Pete's Place

Consecration and 1 Year Anniversary

2010-09-13T08:20:00.009+10:00

It will soon be one year since Peter passed away on 19 September 2009. I am not sure if any of you out there still have a link to Peter's blog but I thought it would be a good way of "closing the circle" to post the details of the recent consecration service held on Sunday 5 September and photos of the grave.

Photo 1: Peter's grave and the Ohel Chaim chapel in the background.
(Apologies - I couldn't get the photos to rotate to be upright on the blog)
Photo 2: The text on the gravestone (known as a "ledger")

As is traditional, within a year of death the grave and headstone are erected and a consecration or "unveiling" ceremony is held. I have to say I agonised for many months about what text to place on the grave given that it is literally carved in stone and there forever, or until it falls down or is changed.

Photo3: Peter's headstone

I spent many hours with scraps of paper and words or lines in the kitchen or at my office desk as something might strike me. I visited the workshop of the monumental mason and in the end the need to have something finalised before the consecration date spurred me on.

I have to thank Dave and Kathleen for two things which contributed to finalising the text - the first was a Kaddish prayer I found on Dave's blog
(which I took as a framework for the grave text but with almost total rewriting to be relevant to Peter) and the second was sending the text to Kathleen and her thoughts about Peter - both of which allowed me to edit and adjust to what I think of now as something that "works" to both describe Peter and move people to reflection - both things of which Peter would have approved, especially the latter as he was often given to provocative discussion or writing in order to make people think. So thanks to both Kathleen and Dave.

The 5th September was a sunny, bright day in Sydney, however, as can be the case in early Spring, it was blowing a very stiff wind, which was unfortunate. About 20 people attended and I want to thank everyone who attended or attempted to (one person was stuck in traffic and missed the ceremony) given that I didn't realise it was also Father's Day and so many were unable to be there for that reason. The Rabbi led a very moving prayer and remembrance service by the graveside and to my surprise turned to me to say a few words, which I hadn't been expecting. I don't really remember too much of what I said, as I was quite upset all over again. I do remember talking about Peter's gratitude for his family's migration and a few other things.

Afterwards, we adjourned gratefully from the blowing conditions (wind gust from the west at about 50 kms per hour) to a small function room and about 15 or 16 of us had some refreshments and opportunities to talk with each other 1 and 1/2 hours.

Everyone kindly said how moving they found the text on the grave, heartfelt and appropriate, for which I was gratified. In fact the rabbi used it as the parting blessing and that made me feel that it was very suitable.

The next day, I received a call from Peter's relative in Sydney who said she had received a call from the family of the man who is buried beside Peter and they wished to convey how very moved they were by the text. So I hope you find it so as well.

I now feel that we have honoured Peter and his memory in a very personal and relevant way. I wanted people who read that grave to know more of the person who lay there than you can ever know from the brief factual information about name, birth and death date and to whom the person was related or married. I wanted people to know that he was a special to many but more than important to just me. He contributed so very much in everything he did and would have continued to do so for years to come if the effects of smoking and ignoring his health for so long had not resulted in his early death.

Since his death people have asked how I am and what I am doing. I have felt disabling distress and been sunk in a trough of despair. When people talk about the light going out of their life, I now know what they mean. I feel as if the great generator of life and love has been extinguished. I feel very numb punctuated, on occasion, by nausea that flows over me in huge heated waves if I think of the last few weeks and months we were together and the amazing amount of stress we were both facing. I wonder about the things I did and whether I contributed to Peter's early demise in some way (did I introduce the infection somehow?....) even though the cancer was gradually overtaking his system. I have been reclusive and sometimes stir in the early hours of the morning and remember something that I had forgotten about his treatment or about what I might have done and feel distressed again. I have lost enjoyment in so many things and I have suddenly crashed into the wall of my own mortality with a sickening thud!

However, I have found a perspective that makes things at work (to which I returned in January this year) a little easier to bear. I have become self-contained once more but miss Peter more than I thought possible. I want to engage with life again now but feel very reticent and often lack enthusiasm for anything much. What more can I say? Even though we were both independent people we had inveigled our way into each other's hearts and life. I cannot believe how fast the 16 years we were together passed and I am saddened that it was so short. However, I will remember, treasure and honour Peter all the days of my life.

Leanne

Photos now added to Eulogy

2009-10-29T12:42:00.002+11:00

After a couple of technical hitches, I have now uploaded some of the photos from the powerpoint throughout the parts of the Eulogy. So even if you have read the eulogy before, please revisit the 4 parts to see some great snaps of Peter throughout his life.

Thanks to those of you who have given me such wonderful feedback about Peter, his amazing life and the compelling eulogy. To paraphrase Peter: "The fact that there is anyone out there who is reading the blog and remembering is not only amazing but brings tears to the eyes."

Grateful thanks

Leanne

Tribute from a Social Work Colleague - Eulogy

2009-10-29T10:52:00.011+11:00

(Photo: Peter in 1983)

This is the text from the item :"Memories of Peter and Social Work" by Desley the National Manager of Social Work at Centrelink which formed part of the Memorial gathering on 15 October. For those of you who are outside Australia, Centrelink is the Australian Government department responsible for pensions, benefits and other services and used to be called the Department of Social Security up to about 1999.

I am very grateful to Desley for providing me with the text of her speech, as she was well aware that this is something Peter would have wanted to have, for his records and for posterity. I am also grateful as I learnt a few extra things about Peter, which was very precious as
he is not here to forge new memories with me so havingthe loan of someone else's memories is all I can have from now on. Thank you Desley.

"I feel very honoured to have been asked by Leanne to speak today about Peter's social work career - or at least the part that I know about.

I first met Peter when I became an Area Social Worker in the old Area South Queensland about 20 years ago. He was, at that time, the Assistant Director Social Work based in Sydney in what was then the department of Social Security. However, I did have phone contact with him for a couple of years before that when I worked in the Social Work Unit in DSS Queensland and one of my tasks was to manage a social work recording system which later became known as SWIS (Social Work Information System).

My impression of him, from the phone contact, was of someone with very strong views, a lot of knowledge about statistical analysis and even computers - which left me way out of my depth. He was also very god at identifying what was wrong with the Queensland system and how it could be improved! I was left thinking - Mmmm!! He introduced himself as a Hungarian Jew and often talked about his various investments and the decision-making behind them.

Peter was a man with very strong principles, highly ethical, an advocate for the disadvantaged and with a vision way beyond what the rest of us could comprehend. I remember him having a conversation with me in 1990 about the world of the future and how social workers would be and should be using computers. He researched and wrote prolifically about that in a time when we were still working with Wang "dumb terminals'. I laughed and said "No way, Peter!" We were still moving into an environment where we had to learn to type our own social work reports!! BUT how RIGHT he was! We couldn't imagine a workplace without computers now.

Peter was very committed to the social work profession and for many years was an active member of the Australian Association of Social Workers. He was passionate about high standards of professional practice and wrote prolifically about how to improve professional supervision. He developed a national training and professional development plan and I still have copies of these documents because they remain relevant today.

In November 2004, our Social Work service reached its 60th year milestone. peter sent me so many historical documents that he had kept over the years to ensure they were maintained for posterity. he also invited a number of eminent social workers who had worked in DSS to provide some comment on their time in the Social Work Service. While there was not a huge response, his passion remained and he was very keen to reminisce about the good and the bad old days. He was intensely loyal.

Sometimes Peter could be abrasive, dismissive and on occasion, disagreeable and he did not suffer fools gladly, but he could also be a lot of fun. He had a wicked sense of humour and took pleasure in stating the outrageous and being provocative, just to get a reaction. It usually worked and some of us needed a debrief after the odd teleconference where sparks could fly!

After Peter moved to the Social Work team in Canberra the dynamics changed there too. In talking with Margo and Jenny, who were around in the team at that time, they have many stories about the robust discussions which now occurred face-to-face rather than over the phone.

He loved Coffee lollies and kept a supply in his desk which he regularly offered to Margo and Jenny. he was the only one who liked them but they were too polite to tell him!! He used to try to bribe them with the lollies , completely unaware of their aversion to them.

If they went to his office to ask a question, they could plan to be there a long time, so they used to work out a strategy to get the other person out with a fake phone call. He loved to talk!!

Peter finally got his way when SWIS was computerised and he was heavily involved in its design and implementation. Not long after Centrelink was created Peter moved to the next stage of his career and into the IT world where he seemed to be in his element. Whenever I bumped into him he was very positive about the work he was doing. (It didn't make an ounce of sense to me - but then I guess you would expect that!!)

Photo: Peter in his office in 2003

He would also regale me with his and Leanne's travel plans as he loved to travel. I felt very privileged when they asked me to house-sit a few years ago when they went off for as few months travelling around Europe. I knew that he was keenly disappointed when he was first diagnosed because they had plans for another long trip which, in the end, could not be undertaken.

I went to see him in the hospice not long before he died and jokingly told him I needed his advice on SWIS. Despite his state of health, he immediately responded and told me that I was asking the wrong question about SWIS and I really needed to consider looking at the issues from a different perspective. He was as sharp as a tack! He then proceeded to take me to task about sending Centrelink social workers offshore in responding to (international) disasters. I had to justify how that fitted with the "real" role of social workers. I clearly gave the right answers because he then advised me that he was very suited to this role as he was such a well-travelled person. He said he would get well and I would obviously choose to deploy him. Sadly, this was not to be.

To the last he was incredibly positive and optimistic - a real fighter determined not to give in.

I really enjoyed working with Peter and respected him highly even when he was being difficult! We did not always agree but I found he was always prepared to listen, consider, provide advice and,occasionally, to change his viewpoint. He was a man of integrity. His legacy in the Social Work Service will continue.

I am grateful for the time that I had to work with him. He taught me much and we will all miss him."

Desley (15.10.2009)

I just want to add that Peter was very grateful that Desley had taken the time out of her very busy schedule to visit him that evening in the hospice. Later, he asked me whether I thought she was being honest when she said to him that he was widely remembered and had made a great impact on the Social Work Service in Centrelink. I replied that Desley would not have said it if it was not true and I thought that he underestimated the impact he had on a vast number of people and services throughout his life. He cogitated on that for a few moments and said that he hoped it was true because otherwise he had wasted his life. I told him that nothing is ever wasted especially the kind of work he had done.

I hope this is true, too, Peter.

Leanne

Eulogy - Part 1

2009-10-24T09:07:00.009+11:00

In response to many people's request, I have placed the eulogy for Peter on this blog. I have divided it into 4 parts so that it is more easily read and manageable as a blog post (scroll down to "older posts" and click there to be taken to the other parts of the eulogy). After the memorial gathering, many people said that they had no idea what a fascinating life Peter had led, how interesting he was or that they could hear Peter saying the things I had written and it's true - he was so honestly expressive and in many cases I have used his words, as he wrote them in his life notes which he left for me.

Others were kind enough to let me know the special memories they have of Peter and to repeat some of the things he used to say to them - many of them totally indicative of Peter's hard work and commitment, humour and provocative nature.

I hope you find some insights into him and like me, marvel that so much was contained in one man.

Eulogy
for
Peter George Garas
22 September 2009

Some of you here today will know more about aspects of Peter than I do, having shared various parts of his life. And so I will not, perhaps, be able to do justice to the memories and experiences you have of him through the different phases of his life, especially those with which I have no knowledge or have not shared. Please forgive me for any oversight you think this Eulogy contains. How to adequately acknowledge the life and contribution of someone is a challenge, however, Peter did leave me some documentation about his early years to supplement my experiences and I hope this summary does go some way to sketching an outline of his life.

Birth (1949-1957)
Peter was born in Budapest, Hungary on 25 January 1949 at the Love Hospital to Leo and Katalin Garas. He was an only child and very precious son who may not have been born if World War II had not ended when it did. His mother was the survivor of two concentration camps, Venusberg and Matthausen, who was one of only a hundred or so survivors of over 2,000 women who were set out from Venusberg and were shipped by train to Mauthausen in the last throes of the war. She suffered from typhoid at the time of the liberation of the camp and walked back from the camp to Hungary, via Czechoslovakia, once she was fit enough to do so.

His father was a veteran of World War I and was caught up in the ghetto in Budapest during the Nazi occupation. He was in hospital following a heart attack, at the beginning of the occupation, and had to leave hurriedly to avoid the mass killing of patients there. That his parents survived, married and had Peter was quite an amazing feat!

Peter's mother was an opera singer, a soprano, and his father was a singing teacher. They lived in Budapest and

Peter became a child actor at the age of four, working for the Hungarian National Radio. He got a number of small parts in children's stories and met his favourite characters from the programs. As a result of his work on radio, he was also offered a number of parts on the stage and appeared in two plays, one being the 'Kremlin Torony Óra' with the famous actor Pécsi Sándor. This play was about the Tower Clock of the Kremlin - some melodrama about the life and times of Vladimir Illyich Ulianov or Lenin.

Peter writes: “There are a number of recollections, which accompany this period of my life. I recall the bitter sorrow when a new director from Russia arrived and took away the lovely red boots which formed part of my costume and replaced them with a used pair of army boots several sizes too large. His rationale was sound - Russian kids simply did not have pretty red boots to wear at the time of the Revolution. I never forgave him anyway.

One night when Pécsi Sándor was ill, the understudy finally had his chance. Everything was going swimmingly until all of a sudden he experienced the most dreaded event in an actor's life. He forgot his lines. There was a pregnant pause, a silence that seemed to fill the theatre. Every eye was on me as my lines came after the ones, which he had forgotten. I remember looking at the understudy, waiting for my cue and not receiving it making up a joining line which led into my lines and the show moved on. There was a palpable sense of relief among the actors. When the curtain came down I found myself hoisted in the air, hugged by grinning people and escorted in full costume across the street to the nearby cake shop where I was treated to as much cake as I could eat. This particular show was on for something like three months. Three months of steady work. I was earning my keep at the age of four or five.”

Photo: Peter 1954
The photograph of Peter taken during this stage play shows his confidence and self-possession even at the age of 5 or 6, which were such an essential part of him for his whole life. John G, who is here today, remembers hearing Peter on the radio in those days as well has having known Peter and his family from then on.
Peter recalled his first day at school in the following words: “On my first day at school, I can recall all the warnings which my mother gave me about how to behave in the class. I cannot recall any anxiety at having to go to school, rather I recall a sense of excitement and adventure. I came home from school with a note from the teacher. I had been whistling in class and had been made to stand in the corner for having transgressed the rules. My mother, exasperated went through the litany of rules, which she had explained to me and asked me how I could possibly have been silly enough to whistle in class. Nonplussed I replied that she had told me not to talk in class, whisper, nudge other children, laugh out loud and a dozen other things, but had NEVER mentioned whistling. At six I was already a smart-arse!”

When Peter was 7 years old, they left the country and escaped over the border to Austria. He learned many years later that his uncle in New York, Louis G, had paid, through some nefarious sources, some people in Hungary to spirit them out of the country. Apparently it cost US$1000 per person to do so, lying in the back of a truck under a load of carrots.

Here is how Peter described it: “This was a memorable trip, which involved lying under a bed of carrots in the back of a truck, which left Budapest and headed towards the border near Györ. Here we stayed overnight in the local synagogue sleeping on the pews with most of the adults fearing capture while we children just sensed the excitement and wondered what it was all about. When we headed out from the synagogue it was pitch black. The only piece of transport for a large group of us was a single ox cart. This was reserved for the ill, the very small children and the frail aged. Naturally I did not qualify for any of these categories and as a result spent a considerably uncomfortable time scrambling over ploughed fields where the furrows seemed to grow with the time that passed as my tired little legs felt like they were climbing over mountains. As we travelled slowly over the dark and forbidding terrain, there were star shells being fired into the sky in front and to our left. The people guiding the party said that these were being sent up by the border guards near the Czechoslovakian border. In silence and with just a little more fear we trudged on.

Suddenly our entire party was bathed in light. In the darkness behind the lights we could make out people and a VW combi-van with a big Red Cross on it. An audible groan of relief escaped from the throats of each adult in the party - we had arrived in Austria."

After time in Vienna and a refugee camp in Salzburg, which were full of adventure for a seven year old, they travelled by ship, the “SS Waterman”, to Australia. They were meant to go to the USA but only Peter's father was allowed entry to the States as he was born in Vienna so, to keep the family together they chose Australia instead, which was more relaxed about country of birth. While this led to disappointments for his parents in terms of work and career options, as well as foregoing family ties in the USA, it ended being the very best thing for Peter.
Photo Above: Salzburg 1956
Photo Below: Katalin, Leo and Peter prior to embarkation with cousin Suzanne, Rotterdam

Unfortunately, Peter's parents were not able to get employment in their chosen professions and, as with many other migrant families throughout the decades, they had to take what work they could find which ended with Peter's mother working as a clothing finisher and the family undertaking piece work on costume jewellery and other items at night. Peter said: :”My parents made this a game for me. However for them, I suspect it was a life and death situation, earning enough money to stay alive.”

The family located around the eastern suburbs of Sydney, sharing with other families in the early period after their arrival. However, Bondi Beach became Peter's home from the time he entered high school and he stayed there for the majority of his adult life, purchasing an apartment in Sir Thomas Mitchell Rd around 1975.

Eulogy - Part 2

2009-10-24T09:06:00.002+11:00

School and other activities

Peter had no English on arrival in Australia but quickly became proficient. He attended primary schools at Woollahra and South Coogee. To fund his love of Saturday matinee movies, Peter became a marble “hustler”, playing marbles, winning and selling them back to the previous owners for less than the cost of new ones. This proved lucrative enough to help fund tuck shop purchases as well as the 6 pence it cost for the movie tickets. He said that bringing salami and capsicum sandwiches for lunch, while delicious, were not considered appropriate food by his peers, so he had to develop a taste for chip butties and fund them with his wins at marbles. From a photos around this time, I suspect he ate both the chip butties and the salami sandwiches!

Peter attended Randwick Boy's High School for five years. In his opinion he was not very successful at school. He managed to get good marks in English, History and languages. English and History, French, German and Latin were his main subjects along with Maths I and II, the sciences and Music. He went to Vaucluse High for his last year and worked hard, becoming Dux of the school, so he then gained entry into Law school at the University of Sydney. He also won the Goethe prize for German language on at least one occasion.

Living at Bondi Beach, Peter spent many hours at the pool and the beach, learning to swim.

“Life at the beach was a novelty for a boy who came from Budapest. The sea was eternally fascinating and scary. But my mother insisted I learn to swim and I did so, by having a few lessons and watching what the others did; later spending a lot of time down at the pool or beach on hot summer days. I can recall one time when I left home early in the morning on a weekend to go to the beach. It was a really lovely day. My parents probably expected me to come home for lunch and when I did not they began to fret and then to really worry. When I came home about 6:30 p.m. the house was surrounded by people: neighbours and the police were all buzzing around excitedly. I casually walked up to my parents and asked what all the fuss was about.

My mother was utterly dumbfounded. She just stood and stared at me and finally managed to utter a question about how I had gotten lost. With a genuinely innocent expression and tone I told her I had not been lost, I had known where I was all the time. I don't think she knew whether to hug me or hit me. Much to my relief she hugged me in the end.”

It always amazed me, in the last decade or so, that even on the most scorching day I could not get Peter into a swimming pool, lake or sea but he said he had had enough of that as a kid and I couldn't entice him.

He said he didn't make friends easily at school and found he had to stand up for himself pretty quickly which he seemed to do with some success. However, there were many friendships which he made at school and he continued to mention those friends to me regularly.

Peter said that some of his teachers, during high school were memorable, often NOT for inspiring hard work or application. One, called Mr Little, was his science teacher. Apparently, he used to pay Peter not to ask questions in class, so he could have uninterrupted time to work on his language courses!

During his high school years Peter “was sent off to” some Jewish youth groups. He says he was very grateful to AZA, one such international youth group affiliated with B'nai B'rith “ as I was able to learn many skills there, starting with how to work on a committee,... leading to organisational skills, secretarial and treasurer's skills and finally to President.

Photo: Class 4c, Randwick Boys High. Peter - 1st row, far right

This is also where he honed his writing skills, editing and contributing to newsletters. All of these capabilities were important to him as a future public servant and in his voluntary work later in life. Later, Peter was elected the NSW and then Australian President of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organisation, also becoming a “Life Governor” for Australia and New Zealand, which was a very rare thing. Peter said “I learned how to organise camps, conventions, car rallies, parties, social events of all kinds simply by doing and succeeding or learning from what we did wrong. I also learnt how to lead others and how to value their contributions and bind them into a popular organisation so that their commitments to each other, to values and to the giving of themselves, paid off.”
Photo: Peter 1969
Peter said the period from the age of 13 through to his 30's were the most fulfilling times he had ever had. Sadly, he left over a major policy disagreement when he put a principle before his own well-being. Later, in 2004 he wrote: “I missed the companionship dreadfully (once I left). I miss the continuity of my work, I miss the people that I bonded with throughout my teenage years and then later through my adult years. They were, for me, the friends of my life...... I miss those days and often look longingly at the pictures of the conventions I attended.... and think back on the people I went through all of this with and remember them with a pang in my heart and a yearning that is indescribable.... I am not likely to experience this again in my life and I have left it too late, I suspect to try again.”

This year however, he did have some contact with a few people from the period and he was gratified to meet with them or have email and phone contact again. I think that this is something many people find, namely, that those late teenage and university years, or early working years are some of the best you can ever hope to have. We just don't realise it at the time and then when we do it is many years later and life has moved on.

However, most of you will know that Peter, was not at all religious and considered everyone on equal terms. He was always interested in people's views, delighting in challenging and questioning their views. But he was not exclusive and, in fact, had a very eclectic network and range of friends, valued colleagues or acquaintances.

University
Peter studied at Sydney University from 1967 to 1974 in Arts/Law and Social Work.

As is often the case, with university came a burgeoning interest extra-curricular activities. In Peter's case it was in jazz, bridge, movies and billiards.
Photo: Graduation in Arts with parents and Pam, 1970

He left Law. Peter said: 'At the law school I was a very poor student, except in Criminal Law and Contract Law. In these subjects I found a considerable amount of enjoyment. They provided mental exercise and an arena for argument. Basically I hated law. I hated moving from the main campus of Sydney University to the Law School in Phillip Street. I hated the subjects. In short I did everything else but work. There was a sense that justice and the law were only distantly related and there was also a problem that in those days conveyancing and divorce law constituted the bread and butter of legal work. Both subjects being dry and boring.”

He looked for another opportunity and found Social Work, about which he said: “My assessment was that this course of study would provide two things for me:1) a livelihood for which there would be an ongoing and continuing need and 2)an interest which did not pall with time.
As it turns out, so far, my assessment has been correct.”

He graduated in Social Work and also returned to further formal study in 1990 to undertake and graduate as a Master of Social Work. However, he was a great believer in continuing education and never stopped learning or improving his skills and knowledge throughout his life.

Work
Peter undertook a range of jobs while at University, including being a Sydney taxi driver, working in retail at Grace Brothers, Milsons Giftware, Cantori Jewellers and Phillipson's Clothing as well as being a clothing commercial salesman for a time. He would often tell me anecdotes from some of these early jobs, claiming, that he could sell almost anything, especially items that were hard to sell. He mentioned that he would take bets from the other shop assistants that he could sell some of the remaindered items to the next few customers. He would then set about showing the customer all the things in the shop and if they were particularly hard to please would say: “Just a moment, I think there's something out the back that's one of a kind, which we haven't put into the shop that would be fabulous on you!” he would then bring in a particularly interesting garment and the customer would invariably walk out, satisfied and with said hideous item!!!

Photo: Peter 1976 in Migrant Services

When he qualified as a Social Worker his first job was in the Migrant Services Section of the then Department of Immigration and, later, Social Security. He assisted refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and the Lebanon. Two of his achievements, about which he could be justly proud, were, firstly, his development, staffing and management of the the first Neighbourhood Information Centre and Neighbourhood Action Centre, known as NIC NAC in East Sydney. The second was the development, and successful testing of an intensive English language program for newly arrived migrants attending school. While this seems self-evident today, the concept of learning English for a period to the exclusion of all other subjects was radical in the early 1970s. However, it was adopted by the then NSW government for all newly arriving migrant children entering the NSW school system. I know that his early refugee experience was absolutely invaluable in informing his work and achievements.

From 1977 to 1982 Peter was promoted to Senior Social Worker in the Department of Social Security, managing and providing social work service in Maroubra, Hornsby, Camperdown, Leichardt and Clarence Street.

For the next 15 years Peter continued in the department finally becoming the Assistant Director of Social Work (second only the to national Director in Canberra) for all social workers. This meant having joint responsibility for over 500 social workers in over 400 locations around the country, with specific responsibility for those in NSW, South Australia and Western Australia.

In 1995 we moved to Canberra and in 1997 Peter was head-hunted within the department (now called Centrelink) to be the Manager of the Knowledge Team which worked on tax reform and payment cycle management information projects, developed records management strategies and policies, as well as developed and distributed software products, amongst other things.

Photo: Peter in 2000

In 2000 he moved to the Information and Technology Change and Integration team and until his retirement due to ill health in May 2006, was variously trouble shooting in a range of areas. These included dealing with audit findings, undertaking negotiations for the IBM computer contract for Centrelink and many other areas which required a quick and strategic assessment and solution.

Peter said he was so lucky, as social work had been his hobby and he was paid for it. Then computers came along and they became his hobby, once more being paid to work on things that were, for him a continuation of his hobbies. This was why he could happily work 14 or more hours a day at work and home and never feel it was a problem or a trial. In this I think he was a rare person, to have found things on which he loved to work.

He met and worked with some wonderful people during his life as a public servant. I understand he was a mentor to a huge number of people and never stinted on sharing knowledge with others. He always seemed so clear and far-sighted about what should be done and how one might achieve the goals at hand. He always gave frank and fearless advice, as he had no fear about the possible consequences, and did not need the approval of others to motivate him. This did not always endear him to others, to say the least..... but, while he believed that his job was to undertake all the tasks he could to ethically and appropriately assist whoever was his manager, his ultimate loyalty was to be ethical, legal and appropriate to the profession, the department and ultimately the Australian public rather than an individual.

Some of his friendships during his working life have remained precious to him. He was without prejudice and gathered many people from diverse backgrounds into his orbit as he thoroughly enjoyed long and philosophical discussions about the backgrounds, views and experiences of people whom he encountered.

While he ultimately was unable to participate very much following his retirement, he maintained a keen interest in what people were doing and what the outcomes were of some of the big projects on which he was involved even in the last few weeks of his life.

Eulogy - Part 3

2009-10-24T09:04:00.003+11:00

Interests
Peter was a man with a great many talents and they did not revolve around sport, cars or handyman pursuits. “I am not handy”, he would say when we were faced with a domestic repair conundrum. This meant getting in someone who was, or I would have a go, sometimes with mixed results which then required getting a tradesman. Nonetheless, Peter did have immense talents.

Peter developed an early love of music but did not take to classical music or opera as his parents may have hoped. He loved jazz, especially the music of Stan Getz, Django Rheinhard, Sidney Bechet, Fats Waller and others from the “Hot Club du Paris” era of the 1920's to 1950's. He also enjoyed folk music and while he learnt the piano and could play “by ear” as a child, he turned to the acoustic guitar as a young adult and I understand he quite liked playing to small groups of people. I also understand this gave him an opportunity and talent for meeting women, something on which he was keen from the age of 13 so he told me!
Photo: Peter, Athens 1983

He had a really lovely speaking and singing voice, which I always thought of as mellifluous and, if you closed your eyes, like being covered in melted caramel! When I first met Peter I told him he had a great voice and should have been on the radio – imagine my surprise when he mentioned that he had been a radio actor as a child!

He was a great raconteur and had an absolutely encyclopaedic repertoire of jokes or stories. He would invite you to give him a letter of the alphabet or a word and he would always have a joke about it, much like a juke box selector. He could also whistle complex classical, folk and jazz melodies unlike anyone I have ever known! They were so beautiful.

Peter loved the cinema and movies, undertaking the role of film critic when he attended Sydney university and spent time with Bill Collins in his movie appreciation weekends. In the last few weeks of his life he continued to enjoy DVDs with me, the most recent being some French films which Peter found very moving.
Photo: Peter at Frying Pan Creek 1989.
He spent a lot of time freshwater fishing in his early adult life and later while we were on holidays. He disdained bait fishing but liked using lures and I have strong memories of him up to his knees in a fast flowing stream on a baking, hot summer day in France. He loved the thrill of catching a pike perch in a lake in France or Italy, but talked with great affection about his adventures with trout in the rivers around Cooma.

Interestingly he didn't like eating fish.
Photo: Fishing at Villa Garuti in Italy, 2002
He also became a sporting shooter and spent some time in Queensland learning survival techniques many years before it became an adventure holiday concept. When I asked him about both of these things early in our relationship, because they seemed quite incongruous with the urban intellectual I knew, he said he wanted to be able to survive and protect himself and his family if ever there was a threat or need to do so. He said that no one was ever going to point a gun at him and round him up without a fight. He said “Never again. The holocaust is not going to happen to me.”

His other loves were Social Work, knowledge management, IT, writing and web development. He spent the majority of his waking hours at work, or on the computer at home researching new trends and changes in any of his interest areas. Recently he commented, that he used to think that anyone who couldn't use a computer or utilise software to it's fullest extent was either stupid or lazy, including me. But he admitted only a few months ago that he realised this was absolutely not the case, as he had been away from avidly using the computer or updating his knowledge for several months, and I had to remind him how to some things, which, to him seemed ultimately depressing . This was a a huge revelation to him, because he had been at the forefront of personal computing since the early 1980's including beta testing a number of products.

He contributed to many web discussion groups, as well as having 5 or 6 web logs of his own. One crucial one he developed was on Oesophageal Cancer, because there was nothing available in Australia to help people who were victims of this tragic disease or their carers to understand what the process, options, medical interventions and implications were for someone with this diagnosis. He maintained this for the whole 5 and ½ year period of his illness. I know that a wide range of people found this incredibly useful and thanks were often passed on by thosee who had googled the cancer and found a link to Peter's blog site.
Photo: This was all we needed for 3 - 6 months overseas, Cagnes Sur Mer, France 2000.
Peter was also totally passionate about researching genealogy. He found it so frustrating in the early years, before the internet became so useful for researching family history. He was desperate to find out more about his family and ancestors and realised that he had little knowledge when his parents both died so early in his life. The strides he was able to make when information became available on line, and he could hook up with others all over the world who were also searching, was hugely satisfying to him.
Photo: Peter with our Citroen Xsara, Auxerre, France 2002 (larger car but still camping with the same tent and gear)

Travelling also became important to Peter. From the late 1970's he started to travel overseas and maintained a schedule of having a long holiday every 2 years or so. By storing his annual leave and taking leave without pay he was able to maintain this schedule up to 2005, with many visits to Europe, a few to Asia and 2 to the USA to meet cousins. He was a bit of a”free-wheeler” without a plan, when it came to travel and enjoyed the people and food, with the sights sometimes taking second place. He always said: ”The nose knows” when he would find some wonderful patisserie, cafe or restaurant and he was rarely wrong. He also used the time to follow up on genealogical leads and track down people who remembered his parents or other family members. We returned each time to Szent Istvan Park on the Danube, in the XIII district of Budapest, and would sit in the park outside the apartment building in which he and his parents lived. He had a love/hate relationship with Budapest and would always want to return but when he did so the realities of modern Budapest often annoyed him. We agreed this was probably the load all migrants and refugees carry about their home country.

Photo: Peter's family apartment up to the time they fled Hungary in Budapest, Szent Istvan Park, XIII district.

Peter was also a very good cook, and loved to entertain. He loved eating out and experimenting with recipes or analysing the key ingredients in a dish at a restaurant. He enjoyed finding interesting cook books and by travelling to Europe he was in a state of bliss at all the wonderful bread, cheese, and different styles of cuisine. Whenever we would cross a border into a new country, province or region, his interests lay in the regional produce or specialities, rather than in the historic sites. While I was enthralled by another Romanesque church or trawling through antique or bric a brac stalls at markets, he would be smelling out a rare salami, a ripe Camembert, the best bread, or attempting to find the best espresso in the country by sampling at least 2 a day in a different cafe or bar. He always said that the difference between French or Italian and Hungarian espresso coffee was in France , you stirred the sugar in with the spoon, in Italy the spoon stood up and in Hungary, the spoon dissolved!!
Photo: Peter and Leanne, Montresor, Loire Valley, France 2002

His cooking style was mainly eastern European and Mediterranean but he was also a great lover of Asian food and he used to love stirfrys, Laksa's and curries. He was very good at Green Chicken Curry and veal with mushrooms. His view on salad was that it was, by and large, “Rabbit food” and green vegetables were only suitable as a garnish.

He was also a great reader, enjoying a wide range of books, articles, current affairs, think tank discussions and web related material. He was a speed reader and could finish a large and compelling novel in a day if he was so motivated, which meant that our home has been full of books from our first days together, as this is a joy we both shared, even though our tastes differed.

Like many migrants he was intensely proud of Australia but also of Hungarians. He always said that behind many of the worlds' great inventions there was a Hungarian and used to reel off a list of essential inventions, such as the Biro pen, whose inventors were Hungarian! Much to my amazement, I have to say when I started looking, he seemed to be correct!!!

Photo: Upgraded to a campervan in 2005, Germany.

He was also a very prolific writer. He wrote hundreds of articles and opinions for the NSW Social Work newsletter as well as editing and publishing for many years. He also contributed many articles to web discussions, wrote his own blogs and travel articles for the San Diego Jewish News. He was always so confident that writing articles and contributing to the global discussion on knowledge or change management was an important thing. He was so confident and unrepentant for his views or provocative style. He thought that it was always important to have the courage of your convictions and be prepared to engage in robust discussions.
Photo: Peter and I at our favourite restaurant in the Perigord region of France, 2005.

Peter also loved playing Bridge, and much to his disappointment, I was not good at card games. However, after a boycott on Scrabble for many years, in the last 6 months I relented and learnt many of his strategies for success. I can proudly say we recently enjoyed many good games together, even in the last 3 days of his life, when I had begun to give him a run for his money.

Community Work
He was absolutely selfless when it came to giving his time to others in any of his work or interest areas. He worked long hours often only stopping for 4 or 5 hours sleep. He took on many tasks for other people and always worked hard to get on top of something with which he was not entirely acquainted. Within a short period he often became the expert in that issue or subject, to the extent that he was often ahead of his time with many of the discussion papers he wrote or policies he advocated.

During his professional working life he was also a TAFE lecturer in social welfare and also the President of the NSW Branch of the Australian Association of Social Workers for many years. During his AASW years, he streamlined and implemented much needed modernisation and reforms, as well as contributing hundreds of articles on practice issues and writing as well as editing the professional newsletter. The mention of this in such a few lines in no way gives any indication of the years of hard work he dedicated to the AASW and the profession as a whole.

Apart from his membership and management of the Australian Association of Social Workers in NSW later in life, Peter thoroughly enjoyed being Youth Director of the B'Nai B'rith Youth Organisation between 1969 and 1975, where, I understand he successfully established and managed five youth groups comprising around 300 young people. These days he recalled with such happiness and satisfaction. He kept a large number of photographs from these days and often regaled me with anecdotes about some of the activities, or sing the songs they wrote for camps, wondering where those young people had got to over the years.

Personal Traits
Peter was not perfect and could sometimes be angry and impatient, although these episodes passed very quickly, and a little like the tide on the beach, were quickly washed away. He also “didn't suffer fools gladly”, which made us two of a kind!

He was a very self-contained person which came of being an only child and also spending many years as an independent adult without ties.

He was a highly articulate and intelligent man, who was voracious when it came to acquiring knowledge and sharing that with others, especially in his areas of interest.

He was forthright, frank and fearless and the most ethical person I have met. He was, as I mentioned, hardworking almost to the point of being a workaholic and enjoyed huge challenges.

I know that many people didn't like Peter but that never bothered him as he saw it as secondary to being a good public servant or manager. To that end, he was entirely honest and scrupulous and this engendered, in its turn, respect from others, even when the message may have not been entirely palatable or the recipients didn't like the messenger.

Peter was not a person who allowed people to get to know him too easily. He had many acquaintances and networked well with them but never really allowed too many to get to know his inner self. I know that this was because of a difficulty in entirely trusting people borne from some experiences in his early adult life, including the circumstances around the demise of his first marriage in the late 1970's.

He was, in essence, an “acquired taste” in many respects and many people did not really take the time or effort to “get to know” him at all. You had to work hard to get to see the real man behind the wall of his social, or work, self but if you persisted and demonstrated the enthusiasm, intelligence, integrity, hard work, loyalty and trustworthiness he, himself, gave then you could be rewarded by such unconditional positive regard that it was the most precious gift.

Peter had a very strategic and forward thinking mind which was always alert and ready for interesting ideas and challenges. He would often wake up quite suddenly and start immediately talking about an idea or a concept about which he had been dreaming or resolved overnight, when I have to admit I was just thinking about getting to the shower or having breakfast.

He was also a person who wanted, and did, control every aspect of his life. He was of the view that it was you who controlled the outcomes by the actions you took and that the concept of fate and drifting along in life was not one that brought very positive results. On this we were in total accord and we allowed each other the “space” to do so.

Eulogy - Part 4

2009-10-24T08:59:00.003+11:00

Relationships
Peter said his father once told him not to worry too much about girls, as, like buses, if you miss out on one there will always be another along in a short time!!

I know Peter enjoyed many short and longer term relationships from his teenage years onwards and I say “good luck to you Peter”. It is, therefore, important to mention that Peter married Gabriella C in 1976 and they were divorced in 1980. After which he remained in Bondi, travelled overseas and met Gitte S, living with her in Salzburg. We caught up with Gitte in 2005 and I could see why she and Peter had hit it off.

He did not “settle down” again until some years later when we met.

Our 16 years together
Peter and I met in 1987 at a job interview, when he was the head social worker for DSS in NSW and also the President of the AASW. So it was a bit daunting to meet him, but for other reasons, I gave probably the worst interview of my career. Hence I didn't get the job. But when Peter contacted me to give me feedback he said: “Well you know you didn't get the job don't you because you “effed” up the interview?” Of course he was right, but after that he gave very constructive and honest feedback.

Photo: Peter and Gabriella

The next time we spoke, was in 1993, when he rang me to ask me whether I would consider taking on the role of Treasurer for the Australian Association of Social Workers in NSW, of which he was still the President and I was a member. After meeting and speaking with him a couple of times about the request, I declined on the grounds that I didn't need more work, but more personal balance in my life. Whereupon, to my surprise, he asked me out the following weekend! I have to say I did hesitate......But we took a chance and went out for lunch, to the movies and spent the afternoon at Darling Harbour in and around the Japanese Garden.

Photo: Peter August 1993

So our relationship dates from then – 31 July 1993. The first year or so were filled with challenges as we came to understand the differences in our family, cultural and religious experiences and yet we had such similar views on so many important areas of life and work. We both learnt more about each other over the years and I know we both came to appreciate the areas of difference, the expertise of the other and were grateful that we had each other. In this case opposites attracted and then continued to add “colour and movement” as we gently grew together after the initial turmoil, and understood each other more. I know we both were very intrigued and amazed by those personal and historical differences but we both valued them in the other all the more for being different to our own experience.

It was when we went to Europe travelling together for the first time in 1996, that it all suddenly clicked into place for me that Peter seemed to fit so easily into Austrian and Hungarian life. That, in fact, he was so Australian and yet so European at the same time and ultimately neither one nor the other, but both, which I have subsequently seen with other friends who are first generation refugees or migrants. From then on I certainly understood him much more and we became closer as a result.

Our time together was spent largely in working and when we had a break, in long holidays, camping around Europe in a tiny 2 person tent. We shared similar values about travelling, namely that to spend a long time away, accommodation didn't need to be luxurious. So, we spent many months in our 2 person dome tent, with a small folding table and 2 chairs, a gas burner and a car. When that wasn't possible we sometimes found ourselves in very basic youth hostels and ,only occasionally, in 1 or 2 star motels when the weather was very bleak or there was no camping ground nearby.

During those sojourns, we met some of the best people with whom we have remained in contact and become good friends. This was usually because Peter would do a “reccy” around the campsite while I was finalising the set-up and he would report back to me about who was whom. His maxim about people was: “I find them, you keep them!”

I was also the chief navigator and decided on where we would go after extensive reading, while Peter was the designated driver, linguist and food finder. His excellent knowledge of German, Hungarian, very passable French and Italian meant that we both enjoyed a much more rich and personal experience of those countries together than would have otherwise been possible. We spent some very positive times with distant relatives in Budapest, which would have been closed to me without Peter. He would arm me with a few phrases and send me off to see if there was a campsite, room or food available – often with less than optimal results – but he was right to push me. He often had to rescue the situation, especially in Hungary or where more complex bureaucratic situations arose. These trips became the times where we really “lived” and spent such great times together.

Peter's diagnosis of Oesophageal Cancer in February 2004 shook us both to our core. His subsequent surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy and various conditions was hugely stressful and distressing to both of us but, especially Peter, as you can imagine. I was more used to the medical system and realised early on that he would need me to help navigate through the murky waters.

We did manage to have another long European trip in 2005, with him returning to work on a part time basis up to May 2006. However, further recurrences and other medical problems started to dog him again from 2006 onwards.

Peter spent every spare minute, he was feeling able to do so, in finalising his personal issues from the moment he received his diagnosis. He reached out even more to distant relatives overseas to finish what he could of his genealogical records. This became hugely rewarding as the internet connected him with more and more people. Some of these were the children of people who had actually known his parents in Budapest. Their parents were able to give Peter information about his parents which was new and filled out what little he knew about their lives.

Photo: Peter's 60th birthday, January 2009. He didn't think he would make it to 60, so this was very special.

But, over time, Peter's quality of life gradually contracted to needing more and more personal assistance. I left work in May 2008 to be, well and truly, his “help-meet” and to effectively, and literally, be his right hand, given his right arm had become paralysed. However, it is important you should know that he remained physically as independent as possible right up to the time he was hospitalised in late July and his mind and determination to live never dimmed.

He always had a great fear of being incapacitated and he hated that his body was gradually failing him in a “death by a thousand cuts” scenario. He always said that the great irony of his situation was that all the things which he valued and which defined him as a person were the very things which were taken away from him in these last couple of years. Such things as his voice and his skills as a great communicator, his love of writing, his passion for good food and his independence were all stripped away.

He came to rely on me more as days passed and I was happy to help and nurse him through.

An unexpectedly joyful time was our wedding on Sunday 5 July this year at our home in Canberra, which was scheduled between chemotherapy. It was something which we had never really felt necessary, but which earlier this year, I considered would be a fitting thing to do to formally join our families together so that records would note that we were important to each other. Otherwise, who would know? It caused some moments of angst for both of us, raising issues long dormant, but in the end it was a beautiful and very significant day with a few people to help us celebrate.

The last few weeks we spent together, Peter was in the hospice and they were hard work for him as he was battling to stay with me. But there were moments of sheer joy and delight on occasion too, when just for a small time, we could hold hands, enjoy a shared joke or Peter's ascerbic humour would rise to the fore; watch movies and share moments with good friends or each other.

I know that this illness was so very cruel and Peter felt robbed of 15 or 20 years more of life. However, I can also say that it made us stop and realise that devoting yourself to work and not taking time to be with people you care about or things that matter to you, is foolish. He said lately: “I wish I had spent more time with you and less on work. What a fool I have been, what lost opportunities I missed.” However, I did not lambast him about that regret, but said: “We were doing what was important to us at the time Peter, when we took our health and our lives for granted.”

We certainly ended up spending more time with each other, were brought closer together than ever before and the love and care we had for each other was strengthened many times over in these last few months. I think he was, also, sometimes surprised at the caring of his friends and some of the people he met on this long road. He said he was glad we were together as we had gathered some lovely friends and sometimes it was the people you least expected.

Photo: Peter and one of our many friends, Stephen, visiting at our home, 2009. Peter's T Shirt caption reads: "I'm not insensitive I just don't give a crap" (no reference to Stephen).

Our relationship was a case of opposites attracting but some of our passions rubbed off on each other. I learned a lot from Peter, from big, strategic issues down to the smaller and more personal things in life. He taught me how to cook properly with Paprika, the sheer joy of a well cooked meal and how to analyse the ingredients and method of preparation; how to cook a few Hungarian dishes; about computers and how to maximise their value, how to be a better public servant and manager, how to protect yourself at work and maximise your outcomes; the value of project management, the crucial need to write everything down to “cover your arse” as he put it; swear words in several different languages; that the accent and body language is as important as what you say in whatever language; that you should have the courage of your convictions; that it is important to have a view and to provoke discussion; that you can never stop learning; that there is value in science fiction; that 1930's jazz is enjoyable; old movies remain fascinating no matter how many times you see the same one; that being part of a family and having them close by is a gift especially to those who don't have one; that knowing who you are and where you came from is crucial; not to take anything for granted; to recognise when the rainy day has finally arrived. And much, much more.....

Photo: A great day! He made it to my birthday 1 week before passing away. This is what 2 months of pneumonia and chemotherapy had done to him, but he was so good on this day: 12 September 2009.

I would just like to close this by saying Peter was a special person, but for all that, he was also very human. I often told him he was the most annoying person in the known universe at times and much more besides, and he agreed! But equally, he reminded me, so could I be. However, we loved each other, grew together more over time, respected the worth of each other and were the better because we have been together.

I only wish we had met earlier and been together longer. I salute you Peter. You will never be forgotten by me while ever I have a breath to take. Go gently, my love, into that dark night I will always remember, love and cherish you.
Leanne

Photo:Farewell 19 September 2009

Memorial Gathering - Program

2009-10-23T09:46:00.017+11:00

This is a copy of the program for Peter's Memorial gathering. Unfortunately, not all the wonderful desktop publishing formatting has come out well on the blog - apologies for this. I have a good pdf version, including the lovely background colouring etc that I would be very happy to email you directly if you email me or leave a comment on the blog. I also have a few hard copies over for those who you know might like a hard copy.

I will be putting the eulogy up on this blog in the next few days and also attempting to add some of the powerpoint photos too. (Last names of living people have been deleted to protect their identities. I know that Peter was very vigilant about identity theft issues and so I am carrying this on too.)

25 January 1949 – 19 September 2009

Memorial Gathering

Thursday 15 October 2009

Tuggeranong Community Hall,

Tuggeranong, A.C.T

PROGRAM

Welcome – Roberta H

To friends, Centrelink and FaHCSIA colleagues, neighbours, blog followers and those we have met through other aspects of life and the medical process: thank you for being here today to honour the memory of Peter George Garas. He would have been pleased to know you were here.

Kaddish – Roberta H

“Death has taken our beloved Peter.
Friends grieve in their darkened world.
In their silence, is lamentation.
In their tears, there is loneliness.
Lost in sorrow, may they find the presence of loving friends.

For Peter's presence and love that united us in life and which death cannot sever;
For his companionship that we shared along life's path, and which continues through the tenderness of memory;
For the gifts of his heart and mind that brought us joy and happiness and is now a precious remembrance;
For all these and more we give thanks.
(Adaptation of Opening Prayer at Peter's Funeral)

The Lord is Thy Keeper/ A Song of Ascents

I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains, from whence cometh my help?
My help cometh from the Lord who maketh heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold he that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore.
(Psalm 121)

Memories of Peter and Social Work–

Desley H

National Manager, Social Work ,

Centrelink

Memories of Peter –

Moya D

General Manager, Education, Employment & Support Programs , Centrelink

Eulogy –

Leanne S

Funeral Blues/Stop the Clocks – Roberta H

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with the juicy bone

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let the aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead;

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

(By WH Auden, April 1936.)

Photo tribute and music

Echo – Roberta H

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope and love of finished years.

O dream, how sweet, too sweet, too bitter-sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brim-full of love abide and meet;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

(By Christina Rossetti)

Closing – Roberta H

Mourner's Kaddish for Everyday

Build me up of memory

loving and angry, tender and honest.

Let my loss build me a heart of wisdom,

compassion for the world's many losses.

Each hour is mortal

and each hour is eternal

and each hour is our testament.

May I create worthy memories

all the days of my life.

(by Debra Cash)

Afternoon Tea

Photo Gallery and Thoughts

From “Pete's Place” (www.garpet.blogspot.com)

I am sincerely grateful for the circumstances that landed my family in Australia and not the USA.


Alas, I am not well and my illness will probably put paid to any hopes for a medal for longevity, but overall I am satisfied with my life.....(November 10, 2008)

From Oesophageal Cancer Blog (www.garpet1.blogspot.com)

It's rather difficult to wake up every morning knowing that your life hangs on a knife's edge. (23 February 2009)

The saddest, funniest, most complex and yet simple things that people think, say or do are the foundations of life and its intricacies as we know them.


Being retired does have some real meaning and value. (Blog, June 27, 2009)

I know that in my life there have been many instances in which my behaviour has been inappropriate and as a result has hurt people. For this, all I can do is to say sorry - and I do. I really wish that the situations could have been otherwise. Of course, I say this now with a head that I hope is filled with changed outlooks on life, changed measures of how I look at and value others and of course how my learnt behaviours, attitudes, prejudices, abilities all mix together in this melange that calls itself me.

Each day this changes, for better or worse, as internal and external stuff impacts on what's left. I sincerely hope that it is changing for the better and that I am becoming a better person in the way that I think and go about finding those few things I can change. (Monday June 22, 2009)
My lack of ability to communicate is perhaps even more serious than the cancer. It can kill me, (but) the lack of ability to communicate easily just makes the continuation of existence miserable and THAT I think is probably worse than just dying. Amazing what I value hey? (December 13, 2008)

Being even remembered - much less appreciated - is wonderful and simply brings tears to the eyes.




There are many, and I mean many, people around the world, whose connection with me, and indeed sometimes with each other, has only taken place because they and I were interested in pursuing the exhilarating hunt for ancestors and family. I really wish I could meet and spend time with them. I certainly hope that they will use the genealogical material I have compiled in addition to the material that some of them have gathered and published on their own. (June 29, 2009)

As my life is ending, your lives are continuing and ,hopefully, can be enriched by learning about what little I did right . While perhaps, more usefully ,learning what I did not do right.
In spite of all the learning I acquired and used, I was most ignorant and stupid about my medical condition. I am now paying a price I cannot even imagine describing to you.

(From: “An unsent email to relatives in the USA “ Peter Garas, June 2009)

Preparation and Memorial for Peter

2009-10-17T17:33:00.004+11:00

From the time I returned from my mother's home, following the funeral and memorial services in Sydney, I commenced a slow and disjointed process of trying to acquaint myself with Peter's computer holdings and the precious photos or personal notes they contained. Computer files, naming conventions and document systems are such idiosyncratic things, as individual as the people who create them. Which means that our rationale for saving something in one place compared to another is not always clear.

The first day I spent just looking through some of his photo folders and files. In some places, I stumbled upon gems of Peter's earlier life which I had never seen before. Did he try to show them to me before? At the time he scanned and saved them, did I ignore his cries of: "Come here I've got something to show you?" I am not sure, but it is possible.

Those days spent trawling through the photos, asking Dave LR for advice (thanks Dave!) and choosing them for a powerpoint presentation or program booklet for the Canberra memorial gathering, made me feel that I was still so close to him. I felt that I was with him, that I hadn't lost him and we were together. I looked into his face, the face of many ages and stages, and loved him all over again and I, occasionally, got sidetracked.

Years of organising policy conferences and meetings for government ministers and officials, paid off for me in this period. That, as well as two weeks of preparation, the good fortune to have a community venue (whose staff were so helpful, supportive and capable of providing all the technology and catering) plus a few excellent friends to help, made the memorial organisation smooth.

I had added a notice to the blog site, placed a memorial notice in The Canberra Times, sent out written invitations, text messages, emails and phone calls. A week before hand, many people declined because they were interstate for work and couldn't get out of the meetings. I thought it looked like we would be lucky to have any people, which I would have felt was the ultimate humiliation for Peter.

Later, in the week beforehand, I started to get a few more RSVPs. On the day, I expected 42 people, which was a relief.

The Lakeview Ballroom at the Community Centre was a great venue, looking out onto the Tuggeranong Lake, from great, huge glass windows. But Thursday 15th October, 2009, was a cold, blustery and rainy day. We were lucky to reach about 13 or 14 degrees Celsius and I arrived a few hours early for the set-up. We had 50 chairs out.

At 2.30pm there seemed to be more people arriving and imagine my absolute surprise, relief and gratification when I was told, later, that 100 chairs were out and full with a few others standing!!

Two of Peter's previous colleagues, provided truthful and "no-holds-barred" insights into their memories of Peter during the past 20 years at work, which I found funny, warm and added to my knowledge of a part of his life in which I couldn't share. Thank you so much Desley and Moya.

I had written a Eulogy for the funeral and spent some days, revising, adding more personal extracts from Peter's notes on his early life and adjusting it to be more relevant to the audience who had known him in this environment. So it was substantially longer and, I hoped, more personal and interesting. In the end, I had an emotional moment or two at the beginning and the very end, but I considered it important that I deliver the Eulogy for Peter, rather than someone else. I could hear him saying: "If you think you're so good at public speaking, get up there and show me!" So I did and I know that it took longer than I had planned, but how do you do justice to someone who had such a "huge" personality, experienced such interesting things and has had such an amazing life?

Afterwards, during the afternoon tea (held to the sounds of Sidney Bechet and Fats Waller's jazz) I was so very moved and gratified to meet people whom I never knew, but to whom Peter had been important in one way or another. I was also pleased some had come the 300 kms from Sydney to be there, previous colleagues and bosses had come out of retirement or taken the time off work, neighbours, blog followers, palliative care volunteers, Dr P, representatives from the Health Care Consumers Association, friends, as well as my friends and work colleagues.

I have to particularly thank Roberta, a lifelong friend, who was marvellous in being the "MC", welcoming, introducing everyone, reading the prayers and poems and holding it all together. Her husband Stephen, was tireless in undertaking the organisation of people and chairs as well as undertaking the powerpoint/troubleshooting. Others such as Kathleen and Dave and people I can't remember, were the helpers in the kitchen afterwards. Thank you everyone and apologies if I have missed you.

All too soon it was over and by 5.15pm we had to make room for the Tai Chi class!!

I wished we could have had a party and stayed for hours more. I would have liked to have had more time to speak to everyone, but I was grateful to those who attended and who took the time out of their day to celebrate a person, who, to me was so very important, unique and irreplaceable.

Thank you to everyone who could attend to pay tribute to Peter. Thank you, also, to all who thought of us on the day from afar - this blog entry is for all of you.

I will be uploading the program and the eulogy to the blog in the next few days and working on the powerpoint pictures so there is a link to them too. I think you will find them very poignant.
Please feel free to email me or leave a comment on the blog with your contact details if you would like a hard copy of any of these. Also, I would like you to feel free to stay in touch with me if you wish to do so.

With grateful thanks to you all
Leanne

Vale Garpet

2009-09-19T12:59:00.002+10:00

Please see the link to Peter's Oesophageal Cancer blog for an update.

Photos from Before During and After the wedding - just photos.

2009-07-18T18:47:00.007+10:00

Courtesy of the intrepid paparazzi otherwise known as Kathleen - here are her photos for our clamouring public.

By the way, the chappie with the puzzled look holding up a wedding certificate is of course none other than the person who actually writes this drivel - me.

For those who saw that view of my reaction to the wedding my apologies. I really was and am more enthusiastic about it all.

Note: the last four photos above seem to have been in the camera for some time and so were apparently taken well before the wedding - really well before - simply because the features of both the people featured are in such good condition compared with the faces on the participants at the actual wedding. Equally the garden furniture on view is not something that was available at the site of the wedding. Just a thought, but for the sake of accuracy I think it is necessary to mention this.

Nice photos and deserving of publication, but not really part of the wedding series in my view.

Have you heard about the Kindle?

2009-07-18T16:06:00.003+10:00

A reader from Amazon.Com at various price ranges is the latest in machinery enabling the reading of books and what used to be paper publications in an electronic or should that be digital format wherever you are.

Most publications available in this format seem to be neatly priced in the competitive $9.99 basket. Of course you may have to consider the fact that first you have to purchase the reader and the batteries that sustain it. Then it's $x for each publication you may wish to purchase and place in the reader. It's nice enough to watch the video on line about this product at the following site http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Original-Wireless-generation/dp/B000FI73MA

The discussions behind the scenes about copyright, cost attribution, changes in this market over time, the various and no doubt multiple standards for the type of lighting, viewing size, books capable of being held, how purchases are "saved" and stored somewhere to ensure that your purchase remains yours etc etc are all grist to the mill of a debate that I have not even seen much less participated in. However, what a fabulous debate. What vexed questions arise. How are they going to be resolved in a variety of settings across the world where regulations and the costs of living are so different. Where there are no doubt different standards that apply and whether questions about storage and retention are not as yet available for easy perusal in the hunt I have been able to launch from my PC up to this point.

Let's hear it now - the discussion from consumers for whom the iPod was the music revolution's beginning. Let's hear it from authors and how their work is to be valued and priced. Let's hear it from authorities who see yet another bureaucracy or ???

The Australian National Maritime Museum, and the Migration Experience

2009-07-15T07:56:00.008+10:00

The Welcome Wall - now going for ten years since 1999. Some 20,000 people are featured at present with a data base behind the names that are featured. These names celebrate those who came by and lived through and with the sea.

In this case the names of Peter G - aka Garpet in this instance and his parents Leo G and Katalin G are featured among the 900 people who have been included among the 100 metres of migrant names.

I will be making sure that the museum is sent the stories of my parents and myself for inclusion in their data base. Thus, at some future time, researchers of both my immediate family and the extensive family of my wife Leanne S and her ancestors who migrated far earlier than mine did.

They were instrumental in creating some of the infrastructure that exists today. For example - Henry S was one of those who participated in the Warragamba dam creation. This supplies much of Sydney' water supply. As it happens, another of the family I have joined by marriage also works for Sydney Water. Thus a 'tradition' may have been created.

In my own place my marriage to my new spouse has mixed into a 'tradition' that involves the the provision of social work services in a variety of settings.

For my part - I have been involved in the provision of services to migrants from 1972 onward when the concept of integration replaced the policy of assimilation. A new policy was created by the then new Minister of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Al Grassby.

A lot has changed since 1957 when my family arrived in this country. So much that in fact it is hard to pick where to start. Perhaps as a maritime experience, when we arrived the AMP building was the tallest building on the Sydney foreshore.

If you look at Sydney today a lot is different. There is an Opera House where my father could now have found work instead of being told there were no opportunities to teach opera singers. My mother might well have been able to continue with her career as an opera singer or chosen to continue her education at the University level instead of having to work in a clothing factory eventually rising to the august position as a foreperson checking the quality of the work of others while at home she and the other members of the family did piece work putting together cheap jewellery just to make ends meet.

Having now travelled extensively around the world - I know for a certainty that the opportunities provided for my generation were far greater and enabled me to finish high school, go to University on a scholarship and obtain not one, but eventually three degrees with which I have been able to carve out not one, but at least two careers that gave me the satisfaction of enjoying that work and to pay back just some of the opportunities given to me. All this would have been of some joy to my parents both of whom died alas before they could bear witness to the fact that their seemingly cracked idea of travelling to the ends of the earth where they knew not the language and where their knowledge and understanding of the country and culture was virtually zero.

They took the risk instead of waiting to be permitted entry to the USA as other members of the family had done. They did not wait even further in a refugee camp in Salzburg they took a punt and it paid off. Having visited the USA and my relatives there I have to say I admire their pluck and can only say that it was rewarded - perhaps not for them, but certainly for me.

For my relatives in the USA, I can only say this - if your stories of arrival, learning, integration and opportunity differ and not necessarily for the better, then this highlights how lucky my parents' decision was for us. Perhaps we can discuss off line and compare the experiences.

For those of my family who chose to remain behind in Hungary for whatever reason - looking at your decisions and how they have effected the generations since the 1956 revolution would also be an interesting task - especially as the economic and political situations have changed in that country over time.

Special Announcement WE ARE MARRIED!

2009-07-14T10:19:00.011+10:00

Left to right;
Pen and Ben the photographers; the happy, but tired couple with Wedding Certificate; The S family with the new inclusion PGG.

Due to identity theft from the net I have had to shorten to first names only and no surnames.

The last shot has Doug H; Peter G; (aka Garpet to some) mother in law Nancy S; Jessee S-H; Leanne S; Narelle S; Greg S; Wendy S.

So far I have been provided with some 40 photos from this photographer alone. There has to be a limit on what I can place on line. Sorry about that. If individuals wish to see their photos I can send them to you, (and I will) but please let me be selective on what I place on line.

WEDDING CEREMONY

between

Peter G G and Leanne S

Sunday 5 July 2009

(names and locations have been adjusted or deleted to stop prying little eyes on the net - sorry about that!)

OPENING WELCOME

Dear Family and Friends

Welcome.

We are present today to share and be witness to the marriage between Leanne and Peter.

It is a public, legal and emotional action that they are taking today and we are present to bear witness to their long term commitment to each other. Their commitment has been nearly 16 years in duration and they wish to acknowledge the importance of each to the other during that time as well as for the time they have left together.

Your presence here today is much appreciated because as family and friends of Leanne and Peter, you have shown love, friendship and support through the challenges they have experienced, individually and as a couple, in the past and now.

Leanne and Peter would also like to mention those very important people who cannot be with us today due to distance or illness. They would especially like to mention Peter's family who are scattered throughout Europe , the USA and Canada.

There are also those who are no longer with us but have been key people in Peter and Leanne's lives, namely, Leanne's father, Henry C J S and Peter's parents Leo and Katalin G. Words cannot express the loss that their passing has brought to Leanne and Peter but they both carry so many treasured memories, lessons and personal characteristics from them that they are never forgotten or without constant importance in their daily lives.

WORDS EXPLAINING THEIR DESIRE FOR MARRIAGE

Leanne and Peter believe that marriage is founded on qualities of sincerity and understanding and that these qualities lead to tolerance, confidence and trust. They have respect for each other's individuality as well as the acceptance of each other's strengths and weaknesses.

They met and commenced their relationship in 1993 as mature individuals, uncertain, but having identified great and admirable strengths and characteristics in each other which they thought were, and have proved to be, very important and worthwhile. Their different backgrounds, cultures, personalities and situations presented challenges in the first few years which were sometimes difficult but added interest and complexity to the relationship. Their strength of character, love and acceptance of each other's individuality, professional and personal dedication, love of education, culture and travel all melded together to make the dynamic, loving and enduring relationship that we see today.

After almost 16 years together, they have lived together through sickness and health as well as good and bad times.

Their mutual interest in genealogy has fuelled their curiosity about each others lives and the pasts of their family, relatives and ancestors. Travelling overseas to investigate and follow up on some of these people and the places in which they lived has added richness and greater understanding about each other.

Leanne and Peter wish to add their names to the marriage register, to celebrate their long commitment and love for each other and to cement their place together in their families' histories so that people will always know what they mean to each other.

COMPULSORY SECTION

I am duly authorised by law to solemnise marriages according to law.

Before you are joined in marriage, in our presence, I am to remind you of the solemn and binding nature of the relationship into which you are now about to enter.

Marriage according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

READING

“(Being in) Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being “in love” has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two. “

(Extract from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres)

VOWS

Celebrant to Groom
Peter will you take Leanne , who stands here with you today, to be your lawful wedded wife. Will you respect her, be honest with her and stand by her whatever may come, as long as you both shall live?

Peter
I will

Celebrant to Bride
Leanne, will you take Peter, who stands here with you today, to be your lawful wedded husband. Will you respect him, be honest with him and stand by him whatever may come, as long as you both shall live?

Leanne
I will.

Celebrant
Please face each other, join hands and repeat after me

Peter
I call upon the persons here present to witness that I, Peter G G, take you, Leanne S, to be my lawful wedded wife. I promise to care for you, respect your needs and accept you as you are.

Leanne
I call upon the persons here present to witness that I, Leanne S, take you, Peter G G, to be my lawful wedded husband. I promise to care for you, respect your needs and accept you as you are.

RING CEREMONY

The act of giving and receiving rings reminds us that love itself is an act of giving and receiving the most that life has to offer. These rings are the natural symbols for enduring love. They represent an outward sign of commitment signifying to all the bond of marriage the two of your share.
Please repeat after me:

Peter
Leanne, I offer this ring as a token of my love and all we share in our relationship. With this ring I thee wed in the warmth and witness of all present.

Leanne
Peter, I offer this ring as a token of my love and all we share in our relationship. With this ring I thee wed in the warmth and witness of all present.

CLOSING WORDS

May these two people, now married, keep this arrangement which they have made.

May they be a blessing and a comfort to each other, sharers of each other's joys, consolers of each other's sorrows, helpers to each other in all the uncertainties of life. May they encourage each other in whatever they set out to achieve. May they trust in each other and not be afraid. May they not only accept and give affection between themselves, but also have affection and consideration for others.

CONCLUSION

Ladies and Gentlemen


Leanne and Peter have declared before us all that they will live together in marriage. They have made promises to each other. They have symbolised these promises by joining hands, taking vows and exchanging rings. May peace and love be with you always.

Leanne & Peter's

Wedding Menu

5 July 2009

Drinks

Sparkling Wine

Red and White Wine

Juice

Lemonade, Coke, mineral and soda waters

Antipasto

Dolmades

Olives

Artichokes

Dips

Cheeses

Biscuits

Rice crackers (gluten free)

Finger food

Smoked salmon and caper/caviar bites

Chicken wings (soy and tandoori)

Fresh prawn spring rolls (gluten and lactose free)

Hot dishes

Veal Moroccan with Cous Cous (gluten and lactose free)

Mild Vegetable Curry with Rice (Vegetarian; gluten and lactose free)

Fish pie

Salad

Mixed green salad (Gluten free)

Pear, Parmesan and Rocket salad (Gluten free, contains lactose)

Dessert

Tiramisu Cake

Flourless Orange and Almond Cake (Gluten Free)

Mixed slices

News as at Sunday night 24 May 2009

2009-05-24T20:25:00.001+10:00

I am writing on behalf of Peter as he is not feeling too well. Unfortunately, the past 2 weeks have been a bit of a trial. Peter became very nauseated on Monday 11 May and for 4 days we couldn't crack it, that is, none of the usual drugs worked. At the same time he was bringing up a lot of clear, very viscous and bubbly saliva.

The palliative care service sent us out a doctor on Thursday 14 June and she was concerned that Peter was so unwell with the cyclic dry retching that she thought he should be admitted to the hospice but there were no beds. So on consulting with 2 other specialists with whom Peter has been involved, the pall care doctor organised for him to go to the National Capital Private Hospital in Woden with the gastroscopist as the admitting doctor. I took Peter in that afternoon and he stayed for a week. Luckily, his other palliative care doctor, with whom he enjoys a really wonderful and respectful relationship, was able to prescribe 2 drugs which sorted out the nausea and the saliva. One acts to dry up secretions and the other acts on the nausea.

While he was in hospital, the gastroscopy specialist took a look down Peter's oesophagus and the next evening he attempted to dilate it, which was only minimally successful. Unfortunately what he found was that Peter's oesophagus is "caked" in tumour just at the base of the neck and it had closed over so much, I think, that Peter couldn't swallow his own saliva. So the bad news was out! What this means is that no surgery is possible. Our hopes had been that the stricture causing the problem was scar tissue from radiotherapy which could be helped with the insertion of a stent to keep his osophagus open. But this is not possible with the tumour in place.

Surgery is also not possible. So tomorrow, Monday 25 May, Peter will commence another round of chemotherapy. This time he will be using a drug called Taxotere (which is not on the Pharmeceutical Benefits Scheme and so is not low cost) but it is the best hope for some shrinkage of the tumour to allow Peter some extra time with us. The benefit of tumour shrinkage is offset by the nausea, increased susceptibility to infections, body rash, pins and needles in the hands and feet and other side effects. I am hopeful that he can cope with the full 6 cycles of 3 weeks each (18 weeks altogether) as apparently some people can't and don't complete the full period. I know that neither of us is looking forward to the next few weeks but we want to stay together for as long as possible so will take any opportunity which offers some hope of further time together. We will also be trying to avoid people with any infection as we can't afford for even the slightest cold to appear. We have both had our flu shots back in March/April and Peter has also had a pneumonia vaccination which I hope will be helpful in warding off any infections.

Peter has not been using the computer or Skype now for several weeks. So I would suggest if you want to contact you do so by email (if you don't have my email address, write to Peter's and I will log on occasionally to collect them, I just don't want to put my email address into cyberspace) and I will provide his replies to you. Either that or phone calls are okay after 9.30am Australian Eastern Standard time.

I will write in the blog once per week to keep you informed, as best I can. But I know you will understand if, sometimes, it might be too hard to do so.

We send our love, best wishes and thanks to all Peter's friends and relatives. Until next time, as Peter would say "Salut". Leanne

Scan results are back

2009-04-16T07:59:00.003+10:00

Scan results are back from CT Scan a few weeks ago. Results are mixed. To the Radiologist the view is that the cancer has returned in two places - one being in the collar bone area where I have been operated before and where they could not get all the bits - this appears to the real danger spot and we are setting up an appointment with a neuro-surgeon to see what if anything can be done there. The other locus is elsewhere and the radiologist suggests that it is simply more of the same old same old while the oncologist disagrees and says that as they are under 1 cm in size they may just be normal tissue.

What does all this mean for my continuing survival?

Buggered if I know.

All I can tell is that I have been asked to get an MRI done and then to see my oncologist after this in six weeks time. So, figuring that he does not want to waste his time and does want to be paid, at WORST I have at least six weeks left - at best, a lot longer.

If anyone wants to know more -I can read you the report and you can prove how smart YOU are by telling me what it means.

Salut

Peter

Millionaires on Welfare?

2009-02-26T14:41:00.004+11:00

From the ABC

One of Australia's leading welfare groups says at least 400,000 millionaires are receiving the aged pension.

The Brotherhood of St Laurence is using economic research it commissioned to push for changes to the pension's eligibility criteria.

Spokeswoman Nicola Ballenden says the single biggest asset, the family home, should no longer be exempt from asset tests.

"Fourteen per cent of people who are receiving the aged pension are living in the wealthiest 25 per cent of households, where their net worth is around $1.6 million," she said.

"We think it is time to start discussing including the family home as an assessable asset for the pension."

I have not in the past made comments on the statements of welfare agencies about Pension related matters. This is probably because I worked at the agency distributing welfare payments for some time in the past. I'm afraid that this article, attributed to the Brotherhood of St Laurence no longer enables me to stay silent.

In blunt terms, what a load of crock.

There are too few Australians these days who are able to afford the family home and most of those who do have a family home have struggled for years to pay off the mortgage whilst raising a family on whatever form of income they could manage. The family home is the single largest asset that most people have. It's their nest egg, it's what they hope to be able to rely on in economic times that are changing seemingly for the worst on a daily basis when the worst case scenario presents itself.

What is that worst case scenario?

It's one where they no longer can manage on their income from superannuation for example as the capital they have stored away through all their years of work is reduced daily, as the price of food and clothing starts to skyrocket when the effects of floods, drought, bush fires all come to bear on the ability of farmers to produce enough food to sell so that they can meet their increasing bills. When the price of clothing rises as overseas firms - seemingly the only ones making clothes and shoes for people in this country raise their prices

If those who made the comment in the Brotherhood of St Laurence were to look at current superannuation losses incurred by aged people, then perhaps they might take a different attitude to people receiving the pension.

Most people who would now have a family home which is worth in excess of $1 million purchased their home some considerable time ago when the prices for real estate were much lower, but when interest rates on mortgages were much higher. Most of these people spent most of their working lives chipping away at their mortgage over a 20 + year period. All this, while they raised their families, provided for their children, tried to make sure that their own lives were secure with some form of income from savings or superannuation etc. All the time knowing, that in a worst case scenario, if all their planning for the future went down the drain, at least they had a home that they could call their own, and income from the aged pension - again if all else went bad. This is what the governments of all persuasions had promised for decades now.

Now, the Brotherhood of St Laurence wants to penalise people who have spent most of their working lives acquiring perhaps their sole remaining asset by giving them no access to a very small income called the aged pension. At a time when whatever other assets have been drawn upon, when other amounts of income from whatever source (eg superannuation) that these people have had is disappearing along with consumer confidence as the share markets disappear into a black hole. The people in the Brotherhood of St Lawrence seem to want to reduce people who have done their best to provide for their own futures in their old age as best they could, to penury.

Personally I think it's disgraceful that an organisation like the Brotherhood of St Lawrence which in the past has supported those people who are in need, no longer recognises that it is not possible to eat one's home or to buy ones clothing from tiles and roof trusses or to purchase medication and health protection based on the walls and ceilings of one's family home.

It is true, a lot of people were fortunate, the homes that they purchased have risen in value as time has passed and as urbanisation has continued. A little shack at Batemans Bay in say the 1950s is now probably worth in the vicinity of $1 million, a real house there, probably more. What was it worth when the family purchased or built it? That's really the question, not what it is worth today. Furthermore, by trying to force people who have a family home to sell it so that they can have money to buy necessities because they no longer have access to the age pension, is to ignore the reality that those same "rich" people, forced to sell their family homes to have some form of savings and income would be unable to buy into the housing market where they have the roots and ties that family homes usually create. They would have to buy property that is perhaps miles away from where their family lives have developed and where their connections are.

In short, the Brotherhood of St Laurence now wants to punish all those Australians who worked hard, paid their taxes and their bills all their lives, as well as keeping Australia out of recession by being good little consumers.

These are Australians who built and developed this country since the 1940s onward and would now like to manage their retirement years as best they can in the home that their hard work has managed to make available for them. These are the Australians who paid their taxes all their lives on the understanding that the Aged Pension would be available to them, even if if all else went wrong with their planning for the future, with their budgeting, and with their savings plans.

Shame on you Brotherhood of St Laurence

I'm back - well more or less

2009-02-18T10:03:00.001+11:00

Went to the doctor yesterday and a look at my blood results seems to indicate that the cancer is in abeyance for the time being. I'm not going to make whoopee but, I am grateful for the result.

Getting all kids in school an enormous challenge: Macklin"

2009-02-18T09:59:00.001+11:00

The headline of the article on the ABC reported by "Online parliamentary correspondent" Emma Rodgers (ABC) appears to suggest that Jenny Macklin agrees with Prof Dodson that indigenous children need to get to school. Of course there are issues that need resolution before these children can get to, much less gain benefit from the lessons at school. Alas, with reporters like Ms Rodgers, telling the story, reporters who do not seem to proof-read their work before it hits the airwaves, there may be an indication that schooling can only do so much, after that it is simply personal care that is required, to ensure that oopsies like the following do not appear on our web pages. - see below

"Some parents aren't doing the right thing buy their kids, aren't getting them to school or aren't getting them there on a regular basis."

It's only one word but . . . .

Boring as it may seem -- the news

2009-01-30T07:24:00.002+11:00

Two items seem to keep appearing in the news on a regular basis, one of these of course is Zimbabwe, the other are the pirates around Somalia with their hijacking of vessels and the demand for millions of dollars in ransom.

I wonder, when I look at these two situations in particular, what the hell the United Nations was created for? If memory serves, there was a great deal of displeasure with the former international body that was developed after the First World War ie. The League of Nations because they were simply unable to take any action internationally that could prevent the horrors that are represented today by the Zimbabwean and Somali situations.

In the case of Somalia, if ever the description of a failed state could be applied it should be here. Half the country is in the hands of rebels the other just less than half is in the hands of pirates while the remainder is in the hands of the so-called government. In a situation like this, if the legitimate government of Somalia called upon the United Nations for assistance I wonder what would happen? Would United Nations actually get support from the nations around the world who would come in with their military and other forces ready to blow the crap out of the rebels and the pirates at the same time as restoring some form of democracy Somalia as an end result?

Unlikely.

Of course it could be argued that it's a 'been there done that' situation, after all the Ethiopians were in there trying to assist for some time and didn't seem to get any support from anyone else.

Now there are forces from various nations in the form of naval vessels steaming around the Gulf but apparently not doing much good if the current news about the hijacking of a German tanker is true.

Zimbabwe, a country that was once the breadbasket of its locale is now greatest failed state of all within the region with an economy that has completely failed and a government that is in tatters. In this case of course it would be difficult to receive a request from the official government to the United Nations for assistance after all the current head of government seems to be the problem together with his military and other commanders. This is another failed state in Africa with a different facade and it's another place where millions of people are starving and from which they are fleeing in their thousands and being foisted on the world as refugees.

As countries around the world settle them into their own societies and train them in their languages and hopefully integrate them into their ways of life, I wonder how many of them will see work over the next few years as economic depression rather than a so-called recession hits most of the "developed"world?

This is not the time to be a refugee, this is not the time to be an immigrant, this is not the time to be homeless, this is not the time to be dependent on charity. As those who in the past have enjoyed a reasonable way of life contemplate their immediate future of poverty or at least least less economic freedom than they have known, so their thoughts are likely to turn to the preservation of their income and their assets for their own use and not to charity.

The next few years are likely to see a great deal of "me me me" without any reference to "you."

On this particular occasion I do not want to be a prophet to the future, but what I see around me is a lot of doom and gloom for a lot of people. I'm not sure what the Rudd government can do on this occasion, even with the surplus that it had to spend from previous years economies and I am certainly not sure what if anything the current opposition is likely to bring the subject.

If you want to see more about the Somali hijackings try the following link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7847351.stm

As for Zimbabwe don't bother to look, the news is just too depressing!

One last thing about refugees

2009-01-22T11:25:00.013+11:00

I was focused the other day not the only on the destruction that had taken place in the Gaza refugee camps, as a result of the Israeli military operation, but on some interesting commentary that has come out in the papers since then. There was the example a picture of an old man sitting on his lonesome with a green flag unfurled above his head. What was he doing there on his own? Simple, he had responded to a call for Hamas supporters to demonstrate on the streets of Gaza. Why were there no others with him? That's not really a question that I can answer from here in Australia, however there are people in the Middle East with far more local knowledge of the subject than I, suggesting that while the armed Hamas supporters are now claiming a victory in the midst of the death and destruction that has taken place, there is some recognition by the general population that if he destruction that has taken place is seen as a victory it would be interesting to see what a loss would look like.

Policemen are reappearing on the streets wearing their weapons, Hamas fighters are also appearing with their arms and this has set people to wondering where they were when the fighting was going on. They seemed to have melted into the background at that point, and the general population in Gaza seems to be voting with its feet when a called upon to congregate in celebration of the great "victory" that was won over the last few days. Hence the lonesome old man with his green flag unfurled perhaps.

At the same time as all this was going on in Gaza there was also a meeting of the Arabic countries of the Middle East to see what they would think they could or would be able to do to support the Palestinians.

Saudi Arabia was at the forefront of trying to mend fences and bring unity to the representatives surrounding the conference table. A Syrian representatives apparently was interested only in trying to label " the Israeli entity" as a terrorist organisation rather than discuss what if any needs the Palestinian refugees had in Gaza.

What the Syrian representatives did not mention, I suspect, was the way in which Palestinian refugees are being treated within Syria and elsewhere in Arabic countries - this story from the archives about Iraq is just one example.

BBSNews 2007-04-24 - RAMADI, (IRIN) -- Palestinians living in Iraq's Anbar province have come under increasing pressure from militants to leave or be killed, NGOs and Palestinians say.

The remaining displaced from Ramadi still receive assistance from aid agencies but many have returned to the city. [Date picture taken: 11/13/2006] Image Afif Sarhan/IRIN

Palestinians in the capital, Baghdad, have long been threatened by armed groups and harassed by authorities but threats to them in other provinces are a new development, aid workers say. Sunni-dominated Anbar used to protect Palestinians, who are predominantly Sunni too, but times have changed.

"Palestinians had been looking for safety and had found it in Anbar province but now they are being targeted [there also]. The threats they have received are an effrontery against the feelings of Muslim Arabs. They have nowhere to go and might be killed if they try to go to another place," Mahmoud Aydan, a media officer for the Ramadi council, said.

"We believe that there are about 150 families taking refuge in different cities of Anbar province but they haven't been registered with the National Food Programme which makes it harder to know their exact location," Aydan said.

A spokesman for the Baghdad-based Palestinian Muslims Association (PMA) said he was concerned about the fate of Palestinians in Anbar governorate after militants left threatening notes on the doors of Palestinians taking refuge in the area.

"At least 17 families have fled Ramadi [capital of Anbar and about 100 km west of Baghdad] after militants gave them a week to leave their homes or become the next victims of violence in Iraq," Ahmed Muffitlak, a spokesman for PMA, said.

Palestinians have nowhere to go

"But they don't have anywhere to go. Some families told me they are going to try to reach the al-Waleed camp near the Syrian border. Others expect to be accepted in Baghdad's Sunni neighbourhoods," he added.

In Baghdad, Palestinians - especially those in the mainly Palestinian neighbourhoods of Baladiat, Hurriyah and Iskan - continue to be discriminated against and continue to receive threats to leave the country.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a press statement in March that at least 186 Palestinians have been murdered in Baghdad between April 2004 and January 2007, while about 15,000 Palestinians remain in Iraq, fewer than half the number who had lived there previously.

Muffitlak reiterated the PMA's call for the protection of Palestinian refugees in Iraq and has urged the Iraqi government and international NGOs to assist the threatened families in Anbar.

"They should do something before more Palestinians are killed. It is the minimum they can do to save so discriminated against a community, which cannot even return to its original land," added Muffitlak, who is in Ramadi trying to persuade the local authorities to protect Palestinians.

Ahmed Raki, a 43-year-old Palestinian father of three lives in Ramadi. He is looking for a place at al-Waleed camp on the Syrian border, which has become a makeshift home for hundreds of Palestinians fleeing violence.

"There are dozens of [Palestinian] families living with Iraqis in Ramadi, Fallujah and al-Qaim and the threats have been delivered to their homes. We don't have money, goods and some elderly people are very sick, requiring urgent medical assistance. But they will be forced to flee the area to save their lives," said Raki.
"Two girls from our community were raped last week by militants who told them that it was a message to the Palestinians in Anbar to leave the area," Raki added. "I have to leave before my two daughters meet the same fate."

In 2006 the UNWRA produced a publication that shows that there were over 119,000 registered Palestinian refugees in Syria in that year. What is shameful about this is that it supports the reality that the Syrian population has not absorbed these people since 1948 in some cases and 1967 in others. Why they have not been assimilated into the general population is not a question I can answer, but it may be something the Syrian government can and perhaps should be asked.

Similarly there are other Arab countries around the Middle East who will accept Palestinian refugees, but who have not accepted that these same people should become part and parcel of their citizenry and lose their status of refugee over time.

Australia has accepted refugees from all sorts of countries over the years including no doubt some from the former Palestine. Have these people being put into refugee camps and forced to stay there? I think not. They have been integrated into the communities into which they were eventually settled and have become part and parcel of the Australian way of life. They have retained the right of return to their country of origin and some have no doubt taken up this option. For most others though, Australia is a country that has accepted people from everywhere in the world and actually spent loads of resources helping them to settle in this country. This investment in human beings from all over the world has been repaid many fold by well integrated citizens who have participated with gusto in the life of Australia and have indeed made their unique contributions from within their cultures to the developing Australian culture that today people find both interesting and welcoming when they visit or as they grow up in it.

Australia is today a truly multicultural society thanks to all of those people who have come to our shores regardless of their condition at the time.

I suspect that many countries in the world could learn from what has been achieved in Australia

As I reminisce about the past I look at what is being provided to refugees elsewhere in the world today and think that many of the services that were pioneered in this country could perhaps be mentioned in discussions with representatives of those countries and that some of the lessons that have been learned "along the way" passed on to them as a way of trying to assist them by providing opportunities to learn from the difficulties as well as the successes of our past.

There appear to be certain countries in the world who are not dealing successfully with their refugees, if by "success" we mean the successful integration of refugees into the host population. If we do not mean success in these terms, then I for one would be interested in finding out what the meaning is in those places. Where we have successive years of countries that open their doors to refugees, presumably they mean to give them refuge and then allow them to make the choice of staying in the host country or returning to their home country as and when conditions change. Maintaining their refugee status for decades at a time is not what I would consider as being the goal of a refugee policy.

Still, what would I know, I am just an arm chair blogger after all.

Following the blog:

2009-01-20T10:09:00.004+11:00

Unbeknown to me, there have been some changes at Blogger, that now enable you to show that you follow this blog so that other readers can see that you too are a reader and hence a follower.

I have added a widget to my blog that enables you, my readers, to become identified as 'followers' of his blog and hence to be recognised as such.

All you have to do to become a follower is press on the link on the left side of the blog entitled Follow this blog.

The pop-up dialogue box that follows enables you to fill in your details if you wish or to indicate if you wish to follow the blog anonymously. Given these two options as a reader, you are now able to identify yourself and by doing so immediately promote your own blog or your Web page as well as yourself.

I for one would like to know who my readers are and of course I would like to be able to read their blogs or web pages so that I can get an idea of what they are thinking about and how they feel about things in general. Information such as this would enable me to direct my comments about things in my 'audience' that would also enable me to contact individuals if they wish to be identified sufficiently formed in to do so.

So far, as this is a new feature only four of my readers have identified themselves. Check it out, you too can identify yourself as a reader of Pete's Place either anonymously or with your personal details being made available.

Since this is under your complete control the level of identifications is up to you. Try it and invite me into your blog by using the follower widget.

Have fun.

If you want to see what Blogger has to say on the subject visit their help page at http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en-au&answer=104226

Garpet

A final look at the Gaza situation

2009-01-20T08:19:00.013+11:00

One of my collaborators has recently posted me an article from the New York Times way back in 2000 that may make some sense about recent proceedings, please check it out.

Gas Deposits Off Israel and Gaza Opening Vision of Joint Ventures
By WILLIAM A. ORME JR.
Published: September 15, 2000

I never know whether these stories can be relied upon. However if there is truth in this story, then less useful minds than mine can find some rationale behind what's been going on in Gaza. The question really is what value will be found from the supporters of Israel and/or the supporters of those living in Gaza. Will they finance further exploration and drilling and then at what cost.

Watch this space I guess is the best we can hope for at this point.

Thanks to Robbie my informant in this case for digging around in his archives. Given my previous understanding about the gas situation in that part of the world this is the last thing I would have expected. It is also amazing to me that in the years since the story first appeared I have never heard anything more about it. Are there any of my readers out there who have?

If so let us know. Show us how clever you are with your Googling. :-)

Of course if it's true, then both sides have to stop being greedy and actually learn how to share a cake or manna from heaven, if you prefer. Otherwise they might blow it all up before either side can benefit from the proceeds.

Of course there are others who are looking at what has been achieved and if we go to the New York Times once again we will be able to look at their version of reality in 2008.

Can YOU make it in high finance?

2009-01-18T13:45:00.004+11:00

Apparently so, if you have a long ring finger.

We are going from bad to worse in financial areas it seems to me. It doesn't seem to be bad enough to have lost hundreds of billions of dollars of people's money we are now seeking explanations about how to do this well in high-risk financial transactions situations of the future by undertaking research on the length of someone's ring finger. Check this out:

By ABC News Online's Katie Franklin
Are
Posted Wed Jan 14, 2009 4:48pm AEDT
Updated Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:23pm AEDT
The traders participating in the study specialised in high-frequency trading, which involves fast-paced buying and selling.

The traders participating in the study specialised in high-frequency trading, which involves fast-paced buying and selling. (AFP: Timothy A Clary)

The length of a trader's finger may determine how successful they are on the stock market, new research suggests.

A study conducted by British researchers has found a strong correlation between a person's pre-natal exposure to testosterone and improved financial performance in men on the trading room floor.

The trait of having a relatively long ring finger indicates greater exposure to testosterone in the womb, the researchers noted, and this points to improved performance in high-stress financial areas.

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

The study's lead author, Dr John Coates from the Judge Business School at Cambridge University, says he began thinking about the role testosterone plays in the behaviour of traders while working on Wall Street.

Is this guy really serious? If so, then we have some real kooks running business schools in England and probably elsewhere in the world.

I can see it now, in the future we will be able to make it on to the trading floor simply by holding up our lengthy ring finger and convincing our colleagues that by our exposure to testosterone at an early age we have the skills and the know-how that suits us for future multimillion dollar trades on the floor of a stock market somewhere.

Isn't it bad enough that we have lost hundreds of billions of dollars on the stock market thanks to something that traders and others may have done wrong and now, right now, just as we are seeking to remedy some of the failures of the past Doctor Coates and his research suggests that testosterone in the womb and the production of long ring fingers for male traders may be the answer to the production of skilled traders who can stand the stresses and strains of the stock market floor.

Just when I thought I had heard it all. If this is the way of the future then I see a rocky road ahead.

Farewell Condoleezza

2009-01-18T08:55:00.003+11:00

A recent article on the ABC reported that:

"United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has bid an emotional farewell to hundreds of staff at the State Department.

Although technically in office until Tuesday when Barrack Obama is inaugurated as President, Dr Rice is spending the weekend with outgoing President George Bush at his camp David Retreat and Monday is a national holiday.

In the main lobby of the State Department, known as the Hall of Flags, Dr Rice said goodbye to hundreds of cheering colleagues.

Wearing a red suite she said a few words while misty-eyed.

She stopped for pictures, shook hands and then left through the main entrance.

Dr Rice will now return to the world of academia at the University of Stanford in California, leaving history to determine her legacy."

What readers need to look out for are the typographical errors or perhaps the errors in the usage of the English language in this piece of reportage.

If there are only typographical errors, then shame on the editorial staff. If however there are errors in the use of the English language, then they are not only deplorable, but possibly a reflection on state of education of the people involved.

Please let me know what you think about the state of English language teaching and usage in this country.

Hint 1.

Camp David retreat

Hint 2:

1. suite of rooms or suite of furniture
2. suit of clothing

From the waiting room at an ACT Health Centre

2009-01-14T15:27:00.002+11:00

You sometimes find the strangest things when you visit ACT health.

On this particular instance I was visiting ACT health as part of a weekly program which is assisting me with a pressure sore. In the waiting room there was this strange thing called The Epoch Times. Believe it or not the thing actually has a web address. I have deliberately not placed the web address for this link into the text that I am typing for you I will actually spell it out. The web address is HTTP://www.theepochtimes.com.au

Try this for yourselves and see what results you get the let me know how you get on. I had a paper version of The Epoch Times to read which told me it's offices are in Forest Rd Hurstville NSW at telephone number (02) 86686188. The entire newsletter is printed in Marrickville.

There is an article in the December 17 - 23 publication labelled edition 204 which is of considerable interest to me.

The title is " Fixing Somali Piracy the 'Jefferson' way" which I hope you too will be able to read at your leisure.

I wrote some comments in jest the other day about our need for the Phantom, a legendary figure from the comic world whose parents, grandparents and many other ancestors fought against piracy, successfully it would seem.

In this article there is an explanation about Thomas Jefferson, a future president of the United States but then First Minister to France and John Adams met Abd Al-Rachman then ambassador to London from Tripoli.

The two envoys of the nascent American Republic inquired; “by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers? Al-Rahman replied in a now familiar refrain; “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” Jefferson noted, with irritation that Al-Rahmen did not fail to; “mention the size of his own commission”, writes Hitchens, in “Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives)”.

Comprising of today’s Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, the Barbary States terrorised, extorted, kidnapped and enslaved “some 1.5 million European and Americans between 1530 and 1780”. Hitchens surmises, Jefferson had already decided, after his first encounter with the extorting Al- Rahman, that should he become commander-in-chief of American forces, he would strike the Barbary pirates.

And so he did, the first “Barbary Wars” began in 1801, when President Thomas Jefferson dispatched a freshly minted naval squadron to North Africa, to protect American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. He even assembled a small coalition from Europe’s seafaring nations. The ensuing conflict lasted some 15 years, and concluded with the shelling into submission of Algeria in 1816. The first line of the Marines’ Hymn still invokes the attacks and victory over the Barbary States; “To the shores of Tripoli”.

(then to more recent times)

. . .In November, 2002, after the capture of Abd al Rahman al Nashiri, widely acknowledged as Al Qaeda’s chief of maritime operations, interrogators were astonished, “by a 180-page dossier, captured with him, which listed cruise liners sailing from Western ports as "targets of opportunity." The dossier indicated that large cruise ships exceeding 140,000 gross tons and carrying more than 5,000 passengers were desirable targets for terrorists.” Nashiri insisted that if warships became too difficult to approach, tourist ships could be targeted.

I am unable to check whether the paragraphs above are true or not. If they are however, then I wonder whether America, Russia China and other states whose shipping is being affected (this now includes Saudi Arabia and no doubt will include Iran if it does not do so already) should get together and create a force of warships and military personnel ready and willing and able to clear the world's shipping lanes of the Somali pirate presence and if necessary, with the permission and support of the United Nations, enter Somalia itself to establish law and order there, so that we no longer likely to have have another:

“CNN Effect” That famously coined 24/7 news coverage, of starving and dying Somali children, beamed into our lives throughout 1992-1993.

Let's deal with Somalia the way that less well informed people did several centuries ago. Let's wipe out the pirates, bring back some law and order and assist Somalia which in my view is now a failed state, to deal properly with its borders and its people.

Somehow, I still have this naive expectation that the UN will function the way it was designed and for the purposes for which it was designed if only we gave it a chance.

I wonder if in 2009 with a new American president and through the fiscal crisis, perhaps a willingness to change and do things differently and better we might not get some better outcomes.

George Bush/John Winston Howard Freedom Medal Presentation

2009-01-14T10:29:00.005+11:00

"He is a man of honesty, and moral clarity ... he can make a decision and he can defend it and he stands his ground," Mr Bush said. "That's why I callled him a man of steel."

As seen on the ABC

Well may he laugh because, I am delighted to be able to report that I have not seen any plans for this "man of steel" to be awarded any Australian medals.

I also have to say that I think it most unlikely that Mr Bush will be awarded any similar medal in Australia, for anything.

Of course these are only my views.

Canberra & district walks.

2009-01-14T09:19:00.003+11:00

I would just like to introduce my readers a new blog by another Peter otherwise known as Snusher. The blog is

Canberra & district walks.

If you are an inveterate bush walker as Peter is, then you will get excellent outcomes from his blog.

Since he has just started, it is not possible to say how frequently you will need to visit the site to get maximum value, because the frequency of his contributions are also an unknown at this point. You can of course write to him by making comments to his blog seeking different formats, more information, less information, greater frequency, and so on. I guess that the more people that he finds who read his blog and are willing to participate, for example by writing about their own bush walks or actually seeking to go walking with him the more enjoyable the process will be for everyone.

Personally I wish Peter all the best in his new endeavour and hope that both he and all of you out there who read my blog and are interested in bush walking can benefit from a collaboration.

I have written to Peter on the subject and also about the bush walking club in Canberra so I hope that my contribution here will not regarded as a nuisance but rather as assistance.

Where's the Phantom when you want him?

2009-01-13T10:09:00.001+11:00

Where's the Phantom when you want him? After reading the story from the BBC about the pirates who live in Eyl a town in Somalia is almost with a sense of total disbelief that one reads about the inability of modern societies to prevent gun toting pirates in this day and age.

Where is the money going is another good question? Any country whose total GDP is 20 million per annum this story purports that the ransoms obtained by the pirates for the shipping they have hijacked amounts to something like $30 million per annum. What do people do with an amount of money that is greater than the total amount of money that comes through their own country. It appears that one thing they did not do is to head for politics to become part of the government of the country. After all why would they need to do this they have demonstrated to all and sundry that they could make more money than the government on any day of the week and that their families can benefit from their entrepreneurial skills far better in this environment that if they were living under normal government regime. Read the story for yourselves and then tell me what you think about piracy in 2009.

Our Continent

2009-01-12T07:43:00.004+11:00

New Zealand has been known as the land of the long white cloud. Why can't we in Australia have an "endearing" nickname for Australia as well?

Perhaps the size of this continent may provide the answer.

At present we have a cyclone crossing the coast north of Cairns and threatening to flood and devastate quite large parts of North Queensland. One commentator has managed to compare this area with the size of France. Just think about it folks, mere parts of North Queensland are larger than the the whole of France.

My partner and I have spent many happy months exploring France and all the delights that it has.

I'm afraid I can't say the same for North Queensland or indeed for many other parts of this continent. However I suspect that with the right equipment we could probably spend several months beginning to explore parts of Queensland as well.

Meanwhile, in the south eastern part of the continent, from Canberra right down to Melbourne, the weather seems to be threatening lengthy spells of exceptionally high temperatures, thereby creating the risk of huge bush fires in much of the countryside that is still in drought. Meanwhile, we have not even mentioned what the weather is going to be like in South and Western Australia.

With variations in temperature, rainfall, cyclones, bush fires etc. How is it possible to give a singular description, much less a cute one to this tremendous landmass?

I was watching a show on TV the other day, helping people learn to "four-wheel drive".

Fascinating.

Can you imagine having a large four-wheel-drive, fully loaded with both passengers and other gear, towing a caravan, no doubt also built for outback conditions and also filled with all the necessary equipment for a lengthy journey into our outback environment.

If you have this picture in your head let's proceed little.

As soon as you manage to get off the main highways you may find yourself on roads that can run for hundreds if not thousands of miles with neither hide nor hair of bitumen. These roads are dirt, sculpted by the wind and weather into either sand traps of monumental proportions or corrugated (dare I call them) roads that appear to be designed to test and probably wear out your suspension and all the other aftermarket shock absorber accessories that you bought to deal with these "little issues".

This particular show demonstrated how at slow speeds, say 20 to 40 km/h both your four-wheel-drive and your caravan are able to cruise along the rutted roads in a way that enables your suspension to work well as designed. They also demonstrated how at higher speeds, say 80 to 100 km/h, the tyres managed to touch the top of the ruts only, thereby giving you a "smooth" ride, but reducing the level of traction to almost zero. They then demonstrated what it would be like to encounter a problem like a simple turn at almost zero traction. I'm sure that your imagination does not need to work overtime to picture the overturning of both the four-wheel-drive and the caravan it was towing. Equally I'm sure the imagination does not need to go into overdrive depicted travelling along thousands of miles of corrugated road and 20 to 40 km/h.

Driving in different types of sand was also demonstrated because the sand dunes both in Central Australia and sometimes along the coast in areas where roads are not yet available, can provide for some exciting, but potentially dangerous driving situations.

Another part of the demonstration was to show you what it's like to cross creek in flood.

The first and most obvious part of the lesson was to try and find a spot where the entry into the water was at a very low angle and where the water was likely to be at its shallowest. There was also some advice particularly for diesel drivers about why it was important to have a snorkel attached to your vehicle. There was a clear demonstration about how you can breast the water and provided that you continue as slow and steady pace how the machinery will continue to work just when you think it is unlikely to do. By the end of the demonstration most drivers would have learnt the lesson about slow and steady wins the race.

Anyway I am not here to teach people on how to drive. I am here to suggest that the complexity and size of our continent is such that no single endearing comment can possibly describe it adequately.

So welcome to our large and complex continent.

We may not have a cute name like New Zealand, but we do have a terrain that is many times the size of France and where I hope you can continue to have endearing experiences as you travel in the outback.

Movies

2009-01-08T12:20:00.008+11:00

It's not often that I write a report on movies, I will make an exception in this case by writing briefly about the movie called 'The Zookeeper'.

The plot synopsis is provided at IMDB by Michael Alden {see below}

"Eastern Europe - a city torn by civil war - Present Day Jonah Ludovic writes in his journal. His poetry softening the cynical observations of a man living a self imposed penance. Wherever he came from and whoever he was, Ludovic is now alone, silenced by a crime unknown. Ludovic can hear the shelling of an imposing civil war. He can see the flashes of fire destroying a city that once was his home. He doesn't move. He just writes. As daybreak arrives, the shelling has ceased. Ludovic makes his way to his job as a custodian at the local zoo. He is met at the gates by the fleeing staff. Ludovic chooses to remain behind, he has no where to go. Along with an elderly guard and a veterinarian, the three set out to care for the animals and hopefully protect them and themselves, from harm. It is not long before the war has reached the gates of the zoo. Dragov, the sociopathic captain of a local search platoon of nationalists, heightens the intensity of the senseless war with surprise visits and violence. Within days, the guard has disappeared and the veterinarian killed. Ludovic is left alone with the threat that he will be next. His solitude is broken with the arrival of Zioig. A wounded nine year old, who after miraculously escaping incarceration, has learned the skills of a vigilante. Ludovic wants nothing to do with the boy, who will bring nothing but trouble, but cannot turn the wounded child away. Ludovic's frustration intensifies when a young woman, Ankica, makes her way to the zoo gates. Escaping from a concentration camp and aided by those in the underground, Ankica has made her way to the zoo in search of her son. The reunion successful, Ankica makes it clear that they will stay in the zoo together and Ludovic will help them to avoid re-arrest. Ludovic is at a loss. The war has intensified. The animals are on the brink of starvation. Without the animals, there is no job. Without the job, there will be no freedom. Although reluctant, Ludovic agrees and together, with Ankica and Zioig struggle to keep the animals alive. In reaching out they discover each other, their secrets and the hope that eventually finds peace, forgiveness and love. Written by Michael Alden {novelma@aol.com} "

This was presented by SBS the other night only four years after its introduction to the general public. It may well be that I was about to be lulled to sleep by anything that was being presented except that this movie, instead of putting be to sleep, actually woke me up. It was exciting to see a man like Sam Neill play the role of a middle-aged zookeeper caught up in the middle of a civil war and it was perhaps more exciting, because it gently led me into the midst of the story and the feelings of the characters involved in the plot.

Generally it is rare for me to feel anything more than "its a movie" when I see something on television or indeed on the big screen. Somehow this movie managed to break that nexus.

Perhaps it had something to do with my own childhood, when I experienced a civil war myself.

If you have ever stood in front of a bakery and had a Russian tank arrive, slowly revolve its turret, so that the working end of its cannon is pointed at you and your mother while you were part of a queue waiting for bread, then you'll have had an experience of what it is like to be part of a civil war.

As it happens in my lifetime, all that took place was that two Russian soldiers to jumped out of the turret, went into the bakery, loaded their arms with loaves of bread, handed them all to another guy in the turret and then drove off leaving behind a group of scared civilians who reformed the queue and waited patiently for their bread, once again.

It is an open question as to what should be learned from this, was this a lesson about a civil war or about queue jumping? I will leave you the reader to decide.

In any event, I was drawn into the picture and found it to be a good viewing experience. If it's available on DVD try and get a copy at least on loan and see it. Well worth the experience.

To go from a very serious plot to a comedy regime, do try "The Gods Must Be Crazy II" while this movie gets fewer points from its IMDB voters if you're in the mood for a little fun, this is the movie for you.

I won't spoil the plot, but for those of you who have seen "The Gods Must Be Crazy I" and found this to be good viewing, then you will not be disappointed by this later story. I hope that apart from the humour, you will come out of your viewing experience with a greater if not profound respect for the skills of the Kalahari Bushmen (and women).

Personally I would not want to even try to live their lifestyle or in their region. However if I was for any reason to venture into this region I would really want Xixo be my guide and teacher.

The news of today and "The Sword and the Scimitar" a story from and about the past

2009-01-06T12:22:00.016+11:00

As we turn on our television sets in the mornings some of us are checking to see how the conflict in Gaza is going on.

On one "side" or the other, people in Australia have relatives there. Regardless of which "side" of this conflict you happen to support, if you do, or which side in this conflict you feel is in the wrong, if you do, on both sides there are people being wounded or killed.

How they live when they are not killing and maiming each other is also worth commentary, though not here and certainly not by me.

My sympathy goes out to those who have been wounded or died in this conflict and of course their families in Australia or elsewhere.

I make no comment about this situation other than that. I limit my comments simply because I think this is the best I can say to my correspondent in Israel, whose views I published here the other day

I have just finished reading a book called "The Sword and the Scimitar". This represents to some extent, the story of yesteryear.

In general terms this is a rather lengthy story about Malta and it's people, leading up to the siege of Malta during the times of Suleiman "the Magnificent"and La Valette.

In general terms the story depicts the fate of at least one family in Malta and the part that they play in the years leading up to, during and immediately after the siege of Malta.

If you have ever been to Malta and visited the various forts, Auberges and heard something of the history of these islands then somehow the story comes alive.

Equally if you have visited Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey, then once again the story comes to life for you.

The conditions that prevail at the time of this Muslim/Christian struggle are I think extremely well depicted by the author David Ball. He does not mince words nor does he leave us in doubt about the conditions that prevailed at the time for those who fell into the hands of those in power be they Christian or Muslim at the time

Well worth a read even if it is rather lengthy at times.

If you feel queasy about how people treat each other depending on their religion back then when the Crusades were still around, when half the known world was under the command of Suleiman the Magnificent, then it's not so difficult to see that similar behaviours appear to have stuck around and are with us to this very day. What has changed is who has more or less power at any given moment in time.

the news on nothing but the news

2008-12-30T10:23:00.003+11:00

I'm not sure that there's much to say today, but I will have a crack at it.

I woke this morning and a sense of urgency was in the air. What was it? My partner was likely to be late for a dental appointment.

With morning ablutions completed, breakfast eaten, clothes carefully thrown on, it was in the car and off down the Parkway to that dental appointment.

A little later on the phone rings, she's stuck on the Parkway, it appears that there is work being done on the roadway or something and the traffic is not moving in either direction. Could I please ring the dental surgery and explain the situation to them.

Naturally I do what I am told. I would not be much good as a partner otherwise.

A hunt for the phone number ensues, followed by the call to the surgery. It appears that the surgeon is also running late and so the chances are that by the time she arrives they may well be ready for her.

Now that's what I call dumb blind luck.

No sooner had I written all of this, the phone rings again. It's my partner from the surgery. She has arrived there, they are still not ready for her. Much ado about nothing are my first thoughts then she tells me that it appears that the problem on the way was a vehicle overturned and lying on its roof.

Wow, this is big news! I suspect that this is a serious enough accident to appear on the evening news tonight, so we will all be able to see it in all it's dreadful gory detail.

BTW I hope that no one YOU know was involved.

This is what it's like when you have reporters on the road reporting the daily grind to you in all its pristine glory.

I am now waiting for my other correspondents around the world to give me some other items of news. It could be a long wait, so I might just end here for now.

Salut from Garpet

Information from a correspondent in Israel

2008-12-29T05:36:00.003+11:00

It has become necessary to have around the world a network of correspondents, who can provide information.

In this particular instance, my information is provided by someone called Yaacov in Israel. I acknowledge that the sources is biased, but by alerting my readers to this, I hope that they will get at least the poignant cry for understanding that I believe, the message contains.

"Well as you probably heard, the Israeli Army decided finally to do something about the rocket attacks coming out of Gaza. Last Wednesday over 120 rockets were fired from Gaza on the settlements and towns around Gaza. Miraculously no one was hurt physically. Psychologically the damage cannot be measured. As soon as the alarm goes off, anybody living within 10 kms of the border has about 10 seconds to get under cover. Further on, within 30 kms of the border, people have between 15 -25 seconds to find cover. It's not a pleasant way to live. Think of the kids. Some damage was caused. There is a good chance that reserves will be called up today. If I get a call I will let you know.

I should mention that rockets were being fired on a daily basis for the past few years. Last Wednesday was a bit exceptional, because of the masses of rockets. Our government was a bit hesitant, because it is full of people who worry more about what the "goyim" (non Jews - Ed.) think, than what its citizens need. There are also elections coming up in about a month and the government has very good reason to believe its going to be whacked."

Of those of us who live in Australia, I think it is almost impossible for most of us to understand what it means to live in fear of a daily barrage of rockets, courtesy of Hamas or the fear of Israeli shells or bombs. Suffice it to say that for both sides of the population in or near Gaza, an unacceptable level fear is the common element.

From an Israeli point of view, life would be good for everyone concerned, if only "those people" in Hamas would stop firing their rockets. From the point of view of the people in Gaza it's probably fair enough to say, "if only those people in Israel would stop sending their planes over to drop bombs or sending the military across with their tanks and shells" life would be a lot better.

Is there no answer to this problem? I guess that based on past performance there is likely to be no answer besides more death, more injury, more mourning, more tears, and probably more tedious commentary from people such as myself.

Perhaps the best I can do is to wish that in the New Year "peace" breaks out again, if only for a while, even if it is once again at the point of a gun.

What if?

2008-12-28T15:28:00.003+11:00

I was just reading the news and saw the item about Wild Oats XI.

I had been wondering up to this point in time why this vessel was trailing the other yacht Skandia. Apparently there is nothing like having a 2 metre shark stuck in your rudder to make you lose pace.

I wonder how much of a lead Wild Oats XI would have had without the shark incident? The new sail could possibly have increased the record even further had the shark not become entangled in the rudder.

Solo sailor thanks rescuers.

2008-12-25T07:14:00.002+11:00

The ABC reports that the French sailor rescued off Western Australia's south coast at the weekend has described his experience as the worst five days of his life.

He has thanked the rescuers.

Talk is cheap.

At present, if I understand it correctly, rescuing one of these sailors in the Antarctic waters to the south of our continent costs money, big-money, I'm told it's in the vicinity of $1 million. So talk is cheap. Welcome, but cheap.

When the race organisers hold these competitions I think they should ensure that the sailors or competitors if you wish, get some form of insurance against the risk of their yacht being damaged during the race and the yachtsman requiring some form of rescue.

In the event that one of these conditions takes place I then think it is up to the race organisers and/or the insurance company to reimburse the country that has taken the trouble of rescuing the sailor. There is no reason that the taxpayers of the country that makes its warships available to rescue this sailor should be held accountable for the costs that are incurred in rescuing the sailor.

I do not want people to change their ways and stop challenging the elements in a race in which the sailor competes, I also do not want to to try and change the law of the sea which makes it incumbent on whichever country happens to own the waters in question to rescue sailors as a matter of course. My question is about who should be responsible for the cost.

In my opinion it should be the race organisers or their insurers.

Anyone care to comment? If not, have a very happy New Year.

Value for money

2008-12-21T13:15:00.002+11:00

'Value for money' is the title of this note for a good reason Russia's Nikolai Valuev has just defeated American Evander Holyfield in a match for the world heavyweight or WBA boxing title.

What do you expect, the man is 7 foot tall and has the reach of a kangaroo's back feet (12 cm longer than his opponent,) One is 46 the other 35, I will let you guess which is which.

This is what the world is coming to, the Romans saw it when their empire was ending. They only had bread and circuses for the masses. We have more ambitious fare.

In Australia our Prime Minister is making announcements about billions of dollars being spent on the homeless, he has also guaranteed banking funds and no doubt we will soon see some more bread and circuses type material to help us get through the economic crisis that we are told by everyone else is already well and truly upon us.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, spend spend spend, put a few dollars [or better still one or more credit cards] in your pocket go out and buy all those things you can never wanted never needed, but just had to have.

I'm sure the economy will recover as a result of all this spending that we are doing in the shops right now. That's right folks we can welcome in 2009 knowing that everything is right with the world because Kevin has said so. Well not in so many words, in fact to be brutally honest he has started to make some statements about the reality of life, that perhaps the recession is going to reach Australia that perhaps we are losing the battle because we are not cushioned from the effects of the overseas debacle that has affected all of the first world nations [or words to this effect] to the point where governments are spending billions of dollars of their citizens' money to try and stop the recession from happening and finding out far too late that the recession is well and truly here and the money has gone.

I have no idea where governments find all the money that they're throwing at this fiscal crisis. In Australia maybe there is some truth to the claim that we are only spending the money that resides in our surplus. I'm not sure where other nations are finding their money. In an environment where the Americans have always said that free trade and lack of controls should be the way of the future, because it is the way of the free and democratic ways that are supported by all that is holy in the United States, we have this tragedy where the very lack of controls that were being encouraged seem to have resulted in the mess we now face. Not only has it affected the United States, but it has affected all those countries that put their faith in the United States as a global leader or to be more frank, those that want to participate in the riches that seemed to be flowing towards that country.

It seems to me that from 2009 onwards there will be greater controls over finances, there will be greater controls over banks, there will be greater controls on businesses unless those countries that are currently considered to be first world countries wish to slip back to being third or even fourth world nations.

There is no way of knowing whether we will pull out of this recession, and if we do what the world will look like when we have done so. I'm unlikely to see the end of this process which is why I asked the question why greed has been allowed to triumph, yet again.

In the past we have seen that when people are confronted with opportunities to make themselves rich without any fear of consequences about how they make themselves rich, then some form of disaster usually follows. We have seen this time and time again over the centuries. The economies may have been different the countries certainly were, the systems of government certainly were.

What was really different was that in the Roman Empire and the Greek empire there were slaves. We don't have slaves nor am I suggesting that we should, however what a difference that would make just think of the thousands of people who would need to be supported by the rich in each country of the world. It this the sort of world that we want to happen again? I hope not.

I am not an economist nor am I bright enough to figure out the way ahead I'm just one of those chumps who followed the logic that said if I work hard and I save my money and I spend only on those things that I need then I will be able to have enough at the end of my working life to support me in retirement until I am dead, perhaps there may also be a little left over for other members of my family so that their burden can be eased.

As it happens, I'm not sure what will happen to me and I am certainly not sure what will happen to all my readers, but I know that most people are having a very very good Christmas blowout because this might be the last they see of a "rich" life for a long time.

changes to the Michelin guide

2008-12-21T09:16:00.002+11:00

A news item from the BBC suggest that a German woman is now editing the Michelin guide.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7792384.stm

When you read this you won't believe it either. We know from the article that an English person was involved with the red edition of the Michelin guide until recently. This was enough of a shock to the system, but that someone involved being neither French nor male ends a distinguished and historic line of commentary on French cuisine.

There are great changes in the world and I guess most of us will simply have to go with the flow in a similar fashion I guess most of us will have to accept all of the changes that are occurring in the world simply because we live in it.

Were this not the case I wonder whether we would still be as shocked and/or as interested in such matters. After all if we are a colony on Mars or a colony on the moon would we care about what was happening back on Earth? I suppose not.

Still I wonder if we can maintain some standards while we live here - no offence meant to the person who obtained a position, but tradition is tradition.

Christmas a season to be jolly or . . .

2008-12-19T14:01:00.003+11:00

Merry Christmas to all of my readers, friends, relatives, and anybody else I have not mentioned at this point. I also wish them a happy New Year and in my case what that means is that everyone is at least healthier and hopefully more wealthier than in the last year and certainly a lot wiser than they were before.

I'm not sure if this is too much to ask, but at present, I don't really care. It seems to me that wanting to wish everyone well is probably more useful if you at least explain what it is that you wishing for so, let's explore a little.

There are those of us who are planning holidays next year to other countries even though the illness that we have is likely to make that difficult if not impossible. I like the sense of forward thinking and I like the desire to plan in the face of potential adversity. For the individual concerned you know who you are my best wishes go out to you and I hope that you not only have a wonderful trip but that you are also capable of having many more.

For others who have made the decision to delay their travel overseas by at least one year, having recently crossed our own continent in their little four-wheel drives I wish them well with the rest period. Of those who have made it possible for me to be able to view digital television -- thank you. You have no idea what a relief it is to find someone who can read the manual outcome of what seems like a collaboration between Korean/Japanese/Hungarian/Arabic translation experts. This is the only way I can describe the handbook that came with the machines. I have no idea how anybody else translates these burnt offerings to those who can, may you increase your knowledge of electronics, and increase your ability to pass that on to practical application and practical help to others far less empowered than you are.

Dragon speaking naturally preferred

2008-12-19T13:40:00.002+11:00

It is now several days since I acquired a copy of Dragon Speaking Naturally Preferred, Version 10. Setting up this new program has been a breeze, or at least far easier than it used to be when I first tried dictating programs like this one some years ago. What is really nice about this version is that it adds the ability to mimic or at least emulate an Australian accent and the user is provided with an Australian dictionary.

I have been trying to use it in various ways with various programs that I own, and it works in some more easily than it does in others. To my amazement I have found that within the program there are two items about which I was ignorant when I started. One is called dictation box, while the other is called Dragon pad. Dictation box is more like a simple text emulator while Dragon pad is more like a word processing program that is limited in size and scope. I have found that outside of what is available within the program a very old version of Lotus Word Pro and post-it notes text block seem to work best of all.

Not being a supporter of Microsoft products I'm unable to use the obvious interplay between Nuance and Microsoft. I have found that the program does not like to work inside of Google or Open Office environments. What I have found delicious is that the dictation program within Dragon speaking actually has a 'transfer' function. In other words once you have dictated what it is that you want to say and you have open, your blog for example, the program actually transfers your dictated text into your blog without you having to lift a finger. No more control - C and Control - V, just a voice command 'transfer', how good is that?

Obviously it will take many more days before I feel comfortable with the program and before it feels comfortable with me. Let me end this particular post on this note, all of this was published using the program and took just minutes rather than the time it would have taken had I typed it with one hand.

News from here and there

2008-12-18T20:16:00.008+11:00

What to do about people who make comments on your blog?

I'm not sure I have the answer but I will say one thing if the person making the comment, is sensible enough, to leave their name and some way of contacting them then I can make a decision about whether or not to publish their comment.

Recently I received a comment from someone calling themselves ' Sarah '. Alas this person did not believe some form of forwarding address or some means of being able to reply to their comment other than to do so on my own blog. This is exactly what I'm doing however what I would prefer to do in future is to be able to find out who the person is that is making comments to me and be in a position to read their blog and make a comment back to them about their content.

Catching up on the news, we have just had a visit from two old friends from work.

I cannot believe the stories they have been telling us. They are both retired from the public service. They now live in Queensland and have purchased the necessary equipment to engage in the joyous pursuit of happiness through caravanning across Australia.

We have been regaled with the story of the recent trouble across the Canning Stock Route which goes from one side of Australia to the other. I cannot believe what they have been telling us.

Imagine if you will, that there are four or five people driving their four-wheel drives, presumably without their caravans or caravans that are built for off-road conditions, across some of the worst roads or tracks of Australia. The story we have been told involves corrugated roads extending for hundreds of miles where you are in touch with the rest of the world only through a satellite phone or occasionally if you are near a settlement by means of a mobile phone. We have heard about bolts shearing, tyres going flat, fuel tanks rupturing, bull bars being torn off, sweat, heat, sand, bushes earmarked as toilet pits, all this amid glorious scenery and wonderful tourist delights.

It is difficult to know what to believe, whether our friends are seriously insane or just revisiting their childhood when they talk about their adventures. I think they're really trying to recapture some of their youth and frankly I think they are doing a very good job.

What I find difficult to believe is how anyone can tolerate these kind of conditions for six weeks or more without going crazy. I suppose the answer lies in the nature of the relationship amongst the people we are talking about. If you are deeply in love and have come to accept all of the good bad and the ugly characteristics of your partner then you could perhaps survive these weeks of torturous travel or at the least what I would call torturous travel.

Not to be derogatory about the wilds of Australia, but I am more likely to travel with my partner in the sumptuous comfort of a camper van in France or Austria or Germany, indeed any place in Europe. Alas even these delights no longer tempt me thanks to the ongoing progress of my illness.

I am delighted to be able to report however, that I have done these journeys in earlier days and have benefited from them by adding some basic language skills from some of the countries that I visited.

Only today I was reminded that there were new words that I have learnt from my partner in life that have benefited our travels in many ways.

I have a story of our travel in Turkey that perhaps others may find of interest. Imagine if you will getting out of your hotel and being surrounded by (usually) young children with their hands out asking for money or in a market otherwise known as a 'shouk' where it is the vendors at their stalls asking you loudly and forcibly to buy something.

After several days of this pestering, one gets to the stage of wanting to find a means of not being pestered. In my case, the trick was to speak in Hungarian to those who asked me for money accompanied by an offer to buy some of their products if they could understand the language that I was speaking.

I managed to get away with this trick in most places, but not in Turkey. In Turkey one vendor at least be will able to speak the language, in my case this vendor just happened to be a silversmith.

The lesson learnt was to keep the big mouth shut or buy my beloved a nice present.

Pain amidst the passion and a request

2008-12-13T08:38:00.001+11:00

I have been inflicted with yet another sign which tells me to shut up. I have been deprived of the use of my right hand and instead been inflicted with pain where there was none.

The loss of a right hand to a typist is monumental and since I have also lost the use of most of my vocal cords as well I need to try out the very best of those programs that convert sound into text to see if my now sibilant offerings will do the trick and enable me to type again. If not, then this is the end of my blogging days as well. I simply cannot afford to lose the use of my other hand to typing when I need it desperately for other purposes like dressing myself.

I would now like to ask all of those who are computer literate to an extent I will never be able to reach, to help me with information.

What is currently the very best of those programs that convert conversation into typed English text. At this point I do not much care whether it is 'tuned' to an American accent or indeed any other accent. With the product from my vocal cords I do not expect to be emulating any given accent any time soon.

Advice would be appreciated so that I can give myself a belated Chrissie present or something. However if you have tried it and it works for you then this is the best recommendation if you have not tried it then please do NOT give me the recommendations of the manufacturer, just tell me it's out there and I will try and find someone who has tried it and found it to work and work well.

I do need help of the kind that the choice magazines will not provide, real personal help from people who know, because they have tried to use a product and who as a result are able to tell me all the truths, good bad and ugly.

Thanks in advance to those who make their views known. Thanks to those who will ring me, send an email or a phone message or a reply to this blog via a comment.

I really need the info folks and fast. My lack of ability to communicate is perhaps even more serious than the cancer. It can kill me, the lack of ability to communicate easily just makes the continuation of existence miserable and THAT I think is probably worse than just dying.

Amazing what I value hey?

I wonder what others value and whether being able to reach out and say G'day and then chat is valued by others as much as it appears to be by me? Whether being able to register your thoughts on a daily basis and just get them out either to no one or to a group of people who find some things of value amidst the dross?

Don't really know, but I do want to find out - especially if you are all not too busy to say the magic "G'day."

Garpet

Welcome to Australia instead

2008-11-10T15:12:00.005+11:00

I am sincerely grateful for the circumstances that landed my family in Australia and NOT the USA.

By the time my father wanted to emigrate there, it was no longer the place he had fantasised about for many years under Nazi and Communist occupation.

Australia was for all of us, a strange and harsh land, far from what at that time felt like the comforting arms of family and friends. For my parents, it never became the
"homeland" that they sought until they had the means to leave Australia's shores and actually travel to the USA and meet up with the remnants of their families who had become refugees then immigrants, finally residents, then citizens who continued to live there.

I think that they appreciated the possibilities that they could have had there, but they could also see what opportunities existed for them in Australia. They no doubt mentally compared what was possible in the USA and at what cost with what they had been able to achieve both for themselves and their family in Australia.

Overall, the opportunities in Australia were greater than they had realised and finally they were able to be glad about the circumstances that had brought them to these shores.

Alas they did not live long enough to see how much happiness the migration process had wrought for their family.

I am now retired and can honestly say that I have never been unemployed unless I wanted to be.

At present I am benefiting from my education, my previous employment and the massive amounts of learning that I was able to acquire here.

Financially, like many retirees, I am suffering a hit from the fall in share prices but my superannuation, though negatively impacted, has been well enough managed to remain capable of meeting my needs into the future.

Alas I am not well and my illness will probably put paid to any hopes for a medal for longevity but overall I am satisfied with my life and will no doubt write a few words for those that come after me so that they can learn from my mistakes and benefit from my sucesses.

Some People may forget but . . . . .

2008-10-23T19:27:00.004+11:00

Some people may forget certain photos and remarks, but then again others may not.

I only forget where I got it from. If memory serves this is probably because an American sent it to me as is. The wording on the photos is not helpful, a Google search did not give me a source, but I assume it was taken in 2000 or thereabouts and in recent times as the race for the presidency took on a more serious bent, it became more interesting and dare I say, appropriate.

I am not going to enter into the massive amount of prose that has already been written about the new President elect of the USA. What I will say though, is that I have a few family members whose votes I can guess at and many others whose votes I suspect have been cast for one candidate rather than the other.

Regardless of who voted for whom, we now have a President elect who is historically significant, not only because of his ethnicity, not only because he personally can demonstrate what is still possible in America, but because he like other outstanding Presidents before him, faces the seemingly impossible task of dragging the so called leader of the free world out of the mire and misery of its current fiscal and economic woes, its current embroilment in hot wars around the world and what might turn out to be its current position as the world leader in many things .

Barack Obama is a person who has had to struggle for what he has become and thus is a person who has faced challenges before and beaten the odds and managed to come out on top.

I for one, wish him well and sincerely hope that he can restore the USA to the place that I remember from my childhood. A bright beacon of democracy, a land in which immigrants could find a chance to make something of themselves, a land to which my father sought to immigrate.

Peter is unwell

2008-08-14T09:46:00.002+10:00

Some of you who are occasional visitors to this site may be wondering why Peter hasn't posted any news or views since April or hasn't returned any emails or moderated any comments.

He has been very unwell and is now unable to use the computer. Please go to the Oesophageal Cancer site on this blog and you can find out what has been happening to him since April.

Apologies if you have been expecting something from him.

Australians happy with immigration: survey

2008-04-22T09:48:00.003+10:00

"A national survey on social cohesion shows the majority of Australians support the current immigration intake."

Survey author Professor Andrew Markus from Monash University says
the findings showed a positive response to Australia's immigration
policy.

This survey is a wonderful thing, as the good professor suggests later in this article from the ABC,

"96 per cent of respondents at the national level, so that's nearly
everybody, has a strong sense of belonging in Australia and that is a
very, very strong finding and very positive finding for this society."

I agree that is a wonderful and welcome piece of news.

What the survey also shows is the gross ignorance and carelessness of governments at both National and State and Territory levels.

I have a problem with a government which must be patting itself on the back for a job well done about immigration, but not thinking through the consequences of welcoming so many new people into the country each year WITHOUT it seems also considering what impact those people will have on existing infrastructure and services.

When you add to this potential misery the former treasurer Mr Costello urging Australians to increase the population with calls for having at least three children, "one for mum, one for dad and one for the country," we have a problem of national proportions that I do NOT see anyone recognising or planning for or taking any action about.

If someone was silly enough to leave the management of the consequences to the "market" then they are not only silly they are positively dangerous!

We realise that we need skilled immigrants to enable our society to cope with the work that is required by our expanded mining activities and elsewhere. We also realise that we need to increase the population by encouraging people who are already resident in Australia to have more children.

I applaud the rationale and I applaud the policies and their administration, but when will someone link these policies and practices to the levels of housing shortage, the high levels of housing unaffordability and the increased levels of mortgage stress?

When will governments realise that the need for childcare centres and additional school places, increases in the means of transport, health etc etc are all consequences of a policy and program of increasing population growth.

The reality is that when you increase the population to meet a shortage of workers for the current economy you also have to think through the consequences of your policies - especially if they work well!

In this case we have a large influx of people and their families into the country and we have also an increase in the size of families already in country.

This mass of people require a whole range to things to enable them to settle and to take up the work opportunities which are current in the economy.

Has anyone actually thought through what these people will need and what impact those needs will have on existing infrastructure and services in the community and even more to the point has anyone planned to meet their needs?

If not, then the racial tolerance that we have in our society at present is not going to last very long.

Get with it Australia - people and their families have needs, since it is up to State and Territory governments to meet those service delivery needs, there is an urgent need for joint policy and planning outcomes to occur to enable State and Territory governments to cope with the influx of new people coming into their bailiwick and the impact that their arrival will have on existing services.

When we hear about the transport system groaning under the weight of new demands, hospitals and health systems being unable to cope and we immediately think of bad management or slack staff or . . .

Does anyone actually consider it's because we have invited people to come and settle in this country and because we have invited parents to increase the population and then NOT thought through the consequences of these decisions

To cope with these massive growth in population each year and also to cope with the changing demographics that extended families and the growth in the aging population in Australia as the "baby boomers reach retirement age, government should be planning to change and increase the service delivery capabilities in education, health, child care, transport, water, sewerage, housing, waste disposal etc etc.

You can;t just open the doors to refugees and immigrants as well as increase the existing population and then expect the place to absorb all these additions and changes somehow without there being an impact on infrastructure and services.

Could someone in government PLEASE stop sleeping on the job?

The 2020 Summit

2008-04-21T10:19:00.003+10:00

It takes a big event to get me to come out of my self imposed exile and the 2020 Summit was such an event.

I was fascinated watching the end product of the two days of discussion and regardless of any cynicism that you might read in the media one thing, at least for me, was certain - there were traces and elements of Gough Whitlam's arrival on the front stage of Australian political and government management back in the 1970's.

With those memories well and truly fresh in my mind I have to say that the concept of engaging with the population of a country to have more democratic and less bureaucratic government was one of the notions of that era as well.

Indeed the major transition for most people back in the 1970s was from a very tightly controlled form of government to something less formal and controlled and more reliant on the population as a source of energy and new ideas and enthusiastic (albeit voluntary) workers.

Coming after decades of Liberal and Country Party rule this was honestly meant to be a way forward into the future towards a more inclusive form of society and government.

Viewed in this light one HAS to ask the question - why is it that this experiment failed? Why is it that these great ideas about inclusion and commitment fail?

As an example only let's consider the AAP

The AAP aimed to develop a social welfare system that would place Australia at the forefront of social development (Hayden 1978: 122). It was an innovative plan as it sought to transfer decision- making power from centralised bureaucracies to regional structures, affecting all sectors of welfare from Federal and State to voluntary agencies (Graycar & Davis 1977:22). The AAP was seen as the instrument that would facilitate the planning and coordination of regional issues affecting social development. It gave local communities the chance to develop and control their services (Graycar 1978:357).
To achieve the aims of the AAP, Regional Councils for Social Development were established throughout Australia. These were to be the mechanisms by which a 'redistribution of power was to be effected' (Graycar 1978:357). They were to have responsibility for planning and co-ordinating services in their region. Regional variations in service delivery were to be recognised in the establishing of these Councils (Hayden, 1978:125).

This Prime Minister is actually going further than his predecessor - he wants to be able to create "a Federation that works" and part and parcel of this notion is the idea that somehow barriers between the voters and people of Australia have to be lowered so that government is truly representative or at least really in touch with what their aspirations and expectations are and what their frustrations are as well as any suggestions that they have for resolving the issues that are causing their frustrations.

Gough and Bill Hayden tried this nearly forty years ago and they ended up with some interesting results that frankly, the current government would do well to read up on and consider. After all there is no sense in making the same or similar mistakes - one should learn from history.

As someone who was totally enthusiastic and carried away with the notions of inclusion and involvement of the populace in governance I remain dedicated to the NOTIONS that underpin the principles that are being stated here. In principle I think it is a highly desirable thing to involved people in how they are governed and in the processes of government. How and whether it can be accomplished is I think moot.

So I welcome the challenge.

What I would like to contribute to this discussion are simply a few questions:

What economic conditions have to be in place to enable and facilitate change?
Do people have to have a stable employment and financial situation before they will risk change?
Is it true that in our immediate environment to the north of Australia there are millions of people who are at imminent risk of being unable to afford to buy food?
Is it true that the farming community in Australia, which has suffered the worst drought in at least living memory, is looking for a way to overcome their current lack of income for the years of the drought for some resulting in a debt situation?
Is it true that prior to the drought Australia was a major contributor of the food supply for millions of people in other countries including those to our north and as far away as Africa and Europe?
Is it true that with the price of oil increasing daily and to previously unimaginable levels the search for sustainable and renewable forms of energy there is now a focus on the production of vegetable matter that can be converted into bio-fuels?
Are the prices for bio fuel producing matter higher than the price for renewable food supplies?
Is it true that as countries like China and India emerge from very low levels of income their rate of consumption of animal protein usually rises quite rapidly.
Is it true that this change is requiring massive increases in grian production needed to produce meat and dairy products?

Once the answers to these questions are in I suspect that what they may tell us is that in the short term at least, some farmers are more likely to produce vast quantities of vegetable matter that is suitable for conversion to bio-fuels than what they were producing previously before the drought? If this suspicion is confirmed then I suspect that while Australian farmers may well find themselves in a position to make a financial killing their actions will have some serious impacts on the global food supply situation to the extent that it will contribute greatly to the ever shrinking availability of affordable food for millions of people across the globe.

I even venture to suggest that there will be a competition between the needs for fuel and food.

Any decision that does not deal with this reality will - at least in my view be one that could have dramatic results in both the short and the longer term.

Food takes at least takes quite a while to grow and then some more time before it can be distributed to where it is needed.

Millions of people who would be affected cannot continue to exist for the time taken to grow and distribute food thus there will in all likely hood be riots and violence as hungry people try to do something drastic to change whatever is leaving them in this state and past experience with this sort of human behaviour elsewhere in the world in the past SHOULD alert us to the problems that they cause and then the realisation of the issues in the past need to be multiplied by the numbers of people who may have now have the resources to buy things that they want but with nothing available on the shelves for them to buy.

It's a complex issue but one that I suspect will need in the VERY near future to be addressed and not through some collaborative and cooperative and consultative mode but rather through harsh almost dictatorial use of power to make people grow the food stuff that is needed and not to take their own needs for profits to influence their decision making - but to impose decision making that puts the world and Australia ahead of personal gain!

My fears may only be mine - but unfortunately there seem to be others who are saying similar things and they are far more qualified in this area than I am:

For example:

Key speaker at the national science briefing Professor Julian Cribb said the security of our food supply is "the global scientific challenge of our time".

The problem was more urgent even than climate change, said Professor Cribb, from the University of Technology in Sydney, because it will get us first . . . through famine and war. "By 2050 we will have to feed the equivalent of 13 billion people at today's levels of nutrition," he said.

"This situation brings with it the very real possibility of regional and global instability. Investment in global food stability is now defence spending and requires proportionate priority."

A "knowledge drought" – the lack of innovation to address farm productivity challenges – had added to the crisis, Professor Cribb said.

He called for a massive increase in public investment in agricultural research and development.

Farmers face challenges posed by drought, climate change, rising oil prices, erosion and nutrient loss combined with more demand for food stocks and biofuels.

Global grain stocks have fallen to their lowest level since record-keeping began in 1960, while Australia's sheep flock is at its lowest since the mid-1920s, with about 86 million.

In September last year 2007 the Australian Bureau of Statistics found consumers were paying 11.9 per cent more for basic food items than they were two years before. That is almost double the Consumer Price Index rise of 5.9 per cent during the period.

See also:

UN Warns of food shortage riots

Meat Vegetable Prices to Skyrocket soon

A submission to government about world food shortage

then just type in "food shortage" in any good on line search engine and the number of hits will astound you.

People are thinking about all this NOW elsewhere what worries me is that there is not a similar level of thought in this country about these matters.

Sanitation and the lessons from history

2008-03-25T22:44:00.005+11:00

I would like all of you to consider the issue of sanitation in countries that you have visited that do NOT have all of the mod cons of a first world country.

When travelling to countries with these issues did you get the same lectures that I received from concerned relatives and well meaning friends and doctors all concerned for your health?

You know what I mean, advice about what to eat, where to eat it, how to take care when washing your hands, how to take care when using whatever form of ablution and toilet facilities you were likely to encounter?

If you did then you would begin to understand the fascination that I had with the facilities that you see me sitting on in the ruins of Ephesus - a town in what is modern day Turkey - but a town that has been host over the centuries to such visiting notables who settled at Ephesus as the apostle John and Mary, Jesus' mother.

The city's fame today, as a major tourist destination, with one of the most intact of all Roman cities of the time depends on the fame of the Library or the art works or some other feature that captures the imagination of visitors.

Not so for me - what captured my imagination was the incredibly clever use of the location of the city (as it was at the time and the huge engineering works that had actually taken water from nearby sources and used them via aqueducts to channel water to the city and through it to the sea.

The process provided both running water for drinking, washing and sanitary functions like the now open air privy that is pictured.

Just imagine how these lessons from history could have benefited all of those who seem to have forgotten how the Roman Empire - so many centuries ago actually managed to bring the equivalent of modern day plumbing, sanitation and central heating to communities that today do not seem to manage to emulate what they had achieved with all the modern technology at their beck and call.

Sometimes I think it would not hurt human beings to stop and consider the lessons that they could learn from their past before they berate governments for not bringing them a better life today.

"The lucky country?" You have to be kidding!

2008-03-19T04:41:00.006+11:00

I think it's obscene that we have a "housing crisis" in this country and that people are throwing up their hands in horror about the fact that Australia is now among the countries with the least affordable housing in the world.

All this while the the government keeps on importing over 130,000 people per annum to meet what it calls a "skills shortage "

Why is this obscene?

Because no one in the media (or at least not many in the media) have either picked up on the conundrum or actually brought it to the attention of someone in power.

It stands to reason that anyone arriving in Australia whether as an assisted migrant, part of a family reunion scheme or a refugee or indeed just a person with a temporary resident permit with a work permit is NOT going to come equipped with a home!

Thus we need at least as many NEW homes each year as it will take to house all those people we are welcoming into our country.

Add to this, all those new homes that are required to meet the needs of those families who took the last government's Treasurer seriously and as far as childbearing was concerned, had "one for mum, one for dad and one for the country."

Hello, all of these people will need different homes too.

Then there are those who are being thrown out of their homes, because they can no longer afford the rent or the mortgage and those who require different homes because of medical situations and . . . .

All in all you have a situation in which the forward planning of state, Federal and local governments is brought into sharp focus.

What they have NOT been doing is obscene!

They have not been planning to accommodate those they have invited into the country much less those who are already here who have been encouraged to increase the size of their families or whose circumstances are changing for a variety of reasons.

Did some dim wit in the Minister's office actually think that the total number of people who would die would somehow balance the total number being born or coming into the country for a mad ZPG type of scenario?

I cannot imagine this for an instant. However if someone did - for goodness' sake get them a new job carting cow manure - its more likely to appeal to their level of common sense!

Did anyone actually think of planning for the needs of all these incoming people and new born children, I mean planning for all of their needs and not just homes?

Infrastructure of all kinds is required to meet these growing demands.

Unless the required pieces of infrastructure are created in a "just in time" project management sense there will be always be one or more crises in housing, health care, roads, transport, traffic, power, water, sewerage and so on.

A lack of adequate holistic planning is slowly driving this country from one meaning of the "lucky country" to another, a darker meaning, where we are lucky to still be here and no thanks to good management!

This is probably the saddest advert I have seen

2008-03-12T08:30:00.002+11:00

I always thought that the word "In God we trust" was one of the hallmark comments on US dollar notes. It's a sign of the times that a child from Africa, looking forlorn, is pictured on the back of bus with that slogan.

Mainly because it is highly unlikely that Yankee dollars are available so maybe only God is really left!

Walking the dogs can be a dangerous pursuit

2008-03-12T07:04:00.003+11:00

Actually a very clever advertising gimmick for dog food. Looks real!

An interesting "QUIT" campaign

2008-03-12T04:49:00.002+11:00

There is obviously one "QUIT" campaign in the world where people who are walking or catching public transport can all get the message.

Does anyone know WHERE this innovative campaign is or was taking place?

I thought I had heard it all!

2008-03-04T18:25:00.004+11:00

I guess that with each day that passes and the older you get, the more convinced you can become that you have heard it all before and that anything else you are likely to hear is merely window dressing on an old theme.

I was wrong!

Today I heard something that helped me to understand the state of the economy in the USA and how insidious influences from that experience are spreading to our shores, courtesy of some of the programs of education that are being sold to government here in Australia as "Leadership Programs".

Let's just say that one of my sources has reported that at least one Australian government Department has purchased a two and a half day 'love in' otherwise referred to as a Leadership Program targeting people at the Executive Officer level 1 and 2 in the ranks of the Australian Public Service.

Generally, I do not comment on such matters - they are generally something that I leave to the public service to sort out.

However, what I am hearing about the content, set off my bullshit recognition radar.

Considering how much of this I have heard in a lifetime of devoted service THAT is serious!

If my source is to be believed, then I have to say that not only is the Public Service wasting money on a program that is totally out of touch with the reality on the ground, but more to the point, is teaching helpless and hapless young and aspiring public servants management techniques that are set to duplicate the disastrous situation which is engulfing the USA as we speak.

Apparently there is some notion, borrowed from the former CEO of a large American banking organisation, that people at a managerial level need to spend a pretty large proportion of their time looking after themselves, with even more large percentages of the time left over being spent in managing upwards, coordinating the work of others and networking. Leaving something like 10% of the total time at work for doing things like - what's the word I am looking for - oh yes "WORK."

The reality is that in Australia where we already have a skilled labour shortage and in the Public Service in particular, where the planned departure of the so called "Baby Boomer" generation into retirement is leaving a gaping hole of experience and expertise as well as sheer hard working people, messages like this are or at least should be total anathema to any Secretary or CEO or any of the people actually responsible for generating learning and development programs programs.

The reality for most people working in the Australian Public Service at present is that everything has be there NOW especially with the change in government that has seen Kevin 07 being swept into power.

There is an urgent need to prepare briefing papers, research and write policy documentation research and write responses to questions and just the sheer drudgery of working in teams of people whose numbers are continually lower than establishment, who are so new that they know nothing, who continually search for financial incentives being offered by jobs in other departments and who have a work ethic that is substantially different from those in previous generations.

The concept of having equal pay for equal work across the public service has been dealt a death blow by the previous government and now people at the same level, doing virtually the same kind of jobs with the same sort of responsibilities and duties are being offered very different levels of remuneration in different departments. One of the things that this means is that in many instances, it takes some time to recruit someone and train them in what is expected of them in a given department and during this period the work of the team or the section or the Branch or indeed the Division continues. It's unrealistic to expect new starters who are learning about their duties and responsibilities and learning about the policies and practices of the Department that they have joined will be fully functional for at least 3-6 months. Given that recruitment processes can also take something like 3 months - this means that with all the best intentions in the world it is unlikely that senior managers will actually have a full complement of staff on deck so that they CAN do just their managerial jobs of managing their staff.

For most, the reality is that they have to pick up the slack during this period to enable their staff to acquire the level of competence that is required or assign sensitive work to people who are not ready for it and then suffer the consequences of having to re-do the work to meet basic organisational standards. What then happens is one of the tragedies of this new work environment. Just when you have a staff member fully trained and functional he or she finds a more lucrative position in another location and the merry go round starts again.

Why are people looking for better remuneration? Well it's simple really, as the cost of living and interest rates goes up so does their need to earn more money to maintain their life style. Given that the current situation in the APS actually encourages this movement it's clear that no amount of razor gang activity or "leadership courses" that seem to exhort senior manager to fail in their responsibilities to get the work done and produce some measurable work outcomes from their teams is not helping.

What would help?

If I heard correctly, Kevin Rudd the new PM used to believe in having a public service that was hard working, capable of providing fearless and frank advice and being paid the same levels of remuneration for people working at the same levels within the Service.

Australians are already world leaders in working hard. With the world economy heading towards the toilet - this is NOT the time for some management "gurus" to spread the message that was
suitable for some senior Banking honcho around 20 years ago!

Bring back some of the honesty in government that seems to have lapsed over the last 11 or so years under a previous government, bring back equal pay for equal work by suggesting to the people in the Public Service that as from a certain date all Public Service jobs would be remunerated at the SAME level for each classification regardless of which department the job is situated in.

Remove all of the contracts that have made the public service seem to work like the private enterprise models that now seems to be proving through their failure elsewhere in the world that it was always a bankrupt system.

Let's by all means have programs to prevent stress and overwork in the workplace, but at the same time let's also remember that there are other issues out there that do not lend themselves to a public service that CAN be independent and provide fearless and frank advice much less just hard and honest work outcomes that can be relied upon by the Minister in charge as well as the public that these people serve!

A new day is dawning

2008-03-02T10:55:00.002+11:00

What an interesting day it's going to be. The Poms are changing their immigration system. The BBC reports that they are implementing stage 1 of their four stage plan for immigration at present those HIGH skilled workers already inside the country who want to extend their stay can now do so using a new points based system.

I hope that by what they are doing they are not dooming the existence of the very British institutions that they have protected for all these years!

"By the end of 2008, every graduate with good English, on £40,000 or the local equivalent, will potentially have enough points to seek work in the UK.

But low skilled workers from outside the EU will be barred for the foreseeable future. The government believes it can fill all manual work vacancies from EU countries which, with the exception of Romania and Bulgaria, face no restrictions on working in the UK.

That is all very interesting news!

Leap day - or a workers lament

2008-02-29T16:46:00.004+11:00

February 29th is an interesting day.

In reality it only comes around once every four years and it is a demonstration how people are generally squeezed out of at least ten minutes of their lives each year and once every four years they are slugged with an extra day of work!

Who can we thank for all this extra work load? Who can we thank for depriving us of 10 minutes of salary every year and then to top that off an additional day of work at no extra charge!

Well big Julie started it all off (yeah you know the one, Julius Caesar the one who finally got his in the rotunda, the guy whose travel journals some of us had to translate from his original Latin into something meaningful like English, the guy who kept putting all his verbs at the end of an extremely long sentence!)

Big Julie had the bright idea of making a year 365.25 days as far back as 468 BC and you really have to remember the BC because it means BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA and not alas, before the Caesars.

By 1267, the monk, Roger Bacon, made an astonishing observation.

He was smart enough to notice that the calendar had slipped some nine days in 13 centuries and that people were celebrating Easter on the wrong day.

Now of course you begin to understand the reason I asked you to focus on the BC or Before the Christian Era.

Had there been no "Christian Era" we would not have had Bacon and his observations and we would all have had big Julie's calendar to this day!

Alas, being a monk Bacon appears to have had a lot of time on his hands (so to speak) and wanted to adjust big Julie's calendar.

It didn't really matter to him, that he had no idea WHEN the real final days of Christ (the days leading to Easter) took place, nor did it seem to matter that the pagan celebration of of the Northern Hemisphere Spring, with all the fertility symbols that rabbits and eggs represent were not a really Christian things. Both he and Big Julie knew and used MATHEMATICS - you know the things that are used by the people we really loved at school, especially when they tried to explain long division and other arcane things like 'cos' and the meaning of 'pi' and of course all those other 'wise men' who want to ensure that the working classes get their just deserts, simply because it's mathematically correct!

Thank goodness no one took notice of his finding until 1582.

This time the person who took note was a real force in the world. Pope Gregory XIII (that's the 13th for all of you who can't read Latin numbers - a number traditionally associated with bad luck) adjusted the calendar to the one we use today.

A calendar moreover that has some interesting quirks of its own. Did you know for example that every fourth year is a leap year UNLESS it it divisible by 100 and not 400?

This form of calculation still makes the year a little under 26 seconds too long, but what the hey, it's as close as we are going to get without having to adjust every watch, clock and digital time piece around the world. (Mind you there is a great marketing opportunity there somewhere for someone who is brave enough to face the consequences.

So now we, the working poor, not only give up ten minutes a year for four years, but once every four years we are slugged with an extra day of work as well!

It's darned unfair if you ask me - and all because of mathematicians and the rich and powerful.

What's in the News - a Reality Check

2008-02-29T11:55:00.005+11:00

"Sixteen Palestinians - the four boys, three adult civilians and nine
militants - were killed in missile strikes on Thursday, the medical
workers said.

The father of two of the youths wept in a Gaza hospital, unable to speak.

Medical workers said the boys were playing soccer when an Israeli missile struck.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the missile targeted militants who had fired rockets at southern Israel."

This is the story I read from the ABC News here in Australia.

The question now is what to believe from this simple set of statements?

I suspect that those who are hostile to Israel and its actions will focus on the statement from the medical workers.

The words "the boys were playing soccer when an Israeli missile struck" will of course convey the message that the Israelis are brutal, immoral, non caring people who attack and kill innocent children just being children, out innocently playing soccer.

Those whose point of view is a little more aligned to the Israeli cause might suggest that targeting militants who had fired rockets at Southern Israel is not incompatible with the story of the medics.

Think about it from a time frame perspective:
rockets are fired and take some time to hit their targets
Israeli authorities take time to check the sites where the rockets have landed take more time to see if their systems can trace where these rockets had come from and then take more time to organise a missile strike in response.
What I am getting at is that quite a deal of time is likely to have passed before the Israelis respond to the rocket attacks.

If Shakespeare was right and people undertake multiple roles and wear 'manifold garb' in life then it's possible for young people to be firing rockets at one time frame and playing soccer at another time.

If you can understand and believe that many of the militants in Gaza (as elsewhere) are youths (indeed many soldiers in all wars, insurrections, rebellions, terrorist actions are young people)

If you can understand that often in Gaza it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish between the multiple roles that people have to play in life.

Then, here is no doubt that at some point young people will play a sport or play the role of a child or a son. This does NOT prevent or preclude them from playing another role at another point in time including that of a militant who sets up and fires rockets into Israel.

One the one hand it's possible that the Israelis struck at militants and mistakenly killed some innocent children who were doing nothing more heinous than playing soccer.

On the other hand it's also possible that these youths who are described as children were in reality militants.

There is no doubt that another part of the news which refers to the death of a six month old child when a missile hit a militants house while he was there with members of his family is regrettable, but the Israelis will target militant commanders whenever they can find out where they are. If these militant commanders put their families at risk, that's just too bad.

Considering the response of one Hamas leader who suggested that their women will continue to bear children whose fathers will mourn them as martyrs when they are killed - suggests that perhaps at least some of the propaganda that hopes to horrify the world, with stories of nasty Israelis killing innocent civilian children in Gaza needs to be taken with several grains of disbelief.

Consumer Intelligence You can never have too much

2008-02-28T15:59:00.008+11:00

It's interesting what you come across in your mail box. Here was a leaflet from CHOICE magazine

I thought great - here is a reliable source of information that is available to health consumers anywhere really since they are on the web so why not take advantage of it.

I have used the graphic which the proudly displayed in the pamphlet that was sent to my home so please allow me to acknowledge where it comes from. Personally I think it's a great graphic as it shows in great detail some of the elements that consumers need to be aware of:

Being cluey
Being value seeking
Having knowledge
Being scam aware and
Being discerning

It's not often that I feature something I can recommend on these pages, but I will this time.

They are great value - check them out!

Who Speaks For Islam? What A Billion Muslims Really Think.

2008-02-28T08:51:00.005+11:00

Apparently there is a book which is due for publication next month (not that far away really) entitled "Who Speaks For Islam? What A Billion Muslims Really Think."

It's amazing what responses I have had when "discussing" the book - well really just the title and what little we know about it from the advertising on the BBC

Apparently, some 50,000 people who are of the Muslim faith in some 35 countries were surveyed by the Gallop organisation, on the instructions of its chairman Mr Jim Clifton way back in 2001, after President Bush asked "Why do they hate us?"

On the basis of the data obtained, an extrapolation has been made which claims to be able to, in effect, speak for Islam or at least adequately represent the points of view of some 1 billion of the faithful.

If you think this is a stretch you may be right - after all if you do your sums and see what 50,000 people mean statistically from a population of 1 billion and then ask how many were polled in each of the 35 countries and then make some sense of the relationships between the numbers polled and the total population in each of the countries then you will have sufficient data to begin to evaluate whether the poll and the book are useful or not.

Until then - all we have is the propaganda, by those who want to sell the book or more appropriately want us to buy it.

At least we can explore some of the more interesting 'leaks' that have been revealed about the contents of this book, so that we can determine whether it's worth spending money to find out more.

Apparently:

Those polled also said the most important thing the West could do to improve relations with Muslim societies was to change its negative views towards Muslims and respect Islam
the vast majority want Western democracy and freedoms, but do not want them to be imposed
many of the 7% classing themselves as "radical" - in fact admire the West for its democracy and freedoms. However, they do not want such things imposed on them.
most wanted the West to focus on changing its negative view of Muslims and Islam
most Muslims want guarantees of freedom of speech

As is usual with such leaks, any reader who is familiar with statistical analysis techniques would want to see the questions and actually ask how and where they were administered and how the choice of those surveyed was arrived at and loads of other questions about methodology and the population surveyed.

I guess that at present all we have are the leaks and the views or should I say opinions of certain people mentioned in the article who appear to have been given access to the poll and its results.

The rest of us I am afraid will have to buy the book to be able to read all about the survey and then hopefully have sufficient information to enable us to reach some conclusions about the validity of both the survey and the way it was administered and also the analysis of the results and the conclusions that have been derived from it.

One thing that has been revealed though, I think is or at should be taken at face value and actually listened to by all. This is in the first item listed in the leaks I have gleaned from the publicity:- "Those polled also said the most important thing the West could do to improve relations with Muslim societies was to change its negative views towards Muslims and respect Islam."

I really have no problem with this conclusion, indeed I support it 100%, with one teensy weensy proviso and that is that those who want us (ie non Muslims) to change, need to understand that positive attitudes and mutual respect are what is required on their part as well and not a one way street.

If we could look forward to all the relevant leaders standing up and pledging mutual respect and positive attitudes and agreeing that while there are different religious beliefs with different requirements about and for behaviour, there is also to be tolerance of others and their views and acceptance that those others can practice their views in peace.

When we can have that form of tolerance and mutual understanding and respect, then we can finally have a world community that wants to and is capable of working collectively towards securing all of humanity from the colossal dangers that it faces from environmental changes brought about by the residue of our existence on the planet, and by the fact that as time passes and there are more and more human beings on the planet there needs to be some careful management of the finite resources we have on above and in this planet so that we can all continue to exist on its surface in a state of relative well being.

To my mind THAT should be the goal of all - but when I say that I realise that I merely stating the thoughts I had in a dream and that reality is unlikely to produce anything like this view while human beings do not realise that we are all living in a closed and finite environment. Further that unless we start to respect and manage our environment, some of us and more likely many of our children and grandchildren and their descendants will have to 'carry the can' for our short sightedness now!

Shades of the American Wild Wild West

2008-02-26T06:36:00.007+11:00

If you grew up as I did, watching American cowboy movies at the cinema - in black and white, then you knew, without any fear of contradiction, that the genre identified the good guys from the baddies simply by their choice of head wear.

The good guys always wore white hats and the bad guys always wore black hats.

If you have a chance, review the footage you have been seeing on your TV sets over the last few years, set in some of the countries within which there are now terrorist groups or alleged terrorist organisations that have come under fire from during the American led "war on terror."

It's in the light of this interesting take on American history that I read the most recent news item concerning Barack Obama. There he is pictured while on a trip to Kenya the country where his father was born, wearing a white turban.

This appears to be considered by all and sundry as a low down dirty trick and is considered offensive by many in the Obama camp.

Don't know about anyone else - if it were me, I would relish the fact that my attempted detractors had managed to get the message so wrong! After all Obama is wearing a WHITE hat!

Now if someone comes and publishes a picture with Hillary Clinton wearing a black hat or a black turban, I will simply roll over in great guffaws of laughter at the level of politicking that is now happening in the USA.

There is already some evidence that this is likely to happen - perhaps in Texas. After all, check out this offering from You Decide 2008

Then of course I could be wrong and all the 'rules' that the USA seems to have set in the past may be being overturned in the environment of the present;

For example:
Black Hat and White hat

The 'Good' Samaritan

2008-02-26T06:18:00.003+11:00

It was hard to escape hearing Bible stories when people were growing up in Australia in the 1950's. Try as you might to duck classes in which someone tried to assist you with your religious development there were numerous occasions when it was simply more politic to stay at your desk and simply simulate an intense meditative state.

This would allow the words of whoever happened to be providing the address to wash over you undetected. In reality you reached a dream state in which you could really be thinking about when you were going down to the beach or . . . well anything really as long as it had nothing to do with the subject at hand!

It was thus with some trepidation that I read a news story this morning from the ABC which referred to a new form of suicide bomber in Iraq. We have had apocryphal stories about terrorists using young women with Downs syndrome as part of their horrific activities but this is the first time I have read about using someone in a wheel chair as the bomber.

What got my attention was the fact that all this took place in the city of Samarr which if my childhood memories are correct has something to do with the fabled 'Good Samaritan' of biblical fame.

A quiz for the 21st Century

2008-02-25T06:34:00.003+11:00

"When is a militant a civilian?" - Whenever a terrorist organisation says so and points the finger at a government organisation that has just violently killed someone.

"When is a civilian a militant?" Whenever a government, under threat from terrorists kills someone in the territory that houses terrorists.

What's the real truth? - There is often no distinction between civilians and militants!

It's quite 'normal' these days to find people who seem to live their lives as ordinary civilians, minding their own business, raising a family, going to work, doing the shopping, visiting their relatives who also double as terrorists hell bent on, building bombs, learning, trying or actually succeeding in destroying someone else's life - virtually "in their spare time".

The world is a dangerous place these days and it seems that anyone with a grudge against anyone else has or at least claims to have, the 'right' to do something about it.

Such views are not restricted to the lunatic fringe in interesting regions of the world like the middle east!

In Texas - as I understand it, the concept enshrined in the old saying, "a man's home is his castle," has been given effect in legislation.

Now, anyone can apparently 'defend' his home against intruders to the point of using 'deadly force'.

Indeed a man is on trial in that state for trying to extend this principle to his neighbour's house,

After ringing 911, the emergency services, to report a burglary in his neighbour's home and being told to do nothing and wait for the police, this man took his shotgun and after a brief warning or challenge with something like:- "move and you're dead" fired and killed two people.

It seems both were illegal immigrants AND apparently undertaking a burglary in the home of a neighbour.

Is this man a civilian or a militant? Is he a terrorist or just a good neighbour?

Some interesting questions for a nation which is currently engaged in a "War on Terror".

Don't know about you - but I for one would NOT like to live in the new "wild wild west" that seems to be Texas.

Then again, I am not sure I want to live in Sderot or Gaza or Iraq or northern Turkey - Aw hell is there anywhere that it's safe any more?

The Moral Imperative - again!

2008-02-25T04:13:00.004+11:00

Ralph Nader has announced plans to run again for the US presidency. The anti-establishment consumer advocate made the announcement in a televised interview on Sunday.

He said most Americans were disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties - who were not discussing the urgent issues facing American voters

People, he said, felt "locked out, shut out, marginalised and disrespected".

He called Washington DC "corporate-occupied territory" that turns the government against the interest of its own people.

Referring to the three main contenders in the race so far, he questioned: "Do they have the moral courage, do they have the fortitude to stand up to corporate powers and get things done for the American people?"

"We have to shift the power from the few to the many."

Coincidentally, a site that is normally outside my range of browsing pleasure popped up in response to a query. It was "Ask Moses.com" at http://www.askmoses.com

On this site I found that Rabbi Naftali Silberberg has written:
: "Our sages teach us that when G-d created Man, he was concerned that the angels would be jealous, for Man is the only creation like them who understands right from wrong. So G-d consulted with the angels before creating Man and said, "Let us make Man."; The lesson from this is that one should always seek advice, even from those who are inferior to you."

Apparently, even when you are the Almighty and can create and/or destroy the universe and all things in it, you stop, pause, think of all those lesser, inferior creatures around you, and seek their advice – before you get on and do what you wanted to do in the first place.

All this emphasised with the moral imperative "should."

The word 'should' is OK from the mouth of the Almighty - after all who has a greater claim to the moral imperative.

When uttered by lesser beings though, it could be a worry!

So here is a tip for all Americans:

Be careful who you vote for in your next election.

You can know with considerable certainty that you will NOT have the Almighty in power, regardless of who you vote for.

At least make sure that the person you elect consults with the lesser beings around them, preferably those whose lives and well being are likely to be put at risk by the decisions that they make.

The chances are that if you choose wisely then perhaps they will tend to exercise restraint when they are tempted to use the 'moral imperative.'

Just remember that Nader is a two time loser - he tried and failed in 2000 and again in 2004.

2% of Americans voted for him last time and had his votes gone elsewhere, especially in crucial states like Florida we may not have had to put up with "Dubya" for the last few years.

Help the world or missile defence test

2008-02-23T04:18:00.004+11:00

My readers will know that among others, I have also been suspicious that the stated intent of the USA in shooting a missile at an errant spy satellite which (according to the statements from the USA) has been threatening parts of the world with possible toxic gasses being released from it's fuel tanks if it survived intact a plunge back to earth after something obviously went out of control on the spacecraft.

Bill Gates the US Defence Secretary has now added fuel to this fire with the latest announcement as reported by BBC News, to wit:

The US defence secretary has said that the shooting down of a disabled spy satellite with a missile shows the country's missile defence system works.
Robert Gates said the operation "speaks for itself", adding the US was prepared to share some technology with China.
The comments came after China said the missile strike could harm security in outer space.

The US is making much of it's very public statements about this whole event and stipulating that it was in the best interests of the world's population to "take the shot" so to speak. It is now even offering to share some of the technology with China.

I don't know what game is being played here but I have a feeling that the Russians who have been suspicious of this whole episode since its inception are not likely to be amused.

Just think of the recent sequence of events and make up your own mind.

Russia accuses US and it's allies of trying to surround it with Missile Defence Shield equipment in Poland and in the Czech republic, Russia in response withdraws from certain treaties that it previously had entered into stating that it feared for its security.

US allies equipped with Aegis cruisers and destroyers have been testing weapons systems in Japan and elsewhere.

Tensions are high in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world as issues about oil supplies., global warming, the economic impacts of climate change and more domestic issues confront the world with changes on a scale that are likely to require drastic changes in life style for most of the developed world countries.

Ethnic tensions closer to home in the Balkans and the reluctance of countries in Europe and elsewhere, staunch allies of the US to continue to support US efforts which are ostensibly aimed at "the war on terror" in Iraq and in Afghanistan are all placing the world community at risk.

Increasing the tensions are any acts which can 'demonstrate' that one country is capable of shielding itself from missiles aimed against it buy another nation as this sort of capacity would give that nation an advantage over others.

Shooting down satellites, a major feat of arms and technology is not likely to reduce tensions.

So when Bill Gates suggests that the missile defence test has taken place and that the world is a safer place as a result it's time to question the roles and functions that the US military is undertaking around the world and ask a deeper question which is - in whose interests is it to continue to support some of the policies which the current lame duck President has fostered around the world.

Rabbit proof fences are not enough!

2008-02-21T07:40:00.005+11:00

Anywhere in the world anyone inciting racial hatred should be an anathema for people especially those who claim to have religious convictions.

Inciting such hatred in children, with a view of assisting one or more of them to take the road to 'martyrdom' (read terrorism) , at least in the view of this author, is totally unspeakable and unforgivable!

People who treat the younger generation in this way do not have any legitimate claims to being "freedom fighters" or people protecting the religious teachings of Islam, they are simply immoral criminals.

Reuters reports that:

"A man-sized talking rabbit appeared on television in Gaza on Friday to denounce Danish newspapers over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that offended Muslims.
The latest in a line of cartoon-inspired characters that take the message of the Hamas Islamist movement to Palestinian children, the actor in the Bugs Bunny-style outfit also railed against "Zionist filth" and Israel's control of Jerusalem.
The Friday show "Tomorrow's Pioneers" on Hamas's al-Aqsa channel has become a weekend fixture for pre-teens since shortly before the Islamists seized control of the Gaza Strip last year.
A Mickey Mouse-type creation provoked outcry in Israel and was condemned elsewhere as inciting hatred among the young. The mouse, eventually shown being beaten to death by an Israeli, was followed by a talking bee and, now, by Assud the rabbit.
"I want the West to hear this. I want the Danes who offended the great Prophet to hear it," the rabbit said, gesturing to viewers after the show's co-presenter, a girl of about 12 named Sarra, condemned Danish newspapers for reprinting the cartoons after police accused several men of plotting to kill the artist.
"Where are you Muslims? Where are you Arabs?" said Sarra, wearing a headscarf and speaking with precocious eloquence.
"We are all a sacrifice for the Prophet. The soldiers of Tomorrow's Pioneers will redeem the Prophet with all they have."

It's obvious that "rabbit proof fences" are not enough.

The entire civilized world should rail against this form of propaganda and against those who not only allow, but actively promote it.

If Palestinians are seeking to convince the world that they should be welcomed into the civilized world then this is surely NOT the way to do it!

New government, new rules, lower productivity or fiscal lunacy.

2008-02-21T06:12:00.011+11:00

In recent times we have been hearing about one thing in Australia CHANGE - a theme that seems to also predominate in the US Election scene.

At present in Australia there is a nationwide shortage of skilled workers in a variety of sectors and of course there is an outbreak of the obesity epidemic that seems to have found its way here, most likely from the USA, via their many variations on the "fast food" franchises and lifestyle as well as their current obsession with reality TV that features a number of shows dealing with unbelievably fat people who are labelled (appropriately as it happens) as the "Biggest Loser"(s).

In Parliament, the current Opposition has been hammering the new government about it's plans to ensure that there are policies and practices in place to ensure that there is not a rise in inflation and of course a wages break out.

The new government, still in it's "honeymoon" period, has been responding with exactly what you would expect, namely, that it inherited the current horrific fiscal situation from the previous government and the five rounds of interest rises during its term in office, its complete lack of planned investment in everything from infrastructure to education and of course its horrific industrial legislation.

All of which the current government is set to change, of course.

Whether for the better or worse still remains to be seen.

The new Rudd government has pinned its hopes on wages restraint in part, by setting an example, announcing a freeze on wage rises for politicians.

They also exhorted CEOs around the country to follow their example. To which, in more diplomatic language of course, the CEOs are likely to respond "fat chance!"

Another message from government has been that it will do its best to increase productivity and so off-set any possible wage increases that are likely to be sought by unions for their members.

Unfortunately for the government one group of people closely associated with the work of government, Australia Post, or the people who deliver the mail, has announced that it is looking for fatter "posties."

This of course will deal with the labour shortage and the reality that there are more obese people in the country.

It may however have some unintended and possibly far reaching consequences.

A weight limit of 90 kgs (198 pounds) has been in place for "posties" for some time because the 110cc motorcycles which are used to deliver the mail to individual letter boxes were thought to have a safe working limit of 130kg (286 pounds) -- that's 40kg (88 pounds) for letters and up to 90 kgs for mail men and women fully clothed.

Apparently, after talks with motorcycle manufacturer Honda, it was agreed the bikes could safely carry a "postie" weighing 105 kgs (231 pounds)

Of course this will mean a lowering of productivity, because each "postie" will only be able to carry 25 kgs of mail if he or she is at the higher weight limit, or worse, it will mean more work for those with lower weight issues - surely an unfair workplace practice.

The union representing mail men and women said the 90 kg limit had caused recruitment headaches for Australia Post, but the company denied it had staffing problems.

"Testing found a rise in rider weight up to a maximum of 105 kgs would not have any significant effect on the stability, handling or safety of their 110 cc motorcycle," an Australia Post spokesman told the Daily Telegraph in Sydney.

"By raising it from 90 to 105 kilograms means there will be other people that can now apply," he said.

You, dear reader, being smarter than our politicians, will already be starting to appreciate the number of unfortunate outcomes may arise from this news:

existing "posties" are likely to increase their consumption of fast foods, as they are no longer in fear of losing their jobs;
as they increase their weight, their productivity will decline as will their health;
while there will be no "wages break out" per se, the costs of delivering mail will increase substantially, as more obese mail persons are employed;
this will mean an increase in the rate of postage (that will be blamed on the rising cost of fuel etc so as to protect the jobs and bonuses of the people who made this decision in the first place);
it may of course also mean an increase in the number of people who make demands on an already stretched health services area;
this of course would increase the cost of living for "working families";
increase the odds of inflation;
increase the chances of the Reserve Bank raising interest rates yet again;
etcetera

Indeed the only good thing to emerge from all of this is that investors, aka "fat cats," who have been on a fiscal diet recently, losing money in the USA and elsewhere in the world thanks to some unwise notions about lending money to people who can't pay it back - with interest of course, will get on their bikes (no doubt motorized and possibly from Honda) and push their money into Australia where it can earn a decent rate of return.

This, in combination with the purchasing power of the Aussie dollar is likely to create the necessary climate where investment opportunities for people living off shore will increase while raising the cost of living for those who live here.

I don't know about you - but I am making preparations for a worst case scenario! Invest locally and migrate for the duration to the south of France where they don't need 'le fast food' as they have an abundance of healthy, nutritious and well cooked food.

With winter coming on in Canberra, it sounds like a plan to me!

"Don't let me be misunderstood!"

2008-02-19T10:16:00.004+11:00

What a hoot!

Gen William Ward said Africom's intent had been misunderstood

The BBC reports that:

The US military has decided to keep the headquarters of its new Africa Command in Germany, after only one African nation, Liberia, offered to host it.
Most African countries have been wary of plans to base the command, Africom, on the continent.
Africom's commander, Gen William Ward, said there were no plans to create large US garrisons on the continent.
The military command was created last year to unite responsibilities shared by three other US regional commands.

No one in Africa wants to host the US Military, except for Liberia the country that was colonized by freed African American slaves in 1822 who, with the support of the United States founded the country in 1847.

What a surprise!

There has been concern that Africom is really an attempt to protect US oil and mineral interests in Africa, amid growing competition for resources from Asian economies, says the BBC's Alex Last in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
Then there are fears about the continent being drawn into the US war on terror, our correspondent ads.
Gen Ward said Africom was not about militarisation but consolidating existing operations under one single command, while helping Africans with military training and supporting peacekeeping and aid operations.

Does anyone out there actually believe this? Apparently not locally!

Now that the US is virtually persona non grata in it's own previous 'sphere of influence' namely Latin America, it's apparently looking further afield.

People are looking at Americans helping with their military training and support for peacekeeping and they immediately think about Korea, Vietnam, and more recently Afghanistan and Iraq, where there is now a chorus of a familiar refrain that sounds something like:

"Yankee Go Home!"

The Africans are chanting a different tune. This may refer to the "Yankee dollar", but without strings attached.

Nostalgia or morbid curiosity?

2008-02-18T05:14:00.003+11:00

I was fascinated to read about the return to the stage of a 104 year old Dutch cabaret singer who is alleged to have performed for the Nazis including Adolf Hitler and visited Dachau.

Simple morbid curiosity requires me to ask what this man can possibly offer to an audience these days?

I take it that a rendition of "Shake Rattle and Roll" was not on the program!
He must have something!

Apparently Johannes Heesters, born Johan, began his career in Amsterdam in the 1920s and moved to Germany in 1935, where he enjoyed a successful career.

These days I wonder if the curiosity is to see someone of this age manage to perform at all.

Interestingly the Allies apparently allowed him to keep performing after the war in-spite of allegations like:

"He kept singing for the Nazi regime, for the Wehrmacht, and he earned millions," said Piet Schouten, representative of a committee formed to protest against Saturday's performance.
"We have a problem with that on behalf of all the victims," he told national broadcaster NOS.

The world is a strange place and filled with even stranger stories!

Competition - your days may be numbered

2008-02-17T10:46:00.007+11:00

"Competition - your days may be numbered" seems an appropriate header when referring to the latest offering from the BBC.

Helen Briggs the BBC Science Reporter based in Boston reports that:

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.
Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil.
He said machines and humans would eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.
"It's really part of our civilisation," Mr Kurzweil said.
"But that's not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us."
Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better, in many different areas, he said.

I have to confess that I was not much taken by the possibility that natural intelligence could be supplemented by devices that would give the less gifted among us some real equality (or God forbid - superiority).

I mean where would that all leave things like competition?

Besides, if everyone was capable of intelligence beyond their current capacities where would it leave politicians?

Probably without a job!

Indeed the only part of this story that I liked was the bit that suggested that:

"We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons".

If these nanobots can get into my system and interact with any cancer cells that may remain there or actually find and destroy the little beggars that may return to haunt my system, I am all for the human/machine hybrid that is being predicted indeed, I am saving up as we speak!

I am not sure I can wait until 2029 though, so can we have all this "soon as" please?

If that's possible, I may even survive long enough to become not only one of the oldest, but probably one of the smartest among all the generations of my family!

On the other hand, if the predicted revolution (it can't really be called evolution I suppose) does not come in time - then I may well end up being one of the youngest among the leaves that have fallen from the family tree.

"Sorry"

2008-02-16T05:19:00.004+11:00

Canberra Saturday 16th February:

On Valentines Day, I wrote a hopeful piece that tried to look at the future of community relations in this country between the indigenous and non indigenous inhabitants.

I have taken the liberty of referring my readers to a cartoon by Moir, entitled "And now - moving right along" which in its own sardonic way, demonstrates the level of cynicism that no doubt still permeates at least some levels of Australian society about indigenous matters.

I sincerely hope that it is just that, a cynical look at what for me at least has been a very memorable and historic occasion.

During the late 1960's and 1970's when I was at University and my social conscience finally began to be educated, a time when Nelson Mandella was still incarcerated and South Africa was still a bastion for racist apartheid policies and behaviours, I have to admit that I was ashamed that many of the ideas that seemed to have taken hold in that country, according to the reading I was being shown, were most likely exported there from Queensland, an Australian State which created and implemented the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 in the last century.

The Queensland Parliament consistently presented Aboriginal families with oppressive legislation until the early 1970s, when it began to formally disband apartheid by means of new legislation, for example, the Aborigines Act 1971.

It took a Labor Federal Government under the leadership of Gough Whitlam to implement the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, through the enactment of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

An act that started the process that culminated the other day with the issue of an apology and the use of that now famous word "sorry" by the leader of yet another Labor Federal Government, ironically, a Queensland representative, the current Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd.

Whatever cynical remarks one might wish to make about the level of bi-partisan support for this apology, it is interesting to note that way back in the 1970's, Mr Whitlam's successor and possibly bitterest political enemy at the time, Malcolm Fraser, a man who has been been less than favourably presented to history for his methods of unseating the Whitlam government, can also be remembered for his achievements on race issues, ranging from passing Northern Territory lands rights legislation - still the most advantageous to Aborigines in the nation - to his commitment to abolishing apartheid in South Africa.

People who wish to read about Mr Fraser's actions in this regard could do worse than to read a review of a lecture he gave (the fifth annual Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture) by Margo Kingston in the Sydney Morning Herald on August 25, 2000.

What a pity then to read from the ABC that:

The Central Land Council says the former Indigenous affairs minister, Mal Brough, should not be a member of the new bipartisan commission announced by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday.

Mr Rudd and Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson are co-chairing the commission, which will look at Indigenous housing in remote areas as its first task.

Dr Nelson has asked Mr Rudd to include Mr Brough on the commission because of his experience as Minister.

But the Central Land Council's director, David Ross, says that would be provocative and put the entire process in jeopardy.

"I don't think Aboriginal people would be too happy about having Mr Brough as a part of this committee, especially if they had to deal with him," he said.

"He's not the sort of man that would communicate with Aboriginal people.

"He was more interested in dictating to Aboriginal people about why they should and should not do rather than consulting with people."

I sincerely hope that Mr Moir is not correct and that his cartoon does NOT represent the future reality of either race relations or reconciliation in this country.

We really do NOT need another 30 + years of struggle and bitterness, what we need is resolution of that bitterness and a way of 'moving on' that does not run over Australians, whatever their colour, their ethnic background or creed.

Iranian President to visit Iraq

2008-02-15T05:10:00.007+11:00

This is the picture that accompanies the story and this is the story in the press:

"The Iranian President will be visiting for two days from March 2. He will be meeting with President Jalal Talabani and with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki," Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

"He will be accompanied by a number of ministers."

Iran and Iraq fought a devastating war between 1980 and 1988 in which around 1 million people died."

Interestingly enough the picture of the President poses readers some interesting questions about what he is really saying, in Persian of course while conversing with journalists.

I would like to think that it's something like this:

"Yeah I know - you all think I have to be crazy to even contemplate visiting Iraq while the Americans, who have labelled me as being part of an "Axis of Evil" and hell bent on building nuclear weapons, so that I can start a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East, are there in force.

You would be wrong!

The Americans will actually protect me in the same way that they did at the UN recently, probably because of some misguided notions concerning diplomatic immunity.

You may think I am crazy to visit Iraq, where there are people who are letting off car bombs left right and centre killing people indiscriminately and where the regime I lead is remembered for having killed hundreds of thousands of those, whose relatives have been left behind.

You would be wrong!

The Americans will protect me from that too. Besides, since my lot supplies most of the material for the bombs, they would be crazy to eliminate their major source of supplies.

You may think that the Israelis, whom I have sworn to eliminate from the face of the earth, will let off a car bomb, just like the one in Syria the other day, that I, along with others allege, took out my dear friend and colleague, Imad Mughnieh.

Of course you know Imad, he's been on the most wanted terrorist list for ages. He's the guy alleged to have been involved with the terrorist bombing of the US marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the hijacking of a TWA flight in 1985 .

Don't believe what the Israelis are saying, denying responsibility or indeed involvement - that's just propaganda.

I can recognise that easily enough - after all I fabricate so much of the stuff myself, I would be crazy not to!

And of course you would be wrong again - the Americans will protect me from them too - generally they do what they are told when their actions would embarrass their major arms supplier.

My appearance? What's wrong with my appearance?

Oh that! That's due solely to the bad hair days I have been having recently and the fact that I have not been able to shave for at least a week or two.

Why not?

Well that's just a tad embarrassing.

You see my own hand is what I really worry about. It's unsteady when it holds a cut throat razor in the mornings!

Why not use a safety razor?

I can't afford to be seen with an American product like a safety razor!

Why not use an electric razor?

Well I have to admit, we have been having a few issues with the supply of electricity recently, in spite of the fact that we have quite a lot of the world's oil supplies - that's why we are building some nuclear reactors.

Don't be silly!

Why use our oil supplies to generate electricity?

It's far better to sell the stuff to you lot, at highly inflated prices. That is the policy of our brothers who form the OPEC oil cartel after all.

I guess I will just have to wait a while until those reactors are completed."

Freedom of the press under threat - again!

2008-02-13T15:27:00.003+11:00

I was appalled to read the following information.

The BBC reports:

"At a meeting in Cairo called by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, a charter was adopted allowing authorities to withdraw permits from offending channels."

"At the meeting of information ministers from the 22-nation Arab League in Cairo, the charter was agreed by a vote.

The document calls on stations "not to offend the leaders or national and religious symbols" of Arab countries, news agency AFP reports.

They should not "damage social harmony, national unity, public order or traditional values," the charter says.

Signatory countries may "withdraw, freeze or not renew the work permits of media which break the regulations".

The charter also calls on broadcasters to avoid erotic content, or content which promotes smoking or the consumption of alcohol, and to "protect Arab identity from the harmful effects of globalisation".

"Some satellite channels have strayed from the correct path," said Egyptian Information Minister Anas al-Fiqi.

He said it was time to confront those who propagated ignorant or reactionary ideas, and those who tried to score points by undermining governments and nations.

What worries me about this charter is that it appears that there are 22 regimes who wish to keep their people ignorant about what is going on in the world - perhaps to maintain their hold on power.

An information minister who can say that channels have "strayed from the correct path." really is a worry.

There is no 'correct path' in journalism except the truth or at least a point of view which an author is willing to stand behind!

If TV channels that wish to operate in the Arab League have now confirmed that they are nothing more than propaganda arms for the countries in which they are allowed to continue to function, then all people who are of the Muslim faith and all people who are interested in the freedom of the press need to be aware that it's not only bad taste that is in question from this decision, it is access to the truth!

People can turn off something which offends them if it is shown.

However, whenever a state or a religious institution censors what can and cannot be shown to people, then it becomes a repressive regime that does not trust it's own people. There is no guarantee that what the viewers are shown has any connection with either reality or the truth!

Arab League members need to consider what this move on their part will to do supporters or at least even handed commentators.

From now on, it is likely to be even more difficult than at present to tell what is or what is not really happening in Arab countries that are the members of the League.

From now on at least, all material needs to be vetted to ensure that it is not merely government approved propaganda!

I think the Arab League have done a great disservice to their communities and where there is some semblance of democracy, to their electorates.

They have once again encouraged those whose passion it is to argue that governments in Arab countries can't be trusted, because they fear the truth being told to their own people!

Censorship is not a great way to enable communication from any government!

It's also not a great way to encourage cooperation and collaboration with the rest of the world.

Valentines Day with a difference?

2008-02-13T09:30:00.000+11:00

Dateline Canberra 13th February 2008

The current Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd finally says "Sorry" to indigenous people in Australia.

The parliament apologised today for breaking up families and for the pain, degradation and suffering inflicted on the Aboriginal people.

Part of the text reads:

"We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.''

"We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

"And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.''

"We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians,'' it says.

"A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

"A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity."

Given this motion, that Mr Rudd made in the Australian Parliament today, let's hope that indigenous peoples in this country will all accept the apology and accept that it demonstrates bi-partisan good will from both the government of this country, the opposition and also from the non indigenous people in Australia, those who have come here from all parts of the globe to settle and to enrich the cultural heritage of this country, by adding their contributions to the already rich tapestry woven by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, a tapestry that has become, in essence, Australia.

It is perhaps fitting that the apology is made on the day before Valentine's Day, a day now imbued with the tradition of lovers expressing their love for one another.

If the indigenous people of this country accept the apology, then tomorrow can bring a new dimension to Valentine's Day.

It can become for all Australians, a day not unlike the day that would follow what might happen in a family relationship in which at least one party has been able to say 'sorry' and is forgiven for past transgressions, so that the future of the relationship can be celebrated and then worked on jointly by all of those who are part and parcel of that family.

Let's try and bring to this next Valentine's Day, a new meaning of reconciliation and a peaceful, prosperous and harmonious future for all who live together in this country.

What's in the News Today?

2008-02-13T06:08:00.000+11:00

Recently there have been somewhat disturbing news items - dismissed by the general media merely as President Putin flexing Russian muscles.

These items concern the expansion of the US military into such things as defence shields and weapons systems in space and also so called defensive missile systems installed in countries that just happen to place a ring around Russia and to some extent China.

Russia has responded somewhat aggressively by (among other things) re-commencing long range bomber flights in August of last year, in a move that has been most commonly regarded as 'flexing of military muscles.'

The latest example of this was just the other day when the BBC reported that:

"Two Russian bombers approached a US aircraft carrier in the Pacific and were intercepted by American fighter jets."

The incident comes amid renewed tensions between Moscow and Washington over American plans for a missile defence system based in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Mr Putin has complained about these developments before and has suggested that there is a new arms race that is in train.

Today he also suggested that while Russia does not have the power to stop its neighbours joining NATO it does have both the power and the responsibility to safeguard Russia by targeting both Poland and the Czech Republic if they permit such weapons systems on their soil.

China is also concerned about the development of American weapons systems - especially in space, and recently demonstrated its ability to shoot down a satellite in orbit.

It is also concerned by the fact that the latest military missile defence systems have been permitted on board Aegis class ships purchased by the Japanese Navy.

Both Russia and China appear to be so concerned about these developments - ostensibly to protect Europe and the continental United States from attack by 'rogue states' that they have proposed a new treaty to ban the use of weapons in space and the use or threat of force against satellites or other craft at the recent Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Meanwhile the Russians are also expanding their trade relations with India by concluding a deal to supply and build four nuclear power stations in that country. Once again this is ostensibly to enable India to meet its nuclear power requirements by 2020. Of course at the same time it was announced that India and Russia would be expanding the extent of their defence, engineering and energy cooperation.

At present Russia has supplied well over 70% of India's defence requirements - however this has had to be supplemented from other arms suppliers including Britain France Israel and the USA because there have been issues with deliveries from Russia for a variety of reasons.

It's ironic to note that the Russians and the Indians hope that their trade will increase to some 10 billion dollars a year from it's current level of around $5 billion per annum.

This is ironic, because with the recent meltdown in the US economy there is one obvious way for the USA to revitalise its fortunes, this being to ensure that military contracts can be found for firms most notably those that are currently difficulties, contracts that are funded from outside the USA.

Today's announcement, for example, that General Motors has suffered the biggest annual loss in the history of car making, a loss that has far exceeded analysts predictions, coming in at a staggering $38.73 billion, is a case in point.

If one then expands one's look at the businesses that comprise what in former times would have been called the "US military industrial complex" then one will realise that for the USA there is a major imperative, from a whole variety of perspectives, to once again try and create or at least capitalise on the international situations in which it's capacity to make and market weapons systems and ancillary support systems - be they electronic or not, are utilised by others as one way of "buying" their way out of their current fiscal difficulties.

Of course the greater the threat to world peace and the more unstable things become, the "better" it is for those firms that make or support the manufacture of armaments and/or related products.

At present, the dangers posed by the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq cause the USA a problem.

On the one hand, the USA is using high tech (read expensive) weaponry to combat these forces and to create levels of intelligence and security systems for the USA. These come at a cost - a very high cost.

On the other hand the terrorists are able to achieve their aims with very low cost solutions - for example the use of suicide bombers and IUDs.

The costs of maintaining these "wars" as well as maintaining and enhancing military operations around the world are hurting the US. This is not just in propaganda terms and in the loss of human lives, but also in terms of the cost of hiring, training, arming, deploying and then losing their military personnel and their equipment.

The reality is that, unless someone else, other than US taxpayers, pays for the weapons and allied systems that the USA is deploying and expending on the battlefields where it is and has been deployed at least since 9/11, it risks losing not only the battles, but also its ability to fund such battles in the future.

At least one "solution" to this problem might be to take advantage of situations in which other economies are required to invest in the purchase of military goods made by the USA for their security, protection or conduct of operations against insurgents or others hostile to their governments.

Certainly the purchase by other economies of goods made in the USA would not hurt the economy of the United States.

Recent sales of military hardware to countries such as Saudi Arabia are cases in point where the money coming in from such sales can not only offset the trade imbalance caused by oil but can positively advantage American companies that make the products that have been purchased and through taxation also bring some revenue to the US government.

Alas the levels of instability in international relations and within nations is surely hurting the well being of the people who live in those unstable circumstances and does very little to allay the fears of those who do NOT dismiss the Russian and Chinese activities as mere "muscle flexing."

I do not know about anyone else who was born after 1945 - but I for one do NOT want to see another world war or another cold war, especially if the potential combatants are all in possession of nuclear weapons systems!

How many cows for Nicole?

2008-02-10T09:53:00.000+11:00

It's not often that I have the opportunity to ask some really cynical questions - but today appears to be the exception.

When human beings started to domesticate and herd animals instead of hunting them, a custom seems to have appeared that was unique to that time - the so called "bride price".

For the privilege of gaining a woman as a wife - the "gaining" family would actually pay the "losing" family for the loss of this valuable "asset".

Women were defined as "assets", in those days, valuable assets; that had the children, looked after the house, cooked, cleaned, washed, made the clothes, grew the vegetables and were of course great companions as well.

In more recent times, it was common to have the "losing" family actually have to find some goods to go along with the woman so that the 'gaining' family would take the woman (someone whose value seems to have slipped by that time) off their hands. This was usually referred to as a "Dowry"

In any event, the point of this story is that women have, it seems, over the centuries, always had a 'price.'

Like the stock-market, this price has fluctuated and has waxed and waned.

The news from today of course is that a swimming costume, belonging to Australian film star Nicole Kidman was sold at auction for enough to buy more than nine cows for the poor in India.

Apparently Kidman, a keen swimmer, forgot the suit at a pool she had reserved for her personal use in the south-western town of Vaenersborg during a 2002 stay in Sweden to shoot Lars von Trier's "Dogville".

Pool staff found it and handed it over to a local radio station.

Mr Zlatko Nedanovski, 32 then bought the swimsuit for 5,500 kronor and promptly put it on display at his second hand store.

Mr Nedanovski says bids for the swimsuit had come from all over the world, but it finally went to 49-year-old Bengt Olsen from Sweden's film town Trollheattan, just south of Vaenersborg for 16,200 kronor ($3,270) which is more than Mr Nedanovski said he had hoped to raise to buy five cows, or around 9,000 kronor, as part of a project run by the Swedish aid organisation Erikshjaelpen.

Now here is where my cynical mind asks the next question:-

"If the swimsuit WITHOUT Nicole in it currently worth 16,200 kronor (more than the price of nine cows) nearly a 300% increase in the price paid for it by Mr Nedanovski in 2002 then how many cows will you be able to buy with the suit in five years time?

More to the point what's Nicole worth? With or without the suit?

The world's an interesting place!

Are there double standards or is it just my reading of the news?

2008-02-09T22:36:00.003+11:00

On the 5th of February 2008 the Australian Government (through the offices of the Foreign Affairs Minister) The Hon Stephen Smith MP said:

"The Australian Government strongly condemns the suicide bombing in Dimona in Southern Israel on 4 February, in which three people have been reported killed and 11 wounded. Australia condemns such violence against innocent civilians."

I have not really seen much about this terrorist act in the Australian press, however I have seen some reports from the Palestinian Authority, including the official Al-Hayat al-Jadida which is apparently controlled by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Of course Hamas, the organisation that was elected in Gaza as the government of that territory, has claimed responsibility for the operation which apparently was launched from Hebron.

"The perpetrators of the operation died as shahids ... an Israeli was killed and eleven were wounded in the Dimona operation."

The Palestinian dailies Al-Iyam and Al-Quds also defined the bombers as glorious martyrs, or shahids.

Apparently, according to Islam, a shahid is a person who dies a "holy death" for Allah and is conceived of as a hero and role model in Palestinian society, specifically for Palestinian youths.

The Israeli who was killed in the "operation," as it is referred to in some media reports I have seen, appears to have been Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73. She was shopping with her husband Eduard Gedalin, 74, who is in critical condition due to injuries suffered in the attack.

What a glorious outcome for this "operation."

Two elderly people who had survived the second world war and the fanatical hatred of all things Jewish under the Nazi regime, as well as all of the constraints and ravages of living under the Soviet regime, finally murdered as they shopped.

Apparently there is not the same sense of outrage for these "innocent civilians" as there appears to be for the people in Gaza who seem to support those who have claimed responsibility for this horrific attack.

I made some comments on this blog about similar issues in relation to the restrictions of electricity supply to the Palestinians in Gaza being condemned, while nothing is said about the denial of electricity to the whole of Mozambique and Zambia and Zimbabwe by the South African electricity supplier or the 25% reduction of electricity to the people in the Ukraine by the Russian supplier.

No condemnation is made of those who with to maintain the profits of their shareholders, but there is always criticism of a government that is seeking to maintain the security and well being of its citizens.

At what point will some of these double standards become obvious to people?

Or am I simply missing something in my reading of the news?

Sharia Law in the UK? Whatever next?

2008-02-09T05:38:00.000+11:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".
Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion. For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.
He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".

I agree with Dr Williams - up to a point.

Consenting adults should be able to access more culturally appropriate provisions for the management of marital disputes, property settlements, custody arrangements and the like if they wish to do so.

These permissions should not become part of English, law but something where decisions made by the parties, when entered into by consenting adults, are recognised by English law.

Consenting adults moreover, where both parties have been afforded the opportunity to provide informed consent.

Dr Rowan goes on to say:

Orthodox Jewish courts already operated, and that the law accommodated the anti-abortion views of some Christians.

"The whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways the law of the land pays respect to custom and community, that's already there," he said.

People may legally devise their own way to settle a dispute in front of an agreed third party as long as both sides agree to the process.
Muslim Sharia courts and the Jewish Beth Din which already exist in the UK come into this category.

The country's main Beth Din at Finchley in north London oversees a wide range of cases including divorce settlements, contractual rows between traders and tenancy disputes.

I think that the phrase "as long as both sides agree to the process' is one key to this proposition, together with two other propositions (unstated):

that both parties are well enough informed to be able to make an informed choice and
that the jurisdiction of the religious court is clearly and unambiguously delineated.

In essence this would mean that the laws of the land always take precedence over all other forms of justice that exist in the community. However, in recognition of the sensitivities and rights of people from other cultures:

if both the parties to a potential dispute agree to abide by another form of judicial process and
they are both provided with expert advice and information that enables them to make an informed choice and
the jurisdiction of the courts are limited to certain agreed matters

then the people, the other religious groups and the government and the courts of the country should support them.

Some of my readers in Australia will obviously think I have suddenly lost my senses and become demented!

The first reaction I expect will be something like:

"It's not coming here, whatever the Archbishop is saying!

They can do what they like in the UK!

This is Australia, mate, if all these people want to come here then they can bloody well accept that there is ONE LAW for all in this country and if they don't like it, they can bugger off and go back to where they came from."

This expected reaction is what has in essence already been said by representatives from both sides of politics in this country. Put more politely - of course!

Yet I wonder.

People who have chosen to go anywhere from other lands and cultures, usually because they are refugees, are none the less expected to have made an informed choice about going to that country.

Part of that informed choice is to recognise that the culture is different, the mainstream religion is different and the way that the laws work where the end up, is different.

So why hold out an opportunity to people to have access to some other form of justice even if it is only for a small range of matters?

I guess my answer to that is that if this suggestion had been made in Australia then I would have expected Australians to react differently than they have to date, as Australia appears to be, for the most part at least, a tolerant society and one that positively welcomes differences.

It is a country in which people from well over a hundred different nationalities, many with different cultures and religions have come and settled.

They have all made a wonderful contribution to the development of this country and added to the Australia we now have, from their own unique cultures and belief systems.

So if the issue had been raised here, then perhaps it's past time to ensure that we, the Australians who live here and benefit from these contributions recognise that it's OK to permit others if they choose to do so, to remain close to their religious and cultural heritage and have at least some aspects of their lives governed by the laws of behaviour that have governed their lives in the past.

At all times, the proviso that parts of these non Australian justice systems can come into play is if and only if, both the parties to the dispute agree to it.

If not then the matter cannot be brought to any religious court.

Furthermore, in most jurisdictions where such provisions already apply, the range of disputes that are permitted to come before an alternate justice system are usually limited to some civil matters and do not and cannot be used in cases of criminal justice or indeed for any other decision making outside those very limited situations.

The establishment of any religious court, MUST also be accompanied by a clear definition of the extent of its jurisdiction and have some provision within the system that ensures that before either party is permitted to make a choice to use a religious court system, both parties are provided with information and advice about the system and its provisions.

Then each of the parties needs to be able to get advice about what making a choice like this means for them.

I raise the issue of informed consent simply because another argument that is likely from those whose visceral reactions to such a proposal are almost guaranteed, is that at least one of the parties (my guess is that in most of the arguments women will feature heavily as the party in question) will not have the opportunity to make a free choice or to exercise informed consent.

The argument is likely to run that in some cultures women are discouraged, if not prevented from having access to education. If women arrive from a country where this is common place, into the UK, (or anywhere else for that matter) then how will they know their rights and what opportunity will there really be for them to make an informed choice about whether or not to agree to participate?

My obvious suggestion to remedy such questions is that any legal provision that permits Sharia or other religious courts to function, needs to ensure that both parties are not only able to obtain, but are provided with expert advice and information as a matter of course, before they are permitted to make any choices.

This question has not come to Australia, yet, but I suspect it will.

I wonder what the reaction will be in the UK

I suspect it will be both as hostile as it has been in Australia and in the case of a similar attempt in Ontario in Canada where: (as reported by BBC news)

A report by Ontario's former attorney general Marion Boyd had recommended the use of Islamic law to settle issues such as divorce and child custody.
Premier Dalton McGuinty ruled against the move, saying there should be "one law for all Ontarians".
Protests were held against the Sharia law proposal in major Canadian cities, as well as in Paris, London and Vienna. Critics said allowing Islamic tribunals could lead to discrimination against women."

HRW needs to look at its biased commentary

2008-02-09T05:24:00.000+11:00

Israel's move to cut energy supplies to the Gaza Strip violates the laws of war, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Thursday 7th February 2007

"Israel's cuts of fuel and electricity to Gaza, set to escalate today, amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, and violate Israel's obligations under the laws of war," the New York-based group said.

Israel began reducing the amount of fuel it supplied to Gaza in late October after declaring the coastal strip a "hostile entity" following its takeover by Hamas, an Islamist movement pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state.

"Israel views restricting fuel and electricity to Gaza as a way to pressure Palestinian armed groups to stop their rocket and suicide attacks," HRW's Middle East director Joe Stork said in the statement.

"But the cuts are seriously affecting civilians who have nothing to do with these armed groups, and that violates a fundamental principle of the laws of war," he said."

Whenever I read stories like this one I have an immediate and visceral reaction to the hypocrisy of the groups that make such comments and their lack of focus on the rest of the world where similar acts take place, but because they are are not in the Middle East; they do not involve Palestinians and Israelis, they are ignored and pass without any comment at all.

Recently the South African electricity producer cut off supplies to the whole of Zambia and Mozambique, because those countries did not pay their bills.

While not an 'act of war' perhaps, is this action by a private company less deserving of criticism?

Is such an act not going to provide "collective punishment" of the civilian population because the governments of those countries are simply not paying their bills?

Is this act any less deserving of comment from organisations such as Human Rights Watch?

Are ordinary people, their hospitals etc not affected by all this?

Is there a lack of criticism because the people who make up the Human Rights Watch simply have different views about the actions of companies that protect their shareholders interests and about governments that take action to try and protect the safety and security of their citizens from rocket attacks and bombings by terrorist groups that are pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Taking heart it seems from such commentary, other companies elsewhere in the world are now putting their commercial profits (and/or the interests of their shareholders) above the interests of the civilian population.

This from the BBC today:

"Russian gas monopoly Gazprom has warned Ukraine it will reduce its gas supplies from next Monday if a $1.5bn (£772m) gas debt is not paid off.

Gazprom said only gas piped from Russia would be affected which would make up around 25% of Ukraine's total supply."

Gazprom spokesman Ilya Kochevrin said:

"We're a commercial company: our investors won't understand if our profits fall."

And this in the middle of winter!

Is such an act not going to provide 'collective punishment of the civilian population' because the governments of those countries are simply not paying their bills?

Is this act any less deserving of comment from organisations such as Human Rights Watch?

Are ordinary people, their hospitals etc. not affected by all this?

Is there a lack of criticism because the people who make up the Human Rights Watch simply have different views about the actions of companies that protect their shareholders interests and about governments that take action to try and protect the safety and security of their citizens from rocket attacks and bombings by terrorist groups that are "pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state"?

At what point is the Human Rights Watch going to make some comment about actions like this?

Or is it all different?

The rights of shareholders to their profits is obviously more "deserving" than the right of the citizens of Israel to simply live their lives in peace without being continually attacked by terrorist rockets and suicide bombers from a pseudo government that is pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Wake up HRW, your bias appears to be showing, as does your lack of concern for the 'civilians'; who have nothing to do with these things that are happening in THEIR countries.

Fiction or Fantasy?

2008-02-06T06:04:00.001+11:00

London to Cannes in just a few hours or would you prefer Europe to Australia in under 5 hours?
Heck, why not do BOTH?

Two news stories really got my interest this morning:

France Unveils Super Fast Train

and New British Jet could reach Australia in under 5 hours

I am unlikely to be alive to see these two stories come to fruition, but what stories they are.

They now make science fiction reality.

Can you believe the possibility of travelling from Europe to Australia and back in under 10 hours?

I can't.

However if I happen to be alive in 25 years time when this new service is expected to be available I will be among the first to try it!

In fact I think I will start saving NOW - just in case!

While I may not be able to benefit - my partner, who has friends in the UK would no doubt LOVE the idea of being able to see them for a quick visit on a weekend.

I mean, imagine the surprise:

"Hello darlings! Just passing, thought I would drop in for a quick hello!"

Staggers the imagination!

Alas, she would have to overfly Singapore and so sacrifice a favourite stopover on the current journey.

Singapore, a great place for food, shopping and visiting friends.

This would of course not stop her - it would merely mean a change of venue!

She would in all probability, use the new AVG, or it's successor to substitute, by taking in a quick shopping trip in Paris, and an opportunity to sample the cooking in the Dordogne and Provence while she was at it.

Perhaps, she could even squeeze in some genealogical research; take a quick stroll along the Mediterranean; attend at least one of the films at the Cannes Film Festival; or take a punt in the Casino at Monte Carlo.

Nah, that would have to be a long weekend at least!

Minke Whales

2008-02-06T04:54:00.000+11:00

Way back in November 2007 (it was a slow news day) I ran a story about a Minke Whale that seemed to have gotten lost and ended up some 1600 kilometres up a river in the Amazon basin.

Somewhat with tongue in cheek, I asked at the time whether this animal was a scout for the rest of the herd, looking for a refuge from the Japanese whalers that had now virtually given up the pretence of 'scientific whaling' and were a lot more aggressive about hunting not only Minke whales, but also some other species, all to satisfy the tradition of killing and eating whales.

Today I received a comment from someone calling him or herself Daisk5 to the effect that:

Japanese whale fishing is completely lawful.
And is completely scientific.
In addition, it is a Japanese gastronomic culture to eat whales.
You should refrain from the act of denying the culture of another country.

This diatribe was accompanied by some URLs which then led to other sites where this nonsense was further perpetrated.

Initially I allowed the comment to be published on my site. Then I went to look for some indication of who this person is.

The profile was BLANK.

This tends to indicate, to me at least, that this person or agency has no intention of being identifiable and is just sending witless comments after an Internet search for the word "Minke" led him or her to my site some three months after I posted my comment.

Having looked that this, and some of the URLs, I decided that I would NOT participate in someone's "campaign" by publishing the post with it's attached URLs.

I went back and deleted the comment sent to me.

It was at this point and in all fairness that I decided that my readers needed some critique from me.

I do not think that having a "gastronomic culture to eat whales" is any reason why I should "refrain from the act of denying the culture of another country."

Without meaning to be offensive in any way, I am afraid that I would also comment negatively on people who have a "gastronomic culture" of eating other human beings.

Furthermore, I would do everything in my power to suggest through commentary that I find this sort of behaviour offensive not to say threatening!

As to the legality of the whaling, and the outrageous comment that these activities are in fact "completely scientific," I am afraid that I need to point out that the whaling fleet in the Antarctic waters are, or at least were, in an area designated by Australia as a whale sanctuary.

Nothing useful appears to have come from the 'science' that is conducted by the Japanese whalers to help protect and enhance the prospects of this whale species - apart from the (forgive the phrase) bleeding obvious - which of course is to gather data about the movements and habits of this whale species to ensure that the next year's hunt is even more successful.

I really can't see the value of the program for science - but of course I can see the value for those in the business of putting whale meat on the tables of those Japanese and tourists who can afford to eat it.

I did not start out being an advocate of the "Stop the Whaling" movement, but after this incident I am afraid I am taking more of an interest.

One other question I have posed elsewhere is whether millions of people around the planet can actually eat whale meat and still comply with their own dietary laws?

I would imagine that this would be difficult for Jews and Moslems, given their dietary laws. Then again I do not know after all whales are mammals and not fish.

Mammals that swim were not really on the menu in the Middle East. I suppose I should ask my readers if it is Kosher or Halal?

Then of course there is the Indian sub-continent and all those who are of the Hindu faith! What's their position on whale meat?

Propaganda or Truth (according to the authorities)

2008-02-03T04:11:00.000+11:00

I am somewhat amazed by the headlines in the world's press concerning the most recent bombing that took place in Iraq.

The first reports I heard were about "two mentally disabled women" who were said to have been the bombers.

I was disgusted and horrified.

Then I thought about it and wondered how people knew that the bombers were "two mentally disabled women"? I mean if two bombs had exploded and there were only parts of the bombers left scattered around the scene along with the remains of those killed and wounded what was the evidence that enabled the reporters to use the phrase "two mentally disabled women"? Without meaning to be offensive it's hard enough to distinguish gender from body parts much less their mental state.

I decided to wait a little for the events of the day to percolate past the headlines until some more quotable quotes appeared and lo and behold the following finally came from the BBC

Brig Qassem Ata al-Moussawi, Iraq's chief military spokesman in Baghdad, told the BBC:

"The operation was carried out by two booby-trapped mentally disabled women. [The bombs] were detonated remotely". Police said the women were wearing belts carrying 15kg (33lb) of explosives and may have been unwittingly sent on the suicide missions.

The Iraqi prime minister said: "The terrorists used disabled women in this crime. This shows the moral degradation of these criminal gangs and how much they hate mankind."

It was at this point that I wondered whether I was being exposed to truth or propaganda!

If, in the final analysis, there is an inquiry into this horrific bombing, and it is found that the Iraqi authorities have used this story as a means of garnering support for their regime, against those who oppose them, then much as I hate to say it, those that have spread the story are even more morally bankrupt than the terrorists and support for them from the US military and others around the world, becomes equally morally bankrupt.

Let's investigate this news story and let's then have a little chat about those who authenticated it!