I’ve been talking a lot about the 78 boat people from Sri Lanka this week.

I was on 7pm Project on Monday, with George Negus firing off about how what Rudd and Co are doing is illegal.

Then on 2UE with Steve Price on Wednesday, where I got enraged about how these people are not illegal (until proven otherwise), are not flooding here (it’s a trickle), and just need to be processed. By a country that is signed to the UN charter.

And then I was on ABC 702′s journalist’s forum yesterday evening, where I pointed out that in the absence of true leadership from Rudd and Co, the lecturn – and blackboard – has been handed over to a goose like Wilson Tuckey to imflame things with talk of terrorists and army intervention and other mis-information.

But I take a deep breath now and share this Buddhist thought I flicked open to to in Jack Kornfield’s Book A Path With Heart when the sheer emotion of it all sent me looking for softness:

Compassion is the “quivering of the pure heart” when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life.

I found it in the chapter titled Stopping The War. Of course.

Oh, you’ve got me. I’m using this post as an excuse to post a picture of a man’s crotch.

...or are you just happy to see me

Let’s get the plug out of the way: they’re Calvin Klein’s new Body jeans for men.

The gimmick? They add extra bulk around – and let’s just say it straight – the penis, with the strategic placement of creases and added fabric in the crotch.

The sociological spin? It suggests a movement away from the “hipster anemia” look of the past few years, back to “chunky man cool”. I’m thinking Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise.

I just came across this telling Google algorithm in Salon. The journo had done a search for “bad fathering”. The search came back with the helpful suggestion at the top of the screen: “Did you mean: bad mothering?”  They also get a similar suggestion when they Googled “poor fathering.”

It’s not Google’s fault. Google just reflects the patterns in the searches we make. In doing so, it gives us an interesting reflection of where we’re at, hey.