'Food, clothing, housing, electricity, water, education, protection, work, entertainment, ecological health, art, communication, reason, transport, support, enablement...this is not socialism. This is simply good basic human government.'

Wishing you and your family a happy and holy Christmas time. ........... We went for a walk around the suburb today, Craigieburn Christmas Eve, noticing what our neighbourhood cohort had done to somewhat personalise the small houses here. Well done to some. All are pretty well new small houses, 2 or 3 or 4 bedroom, most are owned, some rented. Small yards at the back. Big dry parks here and there, and good bike paths. We eventually accidentally arrived at one of the shopping centres and wandered through. I had a look in jb-hifi and sought out the DVD of Alien, with Sigourney Weaver, and found a box set of 6 Alien films including Prometheus and Covenant for less than $30, so snapped them up, then realising we long ago got rid of our thousands of dvds and any dvd player, so we went to Target or Big W and bought an all regions dvd player for $35, then Mrs Fitz chose the Game of Thrones dvd set as we have never seen that series, but know it to be very good. I read that big video streaming services and cable channels find the classic movies everyone likes and then 'vaults' them away on occasion, to inspire folk to either pay more or to watch something else...to create scarceness, and I don't like that idea of marketing-cunt-capitalism at all, so, owning the actual DVD discs, and at a cheap price, and looking after them, seems a better choice for those really good or loved movies or series etc one really likes and can just watch in perpetuity off line as one wishes. Lovely day, walking about, hand in hand. Kind regards and Merry Christmas from Mrs and Mr Fitz wandering on the park pathway around the town on a sunny Christmas Eve.

A LUCKY Lucky Cat indeed! A couple of months back I put our big Lucky Waving Cat, Mr Xi Jinping, out on the front door porch only then to begin a vicious war with the local crows who kept pecking at it until they had pulled out its waving arm and flown off with it. On our walk today Mrs Fitz and I came upon a bunch of odd items in the grass, as if they had tumbled from a birds nest in the wind, about 50 metres from home, including the stolen arm. I had kept the one armed Mr Xi Cat hoping maybe to one day find a barbie doll leg to replace the waving arm, just to be creepy...thinking a Lucky Cat waving a skinny leg in a Barbie Nazi salute would be an interesting garden ornament... BUT NOW the waving arm is back on Mr Xi. He'll be back on the stoop tomorrow, Christmas Morn, waving up a storm that says 'Yo, crows! I'm back!'

Well, the Australian Prime Minister, who often carried a lump of coal around in parliament as his best friend, reckons he won't be intimidated into recognising that climate change somewhat causes... climate change. He says he believes that climate change exists, for sure, but it doesn't necessarily cause...climate change. Hmm. Just waiting for it all to 'blow over' as is the standard conservative position. And no, his absence when he was on holidays in Hawaii didn't cause everyone or anyone here to be anxious and scared, as he asserts, it just made people feel quite pissed off that their needs in a time of great peril were best addressed by leader having an overseas beach holiday rather than doing the hard work of how to support the firemen and women. As you may know, most rural fire services are totally volunteer based because its cheaper than paying people to do that...and much cheaper than using the army etc who may get hurt or have equipment damaged, equipment that is best used to rain down terror on poor communities on the other side of the world, but after a few months on unpaid leave, doing the heroic volunteering, the bills and mortgages still need to be paid, and they do start to add up. Who would have thought? As for Hawaii, I guess it had to be an overseas holiday anyway, really, because all the good holiday spots in Australia were pretty shitty as they were burning down. A dope, a ponderous inept narcissistic marketing man of the far right...yes, another one.

Australia:I note the prime minister Scott Morrison has returned from his secret holiday in Hawaii as someone found out he was there living la vida loca, whilst the country was burning to death... first he apologised on behalf of his wife, Jenny... and then said he was sorry too...and then said the holiday was really his kids' idea anyway. There's a real man. The calibre. The Statesmanship.

John Fitzpartrick Wine Taster's Guide to the Yarra Valley. "The 57th red wine tasted on the day was a provocative syrah from Domain Wombat Gestaltz. It was cranberry-saffron redolent with hints of wet Hessian-de-saucier wheat bags draped across a citrus infused summer breeze in the Camargue. A fine ethereal and gesticulatingly fanciful wine, robust, true, yet with some whimsy, noted as a fine wine to accompany a pig at a barbecue, following a degustation, or could be just left in the bottle to entertain itself for hours".

Looking at the world and various causes and desires for independence etc...one can think that China, one day will devolve from one nation back into 3, then into 30, then into 300 etc. Hong Kong could be a separate independent state, just like Timor L'este. Yes, that could happen. Hawaii could kick out all Americans and be Independent, yes, that could happen. The Dharug tribe, from Cronulla to Palm Beach and inland to the Blue Mountains, could kick out everyone else in Sydney, Tibet could kick out every Chinese person who isnt ethnically Tibetan from Tibet province, that could happen, the Manchurians could kick out the Han in Northern China and launch a horrid war on Japan, Australia could kick out the American Military from Darwin and from Pine Gap, except, well, in reality, where we actually live, none of those things are ever going to happen. Not ever. As for Ireland, Jesus, the only thing actually stopping the Irish from being one Ireland/One Island, are the Irish.

Thinking, as a not highly bright being, but still somewhat useful, I could still run as a person/contender for the Australian Senate on the basis of my philosophy, and the country would be a much better place. Quiet John: 1: Not fucking up anything good that works. 2: Having a look at the big picture things like climate change and making some decision on working out how folk world wide and nearby could be best protected from that. 3:Free Education from pre-primary to Tertiary Degree level, like it was, and we lost. 4: Free child care and health care, obviously. 5: Better Pay for all Australians who work for other people, and a true and absolute endorsement of the Right to Strike for better pay. 6:Tax the Churches and make all charity the fully funded responsibility of real human Government. 7: Execute corrupt officials. 8: make the Australian military useful to people in Australia rather than in Durk-Durkistan. 9: Not making any public comments nor creating bullshit between elections. Standard Media Interview: Interviewer: "Now, Mr Fitzpatrick, you seem to think you have a better idea than our elected representatives...yet you are not a rich or smart person, by your own admission..." John: "Oh, go fuck yourself. I don't have to be bright to know that you're a low life cunt and so are all the cunts you work for." I think I'd do well in Canberra. I think it is about time.

ALCOHOL and Sydney Australia/Sydney, as a city, isn't so much a success anymore, but rather a disease.

It looks like Sydney City, this year, is doing the right thing, ending the massive Sydney fireworks display on New Year's Eve with a final blast. 10 million dollars invested in 20 minutes seems a bit over the top these days... Good. Fucking Sydney wankers.

WESTPAC BANK: From ancient China, when the banks of the great rivers were not effectively dyked, because that cost money, the local leader would turn up in front of the Emperor, and, basically, stab himself to death for his failure to prepare. It was an effective way to make the next local leader more responsible in his spending. Now, in Australia, a bank can support 20 million events that sponsor world wide child sex slavery, and the CEO gets a few million dollars to happily and respectfully retire. No execution. No penalty. We have grown truly dumber as the times have gone by. As for stabbing the CEO to death, well, yep, I'd be up for it, but he should really be intelligent enough to do that to himself.

I see the Australian Prime Minister has shortened his holiday in Hawaii to come home to the Unexpected Massive Climate Change Caused Bush Fires. Jeesus, didn't see that coming...gosh, I'm an idiot, gosh, how do I get a plane now? I guess the real and stinking problem remains that he can't help anyway. He could have, last year, but didn't bother. Not a believer in that climate change bullshit. Our little Trump.

About a decade ago I noted that it would be a good idea if Australia looked after itself, in terms of climate change defence, and redirected its military towards /preventing/saving australian people and property from the usual ravages of fire and flood...big preparations, big programs, big infrastructure improvements, rather than have soldiers despatched to be killed for various odd goals the americans wanted on the other side of the world, but no one listened. we still honour our unnecessarily and senselessly military dead and damaged instead of preparing for the hot world ahead...because, gosh, we can afford those lives I guess. Obviously, if you are an Australian, then Australian human life isn't everything. First world economy, fourth world respect for the self and others. It is not in our nature to elect smart people who can do things for us. We still pander to bizarre principles that dont apply to ourselves or our land. The Australian Government: the wrong people and, importantly, at the wrong time. the last bright elected leader was Kevin Rudd, and yes, he was a dick, and weak, true, but he was bright and he had the capacity to plan and did plan ahead. The current government, these cunts don't know their arse from their elbow, and, ideologically toads, and remarkably lazy, they can't learn.

A Brief Review Tale of Two Melbourne Restaurants. We don't go out much. We don't go to expensive restaurants much at all. Once a year. For steak, we've been to one restaurant twice in 3 years...Grill on the Hill, in Kew. The steak is good, but not the best, the prices are alarming, and, when busy, the quality goes down. people take people there to impress them, and then talk about themselves and buy ridiculously expensive wines. You get the feeling that the owner just wants more from you, and from their staff. For seafood, Richmond Oysters is more like a cafe, the seafood is great and in huge amounts, and fresh and delightful, and fast. The cost is alarmingly high, for sure, but you do eat extremely well without any need for bread and with not one chip seen or necessary. Just good seafood...oysters, bugs, prawns, hot and cold, beautiful fish, and scallops and mussels. Magical food. You get the feeling that the owner and the people who work there are pretty happy.

Please Don't Bury Me John Prine

China is always in the Negative News ever since Trump destroyed the trade agreements etc. There was never anything much about the Uighurs or the Hong Kongers etc, or Chinese control of the Whole Universe until Trump had problems because he couldn't fuck them up...because he isnt as smart as they are. Ever since he's had this problem, the Western media and some western Governments...the USA, the UK, and Tiny Australia, have been beating the shit out of China, and China has been very respectful in its ongoing reaffirmation of itself, its identity and its system. We immediately stopped beating up North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. I expect as soon as the USA and China find a new trade deal, and Trump's re-election campaign gets serious, then the negative news will instantly stop. That's the way that the world goes round.

A Hong Kong University Student who destroys a train station must come to the realisation that they won't be able to catch a train to Uni. The station won't be fixed up for quite some time. There will be no money for that. This is not politics. This is consequence.

Bonkers in Hongkers:Hopefully the run of 'self harm' protest activities in Hong Kong will settle down now. The Chinese government certainly won't interfere in problems that are the making of Hong Kong folk. That's what living in an autonomous province of China is really all about. Expecting the world to save you from having a good life is an odd and self-destructive wish indeed. The human condition is like this sometimes.

HONKERS:I guess my level of understanding of the situation in Hong Kong is that a lot, but not most people there, especially the young, are going through what we would call the phenomenon of "Self Harm" perhaps because of bizarre goal driven parenting and a sense of lack of personal esteem, and a feeling of unworthiness of the self. That would explain the protests pretty well. In the long term, and it will be very long term, the government should really invest more in mental health services and in the well being of its young folk facing the same changes young folk everywhere face these days. Its getting a bit "Lord of the Flies" there just now.

Blossoms on a Moonlit River in Spring | 春江花月夜

《梁祝》 Butterfly Lovers ErHu Concerto 指揮/閻惠昌 二胡/孫凰

I told you so. The Chinese Government will NOT interfere in the Hong Kong situation. Yes, Honkers can pull itself to pieces and hate itself for being Chinese, but, it still is Chinese, and it still is China. Hong Kong has real Autonomy, and this is what they are doing with it. Attacking and destroying themselves. "We will destroy everything, our own future, please, please, attack us! Control us so that we may be martyrs!" Nope. You're just being very very silly. Do what you want, destroy what there is to destroy of yourselves. Take a decade. That's up to you. No one else in China is actively trying to destroy themselves, they're too busy having reasonably good and improving lives, going to work, educating the kids, getting 5G and 6G, connecting up with the world, eating steak and drinking Penfolds Grange Hermitage and buying gold, and sending the bright kids off to good universities in the USA and the UK and in Beijing and Japan and Germany. Be as poor and vicious and as exceptional as you need to be.

BOB MARLEY - CD COMPLETO

Well done, players! Today was a Great Win! Every now and again, though rarely, Australia achieves something. Today, equal pay parity between the professional Australian Womens Football (Soccer) Teams and the Mens teams. That's good...and the womens team are much better quality players too. About time! Well done Australia! Well done Australian Womens Football collective-union! The money is there if you are prepared to fight for it and take it. That's a hefty healthy wage! More power to you! That's the World Game!

One more afternoon work shift to go, that will make it 5 in a row. That's more than enough. Then 3 days off. Off to the doctors on Wednesday as they wish to tell me the results of an abdominal ultrasound. Liver damage? Perhaps. I probably deserve it. It's just what I've always wanted. I guess it was that 1953 vintage Penfolds Grange Hermitage wine my brother Bob bought for me when I turned 21, in 1974, and, rather than investing the money in the stock market, or hiding the bottle away in the vast cellarin Narrabeen, we just drank it together. That was a nice bottle of red. Have I had better? Nope. If you have had the really good gear once, then, why do you have to ever do that again? If so, that'll make 2019 quite a year...the 3rd heart attack, glaucoma, mental health stuff, and...liver disease. Whoopee! Oh good! We Senior Baby Boomers have sure got some fucking bounce to us! And, still smoking. Kind of proud of that now. I Still haven't resorted to wearing the polyester pants up high above my belly button, with a plastic belt, teamed with a polyester shirt, dank green cardigan and New Balance comfort running shoes...and just spending all my time at the doctors or the RSL and voting for the conservative cunts... but I might, should I ever get out of wearing my pyjamas and slippers everywhere. The post-war Baby Boomers generation was pretty amazing...we elected Australia's only ever socialist government that created Medicare, free University Education, financial support for single mums, anti discrimination legislation, strong environmental agencies, good immigration policies, and strong unions that brought great wage growth and work permanency etc for many decades...and that Government of Mr Whitlam's did all that in only ....2 years in power. It's been downhill since for a long time now. Imagine Woolworths not paying people fairly...really...Woolworths...all the wage theft, the whole gig-economy is simply wage theft...and no one is even really upset about it. People are more upset now about someone else eating a chicken wing...and people go crazy and decompensate if there's a black out for an hour...oh my god... not judging, just noticing. Off to make some toast and tea, it being midnight. Might journey out at 3am and DJ a non-binary co-op anti-fascist rave, in my Vegan Doc Martens, snort crack brown brown with gunpowder, and sit on the stoop wit my homies, Raphael, Lenny and that other kid, Leroy, and blow some smoke, drop a few bricks, lick some hoes, and bust some caps in skinny white cops asses, yo. Respect. 21st Century Australia...its Culture: You dissin' me, you old white cunt? Well, now that you mention it...let me think... hmmmm...yes, I am dissin' you...and, I might add, I am uncomfortable with the term 'hero', if you don't mind.

One more afternoon work shift to go, that will make it 5 in a row.
That's more than enough.
Then 3 days off.
Off to the doctors on Wednesday as they wish to tell me the results of an abdominal ultrasound. Liver damage? Perhaps. I probably deserve it. It's just what I've always wanted. I guess it was that 1953 vintage Penfolds Grange Hermitage wine my brother Bob bought for me when I turned 21, in 1974, and, rather than investing the money in the stock market, or hiding the bottle away in the vast cellarin Narrabeen, we just drank it together. That was a nice bottle of red. Have I had better? Nope. If you have had the really good gear once, then, why do you have to ever do that again?
If so, that'll make 2019 quite a year...the 3rd heart attack, glaucoma, mental health stuff, and...liver disease. Whoopee!
Oh good! We Senior Baby Boomers have sure got some fucking bounce to us!
And, still smoking.
Kind of proud of that now.
I Still haven't resorted to wearing the polyester pants up high above my belly button, with a plastic belt, teamed with a polyester shirt, dank green cardigan and New Balance comfort running shoes...and just spending all my time at the doctors or the RSL and voting for the conservative cunts... but I might, should I ever get out of wearing my pyjamas and slippers everywhere.
The post-war Baby Boomers generation was pretty amazing...we elected Australia's only ever socialist government that created Medicare, free University Education, financial support for single mums, anti discrimination legislation, strong environmental agencies, good immigration policies, and strong unions that brought great wage growth and work permanency etc for many decades...and that Government of Mr Whitlam's did all that in only ....2 years in power. It's been downhill since for a long time now. Imagine Woolworths not paying people fairly...really...Woolworths...all the wage theft, the whole gig-economy is simply wage theft...and no one is even really upset about it. People are more upset now about someone else eating a chicken wing...and people go crazy and decompensate if there's a black out for an hour...oh my god... not judging, just noticing.
Off to make some toast and tea, it being midnight.
Might journey out at 3am and DJ a non-binary co-op anti-fascist rave, in my Vegan Doc Martens, snort crack brown brown with gunpowder, and sit on the stoop wit my homies, Raphael, Lenny and that other kid, Leroy, and blow some smoke, drop a few bricks, lick some hoes, and bust some caps in skinny white cops asses, yo. Respect. 21st Century Australia...its Culture: You dissin' me, you old white cunt?

Well, now that you mention it...let me think... hmmmm...yes, I am dissin' you...and, I might add, I am uncomfortable with the term 'hero', if you don't mind.

I see a minority of Hong Kong folk have brought the province into economic recession...and keep trying to get and goad the Chinese Government to crackdown on them...to make a moral point...but China isn't like other countries, and it won't do that. Hong Kong can fail if Hong Kongers wish it to, unless Hong Kongers fight back against Hong Kongers. That's why its called Autonomous. If they really wish to destroy their own livelihoods etc, for 6 months, or 6 years, they can. Feeling special, superior, and exceptional all have their real consequences. They had it pretty good compared to a hell of a lot of us.

There isn't much bitterness left in me now, at 66. There was quite a lot, or at least some, for about a decade in my fifties and early 60s...things that had gone wrong, the various unfairnesses, the being foolish, the people who did, actually, do me great harm and wrong...etc...and the denying of the harm I did to other people etc...but that all seems to be gone now. I think it is what happens to most people. Not all, not everything happens to everyone, but I think most of the things that happen, unless we are in war, are pretty common to us as generic human stock. What would coffee be without a hint of bitterness? Just a plain sweet drink that makes your teeth fall out. I think I've mentioned the studies on Human Happiness and that, in general, life is pretty happy when one is young, a child etc, and then as maturity and responsibility arrive most folk experience unhappiness for a long time in various forms, though not all the time, and then, in late life, without those responsibilities etc, then life becomes kind of happy again. It's got nothing to do with who we are or what we've done, or whether we have been bad or good, etc, it's just the Wheel of Human Life, not for everyone, but for most. I've never been against the notion of self killing, suicide, etc, at all as I believe this is quite normal also. Death, does, indeed, acquit us of all responsibility. But I have suggested to folk who wish to do so, that, for their own enjoyment possible, to consider the Wheel, and how, in general, things don't get much worse and sometimes, do get a lot better...not forever etc...but for enough of the time we are alive. If you wish to kill yourself at 60, well, fair enough. But remember that no matter how you die, the folk who love you will grieve for you and, really, after a year, no matter how you die, they won't miss you so much anyway...so, don't do it for them. We are a passing parade.

Eventually all the various discriminations that people have, their colour, their gender, their race, their culture, their intelligence, their religions, their fetishes, their beliefs, their jobs, their philosophies etc...everything that separates us will fade and pass. What we will be left with, the great division, will between those with wealth and those with poverty...and this will be the only human discrimination and the only human bias. I expect that it will be a long and bloody and very nasty time for all who remain. I wish us well.

I think our family, staunchly Catholic and Irish at the outset, apart from Mum, who had intelligence AND humour, were all basically indentured as iron-collar slaves into the Irish Roman Catholic Realm...which is pretty much exactly like the Tibetan Mahayana Buddhist realm, if you study these things....and, really, in no way differs at all...except there's probably a lot more, a lot more child sex abuse in the Tibetan Buddhist realm... but, anyway, it does, and perhaps should, take at least a lifetime, or two, to escape from the clever and various notions of a Really Big Faith. It's not all bad, of course, either Catholicism or Tibetan Buddhism, it's just, well, mostly bad. You can still have fun with the good notions in it...but, like having dinner, there's no need to swallow everything on the plate. Both are fundamentally about money and control, and, well, yes, money and control have their uses, to be sure...but there are other things of interest as you go along and find things out for yourself.

Thai Royal Anthem

Junior Brown - Apache plus another instrumental (guitar pyrotechnics!).MOV

Pete Seeger: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

I see the Hong Kong protest folks are getting more destructive and violent hoping/demanding to get a savage response from Beijing so then they can Cry Freedom! Help Us! Independence! Democracy! But that isn't going to happen. The island is just going into a very deep economic recession, that's all. They brought it on themselves. They'll just have to work their way out of that as these years go sailing by.

Johnny Cash - Hurt

I do like this Turkish fable: "The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the Axe, for the Axe was clever and convinced the Trees that because his handle as made of wood, he was one of them"

Men At Work - Down Under (Official Video)

Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire (Historic Montage)

Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire (Official Video)

Prince - Sign O' The Times (Official Music Video)

Milli Vanilli - Girl I'm Gonna Miss You (Official Video)

Jimmy Cliff - I Can See Clearly Now (Official Video)

Bob Marley - Redemption Song (from the legend album, with lyrics)

Guantanamera | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

Nina Simone - Sinnerman

The Stranglers "Golden Brown" 1981

Squeeze - Cool For Cats (Official Video)

On Hong Kong: If some Hong Kong Chinese folk have a real problem with being Chinese, then they have a real problem. This is not a problem the Government of China can actually help you with, and no one else will help you. This is your problem. It doesn't matter what you destroy or who you kill, or who you beg to help you to see yourselves as something far cleaner and better and more important and more intrinsically worthy. None of that will help. This is your problem. You have brought yourself to...yourself. It is not the world's fault that you hate yourself and seek to destroy yourself. Being so special and exceptional, that is your business.

Daylight Saving is a funny thing. I was in favour of it for decades until I bought a fantastic Casio GShock watch 3 years ago and suffered far too many hours trying to change the hour hand. And this may make you think I am an idiot, true, but I handed it over to 5 other people, not idiots, actual watch aficionados, watch shop keepers etc, and they couldn't change the time on it either, without access to the 70 page instruction booklet. I posted it back to Casio in Japan, I sent it back saying that I don't want it anymore...and that they should try harder...but instead of keeping it, they fixed it, and sent it back to me. That's true. They returned it, fixed up for that season. Nice of them. So, instead of doing that again this year, I bought a $25 replica of it that is much easier to change. The remarkable Casio G Force, a watch you can wear underwater on Jupiter, as one needs to do, is in the desk drawer until the times change back again in a few months. I doubt the real usefulness of Daylight Saving. It is a complication, a complexity, and we are getting much simpler now, and for the future, and we can't do fascinating complexity anymore.

Perfect Marriage: my view: a perfect marriage, well, this is not an easy thing. it should start with a couple who fundamentally mostly like each other, and at a time when neither is actually rooting someone else, or rooting themselves too much. In some peoples lives, this may be a very rare anomaly and an important and quizzical time. with the necessary arguments, it is important that neither resorts to psychological or physical violence, or indeed, actively hiring assassins, or when running away, one doesn't run very far. Half way motels are for shadey sex and shadey remorse...& its important that they are nearby. It is probably best that your loved one doesn't hold a sharp knife to your throat more than once. I'm not judging, I'm just noticing. eventually you both have a child, i guess, or not, and then usually the dad/husband wants to have sex with someone else to stave off the existential angst of realising that life has no inherent meaning at all. this is part of growing up. it takes the whole of life to understand this fact. yes, life has no meaning. any meaning is a shonky construction over the Void, but it works for, hopefully, a long time. Build that bridge...and after a decade or two, meet the one you love. the same one. thats a perfect marriage. How long does that last? well, back to the issue of existential angst and the meaninglessness of reality and of truth...i dont know. no one knows. if anyone says they know, they are advertisers for some crap notion that is worse than yours, and more expensive than yours. On we go. It's a messy, imperfect ...mess, most of it and with great beauty and wonder in it all, and that's pretty well how we guess we are still actively alive rather than being in the process of actively dying. Now, yes, there is a difference between actively living and actively dying, but we'll get to the dying part well enough without any advice or help at all. Dying knows us much better and more intimately than we will ever know dying...but that's, for a lot of us, a bit further down the road. I think you should marry someone who you are prepared to put in the ground, and they should marry you with the same serious resolve, because that's one of the things that marriage does really mean. I'm very happy with my choice and my marriage. I'd much rather she put me in the ground than I put her there. Too much paperwork and too much sadness for me.

I don't know why Australians worry so much about China, apart from, of course, being rote-educated to do so by our American owners.

John Fitzpatrick News on Hong Kong. Hong Kong was colonised by the UK on the basis of a 'Lease', meaning: they took it by force and torture from China because China was weak. As China got strong and the UK got weak, the UK gave it back at the end of the "Lease". Hong Kong has had a great time compared to China because it is small, clever, and a big trading port, and is supported financially by China...well, til now. Hong Kong protestors are upset that now China is too rich, so HK wants to be something else. They complain China is far too Communist and far too Capitalist. They don't actually have any options. Hong Kong is China. They are lost souls of change, although reasonably well off. If Hong Kong caves in, financially, Singapore, as always, will be happy to takeover being the most important trading hub in Asia again...and Hong Kongers can be poor, as poor as they choose to be. China, the government, will not intrude, because they keep their treaties and they keep their promises...unlike everyone else. Protestors: We have to destroy things and kill someone, or many people, many important important people so that China invades us, and we can cry "Liberty! Freedom! Democracy!" ...but China is not a bait-taker. It is not like other countries. The people of Hong Kong, by choice, simply don't understand their own country, and they probably will destroy their part of it, for and by themselves. Fortunately, China has made very good trade connections with Singapore to future-proof the One Belt One Road Project for the people of ...China.

Rave on John Donne - Van Morrison (studio)

Van Morrison - CONEY ISLAND

It amazes me, really. This anti-China thing that Australia has going at the moment. Why is China so bad right now? Because Donald Trump doesn't like them...that's the only reason...and the whole free media machine is instantly on the case. Pathetic. Australia is formulating ideas about how to deal with China etc...goodness me, for fuck's sake, we don't have a voice in any of that. America tells us when to trade, who to trade with, tells us our moralities and who we must support etc...and, for the size that Australia is, China doesn't care anyway. Tiny countries don't tell huge countries what to do, never have, never will. we are so full of ourselves to the exception of all others, and to the exception of reality itself. We'll be ok as long as we have stuff to dig up and sell them...that's how Australia has been for 25 years. That's why we have a reasonable, if falling, first world economy...thats why we still have pensions, an education system, a health system etc...because of China...no other reason. Nothing we've done for ourselves.... We still have stuff to sell. The rest is wanky rubbish-thinking.

Spring Sunset in a plain north-western suburb in deep southern Australia. Crows grow quiet. Various chirpy be-speckled small birds wonder whether to fly back to the new spring nests now or eat a few more seeds. They discuss this point. They note that it is safe to stay awhile. The big sky, mostly blue, is instantly cold with the slow departure of the yellowy unbuttered still wintry sun. House bricks absorb the last of the warmth for the trailing day. The TV news is telling people who they should dislike and fear today. Oh, it's China again. No surprises there, as we only get our opinions from America these days, and America is always afraid of someone. The radio babbles away with songs about girls just wanting to have fun. The world is moving into economic recession. In an hour, or so, the late, tired, low paid commuters will come home here to the gentle quiet.

On Hong Kong: I would expect the protestations will last about 6 more months or a year. The economy will fall. The Chinese Government will not interfere, and the squabble will become between the protestors and those who are happy as they are, basically the parents of the protestors, and the happy have the numbers...but the families will not break. After all, Hong Kong IS China. Families don't break. Chinese women hold it all together.

I guess some folk think that China could collapse, and give freedom to the narcissistic well off young Honk Kongers, the incestuous pederast Tibetans, the Mad Manchurians, the terrorist Uighurs, etc, and I guess it could, but it would be centuries after Hawaii achieves separate nation hood, by direct war with the USA, and long after the Dharug Mob own Sydney again, and sets up borders in Neutral Bay, and the Tasmanian Aborigines re-take Tasmania by Force. There will be One China for many, many hundreds of years to come and the impact of New China will be more influential in all the forms, money, art, science, technology, than the Romans ever were, and all without War. A new type of Human Civilisation. We will, over the decades, having been bred on the USA and the UKs multiple horrid wars, just have to get used to that, to get used to world peace. it won't be easy for us to do that, but we won't have a choice. Peace is good. Peace is better. Peace works. War is hell, and we can't win that war...we can't depend on Hell anymore to make things better for us. China will make things a lot better for China. What we does up to us, but I'd suggest we look after each other rather than to pre-figure or prescribe some enemy...to make an enemy of people who only want to buy and sell stuff with us anyway.

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

Bob Dylan "One More Cup Of Coffee" LIVE performance [Full Song] 1975 | N...

Philosopher's Stone ~ Van Morrison/ Good Night

Philosopher's Stone ~ Van Morrison/ Good Night

Philosopher's Stone ~ Van Morrison/ Good Night

As for here in Australia, well, our Prime Minister Scott Morrison, has been making himself a deep friend of Donald Trump, and all the way from America, Scott has chastised China for...being China...whereas it should be...Not China...but rather China the Way Donald Thinks China Should be...I guess. No one asked Scott to do that on our behalf...and especially not spouting out such rubbish from some foreign Americanese city... No one thought that was a great idea. Jesus, what a dick head! Why do that? Come home, shut up, do your job, Scott, at least whilst you still have a job.

"A Totalitarian State is a country run by One Family. A Democratic State is a country run by one of two families who each pay to have turns." Hong Kong is a part of China the same way Tasmania is a part of Australia no matter how many Tasmanians, and how many Australian mainlanders, don't actually like that fact. The fact won't change. As for Hong Kong, 4 months of protest, or 400 months. It doesn't matter. Take as long as you want. Destroy everything you need to destroy of your own making and of your own families. China won't stop you - you are China. No one will stop you. It won't change a thing, for the better. There is a time to build up, and a time to break down. Do what you need to do.

JJ Cale - Magnolia/ favourite before sleep song

Ry Cooder - I Think It's Going To Work Out Fine

Junior Brown - "Surf Medley" Ah, my funeral music, love it!

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker (Audio)

Boredom is Essential.ON BOREDOM AS A NEW CULTURE & ART: Apparently, with social media and always being connected, the problem is that we are not deeply, intrinsically, bored enough. The state of boredom is very important as a survival mechanism. Why? Because a fair bit of reality is absolutely boring a fair bit of the time. Having a 24 hour news cycle doesn't change the fact that not much in the news isn't boring. Fortunately, when bored, a person's mind is processing millions of things just under the glance of consciousness, working out problems, developing future survival scenarios, etc...most of the mind is about surviving the future rather than enjoying Netflix or football or horseraces...but with too much active thoughtful absorption in the present, too many activities, too many stimuli, we strand ourselves and dumb ourselves down into acceptance of the relentlessly mediocre. To deal with this, you can actually go to 5 day conferences on Boredom where experts talk about the likelihood of lottery wins, aeroplane meals, new word meanings, Hollywood, plankton, veganism, etc, and whilst they talk, and talk, and show slides, you, in the audience just kind of ...get functionally bored for hours ...and re-visit yourself unconsciously and devise your good future...and your good future is...dear lord...for fuck's sake...anything but this!

Woody Guthrie~ All You Fascists Bound To Lose

Little Boxes by Pete Seeger

R.E.M. - Shiny Happy People (Official Music Video)

The B-52's - Roam (Official Music Video)

Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (HD version)

A good first day off work today. Although I would have preferred to sleep in til about...4pm, but... instead, I was up at cold 7am and then Mrs Fitz and I drove to Melbourne Town in the Big Traffic for about an hour and a half to the Eye Hospital (officially called the Royal Eye Hospital but I will not call it that, ever, as I despise the Sassenach invasion and occupation of Ireland). We waited for an hour or so, dozing in the dozing voluminous cloud of crowd there, and then I saw an eye doctor who said the recent laser surgery worked 'Hunky Dory' and, well, blink, that's good! Thank you very much. Great skills. I came home with 2 eyes yet again, and both still in their own individual sockets. I love being married to Mrs Fitz for many reasons but the main one is that I enjoy her company and, for some odd reason, she enjoys mine. She went off to work this afternoon so I am a bit sad being without her for the hours. In the interim, at home, I prepared a pretty good birdbath and bread experience for the backyard bird fly-ins, and a kind of tiled spot for the carnivorous kookaburras and crows, and left them with an offering of a pork rib bone. Beautiful sunny day today, and a tree in the yard is full of pink blossoms, humming with harmonic bees. Birds are occasionally gambolling about in the yard. An hour or two before sunset, I could well mow the small backyard, just for the green smell of the grass. Tomorrow, early again, we are off to get new tyres for the Nissan 4WD ute at Fawkner, a suburb 20 minutes away, rather than locally because the Fawkner folk throw in a free wheel alignment, then we'll have some lunch and I'll drive Mrs Fitz to work at the airport, and then pick her up when she has finished her work there. If we have time, in the evening, we will get back to ruling the Universe.

Perspective:"It's a matter of perspective. The thing with regret is this, Bill...yes, as a father you were a bit of a dickhead at times, but you treated the kids pretty well over all. No violence, no horror. Sure, the absences were too long. You failed at things you didn't want to fail at, sure, and your kids don't like you much at all, but that's not unusual. You should put down the regret for awhile. Don't worry, when you miss it, you can pick it up again. Remember that if you were a great Dad, the world being the random entity it is, for all you know, while driving the kids to Disneyland, you all could have been slaughtered by a truck driven by another happy Dad driving fast to bring home gifts to his happy kids. That kind of thing happens a lot to perfect parents."

as a police detective in China, noted: "it is easy for some artist to run away and complain about us, and sell his paintings in new york. it is much harder for me to do that, as i have a responsibility to catch murderers and rapists here, and it takes up all my working time. Nothing is perfect, but I will catch them."

The Hong Konger protesting folk are slowly realising their place in China...that no matter what they do, Beijing will not do anything. Beijing granted HK autonomous status, and they have it. If they wish to destroy HK in a fit of wanting to be someone else, they can. They can bankrupt their parents, destroy buildings, break the laws, destroy the economy, and nothing will happen...except they will be worse off than they were. They are most upset, not about democracy, but the simple fact that Mainland China is growing exponentially more wealthy than they are.

Australia from the air - stunning footage by the ABC's drone pilots | AB...

Friend living in Hong Kong who owns a small shop. "I carry a machete and a small ax in my car now in case stopped by violent pro-democracy people ordering me to keep my shop shut and to go home. I'm not going to do that".

Looking at the Brexit thing...well, yes, it will happen soon and things will just go on, or change, as they normally do to deal with change. People will do this, and do that etc. Nothing very interesting. The UK is not a dynamic or interesting 'thing' to anyone outside it, nor to a lot of people in it. That won't change. Grist for the mill of history. Kingdoms naturally die...it may well be what Kingdoms do best.

ah, El Paso...Ah, America, almost daily mass shootings. I don't know if we can expect any better from a country whose greatest achievements are Country & Western Clog Dancing, Agent Orange, and Wrestlemania. If they build a wall, hopefully it will be thick and high enough to keep them all in.

From the decades in Palliative Care as a nurse, faceless bureaucrat, and government adviser in Qld, I do think a concomitant Euthanasia service is essential as a component of a Health System. Cross referrals etc. Simple. It just makes sense. It's just doing social good. Palliative Care and Euthanasia are different and the difference is in the Doctrine of Double Effect where Palliative Care doesn't actually kill people, disease does, and its a fine but real line, whereas with Euthanasia, people kill people, or better still enable really sick folk to kill themselves painlessly, when and if they want. I think both are very worthy notions and there should be good funding for both, and good funding for folk who prefer to rage against the dying of the light and turn up every day whooping and wailing in Emergency Departments.

I guess, if one had to pencil in the emotions of a lifetime on a graph, it would start above the baseline, kind of happy, then, as life progressed with its complexities, it would drop bit below the line, then a bit more, only to come back to the base line and then rise above it in latter life...thus, a wry smile.

Mens ties...I wore one for the wedding awhile back, but I can't see any other reason to ever wear one. marriage is or has respectful traditional indices...and I would have worn a cummerbund if that traditional thing was so important...but...wearing a tie to go to work? The iron collar replaced by the silk one? I dont think so. Its the 21st century. I have no idea why men wear ties...and I don't trust men who wear ties. Wearing a tie to anything apart from a wedding or a funeral...we are talking about real active psychosis here.

General Political Views: Australia: Australia is fortunate in having stuff to dig up and sell and this won't change really for many decades. But, in preparation, a good bit of each budget should be spent on making Australians somewhat smarter, brighter. I'd be happy with a moderately leftist or centralist government interested in the wellbeing and continuity of its people based upon very easily know factors, as could easily be done, with long range planning. I think a 3 year term for the Federal Government is absurdly short, and it should be 5 years, every 5 years, Government kicks off on January 1, and ends 5 years later on December 31. This enables planning and certainty, and enables a reasonable period for judgment of the Government's progress. I don't like the current Australian government simply because the Right is always trying to create more wealth for the rich here and overseas, and see the poor as disreputable and unworthy. Thats what they do. Its an ideology. Why is the Right an ideology? Because its just so Easy and yet improves nothing. This doesn't serve Australian folk at all. I think that ideology is very flawed. I don't think the Free Market Notion looks after anyone except itself...and the government should be a rock of serious responsible certainty- they certainly get paid enough to do that serious job, and there's ample money to do that, and be very proactive in protecting the population. How can one be living in 2019 when the education of children and the quality of health services etc are dictated by international players every month on the stock exchange? This is absurd. This is not responsible government. This is the failure of government. As for Alliances, we can be allied to any great power where the future, rather than the past, is seriously considered and planned, and brings real benefit to Australians. As for: America, Europe, China, Russia, etc well I wish them well in working out what is best to do within their borders. It is their business, their people.I doubt that democracy matters at all, as long as government is mostly concerned with the wellbeing of its people. As for Ireland, well: one island, One Ireland, I think is best. To bring this about, the UK's attachment to Northern Ireland needs to be destroyed by whatever means are available.

Oh, a mass-shooting in California. Kind of normal these days. I guess if Americans are happy enough to be killing each other, they're less likely to wage war on poor bastards overseas in places no one cares about, as has been the norm for 60 years. That's a good thing. Well done, America. Well done Donald. Build that beautiful wall. Keep the Mad Americans in America...and do what you like there.

Now, let us see...the US broke their treaty with Iran, even though it was working, so then Iran shot down a US drone, then the US/UK impounded an Iranian tanker, then the US shot down an Iranian drone, and now Iran has impounded a UK tanker. Nothing unusual at all. Boys being boys.

I see an Australian swimmer has refused to share a podium with a Chinese swimmer who beat him. Boys being precious boys.

HONKERS HAS GONE BONKERS. The civil unrest in Hong Kong bears similarities, in a way, to the Bangkok/Thailand rebellions around 2012. A highly organised democratic movement supported by equally some very good folk and some very dodgy criminal groups against a kind of governing elite. In the Thai situation the Government just let the protestors win, the protestors took over parliament, ruled the streets, dug up the roads, burnt down about 20 skyscrapers etc for about a year, and then the Government, housed in offices near the airport, just had some military interventions of an 'urban pacification' kind...and lots of Psychological Ops and just sniper-ed off the leaders of the protest, and thus nothing changed in terms of the rulers of the city...the Government won, the rebellion was over...and people just got tired of protesting and not getting work or pay.

What is the general view on drug-pill-testing at pop festivals? If at pop festivals, why not have a small office in every town that tests tablets for people who wander in whether there's a festival or not? Would an increase in taxation be a good thing to cover the costs of this?

China does a lot of social experiments, including the current Social Credits scheme in Beijing and Shanghai. China experiments with democracy in some cities, with neo-Maoism-collectivism in others, like Chongqing, and with a variety of forms of new social engineering, including rampant capitalism in Hong Kong and here and there. It's a big culture/society and so does massive billion people trials over many years. Of all the people in the world, China studies the Chinese most. At the same time, it has more higher educated and well informed economic analysts of, say, Australian and UK economics than either the UK or Australia have, or could ever have. China studies urban pacification as well. I recall during the 2012 riots in Bangkok, the first-on-the-group foreigners were plane-loads of Chinese tactical analysts, studying the impact of the rebellion, and analysing everything the combatants did. The Chinese invest in Knowledge of other people, as well as themselves. They are a new and old and remarkable and unique human civilisation. One would find most Chinese to be a bit dubious about social experiments like Western democracy when the last really big 'social experiment' most recall and remain damaged by, is the horror of the Cultural Revolution. I guess the Chinese Nation could fall apart, and this is about as likely as Hawaii gaining independence from the USA...or Tibet gaining independence from China, or Canberra in Australia becoming the property of the local indigenous folk...all these things could happen, yeah, but none of them ever will happen.

Katie Melua - Nine Million Bicycles

Joni Mitchell - Hejira (1976) Full Album

The concern regarding having a referendum in Australia to change the Constitution to recognise Aboriginal people as being here is this: You have to win the referendum. As shown by the Brexit referendum, the will of the people is not something one can rely upon. If you lose it, then that's that. You don't get another shot at it. The usual policy of any government here is, when faced by a call for a referendum, is to fund both sides of the argument so that people have a clear and informed base on which to make a choice. This is why Australia is not a Republic, because Australia rejected the notion, and why we not fully separate as a nation from the UK. A referendum sounds like a good and progressive idea on recognising Aboriginality in Australia, but only if you win the referendum, only if you trust that the majority of Australians think like you do. The history of referenda in Australia is that most don't get up.

I see the Hong Kong Government has put away the extradition agreement with the mainland, and I think that this is a shame, really. Many people commit atrocious crimes, paedophilia, rape, murder etc in the Mainland and then find their way to Hong Kong as an escape from trial and punishment...and for these most serious and horrible crimes, they can't be extradited to be on trial at all. I really don't know why Hong Kong people wish to protect these kinds of monsters and criminals.

Whatever the motivation for Trump meeting Un, it is a good thing to do. North Korea is the worst government on Earth, true, and then comes Saudi Arabia. And Trump is probably the worst President on earth. Still, It's always best to talk rather than kill.

General Muttering Afternoon. Getting things in order. Plan is to fly out to Guangzhou Monday AM, connect to Shanghai, overnight in Shanghai Monday midnight, drop off about 50kg of extra luggage to family, then domestic air to Shen Yang midday Tuesday, then an AirB&B in NE China. The AirBnB apartment in Shen Yang looks like a cross between Zen and the Art of Oddness and Hello Kitty, and is unrealistically inexpensive, so that it may not actually exist. Then a few days there, go to the wedding, see family, then back to Shanghai see family, a few days there, then home and back to work. In preparation for this, apart from the heart attack two months ago, I caught the flu this week so have been holed up at home sneezing and snotting around in a zombie like fashion trying to work out if the zombieism relates to the lessening of the damaged pumping heart's blood supply to the old brain, or just the flu. I expect its a combination. It all augurs pretty well for our first holiday in about 3 years since coming to Melbourne and finding work, and working, and then...getting sick, working, pushing back on creditors etc. So: passport & visa, yes. Some tablets, oh yes. Some tissues, yes. Some nitrolingual spray, yes. Some spare Yuan. From time to time in life I've had PTSD/Depression/whatever and tend to agree with Mr Leonard Cohen when he said that as he got older, the connecting pathways in the brain that bring about depression tend to get burnt out. Mine have. Last night we drove into the city centre in Melbourne to pick up a Certificate for daughter noting her excellence in sound engineering in a Nepalese video, so we can deliver it to her in Shanghai. Then we had some Japanese food. The cost of the meal and the cost of parking the ute was about the same...$30 each. Nothing cheap about Melbourne. I was muttering and grumbling for sometime before realising that everything was basically okay...and, in its way, remarkable. Today I have swanned about in my Chinese winter Pyjamas and fluffy slippers all day, and drove to the bottle shop dressed that way and bought a bottle of Guinness and a packet of cigarettes. I did this to be culturally prepared for Northern China. Tomorrow, Sunday, is packing the luggage day and writing down numbers of things that may be important. Who knows? Hopefully, in the time available in Shen Yang, in the Hello Kitty AirB&B I will have a nap, transcend the usual, and become self-aware for ten minutes before getting hungry for street noodles and fried snakes on sticks. I will smoke ten Pandas for you.

Huawei/The problem for America, Australia and England and a few other places, in regard to 5G is that they aren't very good at it but still want to control the 5G scene due to the billions dollars its all worth. At the same time, China has a very advanced, well working Huawei 5G sophistication that it can deliver anywhere... far faster service, far cheaper, and far less flawed...and this is why Huawei has been nominated as the Bad Guy...because its better, faster, cheaper and far more reliable. Pouncing on Huawei, and trying to destroy the company, That's not Free Trade, that's just the rotting corruption in the Western outposts of America, Australia, the UK etc when they can't honestly compete at all.

In Australia, well, Peter Dutton, Minister for Being the Enemy of the Free World and Everything Decent, has launched his first salvo against the current Prime Minister with recent raids by Australian Federal Police and secret services, on the ABC and News Corp. He won't stay quiet. He won't stay lower than the PM. "There can only be One! Sparta!" He actually believes he is the best to lead. He really does...and because of the broken nature of the government, just re-elected, no one can stop him. It will get messy, very expensive, very nasty, and hurt a lot of innocent, like us, people, before he's through...and he may well win.

"It was never my artistic existential burden to be over talented when young, nor in my time in firm bright adulthood, nor in the middling middle age, nor now, in old age, or what I choose to call: my advanced projection. I guess, all in all, I should be grateful that neither fame nor talent has had the opportunity to savagely ruin me at all. Yes, thank you God, for that, and..fuck you too."

The Tiananmen disturbance had far more to do with the population protesting at the ridiculously high price of cooking oil in China than it did with any notion of democracy. Another case where the "anti-China, anti-Other" West trots out feeble and flawed information for political point scoring. Much like during the "Arab Spring" which was not a cry for democracy within various Arab states but rather due to regime financial losses in the 2008 financial meltdown where the price for basic living food items became too expensive due to the needs of the very rich to keep increasing the prices to keep increasing their income no matter what the social or economic reality. The true story of China is best told by China. More Fuel! Jaiyo!

As a fellow Australian very proud of your work in providing some real truth to the real world, thank you for your great work in journalism, Julian Assange, our very bright young Townsville Queensland boy. You did well and beyond all expectation in showing that the truth does actually matter on Earth, and should be told with alacrity. Well done. A Nobel Prize wouldn't go astray, once the Americans have stopped torturing you. Once Australia acknowledges that you are one of the best of us, and actually does something about it. I doubt Townsville or Australia has changed much in your absence at all, even though you changed everything on such a global scale, and not for the money, but for the human truth. Well done, world citizen.

Prince - Somebody's Somebody

I expect the Australian Labor Party will win next Saturday's Federal election by 8-10 seats.

Hmmm.

I kind of like this phone. it is not the latest superest Huawei, but its a good one. Its about $300AU. I like Huawei and want to support them. Just because the USA hates them because they can't decrypt them and they are much more technologically better er than Apple, last far longer and are much cheaper and less problematic, etc...well, that's a good thing. That's privacy. I have no concerns about being spied on by the Chinese...I get spied on by the Chinese everyday here at home...but being spied on by the USA and Australia is a much more real threat. Especially for someone with my odd political views regarding the militant establishment of the Irish Fitzpatrick Caliphate (and the Levant) here in Melbourne. The Real Problem for Huawei is that they make such fucking good phones.

I kind of like this phone. it is not the latest superest Huawei, but its a good one. Its about $300AU. I like Huawei and want to support them. Just because the USA hates them because they can't decrypt them and they are much more technologically better er than Apple, last far longer and are much cheaper and less problematic, etc...well, that's a good thing. That's privacy. I have no concerns about being spied on by the Chinese...I get spied on by the Chinese everyday here at home...but being spied on by the USA and Australia is a much more real threat. Especially for someone with my odd political views regarding the militant establishment of the Irish Fitzpatrick Caliphate (and the Levant) here in Melbourne. The Real Problem for Huawei is that they make such fucking good phones.

Sad business about Julian Assange, boy from Townsville, unsupported to the Nth degree by his own country's government...taken away simply for showing what the US did in Iraq to innocent people. I'm very disappointed in the Australian Governments. Reminiscent of the Al Jazeera journalist who went with the US troops into an Iraqi mosque as they 'cleared' it with automatic weapons...killed everyone seeking shelter in there. Very clear video photography...American soldier says...hey, this one's not dead...shivering heap of a man on the ground....then 'bang'...yes he is... next day, following the world news report, the Al Jazeera newsroom in Iraq was bombed by the US. Journalism, reporting what actually happens, is a dangerous business indeed.

Sad business about Julian Assange, the incredibly bright boy from Townsville, unsupported to the Nth degree by his own country's government...taken away simply for showing what the US did in Iraq to innocent people. I'm very disappointed in the Australian Governments.
Reminiscent of the Al Jazeera journalist who went with the US troops into an Iraqi mosque as they 'cleared' it with automatic weapons...killed everyone seeking shelter in there. Very clear video photography...American soldier says...hey, this one's not dead...shivering heap of a man on the ground....then 'bang'...yes he is...
next day, following the world news report, the Al Jazeera newsroom in Iraq was bombed by the US.
Journalism, reporting what actually happens, is a dangerous business indeed.

I see Amazon in Australia has set itself up in Melbourne, apart from its managers, without any permanent workers at all, none, no one...all casuals, and all pushed to the limit and sent home before a shift ends whenever the managers want. What a company. What a cunt of a company.

poem for George Pell: A Little Vanilla/ George Pell enroute to hell will spend the night in a cell. Around his neck there is a bell of the cries and screams of boys he fell to their little knees for him to please for his reptile rage to quell.

Some years ago I recall writing to the current Bishop of Cairns about various goings on in the Church etc more to do with persecuting folk who wanted euthanasia, and ending the letter with the biblical quote "Suffer little children to come unto me." He replied and invited me around for a talk and a cup of tea...and we had a cuppa and talked about my main interest at that time...the interplay between palliative care and euthanasia...and when he was pretty sure I had no evidence or no grist about child sexual abuse to discuss, he kind of lost interest. Nice man. Good wine cellar. (The bishops know a good red). He gave a big 'loan' of money to a guy who complained about sexual abuse, and gave the guy a job polishing the doorknobs of the cathedral in Cairns, just being kind. A few thousand dollars for polishing knobs seemed appropriate. I thought that was nice of him. ............ The problematic thing for the Church is that Cardinal Pell constructed the still operating legal rules (The Melbourne Defence) for dealing with child sexual abuse victims, and broke the Australian church into small little boxes who had very limited responsibility on a corporate basis, but thus shielding Rome from any financial unpleasantness at all. Pell is a savvy and Smart fellow.

Australia...now, lets see. The Australian Ambassador to the USA, Joe Hockey, owns a travel company in Australia that gives free holidays to the Australian Finance Minister and his family to go and have fun in Singapore...and the Finance Minister of Australia, the FINANCE MINISTER, Matthias Korman, doesn't even know that he hasn't paid for the holiday he and his family had...its just a mystery....and then the same Finance Minister advises the Treasurer on serious financial things for the whole Nation...hmmm. The best thing you can say about Matthias Korman is being amazed about how high you can rise in the world of Government Finance without knowing anything about...finance. Australia is a nation that lets even the most inept creep to the top.

olerance & Compassion. Imagine living in a country where the government has spent $20 billion dollars on an advanced internet system that delivers slower speeds and more expense whilst the money is given to important friends of the government in the USA. That's what I love about Australia. They just...take it and without any complaint at all. We are Saints of the West. We just want to belong.

I recall many times when I rode around from Cairns to Rockhampton, on the ex-Queensland Police white BMW K1100LT with its blue spotlights, and with me wearing a white helmet, that it was the safest place on the road to be. Drivers would just see you instantly, from miles away, and just give way, get out of your way. I repainted the bike black before I sold it and within a few days normal everyday drivers couldn't see me anymore and didn't give a fuck if I was dead or alive...and staying alive got really tricky for me...true. same roads, same people...on a motorbike, if you dont look like a cop, people can see you, obviously, but they really dont give a fuck about you. So, on choosing the black BMW K1300S, yes, I'd get a white helmet. Australians, whether in politics or on the road, only see what they fear. Its a national and racial trait.

Here's something nice and true: driving home from work in Melbourne city the other night, at a cross road with 5 roads and 2 tram lines, this guy, bedraggled, maybe 40 years old and worse for wear, was trying to get across the intersection. He didn't need any help crossing the road, but he was just so very very slow with elements of Korsakoff syndrome in his gait and a face that looked just like florid Meth...so, everyone, and I mean everyone, just stopped. No one went to help him because he didn't need any help, he was just really really slow in getting from one side of the road to the other...5 minutes. Everyone stopped. The traffic lights changed and then changed back again, and then again, and again, and again. No one honked horns. No one complained. He eventually got to the other side. There are some very nice things about Melbourne folk. Respect for the human journey.

I see that the Australian Government has decided that the disaster in the Murray Darling River System wasn't due to too much water being pumped out of it by the cotton industry, but rather the disaster was caused by a million dead fish blocking the river.

It wasn't long ago that private company British medical researchers were hanging out, salivating at the opportunity, waiting for British soldiers to be profoundly injured in Iraq so they could research the use of their new artificial blood products...but it never happened. Sigh. the Iraqis just put their guns in a shed and went home. How can you destroy people like that and at the same time create new medical technologies? The Iraqis...what bastards. Bomb them again. And again. Still, they just went home. What kind of evil enemy is that? We depended on them killing a lot of us so we could make good medicines for the rest of us. What kind of bastards are they?

Australia...Every few repetitive years its always the same...as if no one knows anything...Western politics...its not that hard, is it? A binary system...there are the Right who think that the Individual is most important. There is the Left who think that the collective is most important. For a generally good existence, then you just find the middle place. You know that even the people you give power to aren't the brightest folk in the bunch, not the sharpest shovels in the shed. For Australia, running up to the next elections, Bill Shorten of the Labor party isn't the sharpest shovel for sure...but look at the present Government...what are they?... Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton, who are these people except shit to be shovelled out anyway? Not because they are great Individualists denied their heavenly right to be important, but just because they are a corrupt and appalling government of fucknuckle wanking dickheads who only do us harm. Its not rocket science. If you are an Australian and work for a living, you can't afford the Liberal Party selling everything out as they always do, trying to destroy social progress every day. you can't afford being short changed and fucked in the arse just because you are a decent human being.

the only areas where China has invested more money than the US iarein high technology, quantum computers, & nuclear attack submarines. The US owns the air, China owns the sea. The US navy, whilst plumbing the bottom of the South China Sea, seeking trails of the new Chinese nuclear attack subs, were surprised to find a Chinese sub rose to the surface next to the USAs best technology ship, the Chinese sailors came out on the submarine deck and waved to the Americans, and then the sub descended again to be unfindable within a minute by the best US technology. Then, next day, China offered to sell its old sub technology to the USA, to help them out. China's old technology was made by Huawei.

Border Control at Warringah Airport, Sydney. Just knowing that Tony Abbott is there on Voluntary Community Service for the cavity searches makes me feel a lot safer about National Security, as an Australian. All oiled up, I just hope he doesn't disappear completely up a Bishop's arse.

Noticing that 3 Federal Govt Ministers this week have made their plans to not re-contesting the upcoming Federal Election because they wish to spend more time with their families. That's exactly what Alpha type characters do once they've fought and struggled their bitter way to positions of significance and power, of course...they just go home to be with the kids. Take them to soccer. Australia may not have to have an election this year if the Members of the Government keep going home to be with their kids at the present rate. Just hand over the keys to the Opposition, and start talking about the costs of after school care and kids parties amongst themselves. I wish Peter Dutton would go home...but I would feel sorry for his family I must admit. Imagine having him at home all the time. "We need to stop the toast! If we are going to have any toast it must be toast that we choose to have and have in the manner we choose to have it with the various prescribed condiments." For the sake of your family Peter, you should stay in Canberra. A good few years grumbling in Opposition would be better for everyone.

World Travel used to be, for me, about going somewhere and living there for awhile. It has never been about having a holiday and staying in a nice hotel and looking at stuff on any tour. My travels were about living somewhere else for a medium or long time, going slowly broke, and with heart mind and soul looking out at things. Learning. Being, walking about. So my journeys have been less frequent than those of many Aussie holiday makers around the world, for sure, but having a holiday wasn't really the point. If one is fortunate to be born in Australia and saved a bit, then one doesn't need holidays in exotic places...but rather it is better to actually live there. The hotel I liked most was a 2 star hotel in the Italian Quarter in Paris, mostly because of the lazy big breakfasts, the bowls of warm coffee, the bread, and sharing the tiny lift with an emotional naked large breasted girl who had been thrown out of her room by her beau, and getting to know her, and help her. I gave her my leather jacket...partly because she was cold, but mostly because, naked, she looked so good in it. Much better than I ever looked. Still, I remember the warm bowls of coffee most.

Did you ever notice that just after the Malaysian plane was knocked out of the sky over the South China Sea, that, almost the next day, the PM of Malaysia received a gift of $800,000,000 from the Saudi Royal Family, even though he didn't know them that well, but still, a nice gift is a nice gift...and that the day after that, Mr Obama arrived in Malaysia to offer them a really big favourable military weapons and trade grant? It was on that day that the PM of Malaysia, having studied the data about the plane going missing, noted that the plane had, um, changed directions entirely, for no reason at all, and went to crash itself far away, far far away, thousands of miles away in the sea, where no one was looking.

MINDFULNESS:Mindfulness: Sounds of the Sunset. ...Distant cars on the highway, like waves on a Melbourne beach. ...TV news talking about politics, some ABC gay guy talking about non-binary sexuality and toxic things ...within the moment...the sound of the 2nd hand Apple keyboard, bit bop. bit bop, ...nearby, the sound of Mrs Fitz swinging back and hacking the Murray Cod fish head into pieces with the Chinese machete. Life: Heaven on a stick.

I see Scott Morrison, the PM, has dropped an important Australian Aborigine into a marginal seat with a 12% Aboriginal constituency. My god, Scott Morrison, with an election coming up within a few months, is a Visionary. He was hoping that Mr Mundine would declare himself as a gender-fluid non-binary transexual woman, but still, I guess, in the interim, a conservative black bloke will have to do.

Life at 65.5 years.At a time in life when I'm very happy with the 'machines' in my possession...the simple Nissan truck, the 7 year old second hand apple iMac, the big Samsung fridge, the new remarkably inexpensive Haier Chinese washing machine...the $40 ZTE telephone...my Citizen watch...the lawn mower, I don't need, in the garage..but might need some year in the future... the 10 year old $70 microwave...the old un-smart TV on which I watch the news..., and the little free 4 year old Samsung tablet on which I watch movies at night. I don't actually need many things now and I don't like new things at all unless the old one breaks. Kind of a nice time in my life. Still wouldn't mind the 2003 Ducati 999S Testastretta Super-bike...and even they are at a much much better price now, and have always well looked after by bizarre OCD old baby-boomer blokes who have now 'gone into care' into some relentlessly horrible nursing home in Australia, put there by their lovely daughters and sons who are, really, just sick of the terribly demanding and smelly poor old cunts. Perfect time to score a bargain.

The Truth Seekers/ Mr & Mrs Fitzpatrick. They often didn't talk much. They both worked different shifts, and a lot of them, in different professions, but usually arrived together at home at about 1am, and they would make some dinner or snack for each other. Sometimes a barbecue. They usually ended up in bed at about 2am or 3am somehow. She would be playing some game on her phone, some game that went 'beep' and then 'bop' and he would be watching some netflix movie or series on the tablet in the bed. Facing opposite directions, she would usually throw her leg back over his hip. His job was to hold her small foot in his large hand, and massage it for awhile, and then forget to, until her foot kicked him, then he would massage it again for awhile until he forgot; and that's how they lived their joy in the world, in that intimate silence when all that was ordinary was glowing.

The reaction to PM May's Brexit Plan based upon the referendum to Leave...total rejection, seems to be the compelling outcome. Thus the UK will stay in the EU, not by hook, but by crook. Labor's vote of No Confidence will fail. No new election. The Tory Govt will not fall. It was always a 'big ask' to tell a Government that didn't believe in Leaving at all, to organise the Leaving. Neither the Conservative Party or the Labour Party believe its a good thing to leave the EU. It does provide a glaring hole in the notion of democracy in the UK, for sure but I think the only outcome will be, in the future, fewer referenda.

The Band - The Last Waltz - The Weight feat. the staples singers

Prince - 1999 (Official Music Video)

JAMES BROWN - Sex machine (Long 12'' Version Videoclip)/ what can you say? Just dance.

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter (Live) - OFFICIAL PROMO

looking forward to NE China in Summer, 2019. I can wear polyester pants, a white polyester shirt with buttons undone from the bottom up and the shirt ends tied together at nipple line, exposing my gut, and carrying a very cold bottle of beer in the street, resting it on my belly, to cool it down, the way successful Chinese men of my age do on any hot day. I can do that. Maybe even buy a small singing bird in a cage to take home, or a cricket in a matchbox, to show my friends. And, late at night, put on pyjamas and pick up a tin and walk downtown to buy a meal of noodles and fish, put it in the tin, and walk home, stopping to smoke from time to time, and listen to the little cricket in my pocket. Maybe even join an impromptu gang of old men in similar pyjamas on some corner and talk about this and that in the hot night. Talk about gambling, and women, and crickets and bird song.

We'd all like Senator Derryn Hinch to die a happy man.

World Refugees are an issue and mainly due to the massive destruction caused by the US UK and in our little way Australia in terms of military action, driving, bombing, millions out of their homes. Germany accepted a million people, and all of them those terrible terrorist arab refugees, and within a year has retrained and employed 400,000 to work in Germany's massive industrial factories, jobs, housing, security, tax, etc... as there was a severe worker shortage, and, by doing so, Germany's economy is moving ahead quite well compared to the countries like the UK etc who succumbed to fear mongering and racism, and whose economy is going down the toilet. Australia continues okay financially, because we continue to ride the wave of Chinese business, the only thing that has kept our schools open and our pensions and hospitals functional for the last 25 years.

I see the Minister for Home Affairs an Au Pairs, Peter Dutton, having stuffed up with bantering on about cancelling the citizenship of an Australian when he can't do that, is sending Scott Morrison off to Fiji to either make the guy a Fijian Citizen, or to fuck up Fiji, it being Our Backyard. Peter does have the power of the Mad Bald Right behind him, and the PM doesn't, so Scott will do his bidding. Now today Peter Dutton announces he will create a registry of sex offenders names and postcodes and pictures etc, when he knows the States won't support it and his government won't fund it anyway, and it won't work...but that's not the point. The point is: Fear... Alert the voting public, before the May election, to 1: Terrorists. 2: Paedophiles. I suppose Asians, the usual suspects, are next. You can read him like a cheaper thriller novel. Pure Pulp Fiction.

What other sacred cows can I poke today... Oh, the American opioid crisis based upon prescriptions by real doctors... well, you see, opioids are brilliant for assuaging serious pain. They are the best...especially opium, heroin, morphine. they are brilliant. Nothing can get better than them. We even have developed and evolved opioid receptors to receive them, gratefully, and have our own endorphins are made of similar really good stuff.The simple, natural organic opium poppy. The problem is that once the cause of the pain and the pain itself has resolved, and that's a period of a few months, has passed, then, well, people keep using them...which is not a good idea at all, obviously. this is bad guardianship by doctors. The synthetics, the oxycodones, the fentanyl, the bupremorphines etc aren't as good as pain relievers, and they are far more addictive, yet they are prescribed far more often these days because the people who make them say that they are better and less addictive...simply because the companies can't patent opium...so they invent this artificial shit, and people believe them. fentanyl is ok, if one enjoys hallucinations...usually furless rabbits running about the room...but fentanyl is uneccesary. If you have serious pain, especially pain related to your own mortality/terminality, then stick with morphine, heroin and opium, they are far more effective and far more natural. Many folk will say they are allergic to morphine, but hardly anyone on earth actually is. In 30 years of palliative care, I never met one who is physically allergic to morphine. The best test is to sub-cut 1mg and you will see if there is any allergy, and there isnt. People are just scared of the name, that's all. Morphine with a tad of methadone in it, to prolong the analgesic effect and to cover some bone pain morphine doesn't do well, toss in some midazolam for the fear, a tad of haloperidol to remove any nausea, is always best in terminal cancer situations...they will serve you well...this other shit is all about the profits for the drug companies and to assuage the paranoias of society...whilst watching people die in pain because...hmmm...nothing can be done...poor us. we would rather see someone racked with pain than have them sitting up in bed eating dinner and drinking wine and smoking cigars when it comes to our bizarre fears of mortality. Life has its joys and pains and that won't change. We can fix pretty well all the pains, but we can't fix the greed, nor can we fix the willingness of companies and governments to prefer to do harm rather than do good...that's the human condition...and that won't change.

Indigenous Australia: 60,000 years of traditional meaningful continuous culture, and not one wheel.

Can we deport Peter Dutton to South Africa so he can fit in with rich white traditional Afrikaner culture and value system? He is obviously oppressed here and is terribly afraid of losing his job. To me, he does have refugee status.

Pell

A fish rots from the head down: Top Vatican official Cardinal George Pell has been convicted of sexually abusing minors by a criminal court in Australia.

According to multiple reports, Cardinal Pell, who is the Vatican’s third most powerful official and a close advisor to Pope Francis, was convicted in Australia on charges that he sexually abused two choir boys in the late 1990s.

The Daily Beast reports:

The Vatican’s third most powerful official has been convicted in Australia on all charges he sexually abused two choir boys there in the late ’90s…

A unanimous jury returned its verdict for Cardinal George Pell on Tuesday (Australian time) after more than three days of deliberations…

The Inquisitor reports:

Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s third most powerful official, was found guilty on Tuesday of sexually abusing two choir boys in the late 1990s, a decision that makes him the highest-ranking Catholic Church official to face criminal convictions.

Pell is Australia’s highest ranking Catholic, the Vatican’s Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, and a close adviser and friend to Pope Francis. He is the highest ranking Vatican official to ever go on trial for sex abuse, and he is now the highest ranking Vatican official to be convicted of crimes concerning sexual abuse.

Pell took leave of his position at the Vatican last year to stand trial in Melbourne, where he was accused of sexually abusing two choir boys when he was the archbishop.

According to reports the victims were alter boys in the choir at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and were sexually abused by Pell inside the church.

The Catholic News Agency reports Pell will be sentenced in early 2019 and will not be incarcerated prior to his sentencing.

In addition to being found guilty of molesting the choir boys at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Pell is also accused of sexually assaulting two boys in a swimming pool in Ballarat, Victoria. A criminal trial concerning that case is expected to begin early next year.  

Pell has denied all accusations of inappropriate conduct and claims he is innocent. He is expected to appeal his conviction.

In the past Pell has shown little sympathy for the survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy, and is on record claiming:

The Catholic Church is no more legally responsible for priests who abuse children than a trucking company which employs a driver who molests women.

Bottom line: Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s third most powerful official and a close adviser to Pope Francis, has been convicted of sexually abusing two choir boys at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia.

Top Vatican Official Cardinal George Pell Convicted Of Sexually Abusing Choir Boys (Image via YouTube)

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Talked with Google executive guru last night over dinner: he said: I talked to the Uber driver on the way here who complained that train drivers get paid $200,000 a year here. It doesn't seem right, I mean the low skills they need to...drive some train. I said 'well, you can either be in a strong union and get paid $200,000 a year, or drive an Uber for $7 a ride. Its up to the market intelligence of the driver.'

NURSING:i am at the end of my nursing career so, mostly just look back rather than forward about it. In the thirty or so years of it, there was a decade of good progression, in about the middle, but then it relapsed into what it was before.

ETIQUETTE: On the difficult matter of knowing that Chinese Capitalism is the only way forward for the next 300 years, and the heydays of Western Capitalism have eddied away, I take the brilliant attitude of the Australian Government's Scott Morrison, in terms of Cultural Cosplay, and, when Chinese guests arrive and ask if they should remove their shoes, I advise... take off only one shoe per person...this is quite enough. We are very moderate, and clever. We'll trick 'em. Wink.