a heated debate in the Commons between Winston Churchill and Mary Astor. She was giving him a proper tongue lashing and ended her spray by saying that if she was his wife she’d put poison in his tea. Churchill quickly replied that he was her husband he’d drink it!

At last, some common sense! Parallels with refrigeration: a century ago ice blocks were made in larger centralised refrigeration plants, then distributed to shops and private homes’ ice boxes. Nobody could image that mass production would slash the price so that every house, car, office and campervan has an inexpensive refrigeration unit. The same applies to stand-alone solar power units. Eventually this trend should remove one of the main dangers to low-level aviators and the high price of copper and aluminium should ensure unused lines are quickly removed.

The son of Rev MLK has called for the US to introduce Australian-style voting. Fat chance. In America the election is on a Tuesday so fewer working people can vote. They have to queue up for hours and recently Republican governments have passed laws making it even harder to vote. Meanwhile, in the Lucky Country, we vote on Saturday and the Alectoral Commission spend lots to make sure everyone can have their say. https://amp.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/north-america/martin-luther-king-iii-says-us-must-consider-adopting-australian-voting-system-20221019-p5br52.html

Sure looks to be derived from the hundreds of thousands of Studebakers the Soviets received from Canada and the US…

The amoral Republican mafia is ramping up their dismantling of American democracy. They have already made it so hard for traditional Democrat voters that only a massive turnout can head off their appalling coup. This mid-term may be the last hope for America.

Nobody seems to have the guts to challenge Xi’s claim to Taiwan. The communist party took control of China by force. How legitimate is that? They didn’t conquer Formosa, which for a long time has been a functional democracy. After all China’s broken promises about respecting Hong Kong’s unique system, the Taiwanese know what their future will be if the mainland invades. Most concerning for the west is that Taiwan produces so much of the world’s strategically vital computer chips. Might be sensible to quietly shift some of that capacity and those critical people to somewhere safer. Australia could surely benefit from their enterprise.

Can’t resist:

Our biggest trading partner deserves a thread all of her own. Is China a threat to Australia? Recent governments have panicked about the massive growth in China’s economy and military. Australia is absolutely throwing money at weapons makers, particularly in Britain and the US. Home-grown manufacture of weapons systems is getting support not seen since the 1940s. This bloke is one of many who don’t believe this will be China’s century. In fact, some analysts think The Middle Kingdom will collapse this decade. If even partly true, this has enormous implications for the world and Australia in particular. Our biggest market will be gone. Enormous numbers of refugees will head our way. What will China’s recently-reaffirmed emperor do to stave off the collapse?

So Willie, I can blame you for building all those death traps! Like you describe, our local silo is four in a bundle, with a one-man, handcranked elevator installed in the centre. I suspect it’s the only way to get to the top and our VRA has used it for rescue exercises. My claustrophobia kicked in big time and I have no idea how we’d get to anyone trapped part-way up.

Yenn you are part of a breed we are rapidly losing: a generation that started with horses and ended up with robots! I hope you’ve had plenty of opportunities to tell your stories to young’uns. Have you recorded your memories for posterity?

Makes sense to you and me, but last year we were called to rescue a city bloke who took a shortcut across the plains, entering water where a sign said 2. It was two metres deep.

That reminds me of a terrible story told by one of my hometown’s returning soldiers. After escaping a German POW camp in Silesia, he joined Czech partisans, spending a winter avoiding both the Red Army and the Germans. On one occasion they watched as Soviet tanks paused at a playground. The tank crews sat and watched the German-speaking children playing for half an hour, then machine-gunned the lot of them before moving on.

That makes sense, OT. Often we hear of rivers peaking at X metres. It usually seems to be a local height above normal, whatever that is, given our continent’s huge variations in rainfall.