*Ř* Wilson's Almanac free daily ezine | Editorials, Jan, Feb, Mar 2002

Early in the morning I was near my house when a group of joggers ran by. In the past I have never jogged, holding to my conviction that if one is healthy, one doesn't need exercise, and if one is sick, one should never take it.

I thought, "What fine young folk they are! I should take a leaf out of their book and extend myself a bit ... not be such a stick-in-the-mud! Take a chance!"

So, fighting off embarrassment, I waved and, almost at the top of my lungs, called out, "Well done!"

Shame: As I write, Australia's Senate is debating, in its customary raucous and inebriated way, a Government bill, sent to it by the House of Representatives, that seeks to give power to the Australian Government to return a ship to international waters.

This ship, the Norwegian MV Tampa, is no ordinary cargo ship. A few days ago it picked up 438 mainly Afghan asylum seekers whose leaky boat was in distress on the open sea.

Prime Minister John Howard has asked Parliament to support the urgent legislation to give the government the legal power to force the ship out of Australian waters.

This is before our authorities have assessed the status of the hundreds of passengers. A huge controversy is raging in Australia today, but it is clear that the overwhelming majority of my countrymen and -women, suffering from 'compassion fatigue', are in favour of Howard's draconian decision not to accept this cohort. A straw poll conducted by one of those execrable TV current affairs programs had 94 per cent of Australians wanting to push the Afghans back to sea.

We do not know how many of the people are refugees from oppression, and whether my nation, of which I am ashamed today for the first time, is sending people back to Afghanistan to be tortured or executed.

The Taliban dictatorship there is notorious for summary executions and every infringement of human rights, including denial of females the right to study or work. About 8 million of the population of 18 million of this country where the male average life expectancy is 42, today languish in refugee camps, mostly in Iran and Pakistan, where they are forbidden to work.

Illegal immigrants? I am eighth-generation Australian. But who among my ancestors, or myself, has the ultimate right to claim this, or any other, soil as their own? Like many old-time Aussies, my ancestors came here in chains; how haughty and self-seeking we seem to have become.

Consider: If this container ship had 438 English people, or Americans, or Israelis or Scots, crammed on its deck, and those people were fleeing a dictatorship of Taliban's ilk, I believe that 94 per cent of Australians would probably demand that they be allowed to disembark.

I believe that TV crews and newspaper and magazine reporters would flock to interview those "heroes" of oppression, and publish passionate stories on the brave souls and the terrible crises that had made their dangerous journey necessary.

Australians, it seems, are falling over themselves to prove that "Christian" culture is so superior to Muslim, that we will push back to sea all heathens who might pollute our shores. I find it utterly repugnant to be an Australian today.

Please follow the progress of this story in the world's media, and take a stand against racism and in favour of assistance to the world's needy and persecuted people.

Wilson's Almanac members today will miss out on extra information, anecdotes, audio, pictures, animations, hyperlinks etc etc.
Wilson's Almanac Lite readers today miss out on hyperlinks and some text.

Your almanackist lost some time, driving back from interstate where he was working, and also he's a bit butcher's.

For those unfamiliar with Ozzie rhymimg slang, butcher's = butcher's hook = crook. Crook is slang for sick.

After two days of grouting, and tomorrow, September 1, being Wattle Day in Australia, commemorating our National Flower and Glorious Allergen, perhaps I'm celebrating a day early with a visit from jolly Father Sinus. I believe that last night he tip-toed across the deep pollen drifts outside my apartment and slid down my nose-chimney while Wifie the hot water bottle and I were curled up in the Dreamtime.

I thought it better to send a little almanac than none at all, and I expect to be back at my disk tomorrow. If not, now you know why.

Special apologies to Australian and other Eastern Hemisphere readers who are getting this crappy almanac at 6pm on August 31.

Welcome new members, and please take note -- this emaciated almanac is still bigger than the competition! Please stick around to see what a muscular, fair dinkum, true blue Ozzie almanac looks like.

Make a great weekend, Almaniacs, and remember: when grouting, please wear protection.

Rockin'! Thank you to all for being here today, and to the members who sent me get-well letters. They worked!

Australia is possibly the only country that celebrates September 1 as the first day of spring. Winter begins on July 1, autumn on March 1 and summer on December 1.

In the Southern hemisphere, the first day of spring should be the equinox of September, around the 22nd. However, Australians are missing the gene for conformity.

Apparently there were some conformists here in colonial days, but the British had them shot. We have forgiven them, however, and magnanimously allow them to send us their refuse, who are yearning to breathe free, or at least without a poll tax.

In fact, these days, many backpackers come to the antipodes from the Mother Country, thereby simultaneously raising the IQ of both great nations.

Exclusion: The society in which I live (or pass through, as it often seems), observes itself largely through John Logie Baird’s invention, EV (Electronic Valium). EV is prominent among the organs of cultural anaesthesia, and creates an ethos of exclusion for those who free themselves of tele-addiction.

The soul who avoids television is considered by his betters to be more than missing out on life; he is almost unworthy of life. The non-EV man and the unplugged woman, while feeling stronger and happier in themselves, are thought by others to be lacking in understanding of the most important issues of our time: who is dating whom; which product is out-competing its rivals; which telegenic politician is bending the truth today.

So, having freed myself from the greatest time-waster in human history, I’m often amused that many people feel sorry for my lack of EV knowledge, and I’ve learned to keep fairly quiet when the conversation turns to the latest blockbuster from the visionless mind of my fellow Australian, Newscorp/Fox's owner Rupert Murdoch – the most powerful man in the world, perhaps at any time in history. I'm a very ignorant man.

However, I have heard of one EV show called Survivor, and another called Big Brother. One can almost hear right now the titter of amusement mingled with pity when I say I've never seen so much as a 10-second commercial for either of these programs. I have, however, seen an ad for Big Brother on the side of a Sydney bus. I don't do EV, but I do do public transport.

It might be inappropriate and even cheeky to comment on EV shows I’ve not seen, but I’m quite reliably informed (by someone who feels duty-bound to keep the transnational broadcasters in business, and for whom the Internet was invented to make EV programs available without having to buy a printed version) that in both Survivor and Big Brother, the aim of the shows was to see who could last the longest in a challenging scenario, or, worse, a dreary ‘entertainment’ situation.

Apparently these programs were about exclusion. In true EV fashion, their raison d’etre is entirely at odds with what is actually interesting – and important in this strife-torn and hungry world.

If anything, exclusion is something we in the West need to unlearn, like murder, competition, theft and farting at dinner. It seems to me that what we need more of is a culture of inclusion. Actually, it probably doesn't matter a great deal if we adults watch this stuff, because thought patterns are mostly ossified by about age 28 anyway. Realistically, there probably isn't much hope for this generation to become fully awake, and to decondition ourselves from excessive competition and the politics of exclusion. We already know it's a dog-eat-dog world, and that's hard to shake.

It’s our children for whom these lessons in exclusion and competition will help form attitudes of separation, alienation, aggressiveness, superiority and stupidity. That 'us' is better than 'them', that to survive means to compete and defeat rather than cooperate, and that people with different creeds, nationalities and colours are the enemy.

Other people aren’t the enemy; not unless you count King Rupert, and his cohorts, the media owners whose myopic vision is teaching us and our children to be pathetic.

EV is wonderful in its place: the garden shed or the municipal dump. Filled with earth, an EV set makes a good terrarium or ant farm; filled with water a serviceable aquarium. (Let us know know if you have any other ideas for ex-EV's.)

In the Planet Directory today, you'll find quite a few new listings under Permaculture. Check them out.

In haste today -- I'm flat out like a lizard drinking. Glenlightened has sent in one of his deconstructions of my text, but I don't have time to put it in today. With a little luck, tomorrow I'll be even busier.

Uh-oh: So what happened to Sunday, September 9? Was Wilson doing a Ray Milland and having Lost Weekend?

Perhaps celebrating Grandparent's Day? (He is a grandpa, with number 4 on the way.) Or was he taking a Pip's Trip Tip to an extreme and relaxing too much?

Sorry I didn't get out Sunday's almanac, I completely ran out of time. This might happen from time to time, such as if I need a mental health day, so please bear with your almanackist. I almost always get your daily almanac to the toiling masses. But lost weekends can happen.

Lorem ipsum frangali puttuto rigali fortuitous confulence magficati alorem. I mean that in a nice way.

Almaniacs: I'm looking for dates (and biographical material) to add to the almanac: in particular, dates in the lives of well-known 20th-century thinkers with an 'alternative' mission, like Bill Mollison, Petra Kelly, Rachel Carson, John Lilly, R Buckminster Fuller (got plenty on him) -- men and women who have set sights on better ways of living. Please send them in if you have them, or just Web URLs would help, as I keep adding inspirational dates to your almanac.

Dates for anything you think might be useful in the almanac are also welcome, especially if they relate to our topics like alternatives, conservation, historical oddities and so on. When was the first Greenpeace action? What date did a US president see a ghost? On what day did an amazing coincidence occur to William Shakespeare? Those sorts of things. All very welcome.

Correspondence: I love getting members' emails and have a policy of trying to reply to each one in quick time. Because more than 1,000 emails arrive each week, if I didn't reply quickly I would soon have a nervous breadvan, and I don't want that roll. (Aagh -- a bun, and that's the lowest form of wheat!)

If I spent 6 minutes on each of 1,000 emails, that would be 100 hours a week, and I'd never get to write your almanac, which of itself takes about 4 hours a night.

Friends, if my replies seem brief, or if they don't come within 24 hours, please understand that this job is a part-time, unpaid labour of love, and there is no office or secretary pool to draw on. I can only do my best. Apart from my various e-lists, I write at least 350 emails a week; I have friends, family, work, housework, commitments and a life just like everyone else, so be patient with me .... please. :)

Keep sending mail in, though ... and I mean that. I love to read every email. Thanks guys!

My Outlook Express has been doing some funny things this week (so why ain't I laughing?): I keep finding a lot of my incoming mail in the Deleted Items folder. (This might be due to the aforementioned high volume of mail, though I clear my OE at least once a week.)

If you have been awaiting a reply for more than 3 days, then I probably didn't get your email.

The compassionate wishes of all good people around the world go not only to the loved ones of the murder victims in America, but to the people of the USA and the whole planet who are suffering a collective grief this week.

It seems to me that this is a time that behoves calm thinking for all of us. There is a danger that the natural feelings of hurt and outrage will lead to passions of revenge and hatred.

The society that believes in "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", ends up with a lot of blind, gummy people. The best of American culture and jurisprudence has been its civilized ethos of justice rather than revenge. I'm only one small drop in the ocean of humanity, but I feel that it's right to use this page to express my conviction that the historic events of this week require people of goodwill to raise their voices a little louder than those who will be shouting out fairly unevolved reactions to the horror.

I fear, in particular, for followers of Islam, all round the world, especially the millions of Muslims of goodwill – People of the Book, like Christians and Jews. While no great Islamophile myself, I do feel that in the West there is an inordinate prejudice against Muslim people, and it manifests in many ways, such as the expulsion of Afghan asylum seekers from Australia, and the tarring with the same brush all Muslims as though they were responsible for the crimes of the few. As members of Christendom, Westerners bear the legacy of Crusade wars a thousand years gone. So do our fellow-travellers on this globe, those who live in the Middle East.

Let's remember that these are early days, and much more evidence is needed before, in our shock and anger, we heed the calls for a Holy War that some loonies on the Internet are already sounding out. Let's remember, too, that immediately after the bombing in Oklahoma City the early conclusion of many was that Middle Eastern culprits were to blame, when in fact the devil was closer to home. Should the murderers turn out to be Middle Eastern people, let's not take it out on foreigners in our midst – many of whom are themselves refugees from monstrous dictatorships like Afghanistan's Taliban. Here in Australia, too, Muslims will be needing people of goodwill to say, "You are Australians, and we don't condemn you".

My personal condolences go to my many close American friends, to American members of Wilson's Almanac, and to all the people of your great country. I feel sure that I speak for the members of this group all around the world when I offer you all wishes for strength, hope and above all, true American justice.

On a similar subject, an Australian court has ruled that the Australian Government unlawfully detained the more than 430 Afghan asylum seekers about whom I wrote recently. The conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard, who is presently trying to get back home after a US trip that included a meeting with President Bush and a visit to the Pentagon one day before the tragedy, will appeal the court's decision.

Mr Howard arranged for the asylum seekers on the Tampa to be sent on to other countries, including the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, to which the Australian government gave $20 million worth of concessions to in order to remove the Middle Eastern refugees from our shores. Out of sight, out of mind.

Ironically, it is probable that many of these people are themselves refugees from the Taliban, the party that is reputed to be sheltering and abetting the fanatic widely suspected of masterminding the American bombing tragedy. One can only add that the asylum seekers are further evidence that the Middle Eastern world is neither homogeneous nor monolithic.

We are all moved by the tragedy of September 11, and many nations have lost citizens of their own. My own country has been touched: at last report there were still 85 Australians, known to have been in the vicinity of the WTC on Tuesday, who are still missing.

However, there are no national borders in this matter. No nation is safe while terrorism is allowed to occur.

Let's hope, and ensure, that our national leaders develop the ability to find non-violent ways to deal with this curse. Military responses that are not an absolute last resort are indicative of lack of imagination.

Violence is simply a manifestation of emotions in human hearts and thoughts in human brains. I have every confidence that the combined hearts and minds of people of goodwill can construct a thousand creative ways to deal with this challenge. Not to choose creative ways of dealing with the problem shows that peace-loving men and women are putting their last resorts first, scarcely differently from our small-thinking antagonists. Let's not stay in the shoot-'em-up politics of all previous centuries. We should be smarter by now. Enough is enough!

Our place is just 100 metres or so from Narrabeen Beach, so we grabbed the camera from the back of the car and ran across Pittwater Road to get onto the beach where we could get some Really Good Shots.

There it was – like a huge, mythological bridge over the leaden Pacific Ocean. No buildings or trees, powerlines or smog to obscure this stupendous sight. It arched high, from one end of the long beach almost to the other.

The southern part of this glorious rainbow plunged to the beach's southern headland, a kilometre or two from where we stood, those seven bright colours and the low sun in the west lighting the Sydney sandstone like a pot of gold.

Remy and I ran around and took turns snapping pictures of each other in front of The Great Rainbow of 2001 – some from this angle, some from that. Remy waving, Remy sitting, Remy trying to find Pip's good side. We knew at least one shot would turn out a real beauty!

Here's the picture of Remy and your almanackist that I have to share with you today.

Pip's tip: to get really great photos when out and about, always remember to load your camera with film first.

Forward: Nearly a week after the day that shook the world, we have all learned from what happened. It's pleasing to see that the emails that cross my disk are becoming more positive as the world moves forward. Not to forget, but to integrate and move forward into a better, not a worse, place for our children to inherit. I feel sure we can each do our bit for peace.

Like many people in the world, I, too, am outraged. As I will be outraged if military solutions are accepted for this problem. I firmly believe that such a solution would be a capitulation to the terrorists, and a failure of imagination on our part.

Why? It seems to me that the whole strategy of September 11 was to provoke an Islamic-Western war. Let's not give these suckers – these very few maniacs – what they want.

Most especially, let's not confuse the victims with the perpetrators. The Afghan people are the victims of a handful of crazed fanatics, the Taliban. Afghan men and women did not vote for these brutal men. They had no say in it as Kabul was taken over by force. They didn't bomb America – most would hardly know where America is, and they struggle daily to find food, water and firewood.

Afghanistan's people are already starving and exhausted from years of war and famine. This is one reason the Taliban, with Western backing, was able to conquer that benighted country.

The American people are rightly famed for ingenuity – good ol' Yankee know-how. My earnest hope is that clever solutions will spring from those fertile American brains, because it seems clear to me that more bang-bang talk and action will be due to a weakness of imagination.

Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson -- the world needs your imagination and compassionate wisdom today. I have not lost faith in American know-how, or American justice, though many of the emails I am receiving today fill me with dread.

May the evil-doers, and not the innocent, be tried and punished. This is just one Australian's response to outrage – and it's as American as apple pie.

So, 'At Great Expense to the Management', I bought me a new, second-hand phone. Nokia 3210. Not bad, not bad at all.

Now, the 3210 has a special design feature: the plastic is made from a very exact mixture of Vaseline and full-cream butter, which scientists in Japan have found creates a molecule with a peculiar attraction to concrete.

You can imagine my delight when I found that this was, indeed, a genuine Nokia 3210, and not some Indonesian counterfeit. Within only a few days of purchase, it proved itself by rocketing from my fingers, headfirst into the nearest pavement.

Equinox: No, it doesn't mean 'half horse, half cow'. It is the day on which the night and day are of equal length.

Where I live, the days are becoming warm, as today in the Southern Hemisphere is Spring Equinox. My greetings and best wishes to all, and may this station of the earth's seasonal cycles be filled with peace and joy.

By the way, I hope you are enjoying this bumper issue and will excuse my absence yesterday. As my grandfather wrote on a school note many years ago, when my father had played truant: "Dear headmaster; Please excuse my son's absence from school yesterday. He was not good."

Business: On the first day or two after the bombings in America, some people thought it was business as usual. I had one spam email entitled Lower the septic costs, and another called Earn a living online.

Lennonworld.com sent me two ads for their site (what would Johnny think), and Deb's Fun Pages (from which I today unsubscribed) sent me another in their now-boring pile of anti-male humor. Then there was Free Stuff: Win big with Casino-on-Net!

Hope: I am a great supporter of the United States of America. I think it is a remarkable nation, generous and rightly proud. I even supported America through the Vietnam War, at much cost to my social standing. However, although my view is costing me large numbers of readers each day, and though I will certainly lose more today, I will continue to state one man's case against the threatened Middle East war.

Similarly, long-term members of this group will know that I have been writing against the Taliban since long before the recent tragedy. The Taliban philosophy is a blight on the citizens of Afghanistan, and more would have fled were they not so utterly poor.

It is awful that so much havoc has been caused in America at the hands of belligerent madmen. However, I am not in favour of President Bush's knee-jerk reaction. It is not the most economical nor just way to deal with the terrorism problem. Nor do I think it is very smart for America's future. No smarter than it was for President Bush to use the terms 'crusade' and 'infinite justice' (a Moslem religious expression) to kick sand in the face of the whole faith of Islam, though he has moved into a more considered position in recent days. I fear that Americans' understandable anger has tended to cloud much commonsense and the sense of true justice, which is not won at the expense of the innocent.

We have almost lost hard analysis for the much easier thirst for revenge. As a sign hoisted in NY's Times Square said, "EYE FOR EYE = BLINDNESS".

Let's hope some miracle happens that prevents the USA invading Afghanistan. Let's remember that the impoverished and uneducated people of that country are in no way responsible for the US terror of September 11. The blame might perhaps belong to the dictators of Afghanistan, the Taliban, but not to the population.

The simple fact is, millions of innocent men, women and children are this very moment in danger of starving to death. The situation was already horrible after three years of drought, and the threat of invasion has made it worse. Food relief agencies have already fled; medical supplies are almost non-existent.

Hope. I hope we are not about to witness one of the most calamitous strategic errors in our lifetime. I am not a pacifist, but as a human being I have to say that war should only ever be a last resort, not the first. In this case, it is the wrong response.

The resentment in the Middle East over the scores of thousands of innocent civilian casualties during the Gulf War is one element fuelling the fanaticism of terrorists. As sure as night follows day, a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan will create invisible armies of terrorists.

It is high time for the leaders of the world to call for alternative solutions to the world's problems, including this one. The antique ones have led to a spiral of hate, revenge and immeasurable human suffering.

(Scottish legend says that today is the last day for picking blackberries, for tomorrow they will be poisoned by the Devil, who will urinate on them.)

The first money I ever earned in my life was a gift from the blackberry sprites. About a mile or three from where I grew up there were large clumps of big, juicy blackberries growing by a narrow country road.

You see, my childhood home could be reckoned as either the last house in Sydney's outer suburbs before the bush, or the last house in the scrub before the Big Smoke, depending on which way you were headed. This might explain something about my love of the bush, not to mention my semi-urbanised yokel nature.

Nearby was a dam I got pulled out of, half dead, on the end of a crayfish-pot rope. And there were street lights no bigger than domestic light bulbs, and they made great targets for my Gecado .22 air rifle. I was a crack shot with a gun and my shanghai -- American members will know this device as a slingshot. I guess if I were a kid today, wandering the streets with a rifle over one shoulder I'd have four coppers with outstretched arms holding service revolvers, screaming "Freeze, asshole!"

We kids played in the farmer's wheat bins (feed for the chooks) and built tree houses. When the wind came from the south it stank of Sydney Harbour which in those days was an open sewer for factories like Eveready Batteries. So, in some ways, my childhood was in a time of more pollution than today.

We woke to the laughing cackle of the kookaburras, and drank from the creeks – until suburban sprawl came in with its septic tanks. When my mates got a bad case of 'the runs' and vomiting after drinking from the top of Holy Waterfall we knew that a new era had come to our small bit of paradise.

Anyway, it was a damn good place to grow up and I often wonder why I didn't grow up perfect.

One February I collected as many blackberries as I could fit into a billycan and sold them door-to-door in paper cups. A shilling a cup. I made a kid's fortune from the nice local mums and dads.

Anyway, you don't want to hear any more of Grandpa's reminiscing; this is the modern world and we've all grown up now. And the Devil poisoned the blackberries, as the legend above says, he will when he urinates on them on September 26.

Well, it wasn't really the Devil. It was modernity, in the form of the Shire Council, as the farms got subdivided and big brick houses full of Playstations and Range Rovers and and alienation and divorces gradually stood where once the cows and blackberrying little boys had outstared each other, with big eyes of wonder.

1) Does the lack of foreknowledge of the terror attack imply a failure of the worldwide Echelon eavesdropping system?

2) If Echelon failed, is it worth the vast amount of money the USA and allies spend on it?

3) If it didn't fail, which persons or institutions are responsible for hiding the information?

4) How credible is it that the precise whereabouts of Osama bin Laden (ObL) has not been known to the CIA all along; are we really supposed to believe that for two weeks he or his associates have either not used electronic communications, or that their encryption capabilities are more sophisticated than those of Western security agencies?

6) Precisely how much prior knowledge did the Western intelligence services have?

7) What confidence can we have in the prudence of a president who used terminology that would clearly be offensive to all followers of the Islamic faith, such as 'crusade' and 'Operation Infinite Justice'?

8) Has the US administration now decided to join forces with Afghanistan's Northern Alliance?

9) If so, what exit strategy does the USA have, and what responsibility will it take for a coalition government that will represent, to a point, Tajiki, Hazara and Uzbek (etc) ethnic interests but will be likely to have an agenda of revenge on the Pushtu majority – and will the now-good-now-bad KGB-CIA lackey Gulbuddin Hekmatyar again become a good guy? Or will the CIA slip Hekmatyar a mickey and boost the more moderate Rabani and bring King Zaher Shah back from exile in Rome and instal a rinky-dink McRegime – as a puppet to Pakistan and the Seven Sisters? (I'm not predicting ... I'm asking.)

10) Having tacitly endorsed Pakistan's installation of the Taliban in Kabul, what criticism will the Bush Senior and Clinton administrations now receive from the American people, or will the current "my President, right or wrong" climate continue due to the current wagon-circle mindset now being promulgated by the US media?

11) What do current events have to do with the presence of oil and natural gas reserves, such as oil beneath the Caspian Sea, requiring access to warm water ports, and thus piping through Afghanistan?

12) What fate will befall the millions of Afghan refugees already in Pakistan and Iran if their numbers swell under threat of further turmoil in Afghanistan, and what emergency support is being given to the UN and non-governmental agencies such as Oxfam, etc, to prevent a calamity?

13) What, apart from jealousy and unreasoning fanaticism, is fuelling the apparent hatred of the West in many non-Western quarters, and

14) Might not a searching enquiry into these resentments help to protect the West against further anger-motivated attacks?

15) Are a deep disdain for Islam, and the lack of a left-right schism in these events, among the reasons that the world's peace activists are relatively silent on increasing militarisation of the Middle East crisis, regardless of potential civilian massacres?

16) Are we expected to believe that the well-documented involvement of Western security agencies in the trade of Afghani-Pakistani opium and heroin ( a policy begun during the days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan) has nothing whatever to do with current events?

17) How long will Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf be able to contain the skepticism of Pakistan editors and intellectuals (as well as this writer) as to his avowed support for the US and opposition to Taliban, and

18) What trade-off is being offered by the US to Musharraf for this support, and will it involved extension of Pakistani interests in Afghan territory?

19) What, if any, alternatives to military responses have been considered by the Western alliance and what significant objections have been raised to these alternative solutions such that they have been rejected in just a few days?

20) As studies indicate that among Moslem people there is a negative correlation between level of education and support for Islamic extremist organisations, how may this influence foreign policy in the West?

21) What have globalisation and increasing corporatisation of the Middle East to do with disruption of traditional social cohesion, social capital and psychological stability?

22) What is keeping the US administration from revealing its evidence about the culprits, not only to the public, but, apparently, to the allied governments?

24) In the light of an increasingly violent world, what can adults do about the manufacture and distribution to children of violent games and movies, and the promotion of competitiveness in schools and the media?

25) Will the majority of Moslems who are opposed to violence please become more active in promoting their views?

26) Will the Western media please pay some attention to political events in China and Russia, both of which border Afghanistan?

In between I had three wonderful days in my favourite town. Thousands of people came from many places to listen to roots music and brilliant innovations. Visually, the carnival was a feast as well, and I regret that my skills with a camera aren't better. However, I have uploaded a few shots to http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/global.html

I interspersed tribal music, weird music, dance music and endless cups of chai with an hour here and there manning the information stall for Refugee Action Collective, and am pleased to say that we were received well indeed, with many people chatting with us and buying t-shirts and signing petitions. The carnival organisers put on a well-attended refugees forum with some excellent speakers.

One of the highlights, for me, was the party finale. After the festival ended, many of us headed out of the small country town to a riverside field in the bush, at a community called Homeland, which began as a kind of Aussie Findhorn in the 1970s. (Homeland is just several miles from Shamballa, a community that I called home for some years).

This party was a 'doof', that is, a techno-music dance. The organisers can be proud of the way they lit up the bamboo, trees and various domes and sound stages of all shapes and sizes. Being no great fan of techno, I wandered more than danced, just taking in the Pink Floydesque transformation of the Australian forest. As dawn broke I reluctantly took myself to my car to get 3 hours sleep in preparation for an interview on Community Radio Bellingen, which was founded by my close friend, and almanac member, Stephen Marc Abell.

Despite lack of sleep (try dragging your dance-wearied body to sleep in a Ford Festiva at 5 am for a few nights), I have returned refreshes and with a renewed sense of where I'm headed. Sometimes a few days away from home are the best prescription.

Possibly the best part of the long weekend was driving two of my grandchildren back from Bellingen to the arms of their Mum. All in all, a great 5-day party.

Dear Almaniac: It is my melancholy duty to inform you that your daily almanac has been diagnosed with Macauley Culkin Syndrome.

I've taken note of the feedback from many people, including that from unsubscribing members, and it's quite clear that the most frequent criticism of the almanac is "It's way too big".

In my enthusiasm for the project I have tried to share a lot of material each day, but it seems most people are too busy these days to get through it all. I can understand this, as your almanackist also suffers from 21st-century info overload much of the time.

Ironically, since starting in January, the bigger and 'better' I have made the almanac, the slower has been growth in readership. I've almost improved it into the ground and perfected the hell out of it. The bigger, the lousier: this is Macauley Culkin Syndrome, also known as the McCartney-Jackson Effect.

From tomorrow, the almanac will take on a new form, radically different from its past incarnations. I do apologise for the changes, but the Internet is still new and a place for experimenting. No one really knows yet what works and what doesn't. It could even be that the almanac will have to change again in the future: I don't want it to, but one must be flexible in this new jungle where there are no signposts or roadmaps.

The new Wilson's Almanac – no two days alike

What you can expect in your new almanac is a completely different look and feel each day. Each almanac will be unique: it might contain humor, or something about a person or event in history, or a bit of folklore, a website review, or something completely un-categorizable. Or a mixture of items, but in a digestible size. Sometimes there will be editorials, sometimes letters from Almaniacs. Some days there might just be a picture, if I think it's good enough as a stand-alone. The new format will evolve, but not evolve big.

My new challenge is not to reproduce the same format each day, but to delight and inspire you with some small gems each day. Maybe just one gem.

Giving you a bite-sized daily read will also free me from the 4-hour task of designing and uploading the daily webpage. If you have ever made a webpage, you'll know how exacting and time-consuming that is. Doing one every night is now a chore I would only consider doing if my efforts were reflected in reader satisfaction, but it's now obvious that a majority of readers don't want it. To paraphrase WC Fields, it's like an elephant: nice to look at, but I wouldn't want to own one.

So, friends, thank you very much for your support of Wilson's Almanac, and I sincerely hope you will stay at least a little while (say, about ten years or so) to see if you like the new "daily surprise" format.

PS I honestly believe the new content will be better, and I'm not trying to sell you any bull just so I can get to bed earlier each morning. I'm quite excited about having a surprise daily format instead of the former one which insists on being filled in a predictable way, no matter how boring the content.

If I was born
where they were born,
And I was taught
What they were taught,
I would believe
What they believe.

News: A lot of us are listening to a lot of news these days. I have found that News Radio http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/ is an excellent source.

It is produced by ABC Radio, which is Australia's national (government-funded) station. It gives local and international news, but also carries Britain's BBC, Deutsche Welle, Netherlands radio and America's NPR (National Public Radio). I enjoy getting different national perspectives, and only wish they had some other continents covered, but three ain't bad. The BBC material from Asia makes up for the lack of a direct Asian source.

News and current affairs are at the forefront of News Radio, of course, but you get some fascinating short documentaries and digestible science, medical, law, etc reports as well, from Australia, Europe and USA.

Turn: It seems that now that the reality of Afghanistan is becoming clearer, there seems to be a turning of the tide.

The BBC's radio program Talking Point last night invited listeners to give their opinions on the bombing of Afghanistan. By far the majority of callers, from many countries in the world, phoned in their passionate concerns that the heavy bombardment of that broken and impoverished country and its people was not such a good idea.

Objections ranged from the likelihood of half a million civilians dying in the coming winter as they flee on foot (600 have frozen to death already, said one source), to serious apprehension that the increasing anger of many people in the Muslim world will fuel years of terrorist strikes against Western nations.

One caller said that he felt President Bush's quick response of aerial bombing was 'playing into the hands of bin Laden', whom he said wanted to provoke further resentment against America. Another asked how $600,000 could be spent on a missile when a tent cost only $10, and so many of the Taliban's subjects were homeless as a result of US actions.

I, too, am noticing a greater readiness of my correspondents to reconsider their earlier pro-invasion stance. I hope that many will be prepared to think through the possible consequences of the spiral of revenge. No one can predict the future, but the real possibility of unbridled and uncentered terrorist activity over the coming years, is a collapse of international aviation and hence global chaos. Other dire consequences are too numerous to catalogue here; imagination will provide a few possibilities, just as imagination will provide innovative and smarter alternatives to the current catastrophe.

As the US Administration is now admitting the difficulty of their mission, and spin doctors are preparing America for many years rather than weeks in a growing Middle Eastern military conflagration, we should consider ways to cut Western losses. A good start would be to look beyond the mainstream media which have offered a very narrow bandwidth of views in their rush to a military adventure, dragging good citizens along with them.

Let's keep our eyes on the escalation of outrage in the 50-odd Muslim nations from Pakistan to Indonesia, and consider with a little respect the concern of men and women for the unnecessary suffering now being rained upon millions of innocent Afghan peasants and townsfolk. I still have faith that American know-how can find ways to bring one maniac and his henchmen to justice without returning terror with terror. Is my long-held faith in America so misplaced?

Eccentric: "Old age, you know ... there's no future in it."– Lord Hailsam, Oct 9, 1907 - Oct 12, 2001

I note the recent death of Quintin McGarel Hogg, Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, former Lord Chancellor of Britain (1970-'74; '79-'87).

One of many charming anecdotes recounted about Hailsham tells of his proceeding through Westminster, in his wig and gown, preceded by his mace-bearer and followed by his train-bearer.

When the good lord saw his brother at a distance, the eccentric peer called out, "Neil!", whereupon several American tourists fell to their knees. Or, so it is said.

I noticed another remarkable coincidence as I read Mr Hamilton-Parker's interesting tale. As a background to his site, he has a design that features the ouroboros – an ancient symbol of a snake in a circle, biting its own tail.

I emailed Mr Hamilton-Parker asking whether he had deliberately used the ouroboros symbol on his page. He answered that he had not; it was just another coincidence, one of many in this episode that would have Edgar himself chuckling, I'm sure.

Souls: Just got back from the country, where I couldn't get an Internet connection for most of the time, and when I finally could, I was earning a crust. Eastern Hemisphere members got this late as I couldn't write it till after midnight when I got home to Sydney – sorry about that.

It's a day to think about souls, and what lies beyond the grave. All Souls' Day in the Christian church is, like Halloween, a cognate of the Celtic Samhain feast days, the point exactly between the Equinox and Solstice. Here in Australia, this week we celebrate Beltaine, but Samhain in the Northern Hemisphere is the time when the veil between this and other realities is thinnest. Or, so it is said. Let's remember those innocents who have died senselessly in the USA and Afghanistan recently.

Now that spooking is over, it's a good time to take attention off pumpkins, skeletons and other rather twee icons of Halloween, and take this season much more deeply into realms of the unconscious. We can get in touch with those beautiful spaces, quite easily if we just turn off the TV and give it a try. Go on, get your body somewhere appropriate and try it, it's fun, and good for you! And the moon is still round and full for special effects that help it along.

Bibi: Bibi and I lived together for many months in a suburban house in Sydney. She was an old lady from Afghanistan, a refugee from the Soviet occupation.

Like millions before and after her, Bibi had left her home with not much more than a bag of clothes, crossing mountains on foot and in rusty old vehicles, so that she could not only live free, but also just to live.

Bibi had somehow survived a Russian machine gun assault on her house, by crouching low while all the windows around her exploded. Her son, my friend Farid who is no longer with us, was imprisoned and tortured by the Communists for 18 months. When he was released from his underground cell he was a broken young man, and after a few years his wretched life released him as well. This was in Australia, where he never fully regained his full humanity. At the funeral I touched his waxen face as I shed a tear and gently berated him for the senselessness of his death. But he wasn't fully responsible for being unable to take Australia to his breast.

Bibi used to insist on washing my clothes and cooking for me. Sometimes I would come home from work and gently berate her too, for she would go into my room and make my bed. It was hard to stop her relentless generosity. She had lost nothing of her childhood innocence, despite having been married to the former head of the Afghanistan Air Force, and suffering the revenge for that from the conquering Russians. Bibi knew nothing of revenge. That was not part of her Afghan life.

Simple country girl that this old lady was, she never learned much English and relied on me to fill in her forms and interpret for her. Not that I can speak Pharsi – just a simple "tashakoor" (thankyou) for the "kichirikaroot" she cooked for me, and a "shabakhai" (goodnight) before bedtime. I'm not blessed with an ear for language.

I took her to a shopping mall once. She panicked at the top of the escalators, this Afghan aristocrat, as it was her first sight of one. I held this old country girl and showed her how to do it. Strange to think how Westernised she was even then, compared to the millions fleeing our bombs today, because she lived in the same street as the King in the old days. Well I remember her astonishment and confusion as she watched me fax a document for her.

We helped each other, Bibi and I. She helped me in more ways than she will know. If she were here today we'd hug each other and later we would both weep for Afghanistan, a place I have never seen, and Bibi will never see again. And she would say "Alloo Pip. How Jimmy?" because she loved my son so, before he became a man, and before I lost track of where Bibi went to.

"Jimmy kandor!!" she would say to me, with a wide, wide, wide smile that would light up the darkest corners of a military man's heart.

As I walked past he grabbed me, but only with his eye and his voice because I was walking, he was sitting, and he lacked the energy to match my fast city pace.

The old bloke was neither offended nor pleased. "Nah, mate. Don't need any tucker. The mission brings that round in a van. Nah mate, thanks all the same, I git enough to eat."

I pulled up a bit of bench. We shot the breeze for a few minutes. "Anyway, my name's Pip. What's yours?"

I took another look at his leathery, blotched face, a long, slightly exaggerated look, like a painter surveying the beauty of a model – Benny had almost an given me an invitation to no longer be shy with him. "Well, mate, I don't recognise the handsome face. Should I know you?" But then something clicked.

From way at the back of my mental filing cabinet, aided by his unusual first name, auto-retrieval had found the small file I had on Mizzo F----- from Poland and more lately of Richmond. Mizzo, a rather shiftless immigrant roof tiler who had been found guilty of the bashing murder of his wife about 20 years ago. He'd be about 54 now, but Mizzo looked 74.

For 11 years in prison, Mizzo had protested his innocence, but he wasn't articulate, he wasn't educated, and he wasn't "Aussie". Nor was he rich, and he probably wasn't a really likeable bloke. It never made the front page, but every few years, news of a failed appeal made page 18. But Mizzo did finally make page 9 when an itinerant man came forward out of the blue and confessed. Still it took months for Mizzo to be pardoned and released, and when he was, it was back to the foot of page 18 for him.

"I feel for you, you poor bastard. How much compo did the government give you for that?" I asked.

"They gave you less than ten grand for each year?! All those years in your prime? A half-decent tiler makes that much in two years or less!"

I shot the breeze with Mizzo for a little while longer, asked again if he was sure he didn't need a bite to eat, or maybe a coffee. "Nah, the mission'll be around in a coupla hours. Thanks anyway."

Everyone has a story, though not all as sad an outrageous as Mizzo's. I just need to take the time to ask. The truck that hurtles past me on the freeway isn't just a truck; it contains a driver who is fully human like me and thinking about his wife and the argument they had last night, or his baby son, or how to take revenge on the boss, or how to comprehend a Euclidean theorem or complete his novel.

And you know what else? Junkies weren't born in toilets, suicides weren't born in morgues, and winos weren't born on park benches.

Kalabosh: As for many, Libya has long held a fascination for me, not the least because my late Uncle Charlie was one of the famous 'Rats of Tobruk' there in WWII. This is the story of how I became a Rat of Misurata and lived to tell the tale.

In 1987 I was invited to Libya to cover Gaddafi's Conference on Peace and Revolution in the Pacific for the magazine I was editing at the time, Simply Living. The Libyans apparently thought that I would support their regime, but that's something I have never done, an attitude for which I got into a little trouble over there (and thereby hangs another tale, for another time).

There were a few Aussies there, and we were all paid for by the Libyan Government. I arrived in Tripoli on a Libyan white, unmarked 707 with a rumor buzzing around the plane that the Israelis were going to shoot us down. But that wasn't as scary as the hotel food when I reached my destination. The conference was mostly held in a minus-three-star hotel in a Mediterranean coastal non-resort town called Misurata.

Many years ago, when people were more straight-laced than today, my friend was a little boy and with his conservative father in a lift or, as my American friends might say, elevator) in a city building. Just the two of them.

They stopped en route at one of the floors, and who should step in but the Governor of the State of New South Wales, Australia. Now, these days, not only would the governor probably not be recognised; most people couldn't care less (or, as my American friends might say, could care less).

However, this was the early 1960s and things were different then. The father was not only mightily impressed, he was almost frozen in serf-like respect. Some things seldom change, though, and this young boy did what Australian schoolboys and almanackists still refer to as an SBD – a "silent but deadly".

Apparently the odour soon filled the lift, as odours do, whereupon the father felt compelled by propriety to ask the boy, "Son ... did you break wind?" Now, my friend is no old fool, and he apparently wasn't a young one either. His one-word answer to Pater was, of course, "No". A lad after my own heart, I must say. My next confession to a worthwhile SBD will be my first.

At this, Father did what any Australian gentleman would do in 1963. He responded, "Oh, excuse me. It must have been me, then".

Politeness, graciousness and good old-fashioned terror of authority like that are, lamentably, hard come by in our era. However, I've got another one, and this is a beauty too.

A taxi driver I know had a typical Sydney Saturday night mishap recently: a male passenger who was more than three sheets to the wind threw up everything but his Reeboks in a godalmighty hurl on the back seat. It smelt worse than an SBD and had the semi-digested felafel, the 17 beers and obligatory chopped carrots – the full catastrophe. Poor cabbie had to take the seat out at a petrol station and hose the thing down.

After a while, literally and figuratively fuming, he was back on the road and soon picked up another bloke. As the cabbie was driving along, he looked in his rear-view mirror and, alas, his passenger was lower than he should have been, and appeared to be squatting on the floor. Oh, no, had he picked up another seat-soiler? Usually in Sydney the second one never appears before 10pm, and the night was still a pup.

In fact, no. This good fellow had simply found that there was no back seat in the cab, and, a gentleman like my friend's father in the preceding true anecdote, he was far too polite to mention it to his driver. So he sat on the floor.

I think the males in these vignettes are rather indicative of Australian masculine culture. Rough enough to puke on your seat, rebellious enough to deny a fart, yet sufficiently well mannered to ride home in the position usually reserved for bush camp ablutions, rather than embarrass a stranger. I hope it stays that way, and as long as it does I'll remain an Aussie, despite the pathetic government we voted in last weekend.

My final example of extreme Aussie gallantry concerns my near namesake, Pip Piper. When I was a young man and studying, I attended a poetry evening at university. Over Chateau Cardboard cask wine and Woolworths No Frills cheese, I shared an idle moment of chit-chat with this gentleman. I didn't know him from a bar of soap, but he seemed friendly enough, and he was kind about the poem I read.

After the predictable warm banter about the unusual and charming praenomen our parents saddled us with, followed by some idle chat about Dickens and Great Expectations, and after responding to his polite inquiry as to my occupation, I asked him what he did for a crust.

"I work here, in the School of English and Linguistics," he said, a bit diffidently.

"Oh," I grinned like a satiated moron, "I've heard that mob is extremely badly managed".

"Yes, you might say that," replied Professor Pip Piper, Head of the School of English and Linguistics at Macquarie University. "I see your glass is empty. Would you like me to get you a refill?"

Now, there was a man! A true-blue, fair dinkum, ridgy-didge, won't piss in ya pocket, top bloke, bloody bewdy Aussie fella, and worthy of his name!

Rough: When we think of engagement between a man and woman, we usually think of a diamond ring. I mean, it's an ancient custom, correct?

Wrong; this custom is fairly new, and generated by Western commercial interests less than a century ago. Add to that the issue of "conflict diamonds", and we have some big problems with sparkling rocks.

In Brazil, and many European countries, upon engagement, the man and woman exchange gold bands and wear them on their right hands, shifting them again at the marriage ceremony onto the left hands. The diamond ring is not considered essential.

Diamond engagement rings are not much of a tradition anyway. Yes, they were known in medieval times, but so were plain rings, puzzle rings (gimmals) and variously-bejewelled rings. The currency of today’s engagement custom comes as much