da Scriffles

I found the word "cripple" falling from my lips when explaining to a child what a buggy was doing driving down the middle of the airport corridor.

"It transports cripples and old people" - I blurted as we hurtled towards the Gate 19 - still under my own steam at this point thank-you very much, not riding the buggy yet.

I expected to be pulled up for being politically incorrect but I was wrong.

"What's crippled?" - was the child's response.

Well, there you go! - a little voice in my head exclaimed - Social engineering actually works.

The word "cripple" makes people cringe - it's so poignant and emotionally charged.

Well, not to this generation of little people. All those years of struggle to weed the word out of the vocabulary has actually worked.

And yes, the Oxford Dictionary says the term is no long acceptable as a noun referring to a person. 

Disabled person is usually used instead. 

I remember schoolyard bullies and jokers taunting kids with the word "cripple".

I'm betting the existence of golliwogs that this kind of behaviour still goes on today.

Has the extermination of "cripple" really changed society's perceptions? 

A leopard doesn't change its spots and human beings aren't born gracious.

Can social engineering actually change the human race - not just the vocabulary?

Well, shortly after (as we wait for the plane) the kids are stretching their lips tight across their faces and laughing.

Offensive behaviour - racist behaviour - they were making fun of the shape of African people's lips.

A UNICEF poster featuring two African children was pasted on a bin - the poster was about poverty, the kids were on about appearances.

Social engineering can't breed out comparativism - the human race learns about itself and the world by comparing itself to everything.

(( And yes comparativism is a word - as is *antidisestablishmentarianism*. 

I learned this word from the kids who explained that their friend found it in an advanced dictionary. ))

Civilization governs us with laws - it tries to cripple the basest qualities of human nature.

Reminds me of There Will Be Blood - starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

But you have to believe in something beyond the law when it comes to walking the walk : character is revealed in what we do when no one's watching.

Spirituality requires us to over-ride instinct it seems - and apparently people today apparently are hungry for spirituality. I'm not so sure about that either.

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology dates the "noun" back to about 1200 as "crupel... related to cryppan to crook, bend.

It became a verb "to lame or disable" in 1694.

So it took us 810 years to decide that the word cripple causes hurt, discrimination and alienation - not people.

Interesting. Don't you think? 

On Twitter I heard that there are more than 23 million mobile phones being used in Australia. How marvelous! We are so advanced.

That's 23 million in a country of 20 million people - the population figure includes babies, toddlers, and some Depression Era oldies who throw their hands up in horror at the thought of a mobile phone.

Blame the Gen Ys and the Baby Boomers - because LORD KNOWS no one counts the forgotten Gen Xers now.

Knit one, pearl one, drop one ... 

Has anyone noticed how these days you only ever hear about Gen Y and Baby Boomers?

Where exactly did Gen X go?

The Baby Boomers have reaped their rewards, had their good times, continue their good times while Gen Y whoop it up, spend it up while living at home, pushing up inflation, pushing up interest rates.

Meanwhile: Eyesight deteriorates, hair falls out, teeth yellow, spine curls - hey presto! There we are!

Some of us just drifted into Bunnings for a House & Garden outing and never emerged.

The duplicitous nature of physics becomes terrifyingly apparent when applied to mobile phones, weight gain and aging.

Incident report:

        5pm on a bus somewhere in Brisbane a snotty-nosed Gen Y talks into her phone.

"Hi-i! Hey, I forgot to feed the goldfish this morning. Can you feed it? Great. See ya."

I do not kid you. ETA less than 20 minutes and she calls someone at home to feed her goldfish.

You know, I may be happy to fade out of this picture.

Though some of us do insist on bright red lipstick, dyed dark short cuts with yellow streaks, dangly earrings, gaudy specs and very expensive shirts and shoes - proof of life, apparently.

Never say die when you can spend $300 on hair - not to mention perfume to reek so genteel people faint around you.

Never say die when you can buy a fast car and trade in the old ball-and-chain for a new, younger ball-and-chain - proof of life.

And when a conversation is struck? But oh, such a rare pleasure!

Hold a smile.  Appear interested. And listen.

Listen to each other's minds clicking over calculations: of age (as judged by the condition of teeth); of gaul (as judged by the twinkle of smugness in a young or self-deceived eye).

There it is. Your number's up and it's not Bingo!

There is of course an alternative: ignore each other entirely using the fade in, fade out reality edit. All this energy expended on mental warps.

Based on the law of energy conservation (basic physics), energy is never destroyed it is only converted into another state - converted into what in this case? 

I'm always suspicious of people who lose weight because there's a few kilos lurking around looking for a place to settle.

If you know someone who has lost weight redouble your vigilance - it's cheaper than any other aging=fading defiance.

People always think you're younger if you're agile in mind and body.

But seriously, the proliferation of mobile phones is actually much more terrifying than weight gain or aging. The more phones there are, the less actual communication happens.

I'm waiting for Apple to issue the iPhone T5 - the first phone which dispenses with the voice function. Text only. Ticketyboo.

Why can't I have a phone that can sort Optus out with a barrage of constant texts when there's a problem likely to suck up half a day of precious life force? MM-mm?!!

VanityFinance.com (2013 headline)  ::   Telecom-Apple dwarfs US economy 

• Killer Shop App tops the pop chart: It knows what you like and it has your credit card.

DOLLY COVER HEADLINE (2013)  ::   How to break up with your phone.

Your phone calls you: "I found the most darling pair of shoes! And they only cost $500!" 

You: "Tell me you didn't!"

Phone: "I did!"

You: "If you don't stop spending then I'll trade you in..."

NEW SCIENTIST HEADLINE (2013)  ::  Phone calls God. 

 Ticketyboo. 

The Green Photo Series.

It's not the done thing to recount a murder in "polite" circles - unless you're among journalists or emergency workers.

Way too "confronting" - but I ask you, can you empathize? Will you finish reading this story?

I was 24. I sat at the end of a pew - a graduate journalist from Brisbane who shared house with young teachers from Brisbane.

Bundaberg's Holy Rosary Church overflowed with frightened people grieving for another young Brisbane teacher named Therese who was murdered in the provincial sugar town.

I was not in church to pray - do you think this was "confronting"? I was there to report about the evening memorial service - police hunting for a killer. Would you do it? 

That newspaper office, that church, the police station, the courthouse are embedded in my memory. 

It's not a trauma though.  I went on trying for years to winkle the unspeakable memories out of war veterans on ANZAC Day - this was a task dreaded annually by jaded journalists.

A terrible grief to relive for veterans. So much depends on your perspective doesn't it?

Communications - no matter how high-tech or how moving the words - are weak dramatizations of intense personal experiences.

If you ask the question "why" you have to go up close and personal - you have to empathize, even with a villain. 

I remember being disappointed by Truman Capote's novel, In Cold Blood, which established his celebrity and was hailed as the first nonfiction novel.

The 1965 publication is so tame - but back then only the New Yorker magazine had the guts to publish something so "confronting".

Is there something wrong with this picture? 

Thomas Keneally, Steven Spielberg and his team they went there.

They got up close and personal to tell a story that put you in people's shoes - it's "confronting" but these story tellers had a good reason. It was a plea for tolerance and compassion.

When tragedy becomes a media play thing: the dismemberment of a young Australian girl in the United States, the rape of a young Australian in PNG, two road workers killed by trucks backing over them overnight ... it's more sane to switch off.  

Are you being empathetic by watching or reading? It may be more empathetic to switch off, if the media is like a greedy, myopic, yappy chihuahua that runs around the table getting excited by a whiff of the meat on the table and waits for scraps.

I think that a person's ability to empathize actually stops them from becoming a media cretin chihuahua. And they blame computer games.

"One needs a fast flowing river to avoid the corrupt air produced by stagnation." _ Leonardo da Vinci

Perhaps the Murray-Darling River slow death is a fit icon for our times - stagnation is a killjoy.

The poor old river system which "flows" through four states and feeds the food bowl of Australia has suffered from salination, been choked by algae blooms, almost stopped flowing entirely until the recent rains and now this issue of humanity releasing its grip enough to let the river flow is a HUGE, huge issue in Australia.

We should be thankful that we do not have economic stagnation - zero growth - just like the United States. Or worse face bankruptcy like Greece, Portugal and Spain.

But what about cultural stagnation? I think we can honestly say that we do not have political stagnation given recent election results.

Still, there is much fear and fear is a big reason for cultural stagnation - institutional culture, school culture, artistic culture ... you add your twist if you want...

I seem to go through my life at the moment flabbergasted by the stagnation of culture at all levels of society - but this blog is inspired particularly by the stagnation (no, failure) of service culture.

It's a radical really: low service standards existing beside a rampaging consumer culture.

Consumer culture rages down the canyon of our lives like water in a gutter in storm season. Can you see the billowing purple-green clouds containing hail?

People talk about a two-speed economy - the mining states booming versus stagnation in the non-mining states. Supposedly mining states like Queensland have an unfair advantage.

It certainly doesn't feel like it in Brisbane where the streets are clogged with traffic, the bills go up and multiply while the jobs don't really seem to be flowing freely any more.

I found government statistics predict hail season in the mining states which have drawn labour away from the non-mining states but have had a significant cost of living or CPI rise as a result of prosperity. 

Yes, it creates employment but eventually when you can't find people to fill positions in mining and non-mining states ( there are labour shortages everywhere ).

Big department stores like David Jones and Big W are like ghost towns - the staff are like ghosts you can't find them anywhere. 

I stood at Big W's "service" station for 15 minutes and pressed the red button several times before giving up on the weekend. 

Today, I tried to get my motor mower repaired. The local guy is booked to January. There's a 10-day turnaround at the place in nearby Springwood.

And if you want to set your graduating child up in a surefire business - have them train as a pooch groomer because they are booked up a month in advance. HUGE shortage: never mind nurses, plumbers, doctors, electricians ...  

Is a fearful, closed-door policy for a small Australia sustainable? Reading these stats, it seems not. Sure this report isn't the latest but I defy you to argue that a stagnation in innovative thinking and action will not lead to "sustainable growth". It'll be like Brisbane the capital city of a mining state which is now choked by traffic, formerly known as Australia's "most livable city".

Is Australia going to like Big W and David Jones stores in future? People standing around waiting...

Oh there are so many ways to slice this sticky Pavlova but perhaps we need a Lamington instead, huh?

Thank God Jamie Oliver is in town!

A frog has moved into my neighbourhood along with a two storm birds.

So I'm wondering what happens when some developer up the road starts up the bulldozer to turn farms into a housing estate on a road that can't cope with the traffic already?

Ah, the human touch.  

Rain.            Humans.

Frogs.          Frogs.

Croak.          Croak.

We don't let each other sing - so what the heck are singing frogs in this equation?

When was the last time you saw a film which summed up the human touch?

Have you ever seen Jean de Florette?  

Inspire a frog to sing? Bah! Frogs don't sing, do they? You might like the sequel Manon des Sources.

Water authorities reduced the water pressure to stop us from using too much water in drought.

But have they restored the water pressure to normal now that the floods have broken the drought?

This was a question raised in the dog park this morning by another dog owner who lives in Wishart.

She says the trickle out of her taps has turned into a gush in the past week or so. I haven't noticed a difference.

This is an ugly specter given the outrageous cost of water these days - cost her $1000 last year.

The cost of water is what brought up this question: is the water authority forcing us to use more water now by playing with the water pressure? Revenue raising?

Everyone knows the Government is broke - it's announced water board amalgamations & mothballing of now unneeded new infrastructure like desalinations plants.

Interesting question arises here: Do we trust a water authority or is this a case for Grommit?

The Case of Little & Big Water Mongers. Da-Da-Ra-Da!

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. - David Ogilvy

"You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are written into its economic and political record."

Please note the reference to "economic" i.e. business

"We have the record in front of us and our course is obvious." _ Frank Herbert wrote in Dune , a novel which is considered to be the greatest science fiction book ever written.

There's this bloke I met who commutes from the NSW Central Coast to Parramatta five days a week.

He sat on the floor of the train I caught from Sydney to Woy Woy on Friday night at 7.38pm. 

I asked him why he travels four hours by train and bus from the Central Coast (where he grew up) to Sydney's western outskirts for a job.

For one, he likes where he lives. For two, he likes his job. 

He had 68 people turning up on Monday (that's today) for job training.

He works for a job agency training unemployed people.

And on Sydney's western outskirts you will find at least 71 different nationalities - people from all over the world trying to make a new life in Australia.

He loves the interaction.

This bloke was unemployed for 18 months - it was the worst time of his life. But this agency trained him and also paid for a new set of teeth for him.

So he travels to this job that he loves for four hours every day - he loves his job. He's not concerned about missing a TV program.

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So there's this other bloke I met this morning on a flight home to Brisbane - he took my bag down from the overhead locker for me just to be nice.

He was on his way to Roma to work as a locum doctor - he's a doctor from Syria. He migrated to Australia five years ago to escape the Middle East havoc.

He flies into Charleville and other little rural towns which need doctors to work for a week and then flies home to Sydney.

The tone in his voice when he spoke of how beautiful his homeland of Syria is told me how much he must miss it. 

He had a photo of his son on his iPhone. And he asked me whether I could recommend any Australian books to read in simple English.

He would like to improve his English by reading books by Australians. So I recommended Seven Little Australians by Ethyl Turner and Cloud Street by Tim Winton.

I suspect his reading may be better than a lot of Australian-born people who take no interest in literature apart from Who Magazine or Zoo Weekly.

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So glad to know it is still possible to have a civil conversation with a stranger in this country - how else do you build understanding? 

Nice change from the regular suspects who seem to lurk behind shop counters and office desks who think they are too good to talk to you - maybe they plan to sell their story to Who or Zoo, eh?

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Does fate start where free will ends? 

At the National Screenwriters' Conference last month, I had a micro-mentorship with one of Australia's top TV drama writers.

The Australian Film Commission backed her first spec script, encouraged her, supported her and her project was made.

She sat in the edit suite, she visited the set, she took an interest in the production process - she didn't interfere she listened and they let her.

If you dig usually you find that these "overnight" success stories have been years in the making.

She said everything she'd done in her life to that point had converged to make her career as a TV writer.

It's a similar story for Shaun Tan's Oscar winning short film which came out of an award-winning picture book The Lost Thing.

They work in trust.

Trust the universe but not enough to stop peddling the canoe - even if it feels like the universe is conspiring to tip your canoe over.

I trust the universe because I have seen goodwill.

I trust the universe because my dog puts her head on my shoulder when I'm on the phone.

But what about words?

Why must it be paddle and not ever paddel or peddle? 

You lock words up to keep them in place - but still they do move.

What is the fate that words create?