Old Koreelah

My daughter gave her Canon digital and all the accessories to my wife. She finds her iPhone does everything she wants.

“Native Title” is a welcome improvement to our legal system, allowing Indig people access to traditional lands. I knew an old Bandjalung songman who remembered being shot at when trying to exercise traditional rites on their ancestral lands.

That money should be directed at recruiting and training more talented scientists; we sure need them.

Don’t tell the guvmint; they’d make even more cuts to CSIRO funding.

Many claim that God destroyed these cities because of their homosexual lifestyle. Maybe not.

Bruce this sweeping statement is easily disproved and quite offensive to many.

The more we learn about the past, the more we should fear our future. Seems our planet cops a catastrophic cosmic event more often than we knew.

Wow! Nature is pretty good at creating the most efficient structures. Bee hives, wasp nests, etc with hexagonal cells. Termites remove all but the most critical wood. As I’ve posted before, there’s a similar, though less spectacular relic at the Stinson crash site on the Qld-NSW border: part of the tubular steel structure of the aircraft is sticking out of the southern side of a tree. The Stinson came from the north, shedding part of it’s wings on arrival. The post crash fire killed nearby trees and a new tree grew up through and around the wreckage, until the old dead tree rotted and fell. Most visitors never notice this rusty relic, about 6m above their heads.

All true. Some Aboriginal organisations have been riven with mismanagement and rorts- just like many white-fella institutions. The difference might be how clever they are at escaping the attention of regulators and the media.

What in hell you on about? What isn’t clear? Just read the plurry proposal and you’ll find the wording is just as clear and transparent as the wording of the Australia’s Constitution- which allowed governments to develop our current system of government.

Exactly; because governments don’t tend to take much notice. Who do governments listen to? Well-funded lobbyists for foreign corporations sure get their ear. Advisory groups and even Royal Commissions have often been given little more than lip service. That’s why we need an advisory body that cannot be dismantled at the whim of government, as Howard did to ATSIC.

Maybe Right Wing, but pretty much the policy the Communist Party has implemented across China.

Just a few recent events that almost wiped out our species:

Good grief, why would anyone treat Murdoch’s press as a reliable source. Expect headlines screaming that 50% of students are below average!

Very interesting, but where are images of what they’re talking about? Luckily, I was able to look it up on GE. This bloke is likeable and easy to listen to. He’s obviously done decades of careful archaeological work, but is perhaps too influenced by the dogma of his sponsoring institution: ‘The school holds that biblical scripture, specifically "the ancient Hebrew Tanakh and the New Testament", is "the only written, divinely inspired representation of reality given by God to humankind, speaking with absolute and authority in all matters upon which it touches."[4]’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Southwest_University His expose is evidence that the Bible records past events and describes their location, but is not a convincing arguement that God did all this. The events happened and the stories were passed down and incorporated into religious dogma. No doubt The Bible is a useful historic resource, but we should realise how much its text has been manipulated, censored and edited over the last couple of millenia.

Back on topic:

The point is that this fairly isolated success was due to the authorities listening to and working with locals- something that has been lacking in the past. One of the major factors causing disadvantage among our indig people across this country is also a key criticism used by white fellas- lack of initiative. This is also pretty common among non-indig people. (The opposite could be said for many immigrants, whose vision and work ethic are sadly lacking amoung many of our native-born- black and white.) Too many genarations of being managed by white fellas and having thing done to them and for them, rather than being empowered to solve their own problems.

Very good points OME; the law forces us to do lots of training before we’re allowed to drive a car, boat or aeroplane. Most things in life need lots of preparation, but to be a parent- the most important job we’ll ever do- no skills or qualifications are required. We need more schools to run courses in the basics of running a home and raising kids. Times have changed: we set our womenfolk free of the kitchen sink. Fathers can and should also be parents. I knew one who did a great job of raising a team of kids alone after being widowed. So many of our society’s problems stem from our obsession with stand-alone, single-family homes. Multigenerational housholds are the norm in many sensible countries and recent economic trends might make them more common in Australia.

Quite a few smart kids get on with little help. They learn fast and can benefit from helping their peers. My own mum was one of them; kept on for a couple of years in a tiny K-6 school to help the teacher. That sure helped the little kids (but lack of further schooling severely limited her chances in life.) A century later my Grandies enjoy helping their peers and I doubt they begrudge any extra time other kids may need. A smart country invests in educating all its kids, but in Australia there are large and growing disparities between rich schools and rest. Our national values of egalitarianism are being thrown away.

So true, Octave. Much of our schooling is pitched at the middle and misses those at either end of the spectrum. That’s the inefficiency of our current system, which derives from a need to train masses of factory and military fodder. Every kid is different, with widely different abilities and potentials. Given unlimited resources, most of us could probably be diagnosed with some syndrome or other. Apspergers/Autism have now become recognised, with variations of ADHD becoming perhaps over diagnosed. Across the rich world, huge numbers of our kids are now being medicated on a regular basis. Who knows the long-term effects?

Nev that may be true of the traditional education system we still suffer. Alternative schools seem pretty good at helping kids maximise their potential, but they are sure hard to get in to.

Most of us would agree on that; the “Aboriginal Industry” has been a gravy train for lots of people, including many white-owned businesses. I grew up in a small town where racism is rife and nobody dared to mention that their livelhood depended on black fellas spending their welfare cheques locally. One recent revelation adds further weight for the need to give Aboriginal people a voice. In remote communities, welfare recipients are required to perform hours of useful work each week. Those in charge (presumably white fellas far away in a city office) dictate what work is done, which often means made-up tasks like mowing non-existant lawns repeatedly. Crazy, when local decisions might lead to cleaning up rubbish, building shelters and repairing infrastructure. There are plenty of very positive development stories in Indig communities, but the common theme seems to be they decide, rather than have the Guv’ment doing stuff to them.