IN TENTS THAWTS

But it does! After further diagnoses of my 11 yearold's bleeding nose on the weekend, we found out he had full blown Juvenile Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemuia this week. DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING CASUALLY. Look for paling of the skin, lethargy, highly increased heart rate with temperature, unsteadiness - it would depend on the child's ability to express what is going on as to how quickly obvious signs would be apparent. Take no chances with anything! One of a myriad of tragedies, waste no time with yours, it could make a difference!

Has the Second Coming Been Cancelled? Both Christians and Jews have been awaiting the Arrival of their Messiah, Jesus’ second coming and Mosciah’s first appearance. Religious fervour foments around the coming of the new age. It must be the same bloke I reckon, considering our religious beliefs are borne from the same seed of philosophy, travelling the same time line. Would it not be sad if each time either of these Saviours decided to make a re entry into our lives they found themselves aborted? People in Australia are worried about an Islamic take over, yet we as Australians are in negative growth because of the multitudinous abortions that take place in this country. Are we assuring our mutual reassignment to the minority in our own country? Ockerettes Nellie Fertado’s song “Man-eater” is surely the anthem for this recently Identified sub-culture within the Australian psyche. Interestingly, the behaviour iconised as ‘Yobbo’ ocker, male, behaviour has been supplanted by the antics of

State of the Nation I think we are going to be served up a very mediocre bunch at the next elections, a re hash of the dubiously anointed, appointed ones that are put up as our ‘local’ representatives. The current evolution of the Two Party System seems to have no interest in the grass roots, just for the ongoing security of their Party. They seem more interested in promoting a bi party philosophical rabbit stew! We, as a Nation, have invested heavily in the machinations that support the Two Party System so I would be hesitant to dismantle the infrastructure. But I would bleed the System to support a raft of qualified Independents to keep them in check! Is there anybody out there available, willing and capable of taking on the big boys and conferring pressure to their goolies or equivalent? Gretel Killeen, Love your Work! Vot a storm! Big Brother’s incredible mouthpiece maintained control and dignity as the rhetorical storm built around the finale. Big ‘L’ Liberals and fanatical Chris

Have Your Say - Instantly You will notice at the bottom of this article a couple of Internet addresses, one to the In Tents Thawt Blog and the other to a Yahoo groups chat site. I have been told that I can be overly opinionated and I figured that if I was going to open my mouth it would be wise to offer a conduit of response. So what I would like you to do is get onto these sites and discuss the various articles and opinions that have been broached in these columns. Until now I have only been entering my own articles, but I shall also place other articles by contributors onto the blog for your discussion purposes. The Yahoo chat site I would like you to consider as a means of writing your Letters to the Editor. This is a much more responsive way of getting your point across and also having an interactive discussion of your thoughts with myself and other readers. Come on now, don’t be shy, drop in and say hello! Gumfitti It is great to see the powers that be try to get a proactive campa

Have Your Say - Instantly You will notice at the bottom of this article a couple of Internet addresses, one to the In Tents Thawt Blog and the other to a Yahoo groups chat site. I have been told that I can be overly opinionated and I figured that if I was going to open my mouth it would be wise to offer a conduit of response. So what I would like you to do is get onto these sites and discuss the various articles and opinions that have been broached in these columns. Until now I have only been entering my own articles, but I shall also place other articles by contributors onto the blog for your discussion purposes. The Yahoo chat site I would like you to consider as a means of writing your Letters to the Editor. This is a much more responsive way of getting your point across and also having an interactive discussion of your thoughts with myself and other readers. Come on now, don’t be shy, drop in and say hello! Gumfitti It is great to see the powers that be try to get a proactive campa

Good Old Barnaby Surprise, Surprise! Gomer Joyce of the almost extinct Nationals goes on a junket to the Antarctic Territories and comes back rubbing his hands with glee to have discovered what he claims is a belief that we should hop in and start exploiting the Antarctic continent before anyone else gets in for their chop. Nothing changes with the Nationals eh! They must have run out of rainforests to destroy. Get a grip Barnaby, you should be leading world opinion on the fact that Antarctica needs to be protected from development at all costs. What Do You Reckon? Are immigrant and first generation Muslim kids more likely to fall into the Australian way of life or maintain the strict regimes of the countries that in most cases they have escaped from? I believe the former is the case. Pass The Doyley Thank God Robert Doyle finally bent down to smell the roses. I found him to be quite irritating. He quite rightly stated that although he had given his 100% it was not good enough. Darn To

Downer On Hot Coles I hope they take the fishnets off before they skewer dear Alexander on the slow burn political spit. He is in for a most uncomfortable time. The bastards!!! Just when a bloke gets well and truly over Labor they go and show themselves up for the shifty creatures that they are really. The Cole Inquiry has brought to light some of the more interesting asides in the war against terror, those of the terrible ends that business will go to chase a profit. In the light of the Telstra sell off it is an untimely reminder of what can happen to perfectly good government companies that have been sold to private interests. Well I won’t be voting for any of the bastards, so I have to hope that a suitable Independent stands in the electorate in which I live or cop a fine for not voting. Gawd Derwent, What Now? I have a hunch there is something rotten in the state of Derrynmark. Isn’t it a shame that the can’t keep himself out of the press? What shame have you brought to the 4th est

Democracy, The Way To Go! Whoops! Whoops indeed! They didn’t see that coming! I am still drop jawed as to the reaction of the West to the result of the Palestinian elections. After many years of insisting that Democracy should be the political structure for a peaceful Middle East, and enforcing that there will be no peace without it, the Palestinians voted out the corrupt regime the Israelis have complained so much about and replaced it with the political wing of Hamas and all of a sudden Democratic election is not good enough as the West and Israel did not get the result they wanted. I believe the world has to give Hamas the benefit of the doubt, but instead the West is prepared to interfere with another duly elected Government and the Israelis have decided to withhold funds they collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, a malicious theft! It is like they will frustrate Hamas until the militant amongst them lose patience and attack, giving Israel the excuse it needs to resile

Number 9 The Australian Federal Police are stuck between hell and high water when it comes to how to deal with our Asian neighbours in relation to Australian drug smugglers. Most have the death penalty on their statutes. The Bali 9 were caught red handed by the Indonesian authorities an insidious drug ring using threats and intimidation to acquire willing ‘mules’ was uncovered and the AFP apparently assisted the Indonesians in stopping this heroin hitting our shores. If these rats had been busted over here they probably would have all done a bit of time, but the penalties being handed out in Australia are not providing to be much of a deterrent for these greedy, stupid/sick smack marketeers. On the other hand the ongoing across the board media coverage given to these poor mugs and Schapelle is a priceless asset that has been handed to the AFP and the Federal Government. The torturous anguish exhibited by these foolish young drug mules would surely put the wind up any scatty, young junk

L’Enfant Terrible – What Next Cronulla? Have we become the bad child? Has Australian society really diminished itself to such an extent? We are reacting to ideals that are being pushed to make us believe that it is better to hurt some of our citizens rather than try very, very hard to pull together and make this society of ours work. . The local Muslims are shitting themselves with fright; they know that if this state of ignorance prevails that they have no chance of building a meaningful life in Australian society for their children. We HAVE the chance, out of all the Western societies to sort our troubles out amicably. Our country is not that old and the population is not that large, nor are we yet irrevocably at loggerheads with our various subcultures that with serious discussion we can’t sort this mess out. I mean who hasn’t eaten tabouli or felafel, souvlaki or noodles. Every second retail shop it seems is owned or run by Muslims or Buddhists, and thank Christ for that as the bas

Society is formed by the suppression of tribal rivalry either through homogenous means or through continual jockeying for supremacy. As we speak modern society, Oz style, is dessicated (due to the break down in familial ties), except for pockets of like racial background on their way to intergration into our what??? OK, we disarmed the failsafe and are about to be thrown into (who knows for how long) a Liberal wet dream. It is the 'New World Order', get over it. Like, no, no we wont allow human cloning (bullshit , he says under an exagerrated cough). Social and genetic engineering are the key to global 'likeness'. Until the 20th century occurred our forebears lived for ever under the rule of sword, the chattels of warlords or a ruling upper class to be used as beasts of burden, cannon fodder and grist for the mill. Are we going to allow ourselves to be pushed back to these dark ages? When I was young the Ananda Marga blew up the Sydney Hilton and Russell Sstreet was blo

Well Johnny you are almost there. Soon you will have us emulating your master's race, right down to the rule by fear, using our police forces to subdue any persons that would dare defy or deny your propositions...and all in the pretence of protecting us from those evil terrorists! Who out there thinks that this or any future Government with ultimate parliamentary powers would use these new proposed anti-terrorism laws to subdue or eliminate protesting for or protecting their rights in the upcoming industrial warscape? Could large sectors of industry be re-classified as imperative to national security? The Labour Party are gone in this argument. Beazley is so far up the Yanks bottoms that only the tips of his highly polished boots can be seen.

The State governments Sport and Recreation department are funding the development of a strategy plan to look at increasing participation in our sport. @leisure, the company who won the contract to create the strategyplan, were sourced from a number of consultants that were put up bythe associations and Sport and Rec. to the steering committee(themselves) and were invited by the associations to take up thetender. The company has vast experience in the development of strategies for sporting organizations.Although there is no formal chairman, Simon Crawford, RVBA Development Officer, will be the co-ordinator amongst the two association presidents, the two executiveofficers and Tom Forsell from Sport and Recreation.Simon says that the terms of reference for the strategic plan were designed by theassociations. @leisure were formally briefed by the steeringcommittee of which they are now a part.The steering committee did decide not to mail out to clubs to gettheir feedback as they say they r

Having lived my earlier life in a Yippie lifestyle, devoid of haircuts, I had a home for the buzzin’ bees, but now I would describe my pate as a reverse Mohawk. There are little things happening in the desert, but, oh well! I was a partner with my father in an infused organic product that promoted hair growth called the Hair and Scalp Energiser and have a little insight into the market. Surprisingly our formulation (supposedly over 100 year old Apache recipe that ended up in the hands of an eccentric biochemist dad knew) worked extraordinarily well on alopecious women and Albanian men. It also did a great job cleaning up psoriasis and when used on dogs and horses cleared up many skin ailments. Why am I bald then, one might ask? Well the stuff left a tea stain on the skin and I just couldn’t get over that. I wear a cap, not from embarrassment but to stop the cold in winter and the sun in summer. I challenge anyone to restore my vacant follicles. If you can fix me you can fix anyone. No

You have got to be kidding! Apparently the latest problem at school is the dysfunctional parent. It does not surprise me at all when you consider the fact that the aberrational teachers of the Eighties and Nineties promoted illiteracy as a social evener. Nowadays we have a generation of early parents whose social mores are far less than adequate and are now dragging their children through a mire of ignorance. What cuts me the most is that it is the people I supported that created this philosophy of inadequacy, tempered by the burning fires of socialist feminism. We allowed our future to be under prepared and I reckon while the counter culture was going to sleep those that needed peons acted.

Yeah, yeah! How funny is it, Shane take the piss out of us by using the lurid text legend as a way of promoting his new found hirsute endeavours. Worse are the sound bites that refer to his wife thinking him sexy, how funny is that? You are an ankle Shane! I reckon he shaves his legs!!!

I am going on fifty one years of age and it behoves me to say that you weak, self satisfied peers of mine, the “New Forties” – ex hippies, activists (Ahh, the halcyon days of picketing Woolies frozen food cabinets for fear they were selling South African whiting – Zanu Zapu, dude!), bikies, surfers, Viet vets, musicians, strippers and pros, musicians, radical feminists and homosexuals have bailed out on your ideologies. The Counter Culture was extant in the seventies and eighties, but now it appears to have drifted away. Or has it? We have a broad and complex society now, but in 1972 with an illegal war raging and the Liberal government assaulting people protesting the stupidity of fighting others battles and oppressive industrial relations laws, people stood up and said we will have no more of this imposed on us and voted the bastards out. History has proven that when Australians are battered and brow beaten, when admonished for their fervent belief in a fair go for all, they stand up

It appears it is another of the Liberal Government’s objectives to internationalise (read – Americanise) our tertiary education system. I mean if the Yanks have such a great system how come it is the product of our institutions that seem to be leading the way in most scientific endeavour. Benny Nelson is promoting educational sedition! Does anyone else wonder why the Howard Royalist Liberal Party is trying to morph us into a George Bush Republican way of life? Oxymoronic innit?

Amanda Flintstone’s deplorable insight into why Australian kids would not accept or be able to handle working in regional areas as apprentices, because it would take them too far from the comforts of their families and friends, beggars belief! Most would jump at the chance to get support for that sort of independence from often dysfunctional families and friends and to gain an opportunity to prove their worth. Mandy’s answer is to bring apprentices from overseas to fill this supposed gap in our work force smacks of racism, as if these young folk she intends to indenture would not have such like feelings for family and friends, I mean after all they ARE foreigners! And within this puerile argument we need to recognize that the vast majority of those effected come from a growing underclass, the white Australian male. You know the ones, unlike their female contemporaries; with little infrastructure for societal support other than the penal system should they fall through the cracks. Cheap

The Shiek made an appearance on Lateline 10/11/05 to discuss the arrests of these young terror suspects. Now he was doing him self no favours by not being able to express himself fluently, several of his points could have been taken opposite in meaning to what he was trying to say. But he was trying to use his right to freedom of expression to try and clarify for us where these kids heads are at. He has made it clear that these fools had no support from Islam in Australia, that they are a bunch of disgruntled indivduals that are taking it upon themselves to attempt to terrorize our population. We must keep in mind that most of our immigrants come from countries that use these forms of resistence and attack as a matter of course, it is a cultural reflection on how to deal with those you think are your enemy/oppressors. So when confronted with constant racism and cultural attacks they react in the manner that is known to them. The Shiek also made the point that what these people

Mary Clark’s, heroine of the American Black freedom movement, timely death opens a window to us. Maybe her death and the publicity surrounding it will reawaken a few minds in our country. Laws evoked through paranoia and the want for control over a population should ring loud the alarm bells for us…us the most liberated nation on the planet. Who would have thought OUR Government would seek powers to shoot us at will? Everything that that we are, who we are, what we visualise ourselves as in national consciousness is at risk This is the last key. We have been disarmed, we have been dumbed down as a nation and poor English education for our immigrants inflames this situation. Unfortunately for our new arrivals, seeking solace in the dawning myth of the Great South Land, they are dumped into public housing amongst the dross of dinkum Aussies, amongst the mad and the junkies. What type of message are we sending these people? A lot of the public servants dealing with these new arrivals are

The biggest bummer about the Labour Party’s education policy of the Eighties in Victoria was the fact that as they downgraded the relevance of the 3Rs during a time of heavy Asian and Middle Eastern immigration. The effect this move had on multi generation Australians was drastic, but nowhere near as bad as the effect on those kids whose parent’s first (and usually only) language was not English. It was like those on an equality binge, gorged in devising the average, and had made a philosophical decision. We can now reflect that our worst educational outcomes are in the outer suburbs Now I have heard that it is the golden thread of literacy that holds civilisations intact so it is no wonder the youth of today are losing their way - we as a society withdrew the tools that were necessary for these kids to understand and adequately respond to complex global and sociological problems. I fully support any moves to redress this sad state of affairs in our educational system. National uniform

Jack departed the mortal coil almost a year ago, 28th of November last, and the letters keep coming supporting his points of view. It is patently obvious that we have taken the paper in a slightly different direction to where my dear Pappy would have wandered and have received fantastic support from our readers. If anyone has anything to say about Jack or the direction we have taken the paper please contact me through the website via the blog or the yahoo chat site. Good, bad or ugly, the best contributions will be published in next month’s paper.

I understand Mark’s publishers have asked him to write a sequel to the Diaries, as his book has proved to be a minor blockbuster. Has anyone asked Mark how much of his royalty (that’s got to hurt) bonanza he is putting back into establishing a viable alternative to what he has sought to drag down? We need your help Oh Great Piker!!!

Gawd he annoys me! Whenever I see or hear him speak my skin crawls with memories of over fanatical schoolteachers who just KNEW what was best for me. He ranted for months about the Tollway fees and recanted when the din died down. The guy is so bland, so uninspiring, how is he going to convince people to throw out Bracksie? The only chance the Libs have got is to ditch this dreadfully boring man and hunt down an inspirational leader. Yeah, right. Labour is safe for a while yet.

This latest wave of bombings in Indonesia has done nothing but steel our resolve to not let these bastards get to us. The odds are getting smaller and smaller as to when this type of thing will happen on our soil. We are a nation capable of being self-sustainable. We could shut the doors for a little while and pull together to stave off this otherwise alien terrorist extremism. But that would only make them think we are scared. After decades of paranoia about an Indonesian invasion (urban myth would have it that had one million Indonesians arrived on our northern shores, international laws would have kicked in allowing them possession of the land), these r’sole terrorists have brought our two nations philosophically together in what could almost be described as Austral-Asia. Unlike Australia though, Indonesia had the courage to throw off the shackles of their Colonial masters and have matured into very responsible neighbours, while we here are still a teenage nation, still trying to c

I thank our various Godheads that our Australian culture is still identifiable. Early waves of European, Christian immigrants melded into our society like butter on hot toast, bringing with them the best of their previous lifestyles. The next wave was from the attempted Zionist purge of the Middle East and it’s ongoing consequences. We graciously received Muslims, Christians and freaked out Jews and again these people melted into our society enriching the tapestry of Australian life. Our Southeast Asian contingent were next and like the rest have made Australia their home and have added such riches to our society in terms of food, music and art. An indicator as to how well most of these cultures have spread through Melbourne is the variety of restaurants offering the delights from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Food for thought – You can buy a felafel sandwich in just about every suburb in Melbourne, a good Jewish feed is only available in and around Caulfield.

When you compare the difference between the way the Chinese addressed the flooding of the Yangtze River and the frighteningly slow response of the Americans to Cyclone Katrina I’d advise you to start sharpening up those chop stick skills! They are all bloody woosies though, we have floods, fires, droughts and locust plagues – we are a veritable biblical studies class and we barely flinch. It tickled me that we were collecting charity for the Yanks. Pakistani Response President Pervez Musharraf, of Pakistan, was at the centre of the Pakistani Earthquake Disaster within 24 hours and it was obvious by his sound bites that he was going to make sure that their country's response to this disaster did not mirror America's shame.

We are carbon-based beings on a carbon-based planet. The evolution of the planet and it’s maturing atmosphere allowed us humans to develop and thrive and become the prime being on the planet. Now planet Earth spent a lot of time locking up all that carbon in the form of coal, gas and oil and we foolishly have relied on unlocking this energy to fuel our daily energy needs. We have let the genie out of the bottle. Our reliance on these fuels is really biting us on the bum in most aspects of Australian life and we still support using our future gene pool to militaristically protect commercial carbon fuel interests. Let’s not forget why Australia became the most hospitable country on the plane, why all the multifarious immigrants chose us. They like the way we walk, talk, eat and breathe, freely and enhance our lives with their different roots in art, food, music, family and religion. I am a fifth generation Australian, root from three brothers who left Ticino in modern Switzerland to esca

I feel that when watching anything that has been broadcast from Parliament House, for example, Question Time, doorstop interviews, etceteras, that it is a bit like watching an unscripted super series of a cross between South Park and Groundhog Day. The puerile behavior of the members in any parliamentary scenario sends my blood cold. The set questions of the ruling party answered in detail we don’t need and the answers to opposition questions designed to not answer the questions beggars belief. And for that, in expectation of somehow participating, we pay lots of dollars. The system has been a caricature for some time now, but like Asian flu the threat of terrorism has left our normally disinterested population suffering from an unhealthy overdose of the jingoism that is Australian politics. Latham’s interviews belied a man that had seriously had enough of playing the political game. We all say we know politicians can’t be trusted, that they rank very low on the social esteem register.

O.K., now that radicals, these imbos, have nominated us as a target, they have got to be told… Attack us on our own turf and you will not get the reaction you expect. Restraint and compassion are some things you may long for though. Most Aussies abhor needless, senseless violence, but to protect our own we’ve been proven to be the very best at it. Get on with life, says little Johnny, my bum! We need to link arms against arms. "Sideshow Bud" Abbott tells us that if we don’t like the way he/they wish to portray Australian consciousness that we should shrink back to from whence we came. For me, after five generations that would be Canton Ticino, Hamburg, Copenhagen, London, Belfast, Edinburgh and elsewhere. The fact is that most foreigners who choose to live here do so because their country of origin has seen conflict or have been forced out through religious or ethnic purges. They have come here to escape the horror and deprivation of their native lands, and most would no more

We still get heaps of letters in relation to our father. Considering the blackguard he was portrayed as by the major media, it has surprised us the amount of commentary in relation to his ability to uncover major stories well before any of the ‘legitimate’ members of the fourth estate got a whiff. All these letters come in riddles and nicknames I am sure would have tickled Jack but they go straight over my head. Oh, and by the way, Pacholli only has one ‘c’. Jack was probably one of the best-connected individuals in Australia and he only ever got stuck into r’soles. In saying that, I will say this, some people representing public or private interests may have copped more than they personally deserved, oh well, probably should have stayed out of the kitchen. His moles run deep in the infrastructure of Australian business, politics, criminal and social identities. He got the ‘mail’ early and there was no shortage of people who wanted to get into his ear. There is an opportunity to have y