Melbourne Victoria Australia Protest at Weapons Show day, today

Australia isn't so good at urban pacification. I find both the Thai and the Hong Kong Police much more civilised and advanced.

If someone wants to take-over a weapons selling expo day in the city of Melbourne, well you draw back all your police, and you let the protestors take the building. Because Australian Police should not hurt Australian people. The Prime Directive. Don't hurt your own people. They are very upset about something. Let them make their point. This is real democracy. Australian police should not be in the business of hurting Australian people.

What are the protestors going to do after taking over the expo place anyway? Then you surround the expo, turn off the electricity, TV, water and internet, and just wait. No contact. Play scary music late at night. Psychological operations. You isolate them without touching or hurting them.

The protestors, They've got to go home one day. They have jobs and universities and big mortgages, etc to go back to, & they have nice families to return to. They won't like being there for very long, especially without being able to leave, & especially without good coffee, and with no wifi.

When they do beg to go home after a day a week or a few weeks, you just pick off the defined leaders on the way out, and give the rest free bus rides home. Thus you've identified and incarcerated the leading characters and been kind to everyone else.

Australia, like America, is very bizarrely primitive, and amazingly violent, in terms of urban pacification. They are equally so destructively pride-full. We both have much to learn from Asia. Asia deals with these social issues in a much more effective way, and with much less harm done. Otherwise it's all just about government pride and police pride and prestige...yuck. That doesn't work if people are really upset with the government...and the police. That doesn't do anyone any good, ever. Relax and relent, and after awhile they and you, and all of us, we, can all go home to our lovely families. Rather than amassing police to cause harm and trouble, you just stand back. It's intelligent. In essence, what are they going to do? Hurt someone's feelings?

Is it just me, or is it odd?

It is odd that Ukraine is selling tons of brand new American weapons to support their side of a rebel uprising in Mali, in Africa.

They've always been the Entrepreneurs of Central Europe, whether it be child trafficking, weapons, or drugs...which is why no one really likes them.

My Sweet Reason

Living the Day-Off Life:
Mrs Fitz is at work, it's about 6.30pm and time for me to prepare some food.
I have 2 big pieces of Rib Eye steak that I hope will be okay to rapid-barbecue. I'm quite suspicious of meat, in general, and 'good steak' in particular.
The pieces I have, for me, are a bit too Wagyu looking, with the veins of fat, without actually being sold as Wagyu. I don't trust Woolworths. Who can? Prices for everything are what one used to pay just last year in a super pricey elite Deli...and that's for everyday food now.
Pricey.
So, I will try...I'll get them out of the fridge, let them sit until room temperature, light the barbecue, & leave it for 10 minutes til super hot,
then rapid BBQ, 5 minutes one side (as they are thick) and 3-4 minutes the other side. Maybe 3 minutes.
See what happens.
Slice it into thin pieces
Have it with some BBQ onion, and English mustard, and some Japanese horseradish,
and a salad of some simple kind...like a bowl of coleslaw/saurkraut.
Some bread? Well, yeah.
Some wine? well, probably some local merlot.
See how it goes.
If it's good, I'll put the other big cooked piece aside for Mrs Fitz's splendid return from work after midnight.
We are quite good at loving each other after all these years. I'm very happy with us, who we are, and how we are so different. I'm the old, happy enough, toothless, easy going, rotund 70 year old Australian, you know. Not someone all that easy to love...although I can cook some things quite well sometimes.
She's my joy. She's my... as Patrick White once said of his life lover...She's my Sweet Reason.
Enough said. Off to the late shop for some merlot and sauerkraut now.

The Paramedics of Palestine/Praise

I used to donate about $50 a pay to the Volunteer Red Crescent Ambulance Drivers in Gaza/Palestine, until the Australian Government stopped me from doing that. I re-directed the funds some time back to the UN Fund for Refugees, and I hope it did some good.
Imagine being a Palestinian Paramedic Ambulance Driver...they are accredited Paramedics, just like ours, and all Volunteers. Poor bastards, go out to help shot kids with all your skills and get shot in the back or the brain or blown up in your ambulance when you haven't even had breakfast, for doing it, and they are still going out and still doing great things every single day. We are all honoured by their existence, their remarkable clinical and adaptive skills, their heart-breaking love, and their total professional dedication. The real Heroes in all this Genocidal Horror.
"Good job, young men, well done. That's exactly, and only, how it's done."

Said the vague and loved and distant God.

Quite a Choice

I look at the Great Contenders for the next American Presidency, and there is one who is a known liar, thief, and great charismatic manipulator who believes that God is actually, really, protecting him; and you look at the other contender, the present facile demented President who is directly responsible, along with every person in Israel, for the 30,000 deaths of innocent men women and a hell of a lot of children in Gaza, good Lord, so many many children,

and the USA people are drawn to choose, to vote for one or the other come November?

That's not a free vote.

That's not a democracy.

That's not an election.

That's nuts.

That's a Failure to Thrive.

That's an unholy abortion of everything decent on earth.

winter poem

 Poem: A Winter Night Poem: A Dreaming Night

A dreaming night inside our warmed home.
Outside are all vestiges of storm and bleaking bleating bleakness
and the wind is wild as wild, then wilder than, til wilderness.

Winter is here, in its spades of sharpened warped clinking darkness. A karaoke of ice and menace.

A world away from here there are ribbons of warm light on the circumference
of a tropical and coconut harbour somewhere with nothing to pay
and palm trees, or so they say,
but not here.

They there will have to find their own dreams tonight.

Perhaps they will dream of us,
here in the determined parabolic warm breathing snug.
They are all respiring out, or sigh, whilst we inspire within or die.

Poem 2024. Still Gratitude

Still Gratitude

a poem by John Fitzpatrick in 2024

...

With a soul that did not grow

A mind that moved so slow 

and no grace at all to show.

Still gratitude.

For time that's out and in
For the ancients and for sin
With nothing false and nothing thin
Still gratitude.

For the love within the core
For myself and nothing more
For the wine about to pour
Still gratitude.

For the journey meant to end
The golden boy
On the river's bend
For the damaged joy
that Israel cannot end
Still gratitude.

Israel's War on the Poor continues. Must be almost 200 days now of massive bombing from land and sea and air.

 Stop it. It's mad.

All we have, and all we have ever had, is the notion of human reason, and it's kept the world going along...but this behaviour isn't within that notion at all. 

This is very, very bad.

Goodness in a simple bowl: Tonight's Pasta

Simple pasta recipe for midnight tonight, when Dear Wife returns from work.

Sip some nice wine. For this meal, it can be red or white, but fairly mild, like a merlot.

We are having some basic chardonnay tonight.

Get some paparadelle or fettuccine pasta, and put it in a big pot of boiling water with a bit of salt. Cook it violently for about 8 minutes, + about 5 minutes longer than the instructions say to cook it. It's best a bit beyond 'al dente'...and the packets lie.

Strain it through a colander, and then put it back in the same big still-hot pot. Then turn off the gas/electricity. Its done.

Add good triple virgin olive oil, a fair whack, and chopped up basil and chopped up fresh garlic to the pot. Add some fresh crashed pepper, stir it up, and just let it be.

Basically, that's it. The cooking is done. Sip some more of the wine.

To cook, well, it takes 15 minutes all up, and then it's all done.

I'm adding some thin cut mushrooms to it at this stage, but you don't have to. You could add chilli, if you like, but it's not necessary. Maybe a tiny bit. Chilli is a personal thing.

Then sip some more of the nice wine you have been sipping on.

Then, get bowls and put a good amount into each. On top, drop some freshly shaved or otherwise mutilated good parmesan, some more olive oil, a tad more pepper, and just let it be. Some folk drop a half-boiled egg on top, and that is interesting but there is no need.

On the side can be some garlic bread, for sure, but importantly, a small and interesting salad, with onions in it. A lively salad.

That's all you have to do. One big bowl + bread and you won't need to eat for about 12 hours. Its good. Simple. Goodness in a simple bowl.

Daughter in Chengdu

 Well, Tianshu has settled into new job in Chengdu, as manager of IT/AI Marketing.

Going on some business trip at the moment.

She is a Force of Nature.

I wish her well.

I wish them all well.

I was digging in the raised garden bed here in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and I found something that I'm pretty sure is an Hamas tunnel. So I thought I best kill all the children in the suburb.

The Courtyard at the Start of the Winter, West of Melbourne:

Well, our small courtyard garden has entered its 'Winter's Lock' now, and all is quiet and deeply asleep as the winds get colder, and the Great Sun dims. If one had to have a God, based upon realistic experiences, well, for me, personally, much like the Egyptians and the Mayans, it is the Sun God.

One remaining plant, in a pot, still producing 'fruit' is the Carolina Reaper Chilli, which, although it took a long time to grow and start, doesn't seem to know when to stop.

We've harvested about 18 chillies from it, & most went to friend Ayo's chilli oil bottle, and there are at least 18 more on the way.

We've firmly ordered the Lorikeets to stay away from the courtyard garden itself, and so now they are in the tree down the side yard where they can't do so much 'vicious destruction'. They took off one of the palings in the fence last week. And then, of cause, there is all the shiXXing everywhere.

I'm glad the Lorikeets are still hanging around in the ornamental and tall peach trees just over the fence, and on the side fence, as they are the most beautiful of creatures. Soon, all the leaves will go, and so will the birds, but they will know where to come back to in the Spring.

Our gardening growing plans for next Spring are quite simple. About 5 tomato bushes, 4 mini toms, and one Roma; and 5 chilli bushes, mostly jalapeño or Birds Eye Thai -semi hot ones, rather than the screaming heat of the Reapers. We may plant one Carolina Reaper plant for Ayo's next super chilli oil bottle, if she pays us a fortune in gold.

We will wait until the tomatoes and the chillies are available as small seedlings, rather than try seeds, and we won't plant them too early.

Anything else? Well, no. That's all we need. Perhaps one or two bean plants at the back. It is only a limited raised vegetable garden anyway, and we've tried, but too much planted just doesn't work.

We could have a few chickens down the side yard in a nice coop...but the chook-feed brings mice and rats, and the mice and rats bring snakes. Quite unlike Northern Queensland, where it's very tropical, it's kind of nice here to wander around the yard without the likelihood of stepping on creatures that can kill you, will kill you, and are happy to kill you; &, after all the years in Cairns and steamy Thailand etc, we like the cold. It's refreshing to have Seasons. Our house and its rooms are small and very easy to keep warm.

Not many spiders or cockroaches here at all either. We do get field mice sometimes, but if you don't make everything a perfect nest-full blessed home for them, then they move on.

So, just now, the perennial plants are doing fine, the deciduous plants are being deciduous, and everything is slowing down for Winter... except that Carolina Reaper.

I could plant some tulips now, for early Spring, and may do so. They are spectacular short blooming wonders of grace and form. Like us all. Well, like me, and my brothers (Thanks Mum!), more so than like you, of course. Not judging, just noticing.

Chengdu

Well, dear daughter Tianshu has moved from Shanghai to Chengdu for her career in digital AI/IT and seems to have landed well on her feet.

Very relieved to hear this!

Nice apartment in the CBD of the grand and colourful high tech City, & half the price of Shanghai, & more pay. 

Well done!

Israel is Insane.

I think the best response to the Hamas attack on Israel killing about 1,200 Israeli folk would have been for Israel to kill about 12,000 Palestinians, based upon well studied Old Civilisation 10/1 Roman views, that have provided a degree of Pax Romana ever since Caesar and cohort, through all the many decades since Rome.

But to recklessly and vindictively go on, like vicious animals, to butchering over 40,000 good folk, including lots of babies and women as well as men has been somewhat bizarre...and quite psychotic...as those numbers are totally unnecessary to drive home the point of 'who is in charge'.

This is hate and hubris. There is no 'just cause' in this matter at all. It degrades everyone on Earth, living and dead, to have Israel doing this, and therefore even existing. This is beyond the most extreme. This is evil, which is, actually, why most folk don't do it.

Israel: It's quite a Quality Standard, as a Nation, isn't it? The greatest achievement of Israel as a Human Civilisation: "We did the worst anyone could ever do or has ever done in the shortest time in our vicious treatment of our slaves when they chose to disagree with our righteous dominance".

Israel: These are not good or decent slave owners, nor members of the Enlightened West at all. They are insane. Israel is insane.

my letter to an angry atheist

 Why be angry?

(Dear Kate

I didn't forget, but I just wished to be concise, and that took time. To answer your question posed about 20 years ago regarding teaching kids about religion...)

On Faith:

"Dermot, It's a broad cross. I don't think that Catholicism is a particularly nasty form of corruption, the same way that one form of Protestantism, or of Islam, or one form of Buddhism is a greater corruption than any other form.

You could say, of Catholicism, that it is the most successful living form of Christianity over about 2000 years...which is a long time. So, well done!

As all are Human organisations, they are obviously all to some extent corrupt and quite horrid in many ways, as are many non-religious people, pagans, civilisations, etc...whatever. The Human Condition is somewhat odious at times. That's what makes it human.

It is only important for the individual to gain something from being a member of any of these forms for that religion to have done its job.

My membership of the traditional Tridentine Catholicism Form is for totally my benefit. Im not in it to love God, I can do that in a field just as equally.

I am not in that Church to serve the Church, that Church is there to serve Me...because I like the Latin language.

As long as you give none of the above any of your money, they're all quite good, and some can be delightful, with the lovely singing etc.

For as many believers, there are as many different beliefs. Best not to just pick on the shiniest one, Catholicism, to despise.

I enjoy the Latin Mass as a direct supplier, through time, of the Holy Roman Empire. Thousands of years, yes, and still moving along. It's astonishing how well it has done. I doubt many neo Christian evangelical folk last even one lifetime with their shiny jazzy Jesus who, all the time, needs more money...can't exist without the big bucks every minute.

Keep the Faith. You can toss out the manipulation of the notion of God as you see fit. It's your Faith. It's not God's....well, except for Tridentine Catholicism, of course. Yes, the Transubstantiation is true, but only in the Latin form, of course.

It's good to study the Italian people and their appreciation of the Papacy. The Pope is more a Grand Dad figure than the Living Emblem of a vengeful Judging Jesus. Yes, yes, they respect Grand Dad, but they don't necessarily do what he says. They have interesting lives. You can't live by the Pope's view...That would be nuts.

They have their own lives, beautiful passions, delights, abortions, hard times etc that are always more important, and more pressing in meaning and implications than any Pope. The Italians, especially the smart women, are like that because they are very, well, locally, close to Grand Dad... he's not new or mysterious at all...so, being so nearby, they not like us, you and me, Dermott, seeking to somehow know something eternally, culturally, from so far away. The Italian view of the Pope is that he is totally Grand Dad...you show respect, but you don't live with him, nor do what he says.

Many of my fellow Tridentines don't believe so much in God at all, or especially the Bible, and neither are concerns that take away anything from the joys they find in the form, and the sustenance of it....as long as you never ever give them money.

I love the statues, the more gilt and colourful, the more wondrous, the better...but I don't pray to them. That would be very primitive. I knew that when I was 8.

As for the Bible, well, some of it is well written, but most is very poor fiction indeed. Religion is much like a big roast pork dinner, really. It's always polite to not wolf down everything, and to always leave a little, some of the peas and the burnt pumpkin etc, on that plate. It kind of shows Respect. And leaves room for dessert."

well, daughter Tianshu is moving this week from Shanghai to a new town, and job, in Chengdu. Something to do with digital arts and advanced AI. We wish her well in this career jump. She is immensely competent and educated as a being.

As for North Asia, Peace Continues with neither the USA or South Korea being overly mad. At the same time, North Korea is quite sane as well. These are quite good times.

Understanding Israel and The Ukraine

In the Great Scheme of Things...I would offer, from my observations over time:

1: Well, Israel will win their evil genocidal war against the poor old Palestinians totally and horribly, and no one will try to stop them. The Palestinians are Dust. That's the Truth.
Whatever comes after that is yet to be apparent, but this will not include Israel in any Popularity Contest.

2: Russia will win its very sane, sedate, relaxed war against The Ukraine, and will hold the Ukrainian Western Provinces, and Crimea, permanently, as part of Mother Russia. The Southern Ports of the Ukraine will be offered back to the Ukraine, if they accept the general hegemony, and The Ukraine won't have a choice in that, as, by that time, they will have lost their friends in Europe and America.

Neither of these conflicts will ever amount to any kind of threat to World Peace

Keep the Faith, but be careful with the Chillies/ Israel & Palestine and the Overview

Shiver me timbers. Winter's long cold neck is in these darkening Autumnal days. We do like the cold more than we ever liked the tropics. Strange how it took so long to move South. maybe sometimes people do need to actually suffer.

Our small house is good in the winter. Rooms are small, the heating is by gas and is inexpensive still when used in a 'seldom' fashion; the heat that comes through the ceiling vents in each room is very effective, and so fast, and more than is ever possibly needed. We can turn off any of the vents we like to, say for the second bedroom, that we aren't using. The thermostat works.

Also the one savvy air-conditioner in the lounge will also act as a mild heater, if you like, bringing the house temperature up to ten degrees celsius. Sensible, not wasteful.

The best thing about small rooms and small houses.

When/if we have money ever again after Beth's last visit, we will get the ceiling re-insulated, as the cellulose/newspaper that was sprayed in there is 15 years old now and quite sparse and worn out.

We had a grand holiday with Beth here. We travelled to Daydream Island (not impressed) where the view is delightful and everything expensive, and to Uluru (not impressed by the big Roast Potato there, nor its indigenous folk or history), and even more expensive.

The most fun was had in the last ten days, back at home, going to markets and out for dinner sometimes. Beth does like Melbourne but would prefer Sydney, I think. Still, she has chosen her life as she has, and she must wear that, as an adult being.

She is back in Shanghai and has a few more weeks of working from home for a new company before going to live in Chengdu, in Central China, where the Pandas live, to work again in the digital AI computer realm. The pay is good in Chengdu, like Shanghai, but the living costs in Chengdu are much lower...rent, food, power etc...so that would either allow her to save a fortune...unlikely...or to spend one...highly likely. I expect she will miss her friends in Shanghai a lot, but travel is easy and not expensive.

Lisa is a much happier soul after spending time with Beth. Lisa is back at work at the usual work, and that is okay, for now. The constrictions applied by Government and Trade Unions to stop successfully teaching Mandarin remain, and only the super-rich can set up their not very good but remarkably profitable schools in Australia.

I'm back at my 3 shifts per week role in The Addictions Unit, and it's pretty good. I do notice lapses in my memory, but no one seems to mind, and I just accept it. I'm 70, I have to be less bright. That's what just often happens. They still put me in charge when necessary, and I just keep the focus on safety.

The Garden has become Winter-Dormant now apart from the Carolina Reaper Chillies that are still fruiting quite fast. Wow, they are so hot! Too hot. A young guy in China won a prize for eating 25 of them in one episode, and they took him and his prize to hospital and induced a coma for him. Fortunately, due to his prize, he could afford the medical care.

I find that if you slice a thin 5 cent sized piece of the shell/skin of a good Reaper chilli, and put it in a big bowl of pasta for 4 people, already flavoured by spices and mushrooms and sauces and all that, that it provides a good and potent 'heat' to the meal and for a few hours after, without destroying the taste of everything else, but it really is a matter of being a bit minimal in using it.

The Great Heat isn't in the seeds, per se, nor in the shell, but rather in the white fleshy-like support structures for the seeds.

It is very important, after preparing the Reaper chilli for the saucepan, to wash one's hands vigorously with lots of soup and water and it is suicidal to make the mistake of scratching one's testicles at this time. Those without testicles have always had an easier life.

I see the Gaza War on the Very Poor and Not Fiscally Relevant Human Animals continues as horribly genocidal as it has been, relentlessly, for so long now. The Evil that real men and real women freely do. The Jews. No wonder Jesus wept. With his ideas, no wonder they killed the poor bleeding crucified bastard.

There have been quite big protests in Melbourne, and even one guy, today, about 50, carrying the Palestinian flag as he walked into the Main Street here in our small town, probably to buy fruit at Coles. I sounded the car horn in support as I drove home from the Illegal Cigarette shop.

There is only one Illegal Smoke Shop in town now. There were three shops all doing good business but, through misadventure or tragic perdition, the other two burnt down or the owners were somewhat biffed about the head a lot until they stopped doing it. The Joys of Capitalism. The Market will work it out. The Saudi Omega Brand, at $15/packet are still the best ones I've found. They are as good as a Benson and Hedges Special Mild cigarette and I'm sure Stuart Wagstaff would agree.

As for the upcoming USA Presidential Elections, I'm pretty sure that Mr Trump will win. The only real problem for that bizarre and very foreign nation that could arise is what would happen if he didn't win...particularly if he just lost by a whisker again...as we know, they are somewhat well armed, mad, juvenile, and divided unto themselves. The Evangelical Right is convinced that this is the End Game. They Desire The End of it All. They will hold sway. Idiots.

I'm following up with my attendance at the Tridentine Latin Catholic Mass at the Cathedral in the city tomorrow, and Lisa is interested in coming along for the spiritual aspect and shopping and dinner afterwards as the Cathedral is very near Chinatown.

I've told her it is a very solemn and serious Rite of the One True Church on Earth, Church, and that it is okay to go outside for a smoke when the Priest gives the sermon in English as I expect it will be the usual highly scripted quirky messianic pro-Israeli drivel. I love it just to see the remnant embers of the Holy Roman Empire, still sparking a bit. They've had a long run in the world.

My intention in this matter is to have a religion that serves me, rather than one where I serve it. So, nothing for the plate...I will do $2 for a candle though as I am not mean, although I will take 5 candles for the $2. The most important thing I've worked out regarding the Great Religions, Catholicism, and all the lower forms of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Jew, is to never ever give them any of your money because it rots them to the evil core in a minute. Next time, I'll go wholesale...$2...maybe ten candles?

It all works out, In the name of the Father.

I think the ongoing butchery and full removal of Palestinians from Palestine, to open up that land for Israeli settlers, simply brings with it, for some of us, an introspection, a brief rumination, far away as we are from those still burning, destroyed, apocalyptic cities, as to what it actually means to be a human being who has some what evolved. Is what the State of Israel, with all its massive weapons and hatred, doing something... somehow good? When was genocide ever denoted as a good thing? In Kampuchea, in Serbia, in Germany, in Gaza. When did that idea take hold, take deep root within us? Yet on it goes, more vicious, more deadly, and on a grander horror scale, and more hateful each and every day. What kind of human animals are we? Are we This kind of animal? I'm not this kind of animal. Are you like this? Are you this kind of animal? Why? What happened to you, my brother, my sister? Who did that to you? Who are you? What do you know of the deeper satisfactions of genocide? How does this genocide serve you now?

I think the ongoing butchery and full removal of Palestinians from Palestine, to open up that land for Israeli settlers, simply brings with it, for some of us, an introspection, a brief rumination, far away as we are from those still burning, destroyed, apocalyptic cities, as to what it actually means to be a human being who has some what evolved. Is what the State of Israel, with all its massive weapons and hatred, doing something... good? When was genocide denoted as a good thing? When did that idea take hold, take deep root? Yet on it goes, more vicious, more deadly, more hateful each day. What kind of human beings are we? This kind?

 I'M NOT LIKE THAT. ARE YOU LIKE THAT, AND SO PROUD?

Enough for today. Kind regards to all decent folk here there and everywhere. May we all have long, good and interesting lives and not be subject to daily vicious ongoing Israeli genocide, as the decent sainted poor Palestinians are. Another overall awful, bestial, horrible day on Earth. Thanks Israel, we do owe you one. You do have it coming. You will reap this whirlwind. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.