This jungle our garden. هذه الغابة لدينا حديقة.

As a concession to our need to be more inclusive and in the spirit of multiculturalism I will put the next few articles  translated in some of the main languages spoken and written in this wonderful world. We will start of in Arabic using the Google translation method. To our Arabic speaking friends I hope the translation comes across as reasonable!

I am more than pleased that the attempt by our minister for Immigration and (the much feared) Border Protection, Mr Peter Dutton, to make it harder for migrants to become permanent residents by setting university level English language skills has resoundedly failed to get through Parliament.

” it is clear that applicants sitting the new English language test in order to obtain Australian citizenship would need to meet a standard equivalent to that expected of university entrants.”

My parents and I would not have passed that test and more importantly how many of Australian born permanent residents would pass the English test today?  Note that this English language test would not be required by people from the UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and the US.

Indeed, would Mr Dutton himself pass? It is clear that his notorious contempt for foreigners shines through,  when within cooee of migrants. However, Mr Dutton’s face lights up and really shines when refugees are included in the mix. His contempt knows no boundaries as shown by his treatment of the refugees banned to the hell-holes of Manus and Nauru, now in their forth year of detention. No charges have been laid.

Their hope lies in being accepted by the US, but with Mr D. Trump’s notoriety dealing with foreigners we will see if that will eventuate. In the meantime Dutton keeps on promising the refugees will never set foot on Australian soil even though the majority have gone through the process and been accepted as genuine refugees.

But, going back to the Dutton English language test, some compared it to the “White Australian Policy” from a few decades ago when coloured people were excluded from citizenship.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-19/citizenship-test-english-language-test-criticised-by-labor/9066530

After all this you might be happy to look at the violas again; or are they violets?

It is never too late!

الثقافية سوف أضع المقالات القليلة القادمة تترجم في بعض من اللغات الرئيسية المنطوقة والمكتوبة في هذا العالم الرائع. سنبدأ باللغة العربية باستخدام طريقة الترجمة من غوغل. لأصدقائنا الناطقين باللغة العربية آمل أن تأتي الترجمة عبر معقولة!

أنا أكثر من سعداء أن محاولة السيدنا للهجرة و (المخاوف كثيرا) حماية الحدود، السيد بيتر دوتون، لجعل صعوبة في أن يصبح المهاجرين المقيمين الدائمين من خلال وضع مهارات اللغة الإنجليزية على مستوى الجامعة فشلت بصدور من خلال الحصول على البرلمان .

“من الواضح أن المتقدمين الذين يجلسون اختبار اللغة الإنجليزية الجديد من أجل الحصول على الجنسية الأسترالية سوف تحتاج إلى تلبية معيار يعادل ما هو متوقع من الوافدين إلى الجامعة”.

والدي وأنا لم يكن قد اجتاز هذا الاختبار، والأهم من ذلك كيف العديد من المقيمين الأستراليين المولودين الدائمين اجتياز اختبار اللغة الإنجليزية اليوم؟ لاحظ أن اختبار اللغة الإنجليزية هذا لن يكون مطلوبا من قبل أشخاص من المملكة المتحدة وأيرلندا وكندا ونيوزيلندا والولايات المتحدة.

في الواقع، هل السيد دوتون نفسه يمر؟ ومن الواضح أن ازدراءه السيء السمعة للأجانب يضيء، عندما يكون داخل كوي المهاجرين. ومع ذلك، يضيء وجه السيد دوتون ويضيء حقا عندما يتم تضمين اللاجئين في هذا المزيج. إن ازدراءه لا يعرف حدودا كما هو مبين في معاملته للاجئين المحظورين في جحيم مانوس وناورو، وهي الآن في السنة الأولى من احتجازهم. ولم توجه اتهامات.

أملهم يكمن في قبولها من قبل الولايات المتحدة، ولكن مع السيد D. ترامب سمعة سيئة التعامل مع الأجانب سنرى ما إذا كان ذلك سوف يبرز. وفي الوقت نفسه، تواصل دوتون الوعد بأن اللاجئين لن يضعوا أقدامهم على الأرض الأسترالية على الرغم من أن الأغلبية قد مرت بهذه العملية وتم قبولها كالجئين حقيقيين.

ولكن، بعد العودة إلى اختبار اللغة الإنجليزية في “دتون”، قارن البعض منها ب “السياسة الأسترالية البيضاء” منذ بضعة عقود عندما تم استبعاد الأشخاص الملونين من الجنسية.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-19/citizenship-test-english-language-test-criticised-by-labor/9066530

بعد كل هذا قد تكون سعيدا للنظر في الكمان مرة أخرى. أو أنها البنفسج؟

أبدا لم يتأخر

Is Sport overrated?

 

Northern Territory detention centre for children

It wasn’t all that long ago when men and women were sometimes referred to as ‘sport’. Howyergoing ‘sport’? wasn’t all that an uncommon way of greeting. It sometimes still is used. Most countries enjoy playing sport but many if not most  men and women in this country hold the view that sport in Australia is absolutely sacrosanct and not to be fiddled with. Per capita we used to win more Olympic medals that most other countries. Thankfully that has come down somewhat lately.

In fact, going to the school halls of both public or private schools one gets the impression that schools are there mainly to teach students sport. Those large varnished boards nailed to the hallowed walls at school’s community entrances have the best of student’s sporting achievements all carefully emblazoned in gold-leaf lettering. One looks in vain for the best Math or English language students. The more prestigious the school, the more attention given to sport.

Perhaps the economy is impacting those expensive boarding schools now, but in the cinema we  get shorts in which schools advertise their academic menus which more often than not feature boys, and sometimes girls, scrumming around with balls or hockey sticks. I have yet to see school advertisements whereby a book features or a student is pensively looking at a painting.

This why it is so heartening to see that cricket is coming to its senses. Apparently some ‘tours’ are in doubt. There are payment disputes. It is all too complicated for some of us to get to the finer points of the ins and outs. I have always found it a baffling game of two teams wanting to get ‘in’ only to then, when finally ‘in’ ,wanting to get ‘out.’ With the dispute still not solved there is a good chance we will enjoy a nice Christmas without the tedious drone of cricket scores filtering through the vertical blinds.

But, the real bonus, nay, the icing on the cake, is one of our tennis players openly admitting he is ‘bored’ with hitting the tennis ball. What clear-sighted honesty. Such boldness in admitting that hitting a ball backwards and forwards isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. Surely, the king is starkers underneath all that emphasis on sport. A footballer who hit another one out cold has now been banned for life playing his ball- sport and is charged by police. Sport is clearly overrated when belting each other on and off field is the norm. Look how often enraged tennis players chuck their rackets. They take it all too seriously. Calm down boys and girls, smell the roses!

In a previous post I suggested that winners should be those that come last. It would calm sport down to what it should be. A concern and care for the opponent rather than a selfish need to be a ‘winner.’ I know that we are all urged by our Government to be winners and not losers but a fact remains that per definition a winner is just a single person. It is a silly aim. How does that fit in with being a country that prides itself on being egalitarian and just?

Look at that sad spectacle of a previous female champion tennis player, reduced now to simpering loudly against those that want to get SSM married. She has lost love for her own kind and that just isn’t  good ‘sport.’ No matter what physical sport one pursues, it is all doomed to slacken with age. And then what?

Our attitude to the refugees on Manus and Nauru sits strangely in all this chest-beating of what it means to have true Australian values. It just isn’t good sport, is it?

What it means to support and stand up for Australia. Have those values been allowed to drift away? Are the values of an Italian or Pole so much different? It all smacks of a silly form of nationalism. I noticed Trudeau from Canada publicly and loudly telling the world Canada  welcomes all refugees.

What would I not give for our immigration minister Dutton or our leader Turnbull to come out strongly for the refugees and for once show what it means to be a ‘GOOD SPORT’ and allow them to live in Australia instead of all the horse trading with America.

A take on Brexit. Should we follow with Libexit?

Rain

Too good not to pass on. By Richard O’Brien (from his Facebook page):

“So the nation that invaded and colonised Aden, Anguilla, Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Bermuda, British East Africa, British Cameroons, British Guiana, British Honduras, British Somaliland, Brunei, Canada, Cayman Islands, Ceylon, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gambia, Gibraltar, Gold Coast, Grenada, Hong Kong, China, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaya, Maldive Islands, Malta, Mauritius, Montserrat, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Nigeria, North Borneo, Nyasaland, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, Rhodesia, Sarawak, St Helena, St Lucia, St Vincent, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, South West Africa, Sudan, Tanganyika, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Trucial Oman, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda and Zanzibar has voted to leave the EU, potentially sparking a global financial crisis, because they thought their sovereignty was under threat.”

The Japanese Windflower understands.

Japanese Windflower

This picture explains it all. If the purpose of life is to worry about what has been or what is yet to come, contemplate this flower. It asks for nothing more than to be looked at or ignored (at own risk). The choice is up to the viewer.

This photo was taken with my old iPhone. I really liked the previous misty looking results of the photos till my grandson wiped the lens clean with his T-shirt. All done in one single swipe. Since then the images are clearer and more colourful.

Before I forget. Remember this governments promise to take in an extra 12000 refugees from those that followed the exodus out of Syria back in September 2015. So far, just 26 have arrived.

“Canada has resettled 800 times more Syrian refugees in three months than Australia has in almost twice the time, fuelling concern the delay is pushing desperate families in the Middle East into a perilous crossing to Europe.

Labor has called on Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to explain why Australia has resettled just 26 Syrian refugees five months after former Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced an emergency intake of 12,000 “as quickly as possible”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/canada-has-rescued-800-times-more-syrian-refugees-than-australia-figures-show-20160217-gmw7dz.html#ixzz424nz9Uld

Actually, The Japanese windflower does take an exception by not understanding Australia’s stance on refugees.

We will again now take Milo on his walk and try come to grips with this latest. We are having  gloriously warm weather, two weeks in a row now, with the promise of another warm week to come. I see people carrying air conditioning units to their cars. The elderly are advised to not forget to drink lots of water and to take it easy.

‘Take it easy.’  This is what my father was told repeatedly back in 1956. Take it easy, Mr Oosterman. Don’t muck it up for us. They meant, that working hard would also then be required for those that did not pull their weight. Not pulling their weight was hugely popular in Australia during those earlier times. It was almost an entitlement that needed to be protected by all means. The balance between workers and bosses was a fine line, well understood. A kind of understanding that no strike would be undertaken if the workers were given leeway in getting paid for a fair day’s work, but not too hard. ‘Taking it easy,’ was understood by both. Funny that. A fair day’s work included plenty of smokos and generous breaks. Double time for Sundays and Saturday afternoons with the mornings time and a half.

It had more than a kernel of truth. Now ‘hard work’ has become the norm. Working days are getting longer and absent parents through work is normal. Kids come home with the key to the front door under the mat. Many mums and dads working, scratching enough to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.  Glass ceilings are crashing down. People look pale and hurried scurrying past each other. Shopping in a hurry. Cars screeching around the corner. Not giving way. Only the retired calm and serene. Feeding the ducks and wondering about the beauty and understanding of the Japanese wind flower with a Milo sleeping.

Taking it easy, lost and gone.

 

Curly Kale and glorious Geranium

The geranium

It is this time of the year that anyone with even a smidgeon of Dutch blood lusts after Curly kale in mashed potatoes with smoked sausages. Here the weather for this extraordinary dish has been perfect. Morning temperatures have been steadfast at 13c. Both heaters are switched on because it is now summer. I mean winter instead of summer. In Holland, fifty thousand people are expected to take a dip in the North Sea on New Year’s day. The sea water at present near the Dutch coast is a balmy 8c. Normally it is around 6c. As an incentive, curly kale with mashed potatoes and sausages are promised after the swim. Who can resist that? And it is all ‘free.’

At last year’s event a few gate crashers had invaded the event. Organisers became suspicious when the same people kept on claiming this delicious kale dish over and over again. They spoke in a funny Dutch accent. Some said they were Scottish, others thought they were Yorkshire men! In any case, who would deny Curly Kale to the hungry? This very Dutch dish is the pride of the nation, almost an institute. It used to be obligatory like National Service but was disbanded in 1982 when, with many migrants from Morocco and Algeria, the influx of foreign dishes became so great, the law on the obligatory Curly Kale was relaxed and abandoned. Curly Kale is now under threat from Tahini and Humus. The tradition of Dutch Curly Kale eating is probably more maintained in migration countries such as Australia and Canada than in Holland itself which has probably evolved dietary habits well beyond Curly Kale eating. If you see a lonely man in a shopping mall eating by himself and sobbing a bit, it could well be a home-sick Dutchman with his Curly Kale.

Boerenkool met worst
Curly Kale and sausage

It is curious that even in language the period of past migration often expresses itself through dishes and words in use at the time of peak migration. My Dutch is now seen as rather ‘funny’. I use words popular in the fifties with even complete expressions having been usurped by change in language usage. What hope have we got that meaning of words are not set in concrete? The very meaning can change. Kids use the expression of ‘that is really cool’, meaning very acceptable and nice, and has nothing to do with temperature.

It is just as well I have Helvi’s sense of beauty and steadfastness around. With her I can stay sane and focussed. Just look at that Geranium that she spotted outside a garden-nursery. What beauty and giver of peace and serenity. Just look at it!

Can it get any better?

A Happy New Year to all from
Gerard and Helvi

Is this the new Tosca or Weiner’s wiener?

Is this the new Tosca?
The romantic tragedy and passion of Puccini’s Tosca is palpable. She, who sacrificed herself to the man she hated in order to save the man she loved. Could it be any more beautiful and yet also be so tragic? In fact when it comes to love, perhaps they are the same. The tearstained upturned faces of so many, more likely from women than men, feature thickly in operas, paintings and leather-bound books that litter our history like so many autumnal leaves in Finnish Forests or so many tears having seeped down into the deepest oceans. Tosca was no ordinary woman. She made grown men weep.

One wonders if the beauty and tragedy of unrequited love has waned and if so, can we blame sexting? Of late this new form of romance has taken a strange twist. A potential mayor of New York has confessed of having sent many pictures of him-self to suitors of the opposite sex. Leaving behind the morals of his conjugal state and our urge to judge others let’s just stick to the subject of modern romance. Is sexting a new form of seeking romance and is it a kind of natural progression from the days of Puccini or Tolstoy? After all no one goes around sticking knives into people whilst singing in Italian like they used to. While unbridled womanizing still has free rein as proven by Mr Weiner in New York, none still happens to involve carriages with galloping horses over Russian tundra.

The one thing still shared between those former strategies of romance and the present is the age old matter of ‘vengeance’, always vengeance. No tale of romance could exist without retribution ‘vengeance is mine’ could be written on many a tombstone resting under the countless Elm trees of history. It descends on the hapless victims like the sword of Damocles with no escape.

Poor Mr Strauss- Kahn, a future president now being described as nothing more than ‘a rutting chimpanzee’ only knows too well the vengeance of unforgiving amoureuses still circling the carcasses of his previous stature. Even so, he is hesitantly and ever so slowly recovering and was seen last week at the Cannes festival with a new love tugging at his arms. Those DNA spots on the hotel carpet receding and the maid happy with a settlement.

However, the New York future mayoral attempts at romance through texting explicit photos of him-self seem to have brought is to a completely new level. The past always involved the complete features of the persons. This was the way people made up their minds about any possible entanglement and involvement. The visual prospect was one of many that people consciously or otherwise helped to make up decisions, often foolishly so, but, what the heck, that’s love for you. However, just to see pictures of genitalia seems to have done away with that form of initial introduction.

I fail to see what criteria one could possibly surmise from such limited pictorial imagery. Is the photo of Mr Anthony Weiner’s penis sent to one of his suitors an indication of his determination in achieving an outcome for the rubbish collection from the Streets of NY or a push in lowering parking fees? I don’t see that but then again I don’t have photo of his penis either. Women also send intimate pictures of themselves to future lovers and again, I fail to see how one can possibly scan anything out of looking at their private parts. What can you possibly scrounge from a vaginal photo? Can she reverse park or is she good at making gravy? The mind boggles.

A politician’s worst nightmare came out in Canada when a Twitter account showed up a politician’s penis. A spokesperson defended this by saying his BlackBerry went off in his pocket and later on confused the issue even further by saying that it was somebody else’s penis. He was a candidate for parliament and lost by over 500 votes. People are unforgiving and remember ‘vengeance’ is still around.

We have yet to see if Mr Weiner will survive his weiner.

America’s broken Dreams

 

America’s broken Dreams.

After decades of untrammeled capitalism there are still those that believe in its system able to the ‘transformation of all to the common good for all.’ This is what really happened though when the power of money took over from the power of sharing, caring, empathy and tolerance. Take a good look!

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/30857

Was it forty two million or forty four million who are now living in dismal poverty in America? How could a country get it so wrong and so quickly? Here was a nation once held up as an example of giving anyone prepared to put shoulder under the task the just reward in living the life of dreams and untold riches. They had John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Men and mice’ as a previous example. The problem was the neglect of dreams of the spirit and mind and an over emphasis on material benefits. Is this a repeat of the 1920/30’s?

Was it ownership of large houses with triple garages that overtook ownership of caring and friendship, neighbourly concern, an intimacy of living together? Did they forget to understand what gives  satisfaction is learning to overcome life’s tribulations and a yearning for bettering ourselves by caring about others? It wasn’t supposed to be this lonely race to fat bank accounts with share portfolios kept locked in  study-room’s gleaming drawers. Something went wrong somewhere.

Americans aspired to keep young with Botox infusions, silly anti-erotic chicken-wing look Brazilian waxes and expensive life expanding lotions, do anything to keep death away. That was banished as much as possible with the casket silently sliding and discretely hidden by a curtain, towards its final journey, the incinerator.  Better to concentrate on membership to exclusive golf clubs or solariums to give  tans as overwhelming proof of health, wellbeing and.. Being and staying alive together with John Travolta and Olivier Newton.

The poverty in America while terribly real is also removed from what we used to think of as poor. The family was still driving a large car; they had flat TV, computers and the kids fiddling with electric gadgets. Some of those did not look very hungry either with large torsos struggling to get in and out of cars. It was the feeling of the US being totally lost in people’s life’s travel that was the real poverty.

The desolation of the urban landscapes, the flotsam of dangling signage and derelict commercialism, windswept and friendless acreages of spiritual dehydration, so palpable and visual, even to the blind. The poverty in the US is truly obscene and it makes the poverty of those in Bangladesh by comparison almost dignified, if one can give dignity to poverty! How will this ever be overcome? It is not just lack of money at play here.

One couple lamented, oh so sadly, there are ‘no safety nets here’, it’s just hearsay; it doesn’t exist! So, of all the riches, of all the wealth creation with gigantic burgers with chips and mayonnaise, there still is no safety net, no care, and no empathy?  Where is society’s inclusiveness? No one is smiling anymore!

So, what is going to happen? I wonder if a change of course is required or will the old ways of the past be cranked up again? Perhaps, the Reds under the beds were not that silly back in the fifties. McCarthyism jailed those brave souls that were for equitable sharing, chased them away, but those that had inclination towards social conscience and fled to Canada certainly made that country showing a much more humane face. The extreme materialism in the US and with all those people with guns and assault weapons don’t bode well for a safe future.

One thing still fills me with wonder; those 120 million of smiling Hindus taking a dip into the Ganges at Allahabad. What have they got what the US doesn’t?