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Wild Weather Is Already Upon Us

I am an 81 yr old semi-retired Trauma Therapist and former Maritime Rescue Worker who was aware twenty five years ago that it would be better to move inland away from the sea. My Cranial Osteopath sent this article to me because while he silently treats me, I sometimes burble on about The Gulf Stream. I cannot help it and have been saying since 2005 that If the melt from Greenland cools the Gulf Stream there will be instant Ice Age in the UK. I'm a positive thinking person yet sometimes I burst out with things...

Gong irony

While working in Home Affairs, I requested Secretary Pezzullo’s permission to nominate the soon-to-retire Assistant Secretary of the Multicultural Affairs Branch for an Order of Australia award. She had spent some twenty years leading Australian multicultural policy and contributing to community relations, for which she was universally respected. She had her own remarkable migrant and personal journeys, contributed strongly to a local Canberra community organisation, and raised her children (I believe) as a single mother. A person of integrity, high standards and inspiring energy. The Secretary’s response was a surprising ‘no’. He told me that excellent and dedicated public...

Voluntary end-of-life refusal of fluids and food

Brian Polkinghorne's suggestion of fasting as a peaceful way to die deserves amplification. Voluntary refusal of fluids and food (VRFF) forms a major part of the late Rodney Syme’s posthumously published book, “A Completed Life” (available through the public library system in South Australia). Syme was a euthanasia advocate who spent many years consulting with and helping people avoid unnecessary suffering at end-of-life. He considered VRFF to be a humane and legal end-of-life strategy in situations where the dying person is ineligible for Voluntary Assisted Dying because they are not mentally competent enough to sign the paperwork or...

Vale Susie Menadue

My sincerest condolences to John and his family. Life indeed will not be the same - but although I never had the pleasure of meeting Susie, I think she would have been delighted with the success of P&I and pleased to know how many people benefit from it's articles through knowledge, interest and real (as opposed to fake) reporting in articles. Thank you for helping to develop and produce P&I; rest in peace - and my warmest wishes to Susie's family.

Condolences

Ambassador Menadue, My condolences to the passing of Susie Menadue. One’s life partner is irreplaceable. Susie built Pearls and Irritations with you. I believe she would want you John to expand and advance the service in memory of Susie. Sincerely, Warief D. Basorie Depok, Indonesia

Labor hasn't done it on its own

Labor has gone from promising in Opposition to end the swindle to denying it exists in government. A variation on disappointment with Labor on education continues across many areas. And in some cases wouldn't have gone as far as Labor did had it not been for Independents pushing for more and in the end Independents standing up and saying changes still haven't gone far enough. The Independents don't often get credit for any improvements because no one sees them talking to Labor (or Liberal or Greens) MPs on the phone, at meetings, and face-to-face inside the hallowed but...

Livin' in the Land of the Sycophants

What with all the media song ‘n’ dance Charlie’s back in the land of the sycophants Thought it would a be a cake walk Until a girl called Lidia spotted her chance She harangued poor Charlie with wrathful critique He with no paddle was way up shit creek All the while under the international media glare The torrent of abuses from colonialists so bleak The continued refusal of moolawa to tell the truth The stolen children, the persecution of our youth The lock ‘em up and throw away the key mentality Murder, rape, genocide crimes of humanity so...

Call it what it is

Isn't it time we called the situation in Palestine what it really is? It's not only Israel committing genocide, it is ISRAEL AND THE USA who are JOINTLY committing genocide. We would not be seeing what we are seeing now if the USA stopped supplying Israel with arms and funding. The USA is 100% complicit. We should all be calling on the Prime Mister to condemn the actions of both Israel and our master, oops, ally, the USA. Plus, Australia should implement BDS immediately. We did it for South Africa. What is our justification for not...

Always listen to mother.

King Charles’ mother made a hugely influential speech in 2011 at a state banquet in Dublin Castle, starting in Gaelic “A Uachtaráin, agus a chairde — President and friends. Pitjantjatjara is one of the most spoken and studied Aboriginal languages. What an impression the king would have made if he had started his speech at Parliament House with “Nyuku malpa palya, nganana manta milmilpatjara ngaranyi” - “My good friends, we are standing on sacred ground”. Craig Brown Eaglehawk Neck TAS

Thank you for Susie

Dear John Menadue, We do not know you personally. But we feel we do; for your humanity, your determination to open the eyes and the hearts of your fellow Australians and for your love of truth. May we, therefore, offer you our deepest condolences for the passing of your partner in life and in idealism, Susie. You say that Pearls and Irritations would not have ever been launched and allowed to prosper without her; that she was the pearl and you were the irritation. What a splendid combination you made. And what a loss you must be feeling....

US armed forces had the power to stop the massacre

I can only echo B’Tselem’s call. If we set some sort of crude realpolitik calculus of maximum proportionate response to October 7 of 5000 Palestinian lives, then by late 2023, US forces, and if necessary others, should have been deployed to stop further escalation and prevent Israel implementing the Dahiya doctrine. 42000 lives would have been saved (175000 if the journal Nature estimate is correct), as well as many years of reconstruction, and no spread to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. Sadly, the Biden administration failed to take the lead and act to restore peace, and create...

Robertson KC suggests a simple solution

Take away messages in the article were: “But what if we don’t need a head of state at all?” And again “.... do we really need a head of state at all?” “Rather than sovereignty resting in a monarch – whether elected as a president or inherited as a king – sovereignty should rest with the people through their parliament.” Geoffrey Robertson KC in his article in the SMH, 13 Sept 2022, “Australia has no need for a head of state, royal or not” suggests that without changing how our PM is appointed, he/she becomes our...

Politicians and media shunning the truth

With political leaders and the media calling Lidia Thorpe's actions before the king disrespectful, I'm pleased someone stood up and stood out to speak truth of Australia's past and present in this setting. The takeover of Australia wasn't respectful to First Nations people - at least she wasn't violent, which is more than could be said for the actions of settlers in the name of the crown. And how far did being polite and gracious (Uluru Statement and the Voice referendum) get Australia's First Nations peoples towards justice? The king and queen are direct beneficiaries of colonisation, exploitation...

The horror of being Australian

This article puts yet more Murray river salt in the wound of being Australian, of being represented by such abhorrent moral vacuums. It is clear that Albanese and his wise monkeys will not do anything we can be proud of, and instead, here we are again - the bland residents of a great blank embarrassment - nodding in bleary eyed stupidity ... we are indeed, a land of racist losers.

Shards of hope amongst the horror

I have Jewish friends and treasured memories of growing up with unbreakable friendships with wonderful people of Jewish ethnicity. I am daily filled with sadness and anger about the evil that the Netanyahu government, the IDF and the ultra-Zionists are prosecuting against now not just the Palestinians but also Lebanese and Iranian peoples. I have also some Palestinian and many Lebanese friends. Shortly after the first Israeli attacks on Beirut, I rang one of my closest Lebanese mates to ask: 'Did you lose any of your family or someone close?' His reply: 'None of my family, but...

Time for Albo to move into his $4000000 house

Perhaps the purchase of a new home is an indicator that Agreeable Albo has realised his own limitations and realised it’s time to move on. After all the only innovative thing his Labor govt has done is a minor adjustment to stage three tax policy which may well be credited to his Treasurer.

Endless war as foreign policy

The reality is that USA is after weapons production and sales $, and weapons are only needed when wars are created. It’s not about winning war as much as continued forever war..in Foreign Policy places…far from USA, and resources are also sourced. Just study the war in Vietnam, it exposes how much the war was created and we lost, but it was a “Foreign Policy” war venue for weapons manufacturers and shareholder profits. France had lost its colonial control of Vietnam and wanted it back, USA was after a new war zone. The reds under the bed...

Fighting for peace

It's not silence, but naming Palestinians 'terrorists' that kills, in that it justifies Israel's claims that it faces an existential threat - a postulation without credible underpinning. Yes, Palestinians issue threats. IT'S WHAT PRISONERS AND THE PERSECUTED DO! The opposite is Stockholm Syndrome. If Palestine were any sort of realistic threat, the Nakba wouldn't have happened. Palestinians would never have lost their homes, crops, olive trees. No barbaric soldier doing wheelies in a wheat field would have got away with it. Foreign humanitarian agencies would not have been needed to escort Palestinian children to school safely. Israel couldn't...

Australia's climate action should be acknowledged

Thanks Julian Cribb for alerting readers to the 2024 State of the Climate Report. The author biography is an impressive read and we should do all we can to publicise and share it with our politicians and their advisers. The report concludes, “Despite six IPCC reports, 28 COP meetings, hundreds of other reports, and tens of thousands of scientific papers, the world has made only very minor headway on climate change, in part because of stiff resistance from those benefiting financially from the current fossil-fuel based system.” While the latter is true of Australia, a petrostate suffering from...

The Thorn and the Carnation may hold the clue

I grew up reading Leon Uris’ book Exodus, but what may be a counter narrative has now emerged. The PM has described Yahya al-Sinwar as a terrorist, rather than a freedom fighter. So it would be useful to understand what makes a person, in the PM’s terms, a terrorist. Perhaps a reading of al-Sinwar’s book The Thorn and the Carnation might make that clear.

Global climate disaster, COP and Cribb's solutions

We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster, (William Ripple et al, 2024 State of the Climate Report). But our federal government continues to approve new coal projects. It is our military who now warn the government that climate is the biggest security risk. Science also states that the next five years of this decade is critical for our and the world's climate-environmental actions. Therefore Peter Dutton's later nuclear idea is inept and useless. Instead, Albanese and others must educate colleagues and voters with climate solutions and develop a mandate for the next government. The...

The storm of climate chaos

The article, In the Eye of the Hurricane (19/10/24), captures the dire reality of our climate crisis with chilling accuracy. The world stands at a critical juncture, where political indifference and short-term economic interests are accelerating an irreversible disaster. Despite clear warnings from scientists and security experts, governments, including Australia, continue to prioritise fossil fuel expansion over the survival of their people and ecosystems. Beyond feeling disheartened by the data on mounting climate disasters, I felt deeply betrayed by those in power. Achieving global cooperation feels distant when national governments fail their own people. Without immediate, transformative action, we...

Sinwar

Unsurprising to notice that only by looking on the Al Jazeera website did I learn that Yahya Sinwar was born in a refugee camp in Gaza, as the result of the displacement, dispossession and expulsion from the homelands of his family. The non-contextualised celebration of his elimination in most western media can only seem to anticipate continuation of the atrocities of asymmetric warfare and asymmetric propaganda..

Sovereignty

Duggan's case is an outrage exposed only by Collaery and P&I. The US extradition case against Assange was similarly flawed and was equally subject to court backflips to bow to US unjust influence. Of huge concern to me in these actions is that the good guys are forced onto the defence against unsupported allegations. Collaery is one who well understands, from being victim in personal experience, that it is the rule of law itself which is at stake, that justice is no longer blind in US, UK and Australia. It is ludicrous that Duggan's extradition is now...

Another perspective on end-of-life

I appreciated recent articles by Ian Chubb and Ken Hillman on end-of-life issues. Ian’s analysis of his wife’ dementia pathway and Ken’s analysis of ‘conveyor belt’ hospital systems were brilliant, but in my humble opinion, failed to address the problem effectively. I believe there are more responsible options. In my late 20s I was given a few months to live after six bouts of hepatitis and trigeminal neuralgia. A friend dragged me off to a naturopath. In desperation I fasted on water only for 13 days, reached natural hunger and have never suffered from either of those diseases again....

It's the little things ....

So much head-nodding in agreement while reading Sawsan Madina's A year of .... (08 Oct.) But why is it the little things that pull you up short? For me ... It was the year when ... ... I bought a kaffiyeh. .... still struggling to wear it nonchalantly. ... I made new Jewish friends at the pro-Palestine weekly rallies. .... or Muslim ones - being invited to help support the giant flag in the procession, asking for translation of chants because my only Arabic is 'As-salam alaykum' and 'Shukran', and talking about the beautiful children, of course....

The Referendum 12 Months On

The Referendum 12 months on may as well be lightyears away. In reality, the Referendum was a top-down neoliberal concept (stunt) that would never have worked, not in a million years! In April 2023 I wrote: Story of Our Age Join the party centre stage To unite and engage Come ‘n’ share your rage It’s the story of our age We’ll vote on the voice The people will have a choice They’ll proceed to vote it down You get what comes around It was an observation of the public in general, of the racism, the bigotry,...

Shame indeed!

Thank you Margaret Reynolds, Alison Broinowski and others for writing what desperately needs to be said to the United Nations and to the world as a whole, on behalf of so many of us who live in Australia and long for a more compassionate and principled government!

Are we mature enough to hear?

In 1968 Professor Stanner lamented the 'cult of forgetfulness’ dominating the Australian attitude to the indigenous peoples of this land. The 2023 Referendum has been the latest instance of such forgetfulness. No First Nations voice was considered when the Constitutional conventions of the late 19th century guided the Colonial Governments as they began crafting a Constitution “up” for a Federal Commonwealth. It would have been a sign of our Commonwealth’s subsequent 122 year-old maturity had the referendum been presented to electors by the Federal Parliament as a wholly appropriate response of a matured suggestion from First Nations leaders...

Get the baseball bats out

The recently opened Queens Wharf integrated resort development, which is never called a casino by any cabinet ministers is also a millstone around the neck of the ALP. If I may paraphrase the late Wayne Goss, it should come as no surprise that the Queensland electorate will be sitting on their verandas wielding baseball bats come the evening of 26/10/2024.

Are we inching inexorably towards WWIII?

This Scroll contained an excellent speech by Nada Tarbush of Palestine at the UN. I am still in shock from the picture of dead children in Southwest Palestine. In an earlier scroll this week. Department of state spokesperson Miller cut off a reporter who wanted an end to BS, but the US now unashamedly supports Israel whatever it does and has done away with the mask of condemning its tactics and doing anything to stop the fuse of a World War burning further. No matter attacks on expatriates in Lebanon, or on UNIFIL. Joe congratulated Xi on the...

The right or otherwise of Israel to defend itself

The default mantra of those supporting the past and current military actions by Israel is that Israel has a right to defend itself. This is sometimes posed as a question but more often as an assertion. I am suggesting that there is a prior and more fundamental question needing to be asked and answered before the above mantra can be considered. Is the current government in historic Palestine a legitimate government?

Is China our biggest threat?

.... the very idea of finding security in Asia is hopelessly naive and made redundant by the authoritarian character and, it is asserted, the expansionist ambitions of China. Really? Is not our fear of China an artificial US construct? Such fear is born out of the US's loss of power and prestige as it fails as a nation while China grows. The US falls back on its usual answer to everything - guns and war. We don't have to be part of that. If Australia is to be afraid of another nation, it's biggest threat is the US...

Abandon sovereignty!

Regular readers of P&I basically know the details and agree with the argument of Vince Scappatura's article Australia’s evolving nuclear posture: avoiding a fait accompli (Part 1 of 2) The problem is, how do we get the misguided and uninformed, the partakers of the MSM or no news at all, to realise the mortal danger we have been placed in by such underwhelming political 'intellectuals' as Morrison, Marles and Albanese? And how do we get that translated into a vote that tells politicians of whatever party or calibre that they will never again be able to hand our sovereignty...

Comfortable middle classes must do more

Do the dire predictions of a heated world outlined by David Spratt make any impact on governments? For them it is a cynical choice, as Starmer exemplified, to ignore climate change in favour of their own popularity. No leader of a wealthy nation has the fortitude to do their job, which they constantly tell us is their first priority: keeping us safe. This hasn’t hugely impacted (yet) on their ‘popularity’. In fact, the now-ascendant climate change denying elements of Dutton’s Coalition could be gaining momentum. Such is the power of the far-right, conspiracy-laden, Trumpist ideology in which climate concerns...

"Is there an honest Australian news source"?

Dear Editor, I had entirely given up on Australian newspapers, television, and radio and in recent times and (for the last year) have only listened to, read, or watched Al Jazeera. Today I googled is there an honest Australian news source or words to that effect and was amazed to find Pearls And Irritations; Australian news that I can stand to read. Thank you very very much.

Thoughts and prayers

As 7th October 2024 draws to a close I reflect on all the outpourings of grief and sympathy for Israel, Israelis and all Jewish people on this anniversary day. I hear the calls for everyone to lay down their arms, for peace. And I think .... oh, the hypocrisy, as useful as US Americans sending thoughts and prayers. I hear Let there be Israel and a new country is set upon Palestinian land with no reference to, consideration of, consultation with or protection for Palestinians. Just Begone! This is our land now. Today, there is no context....

Why I grieve for our grandchildren’s futures

I have had a fortunate life. Born in 1950, in England, my teens coincided with the Beatles-led music revolution. I’ve not had to go to war. I am now 74, and thus unlikely to experience the climate horrors which are brought ever-nearer by the greed and manipulation of the fossil fuel industry, and by populist politicians more concerned with their own political survival than with providing the leadership needed to secure a sustainable environment. Anthony Albanese has become the poster-boy for political timidity. Peter Dutton rages with apparent power, but dances to the fossil fuel industry’s tune. The...

Ignorance trumps racism - mostly.

Some politicians will undoubtedly get an election surprise but will they realise it's on account of their passivity or active support for Israel? If they don't read comments on their social media posts they won't know that, besides the usual ratbags, an increasing tip-of-the-iceberg number of moderate voices are commenting, sadly, “This is wrong or not good enough. You've lost my vote.” “Is it racism that guides these politicians?” Ali Kazak asks. That seems to be true of Peter Dutton and his fellow travellers. The Jewish Council of Australia has emerged to decry Israel's role in Palestine...

ABC - disgraceful partisanship

I have turned off coverage by the MSM on these issues. The ABC seems to preface its one-sided coverage with discussion of the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 with all the subsequent loss of life in Gaza and the conflict growing into Lebanon. Lebanese and Palestinian lives mean nothing to our national broadcaster. Absolutely disgraceful partisanship.

‘Provocation’

A year ago, Peter Dutton described the Hamas attack on Israel ‘unprovoked’. I assume he has had now had sufficient time to learn about international relations, human nature and Palestine’s sad, painful history that he would avoid using such an inappropriate descriptor again. Unless, of course, it gave him a quick domestic political advantage.

RESPONSE TO KELTY ON THE ALP

I wouldn't be holding Kelty, one of the architects of the Accord, up as a model of how a Labor pollie or unionist should be. He sets out a centrist agenda but criticises the current centrists for doing it their way. He says We need a Labor Party agenda in which the big issues are confronted. Nice , but the devil is in the detail. No mention of a wages policy except in the context of a bargaining framework that is about training, productivity and fairness. Hmmmm I wonder if that would have broken through the...

“How high should we jump?” - Canberra

Further to Stuart Rees’ article, our Foreign Affairs Minister, instead of calling in the Israeli ambassador to protest at the harrying, and forced displacement from their homes, of thousands of Australian citizens in Lebanon, can only seemingly manage to say: “get on a plane”.

We must get serious about climate change action

Bill Kelty writes, “We need a Labor Party agenda in which the big issues are confronted.” He points to the environment, climate change and indigenous rights as examples. Kelty refreshingly suggests that climate change “is more important than party politics,” but this is easy to say when out of it. The climate wars were fired up again when Dutton went all out for nuclear and proposed to abandon Australia’s 2030 emissions target. The government wants to co-host COP31 with Pacific Island nations but makes them angry with fossil fuel approvals. The least Australia could do is support the thirteen...

How to survive on an isolated planet

We inhabit an isolated planet with finite resources and a robust, but not indestructible, environment. The fact that our environment continues to support life today does not mean that it always will. The Potsdam Institute’s latest Planetary Health Check confirms we are endangering our survival with our disregard for our warming climate, for the mass extinction of animals and plants, for our continued degradation of the natural environment and freshwater cycles, and for the chemical pollution from soil-killing fertilisers and industrial process effluents. Of the nine measures that the Potsdam Institute tracks, only two remain within the ‘safe’ zone:...

Universities as a place of higher learning? YES

As a 72 year old retired I like to think successful Tradie I have had a front row seat of the mess that is our education system has become. I went to a Technical school because I wasn’t smart enough to go to a High school. Then they closed technical schools. Did an apprentice at a specific Trade school, Trade schools were integrated / lost to the TAFE system. I watched as HR employed apprentices base on their academic score not their trade aptitude, the beginning of the shortage of tradies. I listened as my school teacher...

"Merely academic"

Our gad-fly, Clover Leaf group, had gained audience with the Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash Inc. That was a few months before the merger - Chisholm was not to be amalgamated with Monash; this was to a merger. This was the politically correct term for this flagship initiative of the Dawkins reforms. Once more our hypothesis was confirmed. Within Chisholm IT itself, and before 1982 within Caulfield IT: the economic rationalist ideology that drove the David Syme Business School was driving not only Chisholm but also the merger. We had previously invited to the Head of the Federal Department...

The mask is off

Susan Dirgham brings together a number of opinions very well. We are now in a near regency in the US, with the duumvirate of Blinken and Austin III, with supporting parts from Miller, Hochstein, and Sullivan. Still it was actually Biden who announced active US military support for the Israeli attack on Lebanon which threatens the lives of many people, including thousands of Australians and Americans. And yet at almost the same time it was Blinken saying China couldn't help broker a Ukraine peace deal because it was allegedly arming Russia. So how would the US be any...

Advanced Care Directives and Living Wills

Ken Hillman as a long term and esteemed medical practitioner in Intensive Care recognises as many do who work in this area that there is overtreatment of terminally ill persons. States and Territories in Australia now have End of Life legislation that empowers people to express their wishes for end of life care in Advanced Care Directives and Living Wills. Not enough people know about this option and take advantage of it. As an old Intensive Care Nurse of at least 20 years I agree with Ken, but I encourage all people approaching older age to take...

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