ON BALI

Why does anyone travel when we could sit at home at watch it all on the Discovery Channel?

You can see a Buddhist Monastery outside Wollongong, you can smell the pungent odours of the Markets at Preston, you can experience grand architecture at the Regent Theatre or State Library, if you want to see exotic animals go to Melbourne Zoo. Exotic plants? Botanical Gardens. Every airport looks like every other airport and all Non-smoking.

No…. we are curious to see what is on the other side of the fence, and for me the more I travel the more I enjoy coming home. For it is then that I realise what a fortunate position we are all in, and the moans and groans of outrageous fortune don’t seem to occur as often.

It is a great pity that we can’t turn things around so that instead of increasing income through age, experience and knowledge we can’t receive better salaries whilst we are young and have them pegged, as we get older and the need for dough decreases. When do we need money most? When we are starting out in life. Travel, House, Car and Baby all come when we are young and least able to afford them.

Just after a few mentally unstable individuals blew up hundreds of white people and Balinese western lacky’s I had the fortune to visit Bali.These ‘bombers’ believed that Islam was being threatened by the West with such lame duck excuses as ‘our women are getting ideas about being equal to men’ and ‘western culture is the creation of Infidels to seduce our young people’. One might note that some of these cranks are also wearing Nike and GAP.

Indonesia and hence Bali (despite it having a Hindu majority) is part of the Empire of Islam. Unlike the British Empire of old when one nation is under threat all the others will automatically fall in behind them regardless of race or sect, Islam is so fractured and fractuous that even if Islam was to fall completely the aim would be to ensure their brand, Sunni, Shi’ite, Sufi, Wahabi were the last to fall. Survival of the fittest even unto death.

Whilst in Bali amongst the hordes of aged drunken Australians looking for cheap sex (not even our blind whores would want these blokes mounting them), and cringing whenever I had to show anyone my passport, I imagined myself to be back in Kings Cross. It was oft said by local Balinese that half our tourists come from Indonesia just to experience the decadent West. Having recently arrived from Solo in Central Java I found myself agreeing with them.

So why do I enjoy arriving home so much? It is because I begin to appreciate what Australia has to offer. Despite all the prophesies of doom and gloom uttered either side of this column divider and the political atmosphere I realise that I have never had it so good.

So why can’t we have a society that, with the intensity of hormonal youth seeking sex, we travel outside our own borders and discover what the rest of the world hasn’t got. It would certainly be less embarrassing in Bali if the Aussie tourists were all virile young studs rather than the old retired wrinklies I saw with girls appearing more like grand-daughters hanging incestuously from the old guys wallet.

Poverty is relative. Even though I still cannot work out how some young people could possibly survive on what they receive from Centrelink but they fare much better than a country that has no social security system at all. Many tourists complain of the street vendors plying their wares with unceasing sales pitches, where the word ‘No’ seems to invoke an even greater sense of urgency to make you part with your money. Survival is the name of the game and a dollar profit from the fat old fart in the T-shirt, shorts and thongs will help them and their family make it through another day.

If our young people despite all the ‘Americanski hype’ that surrounds them, could see with their own eyes that there are billions worse off than they, then perhaps what we see as unreasonable demands might be seen by them as well.

The unending patience displayed by the people of Asia goes far beyond what we Western races would tolerate. Buddha taught that ‘Life is suffering, and suffering is life’. On the one hand this is a most enlightening decree but on the other it has also helped create the political ambiance of Asia where single parties, dictatorships and inhumane political freedom fighters proliferate. As a result a vast multitude of people suffer through the most bestial of revolutions in the belief that it has been ordained and they may as well just sit it out for the next life. Fortunately for us 500 years ago the Reformation allowed us to begin thinking for ourselves, we saw through the machinations of the Priests, and put religion in its proper place as part of our culture and not the centrepiece of it.

in a world of Donar Kebabs, Chinese Sweet and Sour and African Tapioca

‘WHAT DO WHITE RACISTS EAT?’

GOVERNMENTS CANNOT MAKE MISTAKES

It is impossible for Governments to make mistakes. That is an awful truth that even they will admit.

I would be a strong supporter of any political party that stands up and admits their mistakes. I would be an even stronger supporter of any politician or party that includes in any Act of Parliament a clause which allows anyone damaged by a law (thereby admitting fault). The Government cannot be sued. Therefore the Stolen Generation, the woefully abused Children in State Care (which still occurs), the Children denied an adequate education because of some smart-arsed theorists who think they know what’s best for children but only manage to succeed in stuffing up the system. The children denied adequate and accessible medical attention in remote rural areas (both black and white).

Where are the paedophiles now that used to be employed at the State Children’s Homes (Mittagong as an example) when they were closed down. The excuse was a matter of economics the truth was more like they were so riddled with child-abusers at every level that they were closed and the abusers shuffled off to some other department away from children. All in the name of ‘the government does not make mistakes’. The only thing the government has admitted is that their care workers fuck children but deny it still goes on.

On a lighter note - Did you know that the highly publicised dog restraints in cars act was quietly rescinded recently because it contravened the ‘Cruelty To Animals Act’. Goes to show lots of fanfare to bring something in and nothing said when it goes out. .

But get ready to still be pulled over. It is against the law for dogs to have their nose out the window (the same as your arm or elbow). Now I’m no lawyer but I believe this is a blatant act of discrimination agains dogs with long noses. Anyone want to start a class action on behalf of everything from Whippets and up?

Of course it could be worse. We could live in America.

BRANDIS NOW LOOKS AFTER SOCIAL SECURITY

LA NOCHE DE LAS PERRAS

Translated into English this is 'The Night of the Bitches' and it is a tradition in the town of Cerro Mono Blanco (which sounds like White Ceremony but is actually White Cute Hill – just a bit more trivia for you to wade through) in the Province of Caternaco in Mexico. (Or joo purists will say Mehico). It's origin dates back over 2,000 years and celebrated on the first Friday of March each Year. It's origin was initiated duirng the time that many healers, sharmans and fortune-tellers existed and where many myths about what makes a husband hide in his shed and legends about women getting men to do things that don't want to do were born.

Translated into an Australian context 'The Night of the Bitches' could be when every woman over the age of 18 could be let free from the drudgery of work (for which they would still be paid) or the mind numbing boredom of housework (men would were the apron for the night) and they would all go out for a Girls Night Out or some older women would call a 'Knees Up'. (it would be interesting to find out where that term came from. Has it something to do with sex or childbirth?)

But you ask how this would promote tourists to our village. Simple. Imagine a few hundred women descending on your town determined to whoop it up with a lot of squeaking with delight and screaming for the male stripper to 'get it all off''. The dozens of 'chicken vol-au-vents' and mini-bottles of Champers. The cases of Gin and the litres of Tonic. The Porphry Pearl and that stuff in Chianti Bottles before you put a candle in them.

The local Police could decorate the cells at the Station with Lace Curtains and Petti-point Cushions for those ladies with arresting attributes. Of course female Solicitors would be handy too but they would have the night off as well and could possibly already be in the cells.

THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH

‘WHAT DO XENOPHOBES EAT?’

I would have called this last little bit ‘SPAM from the Internet’, but under the rules of vegetarianism we might have to begin calling it ‘TOFU’.