Common decency
I was saddened to see the -600x400.jpg)
damage to the Flinders Street Station stained-glass windows on the news, from the protests by Indian students today, but I think it probably shows just how angry they are about the crimes against them. I’d be angry too.
Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said there was a perception that Indian people were easy prey for criminals.
“I don’t think they are (racist crimes) in general . . . We think the majority of these things occur through opportunistic activity,” he said.
I think perhaps Walshe is using too narrow a definition of “racist”.
He seems to be of the view that unless the motivation for the crime is the hate of a race, it’s not racist.
He might well be right that it’s not an inherent hate of Indians that’s behind it. But if criminals are targeting members of a specific race as victims, because they are believed to be more vulnerable and more likely to be carrying valuables, is that not racism?
racism — 1. The belief that each race has distinct and intrinsic attributes.
– Wiktionary
Sounds like it to me.
In any case, enough pussy-footing about.
Until this stops, how about getting teams of TravelSafe staff and police on every single train and every single station after dark on the most vulnerable lines (Sydenham and Werribee), as well as on stations at any other trouble spots.
If specific people in our community are being targeted, common decency dictates that we have an obligation to ensure they are protected.
And if you prefer to take the economic rationalist view, the overseas education industry is worth $15.5 billion per year, and is our third-largest export industry, and given its reputation is at risk, that needs protecting too.
PS. Wednesday: Here’s another interesting viewpoint: Dr [Yadu] Singh, who heads a committee at the Indian consulate looking at Indian student issues, labelled the reporting “irresponsible”. … He feared the outrage could mask the genuine issues faced by Indian students, who Dr Singh said were over-represented in robbery statistics in Melbourne and also faced exploitation by employers.
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Those Brits look like Aussies!
Dear London Daily News, that photo you’ve used was taken by me for use by the PTUA. I don’t recall providing permission for you to use it, and I don’t see any attribution on it.
I wonder if anybody clicked through to look at the detail in the picture and wondered whereabouts Caulfield station is in England or Wales?
(Found while searching Google Images for crowded trains.)
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What’s that got to do with the price of milk?
As part of my conversion to a cheapskate, I was comparing low-fat milks. For a while I’d been buying Pura Light Start or Rev. The supermarket brands are a lot cheaper, and maybe my taste buds are AWOL, but I can’t really detect a huge difference in taste.
But how do they stackup on nutrition? Lacking anything better to do, I decided to compare.
| per 100ml | Pura Light Start | Rev | Safeway low fat | Coles lite |
| Energy kJ | 183 | 191 | 193 | 193 |
| Protein gms | 3.6 | 3.4 | 3.3 | 3.3 |
| Fat – Total gms | 1.0 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| Fat – Saturated gms | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.9 |
| Carbohydrate gms | 5.0 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Carbohydrate – sugars gms | 5.0 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Sodium mg | 45 | 58 | 43 | 43 |
| Calcium mg | 126 | 126 | 124 | 114 |
| Cost per 2 litre carton | $4.37 | $4.69 | $2.79 | $2.99 |
I’ve listed the Safeway online prices here, with the Coles online price for the Coles milk. I haven’t checked the Aldi nutritional information, but their Farmdale light milk is $2.57 for two litres.
Nutrition-wise it appears the Pura Light Start has a bit less fat, but other than that it’s much of a muchness.
I find it amazing that Rev is so similar to the Safeway or Coles Lite milks, but there’s such a huge price difference. I doubt I could pick it in a taste test.
At least it’s all simpler than back in the day when it was Rev for me, Skinny Milk for her, and full-cream for the young-uns.
What milk(s) do the rest of you buy?
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Walkability and churches
I found the video below on the Walkscore.com blog. Amusing, and quite thought-provoking (if a little preachy).
On this topic, I’m not quite sure why, but I had noticed there’s an enormous variety of places of worship in my suburb. Seems whatever your faith, there’s probably a local place for you. Seriously, within about fifteen minutes’ walk of my house, I found:
Assemblies of God
Churches of Christ Conference
Helenic Greek Orthodox
St Paul’s (Catholic)
Reformed Presbyterian
Baptist
Korean
Salvation Army
Uniting Church
St Raphael
Churches of the Resurrected Life
Progressive Synagogue
Temple Society
St John’s (Anglican)
Not quite everything covered, and it’s probably not that unusual in the average well-established suburb, but quite a collection.
How is it in newer suburbs? I wonder if some religious denominations have difficulty in funding places of worship in those areas. Then again, perhaps it matches the dwindling numbers of worshipers.
Walkscore gives an imperfect evaluation of how walkable a suburb is. It tries to work out where the schools, shops, restaurants, and so on are. (It doesn’t count places of worship.)
Walkscore’s data is imperfect because the Google map data (particularly for non-US cities) isn’t all there (but it’s improving), but also because it doesn’t take into account access to high quality public transport, which for most people, radically alters how much they can leave the car at home. The latter is negated a bit, at least in most parts of Melbourne, by the fact that a lot of commercial development is based around railway stations, so walkable access to lots of shops often means walkable access to trains as well.
This is borne out in the results for the various places I’ve lived. Elsternwick got the highest score, 97%, but other places I’ve lived such as Hawthorn had excellent PT access, which in an ideal world would score higher than 71%. Ditto, but less so, for Glen Huntly, at 72%. The lowest score was my mum’s place, 55%, which is pretty much accurate, and my current place gets 77%.
It appears that Walkscore is catching on in Australia, with some real estate web sites now using it here too.
It’s long been known that walking access to shops and other community resources adds to the prices of houses, but I suspect people are starting to realise that walkable neighbourhoods really are more liveable, quite apart from the benefits of reduced fuel bills, environmental footprint, traffic congestion and physical fitness.
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Baaaa!
Level crossings like the one at Glen Huntly slow down trams, cars, pedestrians and trains alike… in fact due to the tram/train crossing (one of four in Melbourne), trains have to slow down to 15 km/h.
And the confined pedestrian
There’s no organised programme to get rid of Melbourne’s level crossings, as was almost completely done in Sydney in the past few decades. Instead they’re doing about one every year. At that rate it’ll be centuries before they’re all gone. We might all be travelling by teleport by then.
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Clare the bogan
One commentator says Claire Werbeloff (the “fully sick” “Chk Chk Boom” Kings Cross bogan hoaxer) is this year’s Corey Worthington.
Uh huh. Well it might be worth pointing out that last year’s Corey Worthington is now an unemployed nobody looking for a labouring job.
Perhaps the best Claire Werbeloff commentary came from the victim of the incident: “I’m just a bit upset about the fact that I’ve been shot and that I almost lost my life and there’s this girl all over the news getting popular all because she has no brains.”
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I don’t understand
This is the corner of Whitehall and Wingfield Streets in Footscray.
The traffic lights closest to the camera in these photos are basically for the pedestrian crossing, on the northern side of the intersection. But the southern side of the intersection includes a stop line, so that’s where the cars are meant to stop, well back from the traffic lights themselves. Potentially confusing, especially given the “Stop here on red signal” signs over on the lights.
But what’s really weird is that the lights for northbound traffic periodically switch to red, even when there are no pedestrians and no conflicting traffic around. I’ll be driving up there with M and a hatch full of fruit and vegetables from her weekly shop and we’ll have to stop, for no apparent reason.
This will be accompanied by mock cries of protest from me of “I don’t understand!” because I don’t.
It may be linked to cars turning right into Whitehall Street from Dynon Road, but that doesn’t really make any sense either, as there’s no reason to stop this traffic because of them.
Can anybody who’s seen this intersection explain how and why it works like this?
(If you’re wondering, I did enquire with VicRoads about the Bentleigh intersection that illogically starts the cars before the peds. At first they misinterpreted my email and thought I was referring to the right turn arrows. I clarified that, but haven’t heard back.)
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How much has really changed?
I’ve been using Glenhuntly Station for about fifteen years, since when I first moved to the suburb.
I still go there even though I live in Bentleigh, on days when I’ve dropped off the kids at school.
In that time, about the only thing that’s changed is that there used to be a booking office and a lady selling tickets. She could whip through a queue in seconds flat when there was a train approaching.
She was replaced by the Metcard machines in the late-90s, and for a while there were no staff there at all, although at one stage there was a shortlived coffee stand.
Then a few years ago the station hosts arrived; two staff for just a few hours each morning peak-hour. Station hosts were allocated to the busiest stations that didn’t already have staff, which included Glenhuntly.
Other little things have changed. Green and red buttons arrived many years ago. Brighter lighting. CCTV. New paint.
But the most visible difference over the years is the logos used on the trains and on the timetables, which have gone through four completely different names and designs over the past decade… from The Met, to Bayside Trains, to M>Train, then to Connex.
And what about the thing that really matters: the number of trains?
How has that changed?
Here’s how AM peak looked in 1997, versus now, between 7:01am and 9am trains to the City:
| 1997 | 7:13 | 7:24 | 7:34 | 7:49 | 7:58 | 8:06 | 8:20 | 8:25 | 8:37 | 8:52 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 7:11 | 7:20 | 7:31 | 7:47 | 7:56 | 8:05 | 8:21 | 8:36 | 8:52 |
That’s right — despite record patronage growth across Melbourne’s train network of about 70% in the last decade, there is in fact one less service now than there used to be. That’s because it got turned into an express that no longer stops there. Apart from that all they’ve done is fiddle the timings a bit.
That’s progress for train passengers at Glenhuntly. Four different names on the trains, and one less service in the morning peak — even though it’s one of the busiest suburban stations.
Admittedly, other lines have got extra trains, and many of them have worse crowding, so it’s well-deserved. But more trains are needed right around the network.
Later this year we can apparently expect another new name for the trains. One that stays for good.
But who knows how long it’ll take to get more services running.
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