The Graduate

The lad done well, and graduated easily with now Master's degree in Food Science and Technology. I am looking at envelope that contained details for attendance at the event and after his identify number at RMIT, it says "Name on Testamur". I have no idea what this word means, but I suppose related to testament. One of you edjicated types will know, I am sure.

Phyllis indicated the event was from 1pm to 5pm. That can't be. We trammed and trained our way there, and as usual his organisation for meeting people was chaotic. It was hot and I told them to buzz off while I bought an iced coffee. They reappeared both with bahn mi in their hands to eat as we walked across the Bourke Street bridge at the northern end of Southern Cross Station. We met with Miss capital of Peru and another of his friends. I am old and have old manners, which means you don't eat food while you are walking in public, but I didn't really notice it. 

I did notice when Phyllis handed his not quite finished bahn mi to me, and disappeared with his friends to where he was supposed to be. "Kosov, you take this", which he did as he continued to eat his own bahn mi. "Onnndreww, I need to find the tickets in my bag. Hold one of the bahn mi". It was very busy but the queue with a bag check and even female purses were quickly checked. Sensibly Kosov suggested we sit at the back to make a quick exit. Oh gosh, the seats were hard plastic, and as the heat rose, so did the hardness of the seats. 

We sat there for the best part of an hour or more before anything happened, and then there was some singing and dancing, Kosov having already finished both bahn mi. Although the seats were reserved, that went out the window. People kept coming and going, bringing in fried food and whatever. It is odd that so many had not eaten before attending. I'll keep my old fashioned thoughts about eating in public to myself.

Eventually things began, with speeches, none of which I could properly hear, so I am unsure why an indigenous person teared up when receiving a doctorate or something like that. Speakers are not honoured by audience silence as they speak? Apparently not, again I am out of step with modern behaviour.

Eventually the handing out of certificates began, sometime after 3.30. They were grouped by what type of degree they were awarded. This was really well done. Their names were displayed on a screen just before they reached the official to receive their certificate, as the person giving our the certificates tipped his hat to them upon their approach. They turned to face a camera, snapped, and off they went. 

As soon as I saw Phyllis receive his award, I was out of there. Shortly after, Kosov came out. I was going home and Kosov would go back in to wait for Phyllis. My hard walk to get to the 58 tram in the heat was fine, if exhausting. By the time Phyllis and Kosov left, the area was so crowded with people leaving the venue, they were just slowly shuffling forward.

Any wise person would have caught public transport to the venue but many had booked parking at a nearby commercial carpark. They arrived, and according to morning radio the next day, the car park was full. People were exiting trying to tell people entering that there was no parking. If you are not going to use public transport, then wouldn't paying $40 for a guaranteed parking space be a good idea? It seems not. What a disgrace. 

My cunning plan for next year when Kosov graduates is arrive at 3.30, stand at the back to see him receive his award and then bolt. 

I don't have a huge criticism of the organisation of the event. Docklands Stadium can hold around 60,000 people. The two lower tiers of the stadium were full, and the top level about 1/3 full, so say something around 40,000 spectators, two hundred staff and faculty, one hundred performers, plus the graduates. The multiple viewing screens were excellent. 

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology is a huge college, with campuses all over the world. In my estimate, 80% of the RMIT graduates were from the Indian subcontinent, 5% white Australian, 10% South East Asian and Chinese, and the remainder 'others'.

It was a very interesting experience, and many of graduates and audience were dressed to the nines.

Her are a few snaps. 

Tipping the hat to each new graduate. 

  

I expect I may have to correct a few things tomorrow in this post. 

#176 Why I dislike religious institutions

I don't know how it is in other parts of the world. I don't care to follow religion but I seem to remember that in the 1960s in Australia the Presbyterian and Methodist churches combined to form the United Church. But apparently some old vestigatives of Presbyterian Church survived 

In a submission to a government enquiry into discrimination in schools, the Presbyterian church submitted that a gay student would not be an appropriate person to be a school captain. Of course most other religious schools held similar hateful views. No gay or dyke teachers at our school! Must be of our religion. No living in sin. It went on. 

The church owns five schools in Melbourne. Its schools are run by boards of governors and the most prestigious school, Scotch College, 'almost' immediately disassociated itself from the submission, describing itself as an inclusive school for all without discrimination. The church may own the school but does not control it.

Which century are we living in? I can't believe such a submission would come from the Presbyterian Church in modern Australia. What a disgrace. 

Meanwhile the gay captain of the Church of England Melbourne Grammar School eloquently speaks out. This lad will go on to be a huge benefit to society. 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/i-m-melbourne-grammar-s-school-captain-and-i-m-gay-the-presbyterian-church-would-have-me-sacked-20230418-p5d1b8.html  

The Presbyterian Church of Australia has declared its right to refuse school leadership opportunities to students based on sexuality or premarital sexual activity. This comes in response to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of discrimination laws.

The Church has reasoned that, in the case of discriminating against students based on sexual preference, gay students “would not be able to give appropriate Christian leadership in a Christian school which requires modelling Christian living”.

I write this as captain of Melbourne Grammar School. I write this as someone who is gay, a fact about myself which I cannot change. I also write this as someone confused – surely “modelling Christian living” is not well exemplified in the practice of exclusion or discrimination?

The Christian faith is built on the example Christ set in his life. His revolutionary compassion, so radical then as it still is now – care for the outcasts, the lepers, the unclean – inform the values of Christianity and direct the moral constitution of the Church. Jesus shocked the established powers of his time, his love the instrument of a legacy which left a world faith developing in its wake.

His example leads me to wonder what Christ would make of this situation. If he was confronted with a body of young people – all, to remind the Presbyterian leaders, made in the image of God, in the imago dei – would he divide them and cast inequality among their ranks?

Would he tell a portion of them they could not lead their friends, simply because those they love are of the same sex? Well, Jesus did not condemn the adulterers, did not avoid the pariahs, and surely would not deem some more capable of Christian living than others because of the details of their sexuality.

I see nothing particularly Christ-like in telling a child that, because of some unchangeable fact about their identity, they cannot have a recognised position of respect among their peers. To be honest, what I do see is irrationality.

The beauty of my generation is its widespread, gentle disinterest for sexuality. My peers know I am gay and they do not much care, just as they do not much care that others are straight or of other sexualities. This strength in character, this security of identity, is characteristic of the best leaders, and the Presbyterian Church of Australia has a chance to demonstrate it too. Unfortunately, the current absence of such a positive and healthy outlook is harming both the place of organised religion in the modern world and the safety of adolescents.

Not in modern Australia. But here I am, a student, writing an open letter to a group of adults who have lived a good deal longer than I have, and my intention here (at the risk of sounding quite bold) is to educate. I ask the Presbyterian Church of Australia to withdraw their response which outlines the right to discriminate among children and adolescents based on sexuality or sexual activity.

Firstly, it is a violation of the privacy of students and a rather clumsy attempt at preserving a worldview now thankfully frowned upon. Secondly, it is the most remarkable antithesis to the true Christian values (the central commandment “love thy neighbour as thyself” should be the directing maxim here).

And, thirdly, this desire to discriminate among young people is plainly unsettling. The sexuality of students is not something which should be the subject of so much scrutiny – as Stephen Fry once pointed out, the stricter branches of the Church often like to brand homosexual people as exhibiting unnatural sexual attitudes, though it is not the gay community which displays an unhealthy obsession with the regulation, repression and restriction of sex, rather the shoe is on the other foot there.

I am very lucky – I am secure in myself; I attend a school which values all its students equally. Yet so, so many children do not yet have this same confidence. The influence of the Presbyterian Church of Australia in declaring the right to discriminate against students based on sexuality is therefore mightily dangerous to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

Those people behind this submission to the ALRC need to exhibit the compassion which their faith is built on, as do the other religious groups which have submitted similar requests.

Organised religion is a powerful force for positivity. Those groups which tarnish the name of spirituality by using it to justify prejudice do a disservice to all people of faith, and they endanger all those who fall under their care.

Daniel Cash is Melbourne Grammar’s school captain.

My taxes

I am happy to pay my taxes, to federal, state and local governments. I like to see my taxes wisely spent and I can't say that always happens but in the big picture, our taxes are spent on the betterment of and for society. 

If a society has an insufficient tax base, the well being and living standards of the citizens falls apart. 

I don't even mind my taxes being spent on what I may see as wankery art or opera. My taxes spent on picking up a drunk and drugged waster from the gutter and feeding them, clothing them, housing them and ensuring they receive appropriate medical care is fine with me.

What I really object to my taxes being spent on is huge funding of religious private schools. Sadly as I recall, this begun under God Gough's Labor government's reign over Australia when he began taxpayer funding of Catholic schools in the 1970s.

And hasn't it snowballed from there. Every little tin pot religious school receives taxpayer money now, as well as the extremely wealthy mainstream Catholic and Protestant religious schools. It is a disgrace. Our public schools are perfectly fine with dedicated teachers but underfunded. Why overfund private religious schools when public schools need funding? 

Parents and defenders of subsided private education point out how overwhelmed our public education system would be without private schools. Well, the change would not happen overnight and the subsidies for private schools will go into the public purse to expand the public system. 

When Dictator Andrew Highriser rules, he will defund private education over the course of five years and redirect the money to public schools. We will return to a good education for all, and if you want an alternative, you pay for it and not me. Only the absolute elite will ask which school you attended.

We do have some public schools that select students on merit. I'll put them in the too hard basket and let them be for now. They do suspiciously have very nice facilities though.

This is a hard one as so many family members go to private schools. Irreligious Sister's career has been teaching in a prestigious Catholic boys school. Jo goes to an excellent non religious private school. Little M and Little Em go to private Catholic school, mainly because they open the gate on their back fence and be at school. The Cafe Latte twins have just started at a government primary school.

I wish I had saved the article to quote the correct figures, but as per the last census, only about 42% of Australians are now religious believers and the figure is dropping rapidly. Wait, I found it easily.

Religious affiliation in 2021

In 2021, more people opted to answer the Census religion question than in 2016. In 2021, the number of people who answered the religion question was 93.1% of the population, an increase from 90.9% in 2016.

In 2021 the most common religions were:

• Christianity (43.9%)
• No religion (38.9%)
• Islam (3.2%)
• Hinduism (2.7%)
• Buddhism (2.4%)

Here is a snip of what happens in private religious schools, in this case the school where the soon to be ex Premier of the State of New South Wales attended. It is known as the Opus Dei branch of the Catholic religion. The vaccination referred to is for HPV, Human Papilloma Virus and is free and readily available for teens upon request without need for parental approval. 

My taxes pay for this crap education!!! I don't like private education institutions and I detest what happens in religious schools.

I'll leave you with a media quote.  

What kind of school tells its students not to get a life-saving vaccine because it encourages promiscuity? What kind of school tells its students pornography causes holes in the brain? What kind of school tells its students same-sex relationships are evil while at the same time barely disciplining a staff member in a same-sex relationship with a disciple and former student?  

Year twelve exams

All these young people churned out by our secondary schools who are so illiterate and poorly educated. Dunno about any of this at all. I hated algebra, pure maths and trigonometry. Is that relevant or is this below about clear thinking?  They'd be a better man than me Gunga Din. I feel so old. 

As John Gray of Wales used to say, your answers on a post card. The print is a bit small, sorry.