Opinion Australia

Mail from my brother. He’s seen a consultant who tells him he has an ‘enlarged heart’ No idea how serious that is, but he’s a 50 year old fitness fanatic so perhaps he’s just pushed himself a bit much over the years… who knows. I don’t think I have the enlarged heart… just an enlarged body. C’est la vie.

My sister tells me *she* had an enlarged heart for years so maybe there *is* a genetic factor in there somewhere? I don’t know… until I have a good read on the web I would have to admit to being a bit less than knowledgeable on the subject.

On the subject of the sister (the groupie Grannie) however we have some good news. She entered a competition to win tickets to see Ricki Martin. The deadline passed and she thought she’d not got anywhere and then got an email telling her she’d actually *won*. Good onya!!

She’s currently organising fight and accomodation, and girding the loins of herself and her husbands, ready to go thrashing over the Atlantic to take advantage of the prize.

Atlantic?

Well yes. She’s based in the UK and the concert is in Miami… which makes it a bit of an expensive prize. Still… she’s going to going regardless and make the most of the opportunity

Best of luck to her I say. Why sit around hoarding your little bit of wealth so you can leave it to your kids to squander when you pop your clogs? Get out and enjoy it is my advice… and if I had the money you bet I’d be out there too!

Unless you’re a hindu or buddhist, who seem to be stuck to this mortal coil like glue, you only live the once – you may as well make the most of it!!

So here we are again. It’s 7:30 a.m. and I’m sitting in front of the machine up in the computer room. I’ve been here for an hour. The kids have both drifted in slowly and are also now playing on their machines. The wife is still somewhere in her own world sleeping quietly and working off the weeks stress.

I’ve been ‘surfing’ through the autosurf sites and updating the other blog trying to justify, or at least defend, the ponzi schemes the sites use. Not easy to do I can tell you! Now I’m about to make a start on the paid mails. I know a lot of this seems pointless but for someone with no independent source of income it makes life a little more interesting. I’ve only picked up around US$50 or so via the mails, but it makes me feel better to have done it and it keeps me in touch with what I find to be an interesting if obscure and somewhat stressful industry.

On that note – back to it. Faster I start the faster I finish.

The kids are both female. One is ten the other 6… and they fight like cat and dog… except the cat and the dog seem to get along better and with less fighting!. I seem to spend my entire life shouting at them either to stop fighting, or for *them* to stop shouting at each other, or to clean up their mess, or… well you get the picture… life is *very* noisy and it’s driving me crazy.
Anyone like to hazard a guess how long this will go on? I’m going slowly insane in the fast track.

Took the kids to the local skating rink again. They’ve decided they want to be champions… well the littlest one did. When the eldest realised she was never going to be graceful she gave up. We’d booked lessons so there is no way she’s going to give up before the end of this term, but afterwards… well she *does* do a lot of other things so maybe we can let her off this one without too much of a struggle.

Anyway. Every Saturday we get up and out to the rink by 9:00 so they can have some fun.

We sit upstairs in the little cafe and watch them while we hold steaming mugs of hot chocolate and mutter about the time it takes the waiters to to get the simplest order filled. Can’t complain really, they’re all nice enough and invariably have a cheery smile and a wave when we walk in.

What we migh have a valid complaint over is that the rink is now less than half the size it was with no reduction in class sizes, patronage… *or* fees! We pay the same regardless of how cramped it is.

So why are we only getting half the rink? Because a TV show is being filmed there… ‘Stars on Ice’ with Torvill and Dean… yes those Olympic champs… the ex-policeman and her with the teeth. They’ve been putting various Oz celebs through their paces and trying to get them to skate well… it’s just a variation on other such shows e.g. where the celbs learn to dance.

So far there’ve been numerous injuries including broken bones and slashed hands… loads of fun apparantly though I never watch it. I have no time for telly… especially not crap shows like that… and even *more* especially when they are hacking half of the local ice-rink in two for months at a time when we get no benefit!

Bunch of gits.

Here in Godzown country we have a social security organisation called DOCS. I think it’s full name is Department of Community Services but for many over the years it’s become known as the Department of Child Suffering.

Again and again the papers report cases where kids in need have not received the help they desperately required and have eventually died, often at the hands of their parents.

In one notorious case a few weeks ago, they were contacted no less than 7 times about the lack of care of a pair of siblings and not just by ‘the public’ but by the police, teachers and the like yet no action was taken. The mother eventually left the kids with a couple of paedophiles… you can probably guess the rest.

After a week the little boy choked and died on his own vomit as he was being raped and the little girl is now in a secure unit receiving ongoing psychiatric support, refusing to fully discuss what was done to her.

And now today we learn of a 1 year old who has died. Tho the details are sketchy is seems DoCS has failed our kids again.

I understand how hard it is for them to keep track of the kids they look after and to prioritise cases, so before we jump on the caseworkers, who will feel traumatised and horror struck themselves that they didn’t act, maybe we ought to think hard on how we expect these people to do the work we expect at the level it should be done with the minimal funding they get?
We foster kids, and the case workers we deal with have 5 – 6 kids on their books max… because the agency we work through is separate to Docs. On the other hand, the case workers who work directly for DoCS often have 50+ families to handle.

Thinking it through, if they worked a 50 hour week it would mean they only had one hour to devote to each *family*. Bearing in mind (even if they tried) it would take most of that hour just to get between their office and wherever these kids and are never mind being able to carry out any proper assessment.

Now… if they have over 50 cases, and work a 37 hour week… and the parents and kids aren’t wherever they are supposed to be… and the worker has paperwork to do on each visit… etc etc etc, you can see why some kids for short periods at most every few months.

What is needed is a massive injection of cash into the system and a huge influx of competent trained workers. Neither will happen of course because while we raise our hards in horror over each child that is maimed or dies, in the end we turn our backs and refuse to pay more taxes.