The news that the Tamil refugees on the Oceanic Viking have been living in Indonesia for up to five years destroys their claim of refugee status and Australia must not accept them.

Refugees are not “tourists”.   Refugees are seeking a safer place than their own country. Having found safe haven in Indonesia, arriving by ‘normal’ means and registered with the Indonesian government as refugees, they do not have the right to select their country of destination. That makes them tourists.

Australia cannot accept these refugees on humanitarian grounds – they should apply to migrate through the normal channels.

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My stay in hospital (cont.)

When my doctor turned up on day 1 of my morphine detox program, he injected about 5ml of Ketamine anesthetic into my stomach.  Within a minute, I started to become disoriented – as in being drunk.

Within five minutes, I was halucinating.  My field of vision became two dimensional.  The hospital ward and my body appeared to be in a horizontal plane and I didn’t know if I was looking at an image in my mind or whether it was real.   I had to feel for my body parts to locate them in my mind’s image.

They inserted a small canula into my stomach connected to a 50 ml syringe of the ketamine controlled by a pump.  For the entire stay, this ketamine infusion continued.  Every few days for two weeks, they increased the strength and as the anaesthetic built up in the system, the pain was all but eliminated.  The side effect was the dulling of the brain, loss of memory and shortness of breath – a relatively pain free state whilst maintaining  a limited awareness.

It is used for operating on children and is apparently used as a vetinary anaesthetic.  If I was in extreme pain on my death bed,  I would be looking for this process at a really high dose to ease my passing.

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The week at the Benalla Hospital turned into three – I got home to see the Grand Final.  As predicted, they have removed the morphine from my system but, as sure as hell, it has done nothing to ease the pain.

You see, when the blood PSA count returned to 1.0, my Urologist declared the cancer to be in remission.  The latest nuclear scan showed no new activity in the bone metastases.  Therefore, my doctor declared that, in remission, there can be more pain,  Well I say bullshit to that!

They have sent me home with a narcotic patch which tricks the brain into making other medications confuse the morphine receptors.   Another tablet to take when I wake up in pain to prevent panic as I try to deal with the pain over the next hour along with Panadol as the basic pain medicaton.  I am definately less functional that when I walked into the hospital.

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Tomorrow, I am to be booked into the Benalla Hospital for about a week but you won’t notice a difference because I haven’t been up to posting much lately.

I have been on morphine since my prostate cancer was diagnosed back in April 2008.  As time goes by, the body becomes immune and the dosage has to be increased.  The current dose is 100 mg both morning and evenings with liquid shots as required to manage the pain breakthrough.

The objective is to infuse some other pain killer through a tube into the stomach whilst my body adjusts to going without the ‘Hillbilly Heroin”.  I have been told that it is not a comfortable time and that the side effects are a build-up of fluids and an increase in appetite.  I am genuinely not looking forward to the process.  They say this process resets the pain receptors so that less medication is rquired to manage the pain.

From the outside, it probably looks just like one more medical procedure but from the patients standpoint, it is just another reminder of the disease that is wasting you away.

It is interesting to see our Sophie out and about (up Bankstown/Hornsby way, NSW) with the Liberal Leader, Malcolm Turnbull when they have a long term conflict dating before either of them entered politics.

Malcolm was the spokesman for the Republican Movement whilst Sophie made a name for herself in the Young Liberals by defending the Monarchists at the Republican debate back in1999.

Should /when a leadership spill occurs, will the Republican/Monarchist issue see Sophie left out of the pointy end of government or will Sophie and her ginger group try to roll Mr Turnbull?

I am disturbed by this story in the Herald Sun.

Birth induced so Brian Lake can play final

By Mark Stevens

Read the full story at the Herald Sun

DOCTORS will tomorrow induce the birth of Western Bulldog Brian Lake’s girl, ensuring the star full-back will be available for the AFL finals …

Lake’s fiancee, Shannon O’Malley, was due to give birth on September 16, but after consultation with doctors the pair agreed to bring the birth at Freemason’s Hospital forward …

“Obviously the idea was to do it mid-week because with footy finals I didn’t want to be worried about it around Saturday or Sunday.”

In 2000, Brisbane Lions star Daniel Bradshaw missed an MCG elimination final to be at the birth of his first child. The Lions lost.

Three years ago, Sydney Swan Darren Jolly vowed to miss the Grand Final to be at his pregnant wife’s side but was spared the decision when his daughter arrived 48 hours before the bounce.

Others have played on. Kangaroos forward Saverio Rocca left his wife in labour to play in a 2005 elimination final.

The Whitfeld Progress Group appears to be still getting the runaround from the Rural City of Wangaratta, who go out of their way to support infrastructure projects in the King Valley.  In my 10 years there, nothing has changed as this internal email shows

We realize the processes of local government take time and there are only limited financial resources available and we do appreciate the assistance you have given us.

It is just the fact that all these infrastructure projects have been discussed before and their resolution was accepted as council policy in 2002 but they have never been acted upon.  Now we are going through the same process again in 2009. You can understand why we are just a little sceptical about the value of the consultation process.   I was rather surprised to learn you are still waiting for funding to undertake the King Valley Masterplan. I had thought it was due for completion this year.

We are progressing the cycling paths proposals and have spoken with the Glenrowan people about their application, also have quite a few letters of support from the King Valley community. No maps yet from the DSE. Rob Steele has been seconded to another project but was going to organize with Therese Davies from Wodonga to forward the maps and explanations which hasn’t happened. Perhaps you could assist here. Therese has previously emailed a map to Cathy van Gastelen at the Cheshunt General Store re this project but it only partly covered the area of interest and there was no explanation of the significance of the codes designating the various land parcels.

The website proposal is certainly interesting although we would probably need someone with Greg’s dedication and expertise to properly maintain it. I had a look at the Oxley website which is quite good but the Moyhu website has limited and out of date information posted. In reality it is difficult to have a uniquely Whitfield website as most community activities in the area would have participants and venues ranging from Rose River to Edi and possibly Moyhu, including King Valley, Myrrhee and Cheshunt.  Could we have an Upper King Valley website to include Edi, King Valley, Whitfield, Cheshunt, Myrrhee and Rose River? This would surely improve community cohesiveness and responsibility for maintaining the website could be shared among the different communities.  It is something to discuss at our next meeting.

Also the southern end of the King Valley it is a bit of a telecommunications black hole.  Most people are out of range of the ADSL network, fast satellite broadband is expensive and dial up internet is painfully slow. There are also a lot of members of the community who, whilst they participate in community activities, do not have the internet. This rather limits the usefulness of electronic notice-boards.

I have moved over 100 kilometres from Whifield and it looks like I am not going to be able to get the district out f my system

The unit in Kennedy Court, Euroa that we have moved to. Friends are invited to email greg.naylor@gmail.com for our new phone No.

It has been a long and eventful journey from our 10 acres at Whitfield to a two bedroom Town House or Unit in Euroa.

With my deteriorating health, we had reached the point where we could no longer manage the acreage and, in the event of me falling off my perch, Pauline was naturally concerned that she could find herself stranded – alone in Whitfield – and have difficulty in selling the property further down the line.

We put “Caringbush” on the market to test the waters and within two weeks, we had two purchasers willing to pay the asking price.   Once we signed the sale contract we then had to await on the purchaser’s finance to be approved leaving us with about 50 days to find a new home. We searched from Echuca through Tocumwal and found some nice places in ‘Lifestyle Villages’ for the retirees but found their terms and conditions not to our liking.

Then, out of the blue, we found this well presented Town House in Euroa and within a couple of days we had signed to purchase the property tying the settlement date for both transactions for the same day.  Cutting a long story short, we moved over the last week and are now permanently ensconced in our new home.

The biggest benefits to me are:

• We can just press a button to heat or cool the place down.  No more  sourcing, storing, and carting firewood.
• We have ADSL – for the first time in our lives.  Euroa is restricted to ADSL1 which is heaps faster than Satellite.  We have an account with iiNet that gives us 25 Gigabytes download @ 1,500 Kbs download speed.  Bundled with unlimited national calls via VOIP, the package costs $90/month.  That’s what we paid for the phone only with Telstra plus another $45/month for 1 Gig Internet access @ <500 Kbs.  With a new 18 inch LCD monitor, I’m in Internet heaven.
• Pauline loves the access to a shopping centre and a variety of restaurants/takeaways just up the road (as opposed to a 100km round trip to Wangaratta.  Being 1.5 hours away from family and friends instead of 3+ hours at Whitfield is a big bonus too.

We have just about settled in and I will get back to a bit of blogging in the near future.

A unique musical event is being planned for Father’s Day weekend next month, which will bring fathers and sons together to share their musical talents.

The concert, to be held at the Flour Mill on Saturday 5 September (the day before Father’s Day), is already generating interest, and several local dads are dusting off their instruments and rehearsing a song or two with their sons. Others will be travelling to Euroa to perform with family members.

The evening will be a celebration of father-and-son relationships in which the different generations can find common musical ground (somewhere between the Beatles and Green Day!) and perform together.

An invitation is extended to any fathers and sons who would like to do an item. There is no age limit and participants of all musical styles are welcome. Amplifiers and mics will be supplied, all you will need to bring is your instrument. Please contact Gary Chowanetz 0429 951 902 if you would like to perform.

Entry to the concert will be free and everyone is welcome to come along. A great evening’s entertainment is assured, not to mention a few surprises, perhaps!

This weekend, there were two teenage deaths associated with off road bikes.

Man on quad-bike dies in Oxley

Saturday, 08 August 2009 22:43
A man has died after his quad-bike collided with a car in Oxley tonight.Police believe the 18-year-old local man was travelling south on a residential street when he struck a Toyota Prado 4WD that was travelling east along the Glenrowan-Myrtleford Road around 7.40pm.

August 08, 2009 07:47pm
A TEENAGE boy has died in Melbourne’s north-west after the trail bike he was riding in a paddock was hit by a car from behind. The 14-year-old boy was riding in a paddock in Gisborne South when he was struck by a car driven by other teenagers at the private property about 5.46pm.

These two accidents have prompted me to point out how easily these events can occur.  On the corner of my unmade street, the Wangaratta Council road making crew temporarily dumped about 30-40 truckloads of good topsoil.  The local lads soon found it to be a great dirt bike track and even built a small ramp to get extra lift as they play on their new track.

The problem is that the track is no more than five feet from the road.  There is the distinct possibility of one of these young blokes losing control and ending up on the roadway under the front wheels of a truck.  It is bloody dangerous.  Complaints to the RCoW fall on deaf ears as they say it is a police matter.

When the original scans were taken in June 2008, they showed many more black regions – these are the locations of the tumors.  This scan was taken in June and there was defiinately fewer areas of tumor activity.

The scan I had last week shows most of the lesions in the pelvic area have hardly registered on the scan which means the cancer is dead in these areas.  The normal regenerative processes may even rebuild the damage to the bones caused by the cancer.  In other words, with my PSA back to normal at 1.0,  I am actually beating this prostate cancer in the skeleton.

The lesions up the spine are still there but are inactive and there are no new ones.  The way I am heading, I will no longer die of prostate cancer, rather I will die of other causes as the cancer dies out.

But it is not all good news.  We still have trouble with pain maagement when I get up in the late morning. Over the last month, I have been carted off to hospital and watched over by a bevy of nurses as the ‘getting up’ process has been an agonising ordeal Apparently morphine robs you of energy as does the female hormone implant that I take every three months.  So the next six months will be devoted to getting some strength back

For the last eighteen months, I have been confined to the house with nothing to do but watch TV or Blog.

These activities could not be further apart in their objectives.

Blogging exercises your brain and comuincations skills whilst daytime TV, with its never ending Infomercials, soapies, and talk shows, does nothing but numb the brain to accept the violence, weirdness of the world’s freaks, terror and conformity with the opinions of the presenters and/or their sponsors.

Years ago in the vineyards, we gathered at lunchtime in the “Chuck Wagon” where there was a range of out of date women’s magazines (like the doctor’s waiting room).

The girls in the crew read and re-read these magazines all year long.  Now, if that is not voluntary brainwashing, I don’t know what is.

They come away from work each knowing who has been messing with whom on the world stage.  They read the latest dieting techniques whilst they put away another chocolate bar. They all read and probably cook the same recipes and it destroys their individuality. Blogging  V  The Media … a no brainer!

It seems that Whitfield is in a desperate situation.  This week saw the permanent closure of Adam Pizzini’s restaurant, Rinaldo’s, as he moves his business into Wangaratta.

Whitfield has a council sponsored progress development group of which I have been a member since its inception a year ago.

Today I received the following email from the group which doenn’t hold out much hope in getting the Rural City of Wangaratta to do anything constructive in our village township.

Hi Everyone,

Attached are updates on progress of our attempts to forward our proposals on infrastructure upgrades for Whitfield.

Get the distinct feeling no one is really interested, but guess we need to go through these processes.

A pity Rural City don’t see the value of investing in their rural townships, they seem happy to let them die and this seems to be happening with Whitfield.

Rinaldo’s has gone, most of the businesses in town are up for sale while they procrastinate and do nothing to assist the township to obtain some sort of credibility as an attractive tourist destination despite its ideal location at the heart of the King Valley.

As we leave the area after living here for 10 years, I am sorry to report that RCoW inaction has steadily destroyed any possibility of infrastructure upgrades in the minds of the residents.