Published The Advocate, June 4, 2005
IN THE UK, a young man dressed in a dripping suit and a tie is found wandering on a beach, washed up with life. There is no clue to his identity. All the labels have been removed from his clothes. He is shy and frightened. He does not talk. Admitted to care, he is heard playing the piano beautifully and a link is made inevitably with the movie Shine based on the Australian pianist David Helfgott, who had a mental breakdown. Dubbed the mystery piano man, his case reinforces the abiding popular belief in a wafer-thin line between madness and genius. In some Aboriginal communities, kids with mental retardation are considered to be touched in a magical way, not disabled but specially gifted. In another movie, Rain Man, the character Ray lives inside his own autistic world yet he has an astonishing mind for complex strings of numbers, and wins money at the casino. We cannot help thinking Ray and his kind may have an unfair advantage over the rest of us. Sadly, none of the people I know with mental illness feels blessed. Lucy, a good friend, is in a constant state of anxiety. Whenever she feels herself toppling over into a panic attack, she takes medication or, on a couple of occasions, has admitted herself to a psychiatric clinic. She is quite sane but she cannot find an understanding partner who will put up with her fears. So she is both anxious and lonely. I know someone else who is so lonely he enjoys receiving a wrong number phone call and welcomes the Red Cross collector at the door with open arms, just to have someone to talk to. Tom never leaves his home for fear of having a panic attack. I have an old mate, Mick, who walks through life angrily waving a clenched fist. He cannot comprehend that anyone could hold an opinion not the same as his. The last I heard of him he was working as a security guard in Iraq. Is that the action of a sane man? Hardly a day passes there without another terrorist suicide bombing. What person in his or her right mind would commit such atrocities? Murderously twisted and, yes, all too frighteningly sane. Almost as scary was the teenager I saw pushing her baby in a pram through town and wearing a T-shirt with "boys lie" printed on it. She saw her situation all too clearly and sanely although she possibly has ongoing issues with anger management. One dictionary defines sane as "not mad". Which is of no help whatever. The mentally unwell are not crazy, and like every other ill person, they need care, medication and support. Witness Cornelia Rau. They do not need to be imprisoned or deported by a government that does not know how to deal with its citizens who behave abnormally. No doubt the world would be much worse off without sanity. I just wish I knew what sanity meant.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Published The Advocate, May 28, 2005
DO YOU see any irony in Schapelle Corby, found guilty of drug trafficking in Indonesia, needing to be sedated with anti-depressive drugs for some of her court appearances? I do. Corby allegedly carried a bag of marijuana into Indonesia and will spend the next 20 years in jail. When she seemed to be an anxious wreck at her various court appearances, she was given anti-depressant drugs. Also, the chief judge, Linton Sirait, was reported during the week to be stressed in court and had to go home unwell. Was he also given a sedative drug to help him cope? We are so hypocritical when it comes to drugs. Alcohol, caffeine and tobacco are widely used and abused, all legally; pharmacies are stacked with drugs to treat everything from headaches to high blood pressure; and Tasmania runs a highly profitable opium poppy industry. We allow pethidine, an opium poppy extract, to be used to relieve the pain of childbirth but will not permit marijuana to be prescribed as a painkiller for terminal cancer patients. Somehow we manage to make a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable drugs. Tobacco legal; marijuana illegal. Alcohol legal; ecstasy illegal. My job has brought me into contact with the narcotics industry and I use the word "industry" deliberately because a lot of jobs are at stake. Dealers and addicts, police and jailers, lawyers and judges, health and welfare workers, and politicians - all engaged in the "war on drugs" at a national cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. A ship of fools. To get on top of the drug problem is as impossible as a one-armed man climbing a rope. Even the head of the National Crime Authority once admitted the drug war was lost, which rather begs the question: Why we are persisting with a policy that is such an expensive failure? Anyone who suggests that cracking down harder on drugs is the answer must be suffering delusions of denial. The minute a drug is made illegal, the black market booms and the drug-crime cycle begins. The illegal drug producers love prohibition because it increases their profit margins without much increasing their risk of capture. I have never tried heroin or cocaine or any of the so-called designer drugs such as amphetamines or ecstasy. Too much of a coward. No promise of chemically-induced pleasure could ever overcome my fear of taking something that had been blended in someone's back shed or adulterated with whatever else happened to be handy. But I have known people who were to die of drug overdoses including a cousin whose death broke everyone's heart and crushed the fun out of her parents. Some people will try drugs, some won't, but very few will become addicts. Making the use of hard drugs a criminal offence makes no difference to the addiction rate. The addicts themselves need to be treated as if they have a medical condition not a criminal one. Schapelle Corby is paying the price of drug-induced justice.
DO YOU see any irony in Schapelle Corby, found guilty of drug trafficking in Indonesia, needing to be sedated with anti-depressive drugs for some of her court appearances? I do. Corby allegedly carried a bag of marijuana into Indonesia and will spend the next 20 years in jail. When she seemed to be an anxious wreck at her various court appearances, she was given anti-depressant drugs. Also, the chief judge, Linton Sirait, was reported during the week to be stressed in court and had to go home unwell. Was he also given a sedative drug to help him cope? We are so hypocritical when it comes to drugs. Alcohol, caffeine and tobacco are widely used and abused, all legally; pharmacies are stacked with drugs to treat everything from headaches to high blood pressure; and Tasmania runs a highly profitable opium poppy industry. We allow pethidine, an opium poppy extract, to be used to relieve the pain of childbirth but will not permit marijuana to be prescribed as a painkiller for terminal cancer patients. Somehow we manage to make a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable drugs. Tobacco legal; marijuana illegal. Alcohol legal; ecstasy illegal. My job has brought me into contact with the narcotics industry and I use the word "industry" deliberately because a lot of jobs are at stake. Dealers and addicts, police and jailers, lawyers and judges, health and welfare workers, and politicians - all engaged in the "war on drugs" at a national cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. A ship of fools. To get on top of the drug problem is as impossible as a one-armed man climbing a rope. Even the head of the National Crime Authority once admitted the drug war was lost, which rather begs the question: Why we are persisting with a policy that is such an expensive failure? Anyone who suggests that cracking down harder on drugs is the answer must be suffering delusions of denial. The minute a drug is made illegal, the black market booms and the drug-crime cycle begins. The illegal drug producers love prohibition because it increases their profit margins without much increasing their risk of capture. I have never tried heroin or cocaine or any of the so-called designer drugs such as amphetamines or ecstasy. Too much of a coward. No promise of chemically-induced pleasure could ever overcome my fear of taking something that had been blended in someone's back shed or adulterated with whatever else happened to be handy. But I have known people who were to die of drug overdoses including a cousin whose death broke everyone's heart and crushed the fun out of her parents. Some people will try drugs, some won't, but very few will become addicts. Making the use of hard drugs a criminal offence makes no difference to the addiction rate. The addicts themselves need to be treated as if they have a medical condition not a criminal one. Schapelle Corby is paying the price of drug-induced justice.
Published The Advocate, May 21, 2005
MY Polish friend Krystyna B dropped in after doing The Overland walk, looking fit and surprisingly chirpy given she was still grieving over the death of the Pope. Not that Krystyna’s Catholic – if so, she is rather heavily lapsed these days – but she had always felt a special bond with Pope John Paul II, a fellow Pole. Also, she said her father was the spitting image of JPII, so much so that they were mistaken for twins. I noted the same Polish complexion, high forehead and piercing blue eyes in Krystyna, and I couldn’t help wondering. She arrived loaded up with cheese as gifts. Which was fine for her. Not everyone had just spent the week walking the Overland. Me, I’d been sitting on my backside getting fat and a wheelbarrow of blue cheese, cheddar and brie was not what I needed just then. For as long as I have known Krystyna, her weight has fluctuated wildly. We used to schedule a long lunch twice a year. At the first, she would be wearing a well-cut jacket and short skirt to show off her knees; the next time she would be wearing a striped circus tent to hide her bulges. She was highly amused by a photograph I once took of a Jenny Craig shopfront with a sign in the window reading: "Moving to larger premises." To look at her, your first thought would not be of wilderness trekking. She was more at home sipping champagne at the ballet than squatting in the bush chipping the ice off a toilet roll. I was surprised she had managed to complete The Overland. So was Krystyna. The first day was the worst, she said, the longest, most arduous, like a survival test. Some failed. She told of an American woman who cracked a first-day fruity and refused to take another step until a helicopter came to fetch her. Krystyna is made of sterner stuff. She owns an ad agency with billings in the many millions and has a reputation as a hard-headed negotiator. Some media men I know would watch her sink into an Overland quagmire and not lend a hand. We first bonded because, without knowing who the girl was, she gave my daughter work experience, which led to her gaining a job elsewhere in the advertising industry. Upon random acts of kindness are built lasting relationships. Back to the Overland, Krystyna laughed in retelling how at the end of each day she would try to sit on a fireside log, only to have the weight of the backpack topple her over like a tortoise on its shell, legs stuck in the air, helplessly stranded and needing assistance. I know at least 20 blokes who would pay plenty for a copy of that photo. When I advised Krystyna that walkers soon would have to pay a $100 fee for the privilege of walking The Overland, she said ptshaw, it should be $500. Ptshaw must be a Polish term of abuse.
MY Polish friend Krystyna B dropped in after doing The Overland walk, looking fit and surprisingly chirpy given she was still grieving over the death of the Pope. Not that Krystyna’s Catholic – if so, she is rather heavily lapsed these days – but she had always felt a special bond with Pope John Paul II, a fellow Pole. Also, she said her father was the spitting image of JPII, so much so that they were mistaken for twins. I noted the same Polish complexion, high forehead and piercing blue eyes in Krystyna, and I couldn’t help wondering. She arrived loaded up with cheese as gifts. Which was fine for her. Not everyone had just spent the week walking the Overland. Me, I’d been sitting on my backside getting fat and a wheelbarrow of blue cheese, cheddar and brie was not what I needed just then. For as long as I have known Krystyna, her weight has fluctuated wildly. We used to schedule a long lunch twice a year. At the first, she would be wearing a well-cut jacket and short skirt to show off her knees; the next time she would be wearing a striped circus tent to hide her bulges. She was highly amused by a photograph I once took of a Jenny Craig shopfront with a sign in the window reading: "Moving to larger premises." To look at her, your first thought would not be of wilderness trekking. She was more at home sipping champagne at the ballet than squatting in the bush chipping the ice off a toilet roll. I was surprised she had managed to complete The Overland. So was Krystyna. The first day was the worst, she said, the longest, most arduous, like a survival test. Some failed. She told of an American woman who cracked a first-day fruity and refused to take another step until a helicopter came to fetch her. Krystyna is made of sterner stuff. She owns an ad agency with billings in the many millions and has a reputation as a hard-headed negotiator. Some media men I know would watch her sink into an Overland quagmire and not lend a hand. We first bonded because, without knowing who the girl was, she gave my daughter work experience, which led to her gaining a job elsewhere in the advertising industry. Upon random acts of kindness are built lasting relationships. Back to the Overland, Krystyna laughed in retelling how at the end of each day she would try to sit on a fireside log, only to have the weight of the backpack topple her over like a tortoise on its shell, legs stuck in the air, helplessly stranded and needing assistance. I know at least 20 blokes who would pay plenty for a copy of that photo. When I advised Krystyna that walkers soon would have to pay a $100 fee for the privilege of walking The Overland, she said ptshaw, it should be $500. Ptshaw must be a Polish term of abuse.
Published The Advocate, May 14, 2005
WHEN cooks became TV celebrities – Jamie, Nigella, Stefano and all the rest – food was turned into one of the visual arts. Because of TV, how the meals tasted was not half as important as making them visually desirable on the screen. I have seen a half fig presented in a manner that could not be printed in a family newspaper. Along the way, if you ask me, the food producers have never received enough credit. The celebrity chefs hog all the glory but see how far they’d get without fresh, first-grade ingredients. More power to the humble dirt farmer. So for a change, it was nice to be the guest at a formal dinner where praise was being heaped on the North-West dairy farmers and the blessed cheesemakers. The occasion was the Lactos 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner, held at the Burnie Regional Art Gallery, to honour the Lactos founder Milan Vyhnalek and his loyal band of employees and suppliers. I also ran into a PR man there who I had not seen for 30 years. Burnie is a place where lost souls turn up. Lactos is now owned by Bongrain, a French multi-national that produces several hundred different cheese brands at many places around the world including Burnie, which is a long, long way from France. Yet the Bongrain executives were here in numbers, a phalanx of great Gallic noses, whose very names sounded like gourmet meals: Alex Bongrain himself , Michelle Duleu-Burre, Claude Bertrand and the MC Gabriel Gate, with his charming Franglaise. "I am sure you all agree wizz me that we ear are fortunate to be sharing zuch amazzing food. No-sing is left to chance with these fine cheezers." Gabriel, never lose your accent. Each course featured a different Lactos cheese. "Dinner without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze," Milan Vyhnalek told the guests. Ah, there it is again, the link made between food and sex, as if one leads inevitably to the other. Were it only that simple. At lawn bowls the other day, there was a discussion about the sensual quality of bread baking. Which prompted Hugh, the left handed player who claims his game is badly affected by having to play with right-handed bowls, to ask: "Have you been bed breaking lately?" One of the better spoonerisms. Personally, I find the claimed aphrodisiacal qualities of certain foods to be over-rated. Oysters and stout, for example, are said to arouse the libido. I like oysters and I like stout but have yet to experience a coital urge, no matter how many I consume. Perhaps Tassie oysters are lacking. At the Lactos dinner’s end, full up to dolly's wax, as my mother would say, I let out a relaxed burp and on leaving thanked the two security guards at the door for keeping me safe. I imagine they were there in case the libido got out of hand. I tottered off home to face the prospect of another bleak week of grilled cheese on toast. Sigh.
WHEN cooks became TV celebrities – Jamie, Nigella, Stefano and all the rest – food was turned into one of the visual arts. Because of TV, how the meals tasted was not half as important as making them visually desirable on the screen. I have seen a half fig presented in a manner that could not be printed in a family newspaper. Along the way, if you ask me, the food producers have never received enough credit. The celebrity chefs hog all the glory but see how far they’d get without fresh, first-grade ingredients. More power to the humble dirt farmer. So for a change, it was nice to be the guest at a formal dinner where praise was being heaped on the North-West dairy farmers and the blessed cheesemakers. The occasion was the Lactos 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner, held at the Burnie Regional Art Gallery, to honour the Lactos founder Milan Vyhnalek and his loyal band of employees and suppliers. I also ran into a PR man there who I had not seen for 30 years. Burnie is a place where lost souls turn up. Lactos is now owned by Bongrain, a French multi-national that produces several hundred different cheese brands at many places around the world including Burnie, which is a long, long way from France. Yet the Bongrain executives were here in numbers, a phalanx of great Gallic noses, whose very names sounded like gourmet meals: Alex Bongrain himself , Michelle Duleu-Burre, Claude Bertrand and the MC Gabriel Gate, with his charming Franglaise. "I am sure you all agree wizz me that we ear are fortunate to be sharing zuch amazzing food. No-sing is left to chance with these fine cheezers." Gabriel, never lose your accent. Each course featured a different Lactos cheese. "Dinner without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze," Milan Vyhnalek told the guests. Ah, there it is again, the link made between food and sex, as if one leads inevitably to the other. Were it only that simple. At lawn bowls the other day, there was a discussion about the sensual quality of bread baking. Which prompted Hugh, the left handed player who claims his game is badly affected by having to play with right-handed bowls, to ask: "Have you been bed breaking lately?" One of the better spoonerisms. Personally, I find the claimed aphrodisiacal qualities of certain foods to be over-rated. Oysters and stout, for example, are said to arouse the libido. I like oysters and I like stout but have yet to experience a coital urge, no matter how many I consume. Perhaps Tassie oysters are lacking. At the Lactos dinner’s end, full up to dolly's wax, as my mother would say, I let out a relaxed burp and on leaving thanked the two security guards at the door for keeping me safe. I imagine they were there in case the libido got out of hand. I tottered off home to face the prospect of another bleak week of grilled cheese on toast. Sigh.