On Saturday, the 2nd of March Peter and I did walk up to the NAN TIEN GRATITUDE BELL. This bell is being chimed in gratitude for our ancestors. I love the sound of this bell. It travels far across the surrounding country.
The walk was quite exhausting for us oldies. But we enjoyed it. We walked slowly and took frequent rests. Later on we met up with our granddaughter and her friend at the Nan Tien Tea rooms. We were happy that they had come from Newcastle to visit us for the weekend. Son Martin had also come for a weekend visit from Benalla in Victoria and was happy that he could meet up with his daughter.
Saturday night we went for dinner to the Dapto Leagues Club where we met up with our daughter Monika and a lot of her family. The next day, on Sunday, we went with our visitors to the foot of Macquarie Pass for a little walk called the Cascades Walk.
I am on WordPress but have always been reluctant to join Facebook. Reading all your reasons why you want to discontinue with it, I feel I have similar reasons why I do not even want to start with Facebook. Still my best wishes are with Facebook. I am sure, for the people who like to spend a lot of their time with it. it is a very good thing.
Uta
I thought I would write to let you know that after years of thinking (and even talking) about it, I am finally going to leave you later this year, probably on or around Easter, definitely before the summer.
You won’t really miss me. I was never one for posting photos of my amazing holidays or beautiful children (though they are, naturally) or thousands of awards and shortlists for my poetry (there haven’t been any) or arguments with other poets (ditto) or photos of the jam I have just made or that weekend living in my van.
I used you to spread the word about my blog, which I still love and feel wholly committed to in spite of everyone telling me blogging has died since Twitter. And, to be fair to you, you were good at that: getting the word out, helping me to get noticed, talked about…
And here is a blogger friend’s response to it. Debra wrote:
“It should be scandalous, but I don’t think most people are even surprised any more. Very troubling, however. Thank you, Uta.”
After reading Debra’s response I made the following comment:
I am very concerned that politicians with some knowlege of science are often not capable of evidence-based decision making.
I hate it, when powerful corporations or special interest groups mislead us on science. And can we not be educated to see that we ought to aim that our food, power and transport are being produced in a sustainable way? I mean these things should be obvious to any government by now. And governments should show us the way how these things can become achievable.
I am not a very educated person. But I was able to find the above information (about the Union of Concerned Scientists!) on the internet. I would imagine anybody that gets voted into a parliament for sure has similar information at hand and ought to think about it what can be done about it.
I guess the problem so far is that powerful corporations and special interest groups have the power to overrule anything sensible that politicians might aim for in achieving in the interest of humankind. I wonder whether there is any chance that corporations might change their thinking drastically and maybe start acting more like the Union of Concerned Scientists might want them to act. And then maybe there would be a chance that governments also would be able to act accordingly. Sustainability does not have to mean that all of us have to live like paupers. We can still have a good life, without too much stress and not the constant threat of wars!
Please have a look, here is a link to some blogs I find very interesting:
https://www.ucsusa.org/about-us
The Union of Concerned Scientists is a national nonprofit organization founded 50 years ago by scientists and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sought to use the power of science to address global problems and improve people’s lives.
From: Heads They Win,
Tails We Lose
How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public’s Expense
From 2005 to 2011, UCS conducted surveys
and received responses from more than 5,100 scientists at nine federal agencies, including the Food
and Drug Administration (UCS 2010e, 2006), the
Environmental Protection Agency (UCS 2008), the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(UCS 2005), and the Department of Agriculture
(UCS 2010e). Among other troubling trends, the
results revealed that hundreds of scientists across
the agencies had personally experienced political
interference in their work (UCS 2010e, 2009e).
Scientists attested that the interference often
stemmed from inappropriate corporate influence.
Catterel says: “. . . . I was perplexed that prejudice could arise solely on the basis of skin colour, ethnicity or religion. To me what mattered was whether the person was decent, fun and good company. The individual, not the group, attracted or repelled me. How can you reject an entire population group? You might as well start persecuting people because they are left-handed, wear glasses or have ginger hair. . . . “
I grew up in a white working-class area of the English Midlands in the middle of the twentieth century, and didn’t meet anyone who wasn’t white till I went to university in Liverpool in 1959. In my hall of residence, among others, there was a jolly Jamaican making delicious dishes in our shared kitchen, a sweet Chinese girl who played the piano like a professional, and a beautiful Indian girl with long hair down to her ankles. We also had a black Jamaican President of the Students’ Union in the early sixties. So my primary reaction was Wow! Awe and admiration! These were amazing, talented and exotic people, interesting to talk to and be with.
My first personal encounter with racism came a couple of years later in France, where my landlady was most upset because her niece was set on marrying an Algerian. I was studying in an international…
Published on Mar 13, 2014
E.Clapton – B.Dylan – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right – LIVE
Well it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
Ifin’ you don’t know by now
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It’ll never do some how
When your rooster crows at the break a dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on
Don’t think twice, it’s all right
And it ain’t no use in a-turnin’ on your light, babe
The light I never knowed
An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road
But I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin’ anyway
But don’t think twice, it’s all right
No it ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
Like you never done before
And it ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal I can’t…
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging around
For your next meal
How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home
With no direction home?
Like a complete unknown?
Like a rolling stone?
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And you find out now you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say, “Would you like to make a deal?”
How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home
With no direction home?
Like a complete unknown?
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at?
After he’s taken everything he could steal
How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home
With no direction home?
Like a complete unknown?
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re all drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all precious gifts and things
But you’d better take your diamond ring, better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home
With no direction home?
Like a complete unknown?
Like a rolling stone?
AuntyUta 
“It should be scandalous, but I don’t think most people are even surprised any more. Very troubling, however. Thank you, Uta.”