Holy fools.

In my hometown we have a chap who probably qualifies as a “holy fool”. (Ps: Im not religious myself)

 

In using the term holy fool I harking back to the old meaning of the term, a person living a life without regard for day-to-day realities, devoted to prayer and meditation.

Our own holy fool is Barry Kelly, I first saw him at a set of traffic lights in the centre of town, he took off his thongs (flip-flops for you Americans) placed his knees on them (for padding) and began to pray. The lights changed and I drove off, I told the other half about it and we both had a laugh at the “crazy” man.

Geraldtons own holy fool.

Then I began to see him walking along the main highway, covering large distances, sometimes praying, more often walking, head down, oblivious to the world around him.

Then something strange began to happen, instead of a figure of ridicule people began to feel protective of the bloke. I keep an eye out for him driving around, as do many others, its quite strange the effect seeing someone so “shamelessly” living their beliefs can have. There is already a facebook page, a newspaper article, what next a movie deal?

He has had abuse and objects thrown at him, and also had people stopping and giving him drinks, and in one case a local shop have him a high visibility vest.People have left money at the servo he stops at coffee for and nearly every person Ive spoken to about him is worried about his getting hit by traffic, rather than any “harm” hes causing.

 

Ill leave you with his own words from the newspaper interview.

“I just love walking and praying,” he said.

“There are so many bad things going on in the world to pray for, don’t you think?”

Huge win for freedom

There are some, among them a certain troll who likes to hijack my blog’s comments for his small-minded rants, who are of the opinion that journalists must be accredited and licensed in order to hold that “lofty” title. I disagree wholeheartedly; had that sort of constraint been in place 250 years ago, individuals such as Patrick Henry would have been proscribed from publishing their treatises against the King of England, and we might still be no more than ragtag pommy colonies.

Apologies in advance to any Brits offended by the preceding paragraph. I was just being cheeky.

No, the tradition of the citizen-journalist is at the very bedrock of rights the founding fathers held most dear. Troll-boy’s protestations to the contrary, the reporting of news and spouting of opinion by mere commoners is of vital importance to the health of a republic.

And now a federal judge agrees.

Boston lawyer Simon Glik was arrested on October 1, 2007 when he used his cell phone to record officers making a drug arrest, and later sued the city and the officers for violating his rights. After the officers tried to having the lawsuit dismissed on the basis of qualified immunity, a Federal Appeals Court denied the motion last week and ruled that filming and photographing police is in fact protected by the First Amendment. They also note that the rights extend not just to professional news gatherers, but ordinary citizens as well:

“[...] changes in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders with a ready cell phone or digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status”.

How big is this news? Beyond big.

As I reported well over a year ago, it is a felony crime in the State of Maryland People’s Republic of Maryland to take video of the Maryland State Police Schutzstaffel in the course of executing their duties (such as shooting pet dogs, for example). Or, should I say, it was.

Now that we can confidently record the jackbooted jagoffs in action, I’m willing to bet that their behavior toward we mere commoners might just be a little less strident. We can only hope.

Disability and opportunity

Just a few thoughts on one of the many issues related to physical disabilities and the broader ideas of “opportunity” as presented by many groups.

 

I am fortunate in having only the one “easy to work around” problem, moderate deafness, but unfortunate in being caught in the trap of too severe for job positions (army, firies was a childhood dream, my metal trades pre-apprenticeship was wasted, no one would employ me with a pre-existing condition), but not severe enough for government assistance.

My biggest feeling of “let down” was precisely the organisations supposed to assist disabled. It is not realistic to tell people “they can do anything” throughout their childhood/teens, and leave it until they enter the workforce to discover, case by case, thats not the way it really is.

But this is all ground gone over a lot of times, my point today is how a large pool if talent may be being ignored by society as a whole due to a lack of opportunity for the disabled.

In effect it is extremely difficult to get a business up and running, usually requiring a good pool of capital as well as a few good ideas. For myself, I have one business running, and ideas for another 3, but lack of capital restricts me to my original venture for now.

To get access to this capital I have spent 20 years living “cheaply”, taking on a number of jobs, none earning much more than average wages. None of these jobs were what I wanted to do in life, most involved physical work.

But without the opportunity to have worked these jobs it would have been impossible for me to have saved the money necessary for my first big step to amassing assets (shares,houses), most of which has been sold to fund my business.

 

Thats the opportunity missing for most disabled,  particularly those with limited mobility. Just how does that segment of the population gain the seed capital needed? There is the option of a desk job, either public service or private, but it is extremely hard to be as “work mobile” as a physically able person, meaning the person may (without extra effort), become a little too reliant on that employer, and limit their skill set.

 

A considerable amount of time and effort is spent by various government agencies to place disabled people into the work force, if I may be heretical, some of that money may be better spent as a “silent partner” funding business startups for disabled people.

Indeed if I was to ever become massively wealthy its the kind of “not for profit” agency Id like to set up myself. As per usual for these type of businesses it would be a continual lossmaker, as most businesses tend to fail. I could see massive positives for society as a whole, and for the disabled individuals in particular. A few dozen wheelchair bound (vocal) millionaires would do more for disabled access to venues than a sea of government legislation. I want to see fantastically wealthy “wheelies” demanding things or they spend their money elsewhere. The existing model of disability services merely assumes a low/middle class life is all disabled aspire too. There needs to be better than this.

Question time in Australias parliment.

While I was in Canberra I ducked into the gallery to watch question time. I got to see Julia and the 3 ringed circus in action, and was present when Mr Shorten made his rather silly “Economic white Australia policy” speech.

 

Here was my impressions.

Tony Abbott was walking around like he had 3 testicles not 2. It was fairly obvious from his demeanour, and that of his party they have the whip hand at the moment. Activity on the opposition benches seemed purposeful, and smooth.

The government benches looked a little different, much less confident, and fully aware they were under siege. The front bench looked ok, but Swan was all fluff and no substance and most of the rest of the bench were variously slouching, distracted or morose.

As for Julia, only one word to sum her up, brittle.

She looked extremely uncomfortable, but trying to radiate a sense of calm and control, but nowhere near pulling it off.

While I was in the gallery 2 people were ejected for disrupting proceedings, one went fairly quick, the other made a bit of a spectacle of himself.

At that stage the speaker of the house warned the gallery it would be cleared if there continued to be disruptions.

Then came the most pathetic, schoolyard bully boy bullshit I’ve seen for a long time.

Julias cabinet spokesman, yesterday..

The ALP side of the house swiveled their collective heads and tried to stare down/intimidate the gallery. It was ridiculous, it came close to me standing up and telling them to pull their heads in and stop being so childish. It reminded me of nothing more than this silly old clip from the movie “Beetlejuice”.

(the scene at 00:34 sums the look up)

The sight of the government of Australia acting like a bunch of kids was disappointing, not surprising, given the 3 ring circus it has become, but sad all the same.

Also sad was the amount of too-ing and fro-ing between the government and opposition benches and Mr Winsors seat, with multiple notes being passed to the “most important man in Australia”, sad.