On the Way to Gundagai

https://auntielive.wordpress.com/tag/family-visit-in-benalla/

We stayed at Gundagai overnight on our way to Benalla.

We left Dapto early in the morning on Friday, the 9th of November 2018. At Moss Vale we stopped for breakfast at our favourite cafe where we always like to stop for breakfast. This time we ventured to a table in a snug little room. We could make ourselves comfortable while waiting for the ordered cooked breakfast to arrive.

After breakfast it didn’t take us long to reach the Hume Highway where Peter could drive the Audi at a very good speed of nearly always a comfortable 110 km.

By 12 o’clock we were already in Gundagai where we had booked to stay overnight.

We went for lunch at this very old bakehouse:

We had tea and pies at an outside table.

The motel where we were staying is called GUNDAGAI MOTEL. (We stayed there again on Tuesday, the 13th, on our way back home!)

http://gundagaimotel.com.au/

https://www.booking.com/hotel/au/gundagai-motel.html#availability

Six facts that tell a different immigration story than we hear from politicians

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-21/australian-immigration-what-do-the-numbers-tell-us/10919970

This is a fairly long article with very interesting data. I copy here only one small part, but to be more up to date with Australian migration programs please go to the above link! So this is what it says towards the end of the article:

We’ve seen more refugees — and the sky didn’t fall in

“One big change in recent Australian immigration policy — receiving little fanfare from the Prime Minister — was the increase in the annual humanitarian (refugee) intake from 13,750 to more than 18,000.

In addition, then PM Tony Abbott in 2015 announced an additional one-off intake of 12,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict. Most of these arrived in 2017 and were Christians from Syria and Iraq.

This meant an effective doubling of refugee intake in 2017. The sky didn’t fall in. While the service providers to newly arrived refugees were stretched, they coped well.”

Diary

A few weeks ago we bought a couple of dragon fruits. We had no idea what they would taste like or how healthy they are. Finally, I looked it up here:

https://food.ndtv.com/food-drinks/7-dragon-fruit-benefits-the-antioxidant-vitamin-powerhouse-1247454

Looking at this article I am amazed that this fruit has that many benefits as for instance for the heart. It says: ” Because dragon fruits are loaded with fiber and antioxidants, they both contribute to keeping the heart healthy and young. They fight against plaque clogging up in the arteries, maintaining the blood circulation in the body.”

After reading this, I am determined now to buy more of this amazing fruit and use them for instance in salads and with yoghurt.

The other day I published a picture of some verses. And here now is another picture of some verses I saw recently when we were visiting the Nan Tien Temple:

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What do I learn from these verses? Being very elderly, for sure certain things are often not easy to accomplish. Whatever I do, it tires me quickly. Walking is one of these things. I know that this is so. None the less I face this difficulty again and again. Soon I’ll by leaving for a little morning walk.

When the body feels a bit painful, a bit of stretching before walking eases the pain. And stopping during walking a few times and do some stretching helps a lot too, especially with breathing. This I have learned. So I do not mind stopping a few times, meaning, I face up to it.

My plan is to walk for a bit every morning and as often as possible during the day. I enjoy it a lot. I love being outside in the open. Also, to walk among trees is most enjoyable! There are lots of trees where I walk along in the morning.

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On the 31st of December 2017 I wrote this:

“Soon we were ready to drive to Nan Tien Temple. The place was packed full and we had to park outside a bit further away from the Entrance Gates. The rain had stopped. So we experienced another beautiful walk to this magnificent building. Peter took some photos as we walked towards the building. The open inside area at the upper level was decorated in celebratory fashion for the year’s end. We listened to some music and watched some of the dance performances. At one of the stands with a lot of things for sale I bought a colourful windmill.”

You can see this windmill in my post here:

Our last Day in 2017

This colourful windmill we set up on our dining room table for our New Year’s Eve celebrations.

This windmill is set up somewhere outside now. When there’s some wind, it does turn round and round. The colours still look quite fresh!

Diary

DSCN5114

I took a photo of the above verses recently when visiting the Nan Tien Temple:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Tien_Temple

What I feel about family: I like to feel close to family. I am most happy when I feel that my family wants to be close to me. That goes for my immediate family, but also for very distant family. Whenever people in other countries make me feel that I’d like to get to know them personally, they are like my family. I feel that all over the world there are people who could be my family.

Now my thoughts on being busy: I am 84. Has my life been busy? Yes and no. Some people would probably say of me that I am a bit lazy. I feel I often have not been as busy as some other people. Well, I try not to be too lazy. At times I love it to be very busy. At other times I just want to spend time as though I am on holidays!

It says that hard work keeps away poverty. This may be true if your hard work is not being exploited. I have been lucky all my life that I never had to work extremely hard to live a fairly good life. Even in times of severe scarcity after World War II the work I was required to do as a child I would not call hard work. I think it is good to be able to work in an efficient manner and to be able to enjoy working. Whether the work keeps away poverty, well, this depends . . . .

“Toleration keeps away violence.” Well, I love people to be tolerant towards each other. Without tolerance we cannot have a peaceful world. If people hate another religion for instance, we have to try to convince them that people of other religions have as much right to a good life as people who live a different religious life or a non religious life. Love is essential. I believe it can overcome all hate.

Diary

DSCN5129 — This is the trunk of one of my favourite trees in the park behind where I live.

Now in the middle of March we are still on daylight saving time. The nights are already cooler but during the day we often still have more than 30C. However, we find that early in the morning it is never too warm to go for a little walk, that is we are in the habit of walking every morning for a little bit just before breakfast. I take only about 4 or 5 minutes to walk to my favourite trees in the park behind our complex of villas. Peter and I we usually leave our place together. I do walk very slowly just to stretch my legs a bit. Walking back home I usually walk a bit faster. Peter uses some spray on his tongue that helps his breathing. He aims to walk straight away at a faster pace for 8 minutes. He walks quite a bit faster than I walk. I watch him walking in the park in the distance. On the way back, when he passes me, he calls out (just for fun!) Good Morning! And I call back: Good Morning! The whole park area feels to me very private, meaning even if I owned the whole area, I could not make any better use of it than walking there for a few minutes every morning! These days the sun comes up later and later. So often we miss out now on some sun when we walk early in the moring. However, I love the mornings, when the sun does shine through the trees! When daylight saving is finally finished, the sun will be up a little bit earlier again.

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Gratitude Bell and Cascades Walk

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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.

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5303939/video-tour-of-illawarras-best-waterfall-walk-for-beginners-and-kids/

I took this picture while Peter holds my walking stick!

Union of Concerned Scientists

This is the site for the Union of Concerned Scientists:

https://www.ucsusa.org/about-us

A couple of days ago I published this:

https://auntyuta.com/2019/03/07/merck-manipulated-the-science-about-the-drug-vioxx/

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://blog.ucsusa.org/karen-perry-stillerman/trumps-usda-is-making-good-on-promises-to-agribusiness

The Whitlam Government

https://theaimn.com/the-anglo-american-ambush-of-the-whitlam-government-11-11-1975/

Prophetically, in a sense, Whitlam placed an epigraph to his record of The Whitlam Government, 1972-1975 (1985). It reads as follows:

“And one has to reflect that there is nothing more difficult to handle nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to conduct than to make oneself the leader in introducing a new order of things. For the man who introduces it has for enemies all those who do well out of the old order and has lukewarm supporters in all those who will do well out of the new order.

The lukewarmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries who have the laws on their side and partly from the incredulity of mankind who do not put their trust in changes if they do not see them in actual practice. Thus it arises that whenever those who are enemies have the opportunity to go on the attack they do so forcefully and the others put up a lukewarm defence, so putting themselves and their cause at risk at the same time” (from Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), The Prince, at Chapter Six).

But such was the wisdom of the hindsight.

The Guardian, Friday 22 February 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/au

I am very glad that this independent newspaper, The Guardian, is still around. Just by looking at the headlines I am satisfied they report on all the inportant issues in Australia. There is a lot going on in politics here in Australia right now. Maybe you want to check ot a few things by going to the above link!

I find it interesting for instance that Catherine Murphy says that Julie Bishop had a career playing second fiddle to men. Well, she did go far, didn’t she, but not quite to the top. So far we have not had yet a female Liberal Prime Minister. In the Liberal Party the struggle for the top job is enormous. Prime Ministers change frequently. But it is not much better in the Labor Party.

These items on the front page I find also interesting: An article about bank victims, about health expenses on Manus Island, about the company Helloworld and about coal bans by the Chinese.

Wednesday, 20 February,2019: The moving of a motion in the Australian Parliament on this day

Jim Chalmers is a Labor MP and Shadow Minister for Finance.

Jim Chalmers is attempting to move this motion:

I seek leave to move the following motion – that the House,

one, notes that yesterday it was revealed the finance minister received free flights to Singapore from Helloworld, which he booked by calling the CEO of this ASX-listed company directly, just before it was awarded a multimillion-dollar whole-of-government contract by the minister’s own department,

(b) today, it has been reported that US ambassador Joe Hockey, who has a million-dollar shareholding in Helloworld, helped a Helloworld subsidiary lobby for the embassy’s travel contract,

(c) the CEO of Helloworld and one of its largest shareholders, Andrew Burnes, is a Liberal party heavyweight and currently Liberal party treasurer with connections to a number of Liberal party politicians,

(d) the finance minister told Senate estimates yesterday that he had “a close personal relationship” with Mr Burnes,

(e) Mr Burnes was previously a colleague of the now-prime minister during the prime minister’s time at Tourism Australia,

(f) since being awarded government contracts, the share price of Helloworld has skyrocketed, making shareholders like Mr Hockey and Mr Burns rich,

and (g) it was reported that the Herald Sun asked almost all of the 82 Liberal MPs in parliament whether they had received free travel from Helloworld, but only 14 said that they had not,

and, (2) therefore calls on the prime minister to investigate and report to the House how far this Helloworld scandal reaches into his government.

He is denied on the voices.

Updated at 3.19pm AEDT

2h ago15:01

Jim Chalmers with the Nick Champion question (just cut down) to Scott Morrison:

Is the prime minister confident that trips like the one by the minister for home affairs and Joe Hockey with Helloworld’s CEO and Liberal treasurer Mr Andrew Burnes to Las Vegas, were paid at the full commercial rate?

Morrison:

Again, Mr Speaker, the member comes here and just makes assertions …

He makes … and then he asks me to respond as if those assertions are true, Mr Speaker. No, he is not asking – it is said to me, how dare he answer the question, he is not asking a question, he is making an assertion about something he hasn’t even established as a fact and on that basis, Mr Speaker, I don’t agree necessarily with the presumption of the question and therefore, on what basis should I allow a member to come and simply just come to the despatch box, cast aspersions on people in this chamber and the other chamber and former members of the chamber simply because the Labor party wants to distract attention from the fact they’ve come into this place and undermined Australia’s border protection regime, Mr Speaker?

We know, because they’ve been boasting around the media for some time, that they have had this little issue for some time in the drawer and when the pressure is on, they pull it out.

He finishes before Tony Burke can ask him about relevance.

1h ago15:45

For those asking, all of the crossbench, except Bob Katter, who was not in the chamber, voted with Labor to suspend standing orders.

Labor had lost three MPs (I think) to 94a

1h ago15:39

Ayes – 71

Noes – 71

But there is no absolute majority, so the motion fails.

AndScott Morrisoncalls an end to question time.

I think Jim Chalmers, being only forty years and a very impressive speaker, might become quite an asset for the Labor Party in the Australian Parliament. You can have a look here about the two books he has written so far:

https://auntielive.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/jim-chalmers-makes-the-case-for-a-fair-go/