In all of the talk about aboriginal petrol sniffing and alcohol problems, why is no credence given to the idea that the so-called “communities” some aborigines live in might be enough to lead anyone to self-destructive behaviour. Nugget Coombes is long dead. Times have changed. Isn’t it time we stopped thinking of “assimilation” as a dirty word in relation to aboriginal Australians and give the young ones, at least, the opportunity to live in the wider community. Most aborigines in Australia are urban dwellers who conduct as normal a life as other Australians.

Eleanor Hogan ““Petrol sniffers must take responsibility for their own problems.”…..
This statement chilled me; I thought these words were harsh and ignorant.”

The words are real and enlightened.

If petrol sniffers do not take responsibility for the problems the induce upon themselves

Who should take responsibility?

Some Idiots sniff petrol.
Other Idiots traffic dope in Indonesia
I do neither and am not responsible for the outcomes of these self destructive practices.

Having said that, I used to smoke cigarettes, my life expectancy has been prejudiced by that idiotic act but I accept responsibility and suffer the consequences of it.

Eleanor Hogan “The fact that the wider Australian community has a responsibility to assist Anangu to address the problem of petrol sniffing, which has no precedent in traditional culture, is clear. Governments should not approach the task on the basis that the solutions must come from Anangu communities alone.”

The collective Anangu community is not “responsible” either.

In the case of petrol sniffing juveniles, the parents are responsible or for orphans, their legal guardian is responsible. The Anangu community and wider Australian community both care that people should be so self destructive but we are all responsible for ourselves, not each other and certainly the government is not either.

God forbid we should ever promote a situation where government were “responsible”. The restriction on personal choice and freedom necessitated by such “centralist responsibility” would certainly pave the way for an extremely repressive dictatorship with far worse social consequences than the individual outcomes of Idiotic pursuits, including petrol sniffing.

CoL Rouge
I disagree. The government throws my money and yours at the aboriginal community. Ever seen the public service jobs where the first selection criterion is "Aboriginality"? Ever had a friend who was 1/xth aboriginal and could get free dental care? etc etc. If the government insists on "helping" the aborigines in this way, then the government is, at the very least, partly "responsible".

Leigh
"Most aborigines in Australia are urban dwellers who conduct as normal a life as other Australians" - O really? If by "urban" you mean Central Station, then yes. But the only time I see Aborigines conducting "as normal a life as other Australians" is on local TV soaps

Dear Elanor Hogan,

Many thanks for your evocative prose.

Alas, aboriginal petrol-sniffing is predominantly an adolescent male behaviour and incarceration is another. Both are objectively self-defeating and endemic, nonetheless.

Periodic seizing of headlines merely enunciates a racial compassion/superiority complex and there is nothing sexy about it!

I beg to disagree with your notion that petrol sniffing could be constrained, insofar as cultural obligation is concerned.

I’ve had somewhat of a history with these young men and I can assure you that they are mocked. Their physiological ascension to manhood against the shame of incomplete-initiation, demands petrol sniffing or incarceration or whatever is available to reconcile perceived shortcomings … between the proud heritage and shameful, invasive, cultural expectations of another.

Prime Minister Howard appropriately recommends a “holistic solution” to the problem of petrol sniffing and suggests ultimately that the solution to the problem is in the hands of the communities, as much as it is in the hands of governments.

When Australia positions traditional Aboriginal culture at the upper rung of its social order; so that mainstream cultural direction is driven by the millennia of indigenous triumph over its definitive landscape and indigenousness represents anthropogenic superiority, then we might see constraint.

Until then, we must endure the discriminatory ugliness of racial oppression.

Neil... I think you might have touched on am important issue..

"Incomplete Initiation" leading to low self esteem leading to escapism...etc.

This is one reason, why I generally harp on about attacking indigenous problems from an anthropological perspective rather than a social welfare perspective. You could throw ALLLL the social welfare, and score inumerable political points on indigenous issues without even realizing the root cause. Sometimes it can be as simple as knowing the cultural trigger for such behavior.

I think it might be beneficial to try to pinpoint this further, and if possible, by sympathetic liason with tribal elders, to look for more modern equivalents which would suit the social realities of today, by which the youth can still feel they have 'arrived'.

As a Christian, who has worked with indigenous people of Borneo, where the tribe concerned were drunk more days per year than they were sober, to the point where the government actually documented that they were to be "allowed to die out"... yet today seeing doctors, lawyers, members of parliment, and a thriving vigorous community where they have replaced the old custom with many Christian equivalents, (sadly some of the valuable they themselves have left behind in the mistaken belief that it was 'not Christian') I will always have an optimistic outlook for indigenous people.

The point may be well made, that Christianity may seem a 'cultural intrusion' to those who don't share our faith, but the indigeneous church of Borneo, now over 500,000 strong and growing,is one which is self supporting, self governing and self propogating; and from the outset was never mean't to reflect any particular tradition of 'The West'. The 3 founders of the Borneo Evangelical Mission were from 3 different denominations anyway. (protestant)

Bottom line, petrol sniffing, is just a symptom, careful analysis will reveal the root cause, and whether the answer is a committment to Christ, or the emergence of modern cultural equivalents to initiation rites, the aboriginal people have just as much potential and hope as any other group

Thanks Eleanor for this piece. I'm sure you feel your analysis could go deeper and wider than what’s allowes here.

The media constructions and representations of 'Aboriginal social tragedies' continues to be part of a media menu and invokes an emotional panic in white Australians. This panic displays itself in many ways but usually its one where

1 .'blame' accorded to governments
2. blame is accorded to Aboriginal people and communities *see lisamaree’s eloquent elucidation.
3. blame is accorded to ideological thinking

This is a phenomenon that goes back decades in terms of media coverage of Aboriginal issues and non-Aboriginal responses. Mabo, Wik, the Stolen generations all share a common denominator in that they invariably evoked a deep primal panic about

1. national responsibility
2. moral responsibility
3. historical culpability
4. privilege and power and denial

In the public commentary and debates one fundamental element is always missing and that it what Aboriginal people think about their own solutions to their problems are.

And put simply, I feel this is what Eleanor has attempted to highlight.

A large part of the solution to petrol sniffing and other social problems is that Aboriginal voices, opinions and ideas must play a greater role in reaching consensus.

Commentators such as Noel Pearson have willingly prostituted themselves as substitutes for these grassroots opinions. A thousand government enquiries will not fix this wide spread hearing problem. People and media listen, but they do not want to hear

I just joined on this forum,,,and I would like to know where I can go on here to ask who is responsible and in charge for not letting Canadians participate on shows like Survivor, and the Amazing Race. Gee, our soldiers can go over and help fight wars,,,but we can't let the little ole Canadians try to win some money ? Yeah makes sense,,,NOT

It is no small irony that the much reported community consciousness and interrelatedness of blackfellas to their land does not appear to extend to recognising a community responsibility to their own young sniffers. The biggest, grumpiest fellas in the community could put a stop to this quick smart if they were given the slack they need to get a result.

Noel Pearson has correctly recognised that the last people they should rely on is the bureaucrats and do-gooders. For these people view blackfella problems as a "franchise", a sequence of career options, to be exploited and husbanded. The last thing they really want is for the problem to cease. And to suggest that Noel may have prostituted himself for any other purpose than the well being of his own people is a travesty.

Hi Perseus,
*with respect*

Yes it is a travesty that such an able Indigenous person like Pearson has adopted a neo con approach to everything and everyone that remotely suggests a rights agenda for Aboriginal people.

Never ending speeches that chorus the the mantra of 'it must be the grog (can’t be the Government)' and his sly and continual denunciation of Aboriginal people of Cape York leave me breathless.

David Martin who has worked extensively on Cape York makes the important point that; “it cannot be assumed that the pejorative view of dependency advanced in the welfare debate, grounded as it is, in no small part, on an ideological construct of the moral worth of the productive individual within the market economy, is necessarily shared by all Aboriginal people” (2001, p 6).

And he does enjoy a lot more Murdoch press coverage than any other Aboriginal in the nation. And you have to wonder when you see Janet Albrechtsen, Christopher Pearson, Piers Ackerman and Frank Devine and just about every right wing journalist living singing hyms of praise for his every utterance.

If there has been “a manufacturing of consensus” around any issue over the last 7 years its come from the love-in and heavy petting Pearson has participated in with neo con cheer squad in the Murdoch press.

Well perhaps I was too harsh in calling it prostitution as much of it has been openly consensual?

In other words, while he might be celebrated by the middle classes in the urbs for his eloquent explanation of ‘ahistorical poverty’ (is there such a thing?) And to an audience hungry for recalibrations and absolution of their own power and privilege, he enjoys no such traction in the 'remotes'. (shock horror!)

See Lowitja O'Donohues views on the Cape Crusader:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/clash-of-cultures/2005/07/29/1122144018106.html

Martin D (2001) “Is welfare dependency ‘welfare poison’? An assessment of Noel Pearson’s proposals for Aboriginal welfare reform”, Paper No. 213, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Canberra. http://www.anu.edu.au/caepr/Publications/DP/2001_DP213.pdf

Dear Ranier, You need to ask yourself why you must run every idea through a political spectrum before examining it's merits. For to do so appears to my eye as a form of prejudice, prejudging. But one thing we do know is that the only people going on about "neo cons" are the sorry old left. And last time I looked, even their own leaders came to recognise the extent of their own failure. This left/right bipolarity is an urban thing, it makes no sense in the bush. For it would put old Joh-BP as an extreme rightist but ignore the fact that he ran a free public hospital system (that didn't kill people) and declined his 17 years worth of parliamentary superannuation. Ditto Bob Katter who won't have a bar of selling Telstra because of the threat to community service obligations. I suspect urban blackfellas also need to demonise people in the bush who don't fit the ideological mould. The further into the bush one goes the sillier ideology becomes because it only gets its power from an echo. And out under that big sky it falls very flat indeed.

Dear Perseus,

You don't address anything in my response above directly. oh well.

Fact: Pearson doesn't live in the bush. But he is an ideologue. All I did was name which one it was.

I could go on about Aboriginal history and Joh (whom I knew) and his redneck ideologies and practices but I fear this might offend those Qlders who grew up learning Joh myths and not the facts of his fascist regime. Its understandable, even Hitler still has supporters in Germany.

As for so called "urban blacks", (popular quip of Johs for delegitimising any Aboriginal dissent) what are you suggesting? That Aboriginal people shouldn't have an ideological framework for anything and just be happy with what good old bushy agrarian socialism? C’mon!

Anytime you'd like me to show you around the Cape, let me know. But beware; us Aborigines up here have orthodox political views just like everyone else. (shock horror!)

On your way up you can drop into one of the more opulent suburbs of Cairns and have a chardonnay or two with NP (poolside of course).

The culture wars have proven quite lucrative for him it seems. Don’t know how we are gunner wean him off it?

lisamaree
"CoL Rouge
I disagree.... If the government insists on "helping" the aborigines in this way, then the government is, at the very least, partly "responsible"."

You might well be right lisamaree.

I was criticising Eleanor Hogans proposal to do more - certainly not assessing the level of welfare which is presently being undertaken. Any "welfare" or assistance which is based on gender, race, religion of other discretionary or genetically acquired attribute is bad. Any welfare which is openended and ongoing is wrong.

"Affirmative action", in any form, is as bad as segregation and as offensive to the worst aspects of the old-school or club network.

When people are treated "on par" with one another, the only distinction recognised being in their "individual merit" then we, as a country will be healthier than we ever have been and healthier than anywhere else on earth.

A couple of quick reality checks are in order.

- As a group, Aboriginal people are more likely not to drink at all than most other sections of the Australian comunity. Approxiamately 50% of Aboriginal peope describe themselves as teetotallers. (2001 Census IIRC)
- Not drinking is also associated with participation in religion. I don't know any stats but I would guess that Indigenous people are much more likely to describe themselves as practicing Christians than the rest of society.
- There are no social workers in remote Aboriginal communities where most of petrol sniffing takes place. At best there is a community health nurse/midwife and a local police presence. The latter is only present in the larger communities.
- Since forced removal has been abandoned. Children from these communities are rarely reviewed by child abuse teams even if they present to regional hospitals with venereal disease. A not uncommon experience - syphillis is endemic in remote communities.
- Most remote communities have very few people with incomes greater than the dole. Food prices in remote communities are on average 3 times those found in the city. Second hand clothing is not available.
- The jobs that are available, including work for the dole are fought over and are a cause for dissension and jealousy. Work for the dole is sought after because of the security that it brings, not the income.
- When people suggest that in these circumstances child petrol sniffers(most are primary school age) should be responsible or their parents should be responsible, I'd like to suggest that they offer to exchange places with an indigenous family in one of these communities for a year and then let us know how they got on. Just remember you won't have a house, a car, and the only shop will be a community store with a range of frozen mutton. Oh, and no TV or internet either. Hope your good at keeping your kids amused when the temperatures 40 degrees
each day in summer and below freezing most nights in winter.

Kyangadac “When people suggest that in these circumstances child petrol sniffers (most are primary school age) should be responsible or their parents should be responsible, I'd like to suggest that they offer to exchange places with an indigenous family in one of these communities for a year and then let us know how they got on”

If aboriginal remote community life is so bereft of quality that they try to escape into a brain damaging haze (by alcohol or petrol abuse) – why do people bother to cling to it?

If an aboriginal community is so lacking in social values – why would you expect anyone with a reasonable values to expose their children to a society in which every one else is devoid of moral responsibility or accountability.

Plus if individuals themselves (infants are not responsible) thus their parents are not responsible – tell me who is responsible ( governments cannot be responsible for us – they are our servants – not out guardians)?

There is nothing stopping people moving themselves (and their petrol sniffing children) to find better circumstances – millions of Australian immigrants have proved that works.

Thankyou Col Rouge, I agree with you whole-heartedly.

Rainier? I certainly wasn't "blaming aboriginal people or their communities".

There is nothing new with youths getting high. There are many means by which they can do this. I'm pretty sure the price and availability of "conventional" drugs (like those taken by youths in big towns and cities) would be prohibitive in remote Aboriginal communities.

So Rainier you tell us: Do Aboriginal youths living in remote areas get high for the same reasons non-indigenous youths get high? Or is it because of cultural pressures of reconciling Aboriginal culture with white australian christian culture? Or are drugs part of the Aboriginal culture? If it isn't, then I belive petrol sniffing is a direct result of trying to force white christian culture onto Aborigines, ie "Assmiliation".

And part of that assimiliation has led to our Gov't allowing Aborigines to have different social/environmental accountablities to non-indigenous Australians (eg, different laws), or on-going welfare and assistance (see Col Rouge's points), etc. If the Gov insists on treating us differently, they are also responsible the consequences.

Col Rouge writes:"If aboriginal remote community life is so bereft of quality that they try to escape into a brain damaging haze (by alcohol or petrol abuse) – why do people bother to cling to it?" The problem with this sort of statement is that it is a generalization, as if everybody in the community is condoning petrol sniffing. Which clearly isn't the case in any community.

A major cultural difference that Aboriginal communities have is one of extended family obligations. These obligations to kin often apply no matter what. We Europeans may discard are family like a skin and reinvent ourselves without prejudice. For historical as well as cultural reasons this is not the case for most aboriginal communities. As a consequence it is often difficult if not impossible for individuals to operate outside their family context. This is why families like the Dodson's and Yunupingu's dominate Aboriginal politics. The converse is also true, dysfunctional families hold back otherwise personally responsible individuals. This cultural conflict can be extremely difficult for young people in particular.

The situation in remote communities where petrol sniffing is rife has a lot to do with the economic history of these places and the inability of people to escape because they are too poor and have no where to go. Most Aborginal people over 50 have no education in these communities and many cannot speak more than a limited amount of English. Would you leave your grandmother in a humpy in the desert to fend for herself, especially if you yourself knew no other life.

Many of these communities are artificial. Consider Papunya for instance, which did not exist until the 1950's and has a poulation of approximately 1000. The vast majority of it's residents were moved their forcibly in the 1950's to create the testing range for Woomera.

As Paul Kelly sang, we have always had 'special treatment' for Aboriginal people - most Aboriginal people are sick of special treatment. Most remote Aboriginal communities would love the same services that are taken for granted in most remote and rural 'white' towns

There are no text book solutions. Eleanor Hogan may well ask “After ten years - what exactly has been achieved” in indigenous communities in regards to petrol sniffing. I reckon this problem is more complex than the type of fuels and solvents available to youth in any area. What we have today is whole communities under severe stress and it probably dates back to the original disruption of their culture.

Although I have no personal experience of life in those targeted remote areas I feel some sympathy with this kind of frustration. After living next door to a “metho” drinking mob and watching visiting kids (relatives) demolish the old mans carefully stacked long neck bottle collection down my side fence with two half bricks one wild weekend, I guess can comment.

Our authorities responded to the old “sister” on fire in the backyard toilet after a cigarette, newspapers and “turps” explosion with a police eviction and demolition of the ancient two room weatherboard seaside cottage by a front end loader.

The burnt out old boxer gave me his only possessions, a new shifting spanner, a hammer and a tin of salvaged nails from their drift wood. He was sad to leave the beach but trusted me to fix my place. Perhaps there is still hope on the inside if enough members of families can be encouraged to fight their degeneration regardless of any outside administration.

The most amazing fact was those kids had no fear. When they retrieved their bricks from all the smashed bottles I noticed their bare feet as they climbed back on the roof of the washhouse toilet to resume their game.

They had real fun till I stopped them showering our place with brown glass

Following on; the nasty habit of youth petrol sniffing may simply start as an early expression of freedom from what ever pressures they perceive back home. But understanding their way of thinking is only the first step. I doubt our policy writers will understand any of this though.

We have winners and losers in every society.

A red haired pommey guy on parole for arson in our sometimes isolated community once said “on the inside, you need to make a brutal choice – are you on top or underneath the dog pile”. Although he had used his brains to get an early release several of us were shocked one day when he suddenly left to seek a violent revenge. His estranged wife and mother of seven red haired beautiful kids was accidentally discovered living far away with his “friend” by a workmate. She had succumbed to the “cultural isolation” of her life in an adjacent tiny mining community.

This region was featured again yesterday on ABC radio as a target area for top end tax relief. What a load of Polly nonsense!

I am not surprised. Decades on from my own attempts through our committee of union stewards to reform welfare by demands on both federal and state governments to re-examine conditions in those neglected towns, it seems their problems go on indefinitely.

Although we got a major initiative then from both administrations and forced several sackings in local agencies including recruitment, everyone has forgotten the lessons, but some of us know why people are driven to extremes in their re-action. I made it my business to understand something about say –alcohol or arson.

We thought we were articulate in our documentation. What hope have the indigenous communities got?

Aren’t we so smug when we are not involved!

Col Rouge - I was referring to your earlier post when I said I agreed with you. Your latest post: " governments cannot be responsible for us – they are our servants – not out guardians" - I would say that the Government is responsible TO us. It is accountable TO us. This includes accountability for policies it has implemented - in this case, those policies clearly have not worked.

The issue here is one of differing cultures and the Aborigines' need to cling to its past. But if a mixture of cultures are to co-exist on an equal basis, then the watering down of our cultures is inevitable. It's important to have knowledge and understanding of the cultural past, but unless the Aboriginies are fully self-sufficient, having separate "pockets" of Aboriginal communities within "white" Australia can never work.

the crux of this issue is that on those aboriginal communities, whether its mutitjulu or cherbourg, there is this - nothing to do.
alcohol, substances, suicide, violence - it all stems back to that issue of nothing to do.

on top of that is the historical issues, yes it goes back to days of inception of these communities, their purpose and the treatment of the people.

those communities need to be developed in such a way as to provide community members with a role in that development and ongoing operation/management, and in a way that will provide the community the means to contribute in an economic context back to itself and the wider community. this development must include aboriginal cultural influences because it involves aboriginal people, some who are still living 'close to traditional lifestyles', a practical mixture of two-worlds.

easier said than done - obviously.

the other crux is the general attitude of non-aboriginal australians toward aboriginal australians. whilst the last 40 years have seen improvements in general attitudes, those old deep rooted notions are still very much alive.

i am an aboriginal woman who lives in urbania australia, i run my own business, send my children to school to achieve and am involved in my community. comments like the initial one made by lisamaree prove those old notions live on and do little except maintain barriers.

Kalalli, whilst I agree with most of what you say, both you and Rainier have totally misunderstand the point I was trying to make with my original statement. Let me be quite clear with my meaning:

I, and I'm sure many (most?) urban-dwelling "white" australians, do not see many aboriginals "conducting a normal a life as many australians". It was not meant as passing "comment". This is not a "notion". It's not an "attitude". It's a Fact. It does not mean I am putting up any barriers. It does not mean I live a rarified existence. So please try to get that huge chip off your shoulder and forget all the boring old cliches. I congratulate any australian who makes a positive contribution to australian society, and brings up their children to do the same.

Why, when confronted with the complexity of issues in Indigenous affairs, do white Australians trot out their favorite 'I once knew, know of, Aborigine story to qualify their latest (apparently) well informed analysis?

It’s as though Australians do not know and relate to Aboriginal people in real time but they can relate to stories told by their 'mates', parents, grandparents. And let’s not forget those they make up just to sound authoritative, justified, and worldly and anthropologically knowledgeable. I wonder if every white Australian family has an heirloom aboriginal story they pass down to through their grandkids for protection against…..?

Kalalli,
Well at least you tried sister, a month of sundays with a psycho therapist would see exactly the same results you got.

"It’s as though Australians do not know and relate to Aboriginal people in real time but they can relate to stories told by their 'mates', parents, grandparents. And let’s not forget those they make up just to sound authoritative, justified, and worldly ...." etc etc.

And yet, from the same person:

"Why.......do white Australians trot out their favorite 'I once knew, know of, Aborigine story to qualify their latest (apparently) well informed analysis? "

and another from the same:

" could go on about Aboriginal history and Joh (whom I knew) and his redneck ideologies and practices but I fear this might offend those Qlders who grew up learning Joh myths and not the facts of his fascist regime. Its understandable, even Hitler still has supporters in Germany."

aaand another...:

"Anytime you'd like me to show you around the Cape, let me know. But beware; us Aborigines up here have orthodox political views just like everyone else. (shock horror!) ...On your way up you can drop into one of the more opulent suburbs of Cairns and have a chardonnay or two.....(poolside of course). "

O the irony of it!

any aboriginal person who grows up or interacts within white societal boundaries/conditions as oppossed to growing up on an aboriginal community has to be thick skinned and able to deal with racist rednecks or be in trouble with the law.

plain and simple breakdown of assimilated life in the burbs.

you aint white but u not like them other blacks and u sure got some chip on your shoulder!

on a community you live with other aboriginal people, and aboriginal themes dominate the daily way of life. in the city its different, daily life is spent with a mixture of people who affect daily life. how u deal with them affects every other aboriginal person.

lisamaree,

Irony? How can what I have written be called ironic? Read carefully dear as what I have written is from my personal life experience as an Indigenous person.( Warning: I'm from the bush and live in the urbs now, so this might confuse your geo-political defintions of what is a real 'aborigine', and yes I'm very black skinned, oowee!)

I think it would be universally accepted that first hand experience and is very different from observations made from a safe distance (as my previous post questioned) -that is - observations I suspect that are made through the blinds of your window, gossip, and idle chit chat with others whose only relationship with Indigenous people is more surreal than real.

Irony, ironic?

And English is my second/thirdish language, whats your excuse?

PS. I saw Elvis the other day and he passes on his best wishes to you. (I'm kidding, no really, I'm just joking..)

that attitude of blinding yourselves to the facts that there are aboriginal people out there who live a 'normal' life, most of them are doing and combine their heritage in the mix, others deny it totally.

yeah that might be your reality lisa maree, but its not mine.

its that attitude of ignorance, just because you see it like that dont mean that it is like that.

that ignorance is rampant across australia.

Hi Kalilli, Yes I understand what you're saying - I'm not arguing your point that most if not all minority groups can and do get a rough deal due to the ignorance and attitudes of others. It's a sad fact that poeple get treated differently just because they are a minority (just check out some of the posts in other threads re lebanese, muslims, etc). I'm not saying that any aborigine living in a city isn't able or capable of conducting as normal a life as many australians, so please can we clear that up. OK so you think I have put up barriers - possibly so - but I am more than willing to acknowledge that it's through no fault of the aboriginal community that there are such barriers. How do you reconcile this? Re-reading your posts, I think you've nailed it in one with your comment of a need for "a practical mixture of the two-worlds" and "provide the (aboriginal) community the means to contribute in an economic context back to itself and the wider community." Spot on.

ps...Rainier. Maybe you don't realise your posts are showing you up as someone that has absolutely no positive contribution to make to this discussion except to put down anyone who dares to say they've had limited interaction with the indigenous community? Yes I'm guilty of that. Maybe I, and every other white australian, should live in an aboriginal community for a while before they're allowed to have an opinion. Would I need to conform to aboriginal lore in order to do that? Failing that, I could email you my opinions first before posting so you can vet them and tell me what my opinions should be? You could convert them to several languages for your amusement if you like.

"Observations from a *safe* distance" - well yes they may be from a distance, but you're also implying it's "unsafe" to be at a close distance! Not a very good argument that one :-)

And "...made though blinds of your window gossip idle chat...". Another personal observation - your telepathic skills have failed you on that one too. Face it Rainier, your attitude is exactly what you're (incorrectly) accusing me of, except by some miracle of inversion I should even consider your derogatory remarks.

hey, i just accused you of being ignorant, you provided the evidence, not me.

Ignorance can be bliss, as they say. I have learnt one thing though: There's no point in pursuing reasonable dialogue with a person that is their own worst enemy. Hopefully one day you'll lose that big chip off your shoulder :-)