I dont know about you guys, but I sat up till 0100 this morning watching a game that makes very little sense to me and feeling sick about the Aussies looking like they were going to loose!

BUT in the last eight minutes Tim Cahill and John Aloise wrote their names into the World Cup record books kicking the first ever goals for an Australian team in a World Cup.

Just like many of my country men and women, I yelled, jumped off the couch and ran around the loungeroom with my jumper over my head………………well, not really, but I was excited.

I must say it was a fine conclusion to what had been a disapointing footy day for me as, in the afternoon, my beloved AFL team, Collingwood was ’slopped’ for the first time this season in a game that saw them look most ‘unorganised’ so it was great to see the Socceroos play well and win convincingly!

I must say it was also great to see all that yellow and green in the stands in Germany and to hear my fellow Aussies chanting and singing. I know it sounds a bit jingoistic…………a bit ‘Land down-under”, a bit “vegimite on toast”……..but it does a weird thing to me when I see representatives of my country perform well on the world stage…………even if it is just in a game, at least it’s an improvement on feeling totally ashamed by the performance of our political leaders in the same world environments!

Yesturday we had a public holiday for the Queen’s birthday. As the “bolshie” I am, I still feel frustrated that we have the queen of a counrty thousands of miles away as our head of state…………..in the 21st century!!!

I feel even more frustrated that we honour Aussie achievers on the birthday of the Queen of England, when we have been a federated and independant country for over 100 years! I simply dont “get it”!

I don’t get why, when given the opportunity, my countrymen and women voted down the option of becoming a republic, even though the model proposed wasn’t great. I don’t get why we have a “half-arsed” approach to independance. We are not a republic and yet a Queen’s birthday honour no longer entails a knighthood (as per the honours in the ‘mother country’), but an “Order of Australia” ………a pathetic attempt to sever the ties of colonialism without ‘biting the bullet’ and doing the thing properly!

You know what else I don’t understand????

Why are Australian honours which are supposed to recognise excellence, leadership and contribution, so focused on sport, politics and celebrity???

Not that I’m denegrating the sporting achievements of my Aussies contemporaries, but most sportspeople these days get paid extrodinarliy well for PLAYING A GAME! Most ‘normal’ people struggling to make ends meet would love a lifestyle like that! Fame, fortune and a Queen’s birthday award for playing rugby, tennis, golf etc. Not to mention the ex politicians who are recognised, purely because their party is in power and they are being acknowledged for ‘toe-ing the party line”.
I know that there ARE people recognised for selflessness, altruism and community contribution…………..but you never see these people on television, in the newspaper or hear them on the radio and I’m afraid they rarely receive the highest honours…………..they get the “Clayton’s honours” that noone really notices.

I think the time has come to review how we honour contributors in our country. We need to be recognising the people who contribute in their local communities, who sacrifice time, money and energy to make Australia a better place. We need to recognise the ‘quiet achievers” who volunteer, care, support and nurture others in their community. We need to recognise selfless leadership, creative thinking and generosity of spirit.

I know I’m an idealist, but I don’t think that fair recognition of true achievement is too much to ask. As for our great sportsmen/women, actors and politicians…………….I think they too would agree that there are numerous awards programs that adequately recognise achievement in their given careers and receipt of these awards should be a fine accomplishment for them.

One day, when we are a republic, I’d love to see the Australia Awards recognising the ‘little people” on a day that’s meaningful for us………….how about the Australia Day Awards being expanded to include the current number of Queens birthday awards? How about the status of the Australia Day Awards being increased and how about we look around our own communities and start nominating the people who do so much for us? I’m sure noone would object to that?

Lots of talk in my home country re the pro’s and con’s of nuclear energy.

In addition to selling uranium from three mines in Australia, should we be looking at value adding????

Should we be establishing “tips” for spent nuclear waste and being paid by other countries for taking their garbage???

Should we be investing in nuclear power plants to address the issue of fossil fuel usage and consequently our contribution to global warming?

These are all big questions with very political implications, but questions we should be discussing, never the less.

I, for one, want to retain our three mine policy (no more than three active mines to be in operation at any one time) and must say if I had my way, all of our uranium would stay in the ground where it belongs. I am however, a realist and like other enlightened souls, fearful of the implications of global warming for the future of our planet …………and our country is notoriously poor in addressing reductions in emissions and fossil fuel usage.

It seems to me that policy makers either have their ‘head in the sand’ and won’t acknowledge the problem, have personal investments or interest in maintaining the status quo or are scared of alienating powerful allies who fall into one or both of the previous categories (our Prime Minister is a classic example of the latter).

I don’t profess to be a climate scientist or economist, however understand the financial implications of reducing our fossil fuel exports BUT can’t help but wonder why the COST of NOT doing anything isn’t being addressed during the current debate.

We could be leaders…………we could dramatically cut our usage of fossil fuels, reduce our exporting of coal, gas, timber and uranium and invest in the one thing we have extensivce access to SOLAR ENERGY.

We live in a wide, brown, sunny and drought prone country……..we have sun coming ‘out our ears”……….we have advanced solar technology that at present is poorly supported by big business investment and has potential to be the technology of the future……………and we’re doing nothing about it.

The time has come to invest in our future. Next time you think about how you’re going to heat your new house…………consider solar energy. When your gas hot water service leaks or needs replacement……….think about a solar hot water service.

Explore the options…………..look at renewable energy sources and do your bit for the planet you are leaving for your kids!

I have no pecunary interest in solar or renewable energy…………..just a huge concern for the future of our planet.

Dead Serious #035

(MP3- 16.22 MB- 47.15MIN)

LISTEN TO PODCAST HERE  

Download the podcast here

“Hey baby, can’t you see I’m looking older?” George Michael sang and we all thought he was an ‘old coot’ reminiscing……but guess what…………it’s happening to us all, slowly and irreversably!

What does getting older mean? Are we destined to a future of walking sticks, mashed food and sitting in a nursing home watching day time ’soaps’ on TV?

What if we could live to be 1000 years old………….or what if we could live forever? Would this change how we lived our lives?

What happens to us as we age? What happens to our senses?

Is there a role in the world for older people or should they be thrown on the scrapheap?

This week’s episode of Dead Serious explores what ‘getting older’ means and how we can make maturity a positive, because it’s happening to us all and before we know it we will be facing the choice of living well as an older person or giving up and waiting to die.

Music provided by Dynamo’s Rhythm Aces and recorded on Skylook

” Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples”. George Burns

“I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap”. Bob Hope

This week is National Palliative Care Awareness Week in Australia.

I have been involved in awareness week activities for some years now and every year it gets more difficult to get people to engage with the concept.

Palliative Care is really hard to sell from a PR perspective as generally people don’t want to know about it until they need it and by then they are needing personal support and really don’t care too much about what other people are thinking or feeling.

Palliative care isn’t ’sexy’…………….’hip’ people don’t take on the role of patrons for palliative care as they do for cancer or diabetes………….palliative care really is the ‘poor relation’ on the PR front.
When someone is told that their illness is terminal………….they won’t get better……in fact they will die well before they had anticipated…………….the shock and distress is immeasurable.

In order for people to know where to get help and support, we need to raise community awareness about palliative care so that everyone in our community knows that help is available and how to access it.

We need to talk about death. We need to educate our kids and families. We need to be supportive to people in our communities who are suffering from illness or the grief of a recent significant death.

So I’m NOT asking you to volunteer to work with dying people or to sacrifice part of your salary to a palliative care service……….what i’m asking of you is simple…………………..have ONE conversation about death or grief this week. Talk to a friend about organ donation. Ask a colleague if they have ever had a family member cared for by a palliative care team. Ask your siblings or your kids if they know what palliative care is.

If YOU don’t know much about palliative care……………..educate yourself this week. Scroll back to some of the past Dead Serious episodes and listen to the ones that focus on palliative care……………do a ‘google’ search and read an article or two……………..buy a book that deals with end of life issues………………give some thought to how YOU feel about death and dying.

Be part of the solution………………HELP RAISE PALLIATIVE CARE AWARENESS THIS WEEK.

So Mother’s Day has come and gone for another year.

Those of you who are not a mum or who don’t have a mum may say…………so what, but I think most of you will have some sort of a connection for one reason or another with a mother of some sort.

For me………….I have a mother, a mother-in-law, a step mother-in-law and I am a mother to boot, so I guess you could say I have a “full hand”.

Being a mother is not all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my kids and enjoy their company immensely, but I am finding that the older they get, the more difficult it isfor me to protect them from the trialls and tribulations of life, and that can be hard!

I don’t want to keep them “wrapped in cotton wool”, but I hate seeing them sad, anxious or struggling. I want to make things good for them. I want them to be happy, healthy and safe.

When they are little, you can’t wait for their next milestone. You want them to smile, to crawl, to walk, to talk. But before you can blink they have boyfriends/girlfriends, their hearts are being broken, they fall prey to people who take them for granted, they are deceived and hurt……………..AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO PROTECT THEM.

The one bummer about being a mum when your kids are grown up is…………….it doesnt matter how old they are, you want to protect them and you can’t. You have to let them live, and living means trusting people you probably shouldnt trust, trying things you probably shouldnt try and feeling the joys of love and the distress of heartbreak.

I guess the one thing I’ve learned is that my kids have to do things their way, without interference from me, but that I need to make sure I’m around when they need a hug, a loan or someone to come with a truck to move their stuff from a disasterous ‘house share’ arrangement!

The weird thing is I can remember my mother saying to me when I was in my early 20’s that it gets harder, not easier as your kids grow up………………I never thought I’d see the day when I actually agreed with anything my mum said!

So I spent Mothers Day with two of my georgeous kids and spoke to the third one via sattelite phone (he’s in the ‘outback’ doing geological surveys). I laughed with them, talked and joked and remembered how very lucky I was to have three wonderful kids who I could worry about…………………lots of people don’t have that privalege!

So to the Mum’s out there……………..I hope you had a great day with your kids. To the kids out there………….remember, before you can blink you will find yourself with kids of your own and all of a sudden the words of your own mother won’t seem like ‘crap’ anymore, because you will understand them for the wisdom they contain!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

Early this morning, Australian time, Brant Webb and Todd Russell were finally rescued from the hole in the ground where they have been trapped for the past two weeks.

I watched the coverage on TV from early this morning with disbelief as the two men walked out of the mine elevator, embraced their families and headed, on foot to the two waiting ambulances. They looked surprisingly fit and well, given their ordeal.

I then watched interviews with rescuers, the mine manager, union representatives and towns people. I looked carefully at the faces of people as they enjoyed a well deserved beer in the pub, which had opened early for the celebrations. I noticed the strain on those faces. I saw big, strong men smiling, but there was an underlying saddness in the eyes of those men. They were deservedly rejoycing in their success, but the underlying saddness, that one of their mates didn’t make it out………is also written on those faces.

I can’t help but think of what lays ahead for this community. This afternoon they will attend the funeral of Larry Knight, the father of four and mate of the two rescued miners, who did not survive the accident. The community has been on a roller coaster ride over the past two weeks and I can’t help but think that the ride is far from over.

Post traumatic stress, uncertainty about the financial future of the town as the accident is investigated, the grief attached to the death of Larry Knight, the hole left after the huge media contingent shifts their focus from Beaconsfield, packs up and leaves the town and the knowledge that everyone in the town needs to make meaning of their experience and live on in the face of their trauma……………….all of this is now ahead of them.

The journey has just commenced for the people of Beaconsfield…………..we need to remember that they will all be suffering over the weeks, months and years to come, long after the world has forgotten.

It will only be people who live in relative isolation who have not heard of the plight of two miners, Brant Webb and Todd Russell, who are trapped in a mine in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, more than a mile underground. Even Foo Fighter, Dave Grohl has sent best wishes and an offer to meet the men for a beer, “any where, any time”.
The two miners today start their 12th day of confinement in the mine tunnel after a rock fall caused the collapse of the mine tunnel on Anzac Day. The rock fall claimed the life of their colleague Larry Knight, but Webb and Russell were saved by the steel cage they were working in and have been trapped in the cage ever since.

Australia’s media outlets have been consumed by the rescue, with hour by hour coverage of the slow progress to construct a tunnel paralell to the collapsed tunnel in order to rescue the men. Radio, TV and print media are full of stories from next door neighbors, local officials, the local store owner, friends of the men………….in fact anyone they can get to talk about the men in order to gain an “edge” in their coverage.

The families of Webb and Russell were jubilant when the men were found alive and were speaking freely to the media, until the days began to pass without the men being rescued. They have now “gone to ground” and who can blame them?

Stories of camera crews filming over back fences, sneaking around the town trying to get a ’scoop’ abound. Every ‘direct cross’ to Beaconsfield shows the huge media contingent which far outstrips the population of this small rural Tasmanian town. The newspapers carry speculative stories about how much television networks are ‘bidding’ to secure the exclusive story of the miners once they reach the surface.

In the meantime, two men are still a mile below the surface of the earch, confined in a small space and although they now have received food, blankets and MP3 players, they still live with the fear that their rescue may actually result in a further rock fall which could still cause their deaths.

It all makes me wonder………….when does news coverage mutate and become ‘voyarism’? When did the suffering of others become entertainment for the rest of us?

I can’t help but think of those two men, cold, dirty and scared beyond our capacity to imagine………….every minute could be their last………..one wrongly placed explosive could see the end of the rescue mssion and the beginning of a retrieval mission.

I can’t help think about their wives, children and parents, trapped in their own homes while marauding media pace the boundaries of their homes.

I can’t help but think of the towns people whose lives have been turned upside down and whose futures look bleak as the main employer in the town and source of jobs and prosperity (the mine) will be certainly NOT survive the accident.

I can’t help but think of the paramedics and mine rescuers, themselves friends and colleagues of the trapped men, tired, anxious and trying to perform in a professional way when they know how very high the odds are.

I can’t help but think of the family of Larry Knight………..they have delayed his funeral until Webb and Russell are rescued so that they can attend, but this will not be a rescue for them. Their son, husband and father is not coming back, they know this, but will be hoping and praying that his friends will be rescued.

All of this pain, all of this stress, all of this emotion and saddness in a town whose population is not much more than 1300. A town flooded by media, who when this is all over will pack up their cameras, their scaffold and their lights and go back home to the big cities and on to the next story.

What will be left for Beaconsfield? The trauma of a mining accident. The death of ‘one of their own’. The financial collapse of the major employer in the region and a population who will all suffer, in their own way, from post traumatic stress, not least of which will be Webb and Russell who will take years to make any sense of their experience………..if their rescue is successful.

So on this cold, wet Sunday morning, my thoughts are with the people of Beaconsfield……………..their healing journey will be a very long one and they will all need as much support as we can offer them, particularly once the eyes of the world turn to the next big news story and they are forgotten.

Dead Serious #034 (MP3 - 14.4MB - 42.05min)

DOWNLOAD AND SAVE

This weeks show continues my discussion with Shane Holst, Founder of the Australian Altruism Foundation.

We look at some challenging concepts including the failure of the expedential economic growth model and what this model has in common with cancer (the disease not the star sign).

Shane talks about ways of “making a difference” to the world and how we can overcome the apathy of others and focus on excelling rather than “treading water”. He gives us some strategies for exploring our personal strengths.

Shane also shares his personal experiences of childhood abuse and how he overcame these experiences and developed personal resilience. He talks about his experiences in the Navy, his experiences in war zones and his understanding of the personal impact of Post traumatic stress.

We discuss the role of spirituality in Shane’s life and how his personal spiritual connection has assisted him to make ‘meaning’ of very negative life experiences by “surrendering to the mystery”.

We also talk about the upcoming “Turtle Awards” and their role in recognising people who “stick their neck’s out for the common good”.

This is a very personal and revealing interview with a man who has accommodated many negative life experiences with his own brand of humour and compassion.

Music is provided by “Simpatico” and I thank Victor for sharing his music.
Recorded on Skylook.

Last week, here in Australia and elsewhere in the world we commemorated ANZAC Day.

A.N.Z.A.C stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and is commemmorated on April 25th as it marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during World War 1, fourteen years after Australia celebrated federation. The soldiers in these forces became knows as “ANZACS”.

Why do we commemmorate an action such as the Gallipoli landing which was a resounding military failure?

Well, we’re not CELEBRATING Anzac Day, but commemorating the sacrifices made by millions of young men (some of them as young as 16) who left their homes, their farms, their families to travel to the other side of the world to fight a war that they thought would ensure the safety of their country.

With the benefit of time, it’s hard to imagine how these young men thought that Australia or New Zealand faced any threat in real terms from the war in Europe, but we need to understand the power of imperial influence in our newly federated country. In 1915, although now no longer a mere colony of the British, Australia was a very young country and people regarded Britain as the “mother country”. Given that Britain was under threat, of course, it was considered that all Commonwealth countruies faced the same threat, and therefore were responsible for defending democracy. It’s hard to imaging that enormous response happening now in the same circumstances.

The ANZAC ‘legend’ was born of the bravery and sacrifice of these young men (8000 Australian soldiers were killed and thousands more wounded) facing a formidible enemy with little hope of victory, but with a spirit of mateship and support for each other.

April 25th was officially named “ANZAC Day” in 1916 and was marked by memorial services throughout Australia and a march through London. It has grown to represent the sacrifice of all subsequent soldiers who have fought since that first landing at Gallipoli and has become a day of national commemoration.

WHT AM I TELLING YOU ALL OF THIS?

I always attend the local dawn service on ANZAC Day and year by year am surprised by the intensity of my reaction. Yes, I had a grandfather who fought both at Gallipoli, on the Somme and latter in WW2, I have uncles and other relations who fought in WW2 and Vietnam, but luckily for my family, they all came home, although as always they were irrepairably damaged by their experiences…………..

For some strange reason, as I stand at the local memorial each April 25th, with waves crashing on the beach only a few metres away, watching the dark night sky gradually lighten with the dawn and listen to the bugle sound the “Last Post”, my eyes fill with tears, my heart vibrates inside my chest and I feel so connected to those young men who lept from their boats and ran towards the beach on foreign soil, not knowing what lay ahead.

I can’t explain why I feel like this…………..to be honest I can’t explain why I feel compelled every year to attend the Dawn service………….but I do.

Once the service is complete, I always walk home along the beach. This year, I walked down to the end of the jetty and watched the sun peak over the hills. I sat, surrounded by water and looked up at the sky, where the cresent moon was still clearly visible with Venus twinkling above it and I thought about how it must have been for the Turkish soldiers, waiting up on the hills and looking down at the boats landing full of soldiers ready to invade their country.

I can’t really explain the depth of emotion I felt, sitting there in the cold with the waves lapping at my feet, but I can tell you I felt so connected to ALL of those young men and women who over the years have been “packed off” to fight for their country, ignorant of the diplomatic and political ramifications of their deployment.

The message in all of this is that we so often use our youngest, fittest and brightest as “cannon fodder” for the failure of politicians and diplomats to negotiate human outcomes to human problems. Whole generations have been sacrificed in every country around our world over the centuries because of greed, power and corruption. When are we going to come up with a way of negotiating our differences that doesn’t require this ultimate sacrifice? WHY CAN’T WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR DIFFERENCES AND LEARN TO LIVE TOGETHER, INSPIRED BY OUR DIVERSITY?
I think this is the reason why every Anzac Day, I spend time reflecting on all of that lost potential…………..and praying that we find a way to stop it ever happening again!