I am, you are, we are Australian - and Bob Katter is too

I bet the Katter family get sick of it. I know I do.  As a long time resident of the seat of Kennedy and someone who stood twice against Bob Katter Senior in that seat, I know how often people ask about the ethnicity of the Katters.

To-day I have visits to the this blog from people seeking just that information.  Someone wanted to know if Bob Katter was Aboriginal.  No.  Another asked his "ethnicity".  I have heard all sorts of suggestions in the past.

So let's settle it right here - hopefully (but I guess not) forever.  The Katters are of Lebanese extraction.  I will give you a couple of firm bases for this.  Firstly, this newspaper article.  The other is a local history program I heard on Radio National two or three years ago.

It was one of those programs one could hear on a Saturday afternoon - but the ABC does a few history programs so I can't recall the name of this one.  It's major informant seemed to be Richard Anthony, a well known figure in Charters Towers.  He mentions the Katters in that program.

You see, there was this marvellous extended Lebanese family.  Richard described how his grandmother/aunts/mother used to cook for them all.  It was a charming piece of little-known history.  So - let me say it clearly - the Katters are Lebanese.  No, they are not Aboriginal.  No, they are not Syrian. No they are not descended from Afghan cameleers.

But all this was a few generations ago.  The immersion of the Katters and their relatives in northern and western Queensland has been steep and deep.  They are real identities, real locals there.  They are - as we all are who voted on 21 August 2010 - Australian.

Let's not count the difference - albeit we may have political ones.  Let's just rejoice in the fact that Australian soil absorbs us all and turns each of us into something unique - if we let it.

Redheads are not fair game #2 : almost everything you wanted to know about redheads

From Redheads.com

Calling all Redheads out there - and those who love them!

Have updated my previous blog with new information.

Please check it out here.

 Joel and Aaron from Ranga explain the establishment of their website in this way:

The Red And Nearly Ginger Association exists to represent the interests of Ginger primates everywhere. Special interest groups exist for people with all sorts of differences; Political, Religious, Ideological, Gender Orientation and/or Sexual Preference and Medical, to name but a few. This site's purpose is to further the cause of all individuals whose MC1R receptor is set in it's default position, therefore producing pheomelanin rather than eumelanin. We do this by providing research information, forums, and community events all designed to allow our Ginger brethren to be proud of their genetic heritage. Rangas everywhere - unite and be proud! Now it never occurred to me - Miss Eagle is sharp sometimes and dull as dishwater at others - to link my hair to some specific, findable, nameable, recessive, carefully placed gene.  But if you, dear Networkers, wish to know all about this and other things your mother forgot to tell you about redheads please go here.  And if you are a glutton for punishment, please go here.   Now, Miss Eagle is the daughter of a red-headed father with a red-headed aunt on either side of the family tree.  She married a red-head and produced, allegedly, three red-headed children: allegedly, because while most people refer to my third child as a redhead, I regard him as a sort of coppery brown.  No not auburn.  Brown.   This means that just taking into account husband/father, me, one daughter and two sons we have a wide range of red hair.  My colour is auburn - and for more than you ever wanted to know about auburn hair, please go here One factor that is not exactly made clear in all the learned journals is the instability of red hair.  I have often been envious of dark haired people when they age with that lovely and elegant pepper and salt hair.  But what happens to redheads? Lighter redheads just tend to fade, perhaps to a sort of non-descript blonde-cum-gray.  Those of us with auburn hair like me and my mother's sister find that our hair gets brown and dark and then when gray creeps in - again a quite non-descript colour.  And when you are used to having your hair coloured in an interesting way and people admiring it or asking is it natural or out of a bottle, this can be a bit of a shock to one's self image. As my beautiful (she was very beautiful and elegant and glamorous) Aunt Doreen remarked - So many people have asked if my hair colour is natural and I have honestly replied yes, that now it is changing with age and the red can't be seen, I have to get it from a bottle to keep faith with my public!. So I echo Auntry Dor.  Although I would be happy to live with my white hair and save myself the money and the hassle.  I dye.  Now for years and years, I dyed an auburn-brown colour in the main.  And then, two years ago, an amazing life-changing thing happened.  I managed to grab the wrong colour off the supermarket shelf.  It was bright, bright, traffic-light red hair.  I was shocked - at first.  But have grown to love it.  And I have some interesting observations because of it. Years ago I read an article by Joanne Woodward which described how post-menopausal women are treated/ignored.  Let me tell you, this post-menopausal woman is not ignored.  She is no longer invisible.  I get chatted up by men in trains, shops, restaurants.  Now, needless to say, all of these men are not men I wish to be chatted up by.  But there you are.  If you are a post-menopausal woman, gather up your courage and daring and make a colourful hair statement.  It's fun, adds to the spice of life, and you ensure you stand out in a crowd. I have never posted my very own picture on this blog before - but, dear Networkers, I want you to see how red the hair is.   So here' tis:

PS:  I am of Irish heritage, and my children - through their father - have some Welsh heritage.  I am assuming that my Celtic grandmothers of the long, long ago were raped and pillaged by those Vikings from Scandinavia.

Redheads are not fair game

From The Age

The redhead racism has asserted itself already.  Julia tried to make light of it in her speech to the nation saying she was the first woman to step into the top job and perhaps the first redhead.  Needless to say the unreconstructed ones at Triple M are calling Julia the first ranga Prime Minister

.

This contemporary singling out of Gingas and Rangas amazes me.  I am a redhead, the daughter of a redhead, who married a redhead and produced three children (two of whom have red hair and the third is copper-y brown).  I don't recall all this nonsense that seems to go on about redheads going on across my years but it seems very fashionable now  - and, folks, it ain't always amusing to those on the receiving end.  Why should little kids have to grow up with all this discriminatory rubbish?

Hats off to Stephen Simpson who lives across The Ditch in Christchurch and he is compllaining.  Some people say that the negative singling out of redheads is not only a discrimination issue.  There is an argument that this sort of negative comment and adverse actions  amounts to racial profiling.

Some ethnic groups are known for a sizeable section of their community having red hair:

• Scandinavians
• Irish and Scottish Celts
• Some Jewish populations with origins in eastern Europe

Now, Miss Eagle is of Irish Celtic stock.  In Ireland, there are the Black Irish (usually really black, black hair with blue eyes) and the Red Irish (usually with red hair.  My eyes are brown but many are blue-eyed).

So I and the others mentioned above cannot help their hair colour any more than one can help one's skin colour - acting adversely in the second could be actionable under the laws of the land, the first probably is not.....but we watch with interest how Stephen SImpson goes.  

If people, particularly children, are being bullied and teased and treated adversely, then the perpetrators need to called....and, sooner or later, the best way for persistent abuse is the resort to law.

After all, see below, there are/have been some wonderfully gorgeous redheads

My friend Rowan Barber in Brisbane says:
RowanBarber @misseagle Gillard is our second redheaded PM. James Scullin (22nd of October 1929 - 6th of January 1932) was the first


Wed 30 June 2010
Hat Tip to Tracy Bartrum and her production team over at ABC Melbourne's Local Radio 774 where Tracey is filling in for Red Symons.  Have told the production team about Stephen Simpson's case mentioned above because, if they can make contact, they wouldn't mind talking to him.  So perhaps you might keep your ears pealed and listening to 774.

And thanks to Tracy for broadcasting this information.  There is an encouraging site for redheads and while I don't like redheads being names for other species they are taking the opportunity of raising money for one of my favouritest species.  Anyway website is ranga.net.au and, in their view, ranga means Red And Nearly Ginger Association