One of the major issues with PTSD is not so much the terrible dreams and the flashbacks, or the destruction of human families, but rather that the person cannot logically plan ahead within themselves because the tract of human consciousness (all thought, all emotion, all spirituality) gets stuck around the massive intensity of the bad experience...thus quite bright and lovely people have less capacity to actually progress through the years by planning and living; being functionally stuck back there. This can happen to anyone. You don't have to have 'shell shock' in a war...you just have to have had a really traumatic experience in life...and life is actually like this...traumatic things happen. Awful things happen whether through accident or design. You can't actually fix that...you can't actually fix PTSD...this is why it is very important for people, generally, not to go to wars if they are possibly avoidable. There is enough PTSD in the world from normal events as they are without going into something where, by its nature, horrible things must happen, and horrible things are driven to happen, for whatever reason. We should be very very very careful, far more careful than we are or have ever been, in dispatching our best young into massive violence where no laws or values can ever apply.

We drove a few hours to see the Fairy Penguins wander up the beach on Phillip Island the other afternoon at sunset. They are lovely little creatures indeed, so very endearing. They arise after swimming and diving and feeding in the cold sea all day and come out of the sea either singularly or in little groups and then form a bigger group, waiting for stragglers, before dashing up the exposed beach to the safety of the rocks and grasses calling out to each other 'hup hup hup hup!' then they have a 5 minute collective power-nap, and then waddle to their own little huts in the sand dunes. Lovely beings. the trouble was that as the time of their arrival was somewhat uncertain, somewhere around sunset, it was hard to have a good meal before sitting there and waiting for them and watching them and, unfortunately, the cafe at the Penguin Protection Society Building didn't serve them roasted in pies. I could have eaten 3.

my idea of Government...some girl or guy puts their hands up and gets elected. They come out and say 'well, these are the issues, as you the people, tell me. I will deal with them to the best of my ability, thanks.' and then the government goes away for a few years and solves those issues. so, you would need a media talk from the government at the beginning of their term, and at the end...and that would be that. We are not actually going anywhere but here. the necessity every day or every week to have that person on camera is just a wank...for them and for the media. the media exists for us, we are not here for them.

Sure, the world is actually getting better in terms of poverty reduction, and every day, that's true, and at a faster rate than the world has ever seen before......but none of that has come through war at all...but rather by better design...surely the best way to speed this excellent process is to stop bombing the fuck out of people whose only crime is to think as they choose to do.

it is hard to find great fault in families who look after their own....whether the family is in Sudan or Manunda or Mosul or Washington or Pyongyang...these are the same human families and of the same remarkable value. It is best not to bomb them for their own good. Family alliances long out weigh the value of military alliances, by thousand of years.. Not many families like to be bombed for their own good.

There are about 7.5 billion folk in the world at the moment, and they will mostly continue to live reasonably long lives, and many of them, long beyond our own mortal lives, as they should. That's true. Every one of those characters is our equal in every way. There is actually less poverty in the world than there has been, and, mostly, not due to Christian charities, or globalisation, over 500 years, but due to Chinese thinking and acting over the last 40 years. I wish us all well. The world, as it is, has a lot of really good things going for it now. So, on we go, together...on we go. It is working. The good ideas are working. Family is working.

next week, due to various connections, a china envoy to the UN is having dinner here. This was my idea, and so I am cooking. his wife is my wife's friend, and they were coming here anyway, so i thought, well, why not invite him and her home here rather than have some 'Welcome' chinese meal somewhere in Melbourne Chinatown...here...some rib fillet, cooked on the bbq fast, some potatoes, for Ireland, and a small salad, and some okay red wine from victoria...after that, the next day, we can go together and see the Van Gogh exhibition, and the penguins, as we wish...but the true art of any kind of human welcome is that is a real welcome to anyone and it starts always in our own home. A true welcome means that you cook for them because you want them to be with you. This is what food is for. This is what food means. Food means 'welcome'.