Here one can really tell the men from the boys. Say what you like but Abbott is all for having women employed to their full capacity. It is just that he believes women are at their peak of fulfilment having babies and doing the ironing at home while supporting dad.
Here Mr Abbott in full flight giving an honest opinion of his support for women;

“There are some good and talented women knocking on the door of the ministry.” Prime Minister Tony Abbott defending his one-woman cabinet.
“They’re young, they’re feisty, I think I can probably say have a bit of sex appeal …” Mr Abbott on what the then candidate for Lindsay, Fiona Scott, and former Liberal MP Jackie Kelly had in common.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ernies-tony-abbott-given-repeat-offender-award-for-sexist-comments-20131010-2v9dz.html#ixzz2kqrByyNY

A few weeks ago an American, Luke Mogelson and a Dutchman, Joel van Houdt, had stowed themselves on a boat of refugees heading for Australia from Indonesia. The New York Times have now published the subsequent story with photographs. A must read for those that are interested in the plight of those trying to escape the horrors of wars and upheavals.

To read the whole story click above link. A fascinating read with excellent photography.

It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive, normally, from Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, to the southern coast of Java. In one of the many trucks that make the trip each month, loaded with asylum seekers from the Middle East and Central Asia, it takes a little longer. From the bed of the truck, the view is limited to a night sky punctuated by fleeting glimpses of high-rise buildings, overpasses, traffic signs and tollbooths. It is difficult to make out, among the human cargo, much more than the vague shapes of bodies, the floating tips of cigarettes. When you pass beneath a street lamp, though, or an illuminated billboard, the faces thrown into relief are all alive with expectation. Eventually, the urban pulse subsides; the commotion of the freeway fades. The drooping wires give way to darkly looming palms. You begin to notice birds, and you can smell the sea.

In September, in one of these trucks, I sat across from a recently married couple in their 20s, from Tehran. The wife, who was seven months pregnant, wore a red blouse stretched over her stomach; the husband a tank top, thick-rimmed glasses and a faux hawk that revealed a jagged scar (courtesy, he said, of the Iranian police). Two months had passed since they flew to Jakarta; this was their fourth attempt to leave. Twice, en route to the boat that would bring them to Australia, they were intercepted, detained and paid bribes for their release. Another time, the boat foundered shortly after starting out. All the same, they were confident this trip would be different. Like everyone else’s in the truck, theirs was a desperate kind of faith. “Tonight we will succeed,” the husband assured me. They were determined that the child be born “there.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-15/abbott-regrets-baby-situation-but-wont-apologise/5095364

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he “deeply” regrets that an asylum seeker was given limited access to her sick baby, but won’t apologise “for what happens when people come to Australia illegally”.

Latifa, a Rohingyan woman from Myanmar, gave birth in Brisbane’s Mater Hospital last week but was returned to a detention centre while her baby remained in the neonatal intensive care unit.

For several days the Immigration Department only allowed Latifa to visit her baby at the hospital between 10:00am and 4:00pm.

Mr Abbott says he has read reports about Latifa’s case and “deeply” regrets that she was separated from her child.

“But we’ve got to ask ourselves, why have any of these things happened?” he said on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka.

“They’ve happened because people have come to Australia illegally by boat and if you want to avoid these things, you’ve got to stop the boats.

“I don’t, as it were, apologise for what happens when people come to Australia illegally by boat, because I am determined, as the new Government is determined, to stop this dangerous, this horrible business.”

The baby was discharged from hospital yesterday.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister Scott Morrison yesterday said doctors at the hospital had advised that it is common for mothers not to stay overnight because of bed restrictions.
Latifa
Photo: Latifa was only allowed to visit her baby between the hours of 10:00am and 4:00pm. (Supplied)

But in a statement, the Mater Hospital suggested Latifa should have been allowed to visit her child whenever she wanted.

The hospital says it encourages new mothers to be involved in the baby’s care wherever possible to help establish a strong bond, and does not place restrictions on visiting hours.

“Mater places no restrictions on women and they can visit their baby anytime where possible,” the statement said.

In his weekly media briefing today, Mr Morrison revealed he has asked his department to investigate the matter.

“I have requested my department to look at the arrangements that were put around that particular instance to ensure that a mother would have as much access to their child as they would request and consistent with the standards and opportunities that would be otherwise available to any Australian at that hospital,” he said.

“The issue here was also bed restrictions and bed restrictions don’t apply only to people who might be transferees in this situation, they apply to Australians as well.”

“I’m sure no-one is suggesting that anyone who found themselves in this situation as an asylum seeker should be receiving preferable treatment over, to any, Australian in that situation.”

Former Liberal leader John Hewson this morning accused Mr Morrison of arrogance and condemned the decision to limit the woman’s access to her baby as inhumane.

“It’s inhumanity in the extreme in my view, I mean a mother in these circumstances is normally given 24-hour access to a child in intensive care,” Dr Hewson told Sky News.

“I mean for heaven’s sake, Morrison can go make all the short-term points he likes out there, but this is something I think that sends absolutely the wrong message.”

Grandparents grand wedding
November 1, 2013

The photo above is of my paternal grandparents’ wedding, back in the 1890′s or so. The tall rather forbidding looking man on the right at the back is my Grandfather, sitting next him, his lovely bride with the gown, my grandmother. A rather sombre looking bridal party. In those days taking interior photos must have been difficult. Perhaps the party was fed up with posing and wanted to get stuck in the vino and food. One of the males seated at the table is Huib Luns. He was the father of Joseph Luns, a future Government minister and Secretary General.

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huib_Luns

I so would like to know who the other family members are. I suppose brothers and sisters of the couple. The whole wedding photo does indicate that from my father’s side there is a solid bourgeois background with perhaps a bit of money lurking about. However, they did produce six children and with two world wars, and grandpa doing work on mural assignments, perhaps mainly from religious organisations, he would have had times of stress as well.

I do remember my parents having to give financial support towards the end of their lives. It must have been during that period in the fifties and sixties when pensions and other social services were slow coming of the ground. In any case, after my parents’ migration to Australia, the subject of financial support to his parents was a frequent bone of discontent. My parents quarrelled over that subject. No wonder, we were hardly in the clover ourselves!

This photo was our first abode in Australia. We lived in that temporary dwelling for over two years before we build our house. It was made of asbestos sheeting. The space was 32 square metres and the 8 of us took turns in turning around during the night when all the mattresses were put into place. It was not the Utopia of a ‘promised land’.
But what could we do?
I do wonder how my grandparents expectations turned out. The wedding photo is the beginning of a life. One of my previous articles showed them at the end. How did it all go? There were problems with some of the children afterwards. They never saw us again, nor their grandchildren. To be torn away from a culture could not have been easy for my parents.
The differences. Priests at Christmas time smelling of beer, Bogong moths swirling around, the heat, the lack of empathy or understanding. We were not convicts nor reffos. No sewer. The weekly dunny man collecting drums of our effluence.

So many differences, such a battle. The memory still able to make tears.
dunnyman

PS. I just assumed it was a wedding at the Amsterdam ‘Krasnapolski Hotel’ and it was. Look at this photo.

Posted in Gerard Oosterman |

You sometimes wonder where does it all come from? The first 50 days of our elected government have been whisper quiet. Not a murmur of discontent. Goodness and sweetness is being spread all around.

Morrison is keeping ‘micro intelligence’ to himself and Abbott remains hidden in a veil of tantalising obscurity that Salome would be envious of. However, they now have a serious problem of keeping it all below the table. Indonesia is threatening to put a spoke in Abbott’s well oiled chain of command. How dare those nasi-goreng eaters get agitated when we want boat people to be returned to their small country of over 260.000.000 people..

Another item is the haze surrounding the navy and army. Sexual encounters on Face -book, sex-texting, white board markers in anuses, water bottles get lost in same. What is happening here? It is normal, it is normal, were some of the responses on the ABC Drum on the Hazing issue.

Well, let me assure you and agree. It is normal in our culture. The sexual abuse of young people is an ingrained part of initiation ceremonies at schools, jobs, navy, army, just about everywhere.
I was astonished to learn of those many years ago. They are not wildly exaggerated sweeping claims as was being claimed by a respondent. Bullying is ‘de riguer’ all around us still. The ‘hazing’ got nothing to do with welcoming a new young person in the workforce and everything to do with bullying.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-08/laplonge-punishing-the-men-wont-stop-hazing/5079272

No doubt I will get accused of drawing a long bow but I would like to do so in any case. What are the chances of some of our politicians behaviour being a result of how they were given the Blue Cobalt around their genitals, or as someone else remarked the common practise of shellacking testicles as part of those ceremonies that were widespread. They were certainly very common in the late fifties and sixties. I experienced those rituals on all the jobs that I worked at. Did it just disappear overnight?
The army and navy almost routinely come up with sexual bullying every few years and yet it continues. Now, relate Mr Abbott with his callous disregard for others. Even the most minimum of civility to those that attempt to question him. His total contempt for our environment and threat of ecological disaster. Mr Morrison, the same hatred for truth and empathy to others. His sneering contempt for any question about refugees. His relish when he tell reporters ‘illegals’ will be sent off to Manus as quickly as possible. Not a hint or tiny sliver of empathy.
Did they also get the initiation treatment, the cobalt blue or shellacking? I gave him a ‘good shellacking’ might well have been his tormenter sneering aside some decades ago.
What do you think?