FEEDING THE KLEPTOCRACIES OF AFRICA

Hundreds of thousands of Africans are fueling poverty and inhumane conditions primarily due to many African nations being run by politicians and businessmen who rape their populations financially at every chance.

We don't help either, that dollar a day we spend supporting some African baby is driving the unscrupulous to open Orphanages and hire in children from poor families to populate them. 100 Kids $100 a day, that's a small fortune to African child abusers.

Then we have the western world stirring the pot by providing the means by which these people can kill each other, primarily from Russia and China. The Kalishnikov has always been a terrorists favourite weapon.

The world supports the establishment of a country like South Sudan and then sits back and watches two battling Dictators encourage rape, murder and pillage of people with the wrong surname or tribal ties, genocide has become a natural phenomena. How many lives were lost in the fight to establish the country to then see how many of each others lives they can take afterwards.

Every time we spend money in Africa most of it never arrives. If you want to donate then do it directly to the affected people and not so-called charities.

NEVER SAY NEVER

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Those who decry modern technology today will maybe live to forever regret having made the statement. We for one, one day might regret even publishing The Astonisher but progress we have got and we are going to have to embrace it. Of course we will resist it every step of the way, why change things just for change sake?

Back when a Hansom Cab used to take me to school, that’s if I wasn’t walking both ways uphill, and barefoot in snow, I blabbered and blustered over allowing children to have calculators in the classroom but the sky didn’t fall in, they can’t read an analogue clock but that’s a petty matter, we wandered what they would ever do if their batteries ran flat. Now many of them are now solar powered.

We tut-tutted about computers being allowed into schools even before you could put them in your back pocket. Technology has advanced even now to the point where a standard mobile phone has more capacity than Australia’s first big computer which took up an entire room.

RDJ-FM community radio was once offered a free multi-monitor computer system that a law firm was disposing of. But you’re going to need a separate room to put it in. It’s really big it has the capacity to work ten terminals and has a massive 2 Gigabyte Tape Drive. We declined the offer, not because it was old but because we didn’t have the space for it and it had to have its own air-conditioning system to cool it.

Even earlier when working at AGL in Sydney I always admired the fellows in their white coats, fiddling about in their air-conditioned glass-paneled room changes big reels of tape from one machine to the next like projectionists in a theater. Upstairs about 50 women typed out punch-card manually received from the meter readers for the computer to send your bill. It was a huge leap forward technologically from when little metal capsules used to be sucked along tubes to the accounting department or even before that fired like a tethered rocket across the room to the cashier who would then rocket it back to your counter.

Yes we have come a long way from those heady days of advancing modernity. We now know that we are part way along that journey. From listening to transistor radios and Walkman tape machines, to carefully centering vinyl discs of varying sizes and revolutions to the mobile phone that does everything today and will possibly even wipe your arse next month.

Lets face it, Nobody wants to return to the good old days of homophobia or xenophobia, sexism or racism even though our religious and political leaders would like us to. But here, before we end we would like to issue a word of warning. Just because it exists doesn’t mean we have to have it. Life is for living not shopping.

Yes we must progress but for heavens sake only progress as far as we want to and not where we are told to. Don’t get caught up in the hype of bigger houses on smaller blocks of land, changing your mobile phone every year, signing up to lifetime contracts we will never need and gift card we will never use. We have a policy, even when going crazy at auctions. There are two states of mind when considering a purchase. Do we need it, will it make our life easier, better, more productive? Or do we want it, just so we can say we have one, use one or just want to flash it around.

EXPERIMENTATION

The government seems to have a vested interest in keeping our society on legal drugs otherwise our G.S.T or P.A.Y.E tax burden would be so high the fermenting of revolution could outstrip the same process with alcohol. It is a hypocritical stance for any government to profit from drugs whilst at the same time attempting to reduce costs attributable to their use, but then those we elect are supposedly a reflection of ourselves.

I find it very hard to accept that the local Publican is the legal distributor of one drug whilst one of his patrons may be the illegal distributor of another. Both drugs cause anger, abuse, accidents, assault, robbery, misery, anguish, sadness, poverty and death yet there remains this gulf between legal and illegal.

I worry about the double standards of our community, that one accepts the drunk falling in the gutter as someone whose just had a little too much to drink and we might laugh at his mistake, but the guy falling into the gutter with a joint in his hand is someone who should be shunned, ostracised and imprisoned for having smoked old rope and we ‘tut tut’ about our neighbours faults all the way home.

I can quite happily smoke and go to a Christmas Party and drink that’s OK but what would happen if anyone came to my office and found a needle hanging out of my arm? Am I still not the same Warwick? Now I’m not suggesting that the bosses suddenly get the idea of raiding my little corner of the world, I keep it too well guarded, but merely point out that we all, myself included, seem to find some drug use acceptable and others an abomination and need to watch ourselves as workers that we don’t get caught up in the same double standards when taking young people into our care.

What has this anarchical stance to do with the price of eggs? Who actually determines at what age we can do or not do certain things? Why do we keep engaged with such double standards?

It is quite legal for a girl to have sex at 16 but a boy has to wait until he’s 18. In this day and age, from what I know, the age at which this activity is taking place is going down even though the age of marriage seems to be accelerating in the other direction.

With adolescence comes experimentation with adulthood and while we might dread the thought that they are becoming young adults.

With information and support we should be allowing our young people to experiment and make mistakes provided that their emotional and chronological age is sufficient to absorb what is being learned by the experience.

While our society is crying out to allow children to be children the market economy is encouraging them to become adult as quickly as possible. That market economy includes the legal and illegal drug businesses.

Establishing trust with the people we work with, and children in our care whether genetically connected or not, is paramount to building relationships that can withstand the stress and strain of their daily lives. I am a supporter of experimentation. Perhaps this is why I have unbounded patience with children and adolescents yet the opposite when working with supposedly mature adults.

We should feel that we are doing our job well when young people can rely on us to be there when the shit hits the fan. It certainly places great stress upon us all at times but then we should not have signed up if we were not prepared to sacrifice some of our time.

It is sometimes my downfall when I allow young people to be free thinkers, that I imbue my clients with intelligence automatically, and certainly make some errors when I believe that what they are telling me is the truth. But in my line of work, where I am employed to give young people the right to decide for themselves what they need, a consequence of that is becoming merely a vassal or facilitator in achieving those goals.

To this day and into the foreseeable future I will continue to avoid determining a young persons ability to succeed based on some chronological measure or educational level and rely on the fact that by making mistakes we learn how not to make them again. From the time of ‘self-realisation’ children are experimenting and learning and I would like to be keep apace with that part of their experience.

EVER-LASTING KNOB STOPPERS

At the rate that medical science is advancing and keeping us healthier for longer it will not be too far-fetched to say that we may be able to live twice as long as we do now. In your opinion is this a good thing or should we just let nature take its course.

The advantages will be the possibility that we will spend, proportionately, less time in school and further education which means a lesser part of our life will be spent in indoctrination, learning ancient Greek and the complete meaninglessness of Algebra which I last used half a century ago.

The disadvantages will be that having learnt ancient Greek and not used Algebra that we didn’t have to in the first place. We talk to computers these days and they refuse to follow instructions in ancient Greek and if we have a mathematical problem even involving the most complicated maths imaginable we just do it on our computer in a more than hundredth of the time of doing it manually.

By then we will have driverless cars, with the exception of those born before 2019 who will still insist on having a steering wheel so they look like they are in still in charge. By then we will also have 60 years old hoons tearing up the tarmac by over-riding the autopilot and actually controlling the car.

By being twice as old and wrinkly and ornery there is much less of a chance of you being kidnapped, or worse being held hostage by either Terrorists or Centrelink you will be more likely to be released first.

Another distinct advantage will be that our children could possibly hang around twice as long, hanging off our wallets while gathering together the 10% deposit for their own new home and the average $250,000 won’t be that much by then anyway. Come to think of it if they do move out you’ll have grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and possibly great-great-great-great grandchildren too. By this time if they all visit just once a year for your Birthday you will be able to enjoy at least 250 people in your lounge room. That might bring about function centres that just cater for relatively large relative parties.

So we will be able to spend twice the amount of time working, most of us will be able to work for at least 112 years and that will result in us having more superannuation for the possible 70 years we can live in comfortable retirement.

Depending on our level of skills our extended working life will see us earning more and thus able to buy houses with seven bedrooms and his and hers personal rooms, rather than the present five with three-car garages, indoor and outdoor spas. The house will still take up 95% of the block its on which means no mowing and gardening to worry about, so we can throw away the extended arm impliments that take away our need to bend over to smell the roses.

Our pills everyday will help us work, rest and play and we can forget that friggin’ apple our dentures won’t handle. With possibly 70 years up our sleeves, more if we retire early, to enjoy the advantages of old age, our health professionals will have more time to medicate us, we can speed around in our mobility scooters or hobble around on zimmer frames for twice as long, double our leisure time playing Bridge or Bowling or emptying our Colostomy Bags.The ultimate joy of course will come in the form of Alzheimers when we will be able to enjoy twice the amount of time forgetting who we are and pooping our pants. Forgetting where your genitals are may also have the advantage of not knowing where your hard-earned retirement funds are as well.

“Oh! Grandpa what a big house you have. All the better to leave to you my son”

“Oh! Grandma what a large amount of super you have. All the better to leave to you my pretty.”

Oh! I nearly forgot sex. Getting old means you spend less time deciding who is going to be on top tonight after your libido has retired so you can look forward to many more nights pretending to play with yourself because all you have left is the softwood. There will be the added bonus if you are still working that it will be much harder for sexual harassment charges to stick.

When the end finally does come you can go peacefully with the thought that you spent a lot more time contemplating Judgement Day and depending on your joints will probably feel better in the warmth of Hell anyway.

THE END OF THE TRUSTED ELITES

Oh dear here comes another load of Left-wing Socialist diatribe. Think what you will dear reader for if you have an open mind, that is you are Australian, then read what this rubbish might be about.

In ancient days when some of us were thirty years younger we had within our community what we lovingly referred to as the ‘Pillars’ of our society. The learned and the wise, the just and the discreet, the diligent and trustworthy. They were Doctors and Lawyers, Police and Judges, Teachers and Bankers, Priests and Professors.

As a society we looked up to them. The rule of law prevailed, the Westminster System was incorruptible, the checks and balances were all in place. Bureaucrats served the people without fear or favour, Teachers did not shove political ideology down our childrens throats and let the community blame it on Muslims, Police allowed natural justice to takes its course although a few altered that course around 'a gift ' occasionally.

Judges were harsh but uncompromisingly fair, Doctors were welcome into our homes, School-teachers revered and trusted by both parent and pupil.

Our habit of sweeping things under the carpet or looking the other way enabled society to glide smoothly along. Of course there were lots of horrific things happening at the time, but things that were out of sight were out of mind and did not concern us our parents chatted with our neighbours outside church while inside little boys and girls were being given some practical instructions in sex from Reverend Whatsis.

Alas we now live in a society where very little is hidden. Not even our once revered politicians are safe from our prying eyes any more. Some of the once admired Teachers have been known to be shoving more than knowledge down pupils throats.

What goes on in jail at bed-time has been found to also go on behind the closed doors of other Institutions as well and we cannot exempt any Church from this either. The focus on Catholics is due to their determination to deny, cover up or hide behind outdated rules.

We have come to the realization that the ‘Elites’ are as vulnerable as ourselves. That Doctors have been known not only to have visited our bedside but managed to get into bed with the patient too, men and women alike.

Politicians, once the scions of our best families, revered for their lineage, are now morally and plausibly financially corrupted. They cater to the needs and desires of corporations and special interest groups with either the exaggerated moral clout of the church or financial might of the Stock Exchange. “The people? F…k the people.”

We have come to realize that those who hold themselves up as being beyond reproach are likely to also be those that commit the most heinous of crimes against humanity.

Those we stupidly call Public Servants, because they are certainly not at our command, have an interest in only climbing the ladder of promotion and power with a little encouragement by way of a salary increase, intent not on social service but on social control. There is a saying that everyone rises to the level of their own incompetence. In the bureaucracy they have managed to go at least three promotions beyond that, not just to total incompetence but into an absolute moral vacuum where self-interest is the only interest and generally the only rule.

Judges, those who pass sentence on wrong-doers, dressed in their robes and wigs like ancient drag queens have been known to have a lot more than their own two feet sticking out from under their gowns and not even the lawmakers can keep their trousers zippered up.

Elitism is out the door. Society has suddenly woken up from its Dreamtime. The Community can no longer trust those into whose hands we place ourselves. Alas this does not bode well for our future.

It is time we carefully examined the actions of all those who have even the slightest modicum of control over our lives and seek out their real agendas.

It is us or them Comrade

ON EMPATHY FOR THE VICTIMS

Some time ago I did the first columns about trying to encapsulate a Consultative Report some 140 pages long entitled ‘Voices of Children and Young People in Foster Care’ (July 2000).

It might seem that nearly two decades makes a lot of difference but you and I know that a coat of paint doesn’t always signify change, sometimes it just covers up the sperm splashes. At first glance it does not have anything to do with youth homeless services, but as an increasing number of kids in supported services and our prisons have graduated from the ‘Alternate Care System’. What we need to do is get hold of a copy of that report and review in the light of more recent problems of abuse to ensure that youth services do not continue to inflict the same abuses from family members now that they are in the care of complete strangers.

Continuing with the report and adding, in mitigation, that 99% of the District Officers I know would have no truck with some of the abuses discussed, I don’t believe that they can all be laid at feet of D.O’s in some simplistic negation of the facts. When child welfare departments are forced to truncate their range of services and reduce staff numbers because of some spurious economic necessity then in many ways they cannot be held responsible for some of the abuse that occurs within the system. The comment ‘I was only following orders’ can still be attributed to D.O’s but the fact is those orders were for economic reasons and not for any other.

The children themselves provide much of the evidence of dissatisfaction with children and young people in the way they are treated. Some of the briefer comments from different children in care.

D.O roles - what children and young people want;

‘ It would be good to be treated like humans. They (DoCS) just do what they want you to’

‘ She came six times and then she didn’t come, probably because she didn’t like us.’

She’s negative and thinks she knows best’.

‘ Good, but you don’t really need them.’

‘If they find the right family they don’t have to do anything else. I don’t need advice. I have heaps of people giving me advice.’

‘ DO? I don’t know how to do it though because I don’t see her and I don’t have her number.’

There are three outstanding Gems in the report provided by the young people themselves, each of them a telling reminder to us all.

Gem No.1 To the question ‘Do D.O’s make any difference’ one respondent came back with

‘ No they’re just there to analyse us. As soon as you have a problem they send you off like an object to be fixed’.

Gem No.2. To the question ‘What is the worst thing about foster care?’ the reply was

‘Talking to Doe’s and answering questions’.

Gem No.3. To the question about how they felt about their District Officer. The best reply of the lot, and in all innocence:

‘But she is professional, she doesn’t listen.’

If this report were not so serious these little Gems would have had me howling with laughter. I managed however to suppress reactions until I had read to the end of the report.

I would hope that young people do not say, will be unable to say the same things about us. I would hang my head in shame if this were a report about PYSE. I would like every worker in the field who thinks beyond the pay packet and has a genuine care for young people in their care that they too develop some empathy by obtaining an old copy and ensuring a wide readership.

If something goes wrong can we use the excuse?

‘I had to consider my Duty of Care’.

POLITICAL PROSTITUTION

Despite all the bullshit about 'small business is the engine room of our economy' the big banks, supermarkets and oil companies continue to dominate the decisions of our government. Even Golden Showers Shire has its share of self-interested bureaucrats who just want to please the Chardoney-end of Bannockburn and not the normal powerless residents of its smaller villages.

The supposed advantages of mega-mergers that have taken place over the last thirty years in drug companies, airlines, banking conglomerates and mining magnates have supposed to have been to make the economy and the country more robust, save money and bring down prices. Rather than see to it that Australia looks after its own economy our companies, more than likely owned by overseas concerns want to take on the world with the crazy belief that they are God's gift to the world and our 25 million can compete toe-to-toe with the other 5 billion pairs of feet on our planet (apologies to any one-footed residents).

The reality is we end up with near monopoly power by a few companies willing to spread their money into other peoples businesses and exert pressure on our governments any which way they can.

Alphabet is one such company only intent on controlling our every move to their profitable advantage.

Take the spurious example of the CSG miners warning that Australia is likely to run out of gas in the next twenty years but failing to mention that we are selling it overseas in quantities that in one year we sell about ten years supply of our own consumption, and might we add, at prices that we could only dream about.

I don't see the point of our politicians saying the country is not cost-effective (the constant blame on wages and not on compliance costs) or efficient enough to make our own stuff at competitive prices when they could halve the cost of energy tomorrow and allow our home-grown businesses to succeed.

Big chains beat out string every time. The large companies don't need to be competitive they just buy out the competition and maintain prices they want. I know of no example where prices have gone down because a company has merged and become more efficient. We'll keep the analogies coming by saying that the big fish are constantly gnawing on the vitals of the smaller fish all the way down the food chain.

The bigger is better complex does not hold true either, Dunbar numbers disprove that theory, and companies these days certainly don't put the welfare of their customers first. More and more the corporate circus calls out to us 'come in suckers!'.

Unless governments put in place protections for the electors, the spate of naughty banks and finance companies, insurance, aged care and the death industry will continue to run amok with millions in customers funds when financial protections for the customer are removed in return for big political donations, Deregulation actually promotes efficiency and competition is a myth that our politicians fall for every time an industry wants to increase its power and profits.

Bigger business doesn't always provide bigger returns for the owners either, as Board members and CEO's share management fees in the millions every time they make a decision to spend our money. Selling off your own arse in big business is more common than rent boys along 'the Wall'. (Sydney joke)

EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN

One of the most disturbing thing about political correctness and gender equality is the fact it is sometimes confusing when to use it and how to define or recognise it. When does one use plain courtesy and do others know what the hell your doing and why?

As an instance I was at the bank the other day and I opened the door for a lady and was still there five customers later feeling like both a doorman and a dork and not a word of thanks or even recognition. Next time a girl with firetruck red hair walks up to a door she can fucking open it herself.

Gone are the days when a man opened the door for a woman, took her coat, held her chair, directed her to go first and walked on the traffic side of a footpath. Yes, maybe we could drop tipping the hat or not swearing in front of them as hats are rare and women are the worst swearers.

I believe that everyone should treat each other according to their generation, or as the evangelists would say, each to their own kind. If your an old male chauvinist like myself you instinctively treat women as the weaker sex, if your young and virile then treat women as your equal. Can we be any fairer to all genders? So if your a young person or trying to be one with Botox and Boobs then maybe one should learn the old habits and respond accordingly and If your an old person then treat young people as they would treat you and just tell them to fuck off.

In regard to working women as leaders I also have no problem. Over my career I've had a lot of female superiors and I have not had any problems. It's not the gender it's the mindset. Do you really have to have a dick to be superior? June Dally-Watkins where are you?

DOMESTIC BLISS-TERS?

Like father like son and like mother like daughter rings all too true. Our natural instinct is to follow what we have seen before, this is why boys who beat up on women have usually seen other men beat up on women, predominantly common law partners and step-parents, who incidentally are also the predominant kiddy-fiddlers. The latest fashionable bru-ha-ha centers around domestic violence but as usual it is a knee jerk reaction to an age old problem. It seems that the media is always looking for a new hobby horse to blow out of proportion. Unfortunately due to a whole host of circumstances from financial to emotional it's hard for men and women to escape from domestic violence within the family home.

Rather than continue to publicise the problem the media should be putting pressure on authorities  to make ways for victims to remove themselves from the situation and be counselled or at least have perpetrators face harsh non-custodial sentences. 

Naturally the experts blame everything else for the problem and not genetic pre-disposition and parental example. Alcohol and drugs are always at the center of blame, but they are not, they are the triggers, they set off the brains desire to knock seven days out of anyone who argues with them. Plates hurl themselves against walls, fists accidentally hit faces and knives sometimes carve up more than a slice of bread its all a very spiritual experience, the spirit of evil within some of us.

But violence doesn’t always stay at home, bullying doesn’t always stay in the playground. It spills out into the general community and if we see it and do nothing we may as well just go over their and join in. I’m not advocating violence, in reality I have great difficulty even setting traps for invading mice, in probability don’t even carry the violence gene and I’m not alone. So if you see violence, even verbal don’t stand back and think this is none of my business, let them know you know and you want their vile behavior to stop.

Another argument may suggest that Social Media and the resultant lack of face-to-face contact, hence distance and untouchability, prevents face-to-face positive socialising but that is more about the definiton of bullying not why it exists.

IN REMEMBERANCE

We are all inexplicably proud of the place where we were born, even those of us who were not born and raised in Linton. We support the local football, netball, cricket and eight ball competitions, we gather together on Linton Day for Australia Day and celebrate what has been. I have a problem at the moment trying to create a list of the things that we can be proud of today and into our future.

We had an international reputation for integrity and fairness, politeness and mate ship, and a proud tradition of protecting our country by shooting people we were told we didn’t like. We have apologised to aboriginals for invading Botany Bay and making them virtual slaves, from deliberately attempting semi-genocide, although we just called it ‘breeding them out’. We have had to apologise to children stolen from their Mothers because Mummy shouldn’t have become a Mummy in the first place. We had to apologise to this stolen generation of black and white children for the emotional, physical and sexual abuse carried out by our Carers, Warders, Superintendents and Matrons, not just the Reverend this and Father that.

Can we be proud of a Prime Minister who spends more time on the phone to the American Ambassador than to the Farmers Federation. We have to thank America too for allowing us to be invaded by boat people from countries they have invaded or destabilised for the benefit of their arms manufacturing industry. It’s obvious that Detroit was not a center for bullet making. We must thank our Prime Minister for emptying our pockets to provide gas to Asia whilst crying out about moratoriums on CSG because our domestic gas reserves beginning to run on empty. Cooks in Tokyo pay less for our gas than we do. We can be proud that we ship 5 billion cubic meters of LPG a year to China but can’t provide for our own domestic or industrial needs along with our cars for less than four times the international selling price.

Then of course our armed services. Fifty years ago we had a strong force located all around the country that enabled young men to be recruited from every state. Now we are struggling to maintain and Army that needs only two or three Generals, a Navy that can only man three out of four of our ships, and an Air Force that has ordered more aircraft than we have pilots to fly them. Mathematically we have spent more on toys for the boys than the boys that have to play with them. Who makes them to sell to us?

Our servicemen are going down like flies to PTSD due to multiple deployments to countries where we don’t even know who the enemy is. Where as many of our soldiers are killed by the people they are defending as those we are fighting against.

And what about our industry, our ability to be self-sufficient, to feed ourselves, to clothe ourselves and employ ourselves. What we have we export, what we need we import, it’s called ‘trade’. We grow a tomato and send it to India and then we can buy a tomato that we imported from Thailand, we grow a Banana to sell to Japan and then import a Banana from Barbados to feed ourselves. It’s called ‘stupidity’? We pull out fruit trees in the Goulburn Valley so as not to create a bio-hazard situation that might occur if we stopped importing food irrigated with sewerage from China.

We should apologise as well to our Farmers who these days may be better off if they were to go to Afghanistan where our government is subsidising the Heroin trade as a viable alternative to growing food.

We have cried out for investment in our growth industries from foreign sources while our superannuation funds are invested in the New York Stock Exchange and sucked out of us by the GFC. But maybe its our fault for being too greedy and wanting too much in too short a time that we might be better off blowing it all at Crown Casino, at least it would stay in an Australians pocket and not a quasi-American called Rupert.

Where is our pride in industry? Where are the factories that used to melt things, make things, bend things, stamp things and put things together. Where are the skilled tradesmen that could paint things and mend things, drive things and demolish things. Our new throw-away world doesn’t need them. Where are the Metters and BHP Steel, the car industry and the shipping industry, where has Crown-Corning gone, Grace Brothers and Scarf’s, Nutt and Muddle, Resche’s or even our film industry.

Of course trade is important to us, we still grow more than we can eat, still dig up more minerals than we can smelt, still sell natural gas that we apparently don’t want, and still dispose of more coal than we can burn for electricity. That is all good? We need to trade, to get rid of what we have too much of and to buy in what we don’t have enough of, but trade for trades sake, profit for profits sake is not the way to a secure independent future for our country. Our government doesn’t even want the tax that trade should be paying, its apparently easier to rip off citizens they don’t know than companies that contribute to their election funds.

But we are a proud nation. Proud to prevent too many religious symbols appearing on TV outside religious programs, proud to have 13 percent of our prison population holding foreign passports, proud to allow foreigners to own great swathes of our media, our farms, our wheat export facilities, our water supplies, our gas reserves, our mines, our shops, the few makers of things and worst of all foreign ownership of what we eat. We are not the food bowl of Asia, we are Asia’s cash cow, America’s supplicant and Britain’s estranged relative.

What we can be proud of dear readers is being Australian in the first place. When you look at all the turmoil in the world, the bickering, the backstabbing, political corruption, religious tensions, and racial intolerance we can be proud that we at least don’t have the turmoil. We are too complacent to do ‘turmoil’’. Bickering, backstabbing and intolerance, well, that’s normal isn’t it.

This Australia Day lets just ensure we all turn up for the CFA’s Breakfast confident in the fact that we have yet again elected a government that couldn’t give a toss about us but still will not leave us alone. Lets be proud to be Australian, to be tolerant of Golden pains Council, to look up to the Premier of Victoria and happy that we voted in a Prime Minister just as bad as the last few. The more things change in Australia the more things stay the same in Australia and I for one salute our stability through complacency.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY

IT WAS THE KRAUTS

There is an explanation for the present Christmas tree and its present use in the Australian Christmas.

In Europe also, about 1,200 years ago, an English missionary named Winfrid (Saint Boniface) was traveling in northern Germany. To the east of Dusseldorf, in Geismar forest, he came across a group of heathens who were preparing to sacrifice Prince Asulf at an oak tree, a symbol of the god Thor.

Winfrid stopped the sacrifice, cut down the oak and in its place a young fir tree appeared. Winfrid said this fir should be revered as the Tree of Life a symbol of Christ. In the later Middle Ages, fir trees were used in church mystery plays to represent the Tree of Life. But other than that, cutting down trees and bringing them inside as decoration was not seen in Christian homes until relatively recently. The first record of the Christmas tree was in 1605 at Strasburg, and in 1840 introduced by Princess Helena of Mecklenburg into France and by the Prince Consort to England. How did this become a custom of modern man?

Once upon a time thee was a bit of biffo going on between two cousins, the King of England and the Kaiser of Germany of Germany. Instead of just duking it out in the lounge room of one of their palaces they decided to let sixty million other people do away with themselves first and called it a Great War. To tell the truth there was nothing great about it at all, but I digress as usual.

Such trees were decorated with one or more apples, representing the forbidden fruit which we are also forbidden from eating. Today we decorate our trees with similar shiny red balls made of thin glass or plastic and many different shapes and sizes as well, and still not allowed to be eaten.

The Christmas tree therefore refers to Bibble metaphors teaching us to not succumb to sin. Nothing Pagan about it at all. To be on the safe side however, the tree should not be brought into the home and decorated before Christmas Eve, otherwise bad luck will befall the home and a lot of money wouldn't be made by profiteers. It is these superstitions are more likely believed if we include here and there old fashioned words like 'befall'. The Christmas Tree must be taken down and removed from the house before the Bells of Midnight on New Years Eve, otherwise you will have to wait until the twelfth night and burn it to chase away any mischievous spirits. Maybe it might be better not to have a tree at all so you won't have to chase those spirits away but you can just drink them with the money you saved.

Christmas is enjoyed by people all over the world regardless of race, gender or religious beliefs and there's no need for you to be upset over the ignorance of others. Jesus was born in the humblest of settings; indeed his whole life showed us the importance of humility. He taught us not to be judgmental. He taught us how to love.

So enjoy Christmas, wherever you are, whoever you are and whatever your beliefs.

DOES TRAVEL REALLY BROADEN THE MIND?

Was this a true statement or just another whimsical philosophical stupidity as 'How long is a piece of string?'

Maybe in the days of the Grand Tour a few centuries ago when cultures even a few hundred miles away were so radically different to yours travel did broaden the mind, but today when Western civilisation begins breeding a boring sameness should we spend money on traveling anywhere.

Up, up and away on a big monoplane, thousands of dollars just for a seat to sit on. The hassle of security at both ends, I had to remove my pants belt at Avalon and I'm still holding my bag in one hand and my trousers up with the other.

So you land in another country, as strange as New Zealand or as dangerous as Puckapunyal and even before you get out of the airport you are assailed by the sights of Mc. Donalds, KFC and Subway. Why?

Why do we need to eat a Big Mac in Abu Dhabi, a deep fried chicken leg steeped in a host of secret herbs and spices in Bangladesh? For that matter does a Zimbabwean Sandwich Artist decorate your roll in Subway any different to those in Ballarat? I don't think so.

Then of course there is the accommodation. An Acor Hotel in Madrid is run the same, looks the same, is serviced the same and has the same beds and coffee as your Acor room in Nambour. The staff are just as friendly and inefficient and all have the same inability to speak English.

Today in a world of electronic wizardry including big screen 3D television (which is still trying to take off) why could we not just save thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of differing opinion and the constant whine of 'whatever' in our ears can we not just stay where we are, or maybe travel as far as Bendigo, and make believe we are really somewhere both exotic and erotic of which Bendigo is certainly not, with the exception of the Chinese Temple.

'Hell Yes' I scream and by doing so save at least $50 in tips, whether that be in Drachma or in Dong.

So here we go on our latest overseas adventure. Pack the car with all the non-essentials of travel and drive off into the sunrise, a smile on our faces and an unpaid booking for 'Treasure Island' in the glove box. We are off to broaden our mind, experience the exhilaration of the wind in our hair, let the kids imagine they are flying with the Red Baron for five silent minutes and then Eye Spy for two bickering hours. Who f........ cares if Yew Tree doesn't start with an E.

No lectures about seat belts or placing our table in an upright position. Not having to watch someone mime how to blow a whistle, and no mention of how you don't blow up your floaties until you land in the water outside the aircraft. Why this is needed on a flight between Griffith and Dubbo is really open to debate.

On arrival at Shangri-Low because Treasure Island went bust due to them failing to install 3D television, one alights to the merry greeting of 'G'Day' instead of a polite shrug to indicate they can't understand a word you say.

Find the remote for the Travel Simulator, a big screen 3D TV outside the balcony, which instantly throws up the sights and sounds but not the smells of Calcutta and start unpacking the bags. The kids get onto 'Wigglespace' on the internet which will keep them amused for the week and the parents retreat to the bar to get pissed just like at home.

No hassles in crowded shops where pushing and shoving has been elevated to a high art, no stupid mime act to ask someone where the bus stop is, and the same room service that brings the same Kiddy Meal as they had a week ago at home. What makes the trip all the more exciting is the room service person who gives a polite shrug to indicate they didn't understand a word you said.

Oh! Linton ..... you're missing nothing except the Squatting Ewe Car Wash..

For those who live in L.I.S.A (Less Intelligent States of America)

DOB DOB DOB IS JUST FOR CUB SCOUTS

The more that I consult the world wide webby thing, the national papers, metropolitan papers, local rags and the villages voice the more I have come to accept that I have developed into a cranky cantankerous old fart that is ready to rebel against anything I perceive real or imagined is impinging on my personal property and personal space and personal finances.

Finance Watch, Petrol Watch, Shopping Watch, Neighborhood Watch and Whistle-blowing, Carbon Watch, Surf Watch, Community Watch and Wrist Watch. How many do we need? Is our community so dysfunctional that someone has to watch out for everything and everybody on our behalf?

Every aspect of our life is being governed and, it appears to me, by lesbian bike riding vegan social workers who, because they can’t get a good root themselves have to try and f.... up our lives. Yes I’m angry. I’ve had the council tell me I’m a Fire Hazard, my shares in Tabcorp confiscated because I didn’t have enough of them and now a Smart power meter which I know is designed to make sure I pay more for every watt I use. The council wants $5,000 Deposit to ensure I finish the house I’m living in. My backside is sore because the Government and the Banks are screwing me. The local council wants my dog to be registered, carry a plate around his neck and strapped into the car like ’Hannibal Lecter’, and if I don’t put my wheelie bin with the handle facing south and 33cm from the kerb they won’t pick it up. My trees are either too high, too low, too close to power lines or too close to my letterbox and, too leafy.

Regulators and their toady employees govern every aspect of our apparently tawdry lives. We are moving closer towards a police state and I’m not looking forward to the compulsory marching spectacular to entertain Kim Il Mayor down at our Replica Railway Station. It is time that the much vaunted Rights and Responsibilities that the Government espouses to be put back on to the individuals in society else we will end up with as watered down version of North Korea and have to bow low every time someone on a bicycle passes by.

To top it off all this expenditure by some bureaucrats we have other bureaucrats costing us money to ensure we don’t waste any money. To hell with it is the general opinion. It’s not our money.

I doubt very much if we can ever rid ourselves of under-worked and wasteful government employees. Would you like to see your job go without a fight? Maybe this is why the bureaucracy has lasted 50 millennia. Even cavemen had to pay someone a few pebbles to spit paint on the cave wall as a record of their activities.

Now they want us to DOB to whistle-blow when we see something going wrong. All I can say is keep your mouth shut. All of the whistle-blowers I have ever read about end up on the dole, despise by the government and despised by employers. Little wonder that immoral people get away with so much. The government encourages whistle-blowers (or so they say) and then sets out to destroy their reputation, their employment opportunities and their family.

Nobody likes a dobber so the crooks in our society, and I’m talking about the aristocracy not the criminal class, get away with the unethical and corrupt behaviors. We have a topsy-turvy society that will frown upon a misogynist and wife-beater but go and cheer and barrack for them on the sporting field.

We idolised Alan Bond while he stole our money, believe that Ned Kelly was one of the countries greatest citizens (even while he shot down and killed policemen) and Linton even gave succor to Captain Moonlight because he left ‘our’ Gold deliveries alone.

We don’t like gangs but we won’t do anything, as citizens, about it we don’t like drugs but we almost condone their use. Hey! Look on the bright-side one day we might wake up from this nightmare.

* Note:- Yes. Yes. Scout people. We know DOB means ‘Do Our Best’ not ‘Dirty Old Bugger’ as has been ascribed to the writer.

DISCRIMINATION DISGUISED

Am I being a bit off kilter when I believe that we are actually introducing laws that are discriminatory but yet so subtle we don't notice or don't care. In the past year or so there have been two laws, whilst on the surface we believe are good for us, but may also be state sponsored, contrary the constitution or unfair on a particular sector of our society..

Clearly we musty have a separation of Church and State, even though we have state funded religious instruction in our schools, but my point is that we recently passed a law that prohibited children from attending pre-school and child-care without evidence of being immunised against a range of potentially lethal childhood diseases.

Hallelujah, make people safeguard their children's health, I'm all for it.

However I would argue a very small point that there are some religions fanatical enough to believe that God will cure all ills and that there is never a need for medical intervention. No needles, no blood transfusions, no childbirth assistance, nothing that was not ordained by that bearded white mythical being who lives in the sky.

Is this not contrary to our laws that clearly state that there shall be no discrimination on religious grounds?

I don't agree with these parents but are we not all responsible for our own lives and have a free will given to us by that same bearded guy who lives in the sky.

Then comes the second whinge that I have and believe to be discriminatory. Although I have still to complete the paperwork I am eligible as a First Home Buyer for the Grant so generously provided from other taxpayers. When I was looking into this free money I took note that my contracts were signed prior to the changes (to come into effect after a certain December 31) being made to the Act and thus I was still eligible for the cash. I'm a greedy can't.

But the changes to the Act meant that, to satisfy the thirst of unscrupulous builders and developers whose pockets are filled with the hands of politicians, would only apply to 'New Builds' and not homes already erected.

What do we make of this and why do I call it discriminatory.

It is hard enough for young people to get a home these days, that was the purpose of the grant, but this change meant that young people, couples, even families who wanted to buy an already existing house were no longer eligible. That, my friends, is state sponsored discrimination.

Our governors talk glibbly about young people needing a hand up, having bigger families and creating stronger communities. Was it not 'the' Peter Costello who said “one for the family and one for the country”? Was it not that same Peter Costello that lauded the scheme and promoted it? Would he have axed it the way successive parliaments have done in such a clearly discriminatory fashion. Not to mention the 'buy Solar and get one free scheme' that was so popular the power generation companies paid politicians to dramatically reduce feed-in tariffs and purchase subsidies.

Hey big spender, Yes you, the elected one. Stop and think about these things after the lobbyists have told you what they want, think long and hard about what President Kennedy said 'think not of what your wallet can do for you but what you can do for your wallet.'

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT

Are we growing into a society that has changed from pointing bones to just pointing fingers?

The parents are to blame?

It was the Police and Justice system?

It all starts with our Social Security system?

Is it alienation, racism, bad jeans or just plain fucking boredom?

All of us have at some stage heard someone blame somebody else. But is it becoming endemic in our society? Is anybody accepting that they are the problem and then setting out to do something about it?

When you sit in Court the first defence is the adoption of the early onset of Alzheimer’s then move through the various social ills until the crime has been mitigated enough for innocence to be found or a reduction in possible sentence has been achieved.

Are these tactics being adopted by the general community? Have we seen so many Courtroom Drama’s on TV that we have begun to use the same tactics in our everyday life, regardless of the outcome, to protect our own backsides?

Be it called pride, ego, arrogance, self-importance or survival of the fittest if we are caught out cheating, stealing or failing to carry out our directed duties every time, and I include myself, will quickly jump to their own defence.

As ‘monkey see monkey do’ the chances that we are passing on these protective skills to our children and young people is extremely high. Children divorcing parents?

How often will I say ‘now be honest I can’t help you unless you are’ and then hear them, in some cases, come out with the most fanciful twaddle I have ever heard. One or two clients will come up with a series of events that would be better used in ‘animated cartoons’.

We know they are not always telling the truth but we should also realise that they are using the same protective skills as we adults have unwittingly taught them. Fortunately for us older and wiser workers we have managed to learn how to screen out the plausible impossible and can arrive at a situation somewhere between what the client wants and what we think they need ‘in their best interest’.

Feedback, that awful word which makes me think of physical regurgitation, between worker and client determines how best these decisions can be met. But we must be very careful to ensure that firstly, the client has the knowledge and ability to carry out the task, secondly that the end result will be a further advancement of the young person towards both personal and financial independence and finally ‘Is it legal?’

‘They don’t understand me’ is a common phrase of mine when trying to explain why very few people know what my job really is. 'That makes two of us, they don't understand me either'. That’s because the welfare sector is so caught up in models that something that doesn’t fit the mould. Then just when we begin to think we know what that model is it mutates into something else. Why? Because that’s where the gap is, how the care services see its role and what the client wants can be poles apart in interpretation.

So is the case with many of the young people who come to me for assistance, some agencies or individual workers have an idea of what they have to achieve and set out to bend and twist young people until they fit their mould. It took me two years in the job before I got the gut feeling of what my role was - do it the way the client sees best without all the contortions.

My job as a stand alone should have really been called WIP ‘The What-if Project’ for that is how I have developed this service to work with other agencies and our clients. Its not a case of what my service wants for them but what they want from my service.

The result of this has been a constant process of evolution to fit the project to the need rather than the other way around. My unique role was deliberately designed to be an enigmatic service so that the most disadvantaged of young people could meet their needs without having to fit to any particular model. My services have to become like its clients, unconditional access, flexible, twisting and turning according to the need that has to be met.

The end result should be that young people having used my service should never be able to declare when things go wrong, that ‘the devil made me do it’…………………….. Anyone for litigation?

DEMOCRACY HAS TO BE THE WORST POLITICAL SYSTEM

 EXCEPT FOR ALL THE OTHERS - Winston Churchill

The best democracy, true government by the people, is the least amount of interference in our lives. Naturally we need to have some laws to protect other people but to protect ourselves we should have nothing but education and common sense.

Every time a new law is made at any level of government some other poor bastard gets it in the neck.
Of course we need to protect ankle biters and coffin chasers that’s a given, but to protect the moron against himself I would prefer we just revert to natural selection, lets allow the gene pool to narrow itself a tad.

We are over-governed with three level of self-serving power, now that’s a gene pool we need to almost eradicate altogether. If they aren’t in a brothel paid for by taxpayers and union fees there drinking $500 Merlot in Paris and staying in a grand a night hotel rooms at our expense.

One of the great episodes in self serving was the Nuclear Pact between Russia and America banning inter-ballistic missiles with  range between 300+ Km and 4000+ Km for this very reason
"That the flight time of the nuclear attack was too short for the LEADERS to seek shelter from the impending armageddon". In other words fuck the people just save my own arse.

What makes our elected representatives immune from prosecution, that cash in super well before we can, retire on ridiculously huge pensions and be allowed to double dip taxpayers money? It can’t be because they have superb knife skills, management expertise or supernatural patriotism. They are not Gods although they would like to be thought of that way. They are men and women who piss and shit the same as everybody else excerpt their shit doesn’t stink.

To top it off we are over-governed by half-hearted bureaucrats doing a half-hearted job whose only agenda is to climb over the person in front, scramble over anyone to get to the top table and garrote the competition as fast, as efficiently and hopefully with the least amount of blood to take that seat on the right hand of God, the Prime Minister.

It’s about time we broadened the taxpayer base by narrowing the public service gene pool as well.
To be fair I’ve known of few government employees who have the interest of the community at heart or should I say ex-government employees who moved into the private sector.

I was a co-worker with a community-minded young person who decided he wanted to be a prison officer and do something positive about our prison system. I met him again three months later and he had already resigned. His story ‘that he tried to do the right thing or be relegated to anal examinations for the rest of his career.'

One last final warning about democracy – it doesn't exist. It's a figment of your imagination.

CELEBRATE THE ORDINARY

It might also be said to be the professionalisation of normal.

When I was applying for a building permit in 2013 I was advised after some considerably problems with Golden Plains Council that there was no way a mere mortal could ever succeed in getting everything approved without professional intervention and that intervention cost money. D.I.Y? Preposterous.
What am I rabbiting on about this month? You may recall in the Christmas Edition of the Linton Astonisher the story of Robert Ingersoll, the free thinker.

“Each man is responsible in making a living for himself and his kin using all his knowledge and skills”

Oh! How true that may have once been. Once upon a time there used to be ‘General Practitioners’ and not just in the medical profession. They were called general as they covered a wide area of expertise and could advise you what you needed to have, or do, or go through to achieve a certain end. Most adults did their own legwork, filled out their own forms to lodge and even did their own tax returns. It was called personal responsibility and it was a learning curve to take you into an independent future.

Somehow, someone, somewhere made the decision that as clerical workers would begin to decline with the advent of computers so new jobs had to be created to fill the void and to maintain low unemployment. In some ways this meant that it would be an advantage for specialists to emerge, high priests of pen and ink.

The nomenclature of government changed to collateral and leverage, potential university students could no longer understand their own educational applications ending up in a situation where teachers colleges are turning our educationalists without full literacy and numeracy skills.

Where will this drive to have someone else do it for you ever end?

WHERE HAS CAPITALISM GONE?

As a committed Socialist and a firm believer in balance and fairness for all I am often referred to by the disparaging description of 'red ragger'. On the contrary I am surprisingly a keen supporter not only of true democracy (representing the electors not the party) and true capitalism (the free market opportunity).

Capitalism:

I buy something from your shop which you buy from a manufacturer, who pays workers to make the product I buy. They, the employees in turn, with their wages, buy my product which I pay someone else to deliver from a factory of workers making my whatnots. That is a manufacturing economy.

I walk into a Sandwich shop which makes me a salad roll. They made up the roll from ingredients, hopefully, sourced locally, grown by small farmers producing high quality fruit and vegetables which they sell to the roll-maker. The grower then buys my product and the cycle starts again. This is an agricultural economy.

My car breaks down and I take it to a garage and engage, hopefully a skilled mechanic, to make the necessary repairs they identify. I pay the mechanic either with my product (bartering) or with the money you gave me when you bought my whatnot. This is called a service economy.

In a way all of these different activities interact with each other and an advanced economy produces everything its population needs and sells the surplus overseas.

Communism:

If you take all three examples given above and change that free choice to ownership by the state, where the government controls how much is made, when it is made, where it is sold and at what price. They determine how much workers will be paid, the hours they work, the holidays they don't get and set the rate for bribes. It's like Animal Farm everyone is equal, some are more equal than others and we will determine how equal you are.

The only good side to Communism is the governments ability to direct entire economies and populations, see also China, unlike the exciting mess of capitalism, in to producing things faster to the detriment of the quality that competition creates.

Socialism:

This is where I stand. Socialism is really Capitalism with the exception that the investors, the shareholders, the management and the future of the company are all determined by the members or employees. In a sense we already have a form of socialism with the RACV or Credit Unions, members joining together for a common cause, or Dairy Farmers who, as individuals cannot provide both supply and distribution themselves so join together as a group to market their product.

Socialism is NOT Communism. Socialism is those who create the economy should share in the economy, reward for hard work and dare I say it, nothing for the slackers and some social help for those who can neither work nor malinger.

Look at our planet peoples. We all stuck on this rock together so we should work together. The rich are getting richer through corporate tribalism and as we see, tribalism (Corporations) destroy everything in their path and entire economies for the sake of a few Boardroom Emirs.