Tag: news

Long-conspiracies

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Just when I thought I’d encountered the final dumbterances^ of COVID conspiracy theory cookers, they round for another approach.

Re-reported old news is that AstroZeneca has now withdrawn its major COVID vaccine from Australia. Their reason, the latest variants of the virus are more effectively handled with their newer vaccines.

But as always, the loudest with the least interest in facts, scream Blue Murder. Their paranoia hinges on the known (extremely low) risk of blood clots identified with the AZ vaccine, and that the company’s business decision is actually a clear admission of the true, severe, and ongoing harm of the jab^^.

Source: https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/covid-19-vaccines/advice-for-providers/clinical-guidance/tts

Do you know what has a higher risk of blood clots? The common birth control pill.

Source: https://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/birth-control-methods-blood-clot-risk

I can hear them protest again, they’re likely no fan of the pill either.

Well, do you know what has a higher risk of blood clots than the birth control pill? Being pregnant, and having a baby.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dvt/features/blood-clots-pregnant-women.html#:~:text=Although%20anyone%20can%20develop%20a,women%20who%20are%20not%20pregnant.

In hindsight, I think I’ve never been disappointed not hearing about the news. I should just ignore it all more often.

^ “dumbterances” is a portmanteau I think I just invented, combining dumb and utterances, which seemed useful here.

^^ We really need a way of highlighting / tagging text that indicates it’s what someone may believe, instead of something that is written as a correct statement. Maybe like if some text is being said sarcastically it can be italicised. With the rapidly increasing spidering of content to teach Large Language Models and AI, it’s essential we don’t teach the robots the precise things we are in fact mocking.

A tough watch

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I knew it would be a tough watch.

A recent episode of ABC’s Australian Story program featured the work of Mechelle Turvey, mother of Cassius Turvey – the 15 year old Aboriginal boy who was slain in 2022.

Cassius was the victim of a senseless, unprovoked, racist attack in Western Australia. His death shocked all of Australia and resulted in nationwide vigils and rallies (Wikipedia). As a father myself of Aboriginal boys of the same age, I clearly remember the story rocking me to my core.

The timing of this episode was sadly poignant. In a fresh story also out of Western Australia (this time Broome), video footage had gone viral of a tradesman that had used cable ties to handcuff and shackle three young Aboriginal siblings together. The three kids – ages 6, 7, and 8 – were restrained for almost an hour in the 33 degree Summer heat. The kids are seen in the recording screaming for their Mum and wanting water. And why did the guy feel the need to intervene and assault these children? He found them trespassing in the neighbour’s pool.

Against that emotional backdrop, I watched this episode, mostly bawling my eyes out.

Like most Australian Stories it was amazing.

I had heard that Mechelle Turvey took a very peaceful position when the protests began in Cassius’s name. There were definitely forces rising across the Nation which wanted revenge and worse. “Mama’s on a Mission“, as they titled it, shows just how incredibly warm and positive her response became, to ease those tensions.

Mechelle is inspiring, and a very worthy recipient of WA’s Australian Of The Year. She has even gone on to teach empathy to the Western Australian police force in an ongoing role. This is just remarkable, given some of their ineptitude they showed in dealing with the Aboriginal community.

There’s no way I can even fathom that amount of grief, let alone come through it with something positive and helpful. We also learned more about Cassius, and how he continues to inspire through his memory and the legacy his beautiful Mum honours.

Although it was tough to watch and hear about this episode again, I think it adds some important positivity to some terribly negative stories of racial violence, which is sadly not yet a thing of the past for Australia.

“.. That’s not going to fly”

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I was following some quite extraordinary news of a ship bound for Jordan, which was carrying 15,000 livestock, remaining stranded off the Western Australian coast. The ship apparently sought to abort their voyage, on account of the increasing security risks posed to merchant ships travelling into the Middle East. This resulted in a sorry state of limbo for 15 days as groups debated on the appropriate action for the animals. Today’s update is the ship has now berthed at Fremantle Port to offload the animals.

When I first heard of the story, I assumed I knew who was behind the disruption to the live export ship’s journey:

Today I owned a school sport day

Reading Time: 2 minutesThis morning at Lewis’s school sports day they had a Dad’s race. I didn’t want to take it too seriously, in case I lost. But I certainly wanted to be calmly competitive and give a good show for Lewis.

As the 10 or so of us took off I tried to stay close with a fit-looking father. He took off with much gusto, clearly trying to take out the race. Prior to the race he happened to share he was a club rugby coach (an intimidation technique). At the halfway turning-point, I took it very slowly to avoid demonstrating my leather shoe’s lack of tread on the carpet-like surface. As I turned around I noticed a couple of other fathers had taken the risk and slipped over amid their 110% efforts. I almost came to a stop to avoid them, which gave a bit more of a lead to the other father – dastardly wearing just his socks instead of shoes. I upped the effort to catch him. As we drew close, with just 10-20 metres to finish, he slipped, fell & rolled spectacularly. I passed him with some caution to not get caught by his somersaulting legs, and I crossed the line in first place. The poor other Dad had to dust off a significant amount of fake grass from his office attire, and accept 3rd of 4th place. At least he gave it a go.

In those final triumphant strides my smile hid a slight grimace. I had pulled my hamstring. It was still totally worth it. After the race I walked back to my spot, concealing my limp. Lewis ran up to me, jumping up and asking if I had won.

I said ‘Yeee-ah’, as if no other outcome was possible.

I’ll skip football tonight.

This tale was inspired by Steve Bradbury.

Oh, and in other news, Lewis had a great sports day himself. And his house team won.

Don’t take my word for it about the Daddy’s Race, here’s the video evidence:

Update:

I found that this highlight of my life, led to an unhealthy anticipation in future years:

Silver acts swiftly, strongly against Sterling « NBA.com | Hang Time Blog with Sekou Smith

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI was astounded to hear the recent news of Donald Sterling – the owner of the LA Clippers NBA team  – making racist remarks against black people. I listened to the recorded phone conversation, hoping it was just a confusion.  It was not.

It’s astounding that it comes from someone with such a long history of involvement in the National Basketball Association – of which it’s players are predominately African Americans.

The only comfort to this episode is that the NBA organisation took swift action in making an example of him.

In this day and age, there is no room for such intolerance.

The healing process may take some time.  At least it’s already off to a great start through such a strong message coming from the governing body.

Silver acts swiftly, strongly against Sterling « NBA.com | Hang Time Blog with Sekou Smith.

New media is more of the same

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI found the following article from The Economist interesting.

The End of Mass Media: Coming Full Circle, http://www.economist.com/node/18904158

It describes the current emphasis on social media as not being new. We tend to think the connected have evolved for the better on account of the advances and innovative paradigms of web 2.0 technologies. If we stretch the time scale though, we’re actually not dragging society to a fresh citizen centric model. This “new” power to the people is actually returning us to a formerly prominent model.

Power to the people, just as we were hundreds of years ago.

The formal media establishments were the misnomer – perhaps we were just in the eye of the cyclone.

Sheikha Latifa leads UAE to second silver

Reading Time: < 1 minuteHorse riding is clearly in the blood. Sheikh Mohammed won gold medal in September’s Endurance World Championship, and now his niece has received a silver at the Asian Games.

the Sheikha Latifa Al Maktoum-led team finished second in the showjumping competition yesterday

via The National – Sheikha Latifa leads UAE to second silver.

Contract middle fingers and use the horn instead

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI was forwarded this story via email. It follows a bit of a pattern. When someone does something you would not ordinarily worry too much about elsewhere, but when it happens in the UAE they have paid a terrible price. I’m not sure all of the others I’ve received are totally true, this one on the other hand looks authentic.

7DAYS – Road rage ruined me

“I didn’t think the consequences of telling the truth would be so harsh,” Darren said. “I’d like other people to be very careful. You’re in a different country and the laws are not always the same.”

The humble car horn is not the perfect substitute for giving the finger, but it sure beats going to jail.  It’s interesting how the two things don’t nearly have the same effect here.  In Brisbane I’d consider using the horn and giving the finger exactly the same except one is louder. I guess Australians generally use the horn as a swear word.  Here it’s really more of a conversation. And it’s a bit of a worry, but sometimes it’s even a two-way conversation.

Addendum
The story’s been confirmed in the Australian press:

Aussie jailed for flipping the bird at driver in Dubai | The Courier-Mail (2 May 2009)

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25412733-953,00.html

http://snipurl.com/h7zgw