It’s that time of year again, where half the country goes mad for a celebration of something they barely beleive in. There’ll be lies told to our children and drunken antics at the company’s expense.

As a child, Christmas was a source of presents and an opportunity to light candles. On Christmas eve I would head into the city with mum and my brother and end up coming home after (or close to) dark. It was never a religous deal, I wasn’t brought up that way and would never develop an affinity for any Christian based faith.

As a young teen, it was something that always came along. I viewed it as a time where I could get some stuf I wanted without having to save for years or really try and convince mum and dad to get it for me.

Growing up, many of my friends didn’t celebrate it at all. Be it because of being Jewish, coming from another country or smiply not doing it. I began to see my own thoughts echoed here. It’s not part of my religion. It’s not something I care about the Christian heratage of. I’m not into the Christian Imagery, the songs or a concept of there being one time of year when you’re meant to be nice.

If you can’t be nice and generous all year then you should probably just walk off the edge of the world – you’re not helping it get any better. Go on, fuck off.

One word was interesting though. Yule. What did it mean? Where did it come from? Why is there a yule log, yuletidings being brought and it’s christmas? Well, it’s not christmas – and technically, it’s not yule either. It’s doubtful that the majority of people in Australia care, they’re happy to live in ignorant bliss. Ignorant in bliss of so many other things. Blissfully ignorant of so many other things.

With those ignorant around me, I say merry Litha. Look it up, learn something, capture something over the break – your mind. Get off your arse and think.

A Melbourne man diagnosed with cancer is bigger than the war in Afghanistan. The heroin toll continues to play catchup with the ever increasing road toll – on page 20. The world-wide economic downturn barely rates a mention. And safe-sex and drink-driving? Well, we’ve all read that before, it’s last week’s news.

John Howard is a good polititian. I hate him as a leader. He has shown nothing but disdain for those in need and revels in a 1950s ideal which simply disgusts me. It came as no surprise when he started to lock up distressed children. The innocents of our lives, those yet to be touched by our prejudices and our unjust society. I am, of course, talking about asylum seekers and our habit of ignoring those in need.

For most of us it is a foreign feeling to be forced by circumstances to flee our homeland. To feel so much in danger that we must travel half-way around the world, no matter what the expense or means. We have no concept of the horror of shooting our own daughter to save her from the beating, rape and torture our wife was subjected to the year before by the last invading army. We are not likely to be stopped on the way home from work and instructed to slit an 11 year old boys throught and hear the most awful blood scream from one who reminds you so much of your own son. But we have no problem in those subjected to this trauma in a detention centre. A place where 67% of people have had suicidal thoughts.

The fact that Australians applauded the policy of the government makes me sick to my stomach. “Mandatory detention” or with the Tampa, ship them off to some poor island with no money and a corrupt government. Make it a S.E.P (Somebody Else’s Problem). It doesn’t work that way. It will bite us on the arse and bring up pustules of unbelievable pain. Telling people that nobody cares will only lead them to beleive it – a beleif which we try furiously to steer our youth away from.

But is anybody out ther listening? Is it all last weeks news? Are you really all that apathetic that you’ll no longer take an interest just because it’s been a week and we should all just get over it already. People starve to death everyday while we live in a gross excess of fat and laziness that is only surpassed by a country which trains those who attack it. Go fucking figure.

If you’re too lazy to get off your ass and do something then you’re wasting your time, I’m here to tell you you’re the problem. Those who help, in any way they can – be it helping a friend, helping a stranger, giving directions to lost ones in the street, offering a safe haven for a refugee – you are the ones i admire. You are the ones that will inherit the earth and it will be better for it. Help and love those around you, every day make sure they know it. We aren’t in uncertain times, we always are. Nothing is certain and there is only the destiny we put ourselves towards.