But we would be delighted if some of our readers could act as our eyes, ears – and scribes. Some of you have started doing that and we appreciate it. This is the democratisation of the media at work.

We don’t have the resources to write every story. We love receiving your submissions, and your notices for the gig guide, the noticeboard and other areas. But if you know of an event and you’re going to it, why not cover it for CI? A short written piece, a few photos, or even a video of the event may do the trick.

Let us know it’s happening, but we may not be able to get along. And your input and perspective could be refreshing, informative, fun – and importantly, help keep CI going. With the decline of printed, hard copy journalism, and the outright closure of many papers particularly in the US, this is the new world of journalism. We’ve all got access to the technology.

Let us know what you think, and hit us with your pitches and your stories!

independent@vic.chariot.net.au

On a wet Monday evening this week two gatherings took place in Chewton. One was a meeting of residents to discuss keeping the pool; the other was with Council officers to discuss the administration’s funeral arrangements for the pool. While around 50 local residents and Cr Christine Henderson attended the BBQ in stormy weather, representatives of the Save the Chewton Pool Committee met with Council officers.

If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it is that the will and voice of the people will prevail. In the case of the Shire’s outdoor pools, the will of the Shire’s ratepayers/shareholders has been ignored. First demolition was Campbells Creek; next planned is Chewton and Castlemaine; and in a few short years, Harcourt, Maldon and Newstead.

Councillors and staff at Council – please remember, we are the paying, voting shareholders who pay for recreation facilities and your wages. We are not going to stand by as impotent communities while you erode our assets and increase your income through our rates.

This patient is not dead – our pool is still intact and we will continue to fight for our young families.

The Council Plan (2009-2013) states that Council has an objective “to enable an active and healthy community by providing appropriate services and facilities”.

• How does Council’s decision to close the Chewton facility support the stated commitment in the Council Plan (2009-2013) or “recognise the importance of ongoing service delivery” in particular “continued operation of swimming pool facilities”?
• How can the decommissioning of one pool or the consolidation of several community pools serve the stated goal of “operating multiple swimming pool facilities throughout the Shire?”

How has this policy been applied to the Chewton facility when over the past five years Council has undertaken no works to the Chewton facility other than limited repairs to broken infrastructure or plant? Has Council circumvented achievement of its goal in providing an “appropriate service” by letting the Chewton pool fall into a state of disrepair?

Best Value Principles?

• How will Council’s tender for an aquatic centre and closure of Chewton pool respond to Best Value Principles as required under the Local Government Act?
• In particular, consideration of accessibility of services to the community and the meeting of community expectations and values?

On 10 August Council voted to accept the Loddon Mallee (Southern) Regional Strategic Plan. This is the State blueprint for our part of the region. A key recommendation Council endorsed was to “improve the liveability of small towns and their ability to manage change through investing in place based community planning, strengthening community leadership models, improving transport connections, encouraging joined up government service delivery and investing in urban renewal (including community hubs, recreation facilities and streetscape enhancement).”

• How is Council’s attitude to liveability and Council’s lack of investment in our “urban renewal” consistent with what Council is being asked to endorse?
• How can Council’s very public rejection of the representation of the local MP on this matter be considered “joined up government”?

This patient is alive and kicking – not so sure about the undertakers!

Flying fox on a barbed wire fence. Don't handle flying foxes: call the appropriate wildlife rescue group.

Every year thousands of animals face a cruel death on barbed wire fences. The barbs are a major hazard to wildlife, and the animals die, usually by being entangled on the top strand. More than 70 native species – especially nocturnal ones such as bats, owls and gliders – have been identified as occasional or regular victims of barbed wire fences.

Many can’t see the fence or just fail to clear it. If they’re rescued, most are too badly damaged to return to the wild. Kangaroos get hung up on fences that are too high, whether plain or barbed, and wetlands fenced too close to the water prevent wetland birds from taking off.

Wildlife friendly fencing is safe and effective for peopla, livestock and wildlife. It doesn’t entangle or harm wildlife and allows free movement of wildlife across rural and urban landscapes. Sometimes it may mean no fence at all – is a fence really necessary in every situation?

Kangaroo trapped in a ringlock fence

WFF avoids using barbed wire, especially on the top strand, and is useful in hotspots like ridgelines, feed trees, wildlife corridors, new fences and fences on or near water bodies. Most of the entanglements occur on the top strand of wire.

What you can do:

• Make the fence more visible. Nocturnal animals can see a 1cm-wide white tape that flickers in the wind better than a grey wire.
• Replace the top barbed strand with plain wire, or cover it with polypipe split longitudinally
• Plant trees to shorten the gliding distance for gliders between trees
• Monitor barbed wire fences in your area and encourage other landholders to go wildlife-friendly
• Visit www.wildlifefriendlyfencing.com for advice and information.
• Report entangled animals to your local wildlife rescue organisation: www.fauna.org.au

She’s holding photography workshops in spring. Click here to find out more

Bob and Barb Harry of Sandon have protected the magnificant bushland on their property forever

‘You have the power to protect the bushland on your land for future generations, even after you sell it or pass it on.’

This is the message that Tim Read will have for landholders in Mount Alexander Shire, be they rural or urban, when he addresses a meeting coordinated by the Castlemaine Landcare Group later this month. For the full story, go to CI’s Landcare page.

For the full story click here

Rumour is, the Mayor is a closet rockabilly fan and hit the dance floor regularly in the 60s. (That's only a rumour.)

You know that warmer weather is never too far away when the folk down at the Castlemaine Community House start planning for their annual Spring Ball. Now in its sixteenth year, the Spring Ball is the major fundraiser for the Community House. 11 September, Castlemaine Town Hall. Be there or miss out big time.

Hot on the heals of the sizzling 2009 Mardi Gras theme, and after the great success of a disco theme in 2008, this year’s Ball once again looks to a line up of local talent headed up by Penny Larkins and Carl Pannuzzo.  Forget about the woes of winter – it’s time to throw on your poodle skirts and letter sweaters, grab your partner, and get ready to twist again with the 1950s sound of Carl Pannuzzo and the BA-NA-NAHS.

The music of the 50s was a grab-bag of ballads, R&B, blues and rock ‘n’ roll. Through the fusion of these styles of music, fantastic dance songs and styles were introduced, setting dance floors across the globe on fire. You’ll hear great covers of At the Hop, Let’s Twist Again, Its My Party and Leader of the Pack. In between sets showcasing the works of Elvis, Little Richard and Bill Hayley, DJ Duck ‘n’ Cover will spin the beats and award prizes to the best dressed – the King and Queen of Spring Ball 2010. Spring Ball is your chance to let your hair down, raid the depths of your wardrobe and truly frock up.

Spring Ball has become an institution on the Mount Alexander social calendar and has gained recognition beyond the Shire, with people travelling from Bendigo, Melbourne and even from interstate. With great music, terrific atmosphere and sensational catering – the supper cakes alone are worth the price of admission – Spring Ball is a highly acclaimed night out.  First and foremost, however, Spring Ball is an opportunity for the community to come together, to celebrate the hard work, difficult struggles and great successes that have been achieved throughout the past year. Spring Ball is open to everyone and everyone is invited to come along and have a great time.

On the serious side, now more than ever the Community House will be looking to funds raised from this year’s ball to assist them in relocating to new premises at the end of 2010. Castlemaine Community House turns 25 in 2010, having spent a quarter of a century engaged in active community partnerships and projects. Currently based in the School of Mines building, the House will be on the move again when the local  Council looks to purchase the building at the end of this year. Funds from this year’s Spring Ball will be used to implement an Accommodation Action Plan designed to identify a suitable permanent home for the Community House.

Get behind your Community House, get along to this year’s Spring Ball and get ready for some serious dance floor action! Tickets on sale now from Green Goes the Grocer, Templeton Street. Numbers are strictly limited and tables are highly sought after so don’t miss out. Volunteers and helpers are always welcome to assist in preparing for the great event, with help required in decorating, catering, setting up and packing down. If you can assist and want to be involved in this fantastic community celebration call the Community House on 5472 4842.

Michael Grose was in Kyneton last week

By Andrew McKenna

‘We need small town mindsets with our kids. We need to look out for each other’s kids. Child raising needs to be shifted back to a group endeavour.’

Those words are comforting to those of us living in small towns, but also reassuring to anyone who has thought that a nuclear family is inadequate to raise children.

Nationally renowned ‘boy expert’, international presenter and author of eight books Michael Grose presented a talk at Sacred Heart College in Kyneton last week with the topic ‘Raising Mighty Boys’.

He is the Body and Soul parenting columnist, and reaches six million Australians every Sunday.

His latest release is Thriving!, and his books include the best-selling Why First Borns Rule the World and Last Borns Want to Change it.

He has an education background, and holds a Master of Educational Studies with research into what makes healthy families tick. He has conducted over 1,500 parenting seminars over the last two decades.

Kyneton’s presentation was wide-ranging, and there was a goldmine of information in there for parents of boys. He probably knows his material so well he jumped around a bit, but CI captured as much of it as we could.

DADS: Dads need to build up frequent father points. You have to be interested in your boys otherwise you won’t get far. Good relationships at a young age will give you leverage as they get older and enter their own world. At age 15-16, some boys are breaking from their fathers, and may not want to be with their Dads at this stage. Some men experience real grief about their sons.

Grose trained as a teacher in the 1970s and he says the training was lacking in one important point.

‘What was left out of my training was that boys and girls are fundamentally different,’ he said.

‘The differences are fairly obvious but sometimes we forget. What is important for boys in learning is behaviour and confidence building.

‘Boys are heuristic learners – they learn by trial and error, which can be a hard gig for parents. The best way to parent kids is to get into their space. Boys live in the now. The best way is to walk along beside them.

‘It’s what you do with kids, rather than for them. What we lack is time, and sometimes it’s easier to do something for them rather than with them.

‘You’ve got to be patient to grow a boy. Boys are approval-seeking missiles.’

He says you have to get comfortable with your boys, and while they don’t come with a manual, we do – our own experience and baggage as adults.

‘I open my mouth sometimes and my dad comes out,’ he said.

Many of us who are parents have heard that, no doubt.

FAMILY LIFE: Small families bring intimacy. Finding space is hard, intimacy is easy, but boys – like the rest of us - may not always want intimacy. Parenting styles change with a small family, but the constant is: do things with your boys if you want to have influence with them, especially as they get older. You’ll have capital in the bank you can draw from. ‘Look for entry points in their world to talk to them,’ says Michael Grose. ‘That’s why I don’t like tv in bedrooms. Modern homes are set up for individual enjoyment, not group activities. There’s a difficulty with boys often in those transition periods from one school to another, but it’s also a journey for the parents. ‘I always work from strengths, as boys are more visual and spatial. Boys are hightly kinesthetic, they like to fiddle. ‘So when a boy is angry get him to focus on a red light. When that fades think of a yellow light, what was it that made you angry? When that fades think of green, and then you can talk about it.’

Draw a box

Work life balance. They can see it. Boys (as they get older) need practical structural things if they are to find their way:

Growth/development

0-5 early

5-10 middle

11-18 adolescence

19-26 ‘adultescence’

In the early years the pre-frontal cortex is developing.

It’s important to talk a lot to boys at age 0-5.

‘Little kids are all arms and legs, the synapses are developing. It’s an age of language development. A high indicator or reading at a later age is their language development at a younger age. Mothers are better to help boys at this age as they do a lot more talking.

‘Children can hear 600 words an hour. They’re developing gross motor skills, visual and spatial skills.’

At age 5-10 they stop saying no and start asking why. This is a latency time between two periods of brain development. They grow taller and that will let them learn what they can do and fit in. It’s a competency and self-esteem time.

MOTHERS: Strong boys require strong mothers, but mothers who’ll also let boys break out. Praise must be private, but do encourage them: ‘I reckon you can do this’. Be a strong mother and talk to your kids as much as you can. ‘Women talk more to kids than blokes do.’ Also talk up the men in your life and the others around you. Shame is not far below the surface in boys. Let go. Don’t always step in and rescue them: sometimes it’s better to stand still and watch.

US psychologist Martin Seligman set out on a project in the US to depression-proof America, to teach people how to be optimistic, but the theory didn’t hold as there are physiological – and no doubt environmental – issues at play.

He found a correlation between boys and girls and the mother’s explanatory style by the age of eight, about how children see, view and explain the world. Be very careful how you explain the world to children.

You need to have a ‘talking home’.

It’s a time to be with them, a time they are downloading the software about how to be a male.

At 11- 18 they’re the ones not smiling.

Boys drive parents crazy up to age 10, girls do it from 11-18. (Grose explained of course, that these are generalisations.)

Girls convert their feelings to words, boys convert theirs to movement.

At 10-13 boys battle with their brain to a degree, and it’s not an easy time for them. They grow with testosterone, get gangly. Parents may need to be the boy’s brain for a while on adolescence. And you have to stand up to them.

LEARNING: The best knowledge you can give boys is self knowledge. Use positive language. If we want better behaviour, we need to catch it when it happens and praise it. Boys will often shut down if they don’t like their teachers. As learners, confidence is the key, far more for boys than girls. Boys are often organisationally challenged (which you can see by entering a boy’s bedroom). Many work at diminished capacity. With a purpose they’ll do the job, but then can go back to a diminished state again, whereas girls are generally more steady. Early success is important. Let them score well with easy work before you introduce more difficult work. Let them experience their success. Give them reason and structure. Shorten their timeframes, such as for music practice. (With our boys we’ve said now they need to practice for five minutes. This invariably lasts longer, especially if we participate and play with them. But it’s not the insurmountable ‘half an hour of practice’.) Your job is to help your boys remember, not take the responsibility for them. Give kids responsibility. One of the reasons boys go into being chefs is because it’s highly structured. The biggest predictor of a reader at 14 is how he’s reading at 6-7, and the predictor of that is his language ability at 2-3. John Marsden has said it’s not so important if boys do read, as long as they can. Michael Grose had a ‘no lights out’ policy at his house, meaning he let the child decide when to turn the lights out, getting to see reading as a normal part of life. In a study in the UK they found that men needed to be seen to read.

Age 13-18 a boy’s brain decreases by 1 per cent. Boys are making decisions from their limbic or ‘reptilian’ brain – the fight or flight part of the brain. As adults our pre-frontal cortex usually controls our behaviour (maybe not on a saturday night outside many pubs), so we need to parent in a different way for our sons.

Age 15-16 is the next testosterone stage.

Boys may not want to be with their Dads at this stage and some men experience real grief about their sons.

Never say to an adolescent that thee are the best years of your life, because it’s ‘bloody hard’.

There’s a space for mentors at this age.

It can be easier encouraging other people’s sons now because with your own son all you see sometimes are the faults.

The pathway for adolescent girls is about relationships, but for boys it’s more about taking risks, testing yourself out.

They don’t assess risk very well.

From 18-26 boys are the most at-risk group, and they need adults to guide them: viz Ben Cousins and many other young men who get in trouble at this age. Ben Cousins ‘fell down to a fair degree’.

In males, the adult brain arrives by about age 28.

The amygdalae (singular: amygdala; also corpus amygdaloideum) (Latin, from Greek, 'almond', 'tonsil', listed in the Gray's Anatomy as the nucleus amygdalæ) are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system. Amygdala is the reptilian part of the brain, and it’s 16% larger in males than females. (Thanks to Wikipedia)"

PARENTING: We are wimpy about setting boundaries. You have to 'take the heat' of adolescent boys, which is why single parenting is so hard as you have to take the heat alone. If you're a duo, be authoritative, form a pair. Family life has changed drastically but rituals are still important. One third of families in England don’t have a kitchen table. There’s far more media noise around these days. Boys need to help around the home without being paid, which is part of the move from self-interest to social-interest. We lack not resources as they did in the 50s and 60s, or food as in the 30s. We now lack time. 'Quality time' entered the lexicon in the 90s, and Grose believes the term is basically nonsense: ‘I’ve only got 18 seconds and it’s going to be the best 18 seconds of the day. I’ve tried that with my wife and it doesn’t work.’ You need to work hard with your family otherwise it won’t happen. Protect the rituals that bring you together. They anchor kids back to childhood. Boys will attach emotion to place, they’re like cats, and if they’re comfortable they’ll open up. Boys like one-on-one time. Five ways to have a relationship with them: talking, sharing time, acts of service, gifts and mementoes, and kinesthetic (touching, cuddling, wrestling). You need to build downtime into your family life. Effective parents are flexible, and at different times your son may need a different style of parenting. Families work as benign dictatorships. Someone has to be in charge and it’s better if it’s the parent. When boys misbehave mothers talk too much and fathers don’t talk enough. Let boys verbalise their behaviour. Ask them why they did something. What would have been a better way? What should you do now? Go and apologise?

GOALS: Boys are goal-driven. Play an instrument? Are you kidding? Play in a band? Cool.

ANGER: There are usually four emotions for boys: anger, happiness, sadness, fear. Help them tap into them all. If you don’t handle sadness and fear it comes out as anger. A lot of anger is sadness and fear. Open the emotions up. Let boys smash into a tree, go for a run, a walk, get it out kinesthetically.

Conclusion

Boys think two things: what are the rules and who’s in charge? Boys are born and it’s all about me. Our job is to develop them for society.

Be firm and interested, remove them from self to social interest.

You have to be interested in them otherwise you won’t get far. Good relationships at a young age will give you leverage as they get older and enter their own world.

‘Shoulder to shoulder parenting’ works with boys – that is if there’s a pair of parents on the job. Be in concert with your partner – present a united front.

‘I feel sorry for children after their parents have been to a parenting seminar,’ he said.

‘Don’t go home gung ho.’

Go to Michael Grose’s website

Castlemaine Independent was established in February 2010 and has logged over 65,000 visitors*  viewing 179,354 pages to date. Readership has experienced phenomenal growth each month.

Many readers were looking for, and have now found a new news voice. News, stories, change, community, world.

Our banner ads in the side bar are currently seen on 1899 page views a day.

One of our early advertisers is receiving 14% of their total website traffic from their banner ad on Castlemaine Independent.

CI has a focus on local issues and community as well as an eye to national and world news. Our underlying guidelines include: ethical journalism, sustainable use of our planet’s resources, and care for the environment. We encourage engagement by our readers in line with the trend of citizen journalism.

CI has many of the sections you would expect in a traditional newspaper: what’s on, sport, arts, letters, weather, obituaries, and more. We publish great photos. Local schools are appreciating the dedicated Education page, with stories on everything from the ultranet to dealing with adolescents at the breakfast table.

And it’s not all serious: CI has a fun and satiric streak, with a wicked range of fiction that has brought readers flocking in.

Looking at the relationship between stories and news, and their place in our culture is why CI is leading-edge in the evolution of new media.

On the 300+ mailing list are mostly the 20-40-year old age group, but it’s not limited to them. Readers are, of course, computer literate, curious about their world, questioning, not prepared to accept news at face value. They are interested in the arts and care deeply for the environment, family and children – judging from the number of visits these stories receive.

Quoll, or 'native cat'. (What would you feed them? Whiskas? Dine? The pet budgie?)

Marsupial-loving reporter Ian Walker grew up wanting a pet like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Could encouraging more native mammals as pets be a canny new ‘anti-extinction strategy’…or a future disaster to be cleaned up by the RSPCA? What happens when we apply market forces to the concept of extinction? The results may surprise you.

Thanks to the ABC. Go to their website and download the audio file here

A still from the film

By Arabella Davison
On Friday the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine hosted the screening of Labouring Under an Illusion, a documentary looking at the media’s often bizarre and sensationalised portrayal of birthing. Attended by around 60 people, including local health professionals, the event raised over $2000 in support of local private midwife Sally McCrae.

Castlemaine has one of the highest rates of home birth in Australia. Marion Yates spoke of her family’s powerful experience with Sally McCrae attending the birth of their second child at home in Castlemaine.

‘This holistic model of care which is possible through Independent Midwifery and exemplified by Sally McCrae, is one that we could be learning from as a society,’ Marion said.

‘It serves as an example for other health care providers of the value of “striving” to make a genuine heart-to-heart connection between a practitioner and client. The potential health benefits of this model of care to us as individuals as well as a community are boundless.’

While women can still choose to homebirth, recent changes to federal laws place greater restrictions on women and private midwifery care.
Current choices for birthing in Mt Alexander Shire include private midwifery care in the home, or GP/Ob-led care through the Mt Alexander Hospital in Castlemaine.

For more on Laboring Under an Illusion, and to order the DVD, click here

See a trailer for the movie:

Overflow at Expedition Pass Reservoir, Saturday 4 September

For more than 10 years Castlemaine – and south-eastern Australia – has been under drought. The land and all who live on it have been suffering, the wildlife’s been under threat, farms have gone under, we’ve suffered the worst bushfires in living memory.

Now, the skies have opened. Our kids have been treated to what some of them have hardly experienced: steady, teeming rain for days, gutters overflowing, dry creeks flowing, small creeks turning to rivers, reservoirs refilling, the mouth-watering roar of water in the landscape.

According to Coliban Water our reservoirs are now over 56 per cent full, the healthiest level we’ve had in years. The graph is on a J curve.

Enjoy the pictures!

Camp Reserve Castlemaine. Pic: Sam Ward

Oak tree, Botanic Gardens. Pic: Sam Ward

Gingell St Castlemaine. Pic: Sam Ward

Guildford. Pic: Matt Wobbly

Muckleford. Pic: Matt Wobbly

Forest Creek at Greenhill Ave. Pic: CI

Playground, Castlemaine Botanic Gardens. Pic: Sam Ward

Water downtown. Pic: Christine Sayer

Real estate. Pic: Matt Wobbly

Evening at the Gardens. Pic: Christine Sayer

Forest "River" flooding in Happy Valley yesterday. The wooden footbridge was under water and some of the recent Castlemaine Landcare plantings were submerged. Pic: Robin Haylett

Moonlight Creek flowing along Moonlight Flat, (it feeds into Forest Creek at the large waterhole). For many years this small creek has been hidden by gorse and blackberries, but a program of spraying and grooming has revealed it for all to see. In fact the grooming was completed earlier in the week - perfect for the weekend rain. Pic: Robin Haylett.

Rafting in the Guildford Valley. Pic: Anna Winneke

Rafting in the Guildford Valley. Pic: Anna Winneke

Spillway at Expedition Pass Reservoir

Pics: CI

I drink streamwater and the air
By Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)

I drink streamwater and the air
becomes clearer and everything I do.

I become a waterwheel,
turning and tasting you, as long
as water moves.

So it was no surprise that morning as he looked over his day planner that he felt no alarm at the course his penciled notes charted:

1). Shop for groceries
2). Pick up dry cleaning
3). Kill Rose

**

Often the death of an extraordinary person is presaged by events that, if one is sensitive or intuitive enough to read, can forewarn and perhaps forestall the inevitable. But Charlie Adams wasn’t an extraordinary person. He was ordinary in nearly every measure of his life.

Still, where he lacked sensitivity or intuition, Charlie had an ability to organize and when he had set his mind to a thing, a single-mindedness of purpose. So it was no surprise that morning as he looked over his day planner that he felt no alarm at the course his penciled notes charted:

1). Shop for groceries
2). Pick up dry cleaning
3). Kill Rose

Charlie waited until he heard his wife in the shower, then went to the kitchen, emptied the sugar bowl into the trash, and carefully refilled it from the Ziploc baggy. He left the house and drove to a diner to wait. As he drove, he passed the parking lot where late one night a figure had materialized from behind a dumpster.

“You looking for this?” the figure croaked, his face hidden deep within the shadow of a hooded sweatshirt. He held out a Ziploc sandwich bag.

Charlie was surprised by the bag’s weight. “Looks like sugar.”

“And a hell of a lot sweeter. Especially for your purposes.” The shadow growled, “You said a thousand?”

Charlie handed him an enveloped stuffed with twenties. “This won’t leave a trace?”

The shadow laughed a brittle cough, “Trust me, I’m a fuckin’ chemist. It’ll look like a heart attack.”

“You sure?” Charlie asked, but the man was gone.

At the diner, Charlie poked at his breakfast with a fork. He knew Rose would be beginning her day exactly like she did every day. Once showered, she would dress in the clothes she had laid out the night before, the purple satin heels, the black slacks and white top, the bracelets and rings arrayed on the dresser. She would stand before her mirror and pronounce herself “Perfect.” In the kitchen she would pour a single cup of coffee, carefully ladling in four spoonfuls of sugar from the bowl on the counter. She would sit reading her paper until the coffee was cool enough to down in a gulp. Then she would leave for her errands. Charlie shuddered at the inevitable routine of it.

He waited until noon then returned to the house. In the kitchen, a fresh, cellophane-wrapped plate of cookies sat on the table. A note card taped to it announced in Rose’s brutish handwriting:

Don’t even THINK about eating these. They’re for my bridge club tonight – Rose.

Charlie laughed and brushed the note aside. He reached for the sugar bowl but stopped, suddenly afraid to touch it. He remembered a different sugar bowl, a fine porcelain bowl his mother had given him on their wedding day, its hand-painted roses, gentle round base, and delicate handles. He remembered the morning a few weeks after their wedding when he heard Rose screaming in the kitchen and ran to see what was wrong. She pointed at the bowl, her face distorted in a wild grin. “There’s no goddamn sugar in this bowl. How am I supposed to have my coffee?”

“Sorry,” he said as he pulled a bag of sugar from the cabinet and quickly shoveled four spoonfuls into her cup.

She shrieked, “You put that sugar in my coffee?”

Charlie looked at her bewildered. “Sugar is sugar. It’s okay…”

“That sugar came from the bag. The sugar for my coffee has to come from the bowl. Do you understand?”

“What’s the difference?” he muttered. There was a flash of her hand and an explosion of porcelain against the refrigerator.

“That’s the difference!” she shouted. “Now clean this goddamn mess up.”

Then she said something Charlie would hear again and again throughout their marriage. He could hear it in his head now as clearly as if she were in the room, “Cheer up, Charlie. You didn’t expect to get a rose without a few thorns, did you?”

***

A few hours later when the phone rang, Charlie was in his recliner, a half-empty plate of cookies in his lap. He didn’t hear Roses’ voice squawking from the answering machine, “Put sugar on your grocery list, asshole. We’re out. Couldn’t even enjoy a cup of coffee this morning. Had to use what was left in the bowl for my cookies. And you know how much I hate doing that.”

**

Jim Noonan studied creative writing at the State University of New York—Binghamton, haunted by the ghost of John Gardner.  His stories come to him like vapor coalescing—magically, of their own volition. He is learning to be still and listen. And he’s appreciating a new audience with Castlemaine Independent.

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

By Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought
was your grief

A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived
and he dreams
he’s living in another town
in the dream he doesn’t remember
the town he’s sleeping in his bed in
he believes the reality
of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep

Humankind is being led
along an evolving course,
through this migration
of intelligences
and though we seem
to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness,
that directs the dream
and that will eventually
startle us back
to the truth of
who we are

New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that Australia’s prison system is in desperate need of a massive overhaul, according to Peter Norden AO from the University of Melbourne.

A national research report released recently by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (1351.0.55.031) showed a dramatic increase in the national prison population between 1994 and 2007 of 3.7% per year, and an increase in prisoners with prior imprisonment increasing at a rate of 3.2% per year.

These figures indicate a national increase of around 50% in the rate of imprisonment over 10 years.

Change our thinking

A Vice Chancellor’s fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Law School with more than 30 years experience in the Australian criminal justice system, Peter Norden says the time has come for a change in thinking.

“What further evidence could be required of a prison system that is failing and a criminal justice system that is in urgent need of review and evaluation,” Mr Norden said.

“Meanwhile throughout Australia, states and territories like Victoria resort to bidding wars on longer sentences and an increased use of imprisonment, particularly in the period leading up to a State election.

“If these results emerged from our education system or our health system, there would be a general outrage at the waste of resources, both personal and financial.”

The report indicates that about one in five prisoners were reimprisoned in the first two years, one-quarter by three years from release, and almost 40% by the end of the 10 year observation period. Younger prisoners, especially those 17-19 years of age were the most likely to be reimprisoned after release, as were Indigenous prisoners.

“The Australian community and the state and territory governments should now recognise that there are more effective interventions than imprisonment for such high risk groups and address the underlying issues such as access to education, housing and employment,” Mr Norden said.

“After running post-release prisoner programs for more than 30 years, I know from experience that the system is not working, and this report just confirms that experience.”

It was Australia’s second climate change election. Climate change deposed the former leaders of both main parties: Kevin Rudd (Labor) because his position was too weak, Malcolm Turnbull (Liberals) because his position was too strong. When Julia Gillard, the new Labor leader, also flunked the issue, many of her supporters defected to the Greens.

Labor’s collapse began when the senate rejected Rudd’s emissions trading scheme. Faced with a choice between dissolving parliament and calling an election or dropping the scheme, he chickened out and lost the confidence of the party. Julia Gillard’s support began to slide when she proposed to defer climate change policy to a citizen’s assembly(1). Nearly 70% of the votes she lost went to the Greens(2).

Turnbull, like Rudd, was ousted over the emissions trading scheme, but six months earlier. His support for the scheme split the Liberal party. Just before the first senate vote on the issue, in December last year, he was overthrown by Tony Abbott, who had told his supporters that climate change “is absolute crap”(3). If Abbott manages to form a government, he will reverse the outcome of the 2007 election, in which the Liberal Party was defeated partly because it wouldn’t act on climate change.

It’s not difficult to see why this is a hot issue in Australia. The country has been hammered by drought and bushfires. It also has the highest carbon dioxide emissions per person of any major economy outside the Arabian peninsula. Australians pollute more than Americans, twice as much as people in the UK and four times more than the Chinese(4). Most Australians want to change this, but the coal industry keeps their politicians on a short leash. Like New Labour over here, Rudd and Gillard’s administration was a government of flinchers. It has been punished for appeasing industrial lobbyists and the rightwing press.

Australian politics provides yet more evidence that climate science divides people along political lines. Abbott is no longer an outright denier, though he still insists, in the teeth of the facts, that the world has cooled since 1997(5). Some members of his party go further: Senator Nick Minchin, for example, maintains that “the whole climate change issue is a left-wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the western world”(6). (He has also insisted that cigarettes are not addictive and the link between passive smoking and illness cannot be demonstrated(7)). A recent poll suggests that 38% of politicians in Abbott’s coalition believe that man-made global warming is taking place, by comparison to 89% of Labor’s people(8).

It’s the same story everywhere. At a senatorial hustings in New Hampshire last week, all six Republican candidates denied that man-made climate change is taking place(9). Judging by its recent antics in the Senate and by primary campaigns all over the country, the Republican party appears to be heading towards a unanimous rejection of the science. The ultra-neoliberal Czech president Vaclav Klaus asserts that “global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so.”(10) The hard-right UK Independence Party may soon be led by Lord Monckton(11), the craziest man in British politics, who claims that action on climate change is a conspiracy to create a communist world government(12). The further to the right you travel, the more likely you are to insist that man-made climate change isn’t happening. Denial has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.

In the Telegraph recently, the Conservative Daniel Hannan tried to explain this association. “When presented with a new discovery, we automatically try to press it into our existing belief-system; if it doesn’t fit, we question the discovery before the belief-system.”(13) He’s right. We all do this, and it is also true that in some respects an antagonism to climate science is consistent with right-wing – and especially neoliberal – politics. The philosophy of the new right is summarised by this chilling statement from Vaclav Klaus. “Human wants are unlimited and should stay so.”(14)

But right-wing denial also leads to perverse outcomes. In a desperate attempt to appease the deniers in his party, Malcolm Turnbull proposed handing £70bn to industry to soften the impacts of acting on climate change(15). Rudd’s trading scheme, by contrast, was more or less self-financing. Tony Abbott intends to lavish subsidies on polluting companies without demanding any corresponding obligations(16). State handouts? Rights without responsibilities? When did these become conservative policies?

Since way back. In the US the Republicans also favour green incentives for industry, without caps or regulation. Worldwide, subsidies for fossil fuels are twelve times greater than subsidies for renewable energy(17). Many of the most generous hand-outs are awarded by right-wing governments (think of the money lavished on the oil industry under George W Bush(18)).

Yes, man-made climate change denial is about politics, but it’s more pragmatic than ideological. The politics have been shaped around the demands of industrial lobby groups, which happen, in many cases, to fund those who articulate them. Right-wingers are making monkeys of themselves over climate change not just because their beliefs take precedence over the evidence, but also because their interests take precedence over their beliefs.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11023889

2. http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2010/08/23/the-world%E2%80%99s-second-climate-change-election/

3. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/the-town-that-turned-up-the-temperature/story-e6frgczf-1225809567009

4. US Energy Inhformation Administration, viewed 23rd August 2010. Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Consumption of Energy. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=45&aid=8&cid=&syid=2004&eyid=2008&unit=MMTCD

5. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2748161.htm

6. ibid.

7. The Senate Community Affairs References Committee, December 1995. The tobacco industry and the costs of tobacco-related illness, p120. http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/COMMITTEE/CLAC_CTTE/completed_inquiries/pre1996/tobacco/report/report.pdf

8. The University of Queensland, 12th August 2010. Political Leaders and Climate Change, Table 7. http://gci.uq.edu.au/PLCCI.pdf

9. http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/08/20/every-gop-nh-senate-candidate-is-a-global-warming-denier/

10. http://newsbusters.org/node/10773

11. http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/08/18/should-you-be-betting-on-101-lord-monckton/

12. http://mnfmi.org/2009/10/16/monckton-speaks-to-over-700-at-minnesota-free-market-institute-event/

13. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100050950/so-should-conservatives-believe-in-man-made-climate-change/

14. http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/2266

15. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6939147.ece 16. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/tony-abbotts-climate-change-plan-a-populist-con-job/story-e6frf7l6-1225826185124

17. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-29/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-12-times-support-for-renewables-study-shows.html

18. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/13/the-corporate-begging-bowl/

The Maryborough Highland Society has plans for the Kennedy St Goods Shed

VicTrack, the owner/manager of the Kennedy St Goods Shed, (being leased to the Maryborough Highland Society for the purposes of a new gaming venue in Castlemaine), are ‘engaging with the community’. So their website says.

VicTrack is committed to delivering services and projects which achieve an economic, environmental  and social benefit – the so-called triple bottom line.

So just where do new poker machine licenses figure in VicTrack’s ‘so-called triple bottom line’?

‘Community engagement plays a major role in helping VicTrack achieve these outcomes,’ their website beams.

‘Local communities have made a significant contribution to successful VicTrack projects at Maryborough Station and Spotswood.

‘If you would like to know more about a VicTrack project in your community and, please contact us.’

The Maryborough Highland Society has not specified how many poker machines they plan to install in Kennedy St.

On Thursday, 1 September, Chris Hosking of EPIC (Enough Pokies In Castlemaine) requested a public consultation between Vic Track and the community of Castlemaine.

‘I have requested a meeting so Vic Track can explain just what are the economic and social benefits (and maybe the environmental) to this community of having an extra 65 poker machines.

‘I received a reply email saying I would get a response within 10 days.

‘I emailed Bob Cameron and Martin Pakula (Minister Public Transport) of the request for the meeting.’

Tune in to all the stories on the poker machines below.

Poker machine protest (30 August)

Interview with the GM of the Maryborough Highland Society (27 August)

Shire to develop gambling policy (26 August)

Resistance to poker machines takes off (25 August)

One you have to read: Gambling hurts, a true story (24 August)

Enough is enough (17 August)

Viva Las Vegas! (16 August)

We don’t have a gambling policy do we?’ (The floodgates open) (12 August)

Gamble and win! (or lose) (9 August)

The Maryborough Highland Society wants your money (19 June)

Pokies: I smell a fight (12 June)