The power of Denial, while Australia burns

 

Photo from The Age by Glenn Campbell

This Age article by opinion columnist Bruce Guthrie came with the above photo, and the title: 'Too damn hot: falling out of love with a sunburnt country', which is a good summary of how I am feeling about summer right now.

I have come to the conclusion that we cannot avoid it any longer - and yes, we are aware of the paradoxical nature of the decision - but for our sanity, we have to get an air-conditioner, at least for one room, so we have somewhere to escape to on superhot days, like today and yesterday (about 35 Celsius). (I know what you may be thinking, first world problem, but still...)

To escape the heat, I have been taking my son for lots of extra driving practice, and on Friday I tried going to the public library for a few hours, to write my politics assignment. (And by the way, I just submitted the assignment! Phew...)

I discovered that all Brisbane Libraries have free WiFi, which was great. And its a different experience working in a public space, which I quite enjoyed. However, its not always practical, say if you have to carry heaps of books around (luckily, this assignment just relied on online information).

The Queensland floods hit Brisbane exactly two years ago, and  it was quite strange, cycling along the river today,  thinking how it had looked then. Thankfully we headed out earlier than usual, at around 6.30am, to avoid the heat. And to contemplate the extremes in this climate of ours, over a skinny cap on Grey Street.

Meanwhile, Tasmania, usually derided by mainland Australians for being too cold and wet, has been burning, with some bushfires still alight after 10 days near the Tasman Peninsula. And Northern New South Wales (just South of Brisbane) has had many bushfires started by lightning overnight.

I called this post 'the power of denial', to comment on the fact that many people still seem complacently sceptical about climate change. This despite broken records, and expert advice. The photo in the Guardian article is possibly of the fire on Bribie Island: we drove through the smoke from this fire on Thursday, coming home from a day at the Sunshine Coast. Some of the public comments, which I have started tuning in to due to the assignment (ok, it wasn't anything to do with the climate, but still...) reflect an amazing level of denial, in my opinion. Scary. Precisely why we develop Denial, to protect us from fear, and other unpleasant emotions.

This cartoon is related to my assignment, and will probably only make sense to Australians. The woman in the cartoon is the Government Minister responsible for significantly reducing benefits to single parents last week. She foolishly said in response that she could live on $35 a day (I know it says $38 in the cartoon - a mistake). Hence the cartoon, which is too long for the page, if its big enough to read. Apologies.

I have to add this link, which  shows that John Howard was our most profligate prime minister in recent years, after all.  And the LNP keeps banging on about Labor's overspending...Hilarious.

On a brighter note, I have read a couple of books recently that I wanted to briefly mention. I just finished the Art of Hearing Heartbeats, by Jan Philipp Sendker, a mystery about a man who grows up in Burma, and becomes a US lawyer, and then disappears, one day after his daughter graduates from law school. She goes to Burma to find him, and learns about his early life. Amazing. And I am now reading Shiver by Nikki Gemmel, a novel about a female journalist who goes to a trip to the Antarctic. Its nice to read about the cold, at least, and Gemmel is a good writer.

Keep cool - I am almost glad to be going back to work on Tuesday, just for the air-con in the car and the office... 

more later




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'my dog could write a blog'

my dog could write a blog - not - pastel and water colour

This comment, 'my dog could write a blog', was made by a foodie journalist, complaining in a weekend magazine about the number of food blogs that have sprung up in the last few years. It reminds me of the comment that is sometimes made about contemporary art - 'a child of five could do that!' In the same vein, I have heard many negative comments about therapists recently. I guess there is a culture of complaint out there - bloggers, artists and therapists are not alone! However it did make me stop and think about how therapy is sometimes perceived by dissatisfied or even unwilling 'customers'.

One of the comments was made in Cairns recently, when I was participating in a conference breakfast responding to the Queensland floods earlier this year. The comment was about the influx of social workers and psychologists into the small town of Theodore, whilst it was still recovering from being flooded and evacuated. Clearly this occurred too early, and one slightly naive interaction with a psychologist was taken too seriously and provided as evidence of the ineptitude of the entire profession. I started wondering why...

Psychologists are in some ways often seen as fair game, as they are undoubtedly the dominant group of therapists and the rest of us may envy their 'special' qualities, such as being confident their favourite therapeutic approaches are evidence based (i.e. well-researched). Social workers usually occupy a lower strata and are mainly blamed for horrific child safety failures. I have heard many examples of poor therapeutic interventions, but does this mean that therapy per se is a bad thing? Of course not! There are good and bad therapists just as there are good and bad journalists. Writing about the bad ones is easy. To write about the good ones, we may just have to admit to consulting with one... 

The following were all done in Cairns:

Daintree - watercolour pastels

coast road north - w/c pastels

tree of life - water colours, pastels

If my dog wrote a blog, which is unlikely, it would only be of interest to other dogs.

And negative comments, such as this one, should not be taken too seriously.

more later.