Unbound Press arrives!!

I have just received my copy of Charlie and Nicki and Amy's book of short stories and poetry and art... most of you would know of Charlie and Nicki and Amy, but if not here are there blogsites

Charlie Taylor’s blog…not visiting that much these days http://solongand.blogspot.com/
Nicki Taylor’s http://www.divinerealities.blogspot.com/blog
Amy’s blog http://ohmyearsandwhiskers.blogspot.com/

These three are responsible for the book Unbound Press which can be found at this blog site
http://www.unboundpress.com/index.html

http://unboundpress.blogspot.com/

They are looking for submissions for the next and next and next books they produce…so have a look at the submission guide in the unbound press site…

And go for it.
I know but don’t really know how much time and effort they have put into what they pulled off with this book

So CONGRATULATIONS Ay, Nicki and Charlie and congratulations to all the writers who feature in the first “Unbound Press”

U.S. people should not apologise....or feel shame...ever... okay!

Recently I have had a few friends from the U.S of A. apologise or say they feel ashamed about the way the Government is heading re Iraq, Iran and just all over.

I need to say here that not one of us from Australia, the UK, Europe Patagonia or even new Zealand expects shame or apology.

The way the Order is structured worldwide these days Government is ruled totally by corporations... money men the super rich and powerful who have no conscience at all.

The ordinary people of iraq who are being abused are no more responsible for the regieme of Saddam Hussein than people in Britian are responsible for the regieme of Blair and co. or Austarlians for Howard, pr the U'S' for Bush and cronies.

It does not matter who is in government these days. It is a joke here that when a new government is elected say Labour...they can promise the world but within weeks of election "the leaders are off to Wall Street and the offices of the World bank and are "advised " of what they can do and what they can't and few disagree... life is short!

Ghandi for all his faults ( he was notoriously unfaithful as a husband) had the right idea...non compliance and disconnection from the system... non co operation..dissembling...but enough have to act this way to make the New World order defunct and therein lies the problem...

they rule by fear and the fear of terror, of poverty, of sickness of isolation etc etc...

People of the U.S. are no more to blame and should feel no shame at all...as Charlie said once when I sent in some old photos "We are them... they are us."

We are all the family of man.

Most of us are good people...a little bit slack at times, forgetful, lustful, greedy etc etc...but at our level we are chicken shit compared to the monsters who run the governments of this world...

I have more in common with the ordinary people if iraq, iran, Israel, Mexico, Canada, Australia, the USA wherever than I do with the smiling ghouls who stride the world stage and to who we give our allegiance.

Dick Cheney and John Howard
I may be losing it but what happened in Sydney Australia last week was mighty odd I felt ...

Last week the biggest ocean liner in the world Queen Mary came into Sydney Harbour closely followed by the next biggest one QE 2... nothing odd there, but most of the CBD had gridlock with people wanting to see the Queen Mary, we accepted then that many streets had to be closed off for this...fair enough...

and they stayed closed for who should visit hot on the heels of this but Vice President of the most powerful country on earth at present, Dick Cheney...he spent a couple of days here talking to John Howard... and the security was unbelievable.

Now first I wondered why would one of the most evil and powerful men on this planet come down here in person to spend days with the leader of our country of a puny 20million people?

What was so important that they had to talk about that couldn't be discussed over the phone, internet or by whatever means they might have... ? I meant there are some really serious things a Vice president might need to be attending to rather than this, considering whats going on world wide right now in Iraq, Iran (!) and well everywhere.

But the really odd thing was during this flurry of talks, and security, CBD closed to all traffic...they decided to stop all trains coming into the CBD for "planned track maintenance" and Cheney and Howard took themselves off for a little harbour cruise on a big pleasure boat...

Years back a brave Australian proved how "safe" boats in the harbour were when he used an ultra light or abseiled over a US Nuclear ship and lobbed some balls of paint right down its funnel to prove it could be done) he'd be hung drawn and quartered these days for that...

Maybe the boat was the only place they could really think was private to talk...maybe I am just a suspicious little vegemite...

all back to "normal" now we are told but I can't help wondering what in hell was going on, being cooked up...

it was also strange to see photographs of Little Johnny and Dick dressed identically at one photo session in denim type blue shirts and khaki pants...odd for our PM and very odd for Cheney.

A bit of a thought train.

I was talking with my sister Joan this morning and the mention was made of the US invasion of Panama some years back... it came up by way of talking about the Australian national David Hicks who has been illegally imprisoned by the US for five years at Guantarnamo (?) Bay in Cuba...which I thought belonged to the Cubans, but shows how much I know...

One of the charges they have finally thrown against him after five years of "investigation" was that he was loitering or observing or whatever the US Embassy in Afghanistan...HM! Storage fact was that at that time that embassy was defunct, closed, empty...Most Australians are really pissed off over this disregard for due process and the barbaric conditions he and others who also have not been charged are being kept in. I always find it really hard to observe the way ordinary prisoners in the US and other places appear hands and feet shackled and in jump suits.

But I digress...I asked my sister how on earth the US got away with invading a foreign country like Panama, and she just said...because they can. Which is just great but true.Then I wondered what ever happened to Norieiga (unsure of spelling) the leader of Panama who was imprisoned by the US after the invasion...at least he wasn't executed ...is he still alive, did he die from a "disease" in jail? Does anyone know?No one I have spoken to seems to know whats happened to him. As with Saddam the Panamanian leader was a nasty piece of goods but it still seems and always will seem wrong that one country on earth is allowed to be the world's police force and there are no rules that have to follow. Its a bit scary.

This is not a US bash... as with Australia and other countries most people are pretty disgusted at what pretends to be democracy these days - worldwide ...was it ever? Is it just more obvious that it is a prison planet really and you only feel the chains when you try to break out of the box?I think so.

I have read, in the past a fair amount of history; its an interest. I used to be saddened by the suffering throughout the ages of ordinary people who spoke out, held the "wrong "beliefs, were victims of the insanity of the leaders, both political and religious (is there a difference?). But what we did to each other in the past is chicken shit compared to what is happening today and the scale of it.

The real wars and suffering from engineered starvation and malnourishment of most of the planet due to modern food practices...mean that whether fat or thin, we and especially our children seldom eat live food, meaning veges only days old... most supermarket vegetables - shock gasp horror can be up to a year old and so depleted of vitamins you may as well eat cardboard and take vitamins...

Hence diseases of the immune system through this nutritional debasement of our food, through the fouling of our water with fluoride, chlorine, alum, and other pollutants and through the destruction of our atmosphere with intentionally spraying the skies with all forms of chemicals in weather manipulation - (type in chemtrails); over vaccination of babies as young as days old and the consequences of that is a medical disaster; all of that and more, makes what is happening in Iraq seem almost tame by comparison...but its not...the middle east and northern hemisphere is being showered and spoiled with the depleted uranium from the warheads from the first Iraq invasion and now from this one.

This poison will be in the soil and food and water and air for centuries ...

Its funny, if someone points a gun at you or your children or anyone it is expected that you will try to stop that happening and in many cases people will even put themselves in the way to save someone else...but when the gun firing that bullet will take decades to kill you through dreadful cancers, and other we are expected to kneel in awe of the medical pharmaceutical and petrochemical/industrial conglomerates which produce the poisons and conditions we don't even know we are being exposed to...and in many cases people have children taken away from them if they see the bullet that the "professionals" in all their parroty pocket driven have encouraged the authorities for force upon us all, and try to do what parents have always done... protect the future of their children.

So for me, history with all its wars, bad as they were, and the plagues, sicknesses...although dreadful do not compare with the slow but speeding up weakening of the human race, physically, mentally and hence spiritually... if you are sickened, it is hard to break through the brain fog to think and reason and look up.

We are not encouraged to look up these days much... this is reflected even in the construction of modern churches...not that I go there much... but in the past churches reflected the forest and eyes were drawn up. Not such a big deal in a country town but in a crowded city occasionally it was nice just to sit in the silence of a midweek church and watch the sun slant through the leadlight windows and for a time feel a peace which had nothing to do with religion by rote, but with the innate spirit that is inside all of us...

Few modern churches are like this - the rot set in when they decided to go all trendy in the 1960's and start singing bloody "Kumbya" and all that garbage...when all that was needed was the beauty of the incense at benediction and the nun's glorious choir and it didn't matter if you couldn't understand a word of the Latin, sometimes, eyes were drawn up and inwards as they are on a hilltop, or on a starry night...

and don't get me started on Outward based Education and what thats done to a generation of our poor bloody undereducated kids...there isn't room enough for that but its part of the dumbing down, phonetic spelling, not understanding the idea of there being consequences for actions...

And please don't ask me how I got to here from talking about Panama but its all connected to me...and follows a perfect logic ; ) HMMM!

We all had bizarre haircuts in the 1950's...some kids had big bows we just had short cuts for economy... ( but I did have shoes on!!!) I m looking at my sisters' toes all acurled up and wondering was that cement a tad warm!

I'm on the left : ) holding a politically incorrect Golliwog I called "Jacky Jacky" - Aussies will comprehend this most PC incorrect of names... do I go to jail for this yet...?

Recently I came accross thos photo of Jack Taylor's Garage and Taxis (Aberdeen NSW Australia pop. 1000). My child hood home was to the right of this, with a paddock in between...but not in the days this photo was taken. Jack Taylor was an amazing old human being and without him our lives would have been harder.

(click on picture to enlarge)

He began driving his Taxi in 1919 and his first fare was my mother's parents going to the train station on their honeymoon.

We were to live in the house next door to his house and business, from 1950(?) till 1974 when mum and two remaining kids moved to Scone. He drove that taxi till in his late 80's only retiring in the mid 1980's...he would have only been about 20 when he started.

But what was special about this man was that along with looking after his wife who was always ill and couldn't get about...and treating her with love, he also cared for two sons who had some inherited mental disease... and took the remaining son into the nursing home when he finally had to retire due to illness himself. Along with this he ran the garage and taxis.

Many times, (our father worked away a fortnight at a time) mum would have to take us kids to the doctors or dentists in the next town and if there was no train (often) he would drive us all, and sit outside reading a paper whilst we went inside...only rarely ducking off on another fare...and not charge us for sometimes an hour of waiting. He would carry stuff in for us if the need was there, with a smile, and he was a gentleman.

He did this for many people who didn't have cars and who didn't have much family support. He was a kind man without being everybody's fool...cluey, knowing what to charge but with such a heart...

I don't know why I thought about him today...I have had this photo for a few weeks and his face has been in my mind. I had my first big buster off a borrowed bike which was too big,,,down the gravel hill and smack into his closed gate... skin off everywhere...

Its starting to feel like a fair while back.

There were and are gentlemen in this world and has nothing to do with money or education...it is inside and its decent and even if they swear like troopers, and don't know A from B... they look out for people and expect and get no rewards... but they make this world a much better place for their passing through it...

maybe its just doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do with no other reward.

Happy Birthday to me...

age old 53...

Happy birthday to me...

almost from another planet ...those of us who grew up in the '50's and '60's.

What about that choice haircut... if my ego survived that assault then I;m doing okay... but it took awhile let me tell you!

al

People who came before

I wrote this some time back and just rediscovered it... those of English descent please don't take offense... as with those of us white Australians alive today in Australia , we did not abuse the Aboriginal people, most English people also did not abuse the Irish catholic people... many half caste Australians have Irish names...so... and many English people descend from the Irish...but this is the history of ours as I understand it...

Mum's people.

In the 1840's and 50's they came, carrying precious bundles and the love of already grieving parents they would never see again. They came, their babies screaming with the hunger that lasted till over a third of the Irish people had starved to death. Only then did it become politically viable for the English to consider acting. There is no doubt in the minds of anyone who understands the reality of the Famine years in Ireland that it was not just a problem with potatoes. The “problem” was a racial and political one with a racial and political outcome.

The Irish were called "Tykes" by the English, which meant dogs. There were too many Catholic dogs cluttering up beautiful green Ireland, for the English gentry to have the hunting estates they craved as part of the stolen booty of the long invasion. The
Famine was seen by many English Parliamentarians as publicly unfortunate but privately a good thing that must be mismanaged till as many dogs died as possible. Those who didn’t die were forced to leave their homes and make dangerous and often times fatal sea journeys in the coffin ships, in even worse conditions than the early convicts were transported. Those who remained, weakened, saddened with loss and hunger, betrayed by the Catholic Church, which worked with the English to ensure a so called civilised outcome, formed only a third of the original population of about eight million souls. The potatoes failed because the English invaders pushed the cultivation of one or two main types of potatoes, which were particularly susceptible to the blight. Before the Irish were 'encouraged' to plant only these potatoes, they grew many different types of potatoes, the variety ensuring that no one disease would cause a problem. Because of their high levels of vitamins, the average Irish person in the years before the Famine was seen by the less prejudiced doctors of the day as one of the healthiest of the races.

They came with their music and their songs; their feet blue with
the cold of the long centuries of English fascism. Feet that would dance in a much warmer land, their bellies slowly filling over the decades as they slowly and with much heartache clawed their way under humble roofs with mud floors, their walls holding precious books.

On leaky dangerous boats they came, shivering with a cold that
was mainly due to lack of warm clothing, but also the cold of a
dispossessed people. Boat people all, lest we forget! These were
my mother's people from Tipperary and Armargh, Wicklow, Fermanagh and places thereabouts.

The dark eyed Flanagans, tall and thin with their love of music
and feet that longed to dance. More Spanish looking than anything but claiming an Irish heritage that went back beyond history. They possessed an ages old insight that defied input from a world going crazy. The pale blue eyed McGoldricks, with their sense of fair play, dignity, quietness, stoicism and love of books. From them I got my eyes, my thin lips that are disappearing with age and my high forehead that looks back at me from mum's baby photos and from a photo taken of my grandfather taken in 1889.

Flanagan, McGoldrick, Butler, Tripp, Carrigh, and Hopper, the
eyes of the boat people's children shine out of cracking photos.
Girls in white dresses with glossy hair framing faces so sweet it
takes my breath away. Men with moustaches, standing uncertainly in pressed suits with labourer's wrists sticking out. Their clear eyes looking outwards to me or inwards to the cool mists and romanticised dreams of the land they knew as home from their parent's telling.

Most of them were poor farmers like mum's father Thomas
McGoldrick, his wife Vera Flanagan and her sister and brother
Annie and Pat. I am fond of mum's people. They lived long lives
most of them and when I was a child they played a big part in my life. Warm loving people who often smiled behind their stern adult faces. A twinkle in their eyes all that belied the mantle of seriousness age had deposited on them.

The ones I knew were spiritual Catholics. Not the sort to hang
about in church yards doing business, or comparing hats and
children, nor revelling in others misfortunes. I knew from first
hand experience, that they had not forgotten where they came
from, and what drove them out. The wolf was never far enough from the door for that empty comfort. Uncle Pat had the same attitude to authority that rests comfortably with me. A healthy
disrespect, tinged with a humorous wariness, some may call it
cynicism, but I prefer to think of it as good common sense with a dash of berserker thrown in.

The McGoldricks, Grandfather said, had once had a castle in
Ireland. Who didn't? Castles don't mean all that much to me. My
home has always been my castle anyway, however humble or grand. But then again they may well have had one, who can tell. They had a certain bearing and come to think of it I never saw any of them sweat in the awful summer heat. They never looked flustered or ratty. I prefer to believe that the 'bearing' came from some deep well inside the family psyche. I sweat, get ratty and flustered. I must be more the mongrel mixture.

But even amongst the poor Irish, there was class consciousness.
Mum's mother's people, the Flanagans, were upset that their
daughter was only marrying a McGoldrick. Aunty Annie was said to have lectured her younger sister Vera, mum's mother, and soundly told her she had to remember that she was a descendant of the old kings of Ireland and was marrying beneath, as in Ireland the McGoldricks were considered a newer family. This was in 1919, but at least the McGoldricks were Catholic. When mum, the product of that most catholic of unions, married dad who bore the Protestant name of Spencer, and whose family has a Masonic tradition, both sides must have had to do some hasty changing. In 1949 it was still unacceptable to marry into another religion. Dad converted to Catholicism, as it was Mum who was the Church-goer, not Dad as it didn't matter as much to him.

Mum and Dad looked like each other. Both had large blue eyes,
fair skin and high cheek-bones. Dad had wonderfully wild curly
hair and long glamorous eyelashes, much to his macho
embarrassment. I feel he was more like mum's side than his ownpeople, Who were mainly protestant Irish descent and as proud of this as Mum’s side were if their Irish Catholicism. Loving and demonstrative, approachable and comfortable, with few pretensions he was a good father. For all his gentleness, this short, strong, stocky man had a short temper, which I know I inherited. He believed in equal education for his daughters, unlike many of the fathers of girls I went to school with. Mum and he appeared to suit each other. Orange and Green, Irish at heart and Australian to the core.

Forcing a National ID Card on Australians

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AAP

We didn't need or have a forced ID card in WW2 when the Japanese were bombing Darwin and close to a full scale Invasion of Australia... What is the threat now? Fear of the threat perhaps? Manufactured fear?

Government 'sneaking through ID card'
February 07, 2007

THE Federal Government has used climate change as a diversion to sneak a national ID card into Parliament, claims the Australian Privacy Foundation.
Draft laws setting up the Access Card, which will replace the Medicare card and provide access to up to 16 other government health and welfare services, were introduced into Parliament this morning.
But the foundation said the card was really a national ID card "pure and simple" with all the features of the Australia Card proposal rejected in the 1980s.
"Today's tactics smack of political opportunism, sneaking a Bill into Parliament before it is ready, while attention is diverted by the climate change debate," foundation spokeswoman Anna Johnston said.
"We suspect the Government is trying to hide the division in its own ranks. But it's too late, senior backbenchers like Bronwyn Bishop are already speaking out."
Ms Bishop has expressed her concern over the card, saying that such a scheme would have helped the Nazis round up and kill Jews.
Ms Johnston said the Government must release full details on the project and then listen to any concerns the public may have, saying that currently all people could examine was a press release on Human Services Ian Campbell's website.
"Members of the public can't review or discuss the tender documents," she said.
"The public has a right to know exactly how the so-called Access Card is going to impact on their daily lives ... If they've (the Government) got nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear."

Back in the '70's

Steve Novak's lates takes a strong stomach http://stevenovak.blogspot.com/ but reminded me of something my husband did way back in the '70's when we were in our 20's and with two small toddlers. Steve's is much much grosser, he is the KING of gross ; )... onya Steve!

As usual it was high summer. We'd made the long drive up to my mum's place inland and it'd been a long hot drive, with two littlies and no airconditioning at all. By the time we got to the old house, Don had a raging thirst that Mum's many cups of tea couldn't touch... so he disappeared down the street to the Pub. Mum didn't drink but didn't mind any one else having it, and she was very tolerant of just about everythig. She just liked people and she liked Don very much... he was almost always getting himself killed in someway or another - once just rolling out from under an elephant called Judy's foot when she grabbed him round his thigh and thumped him down... he was drunk and with a mate decided to steal this elephant to bring home to the kids...they were going to tie it to the back of the Ute... serious! But thats a different story.

About 9pm he got back home and he looked okay...a bit "happy"thats all. We all went to bed, mum letting the four of us sleep in her big bed, and her in with my other sisters.

Quiet descended.

"Aaaarrgh!" or somat. Next thing Don is rolling out of bed, hand over his mouth - stark naked...opens the bedroom door and halfway down the hall...sees mum...who no doubt sees him...does a U turn one hand on mouth and the other on the crown jewels of the family, and back into the room. Shuts the door and all in the darkness falls to his knees and goes down all four...and VOMITS BIG TIME ON MUM'S LOVELY OLD CARPET!"




Lights on! Two big eyed kids and I look down on a sorry sight heaving and groaning...as he crawls nekid as the day he was born but a bit bigger, accross the carpet through the French doors out onto the verandah and vomits again off its side...crawls back into bed...sleeps.

I am up scrubbing his dinner and other stuff off the carpet with whatever I can find without waking the household. At this time unaware Mum had been wide awake seconds ago - he told me that the next day.


I woke up early intending to get outside and clean up the outside mess - but found mum's lovely old labrador sitting on the verandah right next to where the vomit had landed. All that was left was a wet area where he had lovingly licked up every tasty last morsel. Whatta dog! Thanks Dog.

Mum never mentioned this, but have a slight feeling my own dad may have had a fast exit or two down the hall during their lives together.





Sometimes I look at Don now, still older than me (!) greying sick and an too much pain at times and less at others and rather than sadness I just snicker at all his exploits...

A bit like living on a knife edge at times , but what an edge.


Many many years ago. (And they said it would never last Ha!)

Back in 1998 -1999 our youngest went through a devestating illness - a bout with annorexia and bulimea...a short period compared to others who have this for years if they are lucky to still be alive...no bloody joke let me tell you. She was in her early 20's and recognised what was happening unlike many teenage girls and asked for help which she got...she has moved on sonce this but

out of this she began a small website http://www.angelswings.com.au/ in which she wrote her story (anna'sstory) and I wrote mine (a mother's story)...some of us know people who have this condition and she gives the email adresses of help for Australian sufferers...and it is suffering...