from 7th century and Tang dynastry

The hair style is back in again. 

Federal gov is throwing money at the mental health 'silos', terrific if it is effective. 

It means more fragmentation of health services. EXISTING STATE funded services need significantly more assistance instead of the feds dabberling and justifying a role.

Thats the way, reinvent the wheel over and over.

a truly delightful work from the Jin dynasty 1115 -1234 Shanxi Prov.  Wood, pigment. 

preschoolers art: so what? The work serves a purpose sure enough but it is really very important for developing fine motor skills as I discovered.

Learning to write and hold a pencil requires skill from a big school child but it is not unusual to find, more recently,  that they do not have this ability.  

It is suspected that children who use touch screens from a very early age fail to exercise their fingers in a useful way and fail to prepare themselves for precise tasks.

Hence, in general terms to my limited knowledge, maximum activities best involve handling sorting building threading and painting from the earliest years to build strong competent fingers when screen time is best banned altogether. 

Aged care needs to change from Federal control to become the responsibility of the states and long before the recent interest began.

It makes no sense to have certain health services in federal hands. It seriously muddles up the dual areas of care for no good reason and is to their detriment.

And believe it or not, every resident in care is under the care of a GP.  What is the wider role of the G P?  How many G Ps have we heard publicly advocate for their senior clients?

 

Ammonium nitrate is not uncommon in our  Port city. Large quantities are transported to coal mines in the valley. Relax.

Shocking but the pandemic can save our world but at exceptional cost.  Is it the price we have to pay? Lock downs and supression result in a society that will curb the issues that lead to climate change.  

Latest is that a covid vaccination may not be developed and even if there is one the inequalities and the anti-vacs mean that many would remain unsafe and a threat to the rest so the risk would be prolonged with society adjusting to a more sustainable lifestyle.

A social deep-freeze strongly backed by government is ideal.  Unwittingly climate change is addressed at long last.  Enforced sustainability will reign.

 

the joy of vegetable soup...the estatic...    simple binary form soup is very tasty but in compound time almost any ingredients may be added.  Parsnips are in, turnip, celery and celery leaves may provide enough sodium before they are retrieved or not, sprinkling of  rice, quinoa which still has to been checked each time it is reached for as to what exactly it is. 

 Oriental flavours can transcribe the soup and orchestrate it with colour and warmth you as maestro....

Old pop song..... How much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggerly tail....

Anyway, the shop in Hunter Street Mall is very successful with retro print textiles used in handmade items. Interesting masks are stocked. The dog keeps the seamstress company. Front paw is bandaged.

During July the covid infections increased in Victoria despite the usual preventative measures in place and every effort at control. Concerns are growing. The infections have been as high as the 700s daily. 

Where the Newcastle Knights play league this afternoon. Steady rain is a pain.

Pacific Maru in Newcastle Harbour.  A big coal carrier.

Lyric theatre, Newcastle. Only both ends remain and must be for preservation. Challenging.

Classic British pictures could be seen there on Friday nights on their release. J Arthur Rank and the male striking a blow in black and white.

The Strand, Lyric, Victoria, Tatler, Civic and Royal Cinemas were in the city.

The past is simultaneous with the present 

 Citroen deux chevaux and Picasso and surrealism. Or is it cubism? 

Service NSW dept has superceeded the old motor registry office demolished recently in Parry street. Difficult to place the original office.

Earlier on traffic arrangments were made at a small old miners cottage style police station on corner of Scott and Pacific near where the new light rail terminates. 

A police person took a nervous applicant on a driving test round the inner city. Driver hand signals (not indecent) were de regueur along with trafficator use. 

The budding motor cyclist was simply asked to ride a short way down the street and back again under observation. So licence fees are life long till a person gets 'really old' when the fees cease.

The dept advisors will tell the elderly to use the safe and quiet routes. Really? Bluff.  Choose that advice and lose more driving skills. The elderly can to be accepted on the roads like everyone else. 

But still everything in moderation it pays to be cautious. So irksome. True the elderly get 'wiped out' and there are age related shortcomings - maybe like everyone else. A safe return from every journey is not lost on me.  The age statistics would be interesting and very scary. 

Masks sewn in a shop in Hanbury Street.

 a cynical streak

Seen.. latest 'iso' rule: 'please wait to be omitted'

Sea spray or waves reached close to homes on Stockton foreshore during rough seas that rose over a nature strip onto the road.

Newcastle Baths were swept by large waves, some reaching the upper deck. The water was way deeper than usual.

While only on the edge of an East Coast Low  rough seas resulted and at high tide Wednesday afternoon the water was threatening and eating away at the edges of the suburb of Stockton. In the second photo the sandy beach reappears in between the big waves. 

the Newcastle scene

Port of Newcastle.... near restful waters he leads me. ...the plague has been calmed locally......the lull before the storm?

Newcastle, mid winter and mid virus.

Does education narrow the mind?  The cost of an Arts degree has risen maybe making it more of a sort of luxury. 

 How could a scholar confine themselves to one discipline? Engineering..science..business or the like. It is dismaying. Narrow.

Very often one would really like to hear again 

whats behind the latest world movements, ethical questions,  histories and much more from some obscure unfathomable thinkers likely found in arts.  It is just a pipe dream.

Some years ago, 'lived experience' and related theories sounded very interesting. Not widely liked  -  i bet. But there is gradual change and 'lived experience' is bandied all around. 

The virus is moving in with 134 cases that are of serious concern in Melbourne and the whole city is locked down.

coronavirus testing.  In the last two weeks, infections have occured in Melbourne and some suburbs and high rise are in lockdown. Today 127 cases from record breaking testing rates with 2660 total active infections.

The border will close tomorrow between NSW and Victoria. 

Social distance, hand washing, isolation while ill are uppermost responsibilities as well as mask wearing and heeding regulations about gathering. 

wind turbine....this blade has an edge. A bird expert has spoken about huge loss of bird life caused by the blades. It is understood that birds in flight look down and to the sides more  than ahead.

Wind turbine blades then bolts that hold things together.

Nationally, the incidence of Canovirus is minimal except for 288 active infections in Melbourne which is under vigorous investigation.

An innovation is making it easier to test in the community. An alternative saliva virus test has been introduced in a small number of cases. The test developed in Melbourne at Doherty Institute and validated by overseas researchers processes a small amount of saliva by the same method as the existing throat PCR test according to a local principal  researcher today. Comparison to the throat swab test is in process.

  The throat test itself is not totally effective yet best there is while the saliva test is 87% effective due to fewer virus in saliva but is easier and useful in those who have objections to testing or have other difficulties. The processing is done within three hours of collection.

wind generators. Shipment to Port of Newcastle. Ultimately a whole field of towering alternative power generators destined for, believe it or not, Collector in  southern NSW.  

do we live in the garden of Eden?

SBS TV showed the film The Sacrament about a cult that ended in mass tragedy. 

The leader was adept at manipulation .  In that way Trump is very reminiscent of him even down to the thousands who fail to survive the pandemic due largely to mis management.

Unlike criticism of China for spreading false info, the USA escapes criticism for being way out of line. 

from the urban scene....

Pompeo announces that attention will be given to the wronged international journalists.

Will he really try when journalists get a bad rap from the white house? 

Good reporting is all there is against the orchestration of news by the sly and sinister manipulator president Trump.

solar energy is a winner.....

BLM is a very important issue. It demands support.  Better to protest in the future, not during a pandemic. 

 Australians have died in custody, it is a horror which will continue to be addressed and justice will develope. Although urgency is due we are not forced to conflate the two situations right now.  We are not Americans.

Seems disappointing that we  toed the line at the heigth of the lock down but now act without prudence. Objections around freedom to protest dont hold water somehow the reasoning does not work.

  If more of the efforts to hold a protest, no matter what, were put into sustained constructive work to overcome injustices for the Aborigines then all would be better off and safer.

first nation attire....possum skin cloak.  The making of this once commonly worn item was revived for wearing at an important civic  ceremony in more recent times.  Worn from birth until buriel the cloakes were marked with the totem and country and other points about the wearer.

An official objection will follow the mishandling of Australian journalists reporting the riots in USA.

  Why would Trump et al be concerned? Journalists are mocked and supressed. We know the truth is called fake news by Trump.

 Reporting is important but an issue low on the agenda in a nation at war in a pandemic.  

 Much bigger racial and health issues are one disaster while Trump and administration are another. With friends like that....

 China will probably be a semi democracy in some years time, the Chinese people will choose change of government and human rights. Do we need to stand off and get in scraps with them while tolerating an equally alien mystery that is the USA.

hear the bells chiming for you and me...

It looks best when TV presenters wear outfits appropriate for the season.  Their appearance sends a chill when summer clothes are worn in winter.

 But i guess that winter clothes become unnecessary when the work environment is warm. 

It is just as well to spare some energy consumption and spare the creation of carbon emissions. 

arbor update.....simple message but a difficult purposeful choice of direction...

will i be home before the sun sinks below the horizon?

Imagine if nations asked the UK or USA why they failed to better manage the pandemic? For them to be answerable for many thousands of deaths. This is just as  important as the origins of the virus.  It would not make much difference whether they knew about the origins or not their management was below standard. 

Would the UK and USA be irritated, threaten to end trade, belittle others, deflect blame and all the rest of it. You bet you.

Not on every stroll we take do we meet a python!  Out of 'iso'.  Out of reptile hibernation in this chiily season. A Darwin carpet snake. Likes a diet of small animals. Beautiful skin.

National tally of covid is in small numbers under ten.  Lock down is eased with caution in minor aspects while keeping up usual distance, clean hands, testing, and isolation during  illness.

Australiana

a well wisher pinned these small 'pockets' to many trees in this park.  They held a little message that offered good advice or solace. And check out the bark on this tree.

'hug me' was a variation. 

'Challenges are opportunities for me to grow.  The more i learn the more equipped i am to handle whatever situations come up.' 

Good intentioned but these cute messages are a source of cross infection.

still counting

Open space, park, sports area vivid with squeeky green grass and with attention from  workers spreading top soil and mowing. Not too long before sports are resumed after lock down when very gradual easing of restrictions are commenced. 

P K on ABC tv mornings would know when sport resumes as he is a fine sport encyclopaedia.

Everything is relative as to our hardships. Cash straped and joblessness is very  significant other than that it is concerning to find a lot of problems and fragility because of the lock down. We have become too genteel or something. Or is it the media presentation?

National tally nearly 7000 and growth of spread is very diminished. So far so very good. 

Playground is out of bounds.  No crowds of little cycalists or climbers having fun. Very obiedient.

Covid total 6700 nationally.  New cases have low rates. Testing is stepped up almost for all and sundry. CovidSafe App is in use since Sunday and use is growing voluntarily.  

 If there is no secondary flare up we could share medical supplies with others.

  Did the supermarkets want high demand to develope?  It was strange that they had little foresight and failed to begin rationing far earlier than they did and their logistics put to better use. Same with the upswing in postal services.  With shops closed and people wanting items for the lock down more mail orders would naturally follow and swamp postal services.

Would be surprising if we dont go back to how we were and drop various changes. Time will tell.