Disability Support Pension loses

Kevin Andrews

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews has been tasked by the Abbott government to take a hatchet to the welfare system. Although it's early days, the review has recommended that only people with a permanent disability and zero capacity to work, will be eligible for the Disability Support Pension.  And what the recipient spends his/her money on, will be monitored by the government.

For those with a disability who are deemed fit to work now, or in the future, they will go on the working age payment "to better reflect different work capacities."

Mr Andrews said at this stage, the government did not yet have a definition of what "permanent" disability would be.

The proposal wants to cut the welfare system from 75 payments and supplements down to just four categories.

• a tiered working age payment
• family payment
• disability payment
• aged pension

Australia's welfare bill for 2012/13 was $110 billion and Tony Abbott's government is taking no prisoners. Yes we know there are people who rort the system and something needed to be done but it's the same old story of a few bad apples spoiling it for the genuine cases.  Vulnerable disabled people, unable to help themselves, will be really, really hurt if these measures go ahead.

How a country dishes out its welfare is an indication of how compassionate that country is, and these proposals speak volumes about Australia's new attitude to those finding it hard to cope with life.

Come on Kevin Andrews, you're a Catholic, show us what you're made of. 

Baby son who died in hot car premeditated, say police

Harris with his wife and baby boy Cooper

Justin Ross Harris from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, must be the cruelest man on the planet.  He left his little son strapped into his child seat on a scorching hot day, went to work, and pretended he forgot he was there. The temperature inside the SUV rose to 60C.

It must have been a slow death for the 22 month old, yet his father sought permission to attend his funeral to be held this Saturday. Cobb County Sheriff's Department said "We don't transport inmates to funeral services, that's it, that's our policy."

Harris is awaiting trial accused with felony murder and second degree child cruelty.

Justin Harris has one of those innocent-looking, friendly faces and has a lot of friends.  In fact, 11,000 people signed a petition to drop the charges because losing his son was punishment enough.

Harris with some of his many friends

Police allege he used his office computer to search how long it would take for an animal to die trapped in the back of a hot car.  If this is true, the child's death is obviously premeditated.

Police allege that Harris took his son for breakfast before driving to work.  He returned to his car at lunchtime, put an object into the car, left the child alone again, and returned to work.  After work he drove the child, now dead, to a shopping centre to fabricate a story that would get him off the hook.

Witness Edward Cockerham saw Harris pull Cooper from the car and thought he was acting. "I know he had lost his baby but he was acting up more than he should have been.  When he pulled in and people started asking what happened, he said the baby had just started choking.  But the baby didn't look like it had been choking, it looked like it had been sweating, like it had been in a swimming pool, his hair was all wet."


On Wednesday, Cobb County Medical Examiner's Office announced the boy died from intense heat exhaustion and confirmed the manner of his death was a homicide.

Australian Imams finally get the message

Ameer Ali

Wonders will never cease.  It's taken over twenty years but finally Muslim preachers have come out and admitted that radical groups are trashing the reputation of the entire Muslim community.

It must have been the last straw when the Daily Telegraph broke the story about Uthman Badar, the spokesman for the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, who was due to give a lecture at the Sydney Opera House entitled "Honour killings are morally justified."

Naturally, the general public was horrified and the lecture was quickly cancelled.  The same group also preaches that it's morally okay to marry pre-teen girls and that the US and Australia are terrorist nations for invading Iraq and Afghanistan.  Australians already know that's how Muslims feel, we've been told over and over, it's just more reasons to demonize Muslims.

The often divided Imams of Sydney and Melbourne have been loathe to criticize Hizt ut-Tahrir members but after all this time, the Australian National Imams Council has had a change of heart.

Doctor of Economics at Murdoch University and prominent Islamic leader Ameer Ali, former President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said all Muslim groups, leaders and mosque preachers should be resoundingly denouncing the views of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

"But I don't hear it yet" he said.  "I don't hear people coming out in sermons denouncing them.  They need to do this and be at the forefront of demolishing these ideas."  He went on "Indeed, most Muslims are horrified by what they are saying so why aren't the Council of Imams stopping them?  That's surprising to me."

And it surprises me too Mr Ali.  Could it be fear?

NASA says climate change is cyclical

It's the end of the day, Thursday 26th June 2014, and I haven't seen or heard any mention of an important announcement by the people who should know everything about climate change - NASA. The article appeared in AmericaSpace.

A study conducted by several universities and NASA have concluded that Antarctica's climate was once warm enough to sustain vegetation and even trees - in fact it was up to 20 degrees warmer than present day.

Core samples taken from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf reveal that 15-20 million years ago, before humans walked the earth, the temperature in the Antarctic was up to 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

I wonder if Al Gore has seen the article yet.

 http://www.americaspace.com/?p=21726

Did Putin stop US intervention in Syria?

The Russian President wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times last year in which he pleads with the American people and their political leaders to stay out of the Syrian conflict.

Republican Senator John McCain tweeted "Putin's NYT op-ed is an insult to the intelligence of every American."

What do you think?

MOSCOW — Recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all.

From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes.

No matter how targeted the strikes or how sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including the elderly and children, whom the strikes are meant to protect.

The world reacts by asking: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We are left with talk of the need to strengthen nonproliferation, when in reality this is being eroded.

We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.

A new opportunity to avoid military action has emerged in the past few days. The United States, Russia and all members of the international community must take advantage of the Syrian government’s willingness to place its chemical arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction. Judging by the statements of President Obama, the United States sees this as an alternative to military action.

I welcome the president’s interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria. We must work together to keep this hope alive, as we agreed to at the Group of 8 meeting in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June, and steer the discussion back toward negotiations.

If we can avoid force against Syria, this will improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It will be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues.

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Vladimir V. Putin 

Festival of Dangerous Ideas

It's hard to believe that the Sydney Opera House would invite Uthman Badar, spokesman for the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, to give a talk entitled "Honour killings are morally justified."

The Festival of Dangerous Ideas put together by the Sydney Opera House and St James Ethics Centre, came up with the brilliant idea of inviting a murderous thug to give a lecture on how it's okay to murder family members, especially women, who dishonour their family.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a banned, radical organization in Germany and The Netherlands and before becoming Prime Minister, Tony Abbott said he would outlaw it here.  As soon as the media picked up on the story, the government stepped in and Uthman Badar's lecture has been cancelled.

Uthman Badar

Sydney has the largest population of Lebanese Sunnis outside Lebanon and that's why so many young men have gone over there to fight.  Sydney extremists "groom" young men identified as good prospects for jihad.

Belmore GP Dr Jamal Rifi said yesterday "We are fuming and very angry about ISIS, our young men have been brainwashed, not by the people of the cloth, but by evil people. They've taken them where they should not go, they've taken them to their death."  One 17 year old told his mother he was going to Gosford to get a job and he turned up on Facebook in Syria. "We informed the AFP and the local authorities....the family is devastated" Dr Rifi said.

Dr Rifi (left)

But getting back to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, last night the Opera House released a statement.

"It is always a matter of balance and judgment and in this case, a line has been crossed.  Accordingly, we have decided not to proceed with the scheduled session with Uthman Badar.  It is clear from the public reaction that the title has given the wrong impression of what Mr Badar intended to discuss.  Neither Mr Badar, the St James Ethics Centre nor the Sydney Opera House in any way advocates honour killings or condones any form of violence against women."

Last night, Mr Badar tweeted "Hysteria wins out, welcome to the free world, where freedom of expression is a cherished value."

Australian jihadist passports cancelled

Australian militant Abu Yahya ash Shami

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said there are around 150 Australians who are fighting in Iaq and Syria. They travelled through Lebanon to reach Syria and are now moving into Iraq to join Sunni militants. In an effort to stop these young men from coming home, the government is cancelling their passports.  

Passports can be refused or cancelled by the Foreign Minister, or on request by the Australian Federal Police or the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO).

Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop

"We are particularly concerned with the reports of Australians who are heading off, not only to train, but to take leadership roles in radicalizing others and of course the fear is that they will come back to Australia with these newfound abilities and talents in terrorism" Ms Bishop said.

Tony Abbott said yesterday "The best thing we can do for Australians at home is to ensure that jihadists don't come back to this country - I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that this is a government which believes in border security.  We have demonstrated not just that we believe in border security, but we are effective in establishing border security."

Australia is contributing $5 million in humanitarian aid to Iraq.

New mosque for Bendigo

Last Wednesday night, Bendigo Council voted 6-2 to approve a $3 million mosque to serve 200 Muslims who live there.  One wonders how 200 Muslims can put their hands on $3 million.

Councillor Mark Weragoda who voted for the application, woke to find black balloons tied to the front of his business, where he also lives. The balloons have been appearing all around town, in trees and on buildings.

Mark Weragoda

More than 200 people attended the council meeting on Wednesday night and police were on hand, just in case.  During the angry debate which lasted for two hours, councillors were constantly shouted down, accused of being liars, and not taking any notice of what ratepayers wanted.  "If you're Muslim and want a mosque, go back to the Middle East, this is Australia" someone shouted.

Mr Weragoda who migrated from Sri Lanka to Bendigo when he was 14, said the council meeting was the first time he had really felt hatred against multiculturalism.  Whenever he spoke at the meeting, protesters played middle-eastern music.

A Facebook page "Stop the Mosque in Bendigo" has attracted 7500 followers.  Only two councillors, Helen Leach and Elise Chapman votted against the mosque.

Elise Chapman

Helen Leach

Opponents of the mosque have been goaded by a YouTube video by Zaky Mallah, a Sydney activist.  "The system is on our side" he says in the video. "And the funny thing is, you can't do anything about it."

Mr Mallah, who has no association with the Bendigo Muslim community, said he hopes the 4am call for prayer is turned up "full blast" when the mosque opens.

Lacey Spears murder trial

A 26 year old single mother Lacey Spears appeared in court on Tuesday charged with killing her five year old son Garnett with salt.

Five days before he died, Garnett-Paul Spears' sodium hit lethal levels without any medical explanation.  Two days later, hospital staff found him unresponsive and barely breathing.  He died a few days later.

After medical records found that the boy had been hospitalized 23 times in five years, alarm bells started ringing.  Police believe the boy was killed by his own mother and suspect she is suffering from Munchauser's syndrome by proxy - the bizarre mental illness where a mother deliberately makes her child sick to gain sympathy and attention.  It's alleged that she posted pictures of him lying in his hospital bed as he lay dying.

Police said she searched the internet to research what effects salt would have on her son and began poisoning him for sympathy and attention.  Prosecutors will attempt to prove that she took her son into the hospital room's private bathroom and administered the sodium into a feeding tube in the boy's stomach.

Her neighbour, who chooses to remain anonymous, said that as her son lay dying, she asked her to go to her home and dispose of one of the boy's feeding bags, which allegedly contained a large amount of sodium. The neighbour said that although she initially removed the bag, she turned it over to police when she heard of the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death.

Experts say that in the case of Munchausen by proxy, the child will be sick enough to have a feeding tube or intravenous line into the body that gives the abuser easy access.  A feeding tube is a red flag and Garnett had one.

Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness very hard to understand because a mother's love is arguably the most passionate love of all.

Spears attorney David Sachs denied his client had anything to do with her son's death.  "Lacey is completely devastated by the loss of her son and absolutely denies harming him in any way" he said.

She has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail at Westchester County jail.  She is due back in court on July 2.

Edit:  Today, 3 March 2015, Lacey Spears was found guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter in the death of her 5 year old son Garnett who died on 23rd January 2014.

Prosecutor Doreen Lloyd said "Lacey Spears is a calculating child killer who researched, planned and executed the intentional poisoning of her son Garnett Spears with salt.  She is no longer the mother of Garnett Spears because she murdered him."

Kate Middleton's grandmother

Lady Body with Kate

As bombs fell on London, a young woman named Valerie Glassborow was working around the clock at Bletchley Park helping to feed false information to the German High Command as D-Day approached.

Valerie Glassborow married Kate's paternal grandfather Peter Middleton.  She was born in Marseille on 5 January 1924, the daughter of a banker, and worked at Bletchley Park during the war with her twin sister Mary.

Lady Marion Body worked with Kate's grandmother and her sister in Hut 16, part of a team of code breakers.

"What an incredible story that you shared your time here with my grandmother" Kate said.  "It's so moving for me, and to be here as well. I was aware of it when I was a little girl and I often asked granny about it but she was very quiet and never said anything.

It's easy to see where Kate got her good looks from.

Bindi Irwin turns sweet sixteen

Bindi's grandad won't be at her 16th birthday party on 24th July. The man who founded Australia Zoo will be working on a crocodile conservation project in Cape York.

Nobody knows if he got an invitation or not, but because he won't be there, everyone is assuming he's still angry with Steve's wife Terri for not letting the children visit him when he had a heart attack in 2010.

Terri said they were in America when it happened and hoped that Bob would now stop smoking - ouch!  I get the feeling that is something you wouldn't say to a tough old bird like Bob Irwin.  But he seems to have mellowed over time.

"I think Terri's done a great job job with those children, she's had to raise them herself" he said.  "They are well-adjusted children and have a good background with their dad, nobody could be more down to earth than Steve was, and they've got a great future ahead of them."

Bindi's party has been advertised as the biggest "onesie" party in the world and everyone has been asked to come to Australia Zoo dressed in an animal onesie (a one piece jump suit for relaxing).

Leopard onesie

But it hasn't been plain sailing for the Irwins this year.  In March, Bindi outraged animal rights groups when she announced on Good Morning America that she would be working with SeaWorld to encourage "kids to change the world."

SeaWorld is having a bad image problem brought about by the award-winning film documentary Blackfish, which probes the treatment of killer whales at Sea World's parks.  US-based PETA started a campaign against SeaWorld and blasted the Irwins.

"The Irwin family has been exploiting animals for years so it comes as no surprise that Bindi has agreed to become SeaWorld's latest shill" a PETA spokesman said.  "But plastering her face on Sea World's website won't cover up the fact that orcas, dolphins and other animals are suffering in Sea World's tiny tanks after being ripped from their families."

So Bindi's birthday party will go ahead without her grandad which seems a shame.  "This is not about Bob Irwin the wildlife warrior or Bindi Irwin the television star - this is about a grandad and his grandchildren" Bob said back in 2010.

Steve's affection and respect for his father was well known, he even called his son after him and it's a pity things have turned out this way.  It's hard to believe that Steve died from a stingray barb eight years ago on Queensland's Batt Reef.  

Could Tony Blair be right?

Tony Blair is Britain's most successful Labour leader - he won three elections.  He was also instrumental in bringing peace to Northern Ireland so this man has some credibility under his belt.  That was until the Iraq war.   Yesterday, London Mayor Boris Johnson told a newspaper what the world is thinking "I think Tony Blair has finally gone mad......he needs psychiatric help."

London Mayor, Boris Johnson

Just when western allies finally figured out that George Bush and Tony Blair should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for the shocking loss of civilian life in the Iraq war, Blair thinks the job isn't finished and we need to go back.  Not with boots on the ground this time, but with air strikes and drones because they were very successful in Libya, another failed state after western interference.

On his website, Blair wrote a lengthy essay in which he says, among other things, that the USA/UK invasion of Iraq was not responsible for the mess Iraq now finds itself in.  He believes the rise of Isis is linked to the Syrian war.  "To argue otherwise is wilful' he said. "The operation in Mosul was planned and organized from Raqqa, across the Syrian border. The fighters were trained and battle-hardened in the Syrian war." 

"We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that we have caused this" he said.  "We haven't - we can argue as to whether our policies at points have helped or not, and whether action or inaction is the best policy, but the fundamental cause of the crisis lies within the region, not outside it."

"I understand entirely why people say it is nothing to do with us and I don't want to hear about it.......the jihadis are not simply fighting Iraquis, they are also willing to fight us, and they will if we don't stop them.

"We have to put aside the differences of the past and act now to save the future.  Where the extremists are fighting, they have to be countered, hard, with force."

And he made a chilling prediction.  "If we continue to do nothing, we could have a terror attack in the UK."

Raymond and Margaret Sutton's tragic life

Raymond and Margaret Sutton killed their severely disabled son Matthew a few days before his 29th birthday.  He was born with no eyes, a misshapen nose, a cleft lip and palate and the mental capacity of a four year old child.

It was the day before he was due to go into hospital for yet another operation which would leave him deaf and without a sense of taste. Sound and taste were the only two senses left to Matthew and he spent many hours listening to music. His parents had spent 29 years of their life watching their son suffer and his rare condition worsen, and this news was the last straw.

In 2001, Mrs Sutton gave her son a sedative before her husband "released Matthew from this world" with "the act that killed him." What that act was, isn't clear.

They said that Matthew was already dead when they found him but they lied.  Police were suspicious and the couple finally admitted to killing him and in 2007, they were found guilty of manslaughter and each given a five year good behaviour bond. 

Justice Graham Barr said there was no community interest in seeing the couple jailed and "nothing the court can do by way of sentence can add to their suffering."

Yesterday, the bodies of the couple, both in their late 60s, were found in their Sydney home.  Police said there were no suspicious circumstances.

More American troops for Australian bases

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has struck a deal with President Obama for more American troops, aircraft and ships to operate out of Australian bases.  And the President knows how to deliver a knock-out, drop dead compliment. 

"Aussies know how to fight and I like having them in a foxhole if we're in trouble" he told Tony Abbott during his visit to the White House.  "There are a handful of countries in the world we know we can count on" he said.  "Not just because they share our values, but we know we can count on them because we know they've got real capacity. Australia is one of those countries."  Wow!

Keen surfer, Tony Abbott's gift to President Obama Greg Bennett (left) and Tom Wentworth

Mr Abbott formalised the deal struck between former PM Julia Gillard and the US President in 2011, to deploy US Marines to Darwin. Another option on the horizon is to base more US Navy destroyers at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia.

It's a funny old world.  Almost 72 years after Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour and killed 21 Australian sailors, we are looking at buying new Japanese subs for $30 billion.

But our Prime Minister is making himself rather unpopular, especially about climate change.  His conservative counter-part in Canada agrees with him - that they won't "clobber the economy" by bringing in costly measures to combat climate change.  Mr Abbott was hoping that the UK and New Zealand would also back his stand but they haven't.  Both countries have stated they disagree with him and so does the US.

And there's another thing was worries me a bit, especially in light of the current situation in Iraq.  Mr Abbott said "The United States has paid a very high price to secure freedom and prosperity for many countries, not just itself, and the United States should never have to do all that work on their own."

President Obama has dodged two wars so far, Syria and Ukraine, and I hope he can get to the end of his term with a "no war" legacy.

Jamie Oliver and Woolworths promotion war

Everyone loves Jamie Oliver, he has thousands of followers in Australia but he's been dragged into a row between Woolworths supermarket and their vegetable suppliers.

Their new Jamie Oliver promotion is causing pain for farmers. Woolworths want their vegetable suppliers to pay an extra 40 cents per crate to fund his advertising campaign.

One large supplier AUSVEG said they will pay $300,000 over the six-week campaign but pressure is also being put on small growers already working on a miniscule profit margin.

AUSVEG spokesman William Churchill said they have written to Jamie asking him to get Woolworths to remove the fee and refund what has already been paid.

Woolworths said that half of their suppliers had volunteered to pay the fee but refused to say what percentage of the advertising costs would be covered by the farmer's extra 40 cents per crate.

Camilla Speirs from Jamie's Ministry of Food Australia said that Oliver supporter "those people who provide Australians with fresh food and vegetables."  She added "he's a man of the people."

I guess we'll find out if he really is.

The Problem With Euthanasia

Last Thursday, Quebec passed Bill 52 "An act on end-of-life care" that brings euthanasia to the Canadian province.  The new law, passed 94-22, allows doctors to end their patient's life if they ask for it.  

The law was possible because of a loophole - Quebec will treat euthanasia as health care which is under provincial jurisdiction, while the Criminal Code, which lists it as culpable homicide, is under federal jurisdiction.

I applaud Quebec's decision and hope that one day Australia will follow suit.  I know the subject is controversial on religious grounds but remember, if the patient doesn't specifically ask for it, nothing happens. 

Although it's rather long, this account of her mother's death by Australian author Nova Weetman is honest and moving and touches on our innate selfishness of wanting to keep our loved ones around for as long as possible. She calls it "The problem with euthanasia."


Nine months ago my mum asked me to buy an axe and chop her head off. I joked with her. Told her it would be a messy way to go. She was lying in a palliative care ward, dying of cancer. Chopping her head off might have been messy, but at least it would have been quick.

Death isn’t like birth. It doesn’t happen over a couple of days. And there’s no-one standing by ready to assist if it looks like it’s going to go longer. Dying takes time. Before I watched my mum die, I’d always believed so outspokenly in euthanasia. I was adamant that I would help my loved ones find a peaceful end if I were ever in that position. I remember conversations when mum and I joked about pushing her wheelchair off a cliff if she made it to a hundred. But it’s just not that simple. It’s not a question of legality. Or morality. It’s a question of how selfish you are.

Even if I’d been able to slip mum a magic tablet to help her die painlessly in her sleep, would I have done it? I’m no longer so sure. The process of dying isn’t for the patient; it’s for the carers. I wasn’t ready for her to die. I needed it to take time. Over those weeks, I needed to process how I was going to feel. I had to prepare myself for her death, and I did it by sitting by her bed day and night, watching her struggle to breath, refusing to eat, and growing angrier and more distant. It was only after watching her suffer, that I was fully ready for her to go.

It’s selfish. I know that. I’ve struggled with that since she died. It surprised me to learn how selfish I was, even though I knew the pain she was in. It shocked me to realise how willing I was to compromise her quality of life, just so she could stick around for a bit longer. I’ve excused my selfishness by believing that I wouldn’t be like that with just anyone. I needed my mother. I still do. So I guess my need for her to live trumped her need to want help to die. I hope I would not be so selfish with my children or my partner. I hope I could recognise their pain and let them go.

We had never really discussed euthanasia until she asked me to chop off her head. We’d had the time, but instead we talked only of the holidays we would have, or the nights my children would come and stay with her, when she was better. We just never let ourselves go there; preferring to pretend that she would get better. That’s the problem with euthanasia. It’s only an option if you are prepared to consider your mortality. And for my mum, that didn’t happen until it was very obvious she wasn’t coming home from hospital and by then it was too late to plan anything as difficult as assisted suicide, even if I’d been willing to help.

One afternoon my uncle arrived from interstate to farewell my mum, his last remaining sibling. A farmer, and a father of a child who had been very ill for a long time, he was pragmatic about saying goodbye. We didn’t talk much, but he did comment on how cruel he thought dying was, that if she (my mother) were a cow, they would have shot her by now. She was in a Catholic palliative care hospital, and his only other comment was that the bloody priests could fiddle with kids but they couldn’t let people die with respect. He was right. On both counts. But that afternoon, sitting next to her, in the small room, holding her hand as he said this, I was so furious I wanted to scream. I couldn’t believe he could be so callous, so unsentimental.

He didn’t come to the funeral. He explained that he’d rather say his goodbyes when she was alive than dead, and then he hugged me and left. He was practiced in the ways of death. He’d shot suffering animals. He’d watched a whole ward of children die, with his daughter the only one to live. He was okay with it. But I wasn’t.

For months before she went into hospital, my mum was so sick she could barely eat. Losing weight rapidly, she was a walking skeleton. I became obsessed with feeding her. I would cook six different dishes, sourcing ingredients like a crazed chef, and then drive it all across town, often ignoring the needs of my own young family, to try and tempt her with tiny mouthfuls, like a baby bird. It was perverse. She was dying, even then, and we all refused to see it. Instead I was force-feeding her like I would my son when he avoided vegetables for the third day in a row.

The sicker she got, the more I mothered her. For a while she was happy with me treating her like a child. And I was happy with that role, because if I had something practical to do then I could pretend that I was controlling what happened. I could believe that we were somehow beating the cancer.

The day she went to hospital for the last time was one of the brightest she had over those last months. I sat with her for most of the day, making her eat the hospital food that she clearly didn’t want. That day though she placated me. She even managed to sit in a chair for two hours, and talk. She had a nurse who clearly liked her and kept popping in with little extras to make her comfortable. My mum told stories and the nurse kept returning for more. She wanted my mum’s advice on things, and my mum clearly loved being asked. I realised that day that I hadn’t asked her advice for months. Instead I’d stolen something from her. I’d been so determined she would live, so terrified of considering the possibility she wouldn’t, that I’d babbled for six months. Told her all sorts of crap about what was going on. Chatted like it was pouring out of me, with no other outlet, and not once had I really asked what she wanted. If she was scared. If she knew she was dying. If she could tell me what to do.

And that’s the thing with dying. For the person doing the dying, they are ahead of the rest of us. They are waiting desperately for the audience to catch up, for us to hopefully find peace before they go, so they can unburden themselves of the conversation. But if we are too scared to see it, then all they can do is make crude jokes about cutting off their head with an axe.
When she was moved into palliative care, she shut me out. She was cross if I turned up with food. She’d stopped eating altogether, and it was only to please me that she’d occasionally accept a morsel. She was ready to go. But I still wouldn’t let her.
Over the last 24 hours of her life, we were all there. My dad, my brother, and my brother’s partner. Sitting by her bed, not really talking, holding her hand, and answering when she’d barely manage to say I love you. That night, we ordered Thai food from down the road and sat in the waiting area eating takeaway, while my mum dozed on and off in her room. I remember thinking how perverse it was that we were fighting over the last spring roll, while she was getting ready to die.

I don’t know what I expected death to be. But it wasn’t the morphine-induced state that my mother was in. As we crowded around her bed that night, waiting for her to die, the nurse kept coming in and commenting on how strong her pulse was. Death didn’t seem close. At one point, maybe an hour before she died, she even managed to sit up and pull me down on top of her, whispering in her scratchy broken voice about how she loved us. And then over and over in forced words she asked if it was time. That night, watching how totally not my mother she had become, I was ready for her to die. I wanted her to stop breathing. But instead she kept talking. Trying to tell us to look after each other. And I realised she wasn’t quite ready now. We’d somehow swapped positions. Mine was still fuelled by selfishness. I didn’t want to watch the agony of it anymore. I just wanted her to go.

And then in thirty seconds, she just stopped breathing. Just like that. No warning. No death rattle. Just silence.

After she died, I was elated. I’d sat in that room for so many weeks and slept on the fold-out chair for so many nights, drunk too many cups of coffee, and worried. Suddenly, it was all done. I wasn’t consumed anymore. Nothing else was going to happen to her. We went to Williamstown that afternoon. Wandered through the streets of my mother’s childhood. We ate ice cream and played on the docks. And I felt free.

That feeling lasted a day. The elation was gone by the next morning. When I woke, I was confused. I was ready to go and see her and then I remembered that she wasn’t there anymore. And I realised, in that moment, that if I was given the option, I would rather her remain forever dying in a hospital bed where I could at least sit alongside and hold her warm hand, than be gone. Selfish maybe, but she was my mum.

Troy James Knapp, mountain man of Utah

There is an admiration and respect in most of us for someone who has the skills to survive in the wild and live off the land and Troy James Knapp did it in spades.  For six years, he lived a lonely life in the freezing wilderness of Utah, travelling hundreds of miles in the snow with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He lived off the land and broke into remote cabins for shelter, food and guns, sometimes leaving a 'thank you' note, sometimes not.

If he hadn't panicked and fired at police right before he was arrested last year, he might not be heading to prison for ten years and six months. On Monday, Knapp agreed to a package of plea deals, closing dozens of criminal charges against him in seven Utah counties.  He will receive credit for the 14 months he has already spent in jail.

His attorneys said the weapons he stole were used for survival and protection against wild animals and never to "scare, threaten or use against citizens."  But they had to concede that he fired at federal agents who caught him.

In winter, Knapp spent time in snowbound cabins, sleeping in the owner's bed, eating their food and listening to their AM radio for updates about his manhunt.  In summer he went deep into the woods with a supply of guns, dehydrated food, radios, batteries and camping gear.

An article in Outside on 10 April 2013 reads:

On Monday, April Fool’s Day 2013, a 50-person task force that included members of seven county sheriff departments, the (DPS), Adult Probation and Parole, and a half-dozen federal agents from the U.S. Marshals Service, gathered at the Sanpete County Sheriff’s Department to strategize.

The next morning, April 2, just after midnight, the lawmen headed into Ferron Canyon in snowcats and on snowmobiles with two Utah DPS helicopters at the ready, then quietly took position on snowshoes in the frozen dark, even though they weren’t yet sure which of the cabins Knapp was inhabiting.

It was part of the plan that the racket from one of the helicopters would alert Knapp. It did. The first helicopter came in from the east; they could see Knapp on a cabin’s porch. “At about nine in the morning, Knapp is out chopping wood for his morning fire when this big-ass bird comes in over the trees,” U.S. Marshal Michael Wingert, the lead federal agent assigned to Knapp’s case, told me. “He grabs his rifle and shoots at the bird.”

Knapp, who was also armed with a handgun, squeezed off several rifle rounds. The men in the helicopter saw him reload. The fugitive strapped into his snowshoes, grabbed his rifle, and took off running to the south. After an exhausting 100-yard dash, he encountered Emery County Sheriff Greg Funk. Knapp raised his rifle. Funk fired and missed. Knapp broke back to the north and ran into a line of lawmen. Knapp realized he was heavily outgunned—and surrendered.

“You got me,” he told arresting officers. “Nice job.”

The cabin where Knapp was caught

"I don't hate people" Knapp said.  "I just don't like living with them."

And if that isn't a great plot for a movie, I don't know what is. 

Gerard Bayden-Clay trial begins

Scratches 

The trial of Gerard Bayden-Clay is finally underway.  This high profile case has been a long time coming and most people have already found Gerard guilty of murdering his wife Allison. Eighty people have been called up for Jury Duty and twelve jurors plus three reserves will be chosen.  The case will be heard before Justice John Byrne.

Allison Bayden-Clay was reported missing by her husband in April 2012.  Her body was discovered 10 days later about 10 kilometers away from her home on the banks of Kholo Creek in Brisbane.

In a pre-trial hearing yesterday, details of their marital problems were revealed when Relationships Australia counsellor Carmel Ritchie gave evidence.  Ms Ritchie didn't want to give evidence and cited breach of confidentiality, but her appeal was rejected.

She said Gerard blamed his wife's chronic depression for his three year affair with an employee and was annoyed that she kept going on about it.  "His attitude to the affair is to wipe it clean and get on with life" she wrote in her notes.

"I told him he can't put this in the past because for Allison, that past is very much in the present" the counsellor said.  Gerard replied "but isn't that regression? Isn't that living in the past?"

Then Ms Ritchie gave Gerard some very strange advice - she told him that he must listen to his wife's condemnation of his affair for 10 to 15 minutes every second night.  She told the court she "always limited such talks because they were "highly emotional", probably a gross understatement.

  Carmel Ritchie

Allison told her that during her honeymoon years, she had a "very severe reaction" to antimalarial medication Lariam which resulted in chronic depression, panic attacks and psychotic episodes.  Asked to sum up her feelings about Gerard's affair she said "inadequate, not good enough, believe I let it happen, Gerard's way is the right way, Gerard had an affair for the last three years, parenting, Gerard criticizes me, I fear that one day he will leave me." 

If only he had.

The dead babies of Tuam

Francis Fitzgerald

Ireland has had such a sad history and now there's been a discovery that gives us an insight into just how cruel society could be if you were unlucky enough to be an unmarried Irish girl and pregnant. In the small Irish town of Tuam in County Galway, they have discovered the bodies of nearly 800 babies in a septic tank.

The Catholic Sisters of Bon Secours bought the workhouse in the 1920s and converted it into a home for unmarried mothers.  For 36 years, they took in thousands of pregnant single women who had their babies taken away as soon as they were born.  It is estimated that 60,000 babies were taken for adoptiion in the 1950s and 1960s, and many went to America.

When some local lads went fishing and were digging for worms, they discovered the entrance to a Victorian septic tank which was built for the workhouse.  When the sewerage was connected to the home in the 1930s and no longer needed, it was sealed up.

The boys hit a concrete slab but they could tell there was something hollow underneath it so they decided to bust it open and found it was full to the brim with small skeletons.

As most of Ireland was under the thumb of the Catholic Church, being unmarried and single was a terrible sin and all pain relief during child birth was denied because the pain was "God's punishment for your sin."

Babies were crowded into nurseries where disease and malnutrition killed hundreds.  There were no doctors and infant mortality was five or six times worse in church homes than in the rest of Ireland.

One woman who was there knows the horror of what went on.  "I came in pregnant and was put to work in the nursery" she said.  "It was awful, there was no medicine and the babies were always getting sick. When one of them caught something, they would all get it and the nuns did nothing about it.  The worst was the green diarrhoea, it just poured out of the little things, it was so bad you couldn't even put nappies on them, they just lay there in it."

The Tuam home was demolished in 1972 and the nuns left.

Some locals still remember seeing grave diggers late at night bringing out little bodies wrapped in white shrouds and putting them in the tank.  A search of records shows that 796 babies died there.

With so many dead babies and little children on their hands and nowhere to put them, the nuns used the septic tank as a convenient answer to their problem.

Now we learn that mass graves like this one can be found all over Ireland but the Catholic Church doesn't want to talk about it.  The Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary was quick to blame others.  "As the diocese did not have any involvement in running the home, we do not have any material relating to it.  There exists a clear moral imperative on the Bon Secours Sisters to act upon their responsibilities."

When the Bon Secours Sisters were approached, a spokesman said the nuns involved were now deceased or very old and were not able to talk to the media.  "Unfortunately, I cannot take the matter any further" he said.

Finally, the Irish police have been brought in to investigate after Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said she wanted the facts behind the deaths.  

The wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine.