THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

The bride is in sydney at present, she says theyve gone mad up there over the SOCCER. I said they were like that before. lol And for goodness sake its a qualifier, wait until the world cup next year for goodness sake.

I read this in my morning paper today & cried. One of my favourite columnists, Pamela Bone, has been diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer & this was her farewell article. I didn't know quite where to post it, but decided the Oz thread would be a fair enough place.

So farewell, Pamela & thank you:

Amid comfort and kindness, a 'contrarian' bids adieu

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/amid-comfort-and-kindness-a-contrarian-bids-adieu/2005/12/18/1134840743200.html

Pamela wrote many thought provoking articles which were featured in the opinion pages of the Age newspaper, like this one, at the very start of this thread:

The silence of the feminists
February 4, 2005/the AGE :

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44942&highlight=

Race rioting and inter-enthnic fighting in Sydney: Seems bad, from the reports we've been getting. What's the Aussie perspective?

Hmmm...I dunno.

It has happened in the past between gangs in the fifties and sixties (with a different ethnic divide).


Seems like silly gang behavior by the usual suspects (anti social young men) from both sides of the ethnic divide, with some long standing grievances nurtured lovingly, exploded and brought in racist hoons (again young men) from elsewhere, with the stirring in of post Bali and September 11th hate mongering.


My sense is that, really, Oz has handled an influx of really racially and ethnically diverse people since the seventies (more, apparently, per capita than the US, from Asia and the Middle East and Africa, which surprised the hell out of me when I read it) since the seventies pretty well and peacefully.

I think that some such **** has happened in most countries at some point...certainly the UK and the US and France......


Also, despite fears, there seems to have been no spread.


I am afraid drunken hoon behaviour by young men is no real stranger here, and racist idiots are everywhere.

The current conservative government rose to power on divisiveness, and they have pushed the threat of terror to their advantage in the service of passing legislation giving them lots of power (similar to patriot act)......this may have inflamed the sort of idiots who look for someone to project their hate onto.

The hysteria against Muslims has been wide spread in the western world...just look at the hate mongers rifht here on this site, and Muslim people have certainly felt targetted.

I think it WAS bad at Cronulla and a few surrounding suburbs, but I have read of no serious injuries...though I could be wrong? I don't know if people felt worried other than those in the suburbs involved? Certainly we didn't feel worried here, though there were rumours of stuff happening.


I do wonder if the world view has been a bit like big bushfires, where friends from overseas rig anxiously thinking whole cities are burning because of the footage they see.


That being said, it is horriffic to see, and sickens one to the core.

That is very sad, Msolga.

With so much cancer around me at the moment (learned recently that a work colleague is dying plus losing another friend this year to breast cancer and, of course, my friend Helen's ongoing situation) and also from hospital work I know about the community of cancer people, and have been thinking even more about my own death (my semi Buddhist practice and life experience as well as existential reason tell me to do so anyway), in a much starker way.

I suppose this is what happens in these years as we become the generation which is beginning to die in larger numbers.


It really hurts as each precious on is taken.



I do wonder if she would have resigned anyway, or was it the illness?



Roll on assisted suicide!

It is hard to imagine actually doing it, and most of us actually do, when the time comes, cling to life very hard to the last second......but I so believe in the right to die with dignity.


((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Msolga))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Deb

I'm not certain but I doubt that Pamela Bone would have resigned had she not become so ill. I was wondering, just recently why her articles were so few & far between. The illness, obviously. She's been a very regular contributor for a long time. Yes, very sad.

I couldn't agree more with your sentiments on death with dignity. And Pamela's. That very last bit of dignity possible in such circumstances.

I'm sorry that there's so much death & illness around you, Deb. And I can see that coping with this would stop you in your tracks and cause you to reflect deeply. I don't know how I'd react if a close friend of mine was terminally ill. I really don't. That's something I haven't yet experienced & the mere thought fills me with dread. But yes, as Pamela said, it happens to everyone & it makes such perfect sense to treat death as a reality.

Welcome to the Oz summer! What an absolute scorcher the new year period has been! Some of us just gave up on socializing & hunkered down for the duration. (I think I have cabin fever!) And of course, bushfires & also fires in more populated areas, on many fronts in the south-eastern states:

Welcome to 2006 - in a blistering 44 degrees


… a firefighter tackles the fire that destroyed a home in Wattle Crescent, Phegans Bay.
Photo: Phil Hearne

SYDNEY started the new year with a near-record January temperature, 44.2 degrees, as soaring heat and strong wind fanned bushfires, but a change blew in about nine o'clock last night and offered a cooler night's sleep.

........ The Bureau of Meteorology's senior forecaster, Bob Moore, said a report on average temperatures last year to be published tomorrow showed Sydney was enduring a hot spell, and nobody knew when it would end.

It was part of a warming trend that had become evident since 1988, Mr Moore said.

"We just had our second equal hottest year on record. The year before, 2003, was our hottest year ever, but the year just finished recorded similar mean and maximum temperatures," he said.

"It's clear evidence for global warming … you'd think today's record temperature was more of the same."

The bureau's temperature gauge at Sydney Airport did reach a record, 45.1 degrees.

............ EnergyAustralia said air-conditioning use yesterday was the highest ever for a weekend, with Sydney demanding 4400 megawatts by evening.

Myer reported almost selling out of fans, with only display models left. Movie sessions were sold out in many CBD theatres. ....

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/welcome-to-2006--in-a-blistering-44-degrees/2006/01/01/1136050345524.html

The heat has made everyone a bit sillier than usual. :


Froth bite: the foam bath at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl was just one of a host of attractions at yesterday's Summadayze dance party. A sell-out crowd of 23,000 made the most of it.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/01/01/1136050346195.html?from=top5

A helicopter dumps water on a bushfire on The Rampart in Umina on the NSW Central Coast. Picture: AAP

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17710462%255E601,00.html

... gotta go now. ( A cool day! Wow! ) More on the Oz summer later. In the meantime, other Oz A2Kers are most welcome to send accounts of their own summer doings, news stories & features, etc.

You have to be Australian to understand this one:



My Country

by Dorothea MacKellar


The love of field and coppice

Of green and shaded lanes,

Of ordered woods and gardens

Is running in your veins.

Strong love of grey-blue distance,

Brown streams and soft, dim skies -

I know, but cannot share it,

My love is otherwise.



I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of rugged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains,

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

The wide brown land for me!



The stark white ring-barked forests,

All tragic to the moon,

The sapphire-misted mountains,

The hot gold hush of noon,

Green tangle of the brushes

Where the lithe lianas coil,

And orchids deck the tree-tops,

And ferns the warm dark soil.



Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When, sick at heart, around us

We see the cattle die -

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady soaking rain.



Core of my heart, my country!

Land of the rainbow gold,

For flood and fire and famine

She pays us back threefold.

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze...



The opal-hearted country,

A wilful, lavish land -

All you who have not loved her,

You will not understand -

Though Earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.


(Learned by many an Oz child at primary school)

Oh, & the beach! :

Fresh faces of lifesaving hit the beach

Sand, surf, safety: Faris Mustapa, 16, middle, with Marinko Joldzic, 14, left, and Armin Bacevac, 13, proudly wear their lifesaving caps at Sandridge Beach yesterday.
Picture: Wayne Taylor

January 3, 2006/the AGE


FARIS Mustapa, Marinko Joldzic and Armin Bacevac hail from different countries but, like most teenage boys, they have a common love: the beach. Now, they can enjoy it safely.

They are among 120 young people who have been learning lifesaving under a joint program between the Ocean Grove Surf Life Saving Club and the State Government. The scheme encourages people from all ethnicities to learn beach safety.

Faris, 16, who came to Australia from Singapore as a baby, says he is excited at the thought of saving lives. "We're going to primary schools and talking to them about lifesaving … so they will be more familiar to the beach and the hazards," he says.

Fourteen-year-old Marinko, whose family fled Serbia seven years ago, was so taken with the training that he encouraged his Bosnian friend Armin, 13, to join the program.

The boys are in good hands: the co-ordinator is Bruce Ward, their teacher at North Geelong Secondary College and Surf Life Saving Australia's volunteer of the year.

Sandridge Life Saving Club has used a $5000 grant to attract 24 people from Kuwait, Lebanon, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sudan to train.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/fresh-faces-hit-the-beach/2006/01/02/1136050393357.html

And, of course, there's the cricket tragics. To them, the Oz summer is all about cricket. It's a mystery why, to me. Obsessed, they are!:

Jeez, Olga

You could at least have posted a pic of an Australian cricketer - instead of a Sefrican!

Rain, so early lunch taken today at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Sefrica 2/65 in their second innings.

He was from the opposition, margo? Well fancy that!

why do you guys in oz give the score the wrong way round? they scored 2 runs and lost 65 wickets? dont think so. is it the heat?

anyroad up have a good one

44 C is definitely too much for me. (doesnt blood boil at 37.4?)

I'm hoping that someone who can answer your cricket scoring question will pass by here soon, Steve. As you might have surmised, I know nothing about these things, Zilch! (Though my instincts tell me that we are right & you are wrong! )

Yes, It was hideously hot around the new year period. Apparently this is the way of the future! :

And this is for margo. Am I forgiven now? :wink: :