But palimpsest, you can use that as an excuse for almost any behaviour.

>>Pericles, cricket teams mirror the mores of their times<<

Right now, the US sporting scene is going through paroxysms over allegations of widespread drug use in baseball. Reputations have been destroyed, credibility lost, and legions of fans betrayed. Few commentators doubt that the scandal will have an impact on attendance in the upcoming season, and on the always-critical TV audience.

Since drug usage is without doubt a classic example of mirroring the "mores of their times", this makes it OK?

The parallel with cheating is instructive. Both are examples of voluntary behaviour based upon the ethics of the individual, and contrary to the spirit of the game.

Drug use in sport has become so widespread that some folk are suggesting that drug tests are abandoned, and that competitors can use whatever performance enhancing techniques they choose.

Is this really a good idea? Because it exactly parallels your stance on cheating in cricket.

EasyTimes makes the same point.

>>So you can walk all you like but in the end its to your disadvantage and seeing that the other team has the same option when playing competitively bending the rules in your favour can be the difference between winning and loosing<<

That would seem to be it then. Cheating becomes sanctioned as a way of life in cricket, and sadly, very few people seem to care.

It's all about winning, any way you can.

Steroids, anyone?

Leigh is geographically challenged - and yes, it should have been
a "Balkan chip on his shoulder."

But then - Balkan, Baltic, what's the difference - right?
Austria, Australia - same thing...

PART I

To call Australia, or any Western Country, a racist country (let alone one of the most racist countries), is not only pathetic but rude to a generous, liberal people, and most of all it is itself an extremely racist comment coming from a non-Westerner, who's parents came from a society much more closed minded culturally and socially conservative, much less or NO immigration, certainly no multiculturalism, and no doubt a higher intra-cultural marriage rate than all these things in Australia.

In 1950s the demographic makeup of Australia was around 90-95% Anglo heritiage, and in the 2001 census the population of all people of Anglo heritage was down to about 45%, includes all people born in Australia who claim Anglo heritage and all people born in the UK who now claim Australian citizenship.

Not to mention that, as with all liberal democracies of North-Western Europe (as I think it is clear that the Southern and Eastern European nations are much more religious and socially conservative than the North West), due to extreme ability to undergo change of all sorts, including cultural, the rest of world pathetically makes jokes about how there is no culture etc.

A good example is here in Australia: what culture? they say. I say, this culture: One that has made all these changes: demographic changes, the massive workforce restructuring where most manual labor factory jobs are now entirely in Asia. Go to Sydney or Melbourne and you will clearly see that, whilst nationwide Anglos are 45%, in these cities it seems more like 10% Anglos. The issue is not that there just needs to be Anglos everywhere, it clearly is not since it is ONLY the ANGLO cultures of North-West European descent that have ever undergone such massive demographic changes, where the new citizens are complete equals in law. More than just being the only peoples to undergo these massive changes, the changes have occurred with no street protests, no violence. If anything, due to the racism and violence of some groups we have brought here it has caused many ANglos to flee Sydney altogether.

Part II

How dare you call Australians racist. Most people who are from monocultural and social conservative backgrounds (most immigrants come under this group) are going to be more likely to blame others for their culturally internal fear and hate, this is what is occurring when someone from the Middle East, or Greece, or Italy, or Eastern Europe or Asia calls Australians racist.

As for wondering where our culture is, well,being a post-enlightened North-Western European culture, as Australia is, we have left all the superficial aspects of ourselves largely behind. We have absorbed all the good bits from most other cultures in the world, and in true democratic style, all these things such as fashion, what we eat, pop art, etc., are in constant flux.

If you wanted to find a specific dance or a certain dress or dish when you look at an Anglo culture, whilst those things are still there in the background, but they are largely in the distant past, left there with hatred and fear of others and war tribal mentalities, the type that leads the Serbs, Croats and Greeks to cause ethnic violence at the old NSL games and now the tennis, or the kind that causes the Lebanese muslims to wantonly attack Anglo men and women randomly and non-stop, even killing and gang raping.

These things are all still in us but written down in history books. The best kind of "culture" that current liberal democratic peoples like to practice is tolerance, respect for others, open mindedness, decency, all things that the Anglo peoples of the world have proven they have more of by being the only nations in the world's history to undergoe mass migration and multiculturalism, where these new people are treated in all areas as equal.

Stop "othering" the Anglos and confront the racism of your own Eastern European heritage, Mr Bagaric. Start with the Australian open at Melbourne, where no doubt ethnic violence will again occur.

Dear White Warlock,

As I've written in a previous post - it's important to remember Australia before the wave of the 1948 -49 migration. It was dull, self-satisfied and joylessly conformist. Not simply null and boring, but nullarboring. Not merely mindless, but lobotomised.

Anglo-Saxons ruled indeed...

Your food, like your beliefs, was basic. At your place, the diet was toast with dripping. Golden Syrup or Mira Plum jam while the main meal was likely to be skewered corned beef awash in tomato sauce with mashed potato stained with two slices of beetroot. Bread was High Tin or Square Tin and cheese was a choice of cheddar off the block or Kraft in blue packets.

In the past you had to travel the globe (which thanks to multi-cultural marketing, media and technology is suffering from galloping homogeneity) to see worlds that contrasted with your own.

In a multi-cultural society, as you eventually became, such experiences were within walking distance. Or over the back fence. Good heavens you could suddenly even risk inviting them inside...

Do you remember ordering my first "cappa-cheeno." Minutes later you may have learned two new words from the man behind the hellishly steaming espresso machine - "prego" and "grazie."

Then things happened in a rush. You may have seen your first films with writing-on-the-bottom at the Savoy, had your first Greek and Italian friends (mind you - second generation they tended to over-conform to what they thought were Australian values. Still it was a beginning). And just possibly you may have begun to suspect that the world didn't end sharply a few miles byond St. Kila beach.

You're absolutely right White Warlock - Australia wasn't (and certainly isn't today) ever racist.

You and your post are living proof of that!

Dear Foxy

Once Australians were racist.

Why don't you celebrate the change today rather than harbouring ill feeling towards Australians of older heritage because of the attitudes of their parents, Grand-parents, Great-grand parents, Great-great-grand parents and Great-great-great-grand parents.

We've forgiven them, helped many alter their attitudes and moved on.
Why can't you? We arn't scared of change ... it's part of our heritage. I think you look at White warlock's views in a fashion unbecoming to open-minded liberalism. Never once in WW's post did I see a hint of WW suggesting Australia wasn't racist in the past. He did suggest anglo-descended Australians were less racist and evidence of that was less than evidence of racist attitudes among non-anglo later arrivals. But I think because you cannot absorb WW's view you simply point the racist finger.

It's so much cleverer and ... a lot bloody easier than thinking.

But look if you actually do some real study you'll find even among our older settlers each generation had it's liberal and open-minded pioneers who had attitudes that led the world ... and led to many changes