anyresemblance

What can you see through the round window

I'm disgusted at the cheap, crass politicing surrounding the Play School furore. The PM is convinced the ABC is running an agenda, the deputy PM says gays need to recognise they've made their bed and now they have to lie on it, the sanctimonious Tony Abbott is shocked. Isn't this supposed to be a government of family values? Shouldn't they be delighted at images of loving parents spending time with their children. The father of my children, not necessarily known for the liberality of his views at times, was foaming. 2 mums, he said, luxury, heaven, bliss, if all children could have two mums think how secure and loved they'd grow up to be. I have two step-sons, the father of my children has two other ex-wives, my children are used to the complicated web of family relationships that ensue with blended families, divorces, separations, deaths and yes, lesbian parents. Are there really people out there who are disgusted at this? Shouldn't they be disgusted at the health indices for aborginal children, for the number of children living in poverty or abuse and for a thousand other things that ought to raise them to ire?

Malaise

I've been finding it hard to blog these days about my domestic life as a I watch the news. The photos of the abuse of Iraqi detainees are horrifying. The sense from some commentators that this has damaged the US's reputation as moral arbiter astounds me. You mean, they believed that even before this the US was seen the upholder of some concept of moral standards? I like Tresy's post which better articulates than I, that for many this confirms not reveals the extent of the problem. What can we now imagine happens in Guantanamo Bay or Afghanistan? (via tim) The revelation of this abuse came via the sheer volume of forces posted to Iraq, the easy availability of digital cameras to duplicate and disseminate the evidence. I keep asking myself, what were they thinking as they took the pictures? How easy it is to dehumanise those who are different from you?

The grandstand will disappear when there is no-one there to occupy it*

So Tony Blair is following in Mandela's footsteps in embracing "mad dog" Gadaffi. A hundred years ago or so, when I lived and worked in Libya, one of our favourite past times was collecting translations from Col Gadaffi's "Green Book". In the SPLAJ (Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya), the Green Book was supposed to provide the same political guidance as the Chairman Mao's red book. It obviously lost something in the translation. You could buy quite nice postcards of various folkloric scenes which would be captioned with English translations of quotes from the Green Book: the party system aborts democracy headlined a picture of the Roman remains at Leptis Magna, democracy means popular rule not popular expression above a photo of some tastefully arranged pomegranates. Libyan friends had the running joke "Why is the Green Book like a watermelon? It's green on the outside, read inside, with lots of black spots". A bit of primary playground humour, but with the best will in the world, as a political philosopher Gadaffi is completely incomprehensible. I found more appealing the fact that he delayed the coup that brought him to power by a day since the famous Egyptian singer, Um Khaltoum, was performing in Tripoli and he did not want to spoil her night or enrage the crowds. And despite the human rights record, state sponsored terrorism and the like, Libya is the highest rank country in Africa on the UN's human development index. Say what you like about grandiose visions, Gadaffi has used much of the oil money to fund health and education, and very little on palaces for potentates. Doubtless it will soon figure on Lonely Planet itineraries. We drove once from Tripoli to Ghadames, a town on the old slave route from Timbukto up to the coast. It's now a world heritage site but at the time my girlfriend and I stayed in a small hotel in the town itself. We had a room opening out on to the courtyard. The staff were non-plussed at what to do with two female foreign devils in their hotel. They were very charming and brought us bowls of flowers, plates of sweets and subbuteo. I have an enduring memory of thrashing the receptionist at table football. The women's world was on the roof terraces. There were many mirrors on the walls of the houses to reflect light through the small slits in the mud walls. Our guide was Tuarag, one of the blue people of the desert, their faces stained with the indigo dye from their robes. I met my Libyan boyfriend on that trip. My mother despaired that I was going to marry him. Well, that idea didn't last long. * Muammar Gadaffi, The Green Book, Part 3, Ch 10, Sport, Horsemanship and Shows

R.E.S.C.U.E. A.I.D. S.O.C.I.E.T.Y.

I got an e-mail from my friend, Claire, in Geneva today letting me know she had updated her web-site. She's on a 6 month internship with Amnesty International. In her weekly update, she described her first experience in addressing the UN, holding up her placard for permission to speak and for all the world all I could think of the scene in The Rescuers, where Bianca and Bernard are at the mouse UN and the song of solidarity they sang - "R.E.S.C.U.E. Rescue Aid So-sigh-eteee". It places what Claire "does" so much better for my children than describing the world of the NGOs lobbying the international community.

The price of everything

Our Prime Minister's attack on public schools and their promotion of "values" has generated heated debate in the blogosphere and media. I live opposite the local public primary school and everyday am struck by its school motto: 'Certamen praeter palmam" - the endeavour is more important than the prize. Aren't these exactly the kind of values we want to be teaching our children?

Chacun a son gout

Domestic life seems to have overwhelmed me the last few days but I'm back now. Tonight we cooked. I forget what pleasure it gives me to cook with my children until we are in the kitchen together. My oldest daughter went on a school exchange to Noumea in October last year. She was desperately home sick for the first few days but was staying with a wonderfully kind family who cossetted and cared for her and she had a fabulous ten days in the end. She also came back with expanded food tastes and tonight made baked stuffed tomatoes as Madame Limonier had made them. She carefully scooped the seeds out of roma tomatoes, chopped garlic finely with basil, mixed with breadcrumbs, some salt and moistened with olive oil and baked for about 12 minutes in a hot oven. They tasted great and we ate them with lamb cutlets we cooked on the heavy cast iron griddle pan and the last of the asparagus. We often cook out of Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food and Real Fast Puddings (his clafoutis recipe is foolproof) I think of him of the advocate of a style of food that seems to so familiar now - the best ingredients, eating seasonally, simply assembled - but was startlingly in the late 80s when he was writing for Marie Claire. Of course, the Elizabeth Davids, MFK Fisher, Jane Grigson and the like had been writing about food like this for years but somehow it had all seemed so elitist until Nigel Slater showed that you didn't need to know the provenance of the olive oil to be able to cook well. In relation to the visit to New Caledonia, my children attend a bi-lingual French/english school here, so the trip was to demonstrate that french is actually spoken by real people in a real country. It's not a private school though it does receive some support from the French government. I appreciate I live in a town of relative affluence and a well-educated population supporting their public schools but what is Howard on about in this interview?

Parents are moving their children out of government schools because the state system is "too politically correct and too values-neutral", according to Prime Minister John Howard.

Where on earth is the evidence for this? The parents I know who have put their children in the private system are doing so because either a) they think the private system offers more opportunity for individual attention to their children or b) they're getting them into the "network" early. I support parental choice but I don't see why it needs additional tax dollars to subsidise it.

Is there life on Mars?

There's no doubt that we're in an election year here in Australia as well as in the US when I read the US president is planning to announce life on Mars. Doubtless, Howard can take advantage of the special relationship to relieve poor Nauru of its burden and send the asylum seekers there? Gianna sums this up neatly. I'm reading Dark Victory by David Marr and Marion Wilkinson at the moment which is a thrilling read (I tried to link this in my reading list but kept getting thumbnails to the Lonely Planet Guide to Patagonia, eh??). One of the most interesting bits is the politicisation of the bureaucracy and the retreat from "frank and fearless" advice. From first hand experience I can say that Ms Jane Halton is the scariest woman in the Public Service and from someone who found herself standing next to her in a communal changing room in a Canberra dress shop, I can attest that she is even more intimidating in her underwear. On the domestic front I have gone from no children to four girls aged 11 and under sprawled over my sitting room floor watching Charmed - sort of Buffy without the BDSM. My daughters are addicted to it and a kind friend in the US has taped 24 hours of Charmed episodes of varying vintage. I enjoy watching the ads too - it strikes me how many ads there are on US tv for pharmaceuticals and exhortations to request stuff from your dr. As someone who has echanacia, vit C, Bach's rescue remedy, band-aids and some panadol in the house I find it hard to countenance asking my Dr for anything I'd seen on tv. I had to steel myself to ask her for some mild sleeping pills for jet lag once and even then I was scared she'd throw me out of the surgery as a drug dependent bad mother. On the Charmed front, despite its innate silliness, I find it very uplifting that its central premise is the power of three sisters working together to rid the world of demons. My girls are constructing their own spell book. I haven't peeked but I'm hoping it contains spells for doing homework and keeping a modicum of tidiness in their bedrooms.