Who are the terrorists?

I keep reading about people with brown skin being threatened with beheadings.

Places of worship being defaced with threatening messages.

Heck. I could go on and on, but someone has already written something about the things that have happened just this week.

I can't help but think the definition is exactly what our politicians, our media, and many people (the guy who went into the islamic school with a machete today?) are doing.

So ban the burqa? Fit in? Is that the message? How can people we refuse to accept into our society fit into it? I somehow get the feeling the kiwi guy threatened with being beheaded on the Gold Coast wasn't wearing a burqa.

A famous person was once quoted as saying, "the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

I have no doubt our politicians have heard this quote and base their policies off it. John Howard created a climate of fear around asylum seekers. It helped him get reelected. Kevin Rudd could have reversed this, but hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, so he used the same technique. Now Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, when they're not blaming Labor for everything, are helping to increase the fear. Asylum seekers are now being sent to Cambodia. Basic rights for refugees written by the UN are being removed from our laws to allow us to do this. The government is using this fear to pass laws that remove freedoms from Australians.

The most disturbing part for me is that in 2014 our politicians are taking inspiration from the Nazis of 1940. Hermann Goering said this at the Nuremberg Trials.

Don't get me wrong. The Daesh are bad sorts. And yes, some guy DID whip out a knife and stab police. But how did some teenager get to that point?

Was he abused? Was he singled out because of his skin colour and his religion? Was he persecuted? Was his family?

Anyhow, I saw this photo by Mark Brunner today.

At a KKK rally in 1996, a white supremacist ended up in the cordoned off area with the protesters. Wearing a confederate flag and an SS tattoo, he was chased and knocked to the ground where he was kicked and beaten, until a young girl, Keisha Thomas, risked her own safety and threw herself on top of him to protect him.

A few months later a man thanked her. Not the man she saved, but his son.

Now I ask the question. If she had joined the mob, or if she had stood idly by and he had been beaten and even killed, what would that have done to his son? Would he be another hate filled, angry person?

Is our society creating a threat from within by its behaviour?

Martin Luther King said it best.

Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.

New Blog

With the demise of Posterous thanks to the evil Twitter Corporation, I've been forced to find a new blog.

Blogger will have to do!

I've been wondering what to write about; my old blog had a lot of things about photography in it, but I haven't been doing any of that lately. But then I saw that next week is National Diabetes Week.

I'm gonna admit, I have no idea what that entails. Are there events? Fundraisers? Could be. But it's definitely on my radar more than it has ever been.

Let me share a little TMI with you.

So for a while, i'd been tired. I mean REALLY tired. Coming home from work and being in bed and asleep by 7pm tired. I'd been peeing like a pregnant woman. I could barely get through a movie; I'd go right before heading in and need to go as soon as I came out, even without a large icy cold coke going through me. And of course, I was super thirsty. I figured because I was actively trying to drink more water it was making me pee more, hence making me need to drink more... or something. And yes, a nagging little voice in the back of my head suggesting maybe it's my prostate. I mean, I shouldn't be getting up three or four times in the night, right?

I'd meant to go to the doc, and when I finally did it was about something else entirely, and I kind of forgot all that stuff while I was there. But she sent me off for a blood test, just to see if my cholesterol was a bit high, but I was a little surprised to get a call asking me to come in for another test. My blood sugar was nearly double what it should be. It might be diabetes.

Well, had I REALLY fasted that morning? Maybe I had a glass of cordial before heading to the doc; I hadn't intentionally fasted before the test, I just had run out of cereal so was going to grab something after. But I paid a visit to Dr Google, so I wasn't surprised to find the next result was even higher.

Anyhow, the doctor lady sent me off for the proper test (we did a standard blood test first, just in case, because 1 needle vs 3), and sure enough, BAM. I've got diabetes.

Was I overweight? Sure. I mean, not much, but just a little.
Did I eat crap food? Yep. But no worse than a lot of other people I know.

Anyhow, I very quickly changed my diet and when I went in for my diabetes appointment with the doc she was pleased to find my blood sugar where it should be, so we're controlling with diet. But now I have a little blood test device, have signed up with the National Diabetes Service Scheme, and am looking to avoid medication as long as possible.

Was it easy? Sugar withdrawals didn't help. But knowing what it can do. Increased risk of heart disease, blindness, losing feet. It ain't pretty. And I guess knowing what my symptoms were actually from was a relief somewhat. Especially now I know I can do something about it.

So now I'd say i'm at the normal level of tired after work, I can often sleep through the night, and in about a month I've actually lost 10kg, so my BMI is no longer overweight.

The bonus is, a diabetes diet isn't at all awful. In fact, I'd say it's nothing more than a standard healthy diet, with plenty of delicious food. I DO miss chips, Coke and indulging my sweet tooth, but I can still have treats, just not huge amounts.

So with National Diabetes Week looming, keep it in mind. Diabetes can creep up on you (especially when you don't know the symptoms), and as I'm finding, it's actually not that hard to eat well and hopefully avoid the entire situation to begin with.