Interesting take on "racism"

Michael Richards, better known as Kramer from TV’s Seinfeld, makes an interesting point about racism. 

This was his defence speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act:
There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, etc. And then there are just Americans.   
You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction.  You call me “White boy”, “Cracker”, “Honkey”, “Whitey”, “Caveman” ... and that's okay. 
But when I call you, Ni**er, Coon, Towel head,  Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink … you call me a racist. 
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you ... so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live? 
You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Yom Hashoah.  You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi. You have the NAACP.  You have BET... 
If we had WET (White Entertainment Television), we'd be racists.  If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists.  If we had White History Month, we'd be racists. If we had any organisation for only whites to “advance” OUR lives, we'd be racists. 
We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce.  Wonder who pays for that? 
A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant, but any colour can be in the Miss America pageant. 
If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships ... You know we'd be racists. 
There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US, yet if there were “White Colleges” that would be a racist college. 
In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists. 
You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists. 
You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, you call him a racist. 
I am proud ... but you call me a racist. 
Why is it that only whites can be racists? 

Time to go ... Julia Gillard

WHY is Julia Gilliard still holding the most responsible position in this country?
After lying to the electorate about a carbon tax, she has now broken a written promise.
This promise was made to poker machine reformist MP Andrew Wilkie and undertook to secure the passage of laws by May this year.
The reforms would force punters to set their own bet limits on poker machines from 2014, on a mandatory pre-commitment card.
It obviously became all too hard for Ms Gillard so, to put a slant on a popular cliché, when the going got tough the not so tough got going and ran from the deal.
WA Nationals MP and key crossbencher Tony Crook quite rightly warned independent MPs to think hard before making any future deals with our untrustworthy Prime Minister.
I’m sure he took a long time to think of that one!
But what’s surely equally obvious is that Gillard has hammered the umpteenth nail into her own coffin.
How on earth would she now expect voters to have any trust for her?
How would she expect any of her party colleagues to have any trust for her?
The writing was on the wall as soon as she backstabbed Kevin Rudd that she was a person of little integrity.
Australian politics needs a damn good shake-up. We cannot continue to have untrustworthiness, incompetence, belligerence and (to use a Paul Keating favourite) recalcitrance thrust in our faces.
As I’ve written before, Gillard is an embarrassment to this country, not only for her horrid Aussie drawl, but also because of her multiplying lies.
It makes one imagine how many lies haven’t made it to the public.
Julia Gillard should not be given the courtesy of being able to wait for the Australian population to sack her at the next election – she should be sacked now.
 

Following the magic of Mary Poppins

“Start spreading the news” is a line from a well-known Frank Sinatra song about New York. I tried to do just that when I visited New York at New Year and spoke to the New York Times about the Southern Highlands’ Mary Poppins statue project.

With the Alice In Wonderland statue in New York's Central Park.
Photo by Lee Romero/The New York Times

WHEN Southern Highlands resident Paul McShane heard I was heading to New York for New Year, he jumped at the chance for me to "start spreading the news" about Mary Poppins.
As most Southern Highlanders know, Paul is passionate about author P.L. Travers' character.
Mary Poppins has consumed Paul's time for the past few years to the point where last May he organised (with the help of many others, of course) a record-breaking umbrella mosaic on Bradman Oval.
Paul's now on a mission to raise funds for a statue of Poppins, which will be given a home in Glebe Park, Bowral.
But he wanted me to get the lowdown while in New York about whether there was an opportunity to place, in New York's Central Park, a twin statue to the one proposed for Bowral.
P.L. Travers first proposed a statue in Central Park in 1966, when she corresponded with the then New York Parks Commissioner, Thomas P.F. Hoving, a dynamic, imaginative young administrator at the time.
Hoving was enthusiastic about the Mary Poppins statue proposal and held a press conference to announce that Mary would join the Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen sculptures in the Conservatory Lake area of Central Park and he invited public donations.
But a scathing editorial on October 15, 1966, from the influential New York Times soon after the announcement, criticised the proposal. A lack of a policy in Central Park to manage donations of statues also effectively rendered the idea stillborn.
The editorial cited the Poppins statue proposed for Central Park as "atrociously bad art".
"It is also an unjustifiable encroachment on park land, of which Commissioner Hoving, with his newly laid and loudly publicised policies of non-encroachment, must be equally well aware," the opinion piece went on to say.
Pledges of $4500 were reportedly received toward the $10,000 cost of the statue, including $2000 from P.L. Travers herself.
Paul also wanted me to deliver a challenge for New Yorkers to attempt to break the Southern Highlands' world record umbrella mosaic, either as part of a fundraiser for the statue or as part of the celebration for unveiling a New York statue.
"If we can have the Mary Poppins birthplace statue duplicated in New York and our Guinness World Record events done in Central Park with worldwide publicity then the long-term tourism benefits for the Highlands would be immense," Paul told me via email.
Unfortunately, Australian American Association vice-president Diane Sinclair discovered there has been a moratorium in effect since the 1950s regarding new statuary in Central Park.
"Placement of a Mary Poppins statue in the US would be a complex matter requiring further research on a suitable public site and the process of establishing statuary in that public place," Ms Sinclair said.
Eventually I made contact with New York Times reporter James Barron, who set about investigating the idea of a statue for Central Park. (see Barron's story HERE.)

New York Times reporter James Barron with me in the
New York Times newsroom

Barron confirmed the moratorium on any new statues and discovered that even a proposal for a statue of murdered former Beatle John Lennon, to go in an area of the park called Strawberry Fields, had been rejected.
Adrian Benepe, the commissioner of New York City's Parks and Recreation Department, told Barron his department had had a "pretty firm policy" against adding statues to Central Park.
"That policy is still in effect," he said. "We've had all manner of proposals for sculptures and we've turned them all down."
He said the no-statue rule had historical roots.
"The park's original designers, Olmsted and Vaux, fought a losing battle against sculptures in the park," he said.
"They were afraid it would develop a cemetery-like feel with monuments all over. The monuments that were forced on to them, they clustered into one area along the mall, which developed the nickname the Literary Walk."
The upshot is that there are quite a few "ifs" remaining:

• If a corporation is willing to donate some space in New York a statue might be able to be placed there ...
• If the design is accepted by the City of New York, and ...
• If enough money can be raised to cast a second statue.

Still, like the Poppins story, it would be a magical thing for the Highlands to have such a link with New York.
I guess you could call it supercalafragalisticexpialadoshus!

Same-sex marriage

THROSBY MP Stephen Jones is the new best friend of gay and lesbian couples.

Mr Jones was instrumental on Saturday in Labor amending its official policy platform to advocate same-sex marriage.

Federal MPs will vote next year on a Private Members Bill, which Mr Jones will put forward early next year, to allow same-sex couples to marry.

No doubt the homophobes will jump up and down about the idea of same sex couples marrying, after all, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, right?

But could that attitude be somewhat narrow minded?

It certainly was the way I used to think until many years ago when an eye-opening event changed my mind.

I used to work with a bloke whom I would drink with, play sport with, invite to parties; all that “normal” kind of “blokey” stuff.

Then one day I borrowed his car and, while driving into the sun, put the visor down and found a hand-written note: Chris loves Paul.

Suddenly I was confronted with mixed emotions because of my own bias – why should I now be intimidated or dislike Chris because he was gay? He was no different to the man I knew before I discovered his sexuality.

I know of many same-sex couples that live as married couples that have children and live and love the same as heterosexual couples. They nurture their children the same as heterosexual couples – and probably better than many heterosexual couples.

Should same-sex couples be denied the same benefits and opportunities as heterosexual couples?

Should they be denied “formalising” their union through marriage as heterosexual couples do?

Perhaps Stephen Jones is on the right track.

The above YouTube clip is very telling ...

The farce that passes for politics

Many people voted for the bloke on the right (who is Left) to be Prime Minister,
not the woman on the left (who is Right)!

FOREIGN Affairs Minister (and former Prime Minister) Kevin Rudd has called for “sweeping reform” of the Labor Party, saying “the aggressive conservative onslaught of a resurgent right” could push the party into a situation where it could “fade away”.

“We are fools if we do not understand that the public has had a gutful of what currently passes for much of our national political debate,” Mr Rudd said.

He is absolutely correct.(LINK)

As Southern Highland News columnist Dr John Hewson often writes, our politicians are too busy paying attention to their egos rather than paying attention to what the country wants or needs.

Dr Hewson wrote in one of his columns: “The essential problem is that politics has become a game, an end in itself, a daily contest to win the media against the other side.” (LINK)

But the whole political system seems to be flawed, especially within the Labor party where essentially there are three parties within the one – the Left, the Right and those in between.

This is how Kevin Rudd was rolled by Julia Gillard – and too bad for those voters who wanted Rudd as PM and not Gillard.

Rudd said in the Sydney Morning Herald at the weekend that his core concern “is how to reform our party so that it has a future, not just as a diminished political rump …”.

That’s a problem for the ALP to solve, but in the meantime we must educate our children about politics and that must start in school.

Too few of our young people pay any attention to politics when they should – and I doubt they realise that without paying attention democracy is dying – if it is not, indeed, dead already.

Five minutes to midnight

ALAN Jones made a very valid point at the Our Water Our Land Our Future rally on Saturday – it’s five minutes to midnight.
That term is in reference to the Doomsday Clock; the closer the clock is to midnight, the closer the world is estimated to be to global disaster.
But Jones made the comment in reference to Australia’s future – whether we will maintain our pristine farming land, our aquifers, our rivers and forests.
Make no mistake, mining and coal seam gas exploration is going to ruin this nation and make it inhabitable for our children.
Which brings me to my next point – our children know little about what is happening to their country.
At the rally on Saturday there were few young people; there were few people under age 40.
I asked my 14-year-old daughter what she knew about coal seam gas extraction and she looked at me as if I had two heads.
Our educators need to make our children aware of this issue, but you can bet it won’t happen because politicians are involved and they will say it’s a political issue.
Well it’s not.
This is a very real issue that involves the future of our country.
Tell your children about these insidious miners from foreign countries that are raping our country and couldn’t care less about the consequences.
Tell them to add their names to the petition that will be circulating in the Southern Highlands.
Tell them to write to their local members of parliament.
Tell them to write to the Prime Minister.
Tell them to get off Facebook and to use the internet to research this subject and that unless they start to take an interest in politics and what is happening in the world around them, then by the time they have children they won’t have a decent world to live in.
This threat is real and we must react.
Take a look at THIS LINK Take a look at this link, especially the YouTube videos. Or go HERE.  Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

Respect and Gen Y

I had a disturbing, as well as disheartening, run-in with a young woman during the week.

She had parked her car in one of our company car spots. I'd been out and returned in my company car only to find there were no spots available - so I double parked (leaving her exit blocked) and left a note on her windscreen to knock on the back door do I could let her out when she returned.

Sounds simple enough. The manager told me he had done the same thing in the past and people had been apologetic and headed off embarrassed.

Not this 19- or 20-something.

You see, I was the one who had inconvenienced her.

"Did you not see the signs on the building wall?" I asked (this was after waiting 5 minutes in the rain while she ended a phone call).

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw the signs," she said. "Hurry up and move so I can get out!"

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"That (blocking her in) is a very arrogant thing to do."

"Oh, and you jumping in a company car park, that is clearly marked, isn't? I might just go back inside for half an hour and you can wait a bit longer."

"Yeah, well, go ahead. I'll call the authorities then - I don't care if I get booked or whatever."

The young woman's car - the police were given the rego nuumber.

By now I could tell I was going to get nowhere with this young narcissist - she could not have given a shit about anyone or anything.

So I moved my car, let her out, parked my car in its spot and went back upstairs to finish my work.

When it came time to head home I exited the back door - and found a bloody huge gouge on the driver's door of the car.

The cow had returned when the car park had emptied and no one was around and keyed the car.

What is it that makes these kids so aggressive today?

There's a very good article from the Christian Science Monitor (see here) that offers some reasons - in part:

The "all about me" shift means much more than lots of traffic at self-revelatory websites such as YouTube and Facebook. It points, says the study's author, to a generation's lack of empathy, its inability to form relationships – and worse.

"Research shows [narcissists] are aggressive when they have been insulted or threatened," says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and lead author of the report, called "Egos Inflating Over Time." "They tend to have problems with impulse control, so that means they're more likely to, for example, be pathological gamblers [or] commit white-collar crimes."

But that aggressiveness, selfishness and lack of empathy is what has more "normal" people worried.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph reported today that police are sick of being used  as punching bags during alcohol-fuelled violence (Link here).
There's that lack of respect thing again.
As one comment on the site noted: "There once was a time when Police were respected. We as children were taught to respect the police, to call on them in need and to go to them when in trouble. Now it's belt a cop, sue a cop and every other thing the doogooders can throw at them. Stop now and give police powers to 'BIFF'. and bugga any one who objects."
Another post suggested we should blame the courts for not imposing penalties that are tough enough or that fit the crime.
Personally, I believe there has been a combination of influences (or probably non-influences).
When my generation was growing up we had little in the way of possessions. We had big families in small houses. Now there are small families in big houses!
We copped a belting when we deserved it - at home and at school. I can still remember my father taking his belt off and using it on me when I got out of line; and the teacher pulling out the cane at school to give your two, four or six "cuts", depending on the severity of the "crime" committed.
We'd stand for the national anthem, which was screened at the beginning of a movie in cinemas.
At school we'd sing the national anthem, salute the Australian Flag, and sing the school song - with gusto!
That's just scratching the surface - but those acts were about engendering respect - for others, for the school, Queen, and country.
I don't know what's to become of these aggressive Gen Ys, but I'm sure glad I won't be around to see it.
Hopefully the respectful ones, from good homes with caring parents, will be able to overcome the narcissistic ones.