I decided to give Photo Friday a shot, so signed up for it this week. I got the email and the subject was "green". Right said Fred, lets look at my archive to see if I have anything green that I can submit and bugger me if this isn't all I had. I decided I couldn't submit that because it's slightly racist and I don't want the "discussion" I got the other day.

Remember those maps with the concentric circles on them overlaid on major cities that denoted who would die in a nuclear war? Well I can map everyone on the planet in similar circles.

In the first very small circle is 3 people that I would do completely anything for. Give up a kidney or liver or a lung? It's theirs. Pour every last cent I earn into? Done (actually I'm doing that anyway). Eat a shit sandwich? Yum Yum! I would do absolutely everything for them, you name, it I'd do it.

Then in the next circle is exactly 17 people that I would do almost anything for (short of the shit sandwich of course). they are my closest and best and dearest etc.

Outside that circle is another slightly larger circle that holds perhaps 50 or 60 people (I haven't counted them or named them or written their name on a list though). For those people I would do quite a lot for. The people in that circle all know who they are.

Beyond that circle is a group of people that numbers around 3 million. For them I do what I can. I'm courteous to them on the road even though they might not own a BMW. I wait patiently behind them in a supermarket queue without telling them how bad they look in those cycle shorts. I nod at them in friendly recognition when I walk by them on the footpath or beach even though their bloody dog is about to poo on my lawn. I donate to them every year via Westpac Rescue, IHC and one or 2 other worthy causes where the money stays in NZ and doesn't get eaten up in so-called management costs. I feel empathy for them when their house gets flooded, or feel angry for them when some filthy bastard breaks into their home.

But after that circle, there is "Everyone Else". Everyone else, I just plain don't like you. I don't like what you think, the way you look, the Gods you worship, the causes you pursue. I will write titles to my posts about you that amuse me if I choose to. I don't like your color, your smell, your values or anything else about you. I'm not going to ever do anything about that though, as I respect your right to live and your right to have similar circles that don't include me.

All I ask though, is you give me that right too. I don't care that you don't like me or like the color of my skin or what I believe in. But leave me to live my life with my 3,000,080 closest friends completely in peace, you little buggers!

I post my green image though above, and hope that next weeks Photo Friday is something that I can post a good photo to. Let this be an end to the racism discussion. I am what I am.