Australia offers work opportunity.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

To see more, DIY brickwork. This article at this link, Australian houses in Brisbane. 

Today people still believe that Australia is the lucky country, and the land of opportunities, because a lot of people want to emigrate to Australia. But are there really many opportunities, and how does that compare with the old Australian way of life, like when I came to Australia in the sixties?  

Is Australia the land of opportunity?

Work opportunity in Australia.   

Welcome to our article, Is Australia the land of opportunity? 

Dear readers, when I came to Australia in the early sixties, there were good opportunities to work. So, in this article we are going to compare those opportunities. 

So, let us start by telling you the opportunities that we had when I came to Australia, to the opportunities that we have today in Australia, and how those opportunities played a part in the lives of those people that migrated to Australia.  

Anyhow, I feel that today is different, but I suppose that every one of us feels different, Whether we are emigrant, or we have been born here we have our own story to tell, according to our life experiences and the work that we did; but let me tell you my personal story, so that you can see my own experience the same way as I have seen it, then compare it to today’s opportunities, if you like.

If I were to use only my personal experience in Australia as a standard, we must say that Australia opportunities today are not as good as they used to be, because things have changed. Now if we want to compare the fewer opportunities that are available today, with what used to be available in the sixties, you can use my life story, because I am going to write my life story, just the way I have seen things happen to me and to other people that came to Australia in the early sixties, so, my life story opportunities can be compared with what is available today. 

Anyhow, everybody in the wide world thinks that Australia is still the land of opportunities, and that is the reason why people are trying to migrate to Australia. Having been an emigrant myself a long time ago, and being lucky to find some relative that helped me to settle in Australia, I know that migrating to another country is not an easy thing to do, especially if there is no one waiting for you and help you when you arrive, and it is even harder if you don’t speak the language of the country you are migrating to, but today there is a great movement of people throughout the world that migrate from one country to another, and a lot of people want to come to Australia, they even risk their lives during their journey, boarding unseaworthy boats that can break up and disintegrate in the ocean, and they can drown, because there is no help.

Looking at what is happening today, we know that the entire world has problems with people migrating to other countries like Australia. Here in Australia we are upset to see people coming in by boats, and we want to stop them, or send them back where they came from. Now, I need to say that in Europe is even worse with people coming in from North Africa every day, they are so many that is hard to count them, and we guess and say that the same amount of people that migrate illegally to Australia in a year may migrate to Europe in a week or even less than that.

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But, is Australia still the land of opportunity? 

If I use my personal experience as a standard, then I can say that today in Australia work opportunities are not as good as they used to be. But then not everything is as it seems to me, because my judgment is that of a single person and therefore, I might be wrong.

So, let us try to see what has changed since I came to Australia. There are many things that have changed since then; therefore, working opportunities have changed, so, today it is a lot harder to find a manual job; this is due to the fact that we do not need as many hands to do a job, because the hard labor is being done from machines, therefore, people that have no skills and rely on their physical strength to work are not required. For this reason, there are less jobs available, but if people have a trade or have studied there are working opportunities for them.

Now let me tell you my experience when I came to Australia, because this is the way that we can compare the work opportunity situation.

Today this sounds an impossible achievement, but there have been times in Australia when everybody had a job, so, there was no unemployment at all, from stories that I have been told from people that were already here when I came, there have been times that the employers had not enough employees and they would go down to the wharfs when the ships arrived and select a few people that seemed good enough for them to do their jobs, therefore, in those days there were no unemployed people, but unfortunately those times do not last long, as I said working opportunities go up and down.

Now to compare those times with today’s’ opportunities, we are going to describe part of my own life story, so, let us see what opportunities were available then.

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What sort of opportunities were available in Australia? 

When I arrived in Australia in March 1961 my relative and friends were all working, at the same time they were telling me that there were not many job vacancies available, so, I had to be patient until a job was available. But what sort of work I could do they were not sure just we had to wait and see, what I knew about working for other people was that if a job was offered to me I had to work hard, since in my country when we hired workers to work in our family farm, we expected them to work hard so that they would earn their pay, therefore, I was in my right frame of mind to go out and work hard, whatever job was offered would do me just fine. I have said this, because it is necessary to understand that whoever attempts to migrate to another country, he/she must be ready to work hard if they want to succeed, and it all boils down to this, you need to do a fair work day for fair daily pay.

Beside my willingness to work I was also young and fit enough to do any manual job that I was offered, the only problem was that I didn't speak English, I had learned perhaps a few words on the way to Australia while we were sailing, as there was an English teacher on the ship for that purpose. But as we know English is a hard language to learn, especially if one comes from a country that their language is phonetic and once you know some rules, one can read from a book and come close to the sound how those written words are pronounced, but English is not written phonetically, so, to learn English one must be exposed to the English speaking people and slowly learn from them, so, I and other emigrant like me had a lot to learn, before we could speak English well enough to look after ourselves, and to fit in the Australian speaking community.

Anyhow, let us tell you that although I had very little English, things turned out all right in the end, perhaps this is another reason why people think that Australia is still the land of opportunities.

For me when I came to Australia I was thinking that I was on my own, so, I had to find my own way around, but here I had a pleasant surprise when for the first time some relative took me to see the unemployment office.

In Italy when you go to an Italian office if you want something done quickly you need to know somebody in there, otherwise before your turn comes the office hours are over and you have to come back the day after, so, I was wondering how could we succeed in these Australian offices, since I didn’t speak English and my friend was just a little bit better than me.

Anyhow we waited our turn and soon we were being interviewed from this middle aged man that seemed to have so much patience and understanding of the situation, he slowly worked out what we wanted by asking and repeating what we did not understand, and he noted everything down as he asked me many things to see what sort of job I could do, I remember even now that one of his questions was if I were afraid of heights and I said no, as I was going up some tall trees to prune them, he also asked if I knew anything about building or building maintenance, here again I said yes as we sometimes repair some farm building. I believe that these two things gave me the first job in the building industry, as I was called one day to go to work for the first time in Australia. My first job was that of a bricklayer labor, and we were working on a chimney stack in the brickworks where bricks are made, which I managed to hold for a couple of weeks, until a bigger gang came and I became a bit confused in the middle of all those people, and I lost my first job for lack of knowledge or lack of understanding English. But anyhow I had my first work experience and I was sure that soon there was going to be another one.

Anyhow, I need to say that Australia is a great country to be in, because people are given their opportunities as they deserve, if you are willing to work hard for it. And in the unemployment offices the officers are just great people to deal with. Well, it was like when I came to Australia, today things might be a bit different.  

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Australia building industry. 

Anyhow, my first job in Australia was in the building industry, because I ended up working as a bricklayer’s labor, but I lost that job for a couple of reasons. I believe that I lost the first job, because I didn’t know English and at the same time, I had no experience in the sort of work we were doing, and for that reason I could not guess what they wanted me to do next. After that I had another job which ended very much the same way; but then one day suddenly a small Italian builder needed a labor and he knew that I was available, so, he came to fetch me and asked if I would be interested to work for him, and this is how I ended up working in the building industry, I worked for this builder for about two years, but then he went on holiday to Italy for a long time, therefore, he temporary closed down the business, but by then the Italian building community new about me, so, in a few days I had another job to go to, always in the building industry with another builder or contractors working as a bricklayer labor.

You see in those times there was work for people wanting to work, but we had to work hard because there was a lot of competition going on, so, what could we say if we work hard for it, we would always find somebody that would give us work, because we earned our wage plus a bit more for the employer. This is how I understood the ways of earning your living in this capitalist society, which is based on competition and you are paid with what you deliver.     

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Compare the old ways with the new

Here we want to compare we want to compare what we had to do to come to Australia in the sixties, with what is happening today with illegal emigration, to spot the reasons why things don’t work as good as they used to work. 

You see, when I and the other emigrants wanted to come to Australia during the sixties, we had to be screened before we could have a visa that would allow us to come to Australia and work.

This screening was strict, as they did not want anybody that could become sick, so, we had to go through a medical check, and there was another stricter check about being legally of good character, even if you had ever had trouble with the police, in fact, they were so strict about this that if one had been involved with the communist party, by saying that you would vote for the communist party, you would not be allowed to come to Australia.

I hope that I have explained how strict they were then, before they gave you a visa to come to work in Australia. Anyhow, I can say that this screening the emigrants was a good thing after all, because after that it was a lot easier when you were in Australia, since they knew everything that they needed to know, so, the authorities were more relaxed. As I have said, when I went to the unemployment office even though I did not speak much English they did everything possible to find me a job, and if they could not find us a job soon enough, they would pay us the unemployment benefit.

Anyhow, from my own experience, I can say that anyone that has come and seen Australia the same way that I have seen it, they know that Australia is a great country to live in; and if there is somebody that does not like Australia, it must be because they have their own personal problems and they are home sick, or they are unwilling to work hard.

Today Australia does not seem to be as good as it was when I came to Australia, because there are more unemployed people, and it is hard for people to find permanent work. But in my eyes, it is still okay, you need to be more patient until you find a job.

Now, because today a lot of things are different, most of all the difference that exists between screened legal emigrant, and those emigrants that come illegally and the authorities don’t know anything about them. So, a comparison between these emigrants is not possible. Therefore, measuring the opportunities that exist is not possible either. 

Now, let me add this, even today there are some work opportunities in Australia, but you have to work in the rural areas, they always want fruit picker and other workers. But this is not a permanent job.    

Anyhow this article is becoming too long, so, see you next time with another article called; Australian building industry, where we will be continuing to tell you my life story and what I have done in Australia to earn a living. 

To see more click on this link, Is Australia the land of opportunity?

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The Australian wooden houses.

 WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

To see more, DIY brickwork. This article at this link, Australian houses in Brisbane. 

When I came to Australia, I found that most houses were made of timber. For people that used to live in house built with solid masonry it seemed strange, but then you get used to it, and there are some good reasons for building them in timber. Anyhow what you can see in this photo is a large timber house that we call the Queenslander. This is a very large house, note the pretty design and all the verandas with fret works, also all the open space under the house, which could be used in very hot summer days to catch the breeze and stay in the shade.   
 

In most of the timber houses you could find fret works to make the house look pretty. Anyhow in those times there was still a lot of good and cheep timber that would last for a long time, even when it was exposed to the weather, so, it was convenient to build with timber. Today things are different, and even here they build with bricks and mortar, but today to build a house will cost a lot more. 

  

Welcome to our article, Australian houses in Brisbane.  

The Australian wooden houses. 

When we came to Australia in the early sixties, we had a surprise, when we found that the houses were made of timber, which were different from the houses we had left in Europe, all build of solid masonry.

For us Italian migrants that had lived in solid masonry buildings, even if some of them were rustic buildings; when we arrived in Australia at the beginning it seemed strange that in Brisbane lots of houses were made of wood, and most of them were set on wooden stumps, but then we started thinking that they were still good to live in, so, we got used to live in them rather quickly.

So, we had to forget how we were living in my native town of Genzano di Lucania, since now we were living in Australia the Australian way, after all, as the saying goes, when you are in Rome do what the Romans do. But then, what were the reasons and why these houses were made of wood, or to use another word for wood how the locals called it, they were made of timber.

So, this question arises, why these houses were made of timber and not masonry? If we use logic reasoning there is no difference whether houses are made of timber or masonry, as long as they can give the people that live in them that filling of safety and privacy that we aspect, when we live in our own home.

Having said that now let us see or guess the reasons why these houses were made of timber, and why they were set on wooden stumps.

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The wooden houses on stumps. 

The wooden houses on stumps of Brisbane and Australia

In Brisbane a lot of houses are made of timber, but not only are they made of timber, they are set on wooden stumps. 

From what we have heard from the locals, we can conclude that there were several reasons why the houses were made of timber. The first reason is that when the first settlers started to build Brisbane, there were plenty of trees that could be cut down and make good timber to build those houses. And then, the people that came to live in Brisbane and Australia had good knowledge how to use timber, since they came by boats, and because the boats of those days were mostly made of timber, there were always carpenters and carpenter tools on board, in case to boat needed repairs, so, to use timber and build timber houses was the easiest way for them, since they had the knowledge the tools and plenty of timber in the woods surrounding Brisbane, and other parts of Australia that needed houses.

At the beginning the houses were simple shelters, but as the time went by they became better, because the builders became aware of what would work better in this climate, you see, here around Brisbane and northward, when the wet season comes the ground becomes too wet for the houses to stand on the ground, in hot summer days everything becomes too hot and there were lots of vermin on the ground, so, they found a way how to build houses that would avoid most of these problems; that is why the houses on stumps became a necessity, of course slowly they became even better and even pretty, that is how the Queenslander house was born, which is a large house with verandas around them that keeps the weather and the hot sun off the main walls of the house. One can see these pretty Queensland houses if you look around even today.

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The Queenslander houses. 

The Queenslander house is a large timber house; some of them are pretty and they serve the inhabitant well, as they have been built to take the advantage of the hot climate in Brisbane and north Queensland regions. Now since I have been working in these houses to maintain them, let me describe them to you in more details. As anyone can guess there are a few different types of these houses, but here we are talking about the large Queenslander and the workers cottage, which is a small and cheaper version of the large Queenslander.

As we have said, there were plenty of trees around to make hardwood timber, which as the name suggests is hard and very strong, some of this timber are even stronger and longer lasting than the European oak or other strong European woods. So, the houses were strong and secure, the only natural enemy of these houses were the white ants (termites), which are able to eat through the wood and destroy the houses. The termites are native to Australia and if we go up north in Australia, we can see strange mounts of earth springing up from the ground, these is how the white ants live, they eat wood from the inside, and they make these mounts of earth.

So, as you can see this was another reason why the houses were built on stumps. The stumps were made of whole sections of trees that are resistant to rot; of course, the white ants were still able to eat those stumps, but they were treated with special paints and at the top they had a capping of metal that would make a barrier to the white ants if they came from the inside the stump, and also a barrier to the other ants or crawling insect from the outside.

We can say that some of these timber houses have been made pretty, because timber can be cut to different shapes easily, so, they were prettier compared to the house made of masonry, which is very expensive to decorate them with masonry, so, the houses are usually square boxes with a roof at the top.

Decorative fretwork was easy to make with timber, so, most houses had some decorations in them, in one way or the other. I am going to search the Internet for photos that can show you what I mean, about fretwork and other timber names, anyhow, I am going to leave it to your imagination, once you see the photos of the houses and the fretwork. 

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These wooden houses need some care. 

The timber houses need maintenance and care. For those people that have not lived in timber houses before, they should ask questions about them before they get involved in owning one of these houses. The first question that will come to their mind is: are these houses safe to live in and how long these houses can last? And then, what maintenance they require? So, let me try to explain this timber housing situation.

Timber houses need more maintenance than masonry houses; because you need to paint them for the timber to last longer, otherwise the timber on the outside walls will slowly rot away, but then, there are also some advantages, because if you want to change something it can be done easily and it is cheaper than if you have a masonry house, therefore, it is a lot cheaper to do some alterations, so, it can work well after all.

Having said that we need to say that these wooden houses have some problems of their own, apart that they need to be painted for the external timber to last longer, they have some vermin enemies everywhere in the houses, because the timber is more vermin friendly than masonry and bricks and cement, but the normal vermin are not a big problem for the house structure itself.

The greatest enemy of these wooden houses are the termites, or white ants as some of us calls them; The white ants can destroy entire buildings by eating the wood from the inside, a lot of times people don’t even know that the white ants are there eating their houses away while they are living in them; you see, unless you know what you are looking for, it is hard to see any sign of them from the outside. So, one day suddenly we find out by putting pressure on a spot where the white ants have eaten the wood from inside, everything starts collapsing inward and where there was a wall now there is a big hole.

Therefore, it is worthwhile to learn how to recognize the signs if there are white ants; and call an expert to check the building if you are going to buy it.

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How to defend our homes from these pests. 

There are a few things that we can do to prevent this pest destroy our homes; the first thing that we can do is to check that there is a barrier that stops the white ants to enter your building, for instance if your house is a high-set house on stumps, check that at the top of the stumps there is a metallic ant capping; this metallic ant capping is usually a large galvanized round dish or square of metal and it is bent down at the edges so that any crawling insect will find it difficult to enter your house that way; we hope you can see the picture? The ant capping prevents also the white ants to enter through the timber stump itself, if the stump has been infested with white ants, because when they reach the top of the stump, they cannot eat through the metal capping and so they cannot enter that way, of course there are a lot of different buildings and a lot of different ways to set a barrier; but sometimes the white ants find their way around.

Now there are ways that we should be looking for if there are white ants; here the first thing that we have to keep in mind is that white ants eat everything from inside and they don’t like to be exposed outside for long, so, the first thing one can do is to tap on anything that is made of wood; if the wood sounds hollow then the white ants may have eaten the inside, so, a complete check is needed to see what is the cause; another way to look for white ants signs is that if they are forced to go outside to move from one place to another, they will construct a tunnel, so that they can go up and down without being seen, so, we must look for any of these signs anywhere under the building. Experts have told me that the white ants need moisture, so, they have to travel to the ground to get the moisture and then they go up again their tunnel to eat the timber; now if the building is solid and there is no other way for the ants to go up they will construct their tunnel from the ground up, so, we should be looking for signs to see if there are ants tunnel constructed, and if there are tunnels, it means that there are white ants, therefore you need a pest control expert to poison these pests, and you need him fast.

Some natural enemies of the white ants

White ants have very few enemies because they live and hide inside the timber, but there are some natural enemies in their natural habitat, a couple of which are pictured here. As I said before, we need to learn the signs how to spot the white ants, then do something if you find that they are there, otherwise they could eat your house away quickly.

Hereunder we have pasted two links about termites that Huber’s have written for you to check them out.

How to Control Termites Naturally

Termite Control

Good luck to all timber house owners.  

Dear readers, my intention is that I am going to write several articles about houses, how to own them, how to maintain them and how to build them, because that is what I have done during my life.

Next article will be, Is Australia the land of opportunity? 

To see more click on this link, Australian houses in Brisbane. 

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World News and My Views, May 2022

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, World News and My Views, May 2022 Diary.

There are reasons to believe that, the USA has been leading the western world for a long time, and it can still be the best nation to copy, if they find a way how to stop this mass shooting problem. perhaps by changing their gun laws. You see, the world does not like America, when the Americans keep shooting at each other. 

World News and My Views, May 2022 Diary.

Welcome to our blog, World News and My Views, May 2022 Diary.  

Dear readers, this month of May 2022 have happened many things, so, it is hard to choose what to report first in my diary. Anyhow, let us start with this school mass shooting in USA Texas, because what I do not understand is why in the USA there seems to be more mass shooting than anywhere else in the world, and the victims are usually innocent young children that have not done anything to upset the killer/s. But some deranged people just go out and shoots innocent young children, it is almost like some wild west movie, where people shoot each other, but even there is a reason for killing, and the other party is armed as well. Most people believe that there are too many firearms around, so, just about anyone can grab a gun and start shooting.  

Anyhow, I do not know why the Americans cannot change the gun laws, and even the constitution could and perhaps needs to be changed. You see the American constitution was written in 1787, when there where mostly single shot guns and no automatic and semiautomatic firearms, so, we must wonder, if the constitution was to be written with what we have now, perhaps they would have written a limitation clause, that would exclude automatic firearms.  

I believe that some Americans start to realize that today needs are different from when the constitution was written. In those times people were living more like the wild west, so, there was a need to defend oneself. But today almost everything can be controlled by the police and other government authorities. So, in most cases there is no need to have any firearms. These mass shooting should not happen anymore; it also looks bad for America a leading nation. Anyhow, I have heard that some Americans accept that there should be less firearms around, that is what they are saying, but will this change take place, we do not know. Because, some people believe in the constitution second amendment, some of it is written hereunder.

The second amendment

The right to keep and bear arms in the United States is protected by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[11] While there have been contentious debates on the nature of this right, there was a lack of clear federal court rulings defining the right until the two U.S. Supreme Court cases of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010).

Anyhow it is a lot longer than what is written above, but it gives you a general idea. But let us see, what the rest of the world thinks about this.

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                        IS THIS REALLY THE AMERICAN DREAM?

What we see here is ridiculous, you see, this photo is telling us that what is happening in America is ridiculous, I have copied this photo from Face Book, it is called the American dream. But really it cannot be true, because babies only dream about their mothers' cuddles and yummy food. 

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So, let us imagine what the world thinks.

Now, let us see how these mass shootings is affecting America in the eyes of the world. You see, most of the western world would like to see America like a leading nation, but these mass murder shootings are changing everything, so, today nobody is looking at America as a model nation to copy their ways of life, as we did after the second world war. In fact, if we think about it, nobody would like to be in their position. So, it would be good if they start thinking how to avoid these mass murders. Anyhow, now let us describe what has happened, and the best way to do it, is to paste what has happened the way it has been reported.

So, I quote from what I have seen.  

Gunman kills 19 children, 2 teachers at Texas elementary school

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/two-dead-14-injured-elementary-school...

1 day ago · Tuesday's shooting was the deadliest at a U.S. school since a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012.

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Anyhow, this is what has happened now.

Investigators in Texas are seeking to determine how critical mistakes were made in the response to the deadly Uvalde shooting, including why nearly 20 police officers remained outside a grade school classroom as children placed panicked emergency calls for help.

Why the officers waited in the hallway nearly an hour before entering and fatally shooting the gunman is at the heart of an ongoing probe by the Texas Department of Public Safety into the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest US school shooting in nearly a decade.

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Here let us talk about other mass shootings

This is a list of the most notable mass shootings in the United States that have occurred since 1920. Mass shootings are incidents involving several victims of firearm-related violence. The precise inclusion criteria are disputed, and there is no broadly accepted definition.^[1][2]

The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that tracks shootings and their characteristics in the United States, defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people, excluding the perpetrator(s), are shot in one location at roughly the same time.^[3] The Congressional Research Service narrows that definition further, only considering what it defines as "public mass shootings", and only considering victims as those who are killed, excluding any victims who survive.^[2] The Washington Post and Mother Jones use similar definitions, with the latter acknowledging that their definition "is a conservative measure of the problem", as many rampages with fewer fatalities occur.^[4][5] The crowdsourced Mass Shooting Tracker project uses a definition even looser than the Gun Violence Archive's definition: four people shot in one incident regardless of the circumstances.^[6]

Larger documentation of mass shootings in the United States has occurred through independent and scholarly studies such as the Stanford University Mass Shootings in America Data Project.^[4][7]

(Anyhow, we hope that the American people see the need to change their firearms laws, in a way that these mass shooting do not happen anymore, at least some of them believe that it needs to be changed.)  

DEMS RAIL AGAINST NRA, SENATE, ASSAULT WEAPONS AS HOUSE PREPS GUN CONTROL PACKAGE: 'CRISIS OF DEATH'

"You will not stop us from advancing the Protecting Our Kids Act today," he added. "If the filibuster obstructs us, we will abolish it. If the Supreme Court objects, we will expand it. And we will not rest until we have taken weapons of war out of circulation and our communities each and every day."

End of quotes. 

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From what has been said, I believe that the entire world wants to see America a peaceful country. So, it is up to the American people to see the reasons why they need to change their gun laws. 

Now this article is a lot longer and covers other issues, if you want to see the original article click on this link, World News and My Views, May 2022 Diary. 

See you next time. 

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Welcome to Brisbane Australia.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, Welcome to Brisbane. 

 Every where you go in the world they have something to show you, Brisbane has the Story Bridge and the City Hall, Brisbane City Hall is in George Square, it has a clock that chimes every quarter of an hour, one could say that this is the Big Ben of Brisbane.   

Welcome to our article, Welcome to Brisbane. 

Dear readers, this is another article of my life story. Here I am going to tell you about my first impression of Brisbane city, when I came to Australia.. Let us start from the docks where I have arrived and disembarked; as soon as I disembarked in Brisbane I met with my brother and other friends, so, I let them guide me what to do next, after all they were here before me, so, they knew what we had to do and where we had to go. As we know newcomers arriving from a foreign country have to go through custom to check their belongings, so, we did that and then we were free to go to our destination. 

Anyhow, after the customs cleared us, we left the port in a car and they took me to one of our friends house not far from the port, here the lady of the house had prepared something to eat for everybody and while we were eating and everybody was trying to make me feel welcome, we were also talking about my native town Genzano di Lucania and the people that I had left behind in that town; you see, all those relative or friends that came to pick me up, they were from the same town and I had brought presents and news from their families. I must say here that in those times when transport and news travelled much slower that today, anybody that arrived from overseas was welcome, especially if one brought presents and news from their relative and friends. 

Here we guess that everybody that has migrated or moved away from home for a long period of time knows what being home sick is; therefore, this finding that there is a group of people from your own town, and they are staying in touch with each other is helpful wherever one goes and they make the new comer feel welcome. So, I was welcomed from this group of relative and friends, who soon made me understand among other things that I was welcomed to Brisbane the land of the kangaroos. 

Now, I have to say that at first sights Brisbane did not look as good as Sydney, the port of Brisbane where I disembarked was an old timber dock, and we went through customs in an old and large timber building, but I thought anyhow Brisbane is still a city and our friends live here; so, we went to one of our fried home, it was a unit in a brick building, so that was not bad, after all one has to accept whatever there is available when we go to a different place. 

Anyhow, after having eaten and talked for a couple of hours with our friends, and given them those presents that I had brought, I was driven to my final destination a few kilometers away, where we had to go was on the other side of the river, we went across the Brisbane River on a bridge called the Story Bridge. So, Brisbane has also its own unique landmarks the Story Bridge and City Hall are the most important. 

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Reaching my final destination

My final destination was at my uncle home, where my brother and a few other friends and relatives were also staying. My uncle had been in Australia by now 9 years and somehow very recently had been able to save enough money to put down a deposit to buy a house; the house was a large wooden house. 

Now, for us that were coming from a country where almost everything was masonry or built with bricks and mortar and cement, these houses in Brisbane city make us feel a bit strange at first; but, they were still houses and they still provided a roof on our heads; therefore, even knowing that they were made of timber, I was pleased to have been offered that accommodation. My brother knowing that I was coming had already bought a bed for me, so, I was already set up. You know it is a great help when you go to a new country and find that somebody has already prepared everything for you. I believe that for this reason I have been lucky. 

Let us imagine you reach your destination, as I did when I reached Brisbane city. Now let us say that you don’t have much money to pay for accommodation, you don’t know where to go or what to do next; you don’t know even how to speak the local language, you can end up in deep trouble you know. Therefore, I think that I have been lucky, when I found that I was welcomed. I believe that when we see new arrivals, we should try to understand that they have left their own country, in the hope of finding a better way of living. 

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At my new address. 

Now, let me talk how I was welcome at my uncle house; we reaching my uncle house and were greeted by the people that were in at that time of the day, since there were people that had gone to work, you see, there were quite a few people living at my uncle house already, and they were all from the same town that I came from, so, we all knew each other already. 

So, I reached my final destination in Brisbane city at my uncle house, and greeted those that were there, we unloaded my luggage and we started to talk about the town I came from, Genzano di Lucania, with the people that were present, because they were all from the same town, and they wanted to know as much as they could about their relatives. While we were unloading at the same time I was telling them about the presents that I brought from my own family to my uncle, they were mostly local town produce the largest of them was now a seven liter demijohn of wine, since the ten liter broke on the way, I had also some 6 liter of pure olive oil and a large tray of homemade large biscuits that we make in Genzano when somebody gets married, there were other presents that I was going to give them as soon as I would unpack my own luggage.

Anyhow, evening came and we had dinner and after that I retired to my bedroom, I was ready for a good night sleep on firm ground, after being a whole month on the ship. 

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Brisbane city views.   

Wherever you go there are always interesting things to see, also Brisbane city has got several thing to show the world. I know that most people that come to Australia will say that Brisbane does not look as good as Sydney, but so what, it is still a nice city to live in and has got things that we are proud of; like the Story Bridge, City Hall with its clock tower that strikes the time every quarter of an hour, the city shopping Centre, Parliament House and the botanic gardens next to it, where we can stroll around looking at the garden or the pond, with its ducks and swans or sitting on the lawn on a hot summer day and listening to a band during the weekends.

Now there are more parks in Brisbane and most of them have a playground for children, the most important after the City Botanic Garden is, New Farm Park, this park is well known for the roses that are grown there, so, we call it the park of the roses, it is also a sight to see early in spring when the jacaranda trees are in flower, this park has a large playground for children, it has a kiosk, where you can have a cup tea or buy an ice cream for the kids and a few other things, on hot summer days one can sit under the trees near the Brisbane River and fill almost as if you are at the beach; you see Brisbane River is a very wide river and it is navigable for many miles, so, while we were sitting in the shade of the trees, we can see the traffic of bouts on the river, some of these boats are carrying people that were sightseeing on the river, or going to another pleasure destination.

Another important garden that needs mentioning here is the new Botanic Garden at Toowong Brisbane, near Mt-Coot-Tha forest this is a western suburb on the fringes of Brisbane city, this new botanic garden has been opened because the old botanic garden in the city lost some of its land, as they have built another university there; now apart from seeing what we can see and find in a botanic garden; from this new botanic garden, you can visit also this observatory; 

The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium is a planetarium located on the grounds of Brisbane Botanic Gardens^[1] in the suburb of Toowong, Brisbane, Queensland,Australia. The Planetarium was officially opened on 24 May 1978.

Anyhow, let us go back to talk about the sixties and those wooden houses.

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The wooden houses. 

Living in Brisbane wooden houses, I felt no difference at all to live in it, after all that is the way that most of the local people live in these parts of Australia. It was a four bedroom house, in addition to the four bedrooms there was a lounge room, a large kitchen where there was enough room for a large dining table, there was a bathroom with bathtub and shower that had a gas heated hot water devise that you could light up and have a hot shower, the toilet was downstairs under the house; now all this large house and floor space was set on wooden stumps, I know that those people that have never lived or seen a house on wooden stumps before are saying; what is he talking about a house on wooden stumps. 

I know it sounds strange and feel a bit strange too to live in these houses at the beginning, but anyhow, they are there, and they have a pretty good reason why people built them like that. After all is not even a new idea when we think about it; you see when I was at school I remember that my teacher was saying that a long time ago for safety reasons, some people that lived by the sea would build their house on stilts over shallow water, so that they could defend them easily if they were attacked, but what are the reasons for these houses to be built like that here?

I believe that I have said enough in this article, we will talk about these wooden houses, in our next article, Australia wooden houses, because we want to explain the reasons why these houses in Brisbane were built with timber and they have been built on wooden stumps.

 See you soon in next article, Australian houses in Brisbane. 

To see more click on this link, Welcome to Brisbane. 

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