Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Rough weather - rough politics

There were signs in the stratosphere last Friday morning that we we in for some inclement weather within about four days. I've become adept at predicting inclement weather, but somehow the gales we had from the northwest were stronger than I expected. The wind has been pounding in from the ocean all night and brought rain with it - rain by the bucketfull. At 5.30am I have just been watching through the window one of the heaviest downpours this year.

I suppose some of the God botherers will be claiming the credit, because last Sunday was a national day of prayer for several Christian religions. The focus of their chanting was for more rain please. Come to think of it, I can't recall any formal prayers I've heard actually include the word "please." Maybe I wasn't listening close enough in the past?

But anyway, the Sunday prayers for rain were irrelevant. As I said, the signs were already up in the sky on Friday that God was moving the stratospheric furniture. The signs I speak of are "mares tails." These are very high altitude clouds which have one edge torn into wisps by high velocity winds. When they appear one generally has about three or four days to bring in the laundry. I hope someone remembered ours.

The rain is welcome. It will assist the rejuvenation of our street lawn. Couch grass is pretty tough, but not when some apprentice plumber accidentally spins the wheels on his work vehicle. Nor has the grass on the edge of our sloping driveway properly recovered from an assault about four years ago when my wife decided to tidy it up with a tomahawk. Sand keeps emerging every time there's rain and then makes its way towards the drain in our driveway.

I suppose I could say a prayer to God and ask for the sand to be kept in place, but I am reminded of a dictum passed from my late mother to me: "God helps those who help themselves." The meaning is of course that the individual can do quite a lot to ensure a good personal outcome in life. Doing nothing often results in nothing.

I think prayer is a form of gambling. People resort to it when the odds are stacked against them. Sometimes they are lucky, and this reinforces the notion of the "power of prayer." But the sad truth is that there are plenty of losers in the prayer business. Maybe far more losers than winners. It's like Lotto.

On course there are those who consider the advice "God helps those who help themselves." means that they can indulge in unethical activity. There seem to be plenty of those type of people about. I think there always has been.

Take our state Labor government at the moment. Please; anyone; take them - take them anywhere. I would like to believe there are some really good people in government doing the right thing - that is doing their parliamentary duty faithfully in the interests of the common electorate. But this year there seems to have been one startling revelation after another as various elected members have been caught acting out-of-line in unexpected ways.

At the commencement of every day's parliamentary proceedings the Speaker recants a prayer - the Lord's Prayer. The intended meaning is obvious, act ethically and exercise duty of care on behalf of the peoples. But equally obvious is that a lot of MPs are godless ratbags and don't give a toss about such theatrics. They seem to be solopists. Nothing exists in reality except themselves. Therefore whatever they do has no relevancy when considering any perceived impact on others. They have the attitude that if you can get away with something, or ignore wrongs by performed others you may as well do it. Anything else is too much trouble.

Thankfully we have the next best thing to God at work here. It's called the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC).

Currently there is "yet another" spectacular CCC drama infolding, which is threatening to dethrone the female state education minister. In essence the allegation is she failed to act on advice from a former education director that certain teachers were involved in the sexual abuse of children.

If the article "Minister fights for job..." in The Australian today is anything to go by, her time in office is almost up. This week will probably be one of those short times in politics.

As education minister, this woman has attracted a lot of controversy during the past year or so. She seems to have alienated a lot of people in education circles over her controversial policy decisions and therefore probably has created a lot of enemies.

Only this week students at Fremantle's John Curtin High School learned that their nationally esteemed soccer coaching clinic of over two decades is to be transferred elsewhere to make way for an elitist arts program. As part of this same plan we learned last week that students at our Bicton Primary School are no longer in the catchment area for John Curtin. They too are now unwanted because they will hinder the elitist plans formulated under this same female politician. The intention is to attract high achieving students from throughout the metropolitan area and provide them with the best teachers and amenities. It seems the rest of the population can go to hell.

I've long been against elitist education programs in government schools. They ignore the plight of kids who really need the extra assistance, guidance and above all, protection.

© MMVI Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.

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