IN TENTS THAWTS

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