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.