Paul, no I make an appalling tourist so even though I enjoy the food and the scenery, I've travelled the world enough in my day.
No these trips from now on are for the good wife as was agreed years ago, work, kids, schooling, then once they move on she can have the run of the world and with all the weight of the family and day to day responsibilities diminished (not completely gone) she is free to plan as many trips/cruises she wishes, and I'm under strict orders not to die until she is well and truly toured out.
So thanks for asking, I hope you're still awake, didn't mean to go on.

Dear Narelle47,

You write;

“Fascinating stuff when people are prepared to share and dialogue in a friendly manner.”

You forgot the word genuine. Firstly it helps if you do not misrepresent yourself as a first time poster when you weren't. Secondly if you are going to attack someone like Pascoe you need to have at least read his book. Thirdly if you assert something and then when challenged you refuse to even attempt to back things up but instead say you are not engaging because “he/she has no debating or discussion skills” it sends the very obvious signal the cupboard is bare.

There is absolutely no problem with having entrenched views, hell I have them in spades, but I come here to have mine challenged. Those challenges need to be substantive. I am always up for learning more when having to defend my positions. For instance in the course of the debate on Falou I felt what had been done to him was unjust and an overreach.

Now it was your entrenched view that it was the 'Greenies wot done the Canberra fires'. I quoted from the findings of the very extensive investigations into that fire which said it wasn't. Did that really have any chance of causing you to change your view on the matter? If it did then it becomes a dialogue. If it didn't then you are just here to have your prejudices validated by the likes of ALTRAV although chasing him down his rabbit warrens must be a task. Here is a word to the wise, don't get too strident or 'uppity' because he has a tendency to 'those kind of women' maggots.

Dear Foxy,

Thank you for raising the topic. The World Heritage listing is for something which is entirely a product of Australian Aborigines. That is certainly something to celebrate.

Dear Paul,

Bruce Pascoe's book really is fascinating.
I'm learning so much.

Dear Belly,

Thank You for continuing to brighten my day.

Dear Steele,

I was so excited when I heard the news about Budj Bim
being added to the World Heritage List. It certainly
is worth celebrating. It's a great way pf acknowledging
our history. A good place to start.

SR, thankfully you are not an authority on anything that matters and it's good to see you are willing to learn, because you conduct yourself as a 'know it all', so given the fact that you have to research your comments, tells us that you are willing to learn.
Now my calling 'those kinds of women maggots', is quite appropriate, if you had any inkling of what it means.
You sir, have been neutered and so it is that your opinion on the topic of women is moot.
You see judging by what I read of Narelle47, she is in fact, 'my kind of woman'.
So again you fail in your attempt at virtue shaming, and anyway, have you not learned yet, even though you say you are prepared to learn, that I have no shame, you cannot virtue shame me nor intimidate me, I enjoy a good stoush.
Now to educate you some more.
Based on the evidence supplied and on the record, there have been thousands, (I doubt if millions) that have come down from lands above us and all manner of races precede the blacks (sorry Belly) so these latest findings are more than likely from previous inhabitants that were wiped out by the blacks.
If these findings were from the blacks, then where is the link or in fact any evidence today of any correlation between the two?
There is none, so their not connected.

Foxy,

Since I was the first to mention Sturt in this thread and specifically talked of having read his journals previously, perhaps just regurgitating what Pascoe tells you about Sturt's journeys is superfluous.

The problem with this type of reasoning is that its back-to-front. Pascoe has started with the answer and then looked for the data. I know that's how Foxy, SR et al work, but it isn't how the search for truth works.

Pascoe, desperate to find instances of aboriginals living well on the wild grains they find, cherry-picks Sturt and other data. He finds those passages that support his views and the Foxy's of the world think they are representative of what Sturt found. But passages from Sturt like these won't be considered as relevant.

* "In many places the natives have but a scanty and precarious subsistence,.."

* "One great cause of the deaths amongst the Aborigines is their liability to pulmonary diseases from being constantly in the water. They are much annoyed by rain, nor will any thing induce them to stir during wet weather, but they sit shivering in their huts even in the height of summer. There is no people in the world so unprovided against inclemency or extremes of weather as they are. They have literally nothing to cover them, to protect them from the summer heat or the winter's cold; nor would any charity be greater than to supply these poor people with clothing."

(It should also be noted that the people who feed Sturt from their great bounty (yes, that's sarcasm) were among the first to settle on the edge of homesteads established in their area so as to access the flour supplies available. Indeed many Europeans died at the hands of aboriginal parties who sought to steal their flour supplies - a stange thing to happen if they were all such wondrous farmers.)

/cont

/cont

The problem is the extension of logic based on nothing other than hope. Some groups utilise the great bounty in their region and its then assumed this is standard for most groups. A few manage fish supplies and its insinuated this applies across the continent.

But to see how insne and illogical this is, take the issue of cannibalism. Sturt talks several times of some groups practising it. Using the same logic as that of Budj Bin are we to infer that this applied to most groups. Someone should write a book destroying the myth that most natives weren't cannibals. (sarcasm again). Would such a book find a publisher?

Foxy goes on about Pascoe winning many awards. Its true, but not for his history. Historians aren't taking this seriously. Its based on a biased reading of information that's been available for decades. It has no historic accuracy. But it is political valuable and in less informed circles will be accepted as valid.

Its not just Sturt that's being distorted. Books by people like William Buckley who lived with the Wadawurrung tribe for 30 years wrote extensively about his time with them. He talkstheir warfare and misogyny but never, as I recall, about any agricultural habits of the tribe. real truth-seekers would put great store by his writings. But, because he's not telling the approved twist, he's ignored.

Yet, even with all this distortion, more still is needed. So words have to be manipulated. So now people like SR insist that throwing a few seeds on the ground each time you're passing by is "agriculture". "Farming" is gathering wild seeds. Words get distorted and then the claim is made that agriculture and farming occurred here just like elsewhere in the world. But anyone with the least honesty, knows that what happened around the Nile and the Euphrates was worlds apart from what happened around the Murray.

But Pascoe is telling people what they want to hear, and they won't and don't dare look at his facts too closely. He'll be a passing fade and then the facts will reassert themselves.