A brief blog this morning as I’m expecting the munchkins to arrive any minute. I’m in a bit of a flap as I was expecting them around 5pm-ish, not 9.30am – 10-ish. Failure to communicate on the Old Boy’s part. I gather our daughter told him the new arrangements last night, he just didn’t bother to pass them on. I have discovered that as I’ve got older (or riper – like a good cheese) I don’t cope well with sudden changes to the program. Anyway…

During the week I received a request to sign a petition. I gather there are some health insurance companies in the USA that are cancelling memberships of women who are diagnosed with cancer. The lousy swine! I thought the whole point of having health insurance is so that you have financial support when you are ill. Turns out, you should only have health insurance if you are healthy. Once you get sick, all bets are off.

Then, this morning I received another request. It seems the Queensland government is planning to cease funding the Advanced Breast Cancer Support Group. This wonderful organisation gives psychosocial support to women who have secondary (and therefore terminal) breast cancer. It helps them and their families come to terms with their prognosis and supports them right up until they die. Their yearly budget is $150 000, which is not a huge amount. They don’t just hold meetings for women in the cities, they also have phone links and send DVDs to women in isolated rural areas. But, dying women aren’t a good financial investment.

When governments spend more money on sporting venues and building (or buying) stealth bombers, or on giving tax relief to large mining companies, than they do in caring for their people, then there is something sick at the very heart of things. We are a society that is more and more driven by the dollar, rather than by compassion, kindness and basic humanity.

Then I got the news that one of the petitions I signed a while back, asking Tesco to restrict their tuna fishing to line and pole, worked. A small victory for turtles, dolphins and other large sea creatures that used to get swooped up in the tuna nets and left to die as “by-catch”. Many of you might think it’s a small thing, but I count it as a victory for people power. It encouraged me to keep on signing; to keep on speaking up when I think something isn’t right.

If you see the petitions re the USA “health” companies or the Queensland Advance Breast Cancer Support Group, floating around the internet, please sign them, too. Who knows; if we keep speaking up we might yet turn things to right. And,if nothing else at least we’ll die knowing we fought the good fight.