SOCIAL COMMENTARY THE PENSIONERS - WHO SEES THE TRUTH?

This post originally appeared in 2012.

BILLIONS FOR WASTE,AND FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS
NOTHING FOR THE AGED

We see them in most normal situations,in the shops, on the trains and buses, in our churches. They are usually neatly dressed.They do not stand out. They are, simply put, part of the scene.They are Age Pensioners.

But do we see the truth behind their normality? Lord Tweedsmuir who, under the nom de plume John Buchan , wrote The Thirty Nine Steps, wrote before the Second World War that he foresaw man in modern societies living a life of "quiet desperation". He had in mind the multiplication of material goods and the inability of the average person to afford them. His prediction has NOT generally come true, and there is a much better distribution of material goods in modern Western societies than anyone could have predicted. But there are those who have been left behind, or passed by, as the gravy train accelerated.The young unemployed and Age Pensioners are the largest groups.

But the Age Pensioners tend to be invisible. I have always loved the English institutions advertising themselves as Homes "for Distressed Gentle Folk".So many of our Age Pensioners fall into that category. But they are "invisible" because they still appear neat and tidy in the respectable clothes they had at the end of their employed lives - maybe even to excess at that time.And they still get around normally, but notice - more of them use cheap concessional public transport - even when they have a car which has itself grown old, they cannot afford much fuel at to-day's prices, and certainly not repairs . New tyres or Registration Fees and Insurance are causes of crisis for them. 

Take note of their habits in the Supermarket - prices are always carefully checked and the cheapest option taken. Items in the basket are few and basic. The truth is, that the Pensioner has virtually lost the ability to survive financially after rent is paid , it is a fortnight of struggle until the next payment gives a brief gasp of financial "air ".

And yet our Federal Government wastes TENS OF BILLIONS of Dollars on Pink Batts, unnecessary and unwanted  extra School buildings and an unwanted and ill-judged National Broadband Network and, to rub salt into the aged wounds, gives Parliamentarians Salary rises which themselves represent between 10 and 20 Pensioners annual pension income. That was the size of their Salary rise - imagine how many pensioners could be paid from the Parliamentarian's total salary. 

About 10% of Australia's population receives the Age Pension, or roughly 2,000,000 people. Surely in a country which can squander tens of Billions of Dollars on mis-begotten policy disasters and pile cash up around its Parliamentarians, it is not too much to ask that Age Pensioners be given a more reasonable income. They deserve an income which will enable them to live reasonably and be able to plan occasional outings, rather than hanging on like grim death until at the end of their misery, death becomes a reality. Reduction in income to a stage where one cannot plan something positive creates a destructive state of hopelessness, a detachment from life and a subversion of any creative spark.

Who will relieve their plight? Certainly not people whose pre-occupations are homosexual matters, facilitating abortion and imagined Climate Change ( as if it had not always been changing , as the geophysical record shows).

These victims of the trendy and the greedy will finally get their say at the Ballot Box!

2012 SOCIAL COMMENTARY NANNY STATE ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

MORE DEATHS THAN ILLEGAL DRUGS OR ALCOHOL

Asleep at the wheel?

 Governments have tremendous responsibilities. But we need to judge them with particular care in those areas in which they are intensely and pervasively active in regulation.One of the areas of the most intrusive regulation by the Australian Federal Government is the area of Health , and within that area the matter of Prescription Drugs is regulated very 

heavily and aggressively.So we would expect to see gleaming efficiency and progressive outcomes from this vast bureaucratic apparatus.

But reports on radio to-day relate to a study by the Victorian Coroner,

show that in 2010 there were 338 Victorian deaths from drug toxicity. 261 of these deaths involved the use of Prescription drugs, and of these 165 were principally those used as tranquilizers to suppress anxiety and insomnia. Only 151 of the deaths involved illegal drugs.

The problem with the Prescription drugs resulted primarily from Prescription Shopping, where multiple filling of the same prescription is obtained by visiting a number of Pharmacists to obtain quickly, more than has been prescribed.

In fact we understand from a Pharmacist, that the Federal Drugs authorities do not consider a person to be Prescription Shopping until he/she has visited 8 Pharmacists!!!!

There are now calls by the Victorian Coroner and others for the institution of a National Prescription Database operating on a real-time basis linking Doctors and Pharmacists so that offenders can be instantly protected from themselves. Too late....but better late than never!

It is incredible that in this modern Nanny State society, Nanny  - who sticks her bib in all over the place, and watches us everywhere, has not got her priorities right in such a fundamental area. Asleep at the wheel Nanny! Or too busy fighting factional foes! 

"EX LIBRIS" 1951 THE CRUISE OF THE VENGEFUL

Clear in my memory , the dust jacket I was amazed to find via Google!

Truth to tell, the first book I ever read was Robert  Louis Stevenson's "TREASURE ISLAND" which I received as a Christmas gift around age 7 yrs or maybe 8yrs. I found it difficult to concentrate on initially but came back to it successfully some time later. My appetite for seafaring adventure had been whetted.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was not balloted for National Service in the birth date lottery, and that, whilst standing on Berala Railway Station one morning , waiting for my train to the City, I decided that I should so some form of volunteer service instead. For me, that would have to be the Royal Australian Naval Reserve.

Other than my elder Brother's desire to join the Navy during the War( which as I have already recorded he was not allowed to do) the family had no record of Naval Service. But I had a fascination with the Navy and Naval History from a very early age. I can recall reading in 6th Class (Age 11 yrs) at Marist Brothers Lidcombe a book from the School Library called 

"The Cruise of the Vengeful"and being enthralled.( In an effort to find out more about it I have found that it is on Google Books, was written by Gordon Stables and is set in 1908 when the Royal Navy's latest warship is instrumental in frustrating a French and Russian plan to conquer England!! Classification - "Juvenile Fiction" well, I was 11 ! The Internet never ceases to amaze me. I remember the Dust jacket well!)

So, I enlisted in the R.A.N.R. which involved spending 2 weeks each year on a training cruise as well as attending weekly training parades at H.M.A.S. RUSHCUTTER ,a shore establishment on Rushcutter's Bay on Sydney's Southern Harbour shore in the Eastern Suburbs.

2011 SOCIAL COMMENTARY "WE VALUE YOUR CALL " - FORM DISPLACES SUBSTANCE

"WE VALUE YOUR CALL "  - FORM DISPLACES SUBSTANCE

HTC WILDFIRE S

Who would have thought it? The acquisition of a new mobile (cell phone for our American readers) and a move interstate have prompted a useful insight into our society!

 Before our removal from Queensland("Beautiful one day - perfect the next") to Sydney ( Sin City , New South Wales  , I decided to quit my prepaid mobile phone arrangement - which had been meant to save money but ended up costing an arm and a leg - due to exorbitant call charges. The intention was to get a low rate contract  for a good Android Smartphone , and I chose the HTC Wildfire S pictured above. The Phone has been everything I could hope for - a poor man's iPhone in fact.

However,  dealing with our monumental TELSTRA was a nightmare. And this was the beginning of my insight forming. TELSTRA is a thoroughly "now" creation, featuring every fashionable corporate pattern of activity imaginable. If the New Business Management Gospel is true, it should be a wonder to behold. NOT! 

Firstly it was a privatised Government operation. Freed of its "shackles"it proceeded to adopt every smart modern concept. To maximise efficiency (read "increase profits") it moved heavily into out-sourcing -forming a moat about itself, separating itself from its clients - a moat which is the Pacific Ocean - and placed all its call centres in the Phillipines. Having ensured that clients would , over time, be deterred from endeavouring to contact TELSTRA by phone due to the language difficulties and the confusion  created by TELSTRA systems. Next, they proceeded to Franchise many of their TELSTRA SHOPS in shopping centres ( Malls to our American readers). This duplicated the language difficulties and confusion, because many of the Franchisees are themselves recently arrived from South East Asia and employ mostly young people of similar experience.In the process we spent two periods of one and a half hours on the phone to TELSTRA Philippine call centres with no result, followed by one and a half hours at a franchised TELSTRA SHOP speaking with a charming young Japanese lady still without result. 

But TELSTRA was not finished with its battered clients yet. In a triumph of Western management excellence , it divisionalised its business and re- organised its accounts! Marvellous!? Each client has a Phone Number of course and then a Bill number and then an Account Number. He/she may or may not be aware that the account is a Personal account in any one of several categories - all meaningless to the client, or even a Business account within another range of several categories!

The Accounts when ( and if) received are a marvel of confusion. And, in the last week I have been advised by letter to be prepared for their new style accounts with new account numbers featuring three more digits!! i can't describe my enthusiasm in greeting the news! My first account at the new address did not arrive. But follow-up letters did. When I telephoned to ask for a copy of the missing account on two occasions , the good folk in the Phillipines were very understanding and the result is that I received 4 copies of that account by mail to my OLD address as well as one to my Email.

Now, as you would expect, TELSTRA is very big on QA (Quality Assurance) . This is one of the engines driving Australia's plunge into the embrace of the triumph of FORM over SUBSTANCE, along with Workplace Health and Safety and the manifold examples of legislated civil "morality" such as Racial Vilification Acts and Equal Rights Acts and Privacy Acts and any other reflection of a society that is trying to legislate its substitute for Christian Morality.

The latter, of course had to be abandoned because it is based on objective Truth and personal responsibility whereas in the New Order "everyone knows"that "everything is relative"and there is always "someone else" to blame when our actions are questioned or things go wrong.

  Finally we went to another TELSTRA SHOP in a very large Shopping Centre in Hornsby. There  our luck changed,  and Roger, a young Peruvian born fellow, solved our problems in 15 minutes.

 Sadly for TELSTRA and its clients there are not enough Peruvian born employees in the company.

  But , in essence, it seems to me that :

  when a company adopts quality assurance,

  embraces Workplace Health and Safety,

  embraces concern for all sorts of equality,

  renounces any type of profiling,

  adopts out-sourcing and, or,

  adopts franchising of its contact points,

  You can be sure the client is the loser - in a big way.  Everything they say means exactly the 

  the opposite : "We really value your call" Sure!

  

  The earliest exemplars of this phenomenon were the Communist countries : who can forget "The Democratic Republic of ......"or the dreaded "People's Republic of China" they were not remotely Democratic and it is certainly NOT the people's! Everything they say means the opposite.

FORM has become everything and SUBSTANCE is completely emptied from our social and civil structures. Yet people seem surprised when Government bodies lose Billions of dollars and announce plans to spend tens of billions on a program with no proper business plan, or young electricians are killed and homes burnt out due to ill-conceived schemes, or international banking structures collapse with inconceivable debts. Everyone has been satisfied with form and ignored substance.

Pope Benedict has warned the Church repeatedly that programmes are not the answer, but personal holiness and personal morality and personal action and union with Christ are the answer. In other words SUBSTANCE and NOT FORM.

  WE NEED A REVOLUTION IN THINKING, NOT GLIB SPIN DOCTORED SCHEMES, BUT THE REALITIES TOO OFTEN PROMISED BUT TOO RARELY DELIVERED - WHETHER IN COMMERCE, CIVIL SOCIETY, GOVERNMENT OR RELIGION

Here endeth my rant - normal, more relaxed posting will quickly resume after I have slain a Dragon next Tuesday.

2011 SOCIAL COMMENTARY WHY WAS IT KEPT "SECRET"?

 WHY WAS IT KEPT "SECRET"?

SYDNEY'S GARDEN PALACE EXHIBITION BUILDING  1879

In 71 years of keenly interested living in Australia, most of the first 42 years living in Sydney, I knew nothing of the Garden Palace Exhibition Building which housed the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879.

But in the course of research for my Blog "EDWARD BECKMANN"http://edwardbeckmann.blogspot.com/

I stumbled upon the picture above and I learned that this huge building had been situated on what is now the South West corner of the Botanical Gardens , opposite the State Library. All that remains of it are the Stone gate posts and wrought iron gates that now give entry to the Gardens. I have walked through and past those gates many times - how did I not know?

The great building was crowned by a massive Dome at the intersection of its three turreted wings. The Dome was 100 feet in diameter and 210 feet high.To speed construction, which was completed in only eight months, the building was largely constructed of timber. This was its undoing, for early in the morning of 22nd September, 1882 a fire broke out and steadily engulfed the entire building. So intense was the fire that flames were reported to reach 100 feet into the air. The destruction of the building was total. The site was cleared and incorporated into the Royal Botanical Gardens,of which it had not originally been part .

Perhaps the blow to the City's collective psychology had been so severe that it was wiped from memories - too painful to talk about. How wonderful it would have looked to-day, soaring above the top of that hill in all its Victorian era exuberance and self-confidence with an extravagance that was very Sydney !

Let's just hope to re-kindle (bad choice of words!) , no to resurrect the memory and dream about "what might have been! "

2011 SOCIAL COMMENTARY HIT WITH THE SILLY STICK

Vive La France !

Soaring to new heights of Politically Correct idiocy, the governing body of International Rugby Union has fined the French Team $ 15,000 for walking toward the HAKA hysterics of the All Blacks.

How precious these little PC Fascists are! Those naughty Frenchmen walking toward the heroic HAKA makers! Get a life Rugby administrators ( how many are NZers one wonders?).

2011 SOCIAL COMMENTARY HAKAS, ALLSTARS AND THE IDEA OF SPORT

Maori performing HAKA

Recent events on the end of season football calendar in the South-West Pacific, have inflicted on us a heap of Hakas. The Western world's American caught PC infection has led to everyone accepting the endurance of this bit of effrontery from New Zealand. We couldn't be seen not to accept something done by native people could we? It doesn't matter that no one else could get away with any other time consuming activity. Or is it tolerated because the "powers that be " in TV's wonderland think it is a colourful image? "Good vision"? 

Some of the bros. lookin' mighty pale 

Whatever New Zealanders do amongst themselves is their business - accepting Maori cloaks and rubbing noses etc. - good luck to them. But I don't reckon they have the right to seek to inflict it on others. Especially when the Haka is so compromised by the inclusion of non-Maori players , whose culture it is totally alien to, joining in the primitive ritual. And it is further compromised by the inclusion of modern vulgar gestures that belong in dirty back alleys rather than in front of crowds including many children.

Of course things are more proper here on the world's biggest island, Australia. But wait....The "Indigenous Allstars"  are to play in Rugby League their Annual Game. An all indigenous team  ...but is this not RACISM? 

Oh! What is that the PC Lords rule... its not racism if black people do it!! So.... if I'm BLACK I can form a team EXCLUDING non- blacks by definition. BUT if I am White I MAY NOT form a team excluding non-white people. THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD BE ...FOR EVERY AUSTRALIAN.

INDIGENOUS ALLSTARS

How patronising it is to make an exception for indigenous people! And what a classic bit of hypocrisy produced by our unprincipled Aussie pragmatism. And it makes good TV vision of course,
for these guys are some of our very best Rugby League players, and we all love to watch their talent on display in ordinary team games.

The idea of SPORT seems to be under increasing threat from onfield violence - the shoulder charge, the stiff elbow , the knee to the head etc, or in cricket to cheating by ball tampering etc. In almost every case money and or drugs lie behind the problems I'm sure.And that is compounded by some of the team psyching that goes on in a moronically "professional"way. Scenes from Dressing Rooms give evidence of this idiocy and hype all too often.

Australian Captain and NRL Legend Darren Lockyer
attacked with an elbow to the jaw by a cowardly Kiwi "cousin".

Congratulations to our Kiwi cousins across the "dutch"for their victory against the French - a thrilling game thanks to the French attacking with such style and vigour. 24 Years is a long time between World Cup drinks! Well done!

I suppose all these problems have gone too far, and there are too many vested interests, for things to change, but Oh  children, things have been better.. "Shut up Dad!""  Hmmm better indeed!