AUSTRALIA - RACIST BY ANY OTHER NAME

CENTRELINK AGGRESSION.

There’s a film out called “I, Daniel Blake,” about the abuse of a person seeking help in England through their equivalent of Centrelink. “Racist by any Other Name,” written in 2015 for Toorak Times, points out how we tolerate aggression towards our most vulnerable population, while accusing them of being the aggressors. Unfortunately it’s getting worse. Here’s a replay. Brenda.
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“He’s only deadly if you frighten him,” Kath explained. “He’s one of the most deadly snakes in the world.”

I had recently arrived at Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island to work as a house-maid/waitress, and at 17, thought I knew everything. Well almost. I had no idea how to frighten a death adder, or more importantly, how not to.
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Rosie lay beside the open guitar case, pretending not to notice the people passing by, but the flicker in her eyes notifies that she never misses a trick. Dave, with his mop of unruly dark hair under a battered bushman’s hat, sings his songs with meaning, his soft blue eyes also watching. Just another busker? His voice and guitar skills hint of more.
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Yes, I’m a fan. I’ve watched Mack Horton blitz the 400 in the pool, and the Campbell sisters with a couple of mates, knocking off multiple awards in the relay, our archers getting bronze without getting a tan and Bogut doing his magic with the round ball. Wonderful stuff. And this was just the first day.
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Everyone is shocked by the treatment of incarcerated indigenous youth in the Northern Territory. There are calls to get the perpetrators and punish them. How dare they treat children that way? Unfortunately, their baying for blood is the same side of the coin. When will we learn that more of the same, doesn’t solve the problem? And it’s not just in the Territory. How we treat our less fortunate fellow humans is pervasive.
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I never put a foot wrong
Except this time I did
And I was splayed for all to see
As I went into a skid.
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The Old Testament was into revenge. All that eye for an eye stuff. As it is the basis of three major religions, this can be a bit of a worry. Lucky for us, a number of great thinkers, from all different cultures and centuries, such as Confucius, Mahatma Ghandi, Jesus, Victor Hugo and Blanche Murphy, had some other ideas on the subject, like ‘if you want revenge, dig two graves,’ and ‘an eye for an eye and the whole world ends up blind.’
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Kind people have a lot to answer for. The Office of Psychiatric Services ran a number of institutions for people with mental disabilities. It was staffed by specialists, including specifically trained psychiatric nurses, psychologists, psychiatric social workers and of course, psychiatrists.
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Discipline. That’s all you need. That’s what New Year resolutions are all about. They give you are starting point to do something or change something, and you just take it from there. Simple. I’d start on the magnum opus about that famous philosopher, Blanche Murphy. No excuses. Today would be Day One. I slept in, so headed off late to the pool, but got waylaid by a hot air balloon that tried to land in the middle of Acland Street. They were trying to manoeuvre it away from trams ...

I lived through the hospital experience and got spewed back out into the real world, sporting a lump of concrete heavy enough to sink me in the Dead Sea. Said concrete encased the right arm – including the hand on the end of it that you use for everything - as opposed to the other one that just hangs around as a general support appendage. But friends were good. They came around with finger food. Julie helped pull out the last crop of broad beans from Veg Out, and Robyn painstaking...