What should I call this modern age?

What should I call this modern age?                                                                                           
I ask myself, putting pen to page,                                                                                       
Trying to describe the world I see,                                                                                   
Which continually surprises me?                                                                                           
Men carry babies on their chests,                                                                                         
Once seen only at the breast,                                                                                       
Even when hand-fed from a bottle                                                                                             
By a mother going at full throttle,                                                                                     
Rushing from home to work elsewhere                                                                                   
To pay to place her child in all-day care.                                                                                     
Is this the Revolution of Today?                                                                                 
Maternité?   Paternité?   Egalité?

Keep The Kids In School?

Please!   Legislators, regulators and parents, please don’t close our schools and kindies! With or without this Corona virus  pandemic kids are always safer supervised at school.  Historical data every year shows they suffer more deaths and injury, in their hundreds, if  unsupervised, by accident at home after school hours, weekends and holidays.  At school, they, along with mums and dads, can be readily kept up to date and well informed by teachers who’ll remind them regularly about washing hands and other healthy habits.  Our schools and education system are a great  communication system for  the nation.   Forget about sports rorts scandals, make sure our children get regularly out in the fresh air and playing games with their friends, competing in sports, not self isolated at home and watching news on tele!

Parents don’t need net links and ‘pomes’ to underline this for them. They know themselves, when they’re at work, their kids are safest and keeping up at school.

 

Green? Yellow? Red?

To bin or not to bin?

But which bin should I put what in?

The question rings inside my head,

As wearily I go to bed.

Newspapers here with glassware there?

I’m a lefty; it’s just not fair

That neighbors, some of whom are posh,

Might think that I’ve deserted Josh,

Our ALP man, if I over-fill the green.

But if by chance that I am seen

These days to fill the yellow more

In Freo on this south-western shore,

They might think I’m just like them!

Really?   Tomorrow I will join a ‘dem’

To act on climate and euthanasia,

Do my bit for South East Asia.

My friend Tacker, with wagging tail just said,

“Me too! Now go to bed! You daft old red!”

NOTE!    These lines came up for me during the holiday season as I worked on my New Year’s resolution to help Fremantle City Council with their FOGO campaign and their December gift to me as a ratepayer of a Food and Garden Organics bin with a lime green lid..   They also delivered with it an explanation of how to decide what to fill bins with, and even a printed roster of which bins were to be collected when!

The problems I have with this fine new system are about my own late night routine.   My final domestic duty as Tacker and I do our last wee walk outside has always been to bin newspapers and other rubbish.  Now this third bin requiring alternate weekly rotation has proved a bit of a challenge.  Appropriate mnemonics in rhyme have so far eluded me as I try to remember what goes into where and when for collection.

I’ll  have to change to a daylight bin-putting-out on the verge!  That will mean no more pre-bedtime sorties in the dark when the moon or streetlight can help with the colour choice of neighbours.  But bins put out in full day-light seem to invite contributions from passers by!  Do they know that favoured colours flag one’s political leanings?   Will they even notice or care if it is green or red?  This has become an issue for me since I learned that elsewhere in the world the yellow flag is used by so-called ‘liberals.’

Just as well that here in Oz that third bin lid isn’t the colour blue!  I’d better stop these notes before another rhyme comes up about these different hues, cos there’s a memory jogger I can use!  Coalition blues!  Well, then at least I’d have something right!  Now Freo rubbish bins may overflow with newsprint about the NLP and all their ‘sh – – e!’

Thinks:  Stop there, Patricia, ‘polliepomes‘ is for satire, that doesn’t excuse bad language!  Sometimes you rage too much about the things you’ve read……’Nuff said.

PS  If you find the vantage point of my illustration above my pome confusing,  it is intended to be so – to give you some perspective on my nightly dilemna with my porch light behind me.  The green lid for FOGO items instructs me clearly that it wants no glass, no plastics, including bags and no nappies! The red lid bin clearly asks for general waste which can’t be composted, like nappies, polystyrene, rope, hoses and straps.  And the yellow?  That’s for glass, cans,  and……….well read it for yourselves at  Recycle Right  or https://www.fremantle.wa.gov.au/residents/waste-and-recycling/three-bin-fogo-system

PPS 1/02/2020     I forgot to note here to confirm my understanding of their advice about yellow poo bags being compostable and able to be placed in the lime green bin by calling Freo City Council.   To help myself and others who I understand have also had this problem I quote below –

………..The City’s dog bags are compostable and can be placed into the lime green FOGO bin……….Kind Regards,   Roi,  Information request,  Fremantle City Council.

Just between ourselves though, I think I still prefer my own old black compost bin out the back.  It’s helped me grow a lovely green garden over the years.  I’ve told neighbours that they can use my FOGO bin if they need more space and provided they put it out on the appropriate days.  That’s also helped my old head to sort out these existential problems of life down here in the lucky country.

PPPS 12/06/2020 Another perspective, a street-scene view of Freo on my daily walk down towards the sea on nearby Martha Street.   Those bins again, as well as trees and flowers and, of course, the Indian Ocean!  So much to see and marvel at just outside my gate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is The Budget Really In The Black?

Was that Budget Question Time?  An ABC transmission?

Or was it free Hustings Time for the Coalition?

Was that our Treasurer,  informing us as he should,

Of affairs of state?  Or was he doing what he could,

As the National/Liberal Member for Kooyong,

To shout party propaganda at us for far too long

Persuading us to vote to have him back

And promising to keep us in the black;

Because the LNP  have fixed the books!  They balance!

A contrast to Josh and his grandiloquence

Was Labor’s Bill,  not short,  but sweet.

Somehow he was much more up my street;

Full of fire,  red with passion and ideas,

Not dark  and banking up our fears,

He promised help with health and a living wage,

Wherever we live and work,  no matter what our age.

Out of the blue PM Scomo makes a Captain’s Call,

Crocodile teary-eyed,  appealing to us all,

Almost kneeling in submission,

Announcing a Disability Royal Commission!

This puts Oz right back into the red,

And Labor left to pay for and manage if they stay ahead.

These self-righteous LNP claims to be generous, true blue!

I don’t believe them!   Do you?

 

NOTES:  I think this is what is called ‘free verse’ – I just can’t get it to parse – it rhymes, but still reads more like free verse. Maybe time will help me put it into shape.   Last night, however, I wrote hurriedly, so enraged by what I saw as Morrison’s ultimate abuse of the aged care and disability sector,  using us all as ammunition, a last attempt to buy votes.   I trust my ‘fellow’ Australians,  young and old,  needing or giving care,  will show how wise they can be when when we finally get that much needed election!

P.S. 19/05/2019, and more importantly post election!

Oz again has made a poor selection.

New-chum PM Morrison has been returned!

Despite the NLP all chaos and so spurned!

The  ALP is toting up the cost;

Have its love and labors all been lost?

Leader, Bill, has already paid his price,

Resigned,  quickly, no need to ask him twice

P.P..S. 31/07/2019    I have linked this ‘pome’ to Bill Shorten’s very considered comments on the election loss to this site before I go on to write any more about our national political  scene, depressing as it  is.    Is The Budget Really In The Black?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Western Australian Rules

 NOTES:  Reading about the untimely death of Laverton School Principal, Trish Antulov,  in The West today took me back several decades and reminded me of my own experience in that role.  I thought about the many years she must have labored long and tirelessly to deal with issues of race and gender as effectively as she clearly did to achieve the recognition and appreciation she received both before and after her death.

That could have been me, I thought,  if I had not caved in to the similar pressures and accepted an early retirement settlement back in 1985 organized for me by WA Teachers’ Union Rep, Bill Latter.    It sent me rummaging amongst boxes of old papers and diaries to find things I had, not so much forgotten, as determinedly put behind me.

I’m glad I just boxed them all up and didn’t burn them in my rage at losing my job and career.  I’ve had a great new life since then, but now I’m needing a new challenge in my declining years.  Learning how to transpose old script for editing and weaving into a story line is the next step.  I’m surprised that I was writing ‘pomes’ way back then – I guess it helped me get through some dark days of dealing with issues of ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ as we now call them.  Though we didn’t use those terms back then.

Last night I watched Shareena Clanton on ABC’s Q & A as she made an impassioned plea for her people to be heard;  I wondered what one could do to help now when we seem no further forward than back in 1984 when the world was drawn here by Australia’s America’s Cup triumph.  So much could have been achieved with the magic of our ancient history.  I can remember how optimistic I was about that and with help of officers from the WA Aboriginal Education Department like Lyn Sherwood, pictured below here to the right of me……..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roses, roses all the way for Barnaby today!

 

Why?   ‘Cos it’s St Valentine’s Day?
Will the Nationals unite and say
‘You are our leader still today!’
Question Time – so many speeches!
Turnbull said he saw no breaches,
Surely not – ‘he wore no ‘breeches!’
Now that’s pommie speak for trousers!
Think of that you right wing wowsers!
Labor left wing rabble rousers?
They’re pleased to see him hale and hearty!
Rosy-red faced!   Feisty!  Just the man to lead his party!

NOTES –  For once I’m on Barnaby’s side!   Beetroot-red faced as he’s so often described, I thought of him as rosy-red and with a lover, passionate, today of all days, February 14th, he deserves a kinder soubriquet.

And that rage of his in Question Time today was a delight to behold with Members on the Opposition benches all smiling.  I can imagine one of them sending him a bunch of wilting red roses they might find left over on the supermarket shelves if a late night sitting sends them out looking for a takeaway snack.

Two days on and I think the ALP are still delighted that Barnaby is hanging in there as leader of the Nationals, despite their harassing the PM yesterday for not seeking his resignation.  Malcolm Turnbull’s address and ‘not commenting’ on this ‘personal tragedy’ but nonetheless from now on proscribing any sexual relations at all between Ministers and their staff has caused an unexpected tightening of the National Party ranks behind their ‘unwise’ leader.   Barnaby now has an opportunity to be on the front foot again instead of displaying that very shamefaced expression of his when apologizing to all the women in his life and to all of us Australians who put their trust in him when they elected him to high office!  What next for our Coalition Government with its majority of one in the House of Reps?????

I wonder how FPM Julia Gillard would have handled this sort of crisis?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fido! The Faithful One?

I’ve just had an epiphany
Passing strange for an agnostic
Whose only daily litany
Sought help with the Times acrostic.
I know now that there is a God
Who hears me and who answers prayers.
He came here in the shape of Dog
To cheer me up, relieve my cares.
He shows me how I should behave,
To be patient and more cheerful.
He stays close by, a watchful slave,
`Cos I’m old and sometimes fearful.
So thank you, Dog, for being here
On days I do my wondering why.
You comfort me — so warm, so near,
Teaching me to rest, content to die!

NOTES:   I wrote this some years ago but thought that this being the Year of the Dog it could be an appropriate time to give it space in polliepomes anticipating a more peaceful year than last.   A brilliant cartoon by First Dog on the Moon showing a cat very like our Sheba gifting soon to resign Minister, Peter Dutton, a big pile of Pussie Poo, got me going on Tacker and the Year of the Dog and what he might offer!  Sometimes links can confuse this issue!

Apparently Donald Trump doesn’t like dogs.  Maybe some insightful people in Washington could work out why and somehow help him into a more loving and caring frame of mind by showing him how many great world leaders and Presidents have been dog owners.  As well  that Chinese city was surely genuine in paying him the compliment of placing that giant Trump-like dog in their city square

Or is that being too optimistic?    I must confess that Tacker helps me here!

PS  8/02/2019  Walt Whitman said it better so many years ago!

“I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”     

PPS 7/01/2020  Just found the link to that picture above of Julia with Reuben, her dog.  Good to think about her instead of all the chaos out in the world today   Why, oh why isn’t she our PM right now?

29/03/20    In splendid self isolation with Sheba around somewhere I’m looking back over old pictures and this came up for me.

 

Euthanasia – Is it ever ‘voluntary’?

Euthanasia – can it ever be truly ‘voluntary’? I have been asking myself as I have read, listened and watched increasing numbers of commentators respond to the legislative initiative to legalise euthanasia 

Man Up

I watched the ABC program this evening on Aussie masculinity.  I was interested to see how boys and men in Oz experience life and growing up today compared with three quarters of a century ago in working class wartime England.  Back then it seemed to me my own four brothers were somehow privileged and that as a girl I was disadvantaged, and always struggling to hold my own against them and other boys.  I don’t think I gave much thought to their National Service for two years which could involve them in military training for war on battlefields in Korea once the Germans and the Japanese were beaten in 1945.  Even so I certainly didn’t imagine that boys and men born no matter where in the western world were many times more likely to kill themselves even in peacetime than were women.  I go to bed with these verses in my head written many years ago.

My Neighbour Died The Other Day.   

My neighbor died the other day, by his own hand.
Was he trying to make me understand
What it was he had in mind, what it was he planned?
Was he hoping for one last helping hand,
When he stood out there beneath that fateful tree
And said,  “You’ll be sorry.  Just wait, you’ll see!
You’ll wish that you had been more kind to me.”
With hindsight that’s as clear as any threat could be.

That’s what I feel,  my unspoken point of view.
To his family, I hear,  he’d given not a clue
That this was something he planned to do.
He didn’t say to them, “I’m going to punish you.”
He left no message, however brief,
With explanation, offering some relief
From the horror and the shock beyond belief,
Assuaging guilt and what will be unending grief.

NOTES:  Suicide has rarely impinged on my own life or the family circumstances of those around me  though issues of gender equity often have in a very real way.  Social scientists have researched and written much about the gender disparity in suicide rates no matter where in the world. Tonight’s program had me re-thinking my experience of  what seemed to me a very un-fair go in my working life here in a Land Down Under.  How ironic is that?  That hit was sung by Men at Work in the birthplace of Germaine Greer, near contemporary of mine, world-wide champion of  Women’s Lib!

But why is what comes to mind no militant chant for women’s rights to equality, but rather this long ago regret for the sadness of that neighbor who seemed so rough and tough when he told me how one day I’d be sorry!  I should have been more kind to him!

Adam Delivers the Goodes For Sophie And Many Other Fans!

What a great picture and story behind it to come out of the Adam Goodes controversy! Reading about Adam Goodes and his dance demonstration against the booing of some footie fans, I was very touched by the story of his meeting with  Sophie Wrigley.   I look forward to reading more about her and her courage.  I’m  not just talking about her standing up for her hero by being a Sydney Swans supporter while living in Geelong!   I am so impressed by the way she has dealt with her lifelong disability caused by pre-natal cerebral palsy.  I see too that she is also the only girl in the Grovedale under-12s footy team.  Now that shows real nerve!

So here for Sophie are the lines which kept running through my head as I read about Adam Goodes and all the fine work he has done for Australia and for Aboriginal people as well as being a great footie player.   I’m sure Sophie knows about Robin Hood who was my own hero at the Saturday morning pictures way back in the the last century.

Aussie Rules!

Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes,  on the field again!
Adam Goodes,  Adam Goodes, out there with the men!
Booed by the bad, cheered by the good!                                                                                           Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!

Adam Goodes! Adam Goodes,  rose above the muck!
Adam Goodes, Adam Goodes, playing in the ruck!
Booed by the bad, cheered by the good!                                                                                           Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!

Adam Goodes! Adam Goodes,  not beating his chest!
Adam Goodes, Adam Goodes, fairest and the best!
Booed by the bad, cheered by the good!                                                                                            Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!

Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes,  Australian Of The Year!
Adam Goodes,  Adam Goodes, see him throw that spear!
Booed by the bad, cheered by the good!                                                                                           Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!  Adam Goodes!

POST SCRIPT     20/09/15     Adam Goodes at age 35 officially retired yesterday with much praise from commentators, accolades from fellow players and regrets expressed by many about the remaining culture of racism in the sport he so excelled in.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/sep/20/retiring-adam-goodes-leaves-a-hole-that-only-the-truly-great-can-fill?CMP=ema_632

POST POST SCRIPT    09/12/15   Talking about Adam’s retirement and the unpleasantness  which marred it with the racist issue,  Stan Grant on ABC Radio today asks  among other things …………“Is this who we want to be?”

POST POST POST SCRIPT   28/07/16  it was not until July, 2016, that Adam seems to have found some sort of peace of mind about all this when the AFL held a formal breakfast at the SCG honoring the contribution to the game made by Goodes and fellow indigenous Swans players,  Mike Pyke and Rhyce Shaw.   The AFL apologised to him and other retired Swans for the racist booing displayed at so many AFL games without comment or reproof from managers, but AFL chief Gillon McLachlan conceded they should have done so earlier. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-2016-former-sydney-swans-star-adam-goodes-has-closure-from-booing-controversy-20160407-go0i38.html

04/09/16     Still too soon to write of ‘closure’ on this issue.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/booing-adam-goodes-australians-must-unite-against-racism-20150731-giosk2.html