Freedom of speech has been in the news again this week as the Government gets ready to do something about the odious section 18c.
A couple of excellent quotes …
First, any commitment to free speech is a commitment to allowing people to say and write things you may not like, that you may detest, that you may disagree with and find offensive. If the words spoken are words we all agree with and find congenial, then there is no need for any commitment to free speech… Professor James Allan.
and
The Nazis did not flourish because they had too much free speech. They flourished because their critics had none. Andrew Bolt.
On February 15th an asteroid weighing about 10,000 tonnes entered Earth’s atmosphere at about 67,000 km/hr. On impact with the air it exploded into thousands of pieces 23 km above Russia’s Ural Mountains.
The city of Chelyabinsk and neighboring communities bore the brunt of the shock wave which shattered thousands of windows and flattened the roof of a zinc factory. Flying glass injured some 1,500 people.
What’s believed to be the largest piece punched a 7 metre hole in the ice covering Lake Chebarkul 78 km west of Chelyabinsk.
Andrei Breivichko founder of the Church of the Cheylabinsk Meteorite believes that this particular chunk brings a message from God containing legal and moral guidelines in the form of “scriptures” that would elevate humankind to a new level of consciousness. Only the faithful, of course, could interpret such a message.
Nonsense, of course … if God wanted to send us a message it’s obvious he’d write it in English.
I went to school in the post war years in London’s east end. My final primary school class had 44 students. 40 of them passed the Eleven+ examination.
My secondary school was woefully equipped, staff student ratios were better than 1:44 but nothing like today’s ratios. Our gym was two classrooms with the dividing wall knocked out. Somehow a great majority of students went on to obtain degrees and somehow the school seemed able to generate basketball players that went on to represent England at junior and senior levels.
Those schools succeeded because of the quality of the teachers and the focus of the curriculum.
Here is an excerpt from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority website (ACARA) …
The Australian Curriculum: Mathematics values Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. It provides opportunities for students to appreciate that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies have sophisticated applications of mathematical concepts.Students will explore connections between representations of number and pattern and how they relate to aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. They will investigate time, place, relationships and measurement concepts in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts.
The maths class would be a good place to concentrate on maths, leave the social engineering to whichever syllabus has replaced religious instruction.
I have just got back from a spin around my beautiful home state with Mark Brazil and Mayumi Kanamura as well as my current dearly beloved. Gayle and I have travelled with Mark overseas, this time it was his turn to travel with us, and there could be no better excuse to have a fresh look at Victoria.
We started in the Dandenongs and headed west via Werribee Sewage Farm to Port Fairy. Then north into the Goldfields, west into the Little and Big Deserts and the Sunset Country. Then down the Murray Valley Highway, over the Alps and east to Mallacoota, coming back to Melbourne via Wilson’s Promontory. The round trip was nearly 2,500 km in fifteen days and took in every National Park, forest and sewage pond in reach. The weather was all that one could expect … everything from torrential hail, heavy rain and cold wind to uncomfortably hot, but nothing that could stop us having fun.
The objective was to see as much of Victoria’s natural heritage as we could find in the time available.
Gayle between Mark & Mayumi
Mark managed to level his Swarovski 10X32’s on 214 species of bird and a dozen species of native mammal. He was impressed by the birds whilst I was impressed with the binoculars, I am currently using the much heavier Swarovski 10X42’s and as lovely as they are, they are not worth the extra weight in these days of restricted hand luggage.
After the first few days had passed Mark and Mayumi began a fascinating debate on their top ten, the only criterion for consideration was the impact the bird made on them. Some gorgeous birds had their moment in the sun, stunning views of Brush Bronzewing, for instance, put it in real contention for a few days. For a while Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo was in top spot but fine feathers are not always enough to beat off the opposition. Mark and Mayumi’s final top ten were :-
Laughing Kookaburra
Splendid Fairywren
Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo
Red-kneed Dotterel
Turquoise Parrot
Gang-gang Cockatoo
Red-capped Robin
Varied Sittella
Variegated Fairywren
Rainbow Bee-eater
My highlights were somewhat different, I really did enjoy seeing all four Victorian Treecreepers in one trip and I was thrilled that the visitors so enjoyed the Kookaburra, it is the bird I miss most when I am away from Australia for any length of time.
They put together a similar hit parade of native mammals :-
Sugar Glider
Echidna
Yellow-footed Antechinus
Swamp Wallaby
Wombat
Koala
Brush-tail Possum
Ring-tail Possum
Red Kangaroo
Dusky Antechinus
It’s nice to see the little creatures beating out the Grey Kangaroos and pushing the over-rated Koala well down the list.
Mark Brazil (foreground)
Mark was kind enough to give us a copy of his latest book, The Nature of Japan, and Mayumi gave us a beautiful furoshiki and a calender. We look forward to catching up with them again…
My apologies, dear reader, or maybe, even to both of you, for the current lull in my instruction of how you should think.
I am part way through a grand tour of Victoria with Mark and Mayumi Brazil. Mark is a well known ornithologist and author of some good books on birds, a resident of Japan and regular contributor to the Japan Times. It is the couple’s first visit to this neck of the woods. So far we have waded through the mud in the pouring rain in the Dandenongs, enjoyed the great pleasures of the Werribee sewage works, frozen in the bitter winds of Port Fairy and the Great Ocean Road, thawed out in the Goldfields and enjoyed every minute.
Our next leg takes us through the Little and Big Deserts and the Sunset Country. Then we head east.
I will post some photos and more detail when we hit some broadband.
bobmcgee 