:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Saturday, 30 August 2003 ::

Ten Top Wogs of the 20th Century

Rino & Bruno Grollo - brothers, partners, builders. Italians. "They came, they saw, they concreted." Their family continues the tradition. Building Oz' second city and a lot of it's other cities too.
Franco Belgiorno-Nettis - magnificent Italian gentleman. Great patron of Australia's arts, and construction and engineering giant, responsible for dirty big tunnels.
Leo Massoni - proprietor of Florentino restaurant in Melbourne, a great quality foodie pioneer for Oz. And Beppi Polese of "Beppi's" in Sydney.
Alex Jesaulenko - Carlton player, son of Ukranians, took the greatest mark in AFL history, "Jesaulennnnnkkoooo, you beeauuty".
Sir James Gobbo – son of Italian migrants, Supreme Court judge and Governor of Victoria. A first for Italians in Melbourne. Nothing we can't do or achieve.
Carlo Colaiacomo - from Rome, now operating in Sydney with his family. Best butcher in all of Oz. And that is really saying something. Possibly the fattest too.
Victor Smorgon - Ukranian, migrant, another great patron of the arts and the fellow who took on BHP in steel production. "What's the big deal with steel? It's just like making sausages."
Michael Diamond - Olympic gold medallist in shooting, son of Greeks. Modern. Gifted.
Theodore Paspalis - head of the Paspaley family of Western Australia - harvesting Oz's exquisite pearls, and doing a great job of publicising it around the world.
Len Pascoe nee Durtanovich - firey Slav cricketing hero. Cricket. Slav. Fast bowler.

Of course there are plenty of others. I would even pop Ma and Pa into the list, sincerely, for their efforts at foodie and opera stuff. But we'll make do with the above.




:: WB 8:15 pm [link+] ::

Oh they were bad, alright, but not as bad as these guys now....

Cryptic, huh? Whatever.

I have been doing some thinking. And some reading. Pecificly, a book called "Excellent Cadavers" all about the Mafia and particularly the murders of saintly Italian anti-Mafia Magistrates Falcone and Borsellino. And I have been reading a book called "Q" all about Anabaptists and the fights with Luther and the Pope and stuff in the 16th century.

And now I have just read this article all about the same guys involved with Falcone's murder.

Now, stay with me here. The thing with the Anabaptists, was that they were way worse than Luther. Far as I can tell all they did was fuck and preach. Whatever. So the Pope wanted Luther gone gone gone, but the Anabaptists were so much worse, that the Pope kinda got to thinking maybe Luther wasn't so bad after all (and of course, he was. Do not argue with me.)

And the thing about the Sicilian Mafia post-WWII up to the 80's was that they were brutal and bloody and vengeful and, many of them, plug ugly too. But they were not Albanian, by which I mean the thugs today are way worse.

Just like the most firebrand Islamic clerics today are way way worse than anything that's gone before - all calling for the killing of the infidels and stuff, instead of calling the Islamic faithful to faith.

My point? It is lazy, when faced with a hard present, to start forgiving what was an awful past. Two mistakes. Not fixing the horribe past. And then not fixing the horrible present. Bad thinking. And in Iraq, it seems, that lazy thinking might take root and that would be a shame for all, dontcha think? The whole "At least under Saddam the power worked but now everything is chaaaossss" malarkey being spewed all over, sample rubbish brought to you by the SMH's Paul McGeogh.

It is important to stay on song - the past was awful and should not be repeated. Get to work fixing things. Terrorists - well, they want to die. Help 'em out. And always be polite, or try to be, even to the stupist Iraqi ravings about offence and occupation and oil and blah blah and even to the blather and nonsense from Western press and politicians.

End of babble.



:: WB 2:46 am [link+] ::

Untouched, brothers and sisters, protected species, sacred cows.

Most excellent posting from ABCWatch "Auntie's Double Standards".

:: WB 2:58 am [link+] ::

Phillip Adams is calling me a cynical idiot this time

You know, the cynicism that I experience in daily life is not emanating from little me. It is emanating from the Phils of the world. So cynical they believe whole governments are prepared to lie to their populations to get into a war that kills members of those populations who occupy the armed forces for no good reason excpet they are all in the thrall of a dark lord US. So cynical they believe they are being eveilly silenced by sinister movers and shakers in media and government again. So cynical they believe the US is behind independent Oz and English government actions.

That's cynical. That shows no faith at all in anything, except lack of faith.

Phillip Adam is a big fat cynic.

UPDATE: Classy work on on cynicism and "The Moralism of the Cynic" over at Europundits.


:: WB 2:40 am [link+] ::

Will it open my third eye?

Oh, man. I have not been the happiest funnest person of late. But this. This is freakin' priceless.

How hard is it to count to five? Ha!

Priceless.

Now, if only someone can invent a way of counting how many times your ass in the air, then the whole thing'll be locked in.....but wait. Imagine the confusion if there was ever a discrepancy between ass lifts and head hits?! Oh my.

I have the giggles.


:: WB 2:28 am [link+] ::

One stop shop

Gilligan for sure did the 'sexing up'. And Kelly overstepped the mark with Gilligan no doubt too, but it was not enough for Gilligan, he had to go on with it even though Kelly got cold feet at his own position and unsettled by Gilligan's insistence. Kelly topped himself and when he said "I'll be dead in the woods" he wasn't prediciting nefarious action, he was indicating he was a bit tapped, a bit special, you know? And he might have to top himself if the heat got too much. Sad all over.

Andrew Wilkie will also die, by his own hand or the wearying ages. But not by the hand of some ASIO hitman or whoever. Cos Andrew Wilkie takes Gilligan's line. And he simply cannot contemplate that the war fought and won on more than the weapons. And by 'more than' I mean the shitfulness of Saddam's regime that is always conveniently forgotten by anti-war types.

The SMH is nothing more than an opinion sheet, with its opinions firmly entrenched in the anti-war line. Why is is this in the world news section, given this?

Further to the above, how's this and this? Taken together we have the SMH's Paul McGeogh particularly and the SMH itself generally full on beating up a resistance story. Sexing it all up. They are one of a sawmiller's handful of news joints getting interviews with the "resistance" (scare quotes deliberate, okay?) and their press vans are heavily marked so loony Saddam tapesmongers can find them and give them all the shit that's unfit to print. You read that rag, I tell you, you get no news at all. You get egodriven journalism.

So much going on. And so much of it crap.

Anyhoo, I had beers the other night with some buddies, and the question was asked "Are you optimistic about Iraq?" I said "Yeah" cos I want wogs to succeed, and I never like seeing 'em fuck up so I always presume they can be great. Another buddy said "Yeah" cos she figures everyone can be successful and stupidity and violent thuggery sucks and shouldn't stop progress. But the third buddy, the best looking and the only one who has a close knowledge of how some Iraqi's think said "Nope." Cos she knows that Iraqi's might wanna succeed and really give it a shot, but somewhere lurking there will always be an Arab loser doing violence and thuggery in an attempt to sotp the success and turning it into a steaming pile of shite whilever there is a whitey westerner also likely to succeed. And she knows from Arab racism .... Arab against Arab.

Now, like I said, I have a thing about wogs. But I'm not an idiot. I know wogs can be fucked up. And what we're seeing in Iraq right about now, is, in this wog's opinion, an example of the fucked stuff. Can't remember where I read it last week, but someone wrote something about how if Iraq fails it will reflect poorly on the US.

It won't. I mean, it will, to idiots.

But the failure will reflect very very badly on Arabs.

They gotta get it together to stop with audiotapes (pathertic and embarassing, eh? see above), the lies about shooting planes out of the sky (amemba that old guy?) or capturing troops, the obscene rhetoric of insult and shame (Tariq Ali) etcetera etcetera.

I like wogs. That includes Arabs. But that's a like that is earned. And the bankability of great art, architecture, caligraphy, literature, philosophy, military capacity, political theory, religious development and cuisine is hittin' the red any day now.

Good to be back.

:: WB 1:03 am [link+] ::

Grazie & Thanks Aplenty

To all the folks who sent kind e-'s, if I haven't responded personally it is simply because I got a little overwhelmed, but please know all your kindness is so very much appreciated.

Gino woulda called youse all "scholars and gentlemen".

Even the ladies.

Back to blogging soonish. Next weekend I reckon. In the interim, might I recommend hittin' the links at left for quality gear.

:: WB 1:15 am [link+] ::