Dearest Foxy,

Oh, don't tease me !

As a sort of indicator of what might well happen in, say, fifty years: long ago, I used to frequent the Dom Polski, the Polish House, here in Adelaide. I asked a Polish friend recently if it still held functions, dances, etc. He said that no, it had more or less fallen into disuse, and had been sold. But Poles could still meet at a cafe/restaurant just south of the city centre. So no more spirited performances of 'Sto Lat !' I suppose something similar has happened to the Hibernian and Caledonian Societies of the late nineteenth century.

Observing students of many ethnic backgrounds decanting from a local high school, it is heartening to see the easy mixing of girls and boys. The next inter-mixing generations of Australian children are going to be that much more healthy and beautiful than ever - what Darwin would call 'hybrid vigour' will prevail. I wish I was fifty, or even a hundred, years younger, but there you go.

Love,

Joe

Currently Muslims in Australia are asking for two public holidays for their two annual Eid celebrations.
A petition has been submitted to the Parliament of Australia asking for Eid Ul-Fitr and Eid Al Adha to be publicly recognised.

2.5% of the population wants the whole Nation to have a holiday to celebrate Islamic events. Is Paul and Toni are going to celebrate those Public holidays I wonder? No booze!

Dear Joe,

You're absolutely spot on.

The younger generations are a part of today's cultural mix.
The older generations are slowly disappearing.
The future belongs to the young.

Lithuanian House here in Melbourne is still functioning -
but now it's mainly made up of recent arrivals from
Lithuania. The locals don't frequent the place very often.
Only on special events and festivals. And even then - not
as it used to be. That's life.

Nice to have a good story about two people from a region usually maligned.

They are possibly middle eastern, any corrections to that are welcome.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6194061/A-Chinese-passport-30-000-mysterious-receipt-Train-ing-wallet.html

Two train employees have been rewarded for returning a wallet containing almost $30,000 cash to its rightful owner.

Fahd Elshorafa and Naresh Awal from Sydney Trains noticed an unattended bag at North Strathfield station on March 8, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The pair used their detective skills to track down the owner.

They were honoured for their efforts at the Sydney Trains customer service awards and received the 'beyond brilliant' award.

The mysterious bag contained a Chinese passport belonging to 34-year-old man and a receipt from an Auburn money exchange - which became key clues for their investigation.

The pair were 'anxious' about the discovery and decided to call the money exchange in a bid to alert the passenger about the loss.

'We were thinking the customer must be really distressed, so I was really trying to figure out how to get it back to them,' Mr Awal said.

The man was unaware he had lost his money but was thankful for the efforts of the Sydney Trains employees.

The man broke down at the station and continued to repeat 'thank you'.

Mr Awal said the man offered to give the pair a reward for their findings which they kindly denied.

'He tried to give us some money as a reward but we said, ''That's not what we need — we really needed to find you and we found you,'' ' he told the Daily Telegraph.

'I feel really satisfied. Still now I have that memory of his happy face, and that's what we are here for.'

Mr Elshorafa and Mr Awal were commended for their 'integrity' and 'honesty' by Transport Minister Andrew Constance.

The man had exchanged the money to fund tuition costs in Australia.

Great to have you back Joe. I see it in my own extended family, the younger generation still to some degree understand their ancestral roots and respect them, that is great. However the kids live busy lives and their day to day culture is a Worldly mix of 'Facebook', mobile phones and McDonald's, you know what I mean. Just as my old Greek neighbor clings to her traditions of another time and another place, her family are very much part of the Australian way of life, they are very much multicultural.

Nice benefits, any nice drawbacks of multiracial over multicultural ?