Badge - Vote Yes for Aborigines, Australia, 1967

If you vote No in the Voice referendum you are voting with the team that brought you Robodebt. Robodebt cost lives and Australian tax payers more than $1.8 billion in a settled class action by plaintiffs. If you vote No you are voting with the team once led by the biggest liar in the history of Australian prime ministers, Scott Morrison. If you vote no you are aligning yourself with the racist community here in Australia. If dog whistling is one of your favourite sports, then, Peter Dutton is your man. Dutton has promised another referendum on the same issue if he is elected PM??? Warren Mundine has promised his push for treaty if you only vote No???? It sounds like these folks will say anything to dissuade you from voting Yes in this referendum about changing the constitution to recognise a Voice to Parliament for First Nations Australians.Continue Reading

we white folk

We white folk live in a cocoon of well-off whiteness. We wander our white streets in search for bargain based happiness. Our mainly white suburbs buzz with the sound of expensive cars making their way to and fro from homes to high streets. Shopping centres are palaces of well-appointed materialism, where we frequent for retail therapy. Lives are lived with the sole purpose of endowering ourselves and offspring with wealth and comfort. It is not a bad lot for the most part, indeed, we share the good life in pursuit of reasonable amounts of pleasure. Only 1 in 6 Aussies interact with an Indigenous Australian. What does that say about Australia? Some of us white folk are doing it tough right now, but doing it tough when you are Aboriginal is another league all together. Cost of living crisis – many First Nations folk can tell you what that is really like over generations.Continue Reading

silhouette of flying birds on a twilight sky

A good heart these days is hard to find and the most important one is your own. Amid the hustle and bustle of social media, forums, and online debate it is very easy to get wound up. To seethe and hate or mope and despair. To writhe in anger or anguish and rage against the dimming light of reason. Peace be upon you brother and sister. Fill your heart and soul with tranquil thoughts and healing energy. Thus spake Zarathustra. Well, perhaps not, but it is a fairly good idea, every now and then, to take a time-out from the fray.Continue Reading

a person holding on to belly fat

Our skin is our single largest living organ and it literally defines who we are. Without our skin, we would be a skeleton in a puddle of blood and that would take some getting used to, I imagine. Skin is often derided for being at the surface of things and thus incorrectly labelled superficial – so skin deep – but what this elastic covering achieves for our anatomical structure is more than just a tidy appearance. Skin breathes and like a baboon’s bottom its colour and appearance indicates our state of health – it is a barometer for all to see, of our moods, our level of hydration, our age and whether we are succumbing to disease.Continue Reading

Sacred Chef dishes

We are not alone. In fact we are hosts to trillions of micro-organisms happily munching on our waste products and doing a sterling job within our digestive system. It may come as a bit of a shock to those of us with obsessive compulsive cleaning tendencies,  that killing all the tiny invisible bugs is not a really good idea. Bacteria are all around us, within us and performing vital tasks for our health and the health of this planet.  Of course like everything in existence there are good and bad bacteria, not intrinsically bad but just bad for humans and probably quite good for something else. The good bacteria,  or gut flora,  are involved in a myriad of useful functions, like fermenting unused energy substrates, producing vitamins for us, preventing the growth of bad bacteria, producing hormones to help us store fats and improving our immune functioning.  If we did not have all these bacteria munching away our bodies would be unable to digest many of the carbohydrates that we consume, such as certain starches, fibres, proteins, and sugars like lactose. Studies with animals indicate that we may need to eat 30% more calories to maintain our stable body weight without the helpful presence of gut flora. The good bacteria transforms carbohydrates into short chain fatty acids and these are able to be processed by our cells into nutrition  and energy. Lactic and acetic acid are also produced by this saccahrolytic fermentation and they are used by our muscles. There are numerous other positive functions supported by good bacteria in our systems.Continue Reading

Kidney, organ png sticker, medical

In our western health culture the kidneys are perhaps one of the most invisible and possibly neglected bodily organs. These two vaguely bean shaped organs are located near our spine at the small of the back, just below the liver and spleen. Our kidneys matter. Responsible, in the main, for the removal of urea, mineral salts, toxins and other waste products from the blood, they are seemingly behind us and out of sight, out of mind. Perhaps their association with excreting waste has led to a lack of polite conversation about them over the years. The kidney is not, at this juncture in time, the somewhat sexy organ that the liver has been of late, with its infamous association with drugs, alcohol and partying. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) however prescribes far greater influence for the kidneys upon our physical health and indeed our lives.Continue Reading