“Chipping at an Iceberg with a Fork”

I am taking the points given form the comments form my last post, which lead to the discussion on certain aspects. I will admit that I tried to cover a broad rang of topics, while trying to express my reaction to a fifteen minute radio interview. With that, I concede that each point is a topic within its own right and I really just glossed over them. I thank the thoughtful comments, By Kate and Devil’s advocate, for pointing out that my passions on the agreement at hand, could be clouding my representation of the situation.

To that end I will address one topic which I quoted in my title. Subsequent conversations, on what I had written, exposed a though by Kate, who works in the field of child welfare. She said, “It’s like chipping away at an iceberg with a fork” (in reference to her experiences in welfare). I have seen first hand, the mental and physical drain on people who undertake this noble work. I think, to that end, that I am justified in saying that if that is the case then you have to start chipping and keep chipping at some point. I was not suggesting that banning alcoholic adverting or mediation is a cure, other, it is a point worthy of consideration. I am under no illusions that the topic has a “quick fix” but , if I may refer to Father Riley, find that if an impassioned plea is given to someone that has worked in this field for so long, isn’t it something worthy of consideration? Isn’t experience worth more than hypothesizing? I will agree that that is a separate topic within itself.

Back to the situation at hand, I feel that there are similarities between a welfare worker and a mechanic. If a mechanic is presented with a vehicle, they will toil to do the best they can to repair a car with the resources available to them. When the car leaves their care, no matter what advice is given to the owner, some will return with the same afflictions due to the way the car is treated by the owner. The mechanic is then repairing the same faults that could have been averted if their advice was adhered to; it then becomes a frustrating and repetitive process for the owner and the mechanic. If equated to child welfare, once a worker has done what they can, with the resources available to them, who is responsible for any subsequent improvement? I was once told, “The best administrator for your own affairs is you!” If I can use that in relation to my slimily, If the owner of a vehicle doesn’t take responsibility for it, how good can a mechanic actually be? In the same way, if the guardians of a child, if they have any, don’t take due care, what help can a welfare worker give? If the “client” is older and don’t take responsibility for their own actions, the same applies. “Action and consequence” is again another topic.

I cannot give any solutions to the welfare question as I do not work in the field. I can only offer my opinion and, hopefully, productive and healthy debate on the issue.

The Devil that Brought Down a Saint

For those of you that don’t know this man, he is Father Chris Riley. He, in my opinion, is the closest thing to a living saint. For over thirty years this man has devoted his life to improving what society would call “Youth Rejects”. His successes in this field have been too numerous to mention. He runs last chance missions to get youth to be productive members of society. Those who the traditional institutions have given up on as “lost causes”. So imagine my surprise to hear this man in utter anguish over a situation that he felt was out of his hands.

In the eves there seems to be a demon that is undercutting his efforts to provide under privileged children a quality existence. For anyone who has met Father Riley, you would know that he is not one to become upset easily. Though he is a Catholic priest, he is not standing on religious rhetoric to advance his cause but his, before mentioned, thirty years of experience in dealing with said children.

Who is this demon you may ask? The commercial, advertising giants, for alcoholic products and how, even though they deny it, their deliberate targeting of youths. Father Riley, recounted in anger, how he personally knows of girls as young as eleven that would sell themselves for “a couple of cans of bear”. He recounted how one father that, that he knew of. “sold his eight year old daughter” for the same amount. Father Riley said that he could not call this prostitution but a deliberate act of child abuse, that there are paces where this was known and an accepted activity.

Father Riley is a reasonable man and is not calling for the abolishment of alcohol, he is protesting about the blaintent targeting of youth by the marketing of such products as “Fairy Dust” and the timing to when these products are advertised such as with sporting activates and the like. But his call for moderation and responsibility seem to be falling on a deaf demon too interested in profit than the impact they are having on youth. You would think that a man and his team that have worked with “hopeless causes” would be in the prime position to be heard. Especially given the amount of time he has spent and his devotion to Australian youth, not to mention his successes in this field.

If none of this stirs you in the same way it has me, then you have my pity and disgust. There is no call, what so ever, to make youth a demographic to the alcohol industry. If a man with thirty years experience in the field of youth welfare can’t sway the demon they spare a thought for the youths and what they will subject themselves to for another alcoholic fix.