In response to my post below about Australia Day, I received a few great comments, though one exchange I believe warranted front page attention:

Comment by andrew (not G) @ January 28, 2008, 1:45 am
That date may well be way before 1770. It is not known exactly whether indigenous Australians originated here or not.

Comment by Andrew G @ January 28, 2008, 3:38 am
I was referring to when whitey bumped into our land and ‘By cunning use of Flag’ (thanks Eddie Izzard) claimed a country. x aa

Comment by andrew (not G) @ January 28, 2008, 11:17 am
I realise that. But for all we know, 10000 years ago, ‘blacky’ rolled up and claimed the land from another race that they wiped out.

I agree with the gist of your post. Bigotry is not cool and patriotism is a slippery slope to nationalism. But for how long do we have to beat ourselves up for what our forefathers did?

I’m not going to go into depth about indigenous issues here, but the one thing that I will say is – it does not matter what steps governments take to address those issues, they always get criticised heavily. We have developed this kind of culture of criticism, whilst no clear solutions are ever offered up by those who criticise. So those of us who actually want to see a solution get some kind of traction and work out, get a little frustrated.

Comment by Andrew G @ January 28, 2008, 2:31 pm
andrew (not g),
Thanks for your input.
To answer, and to draw a perspective for you, allow me to draw a comparison to the family of Patrick Mayne.

Patrick Mayne worked at the meatworks in Brisbane in the mid 1800’s. He was living at a hotel in Kangaroo Point called the Bush Inn. One night, a timber cutter named Cox was drinking at the bar, and after a few too many, started bragging about how he’d been cutting cedar up in the forest for a few years, was finished now and here with all of the cash he’d made, an grand total of £300 (which in 1848 was an enormous sum of money).

The next morning, a man crossing the Brisbane River on a barge spotted a pair of human legs on the riverbank, a few yards away was a human torso, expertly butchered with the ribs splayed open and all the innards gone. A few yards further away, the victim’s head stuffed into the nook of a tree.

It was the timber cutter, Cox.

An innocent man (later discovered to be gay) was tried, convicted and hung for the crime.

Mayne did it and took the money, though no-one knew at the time. He went on to use the money to begin a life of incredible wealth and power, buying up huge tracts of land and real estate , creating massive wealth for himself and his family. He even managed to buy his way into government. The man has many streets and a suburb named after him in Brisbane.

On his deathbed, he confessed to the murder.
On discovering that their fabulous wealth and power had been acquired from horrid and bloody and ruthless means, the family decided to set up a fund and donate most of the money to charity to try and make amends. In fact they donated the current site of the University Of Queensland at St. Lucia as well as a fund to provide the University with money (which is still active today), as well as various huge contributions to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, including massive stained-glass windows.

The family fell apart, with his children deciding that the insanity in the bloodline should stop with them, they all decided never to marry or have kids. Some of his children eventually succumbed to mental illness too.

What I’m saying is, that this family, when given the chance to try and make right something that they had absolutely nothing to do with, jumped at the chance. They could no longer live with the guilt that their lifestyle was built on the murder and destruction of an innocent man.

It is in this similar frame of mind that I ask you to consider the plight of the Indigenous Australians. Our entire way of life exists because those who came before us snuffed out their way of life. We live the way that we do now, because years ago, people who had nothing to do with us did things that we would never do ourselves, though we enjoy the eventual results.

At least recognise that this is the case, that you live where you live and how you live because of what happened before, and that simply by living here you are somewhat of a party to those events.

To be able to at the least recognise that these atrocities happened in our country, and try and offer some kind of reconciliation for this, I see is the only way forward for our country.

The indigenous situation in our country can not be ignored, it will not go away, and it is a blight on all Australians.

xx aa

How Australian are you?

Do you wave your flag as a symbol of patriotism or as a shield to hide your bigotry behind, no matter how subtle?

If you arrived in Australia (by birth or otherwise) any time after 1770, guess what – you’re an immigrant.

On this Australia day, how about you think about what it is to be Australian, I mean truly Australian.

Have a think about what direction our country is heading, and where you would like it to go.

Be the change you would like to see in our nation.

Listen to Midnight Oil.
xx aa

x aa

Please, oh please. With all the will of my heart and mind, I beg and plead and hope for our society here in Australia that we don’t descend into the hate and bigotry that engulfs many parts of the world. If nothing has made you mad today, then this probably will.

x aa

As I assemble flat pack Ikea furniture (it’s lego for grown-ups I tell you!), I contemplate the enormous loss of Heath.

Shit.
Damn.

The press really could have waited a few days (months) before showing pictures of his body being taken out of the hotel.
There were bound to be people who knew him that found out in the worst way (on the telly.)
C’mon. A bit of respect please Mr Media!

xx aa

Electronic music is fun to dance to.

It’s really tricky to make well.
It’s really, really, REALLY easy to make basically.

So make some.

Bear in mind that this little thing is fifty million times more advanced than most of the equipment that Kraftwerk used for most of their career..

xx aa

In the words of William S. Burroughs, what are your “Words of advice for young people”?

Here’s two brilliant ones that I got from Bob LaPointe, the man responsible for KFC, Pizza Hut, and Lone Star Steak House in Australia.
Heck of a businessman, a man who’s very successful and calm like a still forest pool.

I asked him the other day, what are his top five, and he shared two with me.

1: Never waste energy worrying about things that you can’t control.

2: Don’t procrastinate and avoid starting something because of problems you are afraid will happen. Start anyway, and the problems that you do encounter are always smaller than the ones you were imagining. Get on the field, play the game.

He wouldn’t tell me the other three, but I guess he may one day.

One from my Father (translated from the original Czech saying) that I live by always, “Be sure to make friend with the steps on the ladder. You will need them to come back down.”

Have you got any that you can share?

x aa

People often look at me funny because I’m vegan.
They contemplate me as some sort of idealistic nut job who is trying, in futility, to change to world one bite at a time.
I sometimes think that if I told you that I ate nothing but steak every day you’d think I was more normal.

Needless to say, it’s an uphill battle with some people.
I admit that I’m particularly scary at the moment, because I’m in training, so I’m not drinking.
A tee-totaling vegan! Run to the hills! (which is kind of what I’m training for).

Anyway.

Things like this just make me place my thumb and forefinger on bridge of my nose. Close my eyes, tilt my head forward, squeeze my fingers and shake my head slowly…

In Texas (where else?), a twenty-one year old man is currently in prison for the murder of his girlfriend. Now, not only did he apparently brutally kill her, but when the authorities came to investigate, they found a pot of boiling water on the stove containing a female human’s ear, and on the dinner table, a plate with what appeared to be half-eaten human flesh and a fork.

So, what does PETA do for our twenty-one year old cannibal?
The Vice President of PETA writes a letter to the Sheriff of the prison requesting that:
“On behalf of PETA and our more than 1.8 million members and supporters, I
am writing to ask that you prevent Christopher Lee McCuin from being
involved in any senseless killing while in your prison by providing him with
exclusively vegetarian meals.”

The Sheriff’s response? “You have to be kidding me, right?”.

My response?
Fuck you all you fucking nut bar idealists, it’s exactly this kind of insane correctness that makes my life difficult.
The guy is in prison, FOR KILLING, and then EATING his girlfriend for fuck’s sake. You’re the vice-pres of PETA! FUCK!! Show some standards, please.
Now when I wear my PETA shirt (which I don’t think I ever will again) it will say, “Hi kids! I’m Andrew, I support PETA, as they help stop unusually awful animal treatment, and make sure that insane cannibals have steamed broccoli in prison.” Fuck That!.
My morals are way too strong.
The only way PETA can get me back on board is if they send both Annaliese Braakensiek, Alicia Silverstone and even maybe Pamela Anderson around to my house wearing nothing but their most recent PETA billboard attire to try and convince me to get my support back, because right now, you’re 1.8 million supporters is down to one million, seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine.

x aa

Here’s two genius clips on how life really, truly, actually is in my line of work.
Very brave, very good.

Hit full screen and dig on this for an hour.
Fabulous..