Monthly Archives: Sep 2018

Suicide

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There’s been another report on suicide in Australia. People have expressed shock that the highest suicide rate is for men over 85 years of age. I say to those people, “Well, which group defined by gender and age do you want to have the highest suicide rate? Young men? Old women? Children?!”

Personally I think it makes perfect sense that old men are the most prone to suicide. Men are valued – by themselves and by others – for their strength, virility and self-reliance. They tend to define themselves in terms of their income-earning capacity. As they age, all these reasons to be valued fade away.

Men are also known to have fewer and weaker social connections outside their workplaces, and to recover more slowly than women after the loss of a spouse.

According to the latest Australian death statistics, with a bit of adjustment by me for population growth, 70% of males make it to 70; once there, half will make it to 90. I am not shocked if a few blokes in that bracket are no longer enjoying the party and want to leave early.

Hats Off to Hong Kong

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I was looking for tiny watch batteries, variously coded 377 and 626. By Googling I found a source in Australia that offered them at A$6.90 each; and two others that offered them at a mere A$2.90. But I ended up ordering six from Hong Kong for a total payment of A$5.94, including Australian sales tax (A$0.54) and postage (about A$1.35). They arrived and they work. Is this really the most efficient way to distribute consumer products?

Numeric Incompetence Syndrome (NIS)

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Here is a direct quotation from my local newspaper:

“Aboriginal women are at least 32 times more likely to be hospitalised because of an assault by their partner than non-indigenous women.

“They are at least three times as likely to have experienced violence in the past year than non-indigenous women.

“All this despite comprising a far smaller proportion of the population.”

The writer (Lauren Novak) is drawing attention to important statistics and goes on to suggest ameliorative measures. But she spoils it for me in that third paragraph. Having correctly compared rates of hospitalisation and exposure to violence, she then demonstrates a failure to understand what a rate is.

I don’t want to pick on Ms Novak, who is a much-awarded professional journalist whom I have never met. This is just one example of what I have now dubbed Numeric Incompetence Syndrome (NIS). It seems to afflict journalists and sub-editors disproportionately, but perhaps that’s because their condition is on public display more often than other sufferers’.

I’m thinking about an annual award for the most egregious manifestation of NIS: a Nissy to sit alongside the well-established and eagerly-awaited Stroppy**. What do you think?

Since writing this I have seen another howler in my local newspaper (one of Rupert Murdoch’s, by the way): a little matter of a displaced decimal point in a graphic summary of the South Australian State Budget, showing annual revenue and expenditure to be A$1.9 billion instead of A$19 billion. Now that’s the sort of thing a sub-editor should pick up, don’t you think?

** The Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Twaddle, awarded every January, for which nominations are always open.

Published!

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The doors are locked. No-one leaves without buying a book!

 

There’s a new page on my blogsite: Books – Bobby Shafter.  Do open it and, if the blurb attracts or intrigues you, click on a link to buy my newly published book.

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