Well, I'll be ...
Never mind the miseries of Friday (the day I give to my local community) or the truly colossal sulk I enjoyed while missing the Portugal v. Whoever match yesterday (I heard enough to know that Luis Figo was in the thick of things and therefore I'd have enjoyed watching).
Never mind today at work which was so lousy it was actually hugely entertaining.
I've discovered that I really, truly should not be homesick. While I've been away the place has been transmogrified (you can relax now, that's today's long word out of the way). To put it another way the place has gone to hell in a hand basket, and that actually (and rather ironically) appears to be despite Little Johnny's diligent efforts.
I hadn't heard of 'NAIDOC' until I read the most recent posting by one of the few other bloggers I actually take the time to read on a very regular basis. And if you know or work out which one I'm referring to and are mystified - don't ask me since I can't explain it either.
NAIDOC week is an annual 'thing' that happens in various places across the country during the first full week of July. It exists to "celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people", according to the web site (and no, I'm not providing the link as that might only encourage you to pay the site a visit).
How very noble. I don't know any of this, I'm just cribbing from the website.
If the aforementioned (sorry) blogger had sardonically described this as National Abo Week (in disguise, perhaps) his credibility as a red neck might not be totally shot to shit. As it is my suspicious are aroused by the following statement on the web site I'm using as my crib sheet: " For many years, the Australian Government has been the major funding contributor to national focus activities." Everyone knows wee Johnny's got no time for anyone who isn't white, Christian, straight, pedestrian, mortgage bearing, quarter-acre block occupying, Sydney proximate.
So presumably the NAIDOC beneficiaries are all white abos.
I spent two years of my childhood living in the very, very far north of Queensland. It's like the deep south of the US only worse. We lived in a town so remote that no road out of town was passable during the wet season. We lived in a town with no doctor, no TV, no radio. We lived in a town segregated. The 'management' families lived in one part, while the rest of the company employees (who for the most part were single men) lived in another in relatively rudimentary accommodation. For entertainment those single men spent their weekends on Thursday Island, returning after their excursion for a visit to the nurse and a dose of penicillin as treatment for what they (and the nurse) jovially referred to as TI flu.
A mile or so out of town was (and is) a 'settlement'. The local aborigine (koori, native Australian, whatever salves your conscience) population had been gathered up and congregated in one place where they could be monitored and controlled. This was only about 4 or 5 years after the men and women who'd occupied the continent for tens of millennia had been granted citizenship. By way of acknowledgement of their new found status as paid-up members of society the government of the day dished out benefits to these 'settlement' residents. Once a week they received a cheque, and once a week the town where I lived was a no go area to its residents.
I'm now 42 and I've never knowingly met an individual with even partial aboriginal ancestry.
The day before the first 'white settlers' arrived in 1788 the Australian population was absolutely 100% aborigine. At the last census just 2.2% of the population claim (or will admit to) some degree of aboriginal heritage.
We fall over our feet to claim some feckless layabout or hapless hayseed as a convict ancestor (actually I haven't got one yet, so if you have one going spare could you hoik it in my direction?) but the prospect of having to tick the box marked Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander makes the blood of most Australian's turn to ice.
A culture has been all but obliterated, we've exterminated the Tasmanian aborigine (let's not forget that Hitler failed to eliminate all Europe's Jews/intellectuals/homosexuals/physically and mentally imperfect/gypsies - but he's the bogey man). Fuck me, we exterminated the Tasmania Tiger too! By God my ancestors were good shots.
And by way of compensation we offer NAIDOC.
I hope that make you feel better. For some reason it makes me feel inadequate and distinctly queasy. Then again perhaps its the beer and the defeat to Brazil.
Never mind today at work which was so lousy it was actually hugely entertaining.
I've discovered that I really, truly should not be homesick. While I've been away the place has been transmogrified (you can relax now, that's today's long word out of the way). To put it another way the place has gone to hell in a hand basket, and that actually (and rather ironically) appears to be despite Little Johnny's diligent efforts.
I hadn't heard of 'NAIDOC' until I read the most recent posting by one of the few other bloggers I actually take the time to read on a very regular basis. And if you know or work out which one I'm referring to and are mystified - don't ask me since I can't explain it either.
NAIDOC week is an annual 'thing' that happens in various places across the country during the first full week of July. It exists to "celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people", according to the web site (and no, I'm not providing the link as that might only encourage you to pay the site a visit).
How very noble. I don't know any of this, I'm just cribbing from the website.
If the aforementioned (sorry) blogger had sardonically described this as National Abo Week (in disguise, perhaps) his credibility as a red neck might not be totally shot to shit. As it is my suspicious are aroused by the following statement on the web site I'm using as my crib sheet: " For many years, the Australian Government has been the major funding contributor to national focus activities." Everyone knows wee Johnny's got no time for anyone who isn't white, Christian, straight, pedestrian, mortgage bearing, quarter-acre block occupying, Sydney proximate.
So presumably the NAIDOC beneficiaries are all white abos.
I spent two years of my childhood living in the very, very far north of Queensland. It's like the deep south of the US only worse. We lived in a town so remote that no road out of town was passable during the wet season. We lived in a town with no doctor, no TV, no radio. We lived in a town segregated. The 'management' families lived in one part, while the rest of the company employees (who for the most part were single men) lived in another in relatively rudimentary accommodation. For entertainment those single men spent their weekends on Thursday Island, returning after their excursion for a visit to the nurse and a dose of penicillin as treatment for what they (and the nurse) jovially referred to as TI flu.
A mile or so out of town was (and is) a 'settlement'. The local aborigine (koori, native Australian, whatever salves your conscience) population had been gathered up and congregated in one place where they could be monitored and controlled. This was only about 4 or 5 years after the men and women who'd occupied the continent for tens of millennia had been granted citizenship. By way of acknowledgement of their new found status as paid-up members of society the government of the day dished out benefits to these 'settlement' residents. Once a week they received a cheque, and once a week the town where I lived was a no go area to its residents.
I'm now 42 and I've never knowingly met an individual with even partial aboriginal ancestry.
The day before the first 'white settlers' arrived in 1788 the Australian population was absolutely 100% aborigine. At the last census just 2.2% of the population claim (or will admit to) some degree of aboriginal heritage.
We fall over our feet to claim some feckless layabout or hapless hayseed as a convict ancestor (actually I haven't got one yet, so if you have one going spare could you hoik it in my direction?) but the prospect of having to tick the box marked Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander makes the blood of most Australian's turn to ice.
A culture has been all but obliterated, we've exterminated the Tasmanian aborigine (let's not forget that Hitler failed to eliminate all Europe's Jews/intellectuals/homosexuals/physically and mentally imperfect/gypsies - but he's the bogey man). Fuck me, we exterminated the Tasmania Tiger too! By God my ancestors were good shots.
And by way of compensation we offer NAIDOC.
I hope that make you feel better. For some reason it makes me feel inadequate and distinctly queasy. Then again perhaps its the beer and the defeat to Brazil.
posted by Enyo @ 9:56 pm
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