Tuesday 19 March 2024

The late Stormy Summers

was a stormy woman.

For those of you in other parts of the world allow me to introduce the late, great, weird, wild and stormy Stormy Summers.

Stormy Summers ran a brothel before brothels were even mentioned in the "city of churches". She was a "character". 

I always thought Stormy was a lot older than me. Yes, she was older than I am but not quite as old as I thought she might be. Perhaps it might have something to do with the life she led.

She smoked heavily and drank heavily (mostly scotch) until about ten years ago. She dyed her hair outrageous colours long before dyeing your hair outrageous colours was acceptable. She often dressed in outrageous clothes. She drove a black BMW sports car (won at the casino). It had the number plate "STORMY". She ran for parliament and once ran for Lord Mayor. (She didn't get either job but she made a very good showing at the polls.)  

The "sex industry" is something that deeply disturbs me. I find the idea of it sickening. I am also realistic enough to know that we are not going to stop it. There is a need for laws around it, not simply laws which try to halt it. Stormy knew that women were at risk, that some of them were doing it to support families. She tried to give them a safe place. 

Despite the cigarettes and the alcohol she was implacably opposed to other drugs. Anyone caught with drugs on her premises was out on their ear with no second chance.  I heard about this from a woman I once helped with the pile of forms she needed to fill in. She loved Stormy for helping her turn her life around. The other "girls" she "employed" loved her too. 

Even the cops admitted her premises were clean and well run. The problem was that they were not legal. The cop who referred the woman who needed help with the forms actually said to me, "It would be better for everyone if she could run that damn place without interference from us."

Stormy had her ups and downs. Some time ago I did actually wonder what had happened to her. I assumed she had died but no she was still alive at that time. She had "retired" long ago. She was apparently caring for her third husband - a man she had already divorced.  

The men in her life were often rough and tough. They were members of bikie gangs and more but there were also politicians (often of left persuasion) and one of the city's most colourful journalists. I know of one Roman Catholic priest who counted her as a good friend because of the way she helped some of his parishioners.

Stormy was a "character". She was one of those people who does a great deal to help others without making a fuss about it. There was an occasion on which a hotel in the city was going to sell their old blankets before buying new blankets. Stormy went in and bought the lot. Then she went around the park lands and made sure that the homeless had new to them blankets.

And yes, she ran a brothel - and therefore had run ins with the law. Eventually the police managed to get the brothel closed down although she defied them all the way...and not just to court. Many in the community argued it was wrong to prosecute her.  Stormy ran a brothel because she cared.

 

Monday 18 March 2024

Is a "traumatic upbringing" the

answer to everything?

There is a second case of someone using NDIS funds to enable them to have sex with an underage girl.  The abuser in this instance is said to be "autistic" and to have "cognitive impairments".  Apparently that excuses the behaviour.

My question is "does this person know the difference between right and wrong?"  I know people who are autistic and who have learning issues. They also know the difference between right and wrong. Their behaviour may be impulsive and they may behave in ways which seem strange to other people but they obey the law. Indeed these people are much more likely to wait for the green man before they start to cross the road than most people. They don't shoplift. They validate their tickets on the train too.

Perhaps they have not had a "traumatic upbringing" though. Perhaps it is a valid excuse for behaving badly. It is certainly an excuse that is used often enough to try and explain away wrong doing. 

This bothers me because I know other people who have had very traumatic upbringings who have done well in later life. They have, against all odds, managed to succeed. These are people who have lost both parents in childhood or have fathers who have been (or still are) in prison. They are people who have been sexually abused. They have been through refugee camps and come here with nothing but gone on to be successful members of the community.  There is G..., an orphan, who lost both hands after being attacked by a machete in a refugee camp. He now teaches maths in a higher education facility in Africa. He has married and has two children of his own. There is J... who was brought up in the cult like atmosphere of a religious sect and not only left at sixteen but finished school and went to university. He supported himself throughout. There is M... who, at sixteen, was told she would be marrying a much older man. He was a widower with three small children. She sought help before it happened and left her family and her community. There is Y... who was sexually abused by her father and grandfather who finally found someone willing to help her. She has gone on to have a professional career and to care for the person who cared for her. 

A traumatic upbringing is not the sole reason for wrong doing. It may well contribute to it but people do overcome that. It isn't easy to do but they have done it, even without high levels of support from others.

I admire the people I have mentioned above. They have had to work to get where they are today. There are others I know who do not have that intellectual capacity but they are not likely to break the law. They would not seek sexual pleasure using NDIS funds. If NDIS funds are being used for that purpose then all their funds need to be withdrawn.  There are other people who can use the funding. 

Sunday 17 March 2024

Eek! It's St Patrick's Day!

Actually I am not too sure about this "day" business.

As regular readers of my witterings on these pages will know I have a very good friend who just happens to be a nun. I have known her for a long time. We have had many a conversation over the years but I don't think we have ever had a conversation about St Patrick or any other "saint" as an individual. 

I know very little about "saints". I do remember saying something to a former priest of the church the Senior Cat attended about some tedious process requiring "the patience of a saint" and his response as we were still trying to get the task done, "Most saints were very impatient people." I have also said it to some dog owners I know as they wait, with varying degrees of patience, for dogs to do what dogs do. I am impatient too but I am no saint.  

I am not really sure what saint hood actually is. What are these things called "miracles"? Most of them sound pretty unlikely to me....and others can be explained in other ways.  Perhaps it is the timing of things which matters. If miracles occur then it was surely one when, after months of not going into his beloved shed after my mother died, someone phoned the Senior Cat and said, "I need some timber cut on your circular saw." It meant opening the shed and the two men spending a morning carefully cutting some of the most valuable timber available for the purpose of repairing something in the cathedral. 

When B... asked for that and the Senior Cat said, "Of course" then things changed. The Senior Cat went back into the shed. Things did not "go back to normal" because "normal" had changed but the Senior Cat went back to creating things for other people. That mattered. It was a huge step forward in the grieving process for the Senior Cat - and a huge relief for me. 

B... would laugh if I told him he was a saint. He isn't one. He is just an ordinary human being who happened to ask for the right help at the right time, help to do something for someone else. I suspect this might be true of a lot of "saints".  His surname happens to be an Irish one.

I won't go looking for leprechauns today. I will smile if P... tells me it is St Patrick's Day and there is some sort of special mass for the occasion. I am conscious we don't seem to worry about St David or St Andrew in the same way.  It will be good if some of my Irish friends have some fun in their own way.

And I will remember the man who said, "I need some timber cut on your circular saw."

 

Saturday 16 March 2024

"Mac" attack?

Apparently there was an IT problem yesterday - at the location of a "MacDonald's" frequented by a young male of my acquaintance. No, he is not related to me. I know his grandparents. (His grandfather told me about this as he was out walking the dog.)

It is this boy's habit to go home or to his grandparents from school via this fast food establishment. He has more pocket money than his grandfather thinks a boy should have and some of it is spent in this way. Yesterday disaster hit. There was an IT problem. The place was closed. It wasn't fair! 

He turned up at his grandparents place "starving". There were apparently a great many other teens from his school in the same position. 

"He had two slices of toast and Vegemite instead," his grandfather told me, "Of course M... (his grandmother) wasn't going to see him "starve". The kid doesn't know what "starving" means. We don't either."

No, we don't. Food was sometimes short in our house when I was growing up but Mum always managed to put a meal on the table. We ate home cooked food, had the once a term "treat" of buying our lunch from the school canteen and the once a holiday treat of fish and chips out of greasy butcher and then newspaper wrappings. We thought those occasions were wonderful.

Yesterday I took some time out and went with one cousin and his partner to see another cousin and his partner. The second set have not been well and they wanted to celebrate some good news at last. We had a simple "brunch" sort of occasion at a small cafe overlooking a lake. The surroundings were very quiet and very peaceful. We chatted quietly and caught up with each other's news. We watched people walking their dogs and the boats sailing on the lake. The temperature was perfect for sitting outdoors in the shade. 

"That was as good as being on holiday," my cousin's partner said at the end of it.

He was right. It did feel like that. We had "coffee" and a small amount to eat. The food was good and the staff were friendly and helpful.  None of us do it very often. I certainly cannot afford to do it. It makes such occasions all the more special and memorable.

The young male who goes home via "Maccas" everyday will never have that pleasure. I really feel rather sorry for him.

Friday 15 March 2024

Building houses in remote

indigenous communities is the latest move by the current federal government in their attempts to "lift" the well-being of these communities.

The cost is said to be $4bn over the next ten years. They will build two hundred and seventy houses a year - at a cost of $1.5m a house. $1.5m? That alone should be ringing alarm bells about the scheme. Even allowing for the extra cost of building anything in a remote area that seems excessive.

Something similar was tried more than two decades ago under another government. They took the advice of the now defunct ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torrens Strait Islander Commission) and built some houses in a remote community. It did not work. The houses have been trashed.

One major reason for it not working was because the houses were built where there was no work. They were built where people said they wanted to live because it was "their" land but they had no means to support themselves there.  And they are doing the same thing all over again. They are building houses where there is no work, where there will be no work. 

"Oh but this is where they want to live," is the argument being put forward, "They have the right to live on the land they consider their tribal land, the land to which they have a connection. We need to provide housing where people want to live."

No, we don't. You provide housing if people have no other choice. It might sound harsh but this has to be an economic decision as well as a lifestyle decision.

My parents were required to teach anywhere in the state. The Senior Cat had some tough schools, much tougher than many of his colleagues. He was regarded as the Education Department's "trouble shooter", the person sent in to sort out issues and then be moved on. We lived in some remote places and yes, housing was supplied. It was not supplied to all teachers. Young single teachers lived with families. They often shared a bedroom with the students they were teaching. In one place they lived in caravans parked next to the houses the government had supplied to people moving in to clear land and farm. We lived in the most basic of fibro asbestos housing. In one place the house was so poorly built there were tree growing under the house because the land had not been properly cleared. The bedrooms were so small Middle Cat and I spent our time there sleeping on a mattress on the floor. There was no running water or electricity when we arrived.

We put up with all this and many other issues because we had to. The place we lived in has barely grown in the past fifty years. There is a silo there now that was being built when we left and that is the only reason the population increased. It will not increase in any other way because there is no work there. The farms are being consolidated as young people move to where the work is.

In other remote areas other young people are also moving away because there is no work. According to the last Census the communities in which it is proposed to build these houses are also smaller than they once were. People are drifting away, even those who claim great cultural attachments to the land. They are moving to areas where life is more comfortable and a lettuce does not cost $11. They want all the stations available on the television set not the single station which supposedly caters to their interests. They want the doctor and the hospital. 

Those of them who are concerned about such things also want opportunities for their children. They want their children taught in English in schools that have more facilities. That may be the most important issue of all.

So why are we going to build houses in those areas? Is it really what people want or need? Or has it got more to do with people who live much more comfortably in the city and who have employment telling us something else? Is this really about "preserving the culture" of the wrongly named "oldest living continuous culture on earth"? If it is then that is nonsense. We may not like it but the "traditional" culture and way of life no longer exists. Building houses is not going to help that but employment might help to preserve what remains.  

Thursday 14 March 2024

Who should pay for aged care?

 There is currently a "discussion" about who should be paying for aged care - and the inevitable suggestion that the "wealthy" should pay more.

I am not wealthy by any means.  For the purposes of this argument I would be considered "poor", even "very poor".  That said I am not expecting the "wealthy" to pay more for their aged care than they already do. Most of them are already paying more anyway.

The Senior Cat was paying 85% of his income into the nursing home at the end of his life. It was by no means the only expense involved. That was just the base rate. There were all sorts of hidden costs involved. We dipped into his savings all the time he was there. We did his laundry because it was an additional expense. We bought his pharmacy items. (We also bought the latter from the chemist of our choice which was much cheaper than the chemist the nursing home used. They had a neat little arrangement between them.) We paid for anything above his basic board and lodging, even the "entertainment" he was often helping to provide.

Despite all this he would be one who would be "caught" by the current proposal. The house would have been sold and yet more money would have been taken from the proceeds. I doubt the standard of care would have gone up. The Senior Cat had a reasonable standard of care given to him but it was (a) because he was articulate and polite and (b) because Middle Cat and I took it in turns to go in on alternate days. That was hard work but I do not regret the commitment we made one little bit. It was the only way we could be sure he would be as well cared for as possible under the circumstances. I still wish he had been able to end his days here in his own home. I still feel guilty that I am no longer going in and out of that nursing home on alternate days because, as one of the staff told me, "Visitors like you keep us on our toes." They should not need visitors to be doing the right thing.

I am tired of being told the elderly need to do more to pay their own way. They often have. Many of them have worked hard for fifty or more years. They scrimped and saved and bought their own homes, homes without landscaped gardens, patios and swimming pools. If they went on holiday it was not to Bali. Most of them made one big overseas trip when they retired. Some of them bought a caravan and "did a bit of travel" around the state - or even to another state if they could afford the fuel costs. 

The next generation, the more recently retired who are not yet in need of home care packages and nursing home facilities are retired only from paid work. They are the generation which do the school runs, the before and after school care and the school holiday care. They care for children when they are ill and often for the very elderly as well. This is also the generation which coaches the footy team and makes sure the school has enough volunteers to help with hearing the little ones read. These are the people who do the vast majority of the "volunteer" work without which society would fall apart. They spend their days so busy doing things for other people some of them wish they were back at work for a rest. 

An aging population is an issue. It is a problem. The idea that everything should be taken from them in order to pay for their care is not going to solve the problem. If people believe that is going to happen then they will simply spend what they have while they can.

Wednesday 13 March 2024

Daylight saving is now beyond

usefulness. It is a bad joke.

It is no secret that I have never liked "daylight saving". I am a morning sort of person. I get my best work done then.  I miss the light early mornings of my childhood, before the nonsense started.

This morning I have put a load of washing out in the 7am semi-darkness. As I did that work began again on the demolition site two doors down. Yes, they can legally start at 7am in the semi-darkness. 

We have almost another month of this madness. Our clocks don't return to "normal" time until the 7th of April. It is even later this year than it was last. It is being done to appease those who tell us that this is what people want because they are going to "Festival" activities and playing sport. 

The reality is that only a very small proportion of the population is doing these things and they mostly live in the city. People in rural areas have other concerns. 

But there is also another little oddity. This state is already out of kilter. We are currently nine and a half hours ahead of GMT but we should only be nine hours ahead. The half hour is wrong. If anywhere should be half an hour ahead it is the neighbouring states. What we should really be doing is turning the clocks back an hour and a half...and leaving them there.

Daylight saving is supposed to be a good thing. It is "used" by people to do things in the evenings...or so they tell us. I have yet to discover anyone who consistently uses the lighter evenings to garden, play sport, go to an open air concert, walk the dog or even just sit outside with a glass in their hand watching the kids tear up and down the lawn they have just mowed in the evening. It just does not happen. People may do these occasionally, very occasionally. Most of the time they come home, make a meal, chivvy their young into doing their homework and watch television or use their computers. They go to bed at what seems to be the "right time" because they always go to bed at that time. They get up at the "right time" in the morning because that is the time they have always done it. They feel constantly tired but they put it down to other factors. The idea that they might not be getting enough sleep when their body tells them they need it is something they dismiss as nonsense. 

At the changeover point back to a time which is more in keeping with the natural rhythm of nature we will have the usual spate of accidents caused by the time change. There will be other health related issues too although they will not be quite as bad as we go back closer to what our bodies tell us we need. 

I am willing to accept that daylight saving may have some use somewhere. I do not know where this could be but perhaps some far flung point of the globe has a need for it. It isn't needed here. At our latitude it makes no sense at all, especially when we are not even in time with our longitude.

If you live in this part of the world and really use daylight saving every day please let me know. I would like to "meet" someone who really benefits from it.