Noting some silly people getting in trouble in UK for building a bonfire effigy of the Grenfell Tower and some in the USA getting in trouble for a bonfire of the Twin Towers...Silly people, yes, but nothing wrong with doing that. Social Grief has many manifestations and effigy burning is one of them, whether folk realise what they are doing or not...still better to burn something in a bonfire than to invade and destroy another country as has been the abiding grief-habits of both the USA and the UK for many decades now.

Grief is grief...no one likes it...and no one out evolves it.

Mutterings of the Aged: I like my job. I don't mind going to work. I just don't want to contribute to society anymore. I've experienced Australian society for a long time now, since 1953, and I certainly don't want to contribute to that any more than I have had to. Jesus, look at it! I didn't do that!"

I think the last decent human being who was US President was Jimmy Carter.

On the ever important matter of Car Shapes Through Time, they pretty well all come down to being roundish, squarish, or pointy-triangularish. Then these usual change about every 5 annual models to a variation and mixture of these 3 prime shapes. I've always liked squarish, boxy shaped cars, the Volvo as it always was and the Nissan Navara Ute, as it still a bit is. I was fascinated when Toyota brought out the very boxy squarish RUKUS and I came close to buying one. I liked the black Rukus as it was 6" longer than the white Rukus, and 9" longer than the beige one. It is fascinating, as time goes by, you see these remarkable designers trying to work out what to do with these 3 shapes. The cars from conservative epochs, like the current times, are usually a mix of the 3 so as not to offend anyone...and they pretty well all do look the same, reflecting the aspirations of the people who buy them.

We are a motley crew.I recall when I was a bus driver in Sydney in...1978. I'd open up the doors and welcome people aboard the 190 from Wynyard to Palm Beach and most folk seemed to like that, until some guy one afternoon didn't like it and hit me in the face with a claw-hammer. Its a funny world. We are a motley crew. I was discussing 'empathy' with a young nurse tonight and she said she had problems with having empathy for people who were addicted to Ice, alcohol, or anything else. I acknowledged that empathy is a bit like harmony. Harmony is a worthy goal...as is empathy. The notions spring forth naturally from our emotions and need to be honoured. Empathy is very creative. Emotions create reason. Without emotions, there is no human reason. The other day at work a patient who is always worried about something and tends to break into every conversation or anything I'm doing with anyone else, and I was very busy with someone who was pretty-very crook... anyway, she couldn't wait and so burst into the conversation with..."I'm going to..." then she looked into my eyes...and paused...and then said "I'm just going to bugger off to my room for awhile." I believe she is beginning to appreciate the concept of empathy. Must be the goatee. Keep the faith. We are a motley crew from go to whoa.

have no problem with the youth of Australia. It is all about growing. Fortunately I was of a generation before them establishing that peace was the best outcome, and there haven't been any wars that we've been really involved with for a long time. That's a great thing. Mind you, we blew off a few billion dollars every year for the last ten buying weapons from the USA to drop on some poor villages in Syria, for sure...money that could have helped us and not destroyed them good people. Still...If kids grow up in peace they are most likely to expect peace as being normal rather than something to be anxious about as we were in those days. Life is better in peace. We need to choose our allies far better than we have. America never delivers, and is far too expensive. to ever have as a 'friend'. A friend doesn't do what America does.

I was always concerned that matters in Asia were controlled by America but with the rise of Trump and the departure of America from this area, I feel some hope. Asia is a matter for Asians, controlled totally by Asians. For this reason, I support Trump in letting go of Asia. Asia was always far too expensive to maintain, and just too far away for America. It was never part of America. Never will be, never can be. Asia is Asia. As the Chinese note...when you look at it...on the numbers...as the Chinese see it, China IS Asia, and I think this is true to the same extent that America IS Canada and Mexico, Central America, and most of South America etc...this is a reality. This is how things are. China IS Asia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia etc. That's really what China is...and China is doing well. It should be enough for America to wield power and might within its own borders, and through Canada, through Mexico and South America etc...that is enough. There needs to be no war or clash of minds or cultures etc. The USA is...America, fundamentally North and South. Asia is Asia, and... China is Asia. And, just yesterday, China and Japan came to some agreement that would have been impossible if America was a powerful country anymore in Asia. China and Japan...wow, these brothers have a lot to work out, and they will work it out a lot better left to themselves and the fate of each other. Even the one Korea is doing better now, North working with South, without America in it at all. This is a good thing. As for me, growing up in a Sydney suburb, working class, not many prospects, my dad being persecuted and unemployable because he was a catholic in Sydney in this days, anyway, I worked as a poetry editor for a decade from 1970 after a good catholic school education, before my publishing company well, we went broke with the new technology and sold out to a tobacco company, Benson & Hedges, and BP Oil, who bought us up to prove their credentials as ... socially aware... so they could acquire government grants...etc in the late 1970s and so... i did nursing/ I am sure it wasn't a good idea, but, at the time, it was an idea. I have liked some of it.