Ego Trip

Today I've had a comeuppance. The kind that is delivered with a sudden and shocking flash of self awareness, so sharp and clean it feels like your face just got rubbed in a glacier.

Someone I hold dear, although I do not know her well, has experienced a lot of shit in her life over the past 18 months. So much poo has been poured upon this woman and her family that even Kenny would step out of his overalls and call it a day.*

This week she got served another bout. It Scared me. I don't do Scared well. I wanna fight Scared and punch its little lights out. The best way to do that is to DO. So I did. I issued the clarion call. I rallied the Lady Troops. I conceived of a plan so lovely, warm and fuzzy, Barbara Cartland would want to hold it on her lap, give it a nickname and stroke it all afternoon.

Oh! I was on fire. Something about this particular woman sends me into action stations.  Hither and thither I bounded, issuing emails, cooking up plans, interviewing candidates and convincing some of her closest personal friends to agree that my idea was indeed worthy of Cartlandish affections. There were words of warning, delivered with love and respect for my intentions but I was determined to get on that road to hell, so took little heed.

You ever find that your ass hurts when you hit the floor after crashing out of your bubble?

Mine did. This friend and her family had the audacity - nay - the sheer temerity to politely refuse the wonderful, kittenish, bursting full of cuddly love offer of support that I had decided would be good for them to receive! The bloody cheek of it!

When crushed, my first reaction is always to fight, fight and then fight some more. In this case, I started banging out a really upset email and at some point, around about when I wrote the words "get your ego in check and wake up" - BAM! Ice cold glacier to the face!

Who was having the ego trip?

Suddenly I was drenched in the reality that my actions had been all about me, and not about her at all. I was no better than Xenaphon and his grandstanding little mate Wilke - just acting on something that would create popular appeal and not actually addressing the real and expressly articulated needs of those affected.

And what was worse, I had dragged other people into it. And then in what is the absolute worstest, scummy and puerile aspect of all, I went sniveling off to everyone that was caught up in it and begged them to help me feel better about having been a blind, dopey, ignorant, pushy, meddling, busy-bodying dork.

Love a little, meddle a little

And let me tell you when the word busy body popped into my head and I applied it to myself and realised IT WAS TRUE - that was truly a punch in the chops because last time I looked, I wasn't someone with nothing better to do than mess around in the family affairs of people I barely know.

So what happened? From whence did this pushy arrogant and self-sick making behaviour come?

Still working on that one. I'll figure it out eventually but of one thing I am sure - a mirror got held up to me today and all the accusations I was about to let fly at the object of my meddling intentions got flashed straight back in my eyes.

 I believe the saying goes "I was blind, but now I see."

What I saw is that I did ask "what can I do to help" and I was given a very straight forward answer.  But instead of going with the flow and accepting, I tripped on some serious ego shit.

Every time I come into contact with this person and her circle of trusted friends, I grow. Even after I made some really dreadful errors in judgement today,  I was forgiven by everyone, including the person who should never have been put in such an unfair position at all.

And to that person I say, I have never been so happy to be called a fucktard in all my life. And I love you too.

*In joke for Australians. For all others http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kJ1wYpzQek

A Political Trip

When you're on a roll and procrastinating over a deadline, there is nothing quite as satisfying as being reminded about a politician that really pissed you off because it gives you a great excuse to re-examine exactly what it was about them that shit you so much.

And today's candidate is...*drumroll* Australian Senator Nick Xenaphon.

Aside from the fact he has a last name that sounds like an instrument used to apply auditory torture, this guy is a spectacular policy gnome.

He paints himself the defender, the crusader and man of the common peeps and he is sometimes. But most of the time he's no different to the rest of them. He's just looking for a soft target to land a few punches on in order to elevate his own position in the political schoolyard in Canberra.

The issue that shits me right now is Xenaphon's cozy little arrangement with Andrew Wilke - a neurotic, paranoid pollie mate of his from down the Apple Isle (Tasmania for those of you outside Oz). They've both climbed on board an emotionally charged bandwagon and set off around the country to throw a few bombs at the club industry.

The shitty issue of the day is poker machines.  These are a highly contentious and divisive subject.  The presence of poker machines is a very common thing in NSW. Casinos have them. Clubs have them. Pubs have them. In fact, it is said we have the highest ratio of pokie machines per capita anywhere in the world.

Lots of people hate them. Lots of people that have never put any money into one have objections to their existence.  One of this country's best loved indie bands The Whitlams even wrote lyrics about the evils of the pokie machine into a hit song.  Poker machines have a lot of money pumped into them.

For some people it becomes an addiction - the same way cigarettes, alcohol or endless episodes of Will & Grace do for others.  Serious addictions very nearly always carry financial risk to the addict and those around them.  

(Will & Grace is a rare example of a truly victimless addiction although my fiancee would disagree after more than four back to back episodes).

Xenaphon and Wilke are on a mission to abolish pokies. They have contented themselves for now with leveraging deals with the minority Labor Federal Government and the desperate, soon to be deposed, State Labor clowns that will dramatically change the way information is collected about poker machine users.

They have proposed all poker machines be fitted with biometric readers so ANYONE that wants to use them must cede their data to the Government. This is the kind of shit I choke on.

Here's the thing.   I am well educated and aware of the facts, figures and statistics related to how much social tragedy the issue of problem gambling causes.  I am equally well educated about the club industry and it's close relationship with community.

Here's the trip. I can not agree with the extent to which the personal freedoms of the majority are being legislated against in order to address the issues, weaknesses and failings of a very small minority.

On a percentage basis, a very small number of people have a poker machine gambling problem. The vast majority of folk can go to their local club and enjoy a bit of a flutter from time to time with no ill effect on their personal circumstances.

The very notion of offering the Government my biometric data in order to exercise my  right to spend my own money in a way I want to, engaged in a perfectly legal activity appalls absolutely every fibre of my being. It is the very worst kind of paternalistic policy making. Control and limit  the many in order to target the few - it is wasteful and invasive in the extreme.

What really rips me about this issue is that this has NOTHING to do with any real regard for the addicts or their victims. This has EVERYTHING to do with political profile building for Xenaphon and Wilke. In the process of their self aggrandised roadshow around the country spouting nonsense like "harm minimisation" they are going to rip the guts out of the club industry and in doing so, will irrevocably damage thousands of small community groups, NFP's and charities.

This is because a very substantial proportion of money derived from poker machines goes back into the community via what is known as the CDSE programme.  Major organisations like the Ted Noffs Foundation would not be able to run some of their most important programmes without the funding that flows from the CDSE. There are literally thousands of groups and community organisations that would not open their doors each morning if not for the support of these major clubs.

It is rare for me to become so incensed about a political issue that I will contact one of them. I'm not a trainspotter and as someone who holds an Honors Degree in Political Science, I expect politicians to be full of the good old fashioned ka-ka.

So all I wanted from Xenaphon was an answer to a couple of questions that might help me ascertain how much of his political ego trip was based on a genuine desire to help addicts and victims and how much was photo opportunity and media spin.

If you are an avid despiser of the pokies and you love to pump your fist in the air and cheer everytime a gnome like Xenaphon or Wilke lands a blow to the club industry, or if you just want to know whether they have any real policy beyond wanting to capture a shit load of personal data about average punters, have a read of these questions.

Tell me if you think these are feasible approaches to solving the poker machine part of the problem gambling issue.

I'd really like to know why Senator Xenaphon won't answer the questions. I think he's trying to sidestep my shit...

Senator Xenaphon - can you please advise if you are doing any of the following in parallel with your poker machine campaign: 

1. Are you tackling federal and state govts to stop dismantling the mental health system. Problem gambling is a mental health issue. 
2. Have you put forward any motions, proposals or other actions that would seek to extend the legal protections for victims of problem gamblers - ie: give them the right to freeze family bank accounts, take over possession of family assets such as the home or have the salaries of the problem gambler diverted into safe accounts - and this could be a legal recourse available to children in those cases where both parents have a problem and would have to be subject to evidential processes. 
3. Will you tackle the manufacturers to remove the hooks from their machines - this includes the flashing lights and the repetitive music that peals from them, and put the images on the spinning rollers in black and white, rather than in colour - all of these are well known psychological hooks that are designed to embed with the user. Removing them from the machines themselves would be very likely to greatly reduce the appeal of them. 

Senator Xenaphon - Any reduction in the use of machines forced by the use of biometrics (causing a mass aversion to use by everybody) not only unfairly limits the personal freedoms of the responsible majority, it will prove a hollow victory.  It will simply funnel the worst of the addicts into other activity - and that will include an increased level of underground activity, where the stakes are higher and the methods used for collecting debt can have very dire consequences.

Senator - please can we aim a little higher than simply stomping on the rights of the majority because of a small percentage of individuals that have tragic failings?

It's a Road Trip

I promote myself as a writer, right? So why's it taken me so long to get my shit together and blog along with the rest of the universe? I guess because as a writer, I have been following some really talented people. Funny, witty, incredible intelligent people that have a hook for their blogs - a theme if you will - that ties their posts together with a kind of conversational red thread. Usually it's their particular passion, their hobby or their cause.

So I've been trying to figure out what my hook will be. Problem being I don't have a hobby, a particular cause or a particular passion. I am generally interested in many things, generally passionate about a lot of stuff, less inclined to get involved in much of the things that do interest me because I have three kids and work for myself, so I can be selfish with my time. Which is probably another reason why I haven't started blogging.

But I might have finally worked it out. Over the past few weeks I've been grappling with many things.  A lot of change in my family circumstances - my kid started school (we're a blended family), one of my besties got a metal plate in her head as some kind of 'solution' to the crippling migraines she's been having ever since her hysterectomy (she doesn't see the connection but I wonder...), a woman I love and admire and barely know in this lifetime but am sure I have adored in many others, is in hospital following a minor stroke, I'm organising a wedding in another country (my own, Fiji) and trying to figure out how to make enough money in my business to meaningfully contribute to the family without having to work 60-70 hour weeks.( I actually know the answer to that and have acknowledged my own time management is half the issue but)...

the point is, there is just all this shit in life. There's funny shit, and sad shit. Crazy shit and amazing shit. Generally speaking, sometimes you're gonna fall in it, sometimes you're gonna get stuck in it, sometimes you'll avoid it and a lot of the time you'll just trip on it, have a brief stumble and roll on happy that you saw it in time to avoid the worst of it.

This is the stuff that gets me going. Just the every day kind of stuff I see going on around me, from the politicians (of course) celebrities (oh puleeze) experiences at work and with the people I love.  Sometimes it makes me laugh my arse off and wry, sartorial and even funny observations will result. Sometimes it makes me angry as hell and I'll go on a ranting bender (quite often at my long suffering and bewildered fiancee.) Sadness is a common reaction although it may take me days to work out what has caused the bout of pouts.

I'm not a funny girl but I greatly admire those that can write with such acerbic wit that it literally makes me cry from the pain of laughing so hard. I don't have a specific bee in my bonnet about any one thing but can frequently host entire hives of them when the mood strikes me. I'm not such a political tragic that I spend my time pouring over the media to address the issues of the day but I'm never shy about getting up on the soapbox when I think politicians are being arsehats (which is a lot of the time). My reading material is lightweight in the main although I can at least honestly say I haven't read a Jackie Collins novel in about ten years so that's an improvement. Food is something I eat not something I hold up as an art form. Art is something I occasionally exclaim over (and when in Paris recently, actually cried as I viewed) but is not something I typically get off my bum to go and see. My life has thrown me challenges that other people may not have coped with but certainly not as many as others I know, who show a great deal more grace under considerably more pressure than I ever did. I'm bloody ignorant about a lot of things and incredibly opinionated about others.

So I guess this is a welcome to those of you that decide taking a few minutes out to read a bunch of self-indulgent carry ons is a worthy exercise.  We're all on the road and maybe we'll share a few laughs and conversations about the kind of shit that we nearly tripped...