Long in the tooth Desert Rats

I love stories of reconciliation and forgiveness. Some of the most powerful are those of soldiers imprisoned and treated in the most appalling way by the Japanese, yet travelling to Japan after the war to convey their forgiveness – in words but also in deeds. (I do too understand those who can never stomach the thought of having anything to do with any Japanese culture whatsoever). But reconciliation and forgiveness is a powerful and poignant story wherever it is set. Reconciliation of former combatants happened recently in the home of my brother (picture here refers) who has done a great job of pulling together the story of foes who once faced off at Tobruk. Their story is told somewhat in this story in the Daily Mirror, and there is a rather compelling podcast here of an interview of two of them courtesy of the BBC. And of course, here is his book.

p.s. there is a fascinating follow up BBC interview with Rudolf Schneider here. And a piece in The Independent which is an interesting read too.

A Quorn Meal

Soft pink waist coats and mole grey jackets suggest something refined and gentle. The galah is anything but, especially when when it is jinking up the street with five its mates, showing off clever manoeuvres like teenage boys in their new cars. But they are the only signs and raucous sounds of life for a full eight minutes on this mild sunny day in the middle of the street.  We sit and make small talk and in the long pauses there is only silence. On the stroke of the ninth a plastic clatter of split curtains and a tray appears with our coffee and juice. And some cream dolloped on the caramel slice. Read more

Quorn Dogs

“You on channel Miss Betty?”
The silence out of the radio is accompaniment for the empty horizon. “You on channel Miss Betty?”
Nothing. The microphone is dropped back into the console and we drive on, dust erupting and billowing behind us, saltbush blurring beside us.
This expedition started with a sit in the sun on the veranda lazy “what do you want to do today?” and became decisive and focused at the prospect of driving through ghost towns and exploring empty ruins – on the way to meet “Miss Betty.” Joy Betty in fact.
Run out on a straight dirt road for mile after mile leaving a Space Shuttle plume of dirt that will not settle in the still air. Bore down on a spectacular serrated, purple ridge, cut across it and be met with another flat plain with a cream slash of a road scored across it. Aim for the next serrated ridge on the horizon. Repeat often, until each flat and each rise takes you across the Adelaide/Sydney highway and into the stony ranges in which “Miss Betty” lives. Read more

In Fields of Quorn

Last weekend I watched my brother play with his son and thought “Thirty years apart is far too long”. There is pain in the realisation that it has been so long. Years never recovered. Years not shared. All valuable and constructive in their own way, and all filled with light and drama and satisfaction and accomplishment. But still echoing with the emptiness of that separation, even though its an echo that is only now reverberating. We caught glimpses of each other over the years, for the briefest of moments. A swing though Devon here, a quick trip to Canberra or Sydney there. Read more

A Child Graduates

Hey Dad, how come we (kids) never feature on your blog? Good question. If it’s just plain weird or bizarre then I am attracted to it – so you would think they would be a recurring theme. Maybe it is because the most exotic place any of them have resided is Ballarat. If they camped in Baghdad I might feel I had reason to write them up. Or, if they graduate from University, well that is a pretty good reason too. And probably safer than taking up residence in Baghdad – mind you, the crime rate of Ballarat is worse than New York.  See, here I am being mugged at the rotunda in the main street of Ballarat.

O’Connor Buckley

I have never been overly comfortable about saying how proud I am about family – can’t have them getting grand notions about themselves now can we ?! But the fact of the matter is that wherever I cast a glance out across the tree I only see people of whom I am extremely proud and who I love dearly. Read more

General Powell somewhere on the Iraq-Turkey Border

I have always enjoyed (and admired) this photo of the General. It contains a few interesting elements. For me at least. Let me try them on you. Read more

Camel Headshot Marks the 200th Post

I arrived back in Australia today and opened an email from younger brother who previously featured with his latest toy at this post. This photo, down from the Northern Territory, shows him with another toy – a Ruger 30-06 in stainless steel. And the end result of messing with that toy – if you are a camel that is. Now a feral pest in Australia these things are also exported to the Middle East, live and in sauce. Did you know Australia has the largest camel population in the world? More Australian camel data than you can eat just here. A photo that is about as far away from London, New York and San Francisco as you can get. A part of me is glad of that. All I have to do is stop talking about going up there and do it.

Desert Bath

I can’t help myself – interrupting the travelogue that has been running for the last few weeks to inject something a little more delightful than my own musings about Europe or the USA. My brother, who spent most of his younger years running around the world doing “boys own” stuff, now has married and has his real own baby to play with. Clearly he is pretty delighted with that, as this photo shows. Now the manager at Timber Creek in the Northern Territory (Ayers Rock, Kakadu, Crocodile Dundee, Darwin and all that) my brother has ample opportunity to tour around that rather dramatic part of the country. Lugging his baby along with him who clearly does not seem to mind a bath in a utility bucket. Both are as pleased as each other given their circumstances. This kid may well grow up to be another Croc Dundee if my brother has anything to do with it. Sister in law may have another view altogether. In the meantime I love seeing the pleasure on their faces in the simple circumstances in which they are camping. I need to get up there myself. Soon!

The Handicapped Have no Rights

Two months ago the press down here got hold of a story that had a lot of resonance in the US – that of the so called “Ashley Experiment”. It is a story that has been rattling around in my head ever since, the more so for the negative responses to what has been done to Ashley. It is a story of parents of a daughter (Ashley) who is severely handicapped but is clearly part of the their loving family. In order to guarantee a quality of life they thought ideal for Ashley her parents have had a number of medical procedures undertaken on their child, the one gaining most attention being the hormone treatment which will keep their daughter small and lightweight for the rest of her life. She has also had a hysterectomy and her breast buds removed, in order to deter potential sexual harassment. Her story can be found at http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/blog/

Critics of the process and the parent’s decision have focused, in part, on the rights of the child (she cannot talk and could not be involved in the decision making process) and the ethics of the decision. Indeed typical commentary was distracted by the so called ethics, or lack thereof, of the “experiment”. But the irony of this scenario is that if you argue in defence of these kids on the basis of ethics, or “doing the right thing”, they end up with no rights such as you and I enjoy. Our own daughter cannot speak. Or make any decision about her lifestyle. If our social security people had any say she would have no rights since we are not supposed to make decisions on her behalf – she is after all an adult. It gets to a ridiculous point where to even get her pension we have to take her into the social security office to “parade’ her – necessary to convince the retarded staff behind the counter that she can’t sign her own documentation. Left to her own devices she has no rights. It is only that someone speaks up for her that she has any rights, and quality of life, at all.

A touchy point with young handicapped women who live in a group home, as our daughter Jocelyn does, is their contraceptive regime. On the one hand we are accused of interfering in her life by putting her on the pill. That assumes she has the ability to make choice about who she might have sex with. (She does not, a separate issue altogether.) Most often with these dear people their rights only come about if we interfere and facilitate those rights. Of course that is when, as with the parents of Ashley, you are accused of being self serving and not looking after the interests of the child. It is a battle you never win.

For the record I applaud what Ashley’s parents have done. If you want to be provoked have a look at their site. And be encouraged by the notion that sometimes the rights of these people come about when people “interfere” on their behalf. Left to their own devices these children would have no rights at all.

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