A new book (published March 21, 2017), by Jancee Dunn, How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids:http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2017/05/happy_mother_s_day_you_will_hate_your_husband_after_having_a_baby.html
https://www.amazon.com/Hate-Your-Husband-After-Kids/dp/0316267104, probably should have been called: Don’t Get married, Or Don’t have Kids. Here is a sample of what to expect in reading this book, from an extract at Slate.com:

“Perhaps the single most widely cited piece of research on marriage and children comes from couples’ therapists John and Julie Gottman, who found that 67 percent of couples are less satisfied with their marriages after having a baby. A 2009 study of first-time parents in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that a scant 7 percent of mothers reported feeling more satisfied with their marriage, compared with 15 percent of fathers. (As of now, the available research is much more robust for heterosexual couples.) Many factors conspire to shorten a new parent’s fuse: hallucinatory fatigue, zigzagging hormones, a fraught learning curve, and, as one paper I read noted succinctly, “increased interactions with medical professionals.”

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     The assertions of a couple of eminent citizens on constitutional recognition (‘Conservatives back “tangible” change model’, 17/5) are unlikely to change the views of the great mass of conservative Australians, who in any referendum will not support any proposal, ‘minimalist’ or ‘substantive’, that threatens the political unity of our nation and which is fundamentally inequitable.
     We keep seeing it from republicans; now we see it from advocates of constitutional recognition: intensely uttered assertions quite unsupported by convincing analysis and reasoning. What fools Australians will be if they allow either noisy group to disrupt the peace and security of our continent and nation! Adequate recognition can and does occur without any dangerous tampering with the constitution.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic  

     As a divorced school teacher, I don’t have much to do in my free time, so imagine my delight to discover that someone from China is reading our work, and savagely criticising us, well, me! At last a true purpose in life, free to devote hours of once wasted time now  to counter-attacking! Life has meaning again!

    Now Mr Li, I call him, was  strongly opposed to the idea that Nordics, Northern Europeans have anything worthwhile in their pre-history, as well as the idea that Africans have less cultural accomplishments than Europeans, with the East Asians being top of the pops (Jews having the highest IQ though). I have responded to the Afro-centric thesis, which is rejected by most anthropologists, but perhaps Mr Li would like to talk about contemporary Chinese reactions to African migrants as depicted here: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/26/asia/africans-leaving-guangzhou-china/, and about a thousand other internet articles.

     Muslim academic Susan Carland, has joined the Islam/feminism debate, claiming that sharia law can in fact fight injustice against women and sexism: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/author-susan-carland-buys-into-feminist-islam-row/news-story/17b2a7cc7fed1f03836260bb897bd346. Just to be sure I get her position right, here is what is said in The Australian, and we therefore know that it must be good and tasty:

“Academic and author Susan Carland is the latest high-profile Muslim to publicly defend Islam’s feminist credentials, despite her own book conceding many of the faith believe the religion to be “inherently at odds” with feminism.
Launching Fighting Hislam: Women, Faith and Sexism in Sydney this week, Dr Carland claimed that sharia—the legal system adopted across many oppressive Islamic regimes—could be interpreted in such a way to fight sexism and injustice against women.
“You can have secular feminism, you can have Islamic feminism, you can have all different types of feminism,” she told the audience.
Dr Carland, a Sunni Muslim married to television presenter Waleed Aly, made a similar argument in an opinion piece published in The Conversation yesterday, where she wrote that “many Muslims see the Qur’an and hadith as a defence for their arguments against sexism, not as a stumbling block to women’s liberation”.

     Germany is now confiscating homes and giving them to migrants:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10352/germany-migrants-property-rights.
In Hamburg authorities have confiscated six units in the Hamm district and given them to migrants. The units will be renovated and the owners of the properties billed! It is rumoured that the German New World Order authorities will next force people to share their living space with migrants.

     Expect this sort of dispossession to be standard in the future across the West, as the elites turn up the heat, to burn us to a crisp.

     Once upon a time I was known as Len the Cleaner, and I wrote a mighty fine blog, between cleaning men’s toilets. I was never permitted to clean women toilets, that being done by my evil sister, Lennette the Cleaner.  Now, we have transgender bathrooms and people all over the internet have been sending in emails wanting to know my opinion about them. Look here is the enlightened public service doing the right thing again with people’s money: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/public-service-push-for-genderneutral-bathrooms-20170511-gw2taq.html.

     I think that the more toilets and genders we have the better things will be for people like me, who were born to clean up other people’s messes. And, the more genders, the better. I think there are 32 at the moment, but I could think up that many at breakfast. As that great defender of freedom, comedian Charlie Mao said, “let a thousand flowers bloom.” Somebody who killed millions would know a thing or two about messes.

     The Clexit Coalition today called on President Trump to keep his election promise to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty and stop US payments to all UN global warming programs.
The Clexit (ClimateExit) Coalition, comprising over 175 representatives from 25 countries, aims to prevent ratification or local enforcement of the UN Paris climate treaty.
See: http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf

    The Secretary of Clexit, Mr Viv Forbes of Australia, said that all nations will suffer from the destructive energy policies being promoted in the UN’s war on cheap, reliable hydro-carbon fuels and the backbone industries that rely on them – mining and smelting, farming, fishing, forestry, processing and manufacturing.
He was supported by Professor Will Happer, Professor of Physics at Princeton University who said today:

     How is this for a headline that reaches out and kicks you right in the…well…guts? “Washington is Preparing a Nuclear First Strike on Russia: Are You Ready to Die?” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47035.htm.
This is no mere crank article but is by respected journalist Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for financial Policy under president Reagan in 1981: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts. Yes, there are elements of a conspiracy in world affairs, but the alternative is what Eric Butler called the idiot theory of history, that things just happen. But, history is not like that, and wars are usually political manipulations that countries undertake for politico-economic reasons. The entry of the US into World War I and II, are examples. The US government new that Japan was preparing to attack Pearl Harbor, and even the newspapers knew this, as witnesses from a piece reproduced below from the Hilo Tribune Herald, November 30, 1941:

     This claim now is no longer to be found only in fringe revisionist history books, but can be found in mainstream newspapers: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8932197/Pearl-Harbour-memo-shows-US-warned-of-Japanese-attack.html.

     Real estate prices in Hong Kong are, well, unreal, the way the elites are hoping that they will be in Australia soon with their program of mass migration: http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-05-17-hong-kong-now-renting-out-coffin-homes-that-are-only-120-square-feet-of-living-space.html.  The homes are basically 10 to 15 foot “coffins” stacked on top of each other. Hundreds of thousands of people are now forced to live like this, and this will be our future too if the sheeple continue to do nothing and be, mindless sheeple.

     The future could perhaps be one where people have even less space, but have only “lockers” where they slide in to sleep, with a few possessions at their side. But, I expect long before this, a genetically engineered zombie virus, or a naturally occurring super-bird flu, may put humanity out of its misery.

     As far as journalists in The Australian go, Gary Johns is very good, and brave. In his article “Time to Play the Migration Card,” after giving the usual platitudes about the majority of people supporting migration, he goes on to break ranks with the elites.  He rejects the idea that Australia is a multicultural society. It is not.   Australia is multiethnic, but is monolingual, with limited cultural diversity. India is an example of a true multicultural society.

     Host countries also have a right to demand that migrants fit in, and that is the price paid in migrating to Australia in the first place.

     The computer geeks are feeling pretty proud of themselves here in OZ, dealing with the “WannaCry” ransomware, which hit over 200,000 computers in 150 countries. The software is believed to have been derived from a computer bug developed by the US National Security Agency. Like biological viruses, it got out somehow and sort to replicate.

     Reports have it that this is the product of one lone wolf actor. Thus, the question is raised; what happens when, not if, the next major conflict, if not war, erupts between the United States and a country with great cyber-prowess, such as Russia, or China? Surely this present cyber-attack would be nothing compared to what IT super-powers could deliver.

     Yet another treasurer bows to the gods of “the balanced budget” and “the surplus”.
A balanced budget is not necessarily good.
Most of the dreary comrade societies aimed at a balanced budget – “We take 100% of your income and spend it all”.
There is only one tax on the people and that is government spending.
The treasurer needs to slash that big tax.
All else is flummery.
Viv Forbes, Rosevale, Qld Australia
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

to THE AGE
     Attempts to link criticism of Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s Anzac Day post with opposition to section 18C (Daughn McGuinness, 28/4),  thus implying inconsistency, if not hypocrisy, in campaigners against that section, fail because they are based on a misleading comparison. Abdel-Magied has not been threatened with an unjust legal process that could lead to great financial loss. For the same reason Duncan Fine’s assertion (‘Right wants free speech, but only on its terms’, 27/4) that the whole conservative campaign against 18C was a ‘sham’ is incorrect. The ‘conservative right’ does not seek to ‘dictate to us the meaning of words’ (Margaret Maguire, 28/4), but to return to us - all of us - genuine free speech on important issues involving ethnicity.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Concern that ‘safe place policies’ in universities are leading to unwelcome political censorship (‘Why make uni students allergic to ideas’, 28/4) appears to be justified by the peculiar venom and intransigence becoming more and more apparent in various leftist publications and utterances. ‘Rigorous debate’ appears to be anathema to many ‘politically correct’ zealots. No doubt their attention will soon be turned on the thoroughly reasonable plans of the Australian and NSW governments to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s discovery of our continent.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

     This beautifully produced 384-page biography of Australian-born pianist Edward Cahill (1885-1975) has been written by his nephew and will be of primary interest to lovers of the Western classical music canon and its piano repertoire in particular.
     However, it will be of great usefulness also to lovers of our British tradition and culture, for it contains fascinating details about topics germane to our struggle to protect our heritage. These include (1) cultural life in and around Queensland in the period 1890 to 1920 (Cahill was born in Beenleigh, near Brisbane); (2) the cultural life of the British Raj in the 1920’s and 1930’s (Cahill toured there); (3) the life of the British aristocracy during the first half of the 20th century and its dreadful decline (Cahill pursued a brilliant career playing before royalty and the upper class); (4) the rise of the Nazis (Cahill was in Germany in 1934-35); (5) the apartheid regime in South Africa (Cahill lived there from 1948 to 1962); and (6) the lifestyles of British residents in the Riviera (where Cahill also lived for extended periods of time).
     The Pocket Paderewski is filled with information about these and associated matters. It contains a most useful bibliography that includes many studies of aspects of British history now largely forgotten.
     A photograph of the author, who lives in Warsaw and has published studies of Poland and of the old empires of the South-West Pacific, shows him looking like some sanguine adventurer in a Joseph Conrad novel. His authorial style is often witty and humorous; his mode of intellectual gossip casts much light on human nature and the human condition; and he writes about controversial matters sensibly, moderately and without deferring to ‘political correctness.’ Thus his text is continually entertaining and surprising, as well as being comprehensively informative.
-    Nigel Jackson

     US journalist firebrand Ann Coulter, someone we don’t have the equivalent to here in Australia, has been given a swift smack on the knuckles by Twitter for this alleged case of “hate speech”:
Ann Coulter posted a link to a recent article on her titled “To Say, ‘Stop Raping Me!’ In English, Press ‘1’ Now” on Twitter earlier this week. She added the comment, “Liberals are all for rape, provided that the penis forcibly inserted in you is attached to an illegal immigrant.” From: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/05/13/ann-coulter-tweet-flagged-as-hate-speech-by-twitter/.

     Twitter said that the comments violated its “hateful conduct policy,” which defined “hateful conduct” as:
•    violent threats;
•    wishes for the physical harm, death, or disease of individuals or groups;
•    references to mass murder, violent events, or specific means of violence in which/with which such groups have been the primary targets or victims;
•    behavior that incites fear about a protected group;
•    repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone.

     I guess when you have plenty of money you can relax and do crazy things. If you are a nation, longing to overcome the humiliations of the past, as China is seeking to do (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation),  then you attempt things like trying to capture an asteroid and fire it into the moon’s orbit: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-considering-mission-capture-asteroid-fire-it-into-moons-orbit-1621217?mkfrom=adsup&read=1. The initial idea is to mine the asteroid for minerals, but just for the heck of it, it would be one-upmanship to put the asteroid in the moon’s orbit too. Trump that, Trump!

     Now, given Murphy’s law: http://www.murphys-laws.com/, there are a multitude of problems with this. Imagine a screw-up that leads to the asteroid not orbiting the moon, but deciding in its infinite cosmic wisdom to pay mother earth a visit, ground zero for impact, Beijing. Very dishonourable asteroid. Very desolate planet.

to THE AGE
     As a grateful product of education ‘back in the 1950s’, I point out that there is much more to the traditional style of education promoted by Kevin Donnelly than the ‘rote learning, memorisation, mental arithmetic and explicit teaching’ quoted by Dr Linda Zibell (12/5). This is summed up in his 2016 booklet ‘The Culture of Freedom’, where he explains that education, as the main vehicle used to hand on culture from generation to generation, is ‘not moribund or concerned with preserving the status quo’, because it involves ‘questioning once accepted truisms and orthodoxies’ and a new ‘search for truth.’ Such an approach very definitely encourages children through all three levels of education to use their imagination. It needs foundations, however, including the four processes Dr Zibell appears to disdain.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Intolerant rejection of Islam as a whole (12/4) itself needs to be firmly rejected. It is possible to admire and/or follow this sacred tradition without supporting repressive aspects of man-made Muslim law practised in some nations. Thus there is both truth and falsity in Catholic Babette Francis’s claim that ‘Muslims are the main victims of Islam and need liberation.’ Equally true-and-false would be a claim that Christians are the main victims of Christianity, whose erratic ‘orthodoxy’ was not so long ago a straitjacket imposed by burnings at the stake and witch-hunts.

     John George notes that ‘Turkey was once a country where Christianity and Islam lived harmoniously side by side.’ Australia, now and in the future, can be the same. Both Christians and Muslims need, however, to acknowledge that their sacred scriptures are the products of human writers, inspired in varying degrees in some parts and thus needing subtle and compassionate interpretation. If Islam is understood as ‘submission to God’ and not, say, acceptance of all sharia law, then it is indeed ‘the only religion’ - one recognised by Christians as ‘obedience to the Almighty’.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     There is no doubt that Wagner was a great musical genius (‘Wagner’s chorus of racial hatred’, 13-14/5), but there is also a strange tone or timbre in much of his work that causes unease and may be the musical expression of a powerful and self-indulgent egoism. There is also no doubt that he published commentary on Jews and Judaism which is an embarrassment to his admirers. However, he was not the first or the last genius to have serious personal deficiencies.

     The parable of the tares suggests that the wisest approach to such people is to harvest what is valuable and leave aside that which is not. Wagner’s greatest works - beautiful, profound and spiritual - are a worthy contribution to Western and even world culture. The man can be adversely criticised for his own faults, but not fairly for the faults of those who came after him. And, after all, not everything he wrote about Jews is wrong. Like any other people they have their limitations and failures.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic