Oratory

Today was odd. We had some lectures from some crusty old lefties, a.k.a. my kind of people. I was expecting to sit there and think, "Right on!" but instead I sat there and thought, "huh??"

It's not that I disagreed with them. I just couldn't figure out what they were trying to say. The first guy's lecture was pretty much incomprehensible to me. As far as I could tell, he was trying to say to us, "If you're trying to convince someone of something then it's good to have some kind of reasoning behind it." Gosh.

The second guy's lecture was about how health is a human right. I don't think anyone in the class would disagree with that. But he talked about it for an hour, and kind of shouted at us the whole time. Perhaps I shouldn't have worn my brown shirt. Anyway, at the end I felt kind of guilty and conflicted about myself despite agreeing with everything he said. I think.

In contrast, after school my Smaller Half and I went to a lecture in town by Prof. Fiona Stanley about the failure of Australian governments to improve Aboriginal health. When we got there it transpired that we were supposed to make reservations so we snuck in - it's the Australian Way. She was really smart and really passionate, and at the end of her talk she even got us all shouting out "Yes we can!" in a conscious Obama tribute. I got quite choked up by the whole thing.

And then Bob Hawke, who was there because the institute named after him was running the show, got up and thundered away about how we need to get off our bums and do something about it. He was an electrifying speaker too. Looks like his blood pressure is about 240/180 though, or else he was incredibly sunburnt.

I suppose it's a bit much to expect our university lectures to be delivered by ex-Prime Ministers and Companions of the Order of Australia. But I was really disappointed in today's stuff. It was just such a mish-mash of tired bureaucratese and meaningless phrases.

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